‘Oh, that’s a favourite of mine,’ Madelaine chuckled. ‘He won first prize.’
Kathy looked perplexed.
‘A fancy-dress competition! He went as the Empire State Building.’
Kathy got it now. The spots were windows, and the crown formed the famous silhouette. It was hard to make out what little Charles was thinking, but he didn’t look happy.
Madelaine went on to talk about the early years of his practice, when Charles had returned from graduate school in America with a young fellow-graduate as his wife and had put out his shingle in London, penniless but filled with confidence. She then glowingly related the critical success of Briar Hill, its publication in Architectural Design and Casabella, and the triumphs of the middle years.
‘The break-up with his first wife must have been hard, with her having been so much a part of all that,’ Kathy said, trying to move the story forward.
Madelaine Verge took a deep breath, as if reluctant to come to that episode, then turned her head sharply at the sound of feet on gravel. ‘Ah, George!’ she cried as a man came round the corner of the cottage, carrying a garden fork and hoe. ‘Did you get the plants you wanted?’
‘Most of ’em, Mrs V. They were out of onions.’ He lifted his cap to the women, squinting suspiciously at Kathy. He was a stocky figure, of late middle age, with a deeply lined face and wisps of fair hair across his pate, dressed in old clothes for garden work. He replaced his cap, picked up his tools and moved towards a freshly dug bed on the far side of the small lawn. As he turned away Kathy saw that the left side of his face was badly scarred.
‘George is one of Charles’s projects,’ Madelaine whispered, leaning towards Kathy. ‘He was in prison at the time Charles was doing research for the Marchdale project-are you familiar with that? Yes, well, Charles learned a great deal from George about prison life, so much so that he engaged him as a consultant and then, when he was released, Charles took him on as a general handyman to look after my little garden in town and to get this place into shape for Charlotte. It really was a mess when he bought it for her, but within a few months George had repaired the roof, knocked out a wall, put in a new kitchen and bathroom, redecorated, and now he’s reorganising the garden.’
‘Very handy.’
‘And very honest and loyal. We trust him absolutely, despite his past. He is a real vindication of Charles’s faith in him.’
‘What happened to his face?’
‘The story is that he had a pan of chip fat spilled on him when he was young. He has had a very tragic life.’
‘We were talking about Charles’s divorce.’
‘Oh…yes.’ Her voice hardened. ‘Well, I think the truth of the matter is that Charles simply outgrew Gail. The split was inevitable, really.’
‘Outgrew her?’
‘In professional terms. Oh, Gail was very supportive in the early days, very clever with designing the details, Charles used to say. But as the practice grew, it really became far too demanding for Gail’s abilities. She had to take a back seat, and I’m afraid that had its effect on their personal relation ship. Charles was very sad about it, of course.’
‘He had a breakdown?’ Kathy ventured.
‘No, no, that’s putting it far too strongly. It was a setback, yes, and at a sensitive time for Charlotte, at sixteen. Gail…well, I’m probably biased, but she let a lot of people down, walking out like that.’
‘But then Charles met Miki Norinaga.’
Silence for a moment, then the elderly woman said primly, ‘Not immediately. There was an interval of a couple of years.’
‘That must have been difficult for Charlotte too, her being not much younger than her new stepmother.’
Madelaine Verge turned a stern eye on Kathy. ‘If you’re trying to suggest some kind of family crisis arising from Charles’s second marriage, you’re quite wrong. Charlotte was starting at university, she had a new life of her own to focus on.’
‘I get the impression that you didn’t like Charles’s choice much, Madelaine.’
The other woman seemed about to make some frosty remark, but then she raised her twisted hands in a gesture of resignation and sighed. ‘Miki was an arrogant and manipulative young woman. But Charles fell for her, and there was nothing that I or anyone else could say to dissuade him.’
‘Others tried, did they?’
‘His colleagues were concerned. Sandy Clarke had the unenviable task of voicing their reservations to Charles, but he swept them aside.’ Then she added wistfully, ‘He always had the courage of his convictions, my Charles.’
‘Mr Clarke said that Miki became much more assertive as time went on. Do you think that Charles had begun to have second thoughts?’
Madelaine Verge sighed, as if weary at being dragged from the golden memories of her son’s youth to the sordid complications of the present. ‘He said nothing to me. And no matter how difficult his wife might have been, he would never, never have resorted to anything so grotesque and stupid as murdering her like that. And that really is the nub, isn’t it, Kathy? You must see that. That’s why you must come round to my point of view.’
‘I have to tell you that from the information we’ve got, your idea about the American competitors just doesn’t seem plausible.’
‘You’re direct, Kathy. I like that. Superintendent Chivers was always so tactful in dismissing my ideas that he ended up being patronising and offensive. I didn’t say it was the Americans necessarily, just that it must be somebody like that; a rival, a resentful enemy.’
‘Charles was obviously a strong personality. Did he have enemies as resentful as that?’
‘Clearly he did, and it’s up to you to find them.’
Kathy asked if she could have a few words with Charlotte before she left. She found the young woman in a small room fitted out as an office, working at a computer.
‘Hello, Charlotte,’ Kathy said. ‘Can I have a word?’ The other woman grunted but didn’t shift her attention from the screen. While she waited, Kathy looked around the room at the shelves of computer manuals and files, some rather impressive glossy computer printouts pinned to the wall, a calendar, and a framed lithograph which caught her attention. The geometric figures, three red squares on a fading yellow background, reminded her of the large painting in the Verges’ apartment, and she thought she recognised the small black signature at the bottom. She asked Charlotte if it was the same artist.
‘Yes,’ Charlotte muttered, still not turning from the computer, and then, reluctantly, added a name, which Kathy thought was Ruth Diaz until she examined the signature more closely and realised it was Luz Diaz.
‘Your grandmother mentioned that you have a Spanish artist as a neighbour, at Briar Hill.’
Charlotte finally turned away from her work and looked at Kathy with a resentful glare. ‘Yes, it’s her. She gave me that as a house-warming present, when I moved in.’
‘She’s a friend of your father?’
‘That’s right. You’d know all this if you’d read your own reports. She was interviewed…’ she gave the word a bitter emphasis, ‘… like everyone else. No wonder no one wants to know us any more. No one except the press, that is.’
‘I’m sorry, it must have been very difficult for you.’
‘There’s several Charles Verge websites, have you seen them? All the latest sightings from around the world, the latest sick theories. He was in a three-way relationship with Miki and a lover of hers, did you know that? All three of them were heavily into cocaine, apparently, or LSD. That’s where they got their ideas for buildings from. Or he was inspired by Jack the Ripper, and he’s still stalking the East End with a carving knife.’
She turned away with a sigh. ‘Just go away, will you? We don’t want you here.’
Kathy had had enough of being dismissed by Charlotte. ‘Well, I can understand that. But it won’t go away until we discover the truth. You do appreciate that, don’t you? There will never be any resolution to this until we find your father. Your child will grow up in the shadow of what he did, just as surely as you’re living in it now. When she goes to school, when she applies for a job, people will go on whispering about her.’