The Caroline Quest: An addictive mystery novel Read online

  They were there because Lovells was holding an auction sale of someone’s art collection. I also remembered how he had written a funny letter about it which Mom had read, straight-faced, before tossing it across to me. But of that letter or of others he had written, nothing remained.

  I’d forgotten Steve, but remembered now that he had figured quite a lot in Jim’s letters of the time. He’d worked at Lovells too, and now that I thought about it, I seemed to recall accounts of a holiday the two of them had spent in Europe. Hadn’t they gone skiing together? And to Italy to look at art treasures? He had the kind of looks that I liked, I decided, as I studied the photograph — unlike those of the subject of that other picture I had found in my mother’s desk. Thinnish face, dark hair, nice smile. Ten years older now, of course — thirty-threeish, perhaps. Yes, an attractive man was Steve; but Steve who? Had Jim ever mentioned his last name? If he had, I couldn’t bring it to mind.

  It was all such a long time ago, but at least it was one more tenuous link. And then and there I made another snap decision. Why bother to phone Lovells first, when maybe I wouldn’t get beyond the telephone operator? To hell with wasting time with intermediaries. I would just go.

  Back at the Bower Street studio, the pall of gloom that hung over the set told its own story. The soap’s days were numbered. I felt sorry for the other members of the cast, who were worried about where the next job was coming from — but for myself, the parting of the ways couldn’t have come at a better time.

  I had to go back to New York to see to a few business matters, like signing various papers connected with my mother’s will and putting the apartment on the market. I did a little shopping (something told me that spring in England might, for all that Robert Browning said about it, be somewhat chillier than Los Angeles), and I met Lilian for lunch, mainly to ask her advice regarding London hotels.

  There was only one worth patronising, she told me. You could keep your Hiltons, ignore your Dorchesters and Savoys.

  ‘You have to stay at Quentins! It’s so cute and comfortable and you’ll be looked after beautifully. Frank and I would never go anywhere else. Mind you, it’s not cheap — but then you’ve no need to worry about that.’

  ‘Is it somewhere central?’

  ‘Oh, sure! Right off Piccadilly. You’ll adore it. Wait I have the phone number in my purse. You can call them right now.’

  I took the card she produced but declined the use of her mobile phone. I’d do it from home. I said. I needed to contact the airline office first.

  For some reason that I could not explain to myself, I had said not one word to Lilian about the cause of my sudden desire to go to London. It was as if I hardly dared mention the possibility of finding Jim’s child in case I discovered that there was no child and no Caroline Bethany that the whole thing was some pointless hoax, no more than a dream that would dissolve and disappear in the light of day. It meant too much to me. Still, it seemed that Lilian approved of my actions.

  ‘I’m glad you’re taking this trip,’ she said, ‘though I do wish you could find a friend to go with you. Isn’t there anyone in the show who’d keep you company?’

  ‘No. And anyway - ’

  ‘I’d come myself if it weren’t for the fact that Frank’s booked a cruise. I adore London, especially in the spring — though do take some warm clothes, dear. Maybe Frank could postpone our trip and then I could - ’

  ‘No, really, Lilian,’ I said hastily, ‘it’s sweet of you even to think of it, but you mustn’t dream of such a thing. I really don’t mind going on my own. There’s so much I want to see and do.’

  ‘Well - ’ Lilian still looked dubious. ‘I guess it’ll do you good to get away.’

  She insisted on driving me to Kennedy the next morning. We didn’t talk much — or at least, I didn’t talk, since Lilian herself had much to say about a production of All My Sons she and Frank had seen on Broadway the night before, particularly the actress who played the mother and was, in real life, having an affair with ‘that simply divine English actor — the one who won all those awards’.

  ‘My dear, she must be all of fifteen years older than he is! It seems almost obscene.’

  I made suitable noises, put in the odd meaningless word. It was all Lilian wanted and I am sure she didn’t notice my abstraction; the truth was that so wrapped up was I in thoughts of the search for Caroline and her child I could think of nothing else. In fact, my excited anticipation was growing with every second and once on the aeroplane I found myself unable to concentrate on reading or the movie that in any case turned out to be one that I’d already seen. A Wall Street trader in futures had the seat next to mine and did his best to engage me in conversation, but I could summon no interest in him either, and eventually he gave up the struggle and busied himself with his laptop while I stared out at the blue, blue sky above the clouds and tried to make plans, knowing even as I did so that it was a useless occupation. The entire enterprise was one huge question mark. I would have to take everything a step at a time.

  Three

  Quentins didn’t look particularly impressive on the outside; it was just a big London house with steps up from the street, a shiny brass balustrade on each side. Once inside, however, I knew at once that Lilian had been right in recommending it so highly. There seemed an air of unobtrusive, efficient opulence about it, a warm, luxurious elegance, like the best of country houses in the heart of London.

  A beautifully proportioned staircase swept upwards from the ground floor, but I was taken aloft in a cute little gilt elevator as far as the third, after which I had to ascend a few stairs that were dark and crooked and delightfully Dickensian. You would have found nothing like them in your Sheratons or Hiltons, nor was my odd-shaped room under the caves like any other I had ever seen. I thought no worse of it for that, however. To me it all added to the delightfully olde English atmosphere which was clearly Quentins’ speciality. I loved the trellised wallpaper, the flower paintings on the wall and the antique bureau in my room, and thrilled to the panorama of rooftops and river that was revealed the morning after my arrival when I drew the drapes aside. The combination of excitement and jet lag meant that I’d hardly slept at all, but the adrenalin was pumping and I couldn’t wait to get on with the day.

  It had been dark when I arrived. Now London was laid before me — or at least, part of it was. On my way from the airport any ideas I might have cherished about it being easy to find Caroline in such a small country quickly flew out the window. I should have remembered from my previous school trip that the place was seething with people, crammed with houses and cars, and that London itself seemed to go on for ever. Still, I wasn’t despondent.

  The sun that was shining seemed a little diffident and the sidewalks glistened with the rain that had fallen during the night, so I thought it prudent to wear jeans, sweater and Burberry when I set out for Lovells. But before I ventured out I asked directions from the girl at the reception desk, who was, I discovered, the very same person who had spoken to me in New York when I’d booked the room. She was about my age, name of Sue, pretty as a picture and eager to help. My spirits were high as I swung along the shiny street where daffodils and tulips shouted at me from window boxes and the whole world looked newly washed. I felt quite certain, suddenly, that everything was going my way, a feeling helped along by the fact that Lovells and the hotel, quite by chance, proved to be in the same area, not very far from St James’s Palace — a happy coincidence that seemed to augur well.

  I found Lovells without too much trouble, though the entrance was so unimpressive that I walked right on past it and was forced to retrace my steps. Inside, I gained quite a different impression — something I ought to be getting used to. I told myself, remembering my reaction to Quentins. Apparently houses in England made a speciality of being bigger on the inside than on the outside.

  There was, I could see from various notices, a sale that day and the atmosphere was one of tightly controlled activity. Signs directed p
eople to auction rooms somewhere to the right of the entrance hall, and already there was a considerable stream of people coming in from the street. Meanwhile, men in overalls were carrying pieces of furniture in another direction and young men strode purposefully around with files and clipboards.

  There was a large reception area to the left, rather like a left-luggage office, except that it contained china and pictures and ancient pieces of furniture instead of suitcases. I waited in line and eventually it was my turn to speak to the girl behind the counter. She was younger than I was and I wasn’t at all surprised when she told me she had never heard of Jim. Was there anyone still working there, I asked her, who had been part of the Fine Art department ten years earlier when my brother was also there?

  She chewed a thumb nail and twiddled a curl.

  ‘Ten years ago?’ she repeated incredulously, as if I were asking for intimate knowledge of the early Palaeolithic age.

  ‘Surely there’s someone?’ I urged.

  ‘Well’ She glanced over her shoulder in a hunted kind of way. ‘Maybe Mr Higginson. He’s kind of - ’ She seemed to search her vocabulary for the right word. ‘Old,’ she finished, a little lamely.

  ‘Could I see him?’

  ‘Well’ She chewed her lip. ‘He was around just now, but he’s kind of important. I expect he’s busy.’

  ‘I don’t mind waiting.’ This statement did nothing to remove the worried look from her face. ‘Meantime,’ I went on, ‘can you tell me if you have a Caroline Bethany working here?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Well, maybe - ’ I dove into my purse for the photograph, suddenly remembering it. ‘Maybe you know this man. His name is Steve.’

  She took the picture from me, shook her head with the corners of her mouth pulled down, and was about to return it when she suddenly changed her mind and took another look.

  ‘Hang on a mo,’ she said. ‘Maybe I do know him.’ She looked up at me with a quick grin that made her look much prettier. ‘Not bad, is he?’

  Not bad at all, I thought as indeed I had thought ever since I had discovered the photograph.

  ‘That was taken roughly ten years ago,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen him. Yes, I’m sure he’s the one. He doesn’t work here, but he comes to the sales quite often. He’s a dealer. Hey, Viv.’ She turned round to summon another girl who was crouched down in the far reaches of the reception area peering at the underside of a table. ‘Have you got a moment? Come and look at this photo. Isn’t it that chap from Richmond who bought the Queen Anne chairs last week?’

  Viv, once she had straightened up, proved to be a more on-the-ball person altogether, several years older than the first girl and considerably more intelligent. I hastily outlined the situation, keeping to the bare essentials. My brother had worked for the company during the late eighties, I told her, but had died in an accident in 1990. Now I was in England I was anxious to trace his closest friend.

  ‘I’m pretty sure that’s the man who bought the chairs,’ Viv said, having given the photograph her consideration. ‘Ten years on? Thirty-something? Yes, I’ll stick my neck out and say that’s him.’

  ‘You have his name and address?’

  ‘They must be on file. Tracey, could you see to it? I must get into the auction room.’

  Tracey retired from view into an inner office and, hopes rising, I waited joined, at length, by a small man in a long overcoat staggering under the weight of a large cardboard carton in which, he told me, he was carrying a collection of Goss china that was worth a small fortune.

  ‘My old dad would have been amazed,’ he confided to me once he had set the carton down. ‘Common as dirt when he bought it, Goss china was, but worth a mint now, so they tell me.’

  I made congratulatory noises, not knowing (or, I have to admit, caring) the remotest thing about Goss china. I was awaiting Tracey’s reappearance far loo urgently to pay much attention to him. Tracey, however, seemed unaccountably delayed.

  A tall, thin man with rimless eyeglasses and an air of authority strode past, checked at the sight of me and the Goss china gentleman, and came over to us.

  ‘Is there no one to attend to you?’ he asked. ‘There should be a girl - ’

  ‘She’s finding some information for me,’ I explained. ‘An address.’

  ‘Oh?’ He looked disapproving, as if this was no part of her duties, and I smiled at him placatingly without any visible thawing on his part. He had a little, pursed mouth under a sharp nose and a way of lifting his head to peer through the bottom half of his eyeglasses which gave him an unpleasantly disdainful expression. It occurred to me suddenly that since he was past the first flush of youth, he could conceivably have been with the firm in Jim’s time might even be the elderly Mr Higginson that Tracey had referred to. I ignored the disdain and Hashed him my very best Mary Lou McAllister smile.

  ‘I wonder,’ I said, ‘if there’s any chance that you could help me? My name is Crozier Holly Crozier. Jim, my brother, used to work here. Maybe you remember him?’

  ‘Ah!’ I had all his attention now. His eyes, seen through the bottom half of his eyeglasses, were very large and very pale and were staring at me with a sudden sharpening of interest.

  ‘You do remember him!’ I said excitedly.

  ‘Of course.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘How could I ever forget him, Miss Crozier? He was in my department and, I may say, he was the first and last American we have ever employed at Lovells.’

  ‘Oh? Why do you say that?’

  He shrugged his shoulders, still with that same superior smile on his face. ‘He was a forthright young man, as I recall. You Americans rather pride yourself on that, of course. No, your brother had no time at all for what one might call the niceties. He knew his job, I have to admit, though perhaps not so well as he thought. His problem was a lack of diplomacy. He rubbed people up the wrong way. Still - ’ Suddenly he seemed to collect himself, to remember that Jim had met an early death. ‘It was a very sad accident, Miss Crozier. A tragic business.’

  ‘It sure was.’ I managed to control my anger at the way he spoke of Jim, though it hardly endeared the man to me and I certainly didn’t recognise his description of my brother. Apart from his arguments with Mom, he had been the most equable, easy-going of characters, with not an enemy in the world.

  I turned to Tracey, who had returned from the inner office and was giving Mr Higginson a small, scared smile as she approached me.

  ‘Just finding an address, Mr Higginson,’ she whispered breathlessly, clearly scared to death of the man. She handed me the paper before turning to deal with the Goss china man. On it she had written: ‘Steve Maitland, 2 Mermaid Passage, Richmond, Surrey.’

  ‘This man,’ I said, holding the paper towards Mr Higginson. ‘I believe he was a friend of my brother’s. Did you know him, too?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said again. He took the paper and looked at it with a a kind of amused sneer, his eyeglasses glinting in the light.

  ‘Young Mr Maitland!’ He handed it back to me. ‘Yes, I seem to remember that he and your brother were friends. He left us some years ago to open his own business, the foolish fellow! Like all the young, he wouldn’t be advised by those who knew better. On his beam ends now, of course.’

  ‘Did you also know Caroline Bethany? She was a friend, too.’

  I could have sworn that the name rang a bell with him. There was a sudden flicker in those pale eyes, but even so he shook his head.

  ‘My dear young woman, I had no knowledge of your brother’s private life, nor did I want it. I’m sure he had many friends. From what I remember, he and Mr. Maitland enjoyed — er — what one might call an active social life. Rather too active, I would venture to say.’

  I decided to ignore that, too, but the way he spoke made my hackles rise.

  ‘Caroline Bethany didn’t work here, then?’

  ‘Not to the best of my knowledge. Of course, I can’t
be expected to remember everyone. People come and go.’

  ‘If you do happen to remember her, you could always contact me at my hotel. Look, I’ll write the name down.’ I delved into my purse and found a card engraved with my name. Hastily I scribbled ‘Quentins Hotel’ on it and handed it to him. He took it absently, his attention now attracted by Tracey who appeared to be having some trouble with the Goss china gentleman.

  ‘Just leave it, sir,’ Mr Higginson said, his tone somehow managing to express exasperation with both parties involved. ‘The girl is no more than a receptionist.’

  I couldn’t remember when I had taken such a dislike to anyone. Tracey might not be the brightest girl in the world, but nothing could excuse the dismissive scorn in his voice.

  ‘Goodbye, Tracey,’ I said. ‘Thanks so much for your help. You were great.’

  I turned abruptly towards the door, pointedly avoiding any such farewell to Mr Higginson, but had gone no more than a few steps when I heard his voice calling my name.

  ‘Yes?’ I turned to face him.

  ‘Miss Crozier He was smiling at me now, but it was a salesman’s smile, a politician’s smile. His eyes glinted as coldly as ever. ‘May I ask your purpose in coming here and asking all these questions? If I’m to help you at all, I think I ought to know.’

  ‘Do you?’ I had given up any attempt to be other than icily cold towards him. ‘I can’t honestly see why. Anyway, I thought you said you weren’t able to help me.’

  ‘I don’t think I can, but clearly you consider there might be a chance I could remember something. Otherwise, why give me the name of your hotel?’

  I thought this over. He had a point, but somehow I felt a great reluctance to confide in him about Caroline’s pregnancy. Or about anything, come to that. I felt quite sure that anything I said would somehow be turned against Jim.

  ‘I — just want to meet the people who were Jim’s friends,’ I said. ‘That’s not unreasonable, is it?’