‘Yes, it would be.’
‘That’s what antiquities do for me, Frannie. Do they do it for you?’
‘You mean you can really read the past in them?’
His expressive blue eyes widened. ‘Unfortunately not. I wish I was psychic, then maybe I could. There are people who can. Or so they claim. You should talk to Penrose, he knows about these things.’
‘Penrose?’ she said, surprised.
He rolled his eyes in a rather sceptical affirmation. ‘But I’ll tell you what I think: we humans can remember everything that’s ever happened to us, everything we’ve ever seen and done. A lot of it we can’t access unless we go under hypnosis. It’s there, but it’s buried. I believe objects and places remember things too; their atoms, their subatomic particles, whatever, are affected by everything that happens close to them. It must be possible to access them somehow.’
‘Is that what you want to do? Find a way how? Invent a machine that can read them?’
‘No,’ he said with a smile, and walked back to the door. ‘No, not at all. I’m just a simple archaeologist who digs around in dust for old bones and pots and garden gnomes.’ He departed silently on his rubber-soled shoes and she shook her head, bemused by his typical eccentricity.
‘Declan!’ she called after him.
He stopped by the door at the end. ‘Yes?’
‘There’s a small bronze in one of the cupboards – eighteenth-century Indian, donated in 1865 by William Halkin, fourteenth Marquess of Sherfield. Is there any family connection with the Museum and that family?’
He looked at the ground, clasped his hands behind his back and frowned. ‘I seem to think there’s some connection between them and the East India Company. And they were quite big patrons of the arts at one time.’
As she reached him he started walking again, through the door and up the staircase. She kept pace with him.
‘Strange lot, the Halkins, mad as hatters, half of them. But so are most of the aristocracy,’ he said.
‘Why are the Halkins strange?’
‘Oh – I can’t remember which one of them it was – in the eighteenth century, I think – the eleventh or twelfth Marquess’s wife died, but he totally ignored it, carried on as usual, had the servants continue to dress her for dinner and bring her down every night. He dined with her for years after her death. Half the servants left because they couldn’t bear the charade.’ He held the door at the top of the stairs for her. ‘And of course there was the old second Marquess in the seventeenth century up to all sorts of occult tricks. Very involved in numerology.’
‘You seem to know a lot about them.’
‘No, not really. I’m interested in English history, that’s all. They were a significant family, in a minor way. A few MPs and soldiers, that sort of thing. I’m not even sure if the line isn’t extinct now.’
‘It isn’t,’ Frannie said.
‘Ah,’ he said without much interest. ‘If you want to know more you could try looking them up in the library.’
‘Yes, I was planning to.’
‘There’s a whole section on genealogy. They’re bound to be in it.
Debrett’s
would be the place to start.’
When she went back into her office, just before five, Penrose Spode was not there; she glanced up at the back of the door and saw that his crash-helmet and fluorescent strap had gone, indicating he had left for the day. Then she saw the note in his neat handwriting as she sat down: ‘2.35p.m. Phoebe Hawkins telephoned. Very urgent that you call her back ASAP. She is in a meeting but they will put you through.’
She wondered, as she dialled, whether speaking to Phoebe had prompted Spode’s unusually early departure. Whatever the reason, she was quite glad that he wasn’t there to listen in.
‘Frannie?’ Phoebe sounded edgy.
‘Sorry, I only just got your message.’
‘Look, I can’t talk at the moment. Can we meet up this evening?’
‘I can’t,’ Frannie said. ‘Impossible. What about lunchtime tomorrow?’
‘No good, I have a meeting – could we meet tomorrow evening? Come round to my flat and have supper?’
‘Yes – I – I suppose so,’ Frannie said, reluctant to commit herself to an evening in case she and Oliver wanted to meet up. ‘Where do you live?’
‘In Clapham. Thetford Avenue.’
‘I know it. You’re only a few streets away from me.’
Phoebe did not react to that. ‘It’s really important, Frannie, I mean it.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll come. What time?’
‘About seven?’
‘Sure.’
‘It’s number thirty-eight. Flat Three.’
Frannie jotted it down.
‘Does the number
twenty-six
mean anything to you, Frannie?’
As Frannie thought for a moment, she said, ‘Why?’ She could hear someone calling Phoebe impatiently.
‘Look, I’ve got to go. Just be careful of that number.’
‘Careful? What do you mean?’ She heard the impatient shout again.
‘See you tomorrow. Seven o’clock.’ Then Phoebe hung up.
The rain had stopped some time during the afternoon, and the streets were slicked and shiny beneath the dusk sky. It was five to seven. Frannie waited outside the Museum in her mackintosh. The rush-hour traffic had thinned down now, but the fumes still hung heavily over Great Russell Street. There was a sharp toot, and Oliver roared up in his Renault.
As she climbed in the car he apologized for being late, saying he had been stuck in a meeting, then greeted her with a long kiss that left her breathless and flushed. ‘You look gorgeous,’ he said.
‘You don’t look too bad yourself.’ She liked his soft blue shirt and striped tie that was predominantly orange. She kissed his knuckles, then they stared into each other’s eyes as the engine ran busily on. He was looking relaxed and some of the anxiety wrinkles that had stressed his face over the weekend had gone, making his features even clearer and stronger.
‘I missed you,’ he said.
‘Missed you too.’ She was aware they were in full view of anyone coming out of the Museum but she did not care.
‘Edward go off to school OK?’
‘Yes, he seemed very happy.’ He raised a finger. ‘I had to make one solemn promise. That’d you’d be at Meston on Saturday afternoon when he comes home for the weekend.’ He angled his head and smiled. ‘Would that be a possibility?’
Her sadness about Meredith and her concern about Phoebe’s words were forgotten for a moment. She slid
her arms around him, intoxicated by the sheer warmth he was exuding towards her and by her own response to it. ‘I think it could be arranged,’ she said softly.
‘How are the stings?’
‘Hurting a little but they’re a lot better today.’
Oliver eased out into the traffic. Frannie leaned back in her seat and asked, ‘Edward’s allowed home every weekend?’
‘From lunchtime Saturdays.’
‘Did you miss him today?’
‘As I took Monday and Tuesday off work, I had to knuckle down today; didn’t have too much time to think about him.’
‘What did you do at work today?’
‘I’ve been analysing and discussing motor-accident statistics.’
From the speed and aggression of his driving, Frannie concluded that the statistics must have left him unmoved. ‘What was that for?’
‘The bank’s involved in reinsurance for some of the motor-car insurers. We have to make decisions based on statistics.’ He was quiet for a moment as he changed lanes, aware of the direction of her thoughts. ‘So, how was the funeral?’
‘Grim. Her husband’s being very brave. I think he’s going to feel the shock later.’
‘You got back last night?’
‘Yes. I had some good news at work today. I’m going to work on a new exhibition, which I’m really pleased about.’
‘Great! Well done!’
‘Just a bit of luck, I think. And I had a rather interesting coincidence involving your family,’ she said hesitantly.
‘Oh yes?’
She told him about the brass tiger, but did not mention the cut she had got from it.
‘The fourteenth Marquess. William Halkin,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘He was involved with the East India Company, I think. And with Indian politics. He gave quite a lot of works of art to museums.’
‘Actually, when I first saw it I found it a bit eerie. I think your own fear of coincidences is starting to get to me.’ She was jerked forward against her seat-belt as he braked hard for a red light.
‘How do you mean?’
‘You know on the drive back to London we saw that accident?’
He nodded, his expression turning more serious.
‘Well, as soon as I got home the phone rang with the terrible news about Meredith. And after what you’d said about coincidences always seeming to mean something, I thought that was quite weird.’
The lights changed and Oliver accelerated more slowly. ‘I didn’t have very good news either on Sunday night. I didn’t mention it on the phone. Charles rang to tell me another six cows have gone down with the virus, and the vet has said we have to stop selling our milk until the herd’s clear of it.’
‘Are you going to lose a lot of money?’
The traffic was snarled up ahead of them in the Charing Cross Road. Oliver halted behind a taxi that was disgorging some passengers. ‘Yes; and our insurance doesn’t cover it.’
‘Maybe the homeopathy you’re going to try will help.’
‘Maybe,’ he said without conviction.
They drove around Trafalgar Square into Pall Mall, then Oliver slowed, found a parking space, and backed into it. Frannie enjoyed walking along the front of the
white Georgian terrace on the Mall, her hand linked with Oliver’s, watching the last spangles of daylight through the trees.
At the entrance to the gallery Oliver showed his invitation, and beyond was the refined hubbub of the party in progress. A waitress stood at the top of a short staircase with a tray of drinks. Frannie could smell smoke and perfume, and a tinge of alcohol. She went across to the cloakroom, slipped off her mackintosh and laid it on the counter. An elderly, silver-haired attendant pushed a hanger inside and gave her a plastic disc.
Frannie opened her handbag and dropped the disc in. As she did so, something jolted her. Something about the disc. She dug her hand into her bag, rummaged with her fingers and retrieved the disc. It was number twenty-six.
Sudden goose-pimples prickled her neck as she remembered Phoebe’s words; and her scared voice, quite out of character.
Just be careful of that number
.
She saw, to her surprise, Oliver reading the number also and frowning, with a distinct look of unease on his face; or perhaps he was frowning at something else, she wondered, dropping it back into her bag and trying to brush the moment off with a smile. She was going to enjoy herself tonight. She very definitely was not about to get spooked by a cloakroom tag.
The party was a crush of wall-to-wall glamorous women, and tall men in City suits with loud ties or unstructured jackets with T-shirts. In her black cotton jacket, tailored shorts and white T-shirt, Frannie felt fine, although she knew she should perhaps have been dressier. But Oliver seemed to approve, introducing her proudly to friends and acquaintances.
She met an art dealer called James Shenstone who
had been at Trinity College, Dublin with Declan O’Hare, and who regaled her with stories of the mischief O’Hare had got up to. He then introduced her to the artist, whose name she had already forgotten and which she failed to grasp when she heard it again. The artist was small and rather embarrassed-looking, and repeated several times to Frannie that it had not been his idea at all to hold an exhibition. When he learned that she was an archaeologist, he launched into a deep conversation about the relationship between archaeology and anthropology, before being wheeled away, shyly and rather reluctantly, for a photograph.
Frannie was then collared by an immensely boring man with a voice like gears meshing, who proceeded to lecture her for ten minutes about a lawsuit in which he was engaged, and which he assumed she had read of in the newspapers, whilst asking her not a single question about herself.
She was finally rescued by Oliver who put his arm protectively around her. ‘Shall we slope off?’
She nodded gratefully, gave the bore a sweet smile and followed Oliver to the entrance. He helped her on with her mac and they stepped outside; it was almost dark. ‘Sorry you got stuck with him. Did you enjoy yourself otherwise?’
‘It was great. I’ve got some good ammunition on my boss.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘That art historian I was introduced to?’
‘Jimmy Shenstone.’
‘Yes. He was at university with my boss at the Museum. Another coincid –’ She stopped in mid-sentence and gave him a guilty smile.
He gave her a hug. ‘You are allowed to mention the word; I’m not totally paranoid about it. Only slightly.’
Frannie laughed. ‘Race you up!’
She broke free and ran up the steps to Pall Mall, leaping them two at a time, Oliver shadowing her. They stopped at the top, breathless. ‘You’re crazy!’ Oliver said, exhilarated.
But when they got back to the car, his face fell. ‘Bugger!’
In the glare of the street light the wording of the paper square on the windscreen was clear:
WARNING. THIS VEHICLE HAS BEEN CLAMPED. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MOVE IT
. Beneath was the large star emblem of the Metropolitan Police.
Oliver insisted they leave the Renault and said he would sort it out in the morning; they took a taxi to his flat in Cadogan Square.
In contrast to the grand elegance of the exterior of the building, the flat was small and furnished almost entirely in modern furniture. There were a few ancestral oil paintings, but most of the decor and pictures were modern also. The place felt snug.
Frannie smiled, but was feeling subdued. Phoebe Hawkins’ warning,
Just be careful of that number
, was lodged in her mind like an old tune. She followed Oliver into the tiny, high-tech kitchen, and waited as he removed a bottle of wine from the fridge and a couple of glasses from a cupboard.
‘Are you hungry? Would you like an omelette or something?’ he asked.
‘I’ll make it if you like.’
‘Don’t worry; I’ll do it in a minute – let’s have a drink first.’ He pulled a corkscrew out of a drawer and began opening the bottle.