by SL Beaumont
Chapter 36
When James arrived to collect Stephanie from the hospital on Monday evening, she was chatting to Toby on Skype. Her mother had been really concerned about her adventure, but they were all trying to downplay it for Toby’s sake.
“Grandfather has asked to see you,” he explained as he helped her into the car. “Are you up to going to my place now or would you rather go home? I’ve cleared it with your dad either way.”
Stephanie smiled at him as he leaned across to pull her seatbelt carefully over her, and tilted her head up to kiss him. “Let’s go and talk to him.”
“Or we could just go and make out in my room,” James suggested wickedly.
“Maybe we could do that after – although you will have to be gentle with me, I’m still pretty banged up.” Stephanie winced as the seatbelt tightened across her. The ribs she had broken when her car was forced to stop suddenly were taped, and her face and arms were covered with cuts and bruises.
“Always,” James murmured, kissing her again before closing the door and racing around to the driver’s side. “Your dad is insisting that you are not left alone until Alex is found.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Well, I guess, if you’ve been assigned the task of babysitter, then it’s not all bad.”
James’s grandfather, Charles, was waiting for them in his study. He looked a shadow of the domineering man she had encountered on previous occasions. His eyes carried a haunted look, and had dark rings under them. James helped Stephanie into a chair. Charles frowned, a look of unease at her discomfort crossing his face.
“I think I owe you some explanations, Miss Cooper,” he began clearing his throat.
“Stephanie, please,” she smiled at him.
“You recognised my painting – Painter on the Road to Tarascon. You are a clever young woman.”
She nodded, unsure what to say.
“I was unable to enlist to serve in the war due to a childhood ailment. I am ashamed to say that I was unable to bear my brother Edward getting all the glory, so I decided that I would make my mark on the war in my own way.
“My old friend Karl Hoffman, who was the director at the National Gallery in Berlin, approached me before the war. He was disturbed by the number of art works that were being destroyed by the Nazis. Anything which didn’t fit their criteria of what a good painting should be was considered ‘degenerate’ and burned. He started obtaining as many threatened pieces as he could and hiding them. But when someone became suspicious of him, he knew that his days were numbered and he came to me for help.” Charles paused, his eyes distant. “My father obtained passage for him on a merchant ship to Canada, but unfortunately it was bombed and all souls on board lost.”
“Oh how tragic,” Stephanie said. “Sophie mentioned meeting him, in her diary.”
At the mention of Sophie’s name, Charles blanched.
“Ah, Sophie.” He shook his head sadly. “The first time I saw you here with James, I thought for one irrational moment that you were her, you look so alike.
“She and her brother were friends with Edward and visited here on many occasions during the summer before war broke out, through to the beginning of 1940. By this time, I was working with Hoffman to smuggle as much endangered art out of Germany as we could. Unfortunately, someone got the wrong idea and thought I was collaborating with the Nazis, which drove our work even more underground. I initially had grand plans of involving the National Gallery, but the investigation put a stop to that.
“So my war efforts took a different turn. I was disillusioned and I realised that our proximity to both London and the coast meant that Carlswick was an ideal location for a clandestine black market operation. The art smuggling had given me a taste for excitement so I got involved. Very few people would suspect someone in my position of being implicated in such business. I quickly realised that we could trade in more than just food, cigarettes and booze. I started trading in people – helping those would could afford it, to escape from Europe. Payment was often in the form of paintings and jewellery and other valuables. We had a very successful little operation running for a time.
“The night your aunt died, she came to the house to talk to my mother. Apparently she and Edward were about to elope and she wanted Mother’s blessing.”
“Did she get it?” whispered Stephanie, a little reluctant to interrupt Charles from his reverie.
He blinked twice, returning to the present and turned his gaze to her. “I believe so. Sophie had a big smile on her face when she walked out of the drawing room into the foyer that night, but unfortunately, my study door was open and Hoffman and I were bringing a heavy bronze statute up the hidden staircase from the cellar. Sophie, of course, recognised Hoffman and well, I don’t know what she thought, but she ran.
“By the time I reached the driveway, she was driving away at speed. I followed in my car only to see her take the corner to the village too fast. Her car skidded on the wet road and slammed into the old oak tree. By the time I got to her it was too late. She was dead.”
Stephanie gasped and put her hand over her mouth.
“I didn’t run her off the road as David accused, but she was running from me. And like the coward that I was, I left her there for someone else to find the next morning. I didn’t think the family would survive another scandal so soon after the last one. Please forgive my cowardice,” he pleaded, as tears started rolling down his cheeks. He put his head in his hands.
Stephanie stood and moved gingerly around the desk, putting her arms gently across his shaking shoulders.
“Sshh, it’s okay. You’ve had to live with this your whole life. Of course, I forgive you. It was an accident, a tragic accident,” she said, glancing at James who had sat forward in his chair and was staring at his hands, his jaw clenched.
“So where do you think Alex is now, Grandfather?” James voice was cold.
Stephanie frowned at him.
The old man looked up and wiped his eyes on a handkerchief and patted Stephanie’s hand. “I have no idea,” he replied. “James, don’t think too badly of me. Over the years, as the horror of what went on in Nazi Germany came out, I repatriated as many pieces anonymously to survivors and their descendants as I could. But many families I simply couldn’t find. Unbeknown to me, Alex found out what I was doing and saw an opportunity to make money through his vast network of antiques clients. He sold several smaller pieces that I didn’t realise were missing and then had gotten greedy and decided to sell the van Gogh, despite my fervent protests. The Painter, you see, is special to me. It was the last piece that Hoffman brought to me.”
Epilogue
Still digesting everything that James’s grandfather had told them, Stephanie and James drove back into Carlswick, stopping at the café. Stephanie scanned the room, her eyes resting on Michael sitting at one end of a sofa talking with Anna, who was perched on Andy’s knee at the other end.
“Steph,” Anna squealed and jumped up. Stephanie grinned and tentatively returned Anna’s hug.
“Ribs,” she mumbled, reminding Anna of her injuries.
Michael eased himself up slowly.
“Hi,” he said shyly.
“Michael – I’m so glad you are alright. I feel so bad that I got you involved with this,” Stephanie said.
“S’okay,” he mumbled, embarrassed. She put her arm around him and hugged him to her carefully. He blushed bright red.
“Steady on there, Michael. You know what I’m like where Steph is concerned,” James called from the counter, where he was ordering coffee.
They all laughed as Stephanie and Michael helped each other to sit on the sofa.
“I think we should just sit back and enjoy letting the ‘rock god’ wait on us,” she stage whispered to him.
“Heard that,” James called.
Stephanie looked around the café. Dave, Liam and Jack were setting up in the corner. Groups of teenagers were beginning to congregate. It was a typical summer’s night. Sh
e sighed contentedly at the normality of it all.
Max’s involvement had finally become clear. A Jewish group had engaged his firm to prosecute a European businessman who was trying to sell stolen art on the black market, several years earlier. Their success had drawn the attention of Scotland Yard’s art theft division, who, after realising that Max Cooper’s family home was in Carlswick, had shared a long-held suspicion regarding the legitimacy of Alex Knox’s business dealings.
Stephanie’s photo was the only tangible evidence of the painting.
“This painting was believed to have been destroyed when the Allies bombed Berlin in 1944,” DI Marks had explained to her. “This is such an important piece with historical significance that you have rediscovered. I am hugely impressed with your research skills.”
Ellie Cooper had spent the week pronouncing to anyone who would listen that she had been right about that family all along.
Peter and Sam were still being questioned by Scotland Yard, with various charges pending, although it was clear that neither of them had anything to do with Stephanie’s kidnapping. That appeared to be solely the work of Alex and his unknown accomplices. Peter’s motive, it seemed, was greed.
Alex had disappeared off the face of the earth with a number of extremely valuable items in his possession, including the van Gogh, whose frame was found smashed in the cellar. James and his grandfather had catalogued what they believed was missing from the house, including more paintings, some rare books, small sculptures and jewellery.
Grace came forward with her mother’s wartime diary, which detailed the sad story of the Jewish family who made it out of Germany only to die in the cellars of Knox Manor, despite her and Charles’s best efforts to nurse them. Unsure what to do with bodies, amidst the continued fallout from the collaboration investigation, they had sealed them in one of the old storage rooms off the wine cellars.
James placed Stephanie’s coffee on the low table beside the sofa. She smiled warmly at him. “Thanks. Hey, I was just thinking. Has anyone seen Victoria? She might know something of Alex’s whereabouts,” she said.
“No one has seen her for several days,” said Andy. “Although according to her mother, she will be back in the village on Friday.”
“That’s great – because she might let something slip about Alex. She doesn’t know we saw them together, James,” said Stephanie, sitting forward on the sofa.
James hesitated for a moment. “Actually, she does know,” he said.
Stephanie raised her eyebrows.
James looked uncomfortable and studied his feet for a moment. “Um, that night that we saw them, I went back to the house and confronted them both,” he said.
“Oh.” Stephanie nodded slowly.
Anna glanced between them in the uneasy silence that followed. “Okay,” she said brightly to Andy, jumping up from his knee and pulling him to his feet. “Get up there and play for me.”
James looked into Stephanie’s eyes with raised eyebrows, concern etched into his features. We okay? he seemed to be asking silently. She held his gaze and smiled at him. The intimacy was too much for Michael, who cleared his throat and shuffled uncomfortably. James leaned down and kissed Stephanie on the lips. “I’m watching you,” he teased Michael, before sauntering over to where the rest of the band was waiting for him.
Stephanie sat back in her seat and let the music wash over her, stolen art and runaway thieves far from her mind.
Halfway through the second song, her mobile phone chimed with an incoming message. She picked it up off the coffee table and flicked it open. The sender was unknown, but the message very clear;
Don’t get too cosy with my little brother – this isn’t over.
The End
Acknowledgements
My eternal thanks and aroha to my husband Craig, and my sons Jude, Zak and Scott. This book wouldn’t have happened without your support and encouragement.
Love and thanks to my parents, Jack and the late Irene, who instilled in me my love of books. I miss you every day, Mum.
My gratitude goes to the Writer’s Workshop UK, for their editorial support, particularly to Philip Womack for his helpful suggestions. Huge thanks to Julia Gibbs for proof reading.
And finally, thanks to my wonderful friends for their encouragement and all those essential coffee breaks.
