“No, I’ll have a word with her. Starting tomorrow, there’s no need to report to Middlebank—your workdays will begin here unless you hear otherwise. I’ll be by at eleven, and we’ll begin a list of displays.”
I walked out and took a gulp of cold air as an icy mizzle began to fall. I should ring Arthur Fish. I should try again to contact Zeno’s other two references. I should figure out what to do about Bess and Becky. I should have a talk with Clara. I should find that first edition. I should suss out who murdered Oona. But couldn’t I do all of that in the morning? Quite happy to see the end of the day, I decided I needed an easy evening, and with Val teaching until nine, I knew just the person and the place. Adele at the Minerva—she could often be found there nursing a pint while Pauline worked behind the bar. I texted to let her know I’d show up.
See you at Minerva?
Her reply came quickly.
Raven
No, this wasn’t a pie evening.
Burgers. Minerva. 7
k
That settled, I committed myself to one more task before I clocked off: I bought a bottle of sherry. When I reached Middlebank, Mrs. Woolgar’s office door stood ajar, and so I looked in.
“All ready for tomorrow?” I asked. “The board members know they will be meeting Zeno before the lecture?”
The secretary nodded. “Maureen Frost thinks she remembers hearing his name from some theatrical . . . oh, let’s see, what word did she use?”
Travesty?
“Festival. A festival in Suffolk celebrating the spoken language of the Iceni.” And what touch had Zeno added to that event? I wondered. Did he dress someone as Boadicea and have her ride in on the back of a bull?
“She may want to speak with you about it,” Mrs. Woolgar added.
Great, another task for my Tuesday morning.
The secretary shut down her computer, stood, and brushed off her skirt.
“Mrs. Woolgar, thank you for being so kind to Bess and Becky this morning. I wasn’t prepared to see them, and your help smoothed it all over.”
“You’re welcome, Ms. Burke,” she said, in a voice one or two degrees softer than usual. “They seem like lovely young women.”
There now—she got it right. Young women. “I didn’t realize you sewed your own clothes.”
“Yes, I sew,” she replied, those two degrees of softness gone. “Where did you think my dresses came from—a time machine?” She clasped her hands at her waist. “When I was young, I altered clothes as my living.” I detected a gleam in her eye behind those thick specs.
This grain of personal information was more than I’d got out of her in my first six months at the Society. I seized it and attempted to shake loose another morsel. “Did you have a shop?”
“A shop, no—well, of sorts. The front room of my maisonette.”
Was that pride I heard in her voice?
“How lovely. And this was . . . ?”
“A lifetime ago.” She threw back her shoulders. “Now, Ms. Burke—what does Mr. Berryfield mean by an ‘immersive event’?”
From sewing to pig’s blood in record time.
“He believes that activities will draw more people to the exhibition. Don’t worry—I won’t let it get out of hand.”
* * *
* * *
The Minerva had only six tables—plus a few outside, used in winter only by hardy smokers. I was early, and so had no trouble spotting Adele in her usual corner with her usual pint, but with an unusual look so glum that even her mass of red curls drooped. Behind the bar, Pauline polished the brass cask handles with such vigor I feared she might break one off.
“Shall I order?” I asked Adele, who shrugged.
I stepped up to the bar and said, “Hiya, Pauline.”
“Oh, Hayley, hello,” she said airily. “Lovely to see you. What can I get you?”
“Two burgers, please, extra chips. And a glass of red wine. A large glass.” I cut my eyes at Adele, who had turned away from us and appeared to be studying a pane of the stained-glass window beside her. “Better make it a bottle, and two glasses.”
I took my purchase to Adele’s table and plopped down across from her.
“What’s this about?”
“What is what about?” she asked in her own airy tone.
“Did you two argue?”
Adele took the last swig of her beer, pushed the empty glass aside, and reached for the bottle of wine.
“I didn’t argue,” she said. “Pauline has got the wrong end of the stick about something and won’t let go.”
“And that would be about what?”
Adele heaved a sigh and said, “She thinks I’m mourning Oona’s death.”
Oona—I could not leave her behind. “Are you?”
“No, I am not,” Adele snapped. “I had something on my mind, and Pauline misinterpreted my preoccupation. I said she was jumping to conclusions and, well—it went on from there.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. All this for a one-night stand five years ago? “Are you breaking up with Pauline?”
“That’s just what she said!” Adele’s voice rose. “Won’t anyone hear me out?”
I waved my glass of wine. “Carry on.”
“I was a bit nervous, that’s all. I wanted to tell Pauline that I thought perhaps it was time she and I moved in together.” Adele’s lower lip stuck out. “But I didn’t have the chance, did I? She stormed out and I haven’t seen her since Friday. And she didn’t look best pleased to see me walk in the door this evening, I can tell you.”
Nothing like a good old-fashioned misunderstanding. “You two are mad about each other,” I said. “And also, just plain mad.” I took a drink of my wine, and then another. “Wait here.”
I stalked up to the bar. “Pauline, you and Adele need to talk. To each other.”
“I know what this is about,” Pauline said, keeping her eyes on the glass she was polishing. “Look at her over there—she’s mourning.”
“That isn’t a look of mourning, Pauline—it’s a look of being cheesed off with you for not listening to her. Do you remember exactly what Adele said that started this?”
Pauline frowned at my question. “Something about time . . . time to . . . to make a decision. I thought she was breaking it off.” She glanced at Adele, who had turned her attention directly on us. “Have I been thick? Oh, Hayley, will you ask her if—”
“Yes, Pauline, you’ve been thick, and no, I will not—you talk to her when you’ve finished your evening. I’m going to eat.” I nodded to the two plates just put through from the kitchen. “Hand me those burgers.”
I took our food to the table just as the evening crowd began to drift in.
“Yeah, so?” Adele asked.
“I should’ve been an agony aunt.” I glanced over to see Pauline smiling at Adele and turned back to find Adele making googly eyes at her girlfriend. “Oi!” I snapped my fingers. “Let the woman do her job, and hand me the brown sauce.”
We got busy with our burgers under a much lighter mood.
“I haven’t talked to you since Friday,” Adele said. “Tell me what’s been happening.”
Where to begin?
“We’ve hired a new exhibition manager—the fellow I told you about before. Zeno Berryfield.”
“That was awfully fast,” Adele noted.
“There’s no time to waste,” I said.
“A quick hire. In Murder Must Advertise, Death Bredon got on with Pym’s Publicity immediately after that fellow fell down the spiral staircase.” She held up her burger and looked at me over the bun. “You’ve finished that one, right?”
“Not quite.” Not by a long shot. “Listen, there’s something you should know about Zeno. He and Oona had been married.”
Adele’s eyes widened. “Blimey,” she said, her mouth full
of burger.
“He just told me on Saturday. They met two or three years ago, married, and divorced last year sometime. Brief.”
“How very interesting,” Adele said, barely concealing a snicker. “What’s he like?”
“He’s . . . you’ll meet him tomorrow before the salon. Six o’clock. Sherry with the board.”
“Did he know you’d given Oona the job?” Adele asked in a speculative way. “Did she know that he knew? Were they still in touch?”
“There can’t be that many exhibition managers in the whole of Britain—I believe they had been keeping tabs on each other. Perhaps Zeno had his sights set on that post at the British Library that Oona thought was hers. Oh, do let’s talk about something other than Oona. Tell me a story about Lady Fowling. I hope I can find that first edition to use in the exhibition. Tell me what she thought of Dorothy L. Sayers.”
Adele dragged a chip through a pool of ketchup and bit off half of it. “You know that her detective, François Flambeaux, was partly inspired by Lord Peter? Georgiana admired Sayers—her life as well as her writing. I know that some of the elements in Murder Must Advertise are dated, of course, but the way Wimsey got onto the right trail was spot-on. Perseverance and pluck.”
I took a large bite of burger and chewed and thought about my resources at hand—the things I had that could help me find the book. “Do you think Lady Fowling left me clues to where she’d hidden it? No, wait, I don’t mean me—”
“I know what you mean,” Adele said, and grinned. “You feel as if you can talk to her, don’t you? Now, about the book—Georgiana did love a puzzle. Once, Flambeaux went in disguise to uncover a sinister plot to capture the market in English oak memorabilia. The plot revolved around a system of numbers written in ink visible only on the first night of the waning full moon that told of . . .” Adele frowned. “Well, the solution was a bit convoluted, but quite inventive. With her imagination, I’d say it’s possible Georgiana laid a trail directly to that book.”
“I may never find it,” I said.
Adele patted my hand and, channeling Lady Fowling herself, said, “Of course you will.”
* * *
* * *
I didn’t deserve such confidence. Not when I continued to flail. The first edition may have nothing to do with Oona’s murder, but finding it would certainly put the oomph in the exhibition that we needed.
This need for energy became all too apparent when I arrived at the Charlotte on Tuesday morning.
“Good morning, you two,” I said.
Clara sat in a corner with her tablet, and her chair turned at an angle so that she didn’t quite face me when she offered a smile and said, “Hello, good morning, Hayley.”
Zeno sat at the desk, his laptop open and a spiral-bound notepad in his lap, and wearing his uniform. Did he have a wardrobe full of teal suits?
“Ms. Burke,” Zeno said. “What news?”
“What news?”
“My official introduction to the board—all set?”
“Oh, yes. Six o’clock.”
I’d had a callback the evening before from one of Zeno’s other references, but I’d been in bed and on the phone with Val, finding a way to tell him his daughters had dropped in for a visit, without getting into how they wanted to manage his life. “I had invited them to stop in, remember,” I had told him, “and I was delighted to see them, even though they couldn’t stay long. We’ll consider it a step forward.” He seemed mollified, if unconvinced.
I had let Zeno’s reference leave a message. I listened later and again that morning, but still caught only the gist of it. A breathy woman from Exhib, Ltd., said Zeno had been an “ever-so-reliable and just plain fun fellow” during the buildup to an exhibition called Anne of Cleves: I Like Her Much Worse. At least wife number four of Henry VIII hadn’t lost her head—no telling what Zeno would’ve made of that.
“Well, what do you have for me this morning?” I asked brightly, hoping to overcome the feeling of ennui in the room that made me want to curl up and take a nap.
Not a great deal, as it turned out. Zeno presented two ideas for displays: signage on the history of the monocle and a list of the word counts for each of Lady Fowling’s Flambeaux stories.
“It’s the essence of writing, isn’t it?” Zeno asked. “And suits your title, Lady Fowling: A Life in Words, perfectly.”
I’d never heard anything so boring in my life.
“I need to make this clear,” I said through clenched teeth. “Time is short, but not so short that I couldn’t look for another manager if appropriate and engaging ideas for the exhibition are not forthcoming.”
Clara’s eyes grew wide and darted from me to Zeno and back. My face felt as if it were on fire. Would he call my bluff?
Zeno pulled himself up and took it on the chin.
“Yes, Ms. Burke, I completely understand. I’m sorry that I’ve been distracted when it comes to the creative side of management, but you see, we have a duty of care to the items we display. I’ve just come across information that relates directly to Lady Fowling’s impressive collection. Were you aware of the new lighting recommendations for fragile paper in exhibitions? The last thing we want to do is use the wrong sort of lights and damage the things we love the most. It’s an issue that’s been uppermost in my mind.”
Was he having me on? Before I could react, he continued.
“Let me forward you the article from On Display Today, a scholarly magazine that helps us keep up on the latest trends and issues in exhibition management.” He took out his phone, his fingers flew over the screen, and he said, “There we are.”
I heard my phone ding.
“Thank you, Zeno, I will certainly take a careful look. And now,” I said, from a weakened position, “what of a central focal point display?”
“Yes.” Zeno smiled and tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. “I’ve an idea, but I’d rather keep quiet on that front at the moment. Working through a few details with a chap out on the Locksbrook Road. Now, if we’re finished here, Ms. Burke, I’d like to dash downstairs and take a look at how high that ceiling is in the main hall. Would you excuse me?”
I stared at his departing figure. Why did he need to know the ceiling height, and what business would he have out on Locksbrook Road, a place lined with industrial estates?
“Do you know what he’s up to?” I asked.
Clara had been following the exchange, but at my question, she flinched as if caught eavesdropping. She glanced down at her tablet, and then up at me.
“He hasn’t said, but he seems quite excited about it.”
“We can only hope for the best,” I said, which elicited a faint “heigh-ho” from her. “Clara, you’re very welcome to come to the salon this evening. In fact, why don’t you arrive at six so that I can introduce you to the board, too?”
“Thank you, Hayley, that’s so very kind of you.”
“Now, I did want to have a word with you about going to the Chronicle and suggesting a series on fictional detectives.” Clara looked up expectantly, and a good part of my annoyance fell away. I continued in a gentle tone. “It sounds promising, but you should’ve come to me first so that we could discuss it. Remember, every decision goes through me.”
A look of surprise swept over her face like a cloud scudding across the sky, followed quickly by distress. “But, I thought . . .” she began, and then dropped her head and muttered something about “never point the finger.” She looked up at me again and said, “I’m terribly sorry, Hayley. It was unprofessional of me to take action on any matter without permission. I do know that you need to approve our activities, and I have no excuse whatsoever. I hope you can forgive me and will allow me to continue as your PA.”
“I’m not about to fire you,” I said. The poor girl had gone so pale I thought she’d faint on the spot. “I’m only remindin
g you that it’s important to go through the proper channels before—”
I heard footsteps on the landing below, and apparently, so had Clara, because her eyes cut to the door and back to me.
“Hang on,” I said. “Was it your idea to go to the paper before talking with me, or was it Zeno’s?”
The footsteps rang on the metal staircase.
“No, no, mine,” Clara said quickly.
Zeno appeared on the landing.
“You know,” he said, leaning an elbow on the doorpost, “I could’ve sworn that was a fifteen-foot ceiling at the entrance, but as it turns out, it’s only twelve.”
I leapt from my seat. “Zeno, I need to have a word with you. Come downstairs and out to the pavement with me, will you?” I turned to Clara. “I’ll see you at six.”
She opened her mouth, but Zeno cut in.
“Outdoors?” he asked. “Are you mad? It’s absolutely frigid out there.”
“This won’t take long. Let’s go.”
As I marched off, Zeno said, “Would you like a coffee while I’m out, Ms. Powell?” Clara looked ready to answer when Zeno added, “Fine. I’ll bring one back for you.”
Down the spiral staircase, down the wooden steps, and out onto the pavement. I stopped there, pivoted, and put my hand up. Zeno took a step back and raised his eyebrows. “Couldn’t we go across the road to the café? So much more civilized.”
“Whose idea was it for Clara to go to the papers about a feature?”
Like time-lapse photography, Zeno looked affronted, then confused, followed by red-faced, and finally abashed. “Entirely mine, Ms. Burke, and I want to apologize unequivocally for that. Please do not hold Ms. Powell in any way responsible. She is an eager young woman who wants to make her mark, and it wasn’t fair of me to even bring the subject up without considering that her enthusiasm, her drive, might lead her to—” He shook his head. “I’m afraid I was distracted by the arrival of a member of the Avon and Somerset constabulary or I would’ve realized my mistake. Although that is no excuse.” He bowed his head.
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