His men had been in my house.
I turn at the end of the lane and run back harder.
I stop on the gravel at the kitchen door with my hands on my knees and breathe. I need to pull myself together.
Ashworth Park spreads out around me in the early light. The walled garden. The old stables. The long lawn going to the tree line. My mother's house. The house my family came to because someone bombed the nursery where my baby son slept.
Ivy is awake when I come upstairs.
Sitting up with her knees drawn to her chest, still in my shirt. She looks at me in such a dazed, loved-up way that there is no possible way I can tell her the truth. It will destroy her. I won’t allow her to be violated any more than she already has been.
I’ve never wanted to keep a secret from my wife, but this morning changed everything.
CHAPTER 40
The Tap of Her Cane
IVY
I’m digging into a buttery croissant with gooseberry jam when Christopher comes through the front door like the building is on fire. It’s a shame, because I’m in such an amazing mood after last night that I just wanted to float around today without any worries.
He is pale and dishevelled. He doesn't knock and he doesn't slow down. He points at Daisy and makes vague gestures. “Coffee. Now. Please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where's Isobel?” he demands.
Alistair is up already. “Orangery.”
We run.
Isobel is sitting at the small iron table with her cane beside her and her hands folded. She looks up when we come through thedoor with the expression of a woman who, if she did not know we were coming, had at least suspected that something was.
The glass walls are cold and frost thaws on the grounds outside. The pale sky looks enormous.
She looks at us and waits. Christopher is still pale.
“I got Brodie's message,” he says. “Same as you. And when I saw the name—” He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. “Right. Vellcott.”
“The man from Burgundy's,” Alistair says. “The owner.”
“Months ago, at the club. He was being generous with the good whisky, which in retrospect—” He waves it away. “He was talking. Never anything specific. But there was this thing he said about a man he does business with. Someone important. He said every time this man comes to London, on his last day, he books out a whole gallery. Privately. The entire thing. Just for himself. To be alone with one piece.”
He looks at Alistair.
“I didn't know who Vellcott’s boss was then. It meant nothing. But if Vellcott’s boss is Hargrove?—”
“Then today is his last day,” Alistair says, biting his lip.
“Today is his last day.”
Daisy comes in with the coffee. Christopher takes a cup before she has set the tray down, empties it in two long slurping swallows, and holds it out again.
“Does that even make sense though?” he says. “A gallery. Is Hargrove really that kind of person?”
“We don’t know what kind of person he is,” replies Alistair, who seems especially on edge this morning. I wonder if he regrets last night. “But this is the only lead we have.”
Isobel has not spoken since we came in. “Make sure you’re ready before you move,” she says.
