Unfinished Portrait

BROUGHT TO BOOK

JIGSAW

PERSON OR PERSONS UNKNOWN

A FAMILY CONCERN

ROGUE IN PORCELAIN

NEXT DOOR TO MURDER

UNFINISHED PORTRAIT

PRESENCE OF MIND

THE MACBETH PROPHECY

BREATH OF BRIMSTONE

MOTIVE FOR MURDER

DANGEROUS DECEPTION

PAST SHADOWS

FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS

THICKER THAN WATER

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This first world edition published 2010

in Great Britain and in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

Copyright © 2010 by Anthea Fraser.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Fraser, Anthea.

Unfinished Portrait. – (The Rona Parish mysteries)

1. Parish, Rona (Fictitious character) – Fiction. 2. Women

authors, English – Fiction. 3. Women artists – Fiction.

4. Missing persons – Investigation – Fiction. 5. Detective

and mystery stories.

I. Title II. Series

823.9'14-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-1-7801-0039-5      (ePub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6884-8      (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-224-6      (trade paper)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being

described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this

publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons

is purely coincidental.

ONE

R
ona could hear the phone ringing as she put her key in the door. In one complicated manoeuvre she nudged the dog inside, pushed the door shut, dropped her carrier bags on the floor, and caught up the instrument.

‘Hello?' she said breathlessly.

‘Rona? Good! I was just preparing to talk to a machine!'

For a moment the voice eluded her. Then, with a touch of apprehension, she identified it as that of her editor at Jonas Jennings.

‘Prue? How are you? It's been a long time . . .' Her voice tailed off in embarrassment.

‘It has indeed! Still pursuing your journalistic career?'

‘Well, I—'

Prue Granger laughed. ‘Relax! I'm not about to pressurize you. But I have a project I think might be of interest – one that would combine your talents, as it were.'

‘Sounds intriguing,' Rona said cautiously.

‘I hope so, but it could best be discussed over lunch. Today's Tuesday; how about Thursday this week? Are you free? One o'clock at Papa Gigio's in Covent Garden?'

‘That would be fine, Prue. Thank you.'

‘See you then,' said Prue Granger, and rang off.

Rona looked down at the dog nuzzling her legs and bent to unfasten his lead. Then, picking up her shopping, she followed him down the basement stairs to the kitchen.

It was indeed a long time since she'd spoken to Prue, she reflected, starting to unpack her bags. Her career as a biographer had been on hold for eighteen months or more, following the abortive ending of her last project due to murder and a legal minefield her publishers were unwilling to enter.

While she regained her balance, she'd reverted to her secondary – and, up to then, spasmodic – work as a freelance writer for the glossy monthly
Chiltern Life
. But, incredibly, innocuous pursuits such as writing-up eight-hundred-year anniversaries, tracing birth parents, and researching the history of local firms had also resulted in death and disaster. Even befriending her next-door neighbours had proved a perilous undertaking.

Murders seem to seek you out
, her husband Max had once observed, and though she'd shied away from it, the phrase had lodged in her mind with an almost superstitious acceptance. If Prue wanted to speak to her, she reasoned now, it must surely mean she'd a biographical subject in mind. With luck, that might break the chain, though what ‘combining her talents' meant, Rona had no idea.

On an impulse, she picked up the phone and rang her twin's office. It was twenty past five; she shouldn't have left yet.

‘Lindsey Parish.'

‘Hi, Linz, it's me. Are you seeing Dominic this evening?'

There was a pause. ‘As it happens, no. Would you believe he's abroad again?'

‘Then how about joining me at Dino's? There's something I'd like to talk over with you.'

‘Sounds serious.'

‘Not really. I'd just like a sounding board.'

‘My primary function, of course. Actually, since I'll probably be here till about seven, it'll suit me quite well. Seven thirty OK?'

‘Perfect,' Rona said, with a lifting of her spirits. ‘See you then.'

Rona had given up explaining why, on the three evenings he held his art classes, Max spent the night at his cottage across town. Family and friends viewed the arrangement as at best bizarre, but since he wouldn't have got home much before bedtime, only to return to the studio first thing in the morning, it struck them both as a pointless exercise.

In fact the purchase of Farthings, with its airy upstairs studio, had in all probability saved their marriage; with both of them working from home, tempers had frayed when Max required loud music as he painted, and Rona total quiet in which to write. The outcome was that both now had space to follow their careers, leaving them free to appreciate each other's company during his midweek return – following afternoon classes – and at weekends.

And it wasn't as though they weren't in regular contact. They spoke on the phone at least twice a day, the main call to exchange news of the day's happenings, the last, brief, one to say goodnight. That evening, Rona told him about Prue's summons.

‘Will you be hauled over the coals for dereliction of duty?' he enquired humorously.

‘She says not, but she's certainly got something lined up.'

‘Well, you've nothing on hand at the moment, have you? It'll be good to have something to occupy you.'

Rona was silent, admitting to herself that the tragedy next door, though nearly two months in the past, still haunted her. It had taken all her willpower to complete the article she'd been working on, and knock it into shape for
Chiltern Life
.

‘Sweetie?' Max prompted. ‘You don't have to do it if you don't want to, you know.'

She shook off her musing. ‘I know; the trouble is, the longer I put off doing another bio, the harder it gets. It's such a commitment, Max; so much easier just to toss off the odd thing for Barnie, than look around for something new.'

‘But you're wasting your talents. You know that. At least keep an open mind till you hear her proposal.'

She sighed. ‘Yes, of course. By the way, Lindsey and I are going to Dino's, so don't phone before eleven.'

‘Right, I'll prop my eyelids open! Enjoy yourselves, and give Dino my regards. I'm only sorry I can't join you.'

Dino's was an Italian restaurant a brisk, six-minute walk from Rona's home, and she was a regular customer. Hating cooking as she did, when Max wasn't home to act as chef she invariably opted, according to mood, for ready-meals, takeaways or salads. And when she fancied none of them, she went to Dino's. Often, on arriving at the restaurant, she'd find friends already there, and the obliging Dino would lay an extra place at their table.

That evening, though, there was no one she knew, and she was led to her corner table with the effusive welcome always afforded her, and Gus the retriever settled resignedly beneath it.

Lindsey arrived minutes later, dropping into a chair and lifting her hair with both hands.

‘This was good thinking, sis,' she remarked, reaching for the glass Rona had already filled. ‘I've had the hell of a day; if we'd not arranged to meet, I might well have been there another hour.'

Lindsey was a partner at a firm of solicitors on Guild Street, Marsborough's main thoroughfare.

‘Jonathan didn't help,' she added, picking up the menu. ‘Ever since Dominic and I got together, he's lost no opportunity to be bloody-minded. I'd have got through hours earlier if he'd been more cooperative.'

Jonathan Hurst, a fellow partner at Chase Mortimer, had, despite being happily married, conducted a light-hearted affair with Lindsey over the past twelve months, while Dominic Frayne, a relative newcomer who interested her far more, had remained offhand and non-committal. It was only recently that he'd made a positive move, though after Lindsey's initial ecstasy, Rona guessed it hadn't progressed as far as she'd hoped.

Her sister's love-life had always been erratic, Rona reflected; her ex-husband, Hugh, was also still on the scene, willing to be strung along when she had no better offer.

Dino himself approached to take their order, and as he moved away, Rona enquired, ‘Where's Dominic this time?'

‘God knows,' Lindsey replied shortly. ‘He doesn't ring me daily, like your dutiful Max, who's only down the road anyway. With Dominic, it's a question of out of sight, out of mind.'

‘I'm sure that's not true,' Rona said soothingly, then, when Lindsey didn't respond, ‘Linz, everything is – all right, isn't it?'

Lindsey made an impatient gesture. ‘When we're together, it couldn't be better. It's just that we're
not
together nearly as much as I expected. Business always comes first, and that means being closeted with bloody Carla.'

Carla Deighton was Dominic's attractive assistant, whom, since her flat was two floors below his in the same building, Lindsey referred to bitingly as his live-in girlfriend.

‘She goes abroad with him?' Rona asked incautiously.

‘Too right she does. Anyway – ' Lindsey straightened – ‘enough of me. This meeting is to discuss something specific, is it not?'

‘A phone call from Prue Granger,' Rona said.

‘Ah! A call to arms?'

‘To lunch, actually, the day after tomorrow.'

‘But with the intention of extracting a bio?'

‘That must come into it, but she said something about combining my talents, whatever that means.'

Lindsey thought for a moment. ‘Well, I suppose you've done a fair bit of research recently.'

‘But that wouldn't require combination – it's a large part of bios anyway.'

‘How do you feel about tackling another?'

‘Depends who the subject is. I have to feel some kind of . . . rapport.'

‘And there's no one who fills the bill?'

‘No one who's not been written about a dozen times already.'

‘Dominic's read all yours, you know. He's most impressed. Didn't realize I had such illustrious relatives.'

‘Talking of illustrious relatives, weren't you going to meet one of his, the last time we spoke?'

‘Oh, Crispin, yes; though that's not how Dominic sees him. He keeps emphasizing they're only second cousins.'