by Annie Dalton
Tansy sat up. ‘That doesn’t make sense. If it’s a fraud case, why would the police be interested in us? We’d just that minute arrived in Austria.’
‘I know. It’s crazy.’
‘But that guy knew where we were staying,’ Tansy said. ‘I mean, the only people who knew we were in Innsbruck were Isadora and Liam, oh plus Isadora’s ditzy friend.’
‘Herr Kirchmann knew,’ Anna admitted. ‘I emailed him on the plane.’ She switched off her lamp.
Tansy shifted in her bunk.
‘Do you think David Fischer was right and that story Herr Kirchmann tells everyone about his dad is a lie?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’ This was just one of many things she’d have liked to ask Clara.
‘Do you think Thomas Kirchmann believes it though?’
‘He made me believe it,’ Anna said.
Yet her father had written to Clara claiming that Kirchmann knew the whereabouts of the Vermeer. An art-lover, a hero’s son, befriender of Afghani taxi drivers and Father Christmassy provider of afternoon teas … Was Thomas Kirchmann maybe just a bit too good to be true? Anna wondered.
‘I’m supposed to be meeting him on Wednesday,’ she remembered.
‘You’re not still going? Not after Clara?’
‘Not sure. I’m still thinking about that.’ Anna said.
Overtired from a day that had started with church bells in Innsbruck and was ending in a bunk on the Orient Express, via the thrilling silliness of being rescued by a notorious gangland boss, she was experiencing a sense of anti-climax, followed by her usual tedious feelings of failure and shame.
I was in Innsbruck less than 24 hours, she thought, I had one conversation with Clara Brunner and just hours later she was taken in for questioning on some spurious charge. I’m like David Fischer’s Vermeer. ‘The trouble that painting has caused, I could almost think the artist had cursed it,’ Clara had said last night.
Now they were hurtling through the night at vast expense, but no nearer to solving the mystery. If Anna had been at home, these thoughts would inevitably have driven her to her murder cupboard. But she was trapped in a claustrophobic bunk bed, listening to her friend’s soft breathing.
And furtive rustling, she realized.
The seductive scent of chocolate pralines unfurled in the dark. It seemed that Tansy had asked their steward for more than just mineral water.
‘Tansy Lavelle,’ Anna hissed. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
She heard Tansy’s unrepentant giggle. ‘I know I’m evil, but I’ll probably never have another chance to lie in bed on the Orient Express eating gorgeous chocolates again.’
‘Throw me one down,’ Anna said, ‘and I promise not to tell.’
‘Have two,’ Tansy offered. ‘That steward gave me loads. Plus, what happens on the Orient Express stays on the Orient Express, right?’
THIRTEEN
‘Can’t we just have breakfast in here?’ Anna had woken with a mild hangover, and the thought of lively morning chatter made her want to barricade herself in their cabin.
‘You can if you like.’ Tansy called from the tiny bathroom.
Unfairly, Tansy didn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects from all the free champagne. Anna reluctantly followed her to the dining car and ordered coffee, croissants and fresh fruits. The coffee helped a little. Tansy wandered away to chat with the elderly colonels. Anna watched the French countryside, with its donkeys and vineyards and sleepy, little villages rolling by, secretly counting down the minutes till she could see Jake.
‘I’ve seen her!’ Tansy was back, breathless with excitement.
Anna gave her a blank stare. ‘Seen who?’
‘The countess. She’s – you have to see her.’
‘Why?’
They were travelling more slowly now as they passed through the suburbs of Paris. Anna wanted to go back and finish her packing before they disembarked. Tansy looked astonished.
‘Why do you have to see her? Because she’s amazing! Plus, you might never ever see another real live countess!’
Anna followed her wearily to the colonels’ table. Everyone exchanged polite pleasantries, then Tansy gave Anna a sharp dig in the ribs.
‘That’s her, two tables down, look, with the amazing hair.’
Tansy’s countess was eighty years old and Anna had to admit she was a vision. Her pure white hair fell silkily past the shoulders of an exotically-patterned, buttercup-yellow garment that seemed part kimono, part dressing gown. Diamonds flashed in her ears and on her knobbly fingers. Her bony old face was alight with humour and mischief, as she read something out to her male companion from her copy of Le Parisienne, peering through the kitschiest pair of spectacles Anna had ever seen.
‘I bet she’s had a lover, or twelve,’ Tansy murmured as they made their way back to their cabin. ‘Don’t you think she’d get on with Isadora?’
‘I think she actually is Isadora,’ Anna said. ‘In an alternate reality.’
‘I just thought she was like, the Spirit of the Orient Express,’ Tansy said. ‘Aren’t you glad you saw her?’
Anna laughed. ‘Yes, Tansy, I’m glad I saw her.’
‘And you’re glad you ate chocolate pralines in the dark, aren’t you,’ Tansy said earnestly, ‘instead of lying awake telling yourself how useless you are? I bet you slept like a baby?’
Anna felt her cheeks burn. ‘Am I that obviously neurotic?’
Tansy gave her a brief hug. ‘No, but you’re my friend and I feel stuff.’ She pulled a face. ‘That’s one good thing I’ve inherited from my old man.’
Twenty minutes later, they were descending from their coach into the bustling, wonderfully ornate, Gare de Lyons. They began to make their way through the crowds. Suddenly, Anna saw him on the platform; his arms filled with dusky, antique pink roses. Jake saw her at the same moment and next minute he was hugging both her and Tansy, until Tansy squeaked, ‘Eek, thorns!’ and he quickly let them go.
‘Did you buy up every rose in Paris?’ Tansy demanded laughing.
‘Hey, how often do you get to meet two, beautiful women off the Orient Express?’ he said solemnly. ‘You got to do it right. Sorry about the thorns though!’
Anna couldn’t bear to let go of his hand, couldn’t stop looking at him.
‘It’s so good to see you.’
‘And you, darlin’,’ he said, ‘and I am so glad you’re both OK.’ He looked tired, but as always utterly calm. She saw the fair glints in his hair, the here-and-gone-again smile which revealed the tiny chip in his front tooth. He smelled of clean cotton and crushed roses. He led them through the station under ornate stone arches. The noise was tremendous, the air full of echoing tannoys, departing trains, a babble of French, all ricocheting off the high glass and iron roof.
‘We’re getting a cab to the Gare du Nord,’ he told them, raising his voice so they could hear. ‘We’ll go back to Oxford, then we’ll sit down and try to figure out what the hell is going on.’
Next day, they all met up at Isadora’s. Anna had texted their friend from the Eurostar, to let her know that she and Tansy had come back early. Isadora had replied, inviting them to bring Jake over for Sunday lunch.
‘You can pick up Bonnie then. Just go back to Park Town and have some time with Jake.’
When Isadora led them through into the kitchen, Bonnie let out one of her rare excited barks and flung herself down at their feet, uttering the little moans and groans which Anna now understood to be shameless solicitations to be stroked.
‘Young lady,’ Jake teased her, as he rubbed her belly in the way she adored. ‘Where is your decorum?’
‘Bet you don’t say that to Anna!’ Tansy was perched in the small wickerwork chair, holding Hero on her lap. She’d been here a while, Anna thought. Isadora’s books and papers had already been cleared away and the table was laid with glasses and cutlery for their lunch.
Jake looked up from Bonnie. ‘Can I smell roasting chicken?’
<
br /> ‘You can,’ Isadora said, ‘and I’m making an apple pie though I know you don’t eat pudding, Jake.’ She went back to peeling a large, Bramley apple, the shiny green skin falling in a single obedient curl before her knife. ‘Tansy’s been telling me about your adventures,’ she shot at Anna. ‘I’m so cross with you for going on the Orient Express without me! I’ve never ever been.’ But Isadora had a smile in her voice so Anna knew she wasn’t seriously cross.
Tansy’s phone pinged. She glanced at her screen and looked furious.
‘If Frankie refers to me as a chip off the old block one more time I’ll – I’ll bloody get a contract taken out on him, seriously I will!’
‘Why are you a chip off the old block?’ Anna asked puzzled. ‘Oh, because we had to leave Austria in a hurry?’
Tansy was still scowling at her phone.
‘I’m nothing like him.’
‘Except for “feeling stuff”,’ Anna reminded her. ‘Plus, you’ve got to admit we’d have been totally stuck without his help.’
‘I know. But I don’t have to like it,’ Tansy said fiercely, then she flashed Anna a mischievous grin. ‘It was brilliant fun though, wasn’t it?’
‘Ok,’ Jake said, ‘so while our lunch is cooking, how about you guys give me some help reconstructing events?’ He got out a lined jotter and pen.
‘Well, presumably it starts with finding poor Lili after our murder mystery weekend.’ Isadora dropped a handful of apple peels into her compost bin.
‘David Fischer would disagree,’ Anna said. ‘For him everything went back to the Vermeer.’
‘This is getting to be too much of a tradition,’ Tansy said abruptly. ‘It’s like those death dinners.’
‘What on earth is a death dinner, darling?’ Isadora went to her fridge and took out a chilled wodge of short-crust pastry wrapped in cling-film.
‘When a character dies in a long-running TV series, all the actors and the crew hold a death dinner in his honour. This feels like that.’
‘But nobody died this time,’ Isadora objected. ‘Yes, the police took Clara away, but for all you know she’s already been allowed home.’
Tansy still looked mutinous, but Anna suspected she was mostly upset because of her dad.
‘Let’s start with Lili,’ Jake said. ‘We can broaden it out later.’
He began to create a simple spidergram on his pad, starting in the centre with finding Lili’s body, then connecting each subsequent event from that central hub: Anna’s return to her father’s auction house where she’d first heard of the Vermeer; David Fischer’s accusations against her father; the visit to the Wennekes Institute; finding proof that David and Lili were allies; their conversation with Fischer at Dog-Eared Adventures; photographic evidence that Jewish artworks, supposedly under Michael Kirchmann’s protection, had been displayed in Nazi homes; David’s death in his blazing bookshop; the visit to Tallis, who backed-up David’s claim that stolen paintings had been taken as bribes to help at least one Russian defector get to the West; the Scott-Nevilles, who had apparently wielded some mysterious influence over Charles Hopkins and possibly over her father, but who Thomas Kirchmann denied doing business with.
Anna stood watching Jake’s hand move across the pad, his face in profile, feeling the quiet strength coming from him. She remembered him waiting on the platform, his arms full of roses. Suppose she and Jake had never met? Suppose she’d never brought Bonnie back from the rescue shelter? How different, how barren, would her life be now? As if reading her thoughts, Jake reached up, took her hand and quickly kissed the inside of her wrist.
‘What else?’
‘Restitution,’ she said, ‘Links with the Wennekes Institute and with Hempels. Julian helped Clara with restitution. Lili worked in the same field.’
‘I’m making gravy,’ Isadora said rather sternly. ‘Lunch is almost ready.’
Jake obediently put his pad away.
‘Yes, Ma’am. Let me help bring the dishes.’
They sat around the table, eating Isadora’s roast chicken, with perfect roast potatoes (crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy within) and minted carrots and peas. Tansy reminisced happily about the splendours of the Orient Express and their sighting of a real, live Countess.
‘Countess of where, I wonder,’ Isadora mused.
Everyone except Jake had apple pie, then Tansy made coffee and Jake brought out his jotter and started on a fresh page. At the top, he wrote in thick capitals. SUSPECTS.
Isadora stirred sugar into her coffee.
‘Can I ask, what you intend to do with all this? Are you planning to take your suspicions to the police?’
Her voice was so sharp that Anna and Tansy stared at her.
‘Because, before you take that step,’ Isadora went on, ‘I think we need to consider that there may be alternative explanations for absolutely everything that’s happened.’
‘You seriously think—’ Tansy started. Anna thought of the stony-faced man with the Polizei. She thought of the shock and fear written on Clara’s face and her own terror as they fled Innsbruck.
‘Do you think we’re making all this up?’ Anna was as astonished as if Isadora had slapped her.
‘No, darling girl, I’m not saying that. I just want us all to stop and think, instead of react. What I really want is to stop any more people getting hurt.’
‘Amen to that,’ Jake said. ‘But—’
‘For instance, it could be that Lili’s murder had nothing to do with David and the Vermeer. Her husband could have paid someone to have her killed. It happens.’
‘Yes,’ Tansy said, ‘but Isadora—’
‘And the book shop fire,’ Isadora continued imperturbably, as if she was deconstructing some hapless student’s essay. ‘You saw what a death trap it was, Anna. I very much doubt it was up to code.’
‘But we saw Clara being taken away,’ Tansy said. ‘We heard the man say Anna’s name!’
‘Darling, you spoke with Clara for an hour or less. I know you liked her, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t guilty of something! The police could have read her diary, realized she’d had a meeting with an Anna Hopkins and just wanted to …’
‘… eliminate me from their inquiries?’ Anna suggested icily.
‘Well, yes,’ Isadora said. ‘It’s a possibility.’
‘What about Tallis?’ Jake asked. ‘He as good as admitted that the Vermeer had been used to bribe a British agent to assure someone’s safe passage to the West.’
Isadora’s face darkened. ‘Tallis, as I should know, is a compulsive game player. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could spit.’
‘But Clara knew about the painting.’ Anna was trying to keep her temper.
‘I’m not disbelieving you, Anna, please don’t think that. But it seems to me that this Vermeer has almost gone into the realms of folk lore or urban legends. No-one’s seen it, but everyone knows somebody’s brother who has. And we all know what happens when people rush in making false allegations.’
Isadora didn’t so much as glance at Anna but Anna felt exactly as if she had. Suddenly all the anger went out of her.
‘Yes,’ she said very quietly. ‘Of course, you’re right.’
‘I just want to remind you that there’s always another narrative, that we need to be cautious,’ Isadora said. ‘I loathe playing devil’s advocate, but you have all become very precious to me and I don’t want any more harm to come to you.’
Jake just listened, doodling abstractedly on his pad. Tansy shifted in her chair. She let out a sigh.
‘I suppose I might have got a bit carried away, wanting an adventure, instead of, you know, confronting my actual life like a grownup.’
Anna thought of all those unopened prospectuses on her desk. Had she also been afraid to be a proper grownup? Had she simply switched from pursuing justice for her family, to an equally obsessive search for some elusive, new, holy grail? Was this yet another of those dead-end strategies that she’d devised to protect hersel
f from real life?
She drank the last of her coffee. Keeping her tone light, she asked Isadora, ‘So have you heard any more from Valentin? Is he still badgering you to go to Prague?’
That night, Anna was curled up on the small sofa in her kitchen, a small pile of prospectuses at her feet. She had leafed through a couple, but wasn’t really taking anything in. James Bay was on her stereo. Bonnie was sound asleep in her basket, snowy paws twitching as she raced through the rabbit-filled fields of her dreams. The room held a pleasant scorch of fresh ironing, as Jake finished the last of his shirts.
‘I wish I didn’t have to go to Israel,’ he said soberly. ‘Not with everything that’s been happening.’
‘Let’s not talk about it now,’ she said. ‘We’ve only got a few hours before you leave.’
Jake came to sit beside her and Anna moved into his arms.
‘Have you heard any more from your biological dad?’
‘No,’ she told him, resting against his chest, feeling his heart beat, ‘I think he’s leaving me to set the pace, but Tim said he’s happy that I got back in touch.’
‘You got a lot going on, darlin’,’ Jake said.
‘You too,’ she said.
‘Me?’ he said, ‘No. A lot of conference rooms and airports, that’s what I got.’
‘It’s getting to you, isn’t it?’
‘It seems to be lately,’ he agreed. ‘Technically, I’ve left the military. Technically, I’m a free agent now, yet I’m still working for the same kind of people that I’ve always hated. Sorry,’ he added quickly. ‘I’m not much fun when I’m tired.’
‘I don’t need you to be fun,’ she said. ‘Just real will do me.’
He kissed her.
‘Thank you. Good to know. Remember that guy I met in Paris, who’s setting up a charity? Man, he really loves what he does. I can’t help wondering how it would feel to get up in the morning and feel genuinely useful. I was wondering if I could set up as some kind of security consultant, something where I could stay in one place, instead of living out of a suitcase.’
