The Girl in the Picture Page 7

  I was downstairs by then, trying to put on some laundry without Dumbledore jumping into the washing machine. Mike yelled over the bannister, ‘Ella! Cupboard’s open.’

  ‘Fab,’ I said. Scooping up the puppy, I bounded up the stairs. All these steps would definitely help me keep fit. In the attic, Mike was standing at the open cupboard door, shaking his head.

  ‘Think I’ve just made a whole lot more work for you,’ he said.

  I looked inside. The cupboard wasn’t empty, as I’d expected. Instead its wooden shelves were full of books and papers.

  ‘I can get someone from the office to come and clear all this out if you like,’ Mike said.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘No way. Look at all this stuff. It could belong to someone.’

  ‘Someone who didn’t want it,’ Mike pointed out.

  ‘Still,’ I said. ‘We can’t just dump it. I’ll go through it and see what’s here.’

  The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. ‘I’ve heard stories about this house,’ I told Mike. ‘Stories about a mystery. Maybe this is linked. Perhaps the cupboard was painted shut for a reason.’

  Mike gave me a sympathetic look. ‘Or perhaps some lazy so-and-so couldn’t be bothered to paint it properly,’ he said.

  But I was undeterred. I reached into the cupboard and took out a stiff cardboard folder, full of paper and tied with cord. ‘I’m going to start with this,’ I said.

  It was a while before I got to go through the folder, but much later, when the boys were bathed and in bed, and Ben had come home again, wolfed down some dinner, then gone out to an evening training session back over in Worthing, I settled down on the sofa, and opened the file.

  It was actually something of a disappointment at first. Lots of crumbling, yellowing newspaper pages, mostly.

  I took one from the top and read it.

  Opinions are divided over the latest works by the self-titled Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, I read. Mr Charles Dickens despises their work and has said the depiction of the Virgin Mary in Christ in the Home of his Parents by John Everett Millais is ‘horrible in her ugliness’. Others are lauding the bold use of colour and realism …

  Long ago, I’d studied art history for A Level and I remembered bits and pieces about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Not much though, if I was completely honest, and I seemed to remember not being overly interested in them. I could google them, though, if I needed to, or better yet speak to my old university friend George, who was now a lecturer in art history at St Andrews.

  I leafed through the cuttings, reading occasional articles and laughing at some of the writing. It seemed there was nothing here to suggest a mystery but it was still amazing to read genuine newspapers from so long ago. The papers that were dated all came from 1854 and 1855 – so after Harriet Hargreaves had died, I thought to myself – and I wasn’t sure I’d ever even touched anything so old before. Apart from the house itself of course.

  At the back of the folder, I found another yellowing page. This one, though, was on different paper. It was soft with age and looked like it had been torn from a sketchbook, and on it was a pencil drawing of a young woman.

  The woman in the picture looked to be in her late teens. She was wearing a long dress with a loose skirt, not the stiff crinolines I’d seen in the newspapers, and the fabric was printed with small flowers. Her hair was tied up but it was wavy and snaked down her cheeks as though it wouldn’t be contained. She had freckles and clear eyes and her lips were curved upwards in a joyful smile.

  I smiled back at the girl – I couldn’t help myself. She looked so happy. Then, eager to see what else was in the folder, I went to put the picture to one side. But as I did, I noticed the background to the drawing – the girl was standing in between two long windows, and through the glass I could see the sea. She was in my study. In this house.

  More interested now, I picked the picture up again and stared at it. Along the bottom, in beautiful copperplate writing was written: Self-portrait. June 1855.

  ‘Self-portrait of who?’ I said to the girl in the picture, working out with the help of my fingers that Violet Hargreaves would have been eighteen in 1855.’ Are you Violet? Is the mystery about you and not your poor dead mother?’

  Holding the drawing in one hand, and the folder in another, I climbed the stairs to the attic and stood where the young woman must have stood to draw herself. The view from the windows was the same as it had been in 1855 and I felt another flicker of excitement.

  On my whiteboard I’d written Tessa in Sussex and below it, some notes about the murder-that-wasn’t-a-murder. But now, spontaneously, I picked up a cloth and wiped off what I’d written.

  Along the top of the newly clean board I wrote CLIFF HOUSE MYSTERY. Then I fixed the self-portrait to the middle of the board with a magnet and wrote underneath: Is this Violet Hargreaves?

  I was determined to find out more.

  Chapter 14

  ‘So you think this woman has got something to do with the mystery?’ asked Ben, looking at the self-portrait on my board.

  I shrugged. ‘Dunno. But the Hargreaves family definitely lived here in 1851 when the census happened – at least Violet and her father did. The mother was dead by then.’

  Ben frowned. ‘But her death isn’t the mystery?’

  ‘Don’t think so. She died having a baby. But by 1861 there was no one living here at all. The family might just have moved but I think it’s strange that all that stuff was left behind, and I can’t help wondering if this is what Margaret’s granddad talked about.’

  ‘Amazing,’ said Ben. ‘So do you reckon there’s a book in this?’

  It was my turn to frown. ‘Probably not,’ I said. ‘I should be writing Tessa really. But I just want to know more. I want to know who this girl was – if she is Violet – and whether she had anything to do with this mystery.’

  I reached out and touched the portrait.

  ‘Perhaps there is no mystery at all,’ I said, feeling a bit silly. ‘But the vicar suggested finding out more might help me with my own story. I told him about my mum dying and he said I should tell Violet’s story.’

  Ben squeezed my hand. ‘It can’t hurt,’ he said. ‘And it could even build some bridges with your dad.’

  I grimaced. I didn’t want to talk about Dad. ‘Priya said she’d help. Well, actually, she begged me to let her help. I’m going to see her at the police station tomorrow.’

  Ben grinned. ‘Making friends?’ he said. ‘Solving mysteries? It sounds like you’re making yourself right at home in Sussex.’

  I gave him a quick hug. ‘It’s good,’ I said. ‘It was a good decision.’

  I jumped as my phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the screen, then I pushed the button on the top to cancel the call and shoved it back into my jeans.

  Ben looked at me. ‘Who was that?’ he asked.

  ‘Just Dad,’ I said. ‘He must have sensed you talking about him. It’s not the right time to speak to him now.’

  ‘I think you should talk to him,’ Ben said.

  I made a face. ‘Don’t want to,’ I said, knowing I sounded like Stan.

  ‘He misses you.’

  I glared at him. ‘Have you spoken to him?’

  ‘No,’ Ben said. Then he screwed his nose up. ‘Email,’ he admitted.

  ‘Ben,’ I said, angry at his interference. ‘This is my problem to sort out.’

  But Ben was defiant. ‘You need to speak to him,’ he said.

  ‘I will.’ Irritably I started gathering together some loose bits of paper on my desk. ‘But I’ll do it when I want to and not when you tell me to.’

  Ben started to speak and I stopped him with a fierce look.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I get it.’

  He gave me a look that suggested he actually didn’t get it, then he kissed me on the temple.

  ‘I’ll leave you to your research,’ he said, heading for the door. I ignored him. Childish, perhaps, but I
was angry that he’d been in touch with Dad.

  I took my phone out and looked at the missed call on the screen, then put it away again. Then I changed my mind and took it out again. Just because I wanted to do an images search for the portrait I’d found and see if anything came up. Not in case Dad called again. Nope.

  As I took a few photos of the self-portrait, I found my mind drifting to my dad once more. I couldn’t blame him for being so overprotective, I admitted. After all, he’d suffered unimaginably when my mum was killed. Her death had changed him almost beyond recognition – not surprisingly.

  I couldn’t remember Mummy very clearly. I was five when she died, killed in a car accident when she was eight months pregnant with my baby brother. He’d died too, though the doctors had delivered him and tried hard to save him. I’d been at school when the accident happened and I couldn’t really remember much about the days that followed.

  It was as though I’d gone to sleep one day, happy and safe with a mum who loved me and a baby brother or sister on the way, and woken up in a scary cold place with a bewildered dad, no mum, and no baby.

  My first memory of that troubled time was sitting on the stairs, hugging my white kitten. He was called Snowflake and he’d been a present from Mummy and Daddy.

  ‘He belongs to you,’ Mummy said. ‘He’s not to share with the baby – he’s just yours.’

  But now Mummy was gone, and the baby was gone, and I was alone with Snowflake on the stairs, confused and sad.

  There were lots of people in the house. We’d all been to a place to say goodbye to Mummy and the baby, who was called Billy and who was going to heaven too. He and Mummy had been in the same box, called a coffin. I hadn’t ever met Billy but I didn’t care. I hated Billy for being with Mummy when I wasn’t. And I hated Mummy for going without saying goodbye. And I didn’t understand why Daddy kept hugging me too tight and for too long.

  So now I sat on the stairs with my kitten and hid from all the people in the house who kept kissing me.

  ‘How is Ella doing?’ I heard a woman – I thought it was my Auntie Sally – saying.

  ‘Quiet,’ Daddy said. I shrank back against the stairs in case he saw me. I didn’t like this new Daddy who cried and didn’t know how to plait my hair. ‘Bewildered. Missing her mum.’

  Daddy’s voice sounded funny, sort of thick and watery. ‘I don’t know what to do with her, Sal. I don’t know how to look after her. What do I know about little girls?’

  ‘Oh, Jim,’ said Auntie Sally. ‘You mustn’t think that way. You love her. That’s enough.’

  I peered through the bannisters at Daddy. He looked so sad that I wanted to cuddle him. Instead I pulled Snowflake closer.

  ‘I can’t,’ Daddy said. ‘She needs a mum.’ He rubbed his nose. ‘Will you take her, Sal? You look after her. Please, Sally, you have to take her.’

  ‘Jim,’ Auntie Sally said. ‘Think about what you’re saying …’

  The front door opened and their voices drifted down the path, but I wasn’t listening any more anyway. Daddy didn’t want me. As it turned out, Sally hadn’t wanted me either. At least I’d not gone to live with her as Dad had obviously wanted that day. I’d stayed at home with my sad father, and we’d muddled through together.

  But always, hanging over me like a dark cloud, was the memory of him asking his sister – begging his sister – to take me away from him. And the knowledge that she hadn’t. What was wrong with me? I wondered. What made me so awful that my own dad didn’t want me – and nor did my auntie?

  As I grew up I knew I couldn’t ever risk doing anything that could make Dad want to get rid of me. So I did everything he asked, from going to bed without arguing to doing my homework. I studied hard. I didn’t rebel. I never talked back to him, or acted out. I was a good girl and I wasn’t ever going to give him cause to send me away.

  Lost in thought, I reached out and absent-mindedly picked up a paintbrush that Oscar had left on my desk – already my special writing space was being taken over by little boys. I squashed the bristles against my cheek, thoughtfully. I couldn’t remember much about my mum but I did remember how she wore her hair in a long plait that she pulled over one shoulder. I would cuddle up on her lap and squish the thick end of her hair into my cheek, just like I was doing now with the paintbrush.

  In fact, I thought, that was why I’d first written a story. A few months after the accident, my heart still bruised, I had been at school when I’d run my thumb over the bristles on a brush and felt dizzy with painful joy because it reminded me of Mummy.

  My teacher, a nice lady called Mrs Williams, had noticed me standing stock-still holding the brush. And she’d gently put some paper in front of me.

  ‘Why don’t you paint me a picture?’ she’d said. ‘Could you draw Daddy for me?’

  I had shaken my head. People were too difficult, in real life and on paper.

  ‘Okay then, could you write me a story instead?’ Mrs Williams had said. ‘What about writing about your kitten?’

  So I did. I wrote a story about Snowflake. And then I wrote another one. And another one. I let Snowflake do all the exciting, dangerous, thrilling, cheeky things that I was too scared to do. The things Daddy was too careful to let me do. The things I’d never think of doing in case Daddy got upset and sent me away. And gradually my frozen heart began to thaw.

  I thawed a bit more when Dad married Barbara. I was seventeen and about to go to university when they got married so she was never a replacement for Mum. But I wallowed in Barb’s warmth and her careful, gentle pushing for me to live my own life. Barb was a solicitor, like Dad, but unlike him she loved art and reading and music. She was the first person who ever read my stories and she encouraged me to write more. Dad only grunted. It was Barb’s idea for me to join a creative writing group at university.

  ‘Dad’s not interested in creative stuff,’ I’d said one weekend when I was home and showing her my latest short story.

  Barb had chuckled. ‘He reads,’ she’d said.

  ‘Military history and the FT,’ I’d pointed out.

  ‘He’d read something you’d written,’ Barb had said. ‘He’s very proud of you.’

  I’d shaken my head. Dad was proud because I was studying law like he’d suggested, I thought. He’d never shown any interest in writing, so I didn’t want him to realize it was as important to me as it was. What if he didn’t approve?

  Barb, though, persisted. She kept telling me to show Dad pieces I’d had published in the university paper, and it was her who’d read my first draft of my first Tessa novel and told Dad all about how amazing it was. She was my cheerleader. I felt like she bridged a gap between Dad and me and I loved her for it. I thought Dad and I were very lucky to have her in our lives and she assured me she felt the same way about us.

  Any friction between Dad and me – up until I had my meltdown in the pub – had all been in my head. Though, try as I might, I couldn’t ever forget hearing him ask Sally to take me away. I never showed him how I felt. I never, ever let him know my perfect behaviour was hiding my fear that he’d send me away. To Sally, to some unknown relative somewhere, to an awful boarding school like poor Sara Crewe in A Little Princess, to I didn’t know where. But I knew I couldn’t risk it.

  I swirled Oscar’s paintbrush on my cheek and then ran my thumb over the bristles like I’d done in Mrs Williams’s classroom all those years before. Ben was right, I thought. I needed to call Dad. I’d invite him and Barb to stay. He adored the boys and seeing them so happy in their new house would make him realize our move had been the right thing to do. And I’d apologize for all those things I’d said. Maybe I’d even tell him about the mystery. He was logical and methodical and he’d probably be able to help with my research.

  I’d call him. But not today. Tomorrow, perhaps. Or the next day. Not today.

  Chapter 15

  I took a mouthful of tea and made a face.

  ‘Ah yes, forgot to warn you, that the tea here is pret
ty disgusting,’ said Priya, sitting down opposite me in the bleak police canteen in Brighton. She pushed a muffin towards me. ‘Have some of this; it hides the taste.’

  She smiled at me, her dark eyes searching my face. I thought suspects wouldn’t ever be able to pull a fast one with her.

  ‘So has this afternoon been useful?’

  I nodded through chocolatey crumbs. ‘Very useful,’ I said. ‘It’s good to see how you guys do things down here.’

  With Tessa’s story in mind, I’d followed Priya round CID, chatting to some of the detectives and taking reams of notes, jotting down every difference I could spot between Sussex and the Met. But while Tessa’s investigation was beginning to take shape in my head, it was the Cliff House Mystery, as I was beginning to think of it, that I kept coming back to.

  Now I grinned at Priya across the table. ‘I’ve found out some more about our house,’ I said.

  Priya clapped her hands in glee. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said.

  I took another slurp of horrible tea and outlined what I’d found out about the Hargreaves family – Marcus, Harriet, and Violet. Priya jotted the names down on a piece of paper as I talked.

  ‘And then I found some bits and pieces in an old cupboard,’ I said, reaching into my bag and pulling out a folder. ‘The dates match up with the Hargreaves bunch. And it’s only a hunch but I think they might have something to do with this mystery – otherwise why would the cupboard have been left that way – untouched for more than one hundred and fifty years?’

  I pulled the self-portrait out of my folder and opened it up. ‘I think this could be a drawing of Violet,’ I said.

  Priya studied the picture carefully for a minute. Then she put it down and began to leaf through the cuttings with interest. ‘God, I can’t believe they’ve lasted this long,’ she said. ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘It’s a really long time ago,’ I said, making a face. ‘Do your records go back that far?’

  Priya nodded. ‘Oh we’ve got them,’ she said, clicking the end of her pen, and starting to write in her notebook. ‘They’re not on the system, though. They’re locked away at HQ.’