Jane stepped onto a rough gravel area and headed towards a large door that was slightly askew on its hinges. She needed Tim’s help to drag it open. Conveniently, on a hook just inside the door, was a large torch. They didn’t need it, though, because the arched aperture gave enough light to see what must have been, at one time, a very expensive speed boat. The boat was now balanced on blocks, the hull clearly in need of repair and the leather seats torn and stained.
‘You know what this is?’ Tim said excitedly. ‘It’s an old cigarette speed boat. I would say this is probably 1920s or ’30s. Big, powerful engines. It’s shameful that it’s been left rotting like this.’
Jane looked at the slatted walls where numerous water skis were tied up, along with a rotting rubber dinghy, oars and, high up on a shelf, a single skiff. Unlike the speed boat, it looked to be in good condition.
‘They must lower this down a ramp into the water. I would say from the tufts of grass between the rails, nothing has been lowered into the sea for a long time. I’d give my eye teeth to have something like this,’ Tim said.
Jane ignored him, making her way to the rear of the boathouse, past the stacks of old tennis racquets and golf clubs stacked against the wall. Next to them was a door with a notice painted in red: PRIVATE — NO ADMITTANCE.
She looked at the red lightbulb above the door. ‘I reckon this could be Jason’s darkroom.’
‘What?’ Tim said, being careful not to trip over the coils of rope left on the uneven floorboards.
‘Beatrice told me that Jason took after her father, who was a keen photographer. Apparently, Jason had an expensive movie camera and had been filming his girlfriend, Arabella, at an equestrian event in Melbourne.’ She turned and smiled. ‘For one godawful moment, I thought she was going to ask me to watch it — that was when I decided I’d had enough yesterday.’
Jane tried the handle of the door. It was locked.
‘Can you see if there’s a key anywhere, Tim?’
He looked around, then eased past Jane to try the handle himself.
‘I think it might just be a bit warped.’ He used all his strength to twist the handle and almost fell forwards as the door opened. Jane peered into the room.
‘Can you get that torch? We don’t want to make a mess.’.
As he went back to fetch it, Jane eased further into the darkroom. Unlike the rest of the boathouse, this was not in a sorry state of repair. There were plywood boards covering the walls, and the ceiling had numerous electric lights, though she was unable to see any switches. There was a long trestle table with neat stacks of plastic developing trays, and bottles of photographic liquids and other developing equipment on the shelves. The only other furniture was two old chests of drawers, and an office swivel chair.
Tim appeared and shone the torch around the room. On one side there was a tied-back black curtain on a rail and behind it were three sinks. Above the sinks were steel hanging lines with pegs.
‘Well, she didn’t lie about this, did she? Maybe Jason should’ve spent less time in here and more time at his export company, because this place is obviously used frequently.’ Jane pointed towards an electric kettle and a whisky bottle. As the beam of the torch shone on the kettle, Jane spotted the light switches. She made her way over to the old round knobs. They looked fairly antiquated, and she suspected that the electrics could be faulty.
‘I’m going to try these switches,’ she said, and then was surprised when the darkroom became instantly flooded with light. She could see a number of negatives pinned up behind the black curtain and stacked to one side were four large cardboard boxes. They were thick with dust but she could clearly see written on the lids ‘H Lanark, family photographs, 1940’.
‘I think Jason must have shipped these over when the house in Stockwell was turned into flats,’ Jane said.
Tim folded his arms. ‘If you ask me, I think he must have shipped over a lot of that antique furniture in the house as well.’
‘Quite possibly. If he’s in the export business, he would have the facilities to ship it back easily.’ She shook her head, frowning. ‘I just can’t really get to grips with Helena Lanark. She inherits the house, her mother’s jewellery, and money from her father, and what does she do? She boards up the house for maybe ten to fifteen years... just boards it up. I can’t help thinking she was in some sort of denial about the baby being buried in the shelter... maybe even afraid someone would find it?’
‘But she couldn’t have been that worried, because eventually she let her nephew Jason divide it up into flats,’ Tim said.
‘I know,’ Jane said, ‘but he was only allowed to divide the house into flats on the condition that no one was ever allowed into the basement, and no one was ever allowed access into the garden. When I went there after the discovery in the shelter, the garden was like a jungle. The grass had been left to grow about three feet high, and the orchard had just been left to grow wild.’
‘But then he sold it, right?’ Tim said.
Jane frowned. ‘I know, but I think by that time he had got power of attorney because Helena was put into her care home. In reality, she might not even have been aware of what she was signing over to him.’
‘What about his mother, Beatrice?’
‘I don’t know, Tim, I really don’t know, but I think she knows what happened in that shelter. God forbid, it might even have been her baby.’
As they had been talking, Tim had carried one of the large boxes over to the trestle table. He found a Stanley knife in one of the drawers and cut through the old hemp string that had been tied around the box.
‘I don’t think Jason knew anything bad had happened in that house. I think, if he had — given your friend Mitch’s description of his behaviour and my own interaction with him — he would have got rid of not only that poor girl who had been chained up in the shelter, but also the baby.’
Jane now carried a second box to the table and instructed Tim to cut the string on it while she eased the lid off the first box.
‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed. The box was stacked with hundreds of photographs, some in cardboard cut-out frames, some loose, some with black markings drawn across them.
Jane’s hands were now filthy, and Tim had begun to cough. The amount of grime and dust that was coming off the boxes was getting to his chest.
‘Are you OK, Tim?’
He nodded.
‘OK, let’s see if there’s anything useful among this lot.’
They started going through the photographs.
‘I don’t know if this is anyone in the family,’ Tim said, holding one up. Jane took it from him.
‘Good heavens!’ The woman in the photograph was wearing an elaborate embroidered gown with lace and jewelled sleeves. Her hair was coiled in intricate curls on her forehead, the rest of it in a high, plaited bun that reached from the top of her head to the nape of her neck. But it was the necklace that had got Jane’s attention.
‘Tim — the three strands of pearls.’ She turned the photo over and in faded writing read the words ‘Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, 1928’.
Jane could see how incredible the large pearls were, each with a beautiful sheen and nearly perfectly spherical.
‘You see the third strand, how long it is?’ She held the photo up for Tim to see. ‘That is the one I saw around Helena’s neck when I visited her at the care home.’ She pointed to the second strand. ‘And I’m certain this is the one that Beatrice was wearing yesterday. She told me that the third strand, the smallest one, was given to Marjorie but was buried with her when she died. Can you imagine what these three strands together are worth?’
‘How much do you think?’ he asked.