The Caroline Quest: An addictive mystery novel Read online

  ‘Now,’ I said once she had left us. ‘Give! What was it you were going to tell me over tea?’

  He drew a long breath.

  ‘Rose Quigley,’ he said. ‘If she’s Rupert Craven’s sister, then she must be Piers Craven’s sister, too. He’s an artist. Of a kind.’

  ‘Famous?’

  ‘More infamous, I’d say.’

  ‘For what?’

  He hesitated for a moment or two, his expression troubled. ‘Go on’ I begged him. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’

  ‘Well, then - ’ But still he hesitated.

  ‘Steve!’

  ‘I suppose you ought to be forewarned before you see Rose. Just remember, nothing was proved.’

  ‘Steve,’ I said again, on the brink of fury.

  ‘All right. I’ll tell you. There are those who think that Piers Craven could be guilty of murder.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘And he knew Jim.’ I said softly. ‘He must have done.’

  ‘And Caroline,’ Steve said. ‘But Holly, we’d be daft to jump to conclusions. He was tried and acquitted for a crime that took place long after Jim died. There was never the slightest suspicion - ’

  ‘But they moved in the same circles,’ I said. ‘They inhabited the same small world.’ When Steve said nothing, I looked at him searchingly. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking, Steve. Do you think he was guilty?’

  Still he hesitated for a moment.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last, ‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’

  Eight

  I said nothing, for the tea-shop lady had emerged from the kitchen with the tea and scones. In a fever of impatience I waited for her to set out the cups and plates, the butter and jam and cream, the milk and sugar, and the moment she had gone I leant forward anxiously.

  ‘You mean you think he’s guilty of the murder he was charged with?’ I asked him. ‘Or do you mean Jim’s?’

  ‘No, no - ’

  ‘But you think he would be capable of it?’

  ‘To be honest, I’d believe him capable of almost anything, up to and including necrophilia, but whether he was actually guilty as charged in this instance is another matter.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘It’s a pretty sordid story,’ he warned me. ‘Well, let’s face it anything connected with Piers Craven is almost bound to be. He’s the complete opposite of Rupert. Rupert bends over backwards to appear suave and worldly-wise, the creme de la creme of the establishment, but Piers is a kind of enfant terrible of the art world. Well, let’s say he was. He’s a bit beyond the enfant stage now.’ He was silent for a moment as he poured the tea, as if taking time to pick his words. ‘He’s a gifted artist, no doubt about it. A complete original. He won the Turner Prize when he was quite young and was hailed as a kind of prophet of modern art. People put up with his foul language and loutish ways because he was glib and anarchic and funny, and there was a time, about seven or eight years ago, when he was the darling of television chat shows. Any controversial topic connected with art of any kind, and you could be sure of Piers Craven being wheeled out to give his opinion on it. Not any more, though.’

  He handed me a cup of tea and proffered the sugar, which I declined with a shake of the head.

  ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Booze happened. And drugs. In the beginning he was outrageous but, as I’ve said, amusing. Then he became more outrageous and less amusing, then finally the outrageousness became offensive and abusive and he wasn’t amusing at all, just extremely embarrassing. There was the odd talk show when he was completely out of his head, and now, I gather, there isn’t a TV company who wants to know. He made a few much-publicised attempts to dry out, but he wasn’t news any more until suddenly there was a scandal that involved under-age kids of both sexes. The tabloids had a field day, as you can imagine. Even if one discounts a proportion of the dirt they uncovered, there’s no doubt that Piers Craven is bad news in any language. He must have been a terrible headache to poor, respectable Rupert. Very bad for that well-bred, upper-class image!’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘He went to prison for a while for drug dealing — not for very long, in the end. Six months, I think it was. And when he came out he maintained he was a changed character. He was certainly a lot quieter, less in your face all the time. In fact, he disappeared from the London scene altogether and the next thing I heard, he’d founded a kind of commune somewhere on a Welsh hillside — a community of like-minded artists, apparently, whatever that means. Like-minded perverts, I suspect. They live in a decrepit old farmhouse, miles from anywhere, and God knows what goes on there. Certainly he hasn’t produced any more paintings worth having. It’s as if he’s burnt out somehow — as if he peaked too early. You can’t help wondering about their background, can you? Piers and Rupert — both so different but both screwed up in their own way. And now Rose.’

  ‘We don’t know that she’s screwed up.’

  ‘No. Something tells me it would be safe to bet on it, though.’

  ‘I’m determined to go with an open mind. But Steve, what about this murder? The one you mentioned in connection with Piers?’

  ‘Alleged murder,’ Steve corrected me. ‘I can’t really remember all the ins and outs, but there was some sort of rave-up at the commune and a young girl died. A respectable girl, apparently. Yes, that was it — she wasn’t really part of the commune, but someone had met her in the local pub and invited her to a party. The cause of death was said to be a drug overdose plus too much alcohol, and though there wasn’t any suspicion of foul play, exactly, Piers was the owner of the house and it was his party. He was very severely reprimanded by the judge.’

  ‘But you think there was more to it than that?’

  Steve shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The father of the girl tried to say so and was paid a fantastic amount for the story by one of the Sunday papers, but I was inclined at the time to give Piers the benefit of the doubt. It goes against the grain to make excuses for the bastard in fact, I’d go so far as to say I never in my life took such a dislike to anyone. Even so, it’s hard enough keeping track of teenagers at any kind of party, never mind the sort of free-for-all that this one must have been. It seemed that an accidental overdose was the most likely explanation. But then another man died.’

  ‘What? How? Another overdose?’

  ‘No. He was - ’ He pulled himself up suddenly as if something had just occurred to him.

  ‘What is it, Steve?’

  ‘He — he was one of the artists who lived in the commune with Piers.’ He spoke slowly, almost unwillingly. ‘He was quite a young chap, I believe. Piers and all the others swore it was an accident, but this guy had a girlfriend and she wasn’t convinced. She went to the police and, as you can imagine, there was more scandal, more newspaper reports, but again, in the end, no conviction. Once more Piers Craven had emerged whiter than white.’

  He still hadn’t told me how this young man had died, but a chilling suspicion had already entered my mind. I could hardly manage to voice my question.

  ‘Steve, was he — was he run down?’

  Steve didn’t answer in words, but he reached out and took my hand as if knowing I would need his support. ‘Oh, my God,’ I whispered.

  ‘D’you know, I’d forgotten. I never connected it. Never thought...’ Steve shook his head as if at his own obtuseness. Then he increased the pressure on my hand. ‘But Holly, it could so easily have been an accident.’

  ‘I know.’ And I did, of course. People were killed in road accidents all the time, every day, every minute of the day, hadn’t I read somewhere? Even so, it was impossible not to brood on the coincidence.

  Other people came into the cafe, a family with three young children, talking, laughing. The owner appeared once more and Steve took the opportunity of paying our bill.

  ‘You haven’t eaten much,’ she said, a note of reproof in her voice. ‘W
as everything all right?’

  ‘Just fine, thanks,’ Steve assured her. ‘The scones are as wonderful as ever, but when it came to the point we weren’t very hungry.’

  I managed to smile at her and say goodbye, but my thoughts were still in turmoil.

  ‘Jim knew Caroline who knew Rose who is Piers Craven’s sister,’ I said, breaking the silence as Steve drove away from the village green, both of us forgetting that we’d had every intention of looking at the church. ‘It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.’

  Steve’s glance was sympathetic but seemed to contain a warning, too.

  ‘Don’t let your imagination run away with you, Holly. There was never any question at the time of Piers being remotely connected to Jim’s death, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t even know if Jim knew him personally, though I admit it’s probable that he did since from what you tell me he was friendly with Rupert. I suppose Caroline might have known him through Rose, but as far as I can remember, Jim died before Piers’s meteoric rise to fame. I’d never heard his name until long afterwards.’

  ‘“Poor Rose”,’ I said, after a moment or two’s silence. ‘That’s what Rupert called her. Why would he have done that?’

  Steve shook his head.

  ‘Heaven knows. I don’t imagine she’s poor in the material sense.’

  I was silent again, my thoughts twisting and turning, getting nowhere, finding nothing but blind alleys. And then it struck me that everywhere I turned, there also was Higginson.

  ‘You know, Steve, Higginson told Rupert about me,’ I said, remembering. ‘Isn’t that the strangest thing? Why would he have done that? When I saw him at Lovells he treated me like I was nothing but a waste of space, so why did he consider my search for Caroline important enough to mention it to Rupert?’

  ‘Perhaps he knew she was Rose’s friend and mentioned it casually.’

  ‘But when I first went to Lovells he told me he’d never heard of Caroline!’

  ‘Maybe you’ll learn more when you see Rose Quigley — hey!’ He jammed on the brakes suddenly and backed a few yards. ‘I nearly forgot to point Fincote Manor out to you. I told you it was around here, didn’t I? Well, there it is, behind all those trees. That’s where your friend lives. It’s a lovely old place.’

  ‘My friend?’ I looked at him in some bewilderment.

  ‘Sir Timothy Crofthouse, Bt.’

  ‘Oh!’ Our present problem had put all thought of that gentleman’s existence out of my mind, but at Steve’s words I looked through the open wrought-iron gates. Although much of the house was hidden by the trees he had mentioned, I could see that it did indeed look very fine. And very old.

  ‘Elizabethan,’ Steve told me. ‘It’s been in the family for a long time. My grandmother took me to a garden party there once, years ago, when I was just a kid.’

  ‘Did you meet Sir Timothy?’

  ‘No. Well, to be honest, I don’t remember. I suppose I could have done. I do remember being expected to smile and say “How do you do?” to what seemed hundreds and hundreds of people, all as old as Methuselah, but the only thing that sticks in my mind is the coconut shy.’

  ‘Why in the world would he have sent flowers to my mother’s funeral?’ I mused, momentarily distracted. It seemed of little importance compared with our other worries, however, and the subject of Sir Timothy was dismissed as Steve continued our journey towards London. For a while neither of us spoke. What Steve was thinking I don’t know, but my thoughts were still circling around Higginson, trying to fit him into the equation in a way that made sense.

  ‘Steve,’ I said, after a while. ‘Aren’t there tests available these days to prove the age of a painting? I was thinking about those watercolours,’ I explained in response to his questioning glance. ‘“Attributed to Augustus Marley”, the catalogue said, but Higginson said he had no doubts.’

  ‘Well, he’s the authority. You heard what Serena said. He may be an unpleasant bastard, but he’s held in high esteem. Sure, there are tests, but they’re very costly and in most cases an auction house relies on the expertise of the man in charge.’

  ‘And if the man in charge is mistaken, or corrupt?’

  ‘Well, that’s why buyers patronise reputable auction houses, like Lovells or Sothebys or Christies. Their integrity is assumed to be beyond doubt.’

  ‘Yet,’ I said after thinking this over, ‘you told me that Jim thought Higginson wasn’t always careful enough. That seems strange, if his reputation stands so high.’

  ‘Well — look, Holly, you know I thought Jim was a hell of a bloke? We were good mates, no doubt about it, but I have to admit that I — everyone, really — thought he was a bit overcautious. And he and Higginson didn’t hit it off, to put it mildly. At the time it didn’t really seem a big issue. I kind of assumed it was all part of the ongoing battle between them. Still - ’ He was silent a moment, chewing his lip. ‘I do see what you’re getting at,’ he said at last. ‘If Jim was seriously concerned about a series of authentications that he thought were badly off beam...’ His voice trailed away and I knew he was taking the possibility seriously.

  ‘Serena said there was big money in it.’

  ‘She wasn’t wrong.’

  ‘But if Higginson ignored his concerns, wouldn’t Jim simply have gone to someone higher up in the firm to voice his suspicions? Surely there was some ultimate authority he could appeal to?’

  ‘Higginson is the ultimate authority when it comes to watercolours, and he’s been with the firm for years. The chairman, Friedman, is no art expert. He’s more an administrator with an excellent knowledge of furniture and as far as he was concerned, Higginson can do no wrong. Couldn’t when I was there, anyway. There are other experts in the firm, of course, but unless they were all of one mind and made some concerted representation to Friedman, I doubt that he’d take any notice. You must appreciate that Higginson is a sort of god in the art world. No one likes him much, but no one questions him.’

  ‘So only Higginson is likely to have known that Jim thought he was wrong about certain things. Wouldn’t Jim have told you if he was seriously worried?’

  Steve thought this over.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘As I’ve said before, I’m no art expert. And anyway - ’ He sighed, sounding unhappy. ‘It’s possible he might have thought I’d been unsympathetic in the past. I did tell him once he should lighten up a bit — not feel that every mistake was his responsibility. I did a conscientious day’s work, often over and above the call of duty, but in my view we weren’t paid enough to carry the can for the bosses. Maybe I underestimated the problem. You have to remember, he was with Caroline then and we weren’t spending so much time together.’ He glanced at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Really sorry.’

  ‘You weren’t to know. If he told Higginson he was wrong about things, it would certainly explain why Higginson disliked him so, wouldn’t it?’ I said.

  Enough to kill him? Have him killed? I didn’t say the words, but I thought them just the same — and I thought of Caroline. If Steve was right, and Jim had told her what he suspected — Steve took one hand off the steering wheel and reached for mine.

  ‘Look, we don’t know anything,’ he said. ‘All this is pure speculation.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I told him. We looked at each other briefly, our smiles strained. ‘But you’ve got to admit,’ I said after a moment, ‘it sure as hell hangs together, doesn’t it?’

  We drove straight back to Richmond where, for the first time, I saw Steve’s apartment above the shop. It was small and cramped and I pretended not to notice when he whisked a shirt and sweater off a chair and threw them into a cupboard. In spite of this I thought it pretty tidy for a bachelor pad and, as I might have expected, it contained a few choice pieces of furniture.

  He checked the answerphone and his e-mail before doing anything else.

  ‘Hope springs eternal,’ he said. ‘I must be the supreme optimist. I alwa
ys arrive home thinking I’ll find some stupendous cash offer awaiting me.’

  This time, as, I suspect, on most others, he was out of luck. The only message was one from his bank asking him to contact the manager as a matter of urgency, which caused him to swear under his breath and run his fingers distractedly through his hair.

  ‘Problems?’ I asked.

  ‘I strongly suspect there are.’ He attempted a laugh, as if making light of them. ‘At intervals I get summoned to the bank so that the manager can tell me that he’s worried about the size of my overdraft. Not nearly so worried as I am, I tell him, but strangely he seems to find this of little comfort. Oh, to hell with him! Let’s have a drink.’

  He fetched a bottle of red wine from the tiny kitchen and poured a generous measure into two exquisite, cut-glass wine glasses.

  ‘Those are lovely,’ I said. ‘Antiques?’

  He nodded, but said no more as he handed me one of them. In spite of his dismissal of the message from the bank, I could see that it had seriously worried him.

  We sat down side by side on a leather sofa and I glanced at him, wondering if it would be tactless to press him to talk about it. He’d devoted himself to my concerns for days. It seemed only fair that I should concentrate on his for a while.

  ‘I suppose you can understand the poor man’s disquiet,’ he said, while I hesitated. ‘The bloody overdraft isn’t exactly getting any bigger, but it’s not getting any smaller either. And now the lease on this property has run out and the landlord is putting up the rent by thirty per cent. I don’t know how I’m going to cope with that.’

  ‘The bank must have had faith in you, to give you an overdraft in the first place.’

  ‘Yeah, well — I somehow get the impression that their faith is running out. Here’s to bank managers,’ he said, raising his glass, making a good attempt to put his financial problems aside. ‘May they all be filled with the milk of human kindness.’