The Caroline Quest

by Barbara Whitnell

  ‘May I — may I confide in you?’ I asked him a little hesitantly.

  ‘Of course.’ He looked concerned. ‘Is something worrying you?’

  ‘You could say so.’ I took a breath. ‘It’s rather a long story. I’m afraid.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  I told him everything — well, everything except Caroline’s whereabouts. It took quite a while, for he stopped me from time to time to take me back over various points or to ask questions, but right from the start I was impressed by the way he listened, fastening at once on the more important points in my narrative.

  ‘I know Higginson,’ he said, when I had finished. ‘We were on a panel together for some Channel 4 TV programme. Can’t stand the man.’

  ‘Nor, apparently, could Jim. He was definitely on to something before he was killed.’

  Sir Timothy seemed lost in thought.

  ‘We can’t possibly assume that all, or even the majority, of paintings Higginson authenticates are suspect,’ he said at last. ‘After all, he is a man of the highest reputation which is, of course, the key to the whole operation. If he loses that, he loses everything.’

  ‘What can we do? He and his cronies are ruthless murderers. We can’t just let him go on.’

  ‘No.’ For a moment he said nothing, clearly lost in thought. ‘There’s an art sale at Lovells on Friday morning,’ he went on at last. ‘Viewing tomorrow. I’d intended to go and have a look at it anyway, so I’ll go ahead and see if anything strikes me as being remotely suspect. But it’s not going to be easy, I’m afraid. I know a fair bit about art, but I’d never describe myself as an expert and by their very nature the forgeries are going to be first class. Maybe I can recruit someone else, more knowledgeable than I.’

  I suddenly remembered the journalist Steve had introduced to me at the sale in Surrey, the one who had spoken so kindly about Jim.

  ‘What about Serena Newbold? She’s a journalist.’

  ‘Yes. I know her, too. She’s a bright girl. Knows her subject.’

  ‘Maybe together you could spot something.’

  ‘Maybe. But Holly - ’ He reached out and put his hand over mine for a moment. It seemed a perfectly natural thing to do, more avuncular than predatory, and I didn’t resent it at all. ‘Don’t get your hopes up too much. There may be nothing remotely suspicious about this auction. It can’t happen every time.’

  ‘I know that! But if there is — ?’

  ‘Then I shall buy it.’

  ‘Whatever it costs?’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best. It’ll be worth a lot to bring this crowd to justice. I shall feel He stopped, hesitating for a second or two. ‘I shall be doing it for Martha,’ he said at last. ‘Jim was her son, and if what you say is right, he died so that these bastards could go on making money.’

  ‘You loved her, didn’t you?’ I spoke softly, seeing the look on his face, and he smiled ruefully.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he admitted. ‘And I think she loved me. I know she did! I wanted her to end her sham of a marriage and marry me — and at first she said that she would. Then she came to Fincote and met my parents.’ He stopped abruptly.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked. For a moment he said nothing, staring down at the table, his mouth twisted. Then he looked up at me.

  ‘They treated her atrociously,’ he said, bitterness in his voice. ‘She wasn’t at all what they wanted for me, you see. She was married already, and they hated the idea of the sacred name of Crofthouse being dragged through the divorce court. She wasn’t, as they said, “our sort of person”. I was ready to defy them - damn it all, neither of us were children! I was thirty-six at the time and she was a year or so younger. I tried to persuade her to go through with it, said I would leave England, settle in America, but she took fright — decided she wanted no part of it. And who could blame her? I certainly didn’t.’

  ‘So she went back to the States?’

  ‘And would never see me again. Or speak to me. She said it was the only way she could deal with it. For a while I hoped that maybe one day she would come round, but she never did. Lilian told me once that I’d broken her heart - which I thought was a bit hard, since I was under the impression she’d broken mine but whatever the truth of it she steadfastly refused to have anything to do with me. It took me a long time to get over it more so, I think, because I knew that nothing had really changed between us.’ He paused a moment, then laughed ruefully. ‘That doesn’t really make sense, does it? I expect I’m kidding myself. If she’d continued to think anything of me, we could perhaps have met as friends.’

  ‘She was a strong-willed woman,’ I said. ‘If she decided that not to see you at all was the only way she could deal with losing you, then that’s what she would have stuck to, no matter how much she wished it otherwise. To me it seems right in character.’

  ‘Does it?’ He raised his eyebrows a little. ‘Well, I told myself that too, until - ’

  He broke off and this time didn’t continue. He signalled to the waiter, signed a chitty. The evening was over, I realised, leaving me with much to think about.

  ‘I’ve enjoyed meeting you so much,’ Sir Timothy said as we walked towards the door. ‘Martha must have been very proud of you.’

  ‘Well, I was proud of her,’ I said. ‘And I enjoyed meeting you, too. I feel I understand her more now. She she didn’t have much time for Brits, you know.’

  He laughed at that.

  ‘I’d heard. Well, I can understand that.’

  ‘I’m sorry she broke your heart.’

  ‘It mended. Eventually I met Marian, and she and I have been happy. We suit each other. She’s a marvellous woman.’

  But he didn’t suggest that I should meet her, or visit Fincote, which I should dearly liked to have done. Well, if he co-operated over the art scam that was more than I had any right to expect, I told myself, as I thanked him once more for a wonderful dinner.

  ‘I’ll contact Serena and be in touch,’ he said, as he put me into a cab. ‘You’ll still be at the hotel?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I told him. ‘I’ll be there.’

  In this, I wasn’t like my mother. No one was making me rush back home in a hurry.

  Eleven

  I felt restless the following morning, impatient to hear what Sir Timothy thought of the pictures on view at Lovells and anxious to know if he had been able to recruit Serena Newbold to our side. However, there seemed nothing that I could usefully do about it, so I spent the morning with a party of American ladies from the hotel, rubbernecking on the river. They stayed at Greenwich to visit the Cutty Sark, but I returned to Westminster, suddenly determined to go to Lovells myself. What, after all, did it matter if Higginson saw me there? I’d be in a roomful of people and I had every right to view what was for sale, and even to put in a bid the following day if any picture caught my fancy.

  As it happened, I didn’t see Higginson or either of the two girls I had met on the first occasion; instead a different cast of employees altogether seemed to be staffing the place.

  The paintings were a mixed bag from both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There were a number of seascapes, which my catalogue told me were the work of one John Lynn, I832; some oils flowers and a still life by Valentine Bartholomew, I834; a group of watercolours depicting scenes in British Guiana attributed to an artist called Charles Bentley. There they go again, I thought. There was something definitely equivocal about ‘attributed’. I stared at the pictures for some time, thinking how marvellous it would be if I could spot some absolute proof that they were fakes - some piece of flora or fauna that absolutely, positively, categorically, did not belong in British Guiana. However, since my knowledge of the flora and fauna, or even the location, of British Guiana was non-existent, I merely sighed and moved on.

  My spirits lightened a little when I looked at the next picture, for I was able correctly, I found, when I looked at the catalogue to identify it as a Zoffany. At least I had something to thank Mr Higginson for! H
e had added this small item to my pathetically limited artistic knowledge.

  This picture was entitled Sir Vaughan le Maire and family at Cottslow Barton. Unlike the previous work I had seen, this one showed the family in their garden; Lady le Maire, looking rustic, clad in a sprigged muslin dress with a white fichu and a wide-brimmed straw hat decorated with flowers and tied under her chin with pink ribbons, looked rather like Marie Antoinette playing in her toy farm at the Petit Trianon. She sat beneath a tree with a blonde, angelic-looking child on her knee. Beside her, an equally blonde and angelic girl stood smiling, proffering a toy lamb to her small sister. On the arm of the seat, casual but proud, sat Sir Vaughan himself in wine-red breeches and surcoat, white-stockinged legs elegantly crossed, and beside him, on his left, stood a boy of nine or ten, head erect, his dress vaguely military in design. In the background, a more soberly dressed woman governess or maiden aunt, perhaps - held another small child, sex indeterminate, who leaned from her arms towards its mother.

  The family looked elegant and prosperous and very pleased with themselves, and once again I admired the meticulous accuracy of the painting, those lovely flesh tones and the differing expressions. I could feel the breeze that blew the leaves on the trees, and the texture of the hair of the little dog that sat, head on paws, before his mistress; though even as I did so, I began, dimly, to understand Higginson’s objection to the style. Perhaps art should be more than a glorified reproduction of its subject?

  But still I looked, beguiled and a little amused by the sight of so much perfection. My gaze travelled from one handsome face to another, finally alighting on the woman in the background, the sole exception to this array of beauty. An impoverished relation, I decided, seeing her clothes, which were plain and unadorned, in total contrast to the rest of the family. An orphaned niece, perhaps, with no hope of a dowry, thus rendering her unlikely to make a suitable marriage. A burden on her brothers, more than likely, her only option to be found a place in a more wealthy relative’s establishment. As far as I could remember from my reading of Jane Austen and the Brontes, governesses frequently had this kind of background.

  Surprising, I thought, my gaze homing in with more concentration to her face, that the artist hadn’t used his skill to make her look a little happier with her position in life. You’d think Lady le Maire would object to seeing a member of her household looking so tragically miserable; it contrasted oddly with the sweetness and light generated by all the other subjects. This woman’s eyes were full of pain, her mouth taut as if she were about to give a cry for help. A bit like Rose Quigley, I thought idly. And then my attentioned sharpened still further. This woman wasn’t just like Rose, she was Rose! Why hadn’t I noticed it before? I felt a sudden shiver of excitement that grew and grew until I could hardly catch my breath.

  Was it obsession? Some form of madness that made me superimpose Rose’s likeness on a totally dissimilar subject? I didn’t think so, but I walked away from the picture, did my best to give my attention to others, wandered down the row and finally came up again, back to the Zoffany.

  It was Rose. There could be no mistake. The face was small and thin, the eyes disproportionately big, the expression one of unhappiness and bewilderment.

  Was that the kind of face the artist had thought suitable for this poor relation, so clearly of lesser importance than the family she served? Oh, surely I had to be mistaken — but how could I be, when I had seen this same face in the flesh only the day before yesterday? What astonished me now was why the likeness hadn’t hit me forcibly between the eyes the moment I’d looked at the picture.

  I found that my heart was pounding so hard that I could feel it fluttering in my throat. This has to be significant, I thought. It just has to be! There was nothing that could convince me that only by coincidence had the artist given his subject this particular face, that particular expression, and I looked round wildly, hoping against hope that I would see Serena or even Sir Timothy so that I could tell them that, consciously or unconsciously, the artist had used a living model. Neither was present at that particular moment, and with one last, long look at the picture, I left the room and went out once more into the street.

  I needed a telephone. Why, I asked myself, hadn’t I brought my mobile with me from home, or furnished myself with one at the beginning of this visit? I would have given anything to have one in my purse right now. Still, the hotel wasn’t far away and I proceeded towards it with all speed.

  It was Sir Timothy’s secretary who answered my call. He was at a meeting, she told me, but was expected back at any time.

  ‘Could you get him to call me urgently?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly. If you give me your name and number, I’ll leave a note for him. I’m just on the point of leaving.’

  I duly gave her the required information, begged her to underline the fact that the matter was urgent and put down the receiver, positively tingling with frustration. I contemplated calling Serena — almost any activity seemed better than nothing — but I thought better of it. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, simply that it seemed advisable to wait and see what reaction Sir Timothy had gotten from her before I contacted her myself.

  I paced up and down a little, then opened the door of the minibar and gazed at its contents, sorely tempted to pour myself a drink to steady my nerves. I even reached for the little bottle of gin, but changed my mind at the last moment and took out some Coke instead. I felt I needed all my wits about me.

  When at last the phone rang, I snatched at it instantly.

  ‘Hallo?’

  ‘Tim Crofthouse here. I had a message - ’

  ‘Yes! I’ve got to talk to you!’ Even through my excitement I was aware that he’d called himself Tim. It seemed to mark a significant advance in our friendship and I sure liked it a whole heap better than Sir Timothy, which had from the beginning felt like a formal, prickly barrier between the two of us. ‘I went to see the pictures at Lovells this afternoon, and I’m pretty sure one of them must be a fake. The Zoffany.’

  ‘Really?’ He sounded interested, but also surprised. ‘You mean the le Maire family? I saw it myself this morning, but didn’t spot anything amiss.’

  ‘The governess, or aunt, or whatever — she had Rose Quigley’s face. Can you believe that? I’d know it anywhere! Surely it couldn’t be coincidence?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  He greeted this with silence, as if he were thinking over the implications.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ he said at last, his voice so soft I could barely hear him. ‘Amazing! I wonder what Serena will have to say to that?’

  ‘Were you able to contact her?’

  ‘She’s coming round here at six thirty. I have a dinner engagement and she has to go to the opening of some gallery or other later on, but we thought there’d be time to meet. I was going to ring you anyway to suggest you came too, if you’re free.’

  ‘Yes — yes, of course I’ll come. I have your address.’

  ‘See you later, then.’

  I looked at my watch. Half past four! Two whole hours to fill somehow. But how? Well — I picked up a comb and tidied my hair, for somehow in my excitement I had managed to turn myself into a fair replica of the wild woman of Borneo, and then — what else? — I went downstairs to the salon for tea. When in England, I said to myself.

  Pierrepoint Gardens turned out to be somewhere behind Whitehall. It was quite a short street with government offices of some kind on the corner and a couple of large blocks of mansion flats further along, of which Horse Guards Court was one. The building was quite old — maybe Victorian, I guessed — with lofty ceilings and solid-looking doors. An elevator took me to the third floor where I discovered Apartment 7 and Tim, as I was trying to get used to thinking of him, opened the door to me. We went into quite a wide hall, furnished with a wonderfully carved table which I knew immediately Steve would approve of, and through arched doors into the sitting room where Serena was alre
ady waiting for me.

  We greeted each other, said how good it was to see each other again, but wasted little time on these preliminaries.

  ‘Sir Timothy tells me you’ve made a discovery,’ she said.

  Since speaking to Tim, I’d had plenty of time for doubts to creep in. Maybe it was just a coincidence, after all. Or maybe — and this really was far-fetched — maybe the woman in the picture was some long-dead ancestor of Rose’s.

  ‘I - I was pretty sure the woman had Rose Quigley’s face,’ I said, a little hesitantly, feeling less sure by the minute. ‘I suppose it sounds crazy...’

  Serena neither agreed or disagreed with this.

  ‘The woman in the Zoffany. Sir Timothy told me.’

  I was conscious of an impatient movement on his part.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake call me Tim,’ he said, including both of us in this. ‘I can’t bear all this formality.’

  ‘Suits me,’ I said, grinning at him. He was an OK guy, was Tim, and I could quite understand my mother falling for him twenty-odd years ago. He was still a handsome, distinguished-looking man. Back in the seventies he must have been a knockout.

  ‘I saw the picture myself this morning,’ Serena said. ‘Do I take it you mean the woman in the background, holding the baby?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘But she’s nothing like Rose Quigley! I know Rose. She’s quite a pretty little thing.’

  ‘Maybe she was once,’ I agreed, ‘but she sure as hell isn’t now. I saw her yesterday, remember. She showed me a photograph of herself and Caroline together, and believe me, I could barely recognise her. She’s lost a lot of weight and her face is — well - ’ I shrugged, rather at a loss to describe it. ‘Just like the woman in the picture. She looked almost anorexic. She’s certainly one unhappy lady.’

  ‘I imagine that picture will fetch at least a million,’ Tim said. I was taken aback by this.

  ‘That sounds an awful lot.’

  ‘Zoffany’s Colmore Family sold for well over that at Christie’s last year,’ Serena said. ‘And prices haven’t fallen, that I’m aware of.’