The Love Letter

by Fiona Walker

  She was clearly fascinated when Legs introduced Byrne, who smouldered in his reserved, intense way: ‘So do you two want a place to stay? We have a futon.’

  Byrne squeezed Legs’ hand hard. ‘We’ve got a tent. Could we claim a pitch in your wood?’

  ‘Be our guest,’ Daisy was delighted at the thought of less bed-making and bathroom-hogging. ‘It’s such perfect timing you’re here. We’re hosting a barbecue tonight for family and local friends. Tomorrow is the big day. Will’s hoping to get an interview with Gordon if he can get past security, although they’re even body-searching people going down to the beach. Now you’re here, Legs, you can put in a request to Gordon personally, can’t you?’

  ‘I have nothing to do with the agency any more,’ Legs blustered, holding Byrne’s hand tighter.

  ‘But I thought you two were email buddies. Surely you’re meeting up?’

  She shook her head far too emphatically. ‘He has a huge entourage. I’m sure he won’t want me hanging around.’

  Her friend adopted a shrewd look, potent baby hormones at their most disarmingly direct as she eyed Byrne through her collie fringe. ‘What did you say you do for a living again?’

  ‘I write crime thrillers,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘But I haven’t had any of them published yet.’

  ‘You and my husband will have so much in common,’ she said cheerfully. ‘He wants to write a novel and hasn’t even started it yet. I’d introduce you both, but he’s been struck dumb and I don’t want to break the spell just yet.’ She nodded across the garden to the driveway where Will and Nico had both been gazing at the Bentley with their mouths open for over five minutes now.

  Leaving the old friends together, Byrne headed off to introduce himself to Will and fetch the tent. Daisy steered Legs to the decking that boasted the best coast view on the Hartland Peninsula.

  ‘Nice car for an unpublished author.’

  ‘He’s selling it,’ Legs said casually. ‘No good for dogging.’

  Daisy laughed. ‘Thank goodness you’re not back with Francis. I knew any rapprochement between you two was doomed.’

  ‘You said we should get back together so that I could live here and gossip with you all the time.’

  ‘Did I? Pregnancy does terrible things,’ Daisy waved a dismissive hand and then eyed her shrewdly. ‘Does Francis know you’re here with Poppy’s son?’

  ‘Not yet.’ She shook her head. ‘He’ll be livid.’

  ‘Will and I were in the pub last night. Hector was in there playing his bassoon while Francis propped up the bar looking utterly miserable. Your reputation as an international art thief is growing. Anybody would think you limbo through laser beams and cut through security glass on a nightly basis.’

  ‘Oh for Chrissake this has to stop!’ Legs huffed in exasperation, leaping up. ‘I’m going running.’

  ‘Not on the run again?’ Daisy wailed. ‘You’ve only just arrived. Stay for the party, at least.’

  ‘I’m going for a run, not on it.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Daisy eyed her. ‘You look incredibly tense.’

  ‘Fine! Never better! Living for the moment, you know?’

  ‘Live for the moment, live with the consequences,’ Daisy remembered her friend’s old self-punishing motto.

  ‘Bugger the consequences.’ She went to claim back Byrne for a quiet word.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Byrne insisted as soon as he heard what she planned to do, his face tight with worry.

  She shook her head. ‘I have to go in alone. We can’t risk you being seen. Conrad’s staying in the Book Inn. If he sees you, our cover’s completely blown. You’re best staying here.’ She was aware that she sounded like Julie Ocean briefing Jimmy before a raid, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘I’m not lolling about in a holiday cottage while you go down there all by yourself.’ Byrne was clearly not happy playing junior officer.

  ‘Then wait for me in the village. I’ll call if I need back up.’

  ‘You haven’t got a phone,’ he reminded her.

  ‘It’s a small village; I have a very loud scream.’

  He sucked his teeth doubtfully. ‘They’d better not try anything funny.’

  Legs had a sudden image of Hector and Francis dressed up as clowns with long shoes, frog-marching her along the harbour wall at water-pistol gunpoint, or forcing her into a colourful flowery car that fell apart a wing at a time. The thought cheered her up immensely, fuelling her resolve.

  ‘I won’t let them. I really can handle this alone, trust me. I’m a big girl; I can stand on my own two legs.’

  ‘There’s only one Legs in my world,’ his eyes ran admiringly down her body, making her tug down her T-shirt self-consciously and regret coupling ‘big girl’ with ‘legs’. She’d finally been forced to sport the white pedalpushers today, which predictably made her thighs look like two roly-poly seal pups, even in their slimmed-down state.

  ‘You do this your way, Ocean,’ he conceded, putting on a throaty Ray Winston rasp. ‘But I’m treating you to some new threads afterwards, no arguing. You name the shop.’

  Legs laughed, although she secretly couldn’t help wishing he’d offered when they were staying in Dublin. ‘There’s only Shh.’

  His dark eyes looked quizzical. ‘What?’

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘I am shushing. What is it we’re listening for?’

  She kissed him.

  Chapter 54

  They ran the cliff path together, parting at the ford, where he kissed her thoroughly and took the rising lane towards the church and Farcombe Hall while she picked up the private estate road to the harbour, dropping down the steep incline and pounding along the cobbles to the Book Inn. The drinkers were five deep outside, spilling over all the extra tables, sitting on the harbour walls and crowding in huge, jolly groups all along the seafront. A small army of temporary staff were clearing glasses and serving food.

  Legs fought her way to the bar where Nonny was serving alongside Pierced Tongue, barely able to keep up with orders.

  On two barstools at the furthest end, Hector and Francis resembled two magnificent eagles on perches, larger than life and so eye-catchingly handsome that the drinkers in the crowded pub seemed to be grouped around them like tourists around totem poles. They were holding court to several female admirers, Hector accompanying his son on the bassoon while Francis recited The Waste Land from the battered Faber edition of the collected poems he’d owned as a student.

  They rocked back on their barstools in shock when Legs marched up to put her case. ‘That painting was never stolen, Hector, and you know it! Just like you’ve always known it’s a fraud not a Freud. You know the truth.’

  ‘You do?’ Francis turned to his father.

  ‘Do I?’ Hector clutched his bassoon like a boy with a teddy bear, shifty and flustered.

  Francis lowered his voice, glancing around nervously. ‘You said only this morning you’ve always thought it was genuine.’

  ‘I did?’

  Turning back to Legs, not quite able to meet her gaze, Francis’s handsome face was apologetic. ‘We only heard from Sotheby’s in Dublin today. I took the call. They say the painting’s a fake. A seriously good one, but a fake.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me they said that, Francis.’ Hector looked indignant.

  ‘I did!’ he hissed back, patience rapidly dwindling. ‘You were standing next to me at the time.’

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t tell me they thought it was “seriously good”.’ Hector looked delighted, blowing a couple of top notes before reaching for his pint.

  ‘What does Vin Keiller-Myles make of all this?’ Legs asked shakily.

  At the mention of his name, Hector started to play ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’.

  Legs looked searchingly at Francis, who was quite unexpectedly beaming from ear to ear, nodding his head in time. ‘Gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘No idea, but according to their h
ousekeeper who’s very thick with Imee, he took a long phonecall in his study two days ago, after which he got Mrs K-M to go out and buy a pile of suitcases which they packed in a hurry before setting out for Bristol airport. The next morning, an estate agent came round to value the place, so it doesn’t look like they’re planning to holiday here again.’

  She gaped at him. Two days ago, Byrne had sloped away from their Dublin hotel room to make a series of calls. Had one of them been to Vin telling him what he knew about his past? Perhaps he had decided to be lenient to Hector and Francis after all. She felt weak with relief.

  ‘So you’re not going to have me arrested?’

  ‘Of course not. That was never going to happen. Dad just got a bit carried away.’ He shot his father a withering look. ‘It’s all in hand now, and I’ll arrange to have your car shipped back by way of apology. I’ve already spoken with the police here and in Ireland.’

  ‘The Laois police dismisseth us,’ she sighed with relief.

  ‘I love Eliot’s use of everyday ditties.’ Hector smiled woozily, clearly several pints up on his son. ‘My memory’s appalling. Tell me, is that from “The Fire Sermon”?’

  Just for a moment, Legs’ eyes met Francis’s and they shared the joke. Then he ruined it by saying: ‘I think you’ll find that’s Leith police, Legs, which is in fact Edinburgh.’

  Hector started playing the famous opening to Dukas’s ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ and Francis’s blue gaze hardened as he glanced around before leaning forwards to hiss. ‘I hear you’re working as Gordon Lapis’s PA now?’

  She nodded, reddening. ‘I’m just temping.’

  ‘He is going to appear on stage tomorrow, isn’t he?’ he whispered, real fear starting to show.

  She nodded. ‘He won’t let Farcombe down.’

  For a moment he looked as though he was going to hug her, then thought the better of it. ‘This calls for a huge drink. It’s the least I can offer. A Happy Ever After would be fitting, don’t you think?’

  ‘Another time.’ She shook her head, glancing at the clock above the bar. ‘Daisy’s throwing a party at Spycove; I don’t want to get blootered and fall off a cliff on the way back.’

  ‘A party!’ Hector stopped playing briefly. ‘Have we been invited, Francis?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bloody cheek. Always used to get stiffies for the festival parties. Will this Gordon Laptop chap be there?’

  ‘You never know,’ she smiled, exchanging another look of amusement with Francis. ‘I’d better go. I said I’d meet someone five minutes ago.’ Without thinking, she reached out to give his arm an affectionate farewell squeeze.

  When he seized her hand, she felt the familiar cloy of panic, worried she’d misjudged the gesture.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’ He smiled, lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing it lightly. Then he smiled widely and let it go. ‘There’s nothing pointless whatsoever in hoping for friendship.’

  On her way out of the Book Inn, a fiery display of long corkscrews of red hair in the restaurant caught Legs’ eye. Then she heard a familiar, dominant voice infused with South African undertones and she backed up towards the front of house lectern to take a better look.

  Conrad was wearing his flashest handmade suit and sitting beside Gordon’s fierce super-cool editor, Wendy, in equally sharp tailored lines, along with Kizzy, looking predictably ravishing in a gauzy stretch butterfly-print dress that was barely more than a tattoo on her skin. So far so relatively normal, except that Kizzy had her hair tightly constrained in a bun. Beside her, Liz Delamere was thrashing her pre-Raphaelite curls like Medusa and loving the attention.

  ‘Everybody in my family always assumed I was too thick to function or too mad to care,’ she gushed in her lovely Joanna Lumley voice, ‘but I was simply never understood. I’ve spent most of my life in therapy and institutions. The Girl Who Checked Out is my bridge to the mainstream world.’

  ‘It’s a great title,’ Wendy nodded earnestly.

  ‘Your life-story will sell it,’ Conrad nodded. ‘And if we can get a quote from Gordon Lapis for the front cover, we’re made.’

  Byrne was already waiting outside Shh with Fink sitting on the cobbles at his master’s feet, leaning against him. The Catwalk Collection had been removed from the window display, which now featured Autumn Separates draped over the pebbles, chains and photographs of Cici as a glamorous young bride.

  ‘How was it?’ He leaped forwards, making Fink tip sideways.

  ‘We can ditch the recipe for nail file sponge cake,’ she told him. ‘You’re no longer looking at a fugitive from the law.’

  He seemed delighted, but she had a feeling he knew it already.

  ‘You spoke to Vin, didn’t you?’

  ‘I figured if you and I were going to set sail to Latin America, I should tie up a few loose ends first. Now he’s the one crossing continents and we’re still on dry land.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t the justice you wanted for what happened to your father.’

  ‘It felt good enough. Dad doesn’t want to be dragged through all that again right now. He has a baby on its way, or “her” way as he insists on saying.’

  She swallowed anxiously.

  As sensitive as a horse, he picked up on her tension straight away. ‘Is it Francis? Was he difficult?’

  She shook her head. ‘Francis was a gentleman as always.’ She took his hands in hers. ‘Kizzy’s in Farcombe, Byrne.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘You must talk to her. She deserves to know the truth.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’

  She shook her head. ‘We both know all hell will break loose tomorrow. Tonight’s the calm before the storm.’

  ‘Which is why I want to spend every minute of it with you.’

  ‘Liz is here too. Don’t you see it’s a perfect opportunity to get it all in the open?’

  ‘Then let’s get her to tell her daughter the truth!’ he snapped. ‘From what I’ve seen of Kizzy so far, I’m not wild on a family reunion, frankly.’

  ‘She’s really very sweet when you get to know her.’

  He looked at her angrily, a childhood of fury burning from his eyes. ‘Her mother used to serve me undercooked fishfingers after school and shut me in the kitchen with Radio One turned up really loudly so I couldn’t hear her and Dad talking in the next room.’

  ‘That must be where Kizzy got her taste for raw fish and Kate Bush.’ Reluctant to let it go, Legs looked away irritably, and found her eyes inadvertently drawn to the solicitor’s office across the lane. Suddenly she realised something didn’t add up: ‘I saw you go in there the day after you arrived.’

  ‘That’s right. I had to collect some papers.’

  ‘Kizzy was there too.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not with me. Perhaps she went next door?’

  Suspicions mounting, Legs towed him across the road to study the building alongside Marshall and Callow. Its door was painted purple and bore a sign over it that she’d never noticed before.

  ‘Merle Peters, Medium and Clairvoyant,’ she read out loud then reeled back in surprise. ‘She was consulting a soothsayer!’

  ‘Well that’s me off the hook,’ Byrne turned away with relief. ‘Merle will have told her everything already.’

  ‘Do you think they saw a tall dark handsome stranger coming?’

  ‘They almost certainly heard me. Fink got very overexcited barking at a woman he saw peering in through this window as I recall.’ He looked across at her thoughtfully. ‘She had feathers in her hair and looked rather like you.’

  She blushed, wondering if it would be far too nosey to ask what the documents he was collecting had been.

  But he had already read her mind faster than Madame Merle: ‘The Deeds to Nevermore.’

  ‘You own Nevermore Farm?’ she gasped.

  He propped himself on the sill of the solicitor’s window. ‘It came up for auction a few months ago; I bought it on a whim.’

&nbs
p; ‘But you were so unhappy there.’

  ‘I loved the land; it was my sanctuary. I want to knock down the old house and build something new. A holiday home for us, maybe. It deserves to be a happy place. Now let’s go shopping.’ He stood up. ‘If I can buy a house on a whim, I can buy you a new frock.’

  ‘Just something simple,’ Legs insisted as she followed him back across the lane to Shh. ‘You really don’t have to splash out.’

  ‘I insist. We are about to make a very big splash after all.’

  Cici’s spider’s leg lashes performed a series of high kicks when she saw her young client returning to her emporium with a man in possession of a black Amex.

  ‘I am all yours!’ she announced orgasmically, turning the sign to closed and flicking the lock.

  Byrne swallowed in terror and glanced at Legs who gave him an ‘I told you so’ look and resigned herself to being heavily accessorised. She was, however, determined to forfeit the fascinator and take the lingerie option this time.

  Over an hour later, Legs and Byrne were finally released from Shh with more bulging carrier bags and boxes under their arms than the Beckhams coming out of Corso Como.

  ‘You really, really didn’t have to buy me so much.’ Legs was embarrassed that the idle Pretty Woman fantasy she’d harboured in Dublin had become hardcore WAG shopping in Farcombe. As the door pinged closed behind them, she was sure she could hear Cici already on the phone booking a holiday.

  ‘I really, really didn’t have any choice,’ Byrne laughed. ‘That woman is terrifying.’

  Legs reached up to remove the fascinator from her head. ‘Tomorrow’s crowds will be a breeze compared to her.’