Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café

by Milly Johnson

  He had a secure room next to his study with a digital eight-figure combination lock on it.

  Both gentlemen took gloves out of their pockets as Mr Fairbanks pointed them in the direction of the paintings and sketches. Mr Elton made straight for the Painter on the Road to Tarascon. He picked it up and stared hard at it with eyes that didn’t want to blink.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t understand though,’ said Cheryl. ‘How could Percy have got near to the original for long enough to copy it?’

  ‘Percy Lake had a perfect photographic memory,’ explained Mr Elton.

  ‘Edith, his granddaughter, told me that too,’ agreed Mr Fairbanks. ‘She said he only had to look at a painting once and could recreate it perfectly.’

  ‘Never,’ said Cheryl. ‘Surely not?’

  ‘Here, you are dealing with genius,’ Mr Elton kindly clarified. ‘Even he wouldn’t have understood how he did what he did. It was effortless, inherent, natural to his make-up. It’s unbelievable.’

  ‘And these are the sketches?’ Mr Vamplew lifted the one signed ‘Vincent’ from its place on a shelf and he sighed.

  ‘It is signed,’ he said quietly to Mr Elton. He took a small gold loupe from his pocket and lifted it to his eye, then he handed both the sketch and the loupe to Mr Vamplew. Then they both turned their heads towards each other and smiled.

  Chapter 76

  As Connie drove up to Crow Edge, she thought – and not for the first time – that there was something wrong with the house, but she couldn’t fathom out what it was. Something on the outside didn’t fit with the inside. She stared at the frontage through her car windscreen but couldn’t work it out, then she gave herself a mental slap for being as bad as everyone else in trying to invent a mystery about the place. Yes, it was old-fashioned and Mr Savant was slightly eccentric, but that was all that was amiss. She took her cleaning stuff out of the car and rang the bell. Mr Savant greeted her warmly at the door and she could once again smell alcoholic fumes on his breath, as she had done the previous week. He didn’t look like a drinker, but then again, he didn’t look like a man who ate a fridge full of cream buns every week. Connie got on with her job and tried not to a) let that awful Pygmalion music annoy her and b) think too much. She had forgotten how easy it could be to get sucked into the lives of clients.

  *

  ‘Hello, are you nipple clamp?’

  That was what Jimmy heard through the door of his office. What the bloody hell was Ivanka ordering? He’d noticed she had a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey in her flat. He didn’t mind a bit of playing but anything that involved the word ‘clamp’ sounded too painful.

  ‘Yes, let us say eleven o’clock then, nipple. I look forward to it.’ Then the phone went down.

  Jimmy came out of his office, shaking an empty coffee cup. He didn’t have to remind Della when to put the kettle on.

  ‘What was all that about?’ he asked.

  ‘I am interviewing some potential cleaners,’ she replied.

  ‘A woman called nipple?’ asked Jimmy incredulously.

  ‘Nepal,’ corrected Ivanka.

  ‘Nepal Clamp? Jesus, don’t people think when they name kids these days? Don’t tell me she’s got a brother called Ball.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ivanka, the joke flying over her head. She didn’t really do jokes, though. Jimmy realised he had never seen Ivanka have a good old belly-laugh in all the time he’d known her.

  ‘Don’t you think you should wait until Della comes back before you set anyone . . .’ Jimmy’s voice dried up and he winced in anticipation of Ivanka’s scowl.

  ‘No, I don’t think at all,’ said Ivanka, eyes narrowed, teeth drawn back over her lip, voice full of gravel. ‘And you can make your own bloody tea.’

  *

  Connie walked from the kitchen into the sitting room and back again. Whatever was bugging her about the house was in this area, she was sure of it, but she could barely think above the racket of that music. Mr Savant was playing it louder than usual. Connie approached the chair where he sat looking out onto the garden to ask if she could turn it down a little but found him asleep. She called his name softly, but he was deep in slumber and an empty glass of brandy was set on the table at his side where the gramophone was. She wondered if she dare lift the needle off the record and give her ears some respite, because she couldn’t see a volume button, but she would have to lean right over him to do it.

  Mr Savant gave a snuffle which made her jump but he didn’t awaken. Connie thought she would chance it. She leaned over as slowly as she could, raising up her arm so it didn’t touch Mr Savant’s shoulder and lifted off the bobbing needle. The silence was golden. For a few wonderful moments, the only sounds were the strong tick tick of the mantel clock and Mr Savant’s gentle snoring. Then, she heard it.

  ‘Hello . . .’ tap-tap-tap.

  Mr Savant snorted loudly and woke himself up. His eyes opened and settled on Connie standing in the room, listening, trying to trace where the sound was coming from.

  ‘Get out,’ he said, throwing himself out of the chair. ‘Get out. I want to be by myself.’ He almost fell backwards when he turned to set the needle on the record again and performed the manoeuvre so roughly that an ear-splitting scratch ensued.

  ‘Mr Sav—’

  ‘Please just go,’ he said, palm flat on his forehead as if drawing comfort from it. ‘I don’t want anyone in the house today. Not today.’ He sank to the chair again, head in his hands, obviously distressed. Connie fought her natural reaction to go over to him. She didn’t know him well enough to judge what he might do when upset and drunk.

  Connie gathered her cleaning equipment together. She hadn’t imagined that voice, she knew she hadn’t. But it was no ghost.

  Connie left the kitchen and went back into the sitting room and the answer to what was wrong with the house whispered against her brain but zoomed off before she could process it. Mr Savant was sitting in his chair, music blaring.

  ‘I’m going, Mr Savant. I’ll see you next week,’ she called. He didn’t answer. She noticed the brandy glass at the side of him had been refilled.

  Connie went back to her car and stared at the house through her front window. What is it that I’m missing? she asked herself. She drew her eyes across from left to right, top to bottom: the two small attic windows with bars on them, the first-floor window standing proud on the corner, the etched window where the bathroom was, the two huge windows in Mr Savant’s bedroom. Downstairs, the large bay window of the sitting room, the long window of the kitchen, a peep of the cellar windows below. Something was wrong but she still couldn’t see it.

  *

  Nepal and Alaska Clamp had been born identical twins, although that would have been difficult to believe. Nepal was super-slim and pretty with long faded purple dreadlocks and piercings in her lips, eyebrows, ears and nose. She had streetwise wisdom in her huge blue eyes. Alaska had the same bright eyes, although hers seemed much smaller because they were in a much chubbier setting. She had a round body, round face with a frill of double chins, cropped short blonde hair and a set of teeth that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a knacker-man’s horse.

  ‘So have you worked as cleaner before?’ asked Ivanka, trying not to look as unnerved as she felt in the presence of these two young women. She couldn’t believe that Della had considered them of a suitable standard to put at the top of the red stripey ‘Priority list of potential cleaners’ file.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Nepal, with put-on politeness, an effect which might have been more convincing had she not been chewing gum quite so energetically. ‘We’ve always worked cash in hand before though.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Alaska, in a voice that suggested she gargled twice daily with grit.

  Then the office door swung open, much to Ivanka’s annoyance because whoever was opening it hadn’t knocked. It was Hilda and Sandra with their Asda bags-for-life each full of cleaning products. Hilda’s eyes landed on
Nepal Clamp sitting in front of Ivanka’s desk and her expression became instantly murderous.

  ‘Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in. If it isn’t Nepal Clamp,’ said Hilda. She turned to Ivanka and snapped, ‘What the fuck are these two doing here?’

  Even Sandra was taken back at Hilda using the f-word. She’d worked with her for eleven years and never heard the woman say anything more serious than a ‘bugger’.

  ‘Hello, Hilda. How’s it going?’ Nepal was smirking as her eyes returned the older woman’s stare.

  ‘None of your business how I am, you skanky little tart.’

  Ivanka, who did not appreciate Queen Hilda storming into the office and undermining her, jumped right up onto her high horse.

  ‘Excuse me, please, but do not interrupt my meeting. You can go and sit in reception until I am ready to speak to you.’

  Hilda, who judged Ivanka to be a jumped-up little nobody, wasn’t going to take that lying down.

  ‘Where the hell is reception? Do you mean those two chairs by the door?’ She gave a derisive laugh. ‘And where’s Della? I want to speak to the organ grinder, not the monkey.’

  Ivanka could see Nepal’s and Alaska’s heads swinging between her and Hilda as if watching a grand slam at Wimbledon.

  ‘Della is ill,’ snarled Ivanka. ‘So you can talk to me or nobody.’

  Hilda lifted up the carrier bag of products, turned it upside down and tipped everything out on the floor.

  ‘Okay then. Miss Pettigrew has now got red dye all over her beige Wilton, the Forresters’ bedding has all been bleached and Mrs East-Sinclair has an indelibly stained Villeroy and Boch bog bowl.’

  Sandra followed suit and tipped the products in her bag on top of Hilda’s.

  ‘Two sets of purple curtains and a green poodle that should be snow-white. Mrs McIlvenny is suing. Foofoo was supposed to be doing a dog show on Friday. I’m surprised she hasn’t rung you.’

  Ivanka kept a stony expression because she had turned the phone ringer volume to silent and at last count she had sixteen voice-mail messages to catch up with.

  ‘And I don’t know what you two are frigging laughing about,’ spat Hilda at the Clamp sisters, who were as purple as Mrs McIlvenny’s curtains with laughter.

  ‘Hilda, how’s your Anthony?’ asked Nepal, impish glint in her innocent blue eyes.

  ‘You evil little cow! He’s all right, you’ll be gutted to hear.’ Hilda made a grab for the girl who had broken her grandson’s heart so hard that it led him to take an overdose. And if that wasn’t enough, Nepal also happened to be the granddaughter of the man who had been the partner of her sister for many abusive years. The Clamps were all scum in Hilda’s eyes and there were years of pent-up buried rage waiting in her curled fists for any of them that crossed her path.

  Sandra flung herself between Hilda and the still giggling Nepal. Ivanka stood and pointed to the door like Gloria Gaynor singing ‘I Will Survive’.

  ‘Get out,’ she screamed at Hilda.

  ‘Oy, don’t you shout at her, you jumped-up little nowt,’ yelled Sandra.

  Ivanka had lost control, so there was only one way to save face now in front of the interviewees. ‘You’re sacked, both of you,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you worry yourself,’ said Hilda, thumbing at the Clamps. ‘I wouldn’t work for anyone who employed shit like them. You wait until Della comes back. She’ll have your arse on a spit.’ She cast a last hateful glare at Nepal and picked up her plastic bag-for-life, which had cost 10p so she wasn’t going to leave it.

  Sandra followed Hilda out like her lady in waiting.

  ‘And that goes for me an’ all.’ And she closed the door brutally behind them.

  Ivanka sat down as gracefully as she could.

  ‘Now, where were we?’ she said, smiling sweetly. It was time for some new blood in Diamond Shine. Out with the old bags like Hilda and Sandra, and in with the new – like Nepal, Alaska and Lesley Clamp. And a welcome back to Mrs Ruth Fallis who, according to the notes in the red stripey file, had been unjustly sacked.

  Chapter 77

  The morning at Mr Savant’s was still very much on Connie’s mind as she turned into the drive of Box House. She was over an hour early, seeing as Mr Savant had asked her to leave, and she hoped Brandon wouldn’t mind. If he did, she would get back in the car and have a sandwich in the Dick Turpin’s Arms.

  Connie rang the bell and was just about to push the key into the lock when Brandon opened the door. His eyes dropped to his watch.

  ‘I’m early. Is that okay?’ Connie asked. ‘I can go if—’

  ‘Not at all, come in, Marilyn,’ said Brandon, inviting her in to a hallway that smelled of salty caramel. He noticed how she raised her nose and drew in the smell.

  ‘I’m experimenting with birch sap syrup,’ he said. ‘It takes a hundred litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. But oh – the taste,’ and he kissed the O that his finger and thumb formed. ‘Come through, come through. I’ve got something to show you.’

  She followed him into his kitchen.

  ‘I was going to clean up a little before you came,’ he said. ‘Honest.’

  Connie smiled. ‘Don’t you worry about it.’

  ‘Here, here, look at this.’ Brandon stood aside so she should see a tray of heart-shaped chocolates. ‘Marilyn Smith, meet my Marilyn Monroes,’ he said as proudly as a little boy showing his mother a pasta painting. ‘And if I say so myself, they are flaming perfect. Greta Garbo is going to be birch sap syrup with a hint of salt, but Marilyn’s summer pudding is the star of the box.’

  Connie expected him to offer her a sample, and was surprised when he replaced the tray on the work surface.

  ‘How come you’re so early then?’

  ‘Oh, one of my clients . . .’ How could she put it? ‘One of my clients . . . erm . . . didn’t need me for . . . for the full . . . time.’

  ‘Come on, what’s the real story?’ He tilted his head at her. ‘You’re a shockingly bad liar, Marilyn.’

  Is that so, thought Connie.

  ‘Okay, the gentleman I see before you is erm . . . a retired widower. He lives in a house that the other cleaners don’t like to go to. They think it’s haunted,’ Connie began to explain, aware that she had Brandon’s total attention. ‘He’s harmless, but a little odd.’

  ‘In what way odd?’

  Connie didn’t feel comfortable going into too much detail. She had to value her client’s privacy after all, but Brandon Locke was so easy to talk to and she really did wonder what his perspective on Mr Savant would be.

  ‘He has a lot of cream buns in the fridge.’

  Brandon burst out laughing and then immediately apologised.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Marilyn. Do forgive me.’

  ‘It’s not just that,’ went on Connie. ‘He plays awful gramophone music very loudly and the last couple of times I’ve been he’s obviously had several brandies.’ She could tell that Brandon was trying his best not to look amused. She couldn’t blame him. She was aware she was making Mr Savant sound like a Reeves and Mortimer sketch.

  ‘He lives in what used to be an undertaker’s house. The other cleaners have said they’ve heard a woman’s voice in the wall. Today, I heard it for myself.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I turned the music off when he was asleep because it was driving me daft and that’s when I heard a woman calling hello. It was very odd. Mr S . . . my client woke up and er . . . went a bit crazy. He asked me to leave, so I did and I was glad to because I was just a little bit wary of him today, which I never have been before. He might be a pensioner, but he’s very fit and strong for his age. I can’t help thinking about it though. There’s something not right about . . .’ She was saying too much and should stop.

  ‘Where’s the house?’

  ‘On the back road from here to Penistone. It’s called Crow Edge.’

  ‘Not the creepy-looking house set back from the road, by any chance?’

&n
bsp; ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘So you now think it’s haunted too?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ said Connie, shaking her head. ‘But I’m not scoffing so hard at the other women who thought they heard something – or someone – embedded in the wall now.’

  *

  Ivanka was looking very pleased with herself when Jimmy returned from his afternoon meeting. She had set on some new cleaners, sacked those old bags Hilda and Sandra and rung back all the people who had left messages complaining that their furnishings had been ruined. Rather cleverly, she thought, she had pretended to be ringing from the insurance department of Diamond Shine and advised them to claim on their household policies. A couple of doddery old farts had gone away to follow her advice, and the rest were going to check with their solicitors. But, for now, at least the problem had gone away.

  Then Jimmy came in with a face like a beetroot with a blood pressure problem.

  ‘Mrs Blige,’ he spat. ‘Sheila Blige. Another bloody person from another bloody company that doesn’t exist.’

  ‘What?’ said Ivanka.

  ‘Who spoke to “Mrs Blige” and made that appointment?’ he asked as he threw his briefcase angrily onto a chair. It fell off, opened up and the contents spilled out which did nothing at all to help his mood.

  ‘I did. Why, what is wrong?’

  Jimmy swallowed down his temper and tried to keep calm.

  ‘Did you check to make sure that she really did exist after the hassle I had with Mr Nick Kersov?’

  Ivanka’s brow creased in confusion. ‘Why should I? Blige is not comedy name?’

  ‘Sheila Blige? Are you kidding me?’

  ‘The address was correct.’

  ‘Yes, the address does exist, but there’s no Sheila Blige working at Blige Office Spaces because two hundred and thirty-four Standmain Road is a derelict meat-canning factory.’ Jimmy stormed into his office and grabbed his diary. ‘And in an hour I’m supposed to be seeing, let me see now . . . oh yes, Major Robert Soul, aka Major R. Soul. Now what’s the betting that he’s a fake name as well?’