She relaxed into the pillows, sliding into sleep. Outside the last of the daylight slunk down into the lifeless trees, the hills snow-tipped and quiet, no cars about, no sounds. Only the drinkers inside the pub, calling last orders at the ringing of the bell.
64
30 December
As he walked up the front steps to the block of flats in Battersea, Nino could see a family watching television in a front room, and rang the ground-floor buzzer. He heard someone curse and an Indian man opened the door and stared at him.
‘What is it?’
‘I’m looking for Rachel Pitt,’ Nino explained. ‘She lives upstairs.’
‘So?’ the man asked as his wife moved into the hall behind him.
Pushing him aside, she smiled at Nino. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Rachel Pitt lives upstairs, doesn’t she? I need to talk to her – it’s urgent.’
‘Such a lovely girl, so very kind. Is it bad news?’ the woman asked as her husband walked back into the front room.
‘Someone in her family’s been taken ill,’ Nino lied. ‘I can’t get her on the phone and she’s not answering her bell.’
‘Oh, she went away. She’s on holiday until New Year—’
‘Until New Year?’ Nino repeated sharply. ‘D’you know where’s she gone?’
She put up her hands for a moment, calling for her husband. ‘Daruka! Daruka!’
He came back into the hall, his expression impatient. ‘What is it?’
‘Do you remember where Rachel said she was going on holiday? This gentleman needs to contact her; someone in the family is ill.’
Shaking his head, he moved closer. ‘She did tell me, but I can’t … the mountains somewhere.’
‘The mountains?’ Nino repeated. ‘In this country?’
‘Yes, yes, in England.’
‘The Peak District?’ Nino offered.
‘No. That is not it.’ He turned to his wife again, speaking Hindi’, then turned back to Nino. ‘Up north—’
‘The Lake District?’
‘Yes!’ he agreed, nodding. ‘That’s it. She’s gone to the Lake District.’
‘D’you know where in the Lakes?’
‘No. She said it was a village. That’s all.’
As her husband moved back into the house the Indian woman looked at Nino sympathetically. ‘I’m so sorry we can’t help you more.’
Frustrated, he hesitated on the doorstep. To have come so far and hit another dead end. Rachel Pitt was up in the Lake District, but where? It was a big place, with God knows how many villages. It would take him days to check them all out. Days he didn’t have.
Changing tack, he asked, ‘D’you know where her family live?’
‘She only has a mother, and she never talks about her. Not lately, anyway.’ The woman paused, suddenly suspicious. ‘I thought you said it was someone in her family who was ill?’
‘It’s a cousin. He lives abroad,’ Nino said, hurrying on. ‘Look, I have to find Rachel. It’s important. You have no idea how important.’ Scribbling his name on a piece of paper he gave it to the woman. ‘Please, help me. I have to find her.’
She looked at him, concerned. ‘Is she in trouble?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Worse. She’s in danger.’
65
His glasses pushed up on his balding head, Gaspare was relaxing in the sitting room, listening to Rachmaninov. No matter how many times he heard the piece, he was moved by it, temporarily taken away from his anxieties, suspended between D flat and middle C. So when he noticed a sound break through the music, he was surprised and went downstairs.
Someone was knocking on the back door. He could see a large figure outlined against the glass and hesitated, remembering his previous heroics.
‘Mr Reni! Mr Reni!’ the voice shouted.
Cautious, Gaspare approached the door. ‘Who is it?’
‘Jonathan Ravenscourt.’
Keeping the chain on, Gaspare opened the door a couple of inches. ‘What d’you want?’
Ravenscourt was flustered and dishevelled. ‘Can I come in?’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t know you.’
‘You know of me—’
‘Yes, and I don’t like what I hear,’ Gaspare replied, his tone sharp. ‘You got a friend of mine in trouble with the police – I had to dig him out of it.’
‘I retracted my statement!’ Ravenscourt said, pushing at the door. ‘Look, I’m not going to hurt you, I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. Not physically anyway. What I did to Nino Bergstrom was wrong, but I’ve sorted it out with the police now and I want to help him out. For God’s sake, let me in! On come on, Mr Reni, I ask you – do I look like a maniac?’
Relenting, Gaspare took off the safety chain and Ravens-court moved into the kitchen and took off his cashmere coat. His trousers and shoes were spattered with mud.
‘I came to ask you something,’ he said, ‘something about the Titian—’
‘Not that bloody painting again,’ Gaspare said dismissively. ‘I wish I’d never set eyes on the thing. It’s been nothing but trouble—’
‘Of course you know all about it.’
‘Everything.’
‘About there being another murder?’
‘Yes, and Nino’s on a wild goose chase, trying to find the last victim. The police can’t find the killer, so God knows why he thinks he can.’ He looked at Ravenscourt’s dirtied clothes. ‘What happened to you?’
‘It’s raining.’
‘Mud?’
‘What?’
‘You look like you’ve been rolling in mud.’ Gaspare tilted his head to one side. ‘I don’t want to offend you, Mr Ravens-court, but I don’t believe a word of what you’re telling me. I don’t think you’re trying to make up for what you did to Nino. I think,’ he paused, wily to a fault, ‘that you’re trying to find out what’s going on. If we know anything. And if the Titian’s been found—’
‘Am I that transparent?’
‘You’re a dealer. I’m a dealer. So yes, to me you’re that transparent,’ Gaspare replied, as he moved away and began to prepare some coffee.
His instinct told him not to throw Johnny Ravenscourt out. He had every right to suspect him – and his motives. But there had to be a reason why Ravenscourt had come back to London. And Gaspare wanted to know what it was.
Passing him a cup of coffee, Gaspare poured himself another and took a seat at the kitchen table. Surprised, Ravenscourt followed his lead, loading two spoonfuls of sugar into the coffee and stirring it idly.
‘So the police aren’t after you any more?’
‘I’ve satisfied them.’
‘Lucky boy,’ Gaspare said drily, regarding Ravenscourt over the rim of his cup. ‘Did someone attack you?’ He gestured to his clothes. ‘You can’t have got that dirty walking in the rain.’
‘I fell over,’ Ravenscourt replied shortly.
‘Fell or pushed?’
He smiled, sighing. ‘I had a ridiculous idea … er … I thought that if I went back to where the Titian was originally found …’ He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I’m not light-footed and I fell over on the shingle—’
‘You went back to where Seraphina found the Titian? What for?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ravenscourt admitted. ‘Returning to the scene of the crime – something like that. Maybe I wanted to play amateur sleuth. Maybe I wanted to see what she saw. Be where she’d been. We were very close. Seraphina confided everything to me …’ His voice trailed off. ‘Didn’t it ever strike you as odd that she was so conveniently there? Just when the Titian washed up?’ He sighed, frowning at the mud on his trousers. ‘If only someone else had found it, she’d still be alive. If only it had been some other person, some other woman.’
Thoughtful, Gaspare stared at him. ‘It was just a fluke that Seraphina found it—’
‘A fluke that killed her. A fluke that took away my best friend,’ Ravenscourt replied pettishly, sipping his coffee. ‘Have you seen the papers today? Angelico Vespucci’s becoming the piatta del giorno.’ Gaspare smiled at the remark, but said nothing and let Ravenscourt continue. ‘You know, I made a very interesting purchase lately. I bought a portrait of Claudia Moroni—’