The House of Memories (24 page)

He shrugged and said, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And that’s not Shakespeare, by the way; it’s William Congreve. The actual quote is, ‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.’”

I didn’t care about the stupid quote. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I tried to ignore him, and tried to stop thinking about what he’d said about Mum being jealous. I was glad when Ben suggested we all go to another bar in Soho where there was room to dance, but as soon as we’d found a table in the new place, the others all went straight to the dance floor and I was left with Zach again. I would have got up to dance myself, just to get away from him, but it was one of those techno songs that I hate, and also I was in the corner and Zach had kind of hemmed me in. He was pretty drunk by now.

“You’re staying at Ben’s hotel, aren’t you? For how long?”

“As long as I need to. Till I find my feet,” I said, not that it was any of his business.

“Have you got any idea how much it costs there a night?”

I didn’t have a clue. Dad set it all up from Australia, using his credit card. So I said, no, I didn’t know.

That was when Zach told me it’s at least four hundred quid a night. He got all worked up about it. “A
night
. I have to live off less than that a fortnight.”

Four hundred pounds a night! I did a quick calculation myself and worked out it was nearly six hundred dollars!!!! I didn’t let on to Zach that I was shocked, though. Anyway, Dad might have negotiated a better deal for me. He’s really good at making deals. That’s why he’s so good at being Mum’s manager. And my manager.

“You’re just a trust-fund kid, aren’t you?” he said, shouting into my ear over the music.

I said I didn’t know what that was. I wasn’t going to play his stupid name-calling games.

Zach just kept talking. He didn’t seem to care whether I answered him or not. “You are, Jess. I’m sorry to be so honest, but don’t give us your poor little rich girl whining and complaining—oh, poor beautiful me, oh, the auditions were horrible, oh, Mummy’s jealous of me and wouldn’t give me my own show to play with. I’ll give you another quote—” He leaned right in to my ear as if he was about to KISS me or something. “‘He who pays the piper calls the tune.’ It means the person who pays gets to call the shots. You take Mummy and Daddy’s money, you have to do whatever they tell you. Even if it is just spare change to them.”

I got really angry then. How DARE he say those kind of things? He didn’t know how hard I’d been working for years and what a lifelong dream appearing on the West End was to me. “Sure, Zach. So what am I supposed to do? Try to hold down a job while I go from audition to audition?”

“Like the rest of us have to? Of course not. No, Princess Jessica, you do it your way. But stop complaining about mean Mummy and mean Daddy when they’re bankrolling every second of your day, would you? When you wouldn’t last an hour if you were doing it on your own.”

Thank God Ben and the others came back then. I pretended I had to go to the bathroom and by the time I came back everyone had shifted seats and I didn’t have to sit next to Zach again.

I’m not going to think about him anymore, Diary. I’ve written it down now so it’s out of my system, just like my counselor advised me to do whenever I found myself feeling sad or scared or anything. Ben’s right. Zach’s just bitter because his own career hasn’t taken off.

I’m going to go to sleep now. Tomorrow is a brand-new day.

Bye, Diary. Love for now,

Jess xxxxoooo

I
’d thought the tutors were exaggerating when they told me about the opulence of the homes they visited each week. An hour into my rounds with Henrietta, I realized they’d been telling the truth. Outside of the pages of glossy interiors magazines, I had never seen houses like these.

We’d be visiting five students tonight, Henrietta told me. She had another four to visit the next evening too, but as there’d been no thefts from their homes, Lucas felt I didn’t need to see them.

“We’ll give you a cover story,” Henrietta said. “I’ll explain you’re Lucas’s niece and you’re training to be my assistant in regard to the appraisals.”

“Feel free to ask them as many questions as you like, Ella,” Lucas said.

In the taxi on the way, I waited for Henrietta to raise the subject of Lucas and the house. Remembering how much she’d drunk that night, I wondered hopefully whether she’d forgotten the entire conversation. The whole idea. Then it was as if she read my mind.

“Have you had a chance to speak to Lucas about selling the house yet?”

I shook my head.

She made a
tsk
sound. “Please do it soon,” she said. “I don’t want to end up sleeping on the street.”

Lucas’s attic is free, I wanted to say.

The first home was in Fulham, a three-story house in the middle of a curving row that looked onto a private, gated garden. The trees were lush and green, even in winter. Before we went inside, Henrietta reached into her large leather bag and consulted a folder. “The student’s name is Antoinette. She’s ten years old. We tutor her in French, algebra and classics.”

I knew from Lucas that the item stolen from here was the antique map.

A housekeeper let us in. Another member of the staff took us up two flights of stairs to a luxurious sitting room, which was obviously being used as a study area. It was as big as my entire Canberra apartment. As well as a desk, a computer and a filing cabinet, there were two large sofas and a coffee table. The walls were covered in framed paintings, landscapes, portraits, abstracts. Two large windows looked over the park. I glanced out of the window and noticed a sign on the iron fence. I could just make out the wording:
No bicycles or balls allowed.

There was the sound of light footsteps and Antoinette appeared. She was small for a ten-year-old, beautifully dressed in a red pullover and matching corduroy skirt, shiny black boots, her dark hair in a bouncy ponytail, her eyes bright. Behind her was her mother, about thirty-five, also beautifully dressed in wool and cashmere, high boots, glossy hair, not so bright-eyed.

Henrietta introduced me as Lucas’s niece and her tutoring assistant. They barely noticed me, immediately falling into a discussion about a recent exam result. I listened but I mostly looked. At the mother’s jewelry. She was wearing rings on each finger. Eight large diamond rings. She had an emerald necklace around her neck. She also smelled extraordinary, of lilies and lemon and something else. Wealth, I suppose.

Henrietta was brisk and formal. We took seats on the sofas and she fired questions at mother and daughter, making notes in her folder. Antoinette was doing very well, getting ninety-plus scores on all her tests. She’d had some difficulty with aspects of the algebra course recently but the additional tutoring sessions with Mark had proved very helpful.

Henrietta turned to me. “Ella, any questions?”

I was put on the spot. “How are you, Antoinette?”

“Good, thank you.” Her voice was like a bell, clear, high.

I had to do better than that. “Is this where you always study? And where the tutors take their break?”

Antoinette and her mother both frowned. “Why do you need to know?” the mother asked.

“We’re reviewing our insurance policy,” Henrietta said. “We need to be specific about where each tutor works in each of our clients’ houses.”

I sent her a silent thank-you.

Most of the study took place in here, they told us. The breaks were also taken here, though occasionally in the kitchen downstairs.

“I showed Peggy my bedroom once,” Antoinette said. “She said it was the most beautiful bedroom she’s ever seen, like a princess’s. Would you like to see it too?”

“Go ahead, Ella,” Henrietta said, turning to the mother and opening her folder again.

I followed Antoinette up another flight of stairs. She was very chatty away from Henrietta and her mother. “Are you a tutor too, Ella? I’d like to be a tutor when I grow up. Tutors know everything. Mark says it’s because they read all the time. He says I should try to read at least two books a week.”

I told her I wasn’t a tutor, but I did like to read. “I hope your tutors are nice to you. Are they?”

“Yes, very,” she said. She told me Peggy was her favorite, then Mark, then Darin. “I like Peggy’s funny voice. She says it’s because she’s from a far-off land.”

A far-off land called Newcastle.

“Is your name short for Cinderella?” she asked as we climbed the last few stairs.

“Not quite,” I said. “Arabella. But I’ve always hated it. I prefer Ella.”

“Yes, that’s much nicer,” she said solemnly. “My bedroom’s just down here.”

We walked down a corridor at a leisurely pace. I counted at least six rooms running off it.

“Do you have brothers and sisters, Antoinette?”

“No. Mummy says she and Daddy got it so right with me there was no point in trying again. Are you married, Ella?”

I hesitated for only a moment. “Yes, I am.”

“Do you have children?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“I’m going to marry Justin Bieber.”

“Are you? Congratulations.”

She stopped at the doorway to what was obviously her bedroom and nodded. “Daddy said he can arrange for me to meet him. I know every single thing there is to know about Justin Bieber. Daddy says I could win a Justin Bieber
Mastermind
quiz. Mummy says my room is like a Justin Bieber museum.”

She opened the door. Her room may have been in a city mansion, but it was the replica of ten-year-old girls’ rooms the world over, I was sure of it—a bright pink bedspread, soft toys in rows on the shelves and all four walls plastered in posters of bands, actors, cartoon characters, models, but mostly of Justin Bieber.

“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” she said, sighing.

“He’s got very nice hair,” I replied.

“He’s only eight years older than me. I don’t think that’s too much of an age difference, but Mummy does. What’s your favorite animal?”

“A fox. What’s yours?”

“A giraffe.” She opened a wardrobe door. There was an enormous giraffe toy standing there. It was like a giraffe stable. I immediately thought of the two giant fox toys Lucas had sent Felix. Where were they now? I realized I had no idea.

“Wow,” I said.

“I asked for a real one but I got this instead. I like sliding down its neck. Have you seen enough?”

“Yes, thank you,” I said.

She walked me back down to the study, still chattering about Justin. I pretended I had a problem with my boot, asking her to wait, hoping to slow our pace down. As I fiddled with the lace, I glanced around. The house was like a combined museum and art gallery. The walls were covered in framed prints, maps and paintings of different sizes. Lucas had told me the stolen map was only small, but very valuable. As I stood up straight again, I reached and touched the nearest framed print. It wasn’t secured. If I’d wanted to, I could probably have taken one myself.

Henrietta was ready to leave. “Did you see all you needed to?” she asked me as we left the house, shown out by the housekeeper.

“It was very helpful,” I said.

The second house was within walking distance. Henrietta and I didn’t speak on the way. I didn’t mind. We were met at the door by the student’s mother. She was eerily similar to the first mother in appearance. The interior of the house was also similar—luxurious carpets, curtains, furnishings and decorative features. I met the student, a thirteen-year-old boy: polite, groomed, confident and, again, clearly very bright. Henrietta got right down to business. Yes, his results were excellent. No, they had no complaints about the tutors—Darin and Peggy in this case.

As Henrietta moved into a detailed discussion about a new teaching method Peggy was trialing, I asked if I could use the bathroom. A housekeeper appeared and showed me the way. I was led down to the next floor, without conversation. It was from this house that the figurine had gone missing. Again, the thief had been spoiled for choice. The house was filled with what my mum would call “knickknacks,” and what a fine-art expert would call
objets d’art
. Again, it was obvious how easy it would have been to lift something from one of the tables or shelves, put it into a bag or a pocket and leave, undetected. The study area was one of the three living rooms, the one closest to the front door. If I’d been so inclined, I could have easily left that house with more than my purse, notebook and keys in my handbag.

The third house was a ten-minute taxi ride away. I expected Henrietta to bring up the subject of Lucas’s house as we sat in the back, but she took another large folder out of her bag and started to read its contents. I followed her lead, taking out my notebook and writing details about the houses. We were in a traffic jam, still a mile from our next stop, when her phone rang.

She glanced at it. “Excuse me. My solicitor. I need to take this. He’s impossible to get hold of.”

I didn’t mean to listen. It was a private conversation. But she was right beside me. She was also soon so agitated it was if she’d forgotten I was there.

“How can that be the case? It can’t
all
be in his name. Sue him? No, of course I can’t. I’ll be lucky if I can afford to pay
you
, the fees you charge.”

She didn’t refer to it when she hung up. We continued on the journey, once again in silence.

In the next house, I met the rock star and his daughter. On the way into their four-story mansion, I saw a gold Mercedes, a vintage BMW and what I think was a Rolls-Royce in the long drive. Inside I noticed jewelry lying on a table, original paintings leaning against walls and bottles of dusty, expensive-looking French wine in a cupboard. I asked to go to the bathroom and wandered through the house afterward on my own for five minutes. I had an “I’m sorry, I’m lost” line ready if anyone came looking for me, but no one did.

It was after eight by the time we left the final client—the Booker Prize winner with the horse-mad daughter. All Peggy had said was true. The daughter, fifteen years old, didn’t care about university, literature or studying. All she wanted to do was talk about horses and show me her horse-riding DVDs. After twenty minutes, I was relieved when Henrietta came to get me.

I didn’t need to visit any more houses to make my conclusions about the thefts. It was clear how easy they would have been. The tutors—and by extension Henrietta and I—were considered part of the family. Above reproach. They had the run of each house, the trust of the parents and the friendship of the children. They could have loaded their bags with goodies and walked out. Someone would probably have held the door open for them or called for a taxi.

I’d expected Henrietta to come back to Lucas’s house with me, but she announced a change in plan.

“Something’s come up, Ella,” Henrietta said as we waited for a taxi. “I’ll ring Lucas with my report. Please don’t mention the house matter to him yet.” With that, she walked away.

I arrived back home to a full house and a crowded kitchen. Unusually, all four tutors were home and eating together. They’d assembled a hotchpotch of my frozen dinners—Peggy was eating a Tuscan bean casserole; Darin had a big bowl of minestrone soup; Mark and Harry were sharing a beef, leek and mushroom stew. The mood was festive.

Lucas came into the kitchen behind me, carrying two bottles of wine. “Ella, welcome back! What a shame Henrietta had to go on to that meeting. You’ll have to give us the eyewitness report instead.” He smiled at his tutors. “They all seem confident on the surface, I know, but deep down they are terribly insecure. If you have any praise for them at all, please don’t hold back.”

I passed on what I could. Lucas seemed pleased with all the positive feedback. Afterward, the tutors wanted to know what I thought of their clients.

“Isn’t the rock star ridiculous?” Peggy said. “I’m sure he looks good onstage, but, God, close up, he’s like a walking corpse. I’ll never be able to listen to his songs again.”

“What about Pony Girl? Did you get the full horse-riding DVD extravaganza?” Mark asked.

“She’s getting worse each week,” Darin said. “I keep expecting her to hop on my back and make me gallop around the room.”

“In your dreams,” Harry said.

After dinner, the gathering broke up. I started doing the dishes, once again turning down any offers of help. I’d just finished when Mark came in, sifting through the large collection of mail that had been left piled on the hall table. In my first days here I’d sorted the post each day, leaving the tutors’ letters, magazines or circulars under their door. I’d eventually stopped. The house seemed to operate best in a certain degree of chaos.

“One for you, Ella,” he said. “Nice stamp. George Washington. Can I have it when you’re done? My nephew’s a philatelist.”

Even before he passed it over, I knew who it was from.

Aidan.