by Ali McNamara
‘Arty took lots of photos when I was young,’ she says. ‘He bought a camera and never stopped using the thing. He took photos of everything – even had his own dark room set up in the big house so he could develop them, he took that many. It drove my mother mad to always find him clicking away with his little Brownie, but his hobby has turned out to be my saviour.’
She turns one of the black and white photos around towards us and I recognise Clara immediately, likely wearing one of her own creations – a flowery dress with a full skirt. She’s standing beside a bicycle and there’s a picnic basket at her feet.
‘I couldn’t remember this day at all until I saw this photograph,’ Maggie says, ‘but it was taken on my sixteenth birthday. The three of us rode along to the next town and had a picnic on the beach there … It was glorious weather.’ She looks through the photos on her lap. ‘Here,’ she says, holding a photo up to us again. ‘This is me. You’d never have known I was in a wheelchair a few years before.’
We all look at the photo of a pretty girl with long dark hair cascading down her shoulders. She looks incredibly happy as she smiles at the camera.
‘I didn’t know you had all these photos, Mom,’ Susan says, moving towards her. ‘How wonderful.’
Maggie holds up her hand. ‘No, Susan, you can look later. Now it’s time for my soldier friend to look at some photos with me.’
She rifles around in her tin again.
‘Here,’ she says, pulling out another black and white photo. ‘This is Freddie.’
Jack takes the photo from her. ‘It is indeed,’ he says, ‘taken outside his cottage. Can Kate take a look too?’
Maggie nods, so Jack passes me the photo and I see Freddie wearing a similar outfit to one we’d seen him in, standing with his hands in his pockets and looking suspiciously at Arty behind the lens. It was strange – when he’d appeared to us before he’d been in colour and had seemed so real and full of life. Now in black and white Freddie appeared much more removed and from a distant age.
‘Another,’ Maggie says, handing the next picture to Jack. ‘Me painting with Freddie in his cottage.’
Jack examines the photo, then passes it to me. It was almost the same as the scene we’d witnessed together previously – Maggie sat at a table painting next to Freddie.
‘This one is Freddie in full flow,’ Maggie says. ‘He’s nearly finished his painting in this one.’
This time we look at a photo of Freddie standing next to a painting that is propped up on an easel – likely one of Arty’s. He has a brush in one hand and oil paint in the other.
‘Arty gave him that easel,’ Maggie says, ‘because he didn’t have one of his own.’
Maggie continues to pull out photo after photo of Freddie and herself in his little cottage painting, drawing and, most of all, smiling.
‘It haunts me to this day that someone has stolen this kind, lovely man’s paintings,’ Maggie says, gazing at the photos now laid out on the coffee table in front of her. ‘People must know what happened to them. They simply must.’
To my dismay, silent tears begin to roll down her face into the tin box still sitting on her lap.
Her granddaughter shoots forwards with a box of tissues, and Susan rushes to her mother’s side.
‘I think that’s enough memories for today,’ she says, looking with concern at Jack and me as she puts a comforting arm around her mother’s shoulders. ‘Perhaps you should go.’
‘No!’ Maggie cries, pushing both her daughter and granddaughter away. ‘No, I want to know if they can help me find the person who took all Freddie’s paintings.’
Jack looks at me and nods.
‘Maggie,’ I say quietly but firmly, taking in the images in front of us. ‘If you lend us these photos for a little while, and the Wilfred Jones original I noticed hanging in the hall when we came in, then I think we might not only be able to recover all of Freddie’s paintings but we’ll at last also be able to give him the recognition he truly deserves.’
Thirty-six
One month later …
I watch the bride and groom spin around on the dancefloor looking lovingly into each other’s eyes and I smile.
Weddings are always such a joyful time full of thoughts and expectations for the future, and tonight was no exception.
Amber from the flower shop and Woody our local policeman had been married earlier today in St Felix, and along with their guests that joined them inside our local church, a second congregation had stood outside and waited for the happy couple to emerge so they could wish them well.
Woody was a very popular figure in St Felix – a relaxed friendly chap who enjoyed the simple pleasures of life, and Amber was well known not only in the town but far beyond for the special bouquets of flowers that she created alongside Poppy.
I, along with Molly, Anita and Sebastian, have been invited to their evening reception which is being held in one of the larger local hotels. It’s here some of us sit at a table alongside Jack, who I had brought as my plus one, watching the married couple take their first dance together.
‘Cute pair,’ Jack says, as we watch Amber and Woody sway from side to side with their arms around each other.
‘Yes, they are,’ I reply, turning my gaze to Jack instead. ‘It sounds like it was a lovely wedding from what I’ve heard. They had a wonderful day for it.’ The weather had behaved itself with the sun shining down on all concerned, allowing their day to be bathed in light as well as love.
Jack takes hold of my hand. ‘Thanks for inviting me. Weddings aren’t usually my thing, but I’ve enjoyed being here tonight with your friends – they’re a good bunch.’
‘They are, aren’t they?’ I reply, smiling at them. ‘I’m very lucky to have all of you in my life.’
Jack squeezes my hand. ‘I’m sure we all feel the same way about you.’
I lean across and kiss him.
‘Steady on!’ I hear Sebastian call across the table, but I don’t care. Jack and I are in a proper relationship now, and I’ve never been happier.
‘Sorry to interrupt you two love birds,’ the familiar voice of Ben says above us, ‘but have you seen Molly lately?’
To my enormous relief Ben has been Molly’s plus one tonight. I am so pleased that Chesney isn’t in the picture any more. Even though I haven’t seen or heard much of him over the last few weeks I have the impression he is still hanging around Molly, and I fervently wish he’d just move on and let her go. I’d recently heard some bad things about him, and I was grateful that Molly had broken up with him when she had.
‘No, actually, I haven’t,’ I answer, looking around. ‘She said a while ago she was popping out for some air.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Ben says in his usual calm manner, ‘I’ll go look for her.’
‘Do you think I should go too?’ I ask Jack as he walks away.
Jack shakes his head. ‘No, Ben will find her. Don’t worry.’
I sit back in my chair doing exactly the opposite of that, but luckily after a minute or two of imagining all the bad things that might have happened another familiar voice distracts me from my anxious thoughts.
‘Kate?’
‘Julian! Hi! I didn’t know you were invited tonight?’
‘I’m not, I popped in because Molly said you were in here.’
‘You’ve seen her?’
Julian looks confused. ‘Er … yes, she was sitting on the wall outside the hotel with some other young people.’
‘Oh right,’ Please don’t let it be Chesney, I pray.
‘I wondered if I could have a word?’ Julian says. ‘In private.’
I glance at Jack. ‘Go on,’ he says amiably. ‘It’s fine.’
‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ I tell him, kissing him on the cheek.
I follow Julian outside to a pretty garden at the back of the hotel. The evening air is cool, which makes a nice change from the warmth and stuffiness of the reception hall.
We find a bench
and sit down in the fast fading light of the evening sun.
‘What’s up?’ I ask.
‘I’m leaving St Felix,’ Julian says. ‘Early tomorrow morning, and I wanted to speak with you before I left.’
‘You’re leaving … but why? Everything is almost sorted. You can’t go now, Julian.’
*
After we’d left Maggie, Susan and her daughter at their home in Penzance, and given them reassurance and guarantees that we weren’t simply absconding with Maggie’s photos and the Wilfred Jones original, events had started moving pretty quickly. I’d gone to Julian first and told him what Maggie had revealed, and showed him both the photos and the painting. His reactions had been mixed. Shock had come first, then sorrow – there had even been a few tears before the shame at what his father had done had finally kicked in – followed by a steely resolve to put right the wrong.
‘There is the possibility that your father didn’t actually steal the paintings,’ I’d told him to try to soften the blow a little. ‘He might simply have come across them somewhere, or bought them from the real thief.’
‘Come on, Kate,’ Julian had said, ‘You don’t really believe that? My father was in St Felix at the time – we know that – and then he left for America shortly after. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why. He saw an opportunity to use someone who had some talent to try to further his own career, and it worked.’
‘But why would he go back years later and buy Freddie’s, I mean Wilfred’s, old cottage? Surely he wouldn’t want to link himself to it?’
‘Guilt, perhaps? Maybe the old codger did have some morals after all?’
‘Perhaps he did. I mean it, Julian,’ I say, when he pulls a face. ‘Maybe he felt remorse for what he’d done, bought the cottage and decided to furnish it with prints of Wilfred’s pictures. No one else would know why, but he would know that copies of the paintings had been returned to where they were originally created?’
‘I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, Kate,’ Julian says, ‘but really you don’t have to. I knew the man, remember? He was quite capable of doing this and having no remorse whatsoever. Have no illusions otherwise.’
Julian, Jack and I had all then travelled to London to speak first with a solicitor and then an art expert who Julian knew and trusted, and from that moment on things had snowballed.
As Jack and I had hoped Maggie’s photos were indeed enough evidence to prove that Winston James was not the creator of the majority of paintings that had been attributed to him. The photos not only showed Wilfred Jones in the process of creating some of his now well-known paintings, but they clearly showed many of his other works hanging behind him on his cottage walls that were in various stages of completion. This and Maggie’s original painting, which Freddie had given her and she had treasured all these years, along with her written testimony, were going to be enough to discredit Winston James and allow instead Wilfred Jones’s story to be told, so that he would be recognised not only by the global art community but also by the town where he’d lived all his life.
Something I hadn’t expected, but which had happened pretty quickly, was media interest in the story, and I had had to rapidly become adept at handling press interviews and being filmed for both local and even national news. Luckily, most of the press weren’t really interested in Julian and the company – all they wanted to know about was how I’d managed to play detective and solve this cover-up.
Jack had stayed well and truly in the background, but he’d been invaluable in helping me keep everything on track, as had Julian, who similarly had stayed out of the way, for obvious reasons.
Not surprisingly, there had been police interest, but thankfully after their initial investigations they were satisfied that Julian had had no knowledge of any theft by his father or of his passing off the work as his own. Julian now had a very good lawyer who was working with him to sort out the mess this had made of his father’s company, but he seemed confident that everything would be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
In addition, Julian had helped us put in place our plans for the new Wilfred Jones Society in St Felix. Wilfred had no living relatives, so no one had stepped forward to claim what was now his Estate.
‘And that is exactly why I’m leaving,’ Julian says as we sit together in the hotel gardens. ‘Everything is finished for me here – there’s nothing more for me to do. You and Jack have got this covered, my usefulness has come to an end. In fact, having me around could cause you problems if anyone discovered I was still involved in the new society. All links to my father need to be removed from this new venture to give it the clean start it truly deserves.’
‘But you’ve helped us so much, Julian,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t go now before the new gallery has come to fruition.’
‘I’m afraid I must. I’m going to use some of my mother’s legacy to take me on a little trip.’
‘A trip – to where?’
‘Everywhere. I am going to see the world, Kate. You’ve shown me that even somewhere as small as St Felix contains so many types of people and new experiences to be had. If I can find all that here, imagine what I’ll discover around the world! I’d never even thought about what a sheltered life I’d led until I came here and met you. A privileged life, yes, but a sheltered one as a result. You’ve opened up my eyes, Kate, and I’ll always be grateful to you.’
How odd life is, I think, as I hug Julian. If you’d told me a few months ago when I’d first met him that I’d be hugging him and genuinely wishing him well, I’d have laughed in your face. Julian had seemed like a ridiculously foolish man, full of himself and his position, but time and some very strange circumstances had proved otherwise.
‘You’re sure you can’t stay and see the gallery come to life?’ I ask again. ‘I know it’s going to be a while yet before the cottage is ready, but it seems right you should be there. After all, it did belong to you.’
Julian had offered us Freddie’s old cottage so it could be turned into the Wilfred Jones Gallery – a place where all his paintings, along with duplicates of Maggie’s photos showing the paintings in progress, could be displayed for all to see. It was a little complicated currently because of the ongoing issues with the Winston James Estate, but we had high hopes that the gallery would be able to open in the near future.
Julian shakes his head. ‘No, I won’t … but maybe you could email me some photos? I believe they have wi-fi in the remotest of places these days!’
‘I’d be happy to, as long as you send me photos of your travels in return.’
‘I’d be more than happy to keep in touch with you, Kate. That goes without saying.’
‘I’m almost jealous of you,’ I tell him. ‘Going off and travelling the world while the rest of us are left here in one of the remotest parts of Cornwall. It’s hardly the Amazon rainforest, is it?’
‘You wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Julian says, smiling at me. ‘You love it here. And St Felix loves you. That’s why I’ve got a surprise for you.’
‘Really? What?’
‘It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it? Now, don’t ask me any more questions, you’ll find out in a few days, all right?’
I pull a huffy expression, but then I grin. ‘Okay then, you win, I suppose, but now you’ve got me wondering.’
‘You’ll like it. I guarantee that,’ he says. ‘Just promise me you’ll accept it.’
‘Why wouldn’t I accept it?’ I ask, puzzled all the more.
‘Kate, just promise?’
I nod. ‘Sure. I promise.’
‘Excellent. Now I must go. Goodbye, my dear Kate, and thank you once again.’
‘No, thank you, Julian, for making everything so easy for us.’
‘It’s been my pleasure,’ he says, standing up. ‘Really it has. You’ve freed me from my self-imposed prison, and I can never thank you enough.’ We hug again and then I watch Julian walk along a path that leads from the garden out to the hotel ca
r park. He waves one last time and he’s gone.
I sigh. I was going to miss Julian and his funny ways. He’d really been so understanding about his father, and had made everything so stress-free with regard to Freddie being finally acknowledged. It was a real shame he wouldn’t be here to see the paintings returned to where they truly belonged.
Still pondering what his surprise might be, I’m about to walk back inside the hotel when I hear raised voices from around the corner. I walk in the direction of the noise, but stop when I see what I think are a group of young guests arguing.
‘None of my business,’ I think, deciding I’ll leave them be. It wouldn’t be the first wedding to host a family quarrel as part of its celebrations. I’m about to turn away when I notice that the back view of one of the people looks familiar. It’s Ben.
I’m about to move forwards again when I hear what he’s saying.
‘Say that again?’ he says to another boy in a calm yet forceful tone.
‘Your dad is a useless cripple,’ the same boy says in a sneering voice. ‘And you are a gay wanker.’
I gasp, and my hand flies automatically to my mouth, but the group is far enough away not to hear me.
Ben just nods his head slowly, then he steps forwards equally as slowly and stands in front of the boy, towering over him. ‘I should punch you for that,’ he says quietly, ‘but then I’d be lowering myself to your standards, which I don’t particularly wish to do, so I will politely request that you take that back.’
‘Take what back?’ the boy, who I can now clearly see is Chesney, jeers mockingly. ‘It’s the truth, ain’t it?’
There’s a horrible pause, and I think for a moment that Ben is actually going to punch him. I want to punch Chesney, so how Ben is stopping himself I have no idea.
‘Come on, Molly,’ he says calmly. ‘Shall we go back inside?’
To my horror, I suddenly realise that Molly is also one of the people standing in the small group, and I have to stop myself from rushing forwards and immediately getting involved.
‘Molly don’t wanna go with you, you queer!’ Chesney taunts. ‘Do ya, Molls? She’s my girlfriend, ain’t ya, babe?’
