The Love Letter (33 page)

Even though she knew that Byrne still just wanted to get rid of her by any means of transport available and that Édith was gay, Legs glanced over her shoulder fearfully as Francis spirited her away, washing machine heart moving from fast spin to door lock.

Still deathly pale, Francis was incredibly keyed-up. She anticipated a lecture from him for sloping off to the terrace with Poppy’s son – and possibly even a telling off for breaking protocol as the cheesecake was served to administer emergency injections at the dinner table – but instead she got an eager, possessive hand on her bottom, circumnavigating her buttocks as they strode side by side. ‘I adore it when you wear no knickers. Come here.’ He tried to pull her behind a big fibreglass blob.

‘No!’ she squeaked. ‘Tell me what’s happened to Kizzy?’

But they were both side-tracked by Gayle Keiller-Myles gliding back from the washroom like a creamy white Andrex puppy, greeting them both with her sunny California tones: ‘Such a great evening, guys. Vincent is loving it. He just adores this old place.’ She fell into step with them as they meandered towards the drawing room. ‘These old statelies used to give me the heebies, but I figure Farcombe is something special. It always feels so safe and cosy, doesn’t it? Like nothing bad has ever happened here.’

‘Au contraire,’
Francis told her, irritated to find his clinch interrupted. ‘According to the history books, there have been at least
seven murders at the hall during its four hundred year tenure, and I’m convinced there will be more to come.’

While Gayle giggled, certain that he was joshing, Legs swallowed nervously and glanced over her shoulder again, wishing she’d taken flight while she had the opportunity.

‘What’s that noise?’ she gasped as they passed a small, arched window facing out to the coast, its casement frame rattling. Through it, an unearthly wailing was clearly audible.

‘Sounds like a sea shanty.’ Gayle cocked her head.

‘It’s just the wind.’ Francis leaned out to pull it shut. As he did so, Legs was certain she could make out strains of ‘Running Up that Hill’ which were abruptly muffled as the window slammed closed and the catch clicked into place.

Poppy’s guests were taking coffee and digestifs in the green drawing room, surrounded by the Protheroes’ personal collection of modern art, as varied and eclectic as its investors, including a large nude of Poppy herself constructed entirely from antique pin-mounted butterflies.

‘Never understand why you keep the best painting in the house upstairs.’ Vin was standing alongside his hostess, peering around her most treasured canvases. ‘Used to hang in Hector’s office at the Fitzroy.’

‘The Freud?’ Francis moved in smoothly.

‘Cracking little picture. Always envied him it. Great little investment too; its value must have rocketed since the artist’s death. Now’s the time to sell.’

‘In that case, we must talk.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Francis,’ snapped Poppy, ‘your father
would never part with that painting,’ – dark eyes narrowing, her lips pursed into a smile – ‘although whether I ever let him see it again is another matter.’ She reclaimed Vin with a winning smile. ‘I have several new works for sale if you’re looking to acquire erotica.’ Drawing him aside, she dismissed her stepson with a flick of her hand, seemingly no longer interested in a romantic reuinion between him and Allegra that evening, fake or otherwise.

Legs fell gratefully upon a small and potent cup of coffee, eager to clear her head, but the caffeine made her even more jittery as Francis steered her to a tall window, tightly sealed against the howling wind and sea shanty wailing.

‘I think she’s forgotten that he’s what this evening’s all about,’ he muttered, and Legs jumped as he breathed in her ear, ‘but we haven’t forgotten, have we?’

Then, like a seagull cawing, Poppy confirmed why she no longer cared to bait the trap she had laid to bring her wayward husband home. ‘Jamie, darling!
There
you are. Isn’t Édith divine? I knew you two would hit it off.’

‘No blows have yet been exchanged,’ Édith said lightly, hooking her arm firmly through Byrne’s and towing him towards the coffee.

He caught Legs’ eye as he passed. She couldn’t read his expression, but sensed it was far from approving. Still cornered with Francis, she found his edgy lasciviousness unnerving.

‘What did Kizzy’s note say?’ she asked him in an undertone.

‘I have no idea,’ he said unhelpfully, fingers rattling on his coffee cup. ‘Édith ripped it up, remember?’

‘She must have told you what was in it?’

‘Nothing you need to worry about. God, but you look sexy in that dress, the way your nipples poke through the knitting.’

‘It’s crochet, actually, and it’s fully lined.’ She crossed her arms in front of her chest like a scuba diver about to tip backwards off a boat.

Kizzy’s parents seemed unconcerned that she was missing; Howard had nodded off on an orange velvet sofa; Yolande was
taking a tour around the room with Vin, Gayle and Jax as Poppy showed off her latest acquisitions.

‘This is the Stan McGillivray we hung last autumn.’ She pointed to an amazing painting of a stag fashioned on a huge canvas with just half a dozen strokes of thickest black and sienna paint. Its power and simplicity was glorious, Legs thought. ‘We had to go to his studio on Exmoor and practically beg at the door; he so rarely sells anything these days. We’ve tried to get him to the festival every year since the start, but he’s a total recluse. Isn’t it stunning?’

‘I prefer nudes to wildlife.’ Vin angled his head. ‘But that ain’t bad for venison.’

‘Dad bought it for her birthday,’ Francis whispered to Legs, ‘She hated it at first – she wanted one of McGillivray’s early Prosthetic Limb paintings that became part of Brit Art iconography. But absolutely everyone who sees it loves it, so she’s started to come round – especially if she gets to keep it in a divorce settlement. It must be worth fifty thou. Then again, the Freud’s worth ten times that. Probably why she wants to keep tabs on it.’

‘Do you really think they’ll divorce?’

‘Might come to it.’

‘But you could lose Farcombe.’

‘We’ll find a way round that.’ His voice was caressing. But then his brows suddenly lowered menacingly over those angry true-blue eyes. ‘Let’s just hope that the boy wonder over there can’t get his hands on the place before we figure out how.’

They both looked across to the brightly striped chaise, upon which Byrne was undergoing a rigorous cross-examination from Édith which made no allowances for his recent dice with death. ‘Why not warn Poppy you were coming?’ she demanded.

‘It was a last-minute decision.’ His voice was low and sincere.

Legs thought about his confession the previous evening.
I am about to lose my life.
If he was terminally ill, it stood to reason that he would want to seek reconciliation with his mother. She couldn’t help wondering what he could be suffering from – some dreadful
rare blood disorder, or a tumour like the one that had stolen away Francis’s beautiful mother at such an early age? It seemed desperately unfair.

She tried to edge closer to listen in, but Francis had her trapped up against a huge abstract sculpture, a complicated fabrication of rusted metal twists and spikes which looked like an instrument of torture. ‘Recognise this?’

‘Wasn’t it outside?’

‘That’s right. It’s a Richard Deacon. Dad’s taste again. It used to live out on the terrace, but the sea air was destroying it so he insisted it be re-sited in here last winter. You remember what he used to call it?’

She shook her head.

‘“Legs’ parking place”. It always reminds him of your old death-trap of a car; more rust and holes than motor.’

‘Hondas are very reliable,’ she huffed.

‘You should have traded up years ago.’ When they’d been together he’d tried endlessly to persuade her to upgrade the beloved Honda she’d had since her student days for one with more gadgets and curb appeal. While Francis was unashamed to drive around London in a mud-caked Land Rover, he preferred his girlfriend to be seen in a racy little hatch; he was the same about clothes, happy to look understated in classic old threads, but favouring Legs in a pretty dress to comfortable slouch gear.

‘What does Kizzy drive?’ She was determined to get to the truth, guiltily wondering if she was speeding along the A39 blind with tears right now – or parked up in a nearby gateway waiting to drive over Legs the moment she left the hall.

But Francis remained oblique, ‘People around the bend mostly.’ He was looking at the sculpture, handsome brows furled now. ‘Always makes me think of a piece of torture chamber apparatus.’

Legs shuddered, her detective credentials fading yet further in the wake of mounting cowardice and desire to bolt back to the Book Inn. She could see Byrne looking at her over the back of the
striped chaise, longing to escape too as Édith posed awkward questions. She smiled, but his face remained guarded.

Poppy had reached the butterfly picture. ‘One really has to stand at the back of the room to get the full impact of this. It’s why we hung it here so it’s the first thing one sees coming through the doors from the main hall. Hector loves to shock.’

‘Oh, those poor, pretty insects!’ Gayle lamented, standing so close that she couldn’t see the overall picture, only its delicate media.

‘They would have been trapped at least fifty years ago,’ Poppy insisted coolly.

‘Shame the artist didn’t capture Poppy in the nuddy then, too,’ Francis muttered to Legs. ‘Everybody comes in here with their eyes closed to avoid seeing it, except Poppy herself who is so short-sighted she can’t see her ancient carcass pinned to the wall, just the seductive blur of its outline.’

‘She is still a beautiful woman,’ Legs pointed out, amazed to find herself defending Poppy, but equally appalled by Francis’s venom. Had she forgotten how much he loathed his stepmother, she wondered, or had that enmity deepened during her absence? ‘If you hate her so much, why do you want her to get back together with your father?’

‘Status quid pro quo.’ He turned to her. ‘And there’s a lot of quid at stake.’

‘So it’s really all just about money?’

‘I want you back, Legs.’ His fingers traced the underside of her arm, making it burn with fear and longing. ‘We both know that’s more important than anything.’

She stepped away, pressed up against the sculpture’s steel ribs now. ‘Not until you deal with the Kizzy situation.’

‘Already done.’ He tapped a finger impatiently on the rusted metal bars beside her. ‘She’s gone, or haven’t you noticed?’

‘She’s really left Farcombe?’ she baulked, realising that the note must have been a tearful farewell. ‘In the middle of supper?’

He nodded, tapping gaining velocity.

‘But where? Why so suddenly?’

‘Funnily enough, we didn’t ask for details or a forwarding address.’

That unexpected cruelty again; it shocked her. Just as much of a shock was the attraction she still felt hardwired through her. His hand was on her arm again. This time the heat scorched through her body, and Legs knew she couldn’t trust herself at all. It was as though a chemical reaction was taking place inside her, converting all the guilt and regret and nostalgia into lust, rekindling that old spark. She’d laid off the wine all night, yet the room was spinning.

Deep in her fickle heart a voice was singing victoriously, knowing that Kizzy was no longer a threat. Her suspicions seemed entirely justified. Why, then, did she also feel like she was in a speedboat travelling far too fast into the gathering storm, with no life jackets and one man already overboard?

‘Are you going to say the word?’ he breathed in her ear.

She was faintly aware of Byrne still watching her at a distance, and of Poppy far closer at hand telling her guests about the Richard Deacon sculpture. ‘You’ll all recognise this. We bought it long before the artist was as sought after as he is now. Alas, it got rather bent when some drunkard at Hector’s sixtieth climbed on it to shout at the sea.’

‘That would be Hector himself.’ Francis’s fingers traced their way across Legs’ back and beneath her hair to the nape of her neck as he whispered in her ear again. ‘Stay here tonight.’

They both jumped as Yolande Hawkes struck the rusty stretch of steel on which they were leaning so that it hummed and reverberated.

‘Marvellous piece this, Poppy!’ She had a voice like Brian Blessed. ‘One of Kizzy’s favourites. The sculptor won the Turner Prize the year that she was born.’

Legs frantically did her maths. That would make Kizzy no more
than twenty-four, she realised. Poor kid. Life with the Protheroes must have aged her despite the raw fish diet. It was telling that since arriving back at Farcombe, almost everybody who had known Legs here had told her how much younger she looked. Instead of keeping portraits in the attic, Francis and his father kept women ageing wearily alongside them, she thought. She didn’t want to find herself immortalised on a wall in dead butterflies one day.

Suddenly the room stopped spinning. She had to get out, she realised with mounting panic. If she stayed, she’d never escape. She needed more time to think.

Looking frantically around the room to assess her best escape route, she found her gaze drawn to Byrne, who was still watching her, his dark eyes fierce, his face now almost returned to its usual chiselled proportions and drawn with desolation. Despite welcoming her son’s surprise return with dramatic and open arms, Poppy had talked over him all evening, Legs reflected. They hadn’t shared more than a scrap of time together and she was still largely ignoring him. He must be bitterly disappointed. He could have just weeks left to live, perhaps less.