Steph stepped forward, but Eliza shoved her out of the way, leaving a smear of blood across Steph’s chest.
‘I said get out,’ Eliza wheezed, the redness in her face replaced by a clammy pallor.
Steph rushed out of the room. She’d worked with some hellish people before, most interns did, but this woman was the worst of the bunch. And to top things off, the blood would ruin her shirt if she didn’t sponge it out straight away.
Steph headed for the toilets, thankful that they hadn’t quite finished converting them all to unisex ones yet, whipping off her shirt as the door closed behind her. Blood and white silk weren’t a match made in heaven. Running the patch under the tap, Steph rubbed a dash of foaming soap into the stain, massaging it until the blood vanished. The best stain remover is time. The earlier you can treat it, the better. She turned to the hand dryer, one of those tricky ‘dunk your hands in’ types. She awkwardly wrapped the shirt round her arm, so only the wet patch was in the heat and began the drawn out task of drying it so she’d look half respectable when she left the bathroom.
As a child, she’d read everything around her — the cereal packet at breakfast, the back of the air fresher when she was in the toilet, random advertising signs when she was in a queue. If she didn’t have a book in her bag, she made do with what was around her. And it was no different in the staff bathroom at the V & A, except this time she was reading the label of her shirt. A shirt made by a London designer. One Steph had bought at a designer clearance warehouse sale. She had taken little notice of the designer’s name when she’d bought the shirt — choosing it more for its Victorian flavour, but now she knew where she’d seen those initials before, the initials from the Indian sketches. They were the identical stylised “pb” as the designer’s label in her shirt. A designer called Patricia Bolton.
The Exhibition
The British Raj exhibition kicked off with all the pomp and circumstance associated with the V&A’s impeccable design aesthetics, including the wait staff decked out in replica uniforms made from the detailed sketches for uniforms for staff at Watson’s Esplanade Hotel, a nineteenth century hotel in former Bombay, India.
The research team had conjured up a series of photographs from Watson’s, and giant copies adorned the walls of the exhibition hall. And in a coup d’état, they’d discovered one sketch for a ceremonial costume made for the 9th Earl of Elgin when he was the Viceroy of India. A costume hidden deep in the bowels of the V&A, and acquired by the museum in 1971 after the death of the Earl’s second, much younger, wife.
That discovery set the framework for the entire exhibition, and half a dozen researchers had donned their amateur sleuthing hats to try matching up the sketches with similar historical pieces held by the V&A. And they’d struck gold in the miles of storage — locating four outfits worn by a Naomi Abbott in Simla, India. They found her name in old cast lists of productions at the Gaiety Theatre in Simla, and the four costumes, along with hundreds of others from theatres around the world collected by Talbot Hughes, who had meticulously recorded their provenance. Harrods of London later purchased Hughes’ collection, donating it to the V&A in 1913.
An inspired guest list floated around the hallowed halls, quaffing champagne and sampling canapés prepared by the in-house caterers. Photographers snapped shots of fashionistas chatting with the curators and new-money benefactors. Striking Instagram-worthy poses, with perfected pouts, the attendees angled for the perfect shot for the tabloid magazines, securing them yet another week of celebrity status. The old-money benefactors didn’t need to court the media. Those who needed to know who they were and why they were there, knew. And the people who didn’t know who they were or why they were there, were too unimportant to educate otherwise.
Andrew Harvard fell into neither category. He wasn’t rich, nor famous. He was here tonight representing Christie’s, the auction house. Despite Eliza Broadhead’s protestations against Andrew’s invitation, there still remained a delicate and symbiotic relationship between the two organisations. Over the years Christie’s had, on many occasions, alerted the V&A to items of interest which might have otherwise passed unnoticed as a small entry in a full catalogue. Christie’s had also thwarted several attempted sales of goods stolen from the V&A. Neither institution advertised that little nugget though.
Andrew wandered alone through the exhibition, his mind elsewhere. Normally he would have been the first to appreciate the ingenious presentation of the exhibit, but tonight he felt he was missing one half of himself. It had been months since Patricia had disappeared alongside of Sarah Lester. He’d done his best to hold the fort in her absence, but he couldn’t pay the lease on her shop or follow through on any of the orders for her designs. And not being a family member, he’d had to allow her family to close the shop to defray the mounting costs.
There were days when he could go hours without thinking about her, but then he’d catch a whiff of perfume, a scent identical to the fragrance Patrica had been partial to, and it would catapult him back to the moment the police rang about Patrica’s disappearance, and his life had never been the same.
He banged into another guest and apologised for knocking the drink in their hand. She gave him a withering stare before returning to her companion. Everywhere Andrew looked, there were couples, or clusters of interesting people, but he had no one.
‘They told me you were coming, but I didn’t think you’d show up,’ a voice said over Andrew’s shoulder.
Eliza Broadhead’s perspiring face loomed in front of him, forcing Andrew to take a step back, where he bumped into the same woman from only moments ago. This time she stalked off with her friend, high heels clicking on the marble floor.
‘You have a habit of knocking people over,’ Eliza wheezed, pulling at the bodice of her clingy burgundy cocktail dress, which was almost a relic itself.
Andrew apologised again, but realised nothing would redeem him, but he could be polite.
‘Good crowd here tonight. Lots of donors,’ Eliza said, her eyes scanning the room.
Andrew murmured a short hmm.
‘Now there’s someone interesting,’ Eliza said, pointing towards a tall blonde woman standing next to a shorter man sporting a ruined nose and cauliflower ears.
‘The woman?’ Andrew asked, shrugging. He often saw mismatched couples at big auctions. It didn’t matter how ugly you were, if you had money, you could always catch the prettiest butterfly in the garden.
‘You don’t recognise her?’
Andrew didn’t have the foggiest idea who she was.
‘She’s our latest benefactor. An American. Throws her cash around like confetti.’
The Designer
Andrew watched the woman tottering on heels a thousand inches too high for comfort. Lagging behind was a dour-faced man sipping a glass of champagne, boredom splashed on his face.
‘Who’s the fellow with her?’
Eliza shrugged, her bosom bouncing beneath her strings of jet beads. ‘Just following the money, although he doesn’t look her type.’
Andrew backed away, trying to put as much room between him and the volatile Eliza as possible.
‘Bet you wish you’d got your hands on this lot then?’ Eliza said, sweeping her bare arm around the space.
‘Not really, it’s better that it’s all together. Gives a complete picture, instead of a piecemeal Clayton’s exhibition.’
Eliza peered at him, suspicion painted on her face.
‘It’s true. I’d rather see a cohesive collection exhibited with a story behind it. And whoever put together this one has done a masterful job.’
Eliza sniffed, the pink flush to her cheeks evidence that she approved of Andrew’s comments.
‘Have you seen the photo display yet?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He’d spent most of his time examining the costumes, dreaming of touching the fabrics and examining the stitching. But he could only gaze on the exhibits from the outside of the velvet ropes.
‘M
y pride and joy since we matched some sketches to photographs of English ladies and gentlemen who are wearing the designs in India. The whole thing was a giant scavenger hunt. Hours of work,’ she said, ‘painstaking work. Mind you they gave me an intern to help, but you know what they’re like, more trouble than they’re worth sometimes. The poor thing thought she’d identified the designer straight off the bat, on her first day. Young girls have such lofty ideas. Everyone telling them the world’s their oyster instead of the truth, that life isn’t fair; that the only way to succeed is through hard work. Well, I put her straight. You can’t compare the exquisite work of a nineteenth century fashion designer in India, with that of an unknown modern designer just because they share initials. I mean, for goodness’ sake, how many people in the world share the initials P and B? Thousands? Tens of thousands?’
Eliza waddled off after a fast moving waiter, the allure of a free glass of bubbles too much to ignore. Andrew started to follow her, but checked his response. On second thoughts, the last thing he wanted to do was to spend any more time in Eliza’s company, just in case he ruined the temporary repair job he’d done tonight.
Changing direction, he veered down another aisle of the exhibition, his experienced eye taking in every detail of the costumes.
Andrew paused at a tableau of polo playing mannequins decked out in sunny yellows and strawberry red. The clean lines of the uniforms and the relationship of the colours as pleasing to his eye as the opulent costumes on display elsewhere at the exhibition, making the uniforms almost modern in their cut, although he presumed modern designers had taken inspiration from designs similar to these.
The descriptive panel described the triumphant team who’d worn this very uniform, and how the club who was still operating today, had stayed true to the original design, making no substantial changes for over one hundred years. With the designer’s name only given only as “PB”.
As Andrew meandered through the crowds, time and time again, the initials “PB” stared at him from their white descriptive cards. Why didn’t they know the designer? He swallowed a mouthful of his champagne, ignoring the obvious answer screaming at him from the panels.
Onto the pièce de résistance, the costumes worn by Mrs Naomi Abbott and donated to the V&A after the death of the 2nd wife of the 9th Earl of Elgin. One costume featured layers and layers of white lace, as if to portray an elegant swan in a pantomime production of Swan Lake, which the framed, tattered programme suggested.
Fitted on a mannequin next to the frothy white vision stood an altogether different creation, that of a Māori princess, complete with a feathered cloak and a jade pendant hung on a strip of leather. No programme sat next to this one, so Andrew couldn’t imagine which production could have called for such a unique outfit.
The third costume was that of a buxom farm maiden, with a crisp white apron and bonnet, blue silk stockings and three-quarter length sleeves trimmed with lace. The programmed advertised a late 19th century production of Jack and the Beanstalk. A framed black-and-white print of the costumed cast took pride of place next to the mannequin. Although the costumes were recognisable, the actor’s faces were indistinct.
Andrew carried on to the last display, making his move as a group carried on towards the exit. The last costume on display was a pair of costumes, that of Apollo and Eurydice from the play Orpheus and Eurydice. An enlarged photograph of the actors in the costumes accompanied the mannikins. One was the formidable Naomi Abbott, but her companion had no known name; her costume presenting her as a dark haired, slender woman, her waist cinched with a belt, utilising a large cameo brooch as a buckle. Her dress stopped at her knees, the red pattern on the hem almost reminiscent of the edging on a Roman toga. It wasn’t the cascading sleeves, or the elaborate hairdo, or the nod to Roman history which captured Andrew’s attention; it was the face. Patricia’s face. He stopped breathing, quite forgetting where he was as he stepped closer to the image.
‘Excuse me, sir, behind the ropes please,’ a guard hissed, gesturing towards the velvet barrier Andrew had bypassed.
Andrew bumbled backwards, stammering out an apology. Racing to the group photo on the previous display, he scanned the faces. And there she was again. The distance made the people hard to recognise, but he would have picked Patricia’s face out of a cast of thousands.
Like a madman, he retraced his steps around the exhibition, sending champagne sloshing, and causing more than one or two patrons to tut. Oblivious, Andrew careened around the hall, examining every photo. Patricia’s face was everywhere. But it was a changing face. It was as if he were watching her age in front of his eyes. Her smile never changed but her face had morphed into middle age in the space of five minutes. A cruel trick of time.
Andrew returned to the first photograph of Patricia dressed as Apollo in an old cartes de visite. Tears fell as he stared at the photograph.
‘It’s quite moving, I agree,’ Eliza said from behind Andrew, a glass in one hand, a programme in the other and a smirk on her face.
Andrew wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. There was nothing to say. How could he explain that he’d just found his girlfriend? He couldn’t.
‘It was a clever seamstress who made these costumes. Probably a local Indian woman,’ Naomi went on, gesturing towards the display. ‘Shame we don’t know who it was. Lost to time.’
How right she was Andrew thought as he watched her sail off yet again, probably to torment the other patrons with her clanking beads and rasping breath.
‘I’d say the designer’s name was Patrica Bolton,’ came an accented voice from behind him.
Andrew spun around. Facing him was a young woman, her shirt hinting towards Victoriana contrasting with her rainbow-hued hair — pale pinks jostling with tender lavender and minty green.
‘Who did you say?’ he asked, the words sticking to his tongue.
‘Patricia Bolton. Not that anyone has ever heard of her, but records show she designed plenty of the polo uniforms. Eliza doesn’t believe me, but…’ and here she shrugged.
‘Patricia Bolton?’
‘I think so. It was the label inside this very shirt which helped connect the dots. Not that it’s really a connection, but it gave me something to work with and that’s why I’m here I guess.’
‘Sorry, who are you?’ Andrew asked, a thousand different thoughts bouncing around in his head.
‘Steph, the intern. I helped put together the exhibition, when they let me actually touch anything… Mostly Eliza left me to my own devices, so I snuck in some research on the pieces she didn’t include for display, like the polo uniform sketches which had the same signature as the designer who made this shirt. I guess the modern Patricia Bolton didn’t want to reinvent the wheel and just copied the Indian designer.’
Andrew turned back to the display, gathering his thoughts.
‘Do you know what happened to the designer? The one from India?’ he asked, unable to look at the young intern.
‘I do. I can show you, it’s on one of the end panels. Slipped it past Eliza’s net, a copy of an old obituary. Silly bat never even noticed it. Shall I show you?’
Andrew swallowed. He turned on his heel and strode off, unable to see where he was going through the tears coursing down his face. The words old obituary replaying in his head.
The Murderer
Richard Grey placed the phone in the centre of the desk, his hands palm down either side. How he’d ever conducted his affairs before mobile telephones was beyond him. Now information was instantaneous, and for him, information was power.
The call from his lawyer informing him that Sarah Lester had returned from wherever she’d been hiding and was now being interviewed by the police. How his lawyer knew was of no concern. Now Sarah had reappeared, Grey could settle things. The potential murder charge hanging over his head didn’t bother him one iota. The court would dismiss those charges, of that he was sure. Dismissed in the same way Sarah Lester would be, once he’d had her questioned
to his personal satisfaction. There was no doubt in his mind that Sarah had more treasures hidden away which rightfully belonged to the Grey family.
Grey straightened the phone until it was perfectly perpendicular with the sides of his desk. It would require another call to set things in motion, but not from this phone, but instead from a disposable one he kept locked away for this very purpose.
Pushing back, he poured a glass of red wine, the early hour of the day no deterrent. At the full-length window he sipped his drink and watched the Thames snake through the city below, imagining what life would have been like if they hadn’t robbed his family of its wealth. He’d spent his life rebuilding it, buying back the antiques his ancestors had foolishly sold. And every time he’d uncapped his pen to write out a cheque to buy something he should have owned in the first place, the ink blackened his soul a little further until he’d simply stopped writing cheques, choosing to recover his goods through other means. The treasures were his and he was merely righting a historic wrong.
The Revenge
Fujimoto didn’t see Sarah disappear as she stepped across the shop’s threshold; he was checking his mirrors for traffic before pulling out. In the smallest fraction of a second, not more than a blink, he missed her vanishing act, keeping Sarah’s secret safe, for now. But Fujimoto wasn’t the only one interested in Sarah, and that person had nothing more to do with their time than to await Sarah’s return from the station. And he saw everything.
Grey rubbed his eyes and wiped the inside of the window with his pristine shirt cuff. He knew what he’d seen, which didn’t mean he believed it, but Sarah Lester had vanished from sight.
He waited for the undercover car to pull away. Grey didn’t trust that the policeman would give him a fair hearing if he saw him loitering outside Sarah’s shop, hence the hire vehicle he found himself in — a nondescript hatchback, popular with tourists on a budget. Although small and easy to park, it cramped his long legs and made him feel poor. The risk of prison didn’t weigh on his mind, but the threat of poverty kept him awake at night.
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