Page 14 of Old Girls Behaving Badly

I turned to look at her, to tell her I was only seventy-one, but then I thought about that number and realised that it was actually quite old. Not as old as Dorothy herself, but old enough to be considered old.

‘Why did he leave you?’

‘Because I’m beige and unexciting,’ I said, without thinking. ‘And now, I have to move and our finances don’t stretch to make that easy. I might be able to afford a very small, damp flat a million miles away from everything I know.’

I could feel my throat thicken and then Dorothy reached her hand out and took mine.

‘Gina, you are not beige and unexciting. Look what you’re about to do for me. Imagine telling your husband that you found a lost painting and put a criminal behind bars. That is very exciting.’

I turned to look at her again and thought she should really have ten out of ten for powers of persuasion. I imagined her in her house in Hampton with her rich and full life, her boat, her boathouse and up until that fateful day when her husband died, leading a very exciting life. One to aspire to, one like my mother used to have.

‘I grew up in Bushy Park, in front of your house,’ I said, suddenly. It was an odd thought that swooped into my head, seemingly from nowhere.

‘In the park itself?’

‘Yes, my front garden was full of deer.’

Dorothy was eyeing me as if I’d lost the plot.

‘It’s a long story, but a true one,’ I said.

‘Perhaps you can tell me later,’ she said and then leaned in closer to me. ‘You know, this would be a good time for you to get inside and start to have a look around,’ she said.

‘Dorothy, I understand how important this is to you and I’m terribly sorry about Philip, but I don’t think I can poke around someone’s house. What if he were to come in and find me?’

‘He won’t. He’s going to be very busy out here showboating around. I have your mobile phone number and can message you if he makes a move towards the house. Just have a rummage and see what you think might be off or out of place. Just a start and then if it doesn’t feel right, we can forget it.’

‘Do you even know how to message?’ I asked her dubiously and Dorothy looked aghast.

‘Of course I can! I like to play the decrepit old lady when it suits me, but I’m more than capable of most things.’

I looked over to see that Leonard had moved closer to us and was also setting up a game of boule. I made a quick decision.

‘Dorothy,’ I said with a raised voice. ‘I’m a bit worried about you not having your hat. If you’re going to play, you’ll need it in this sun.’

Dorothy fixed me with a sharp look at my rather pathetic attempt to sound natural, but quickly rearranged her features.

‘Oh, you’re right,’ she said as Leonard looked in our direction. ‘Would you be so kind as to fetch it for me please. I think it’s on the top shelf in my wardrobe.’

I didn’t dare look at Leonard, but got up out of my chair and before I could change my mind I made for the house.

‘Won’t be long,’ I said.

Only when I had reached the safety of the patio doors did I dare look back, but everyone seemed fully absorbed in their games – Leonard included.

I rushed through the music room and into the entrance hall with my phone out, snapping photos of anything and everything as I went. Then I paused in front of the twelve-panelled stained-glass window to catch my breath and take stock. It wouldn’t do to run around like a headless chicken; I needed to be methodical. I suddenly thought of the principles of art history operations: description, analysis, interpretation and judgement.

I took another breath and turned slowly on my heel, my discerning eye taking in the contents of the hallway. It kept coming back to that oddly placed mirror, so I held my phone down low and took a photo. It seemed relevant somehow, but I didn’t know why at that moment, so I tucked the info away and set off up the stairs. If I was to be discovered snooping I’d need to be in possession of Dorothy’s hat.

With a guilty conscience I told three people that I was just there to get Dorothy’s hat. One was Harry, who had gravitated upstairs for some reason, but he looked just as bemused by me as he had before and scurried away, probably worried he was going to get into some sort of conversation he didn’t want to have. The second was a young woman I came across as I returned to the ground floor to navigate the rooms leading from the entrance hall. Her job, apparently, was to decorate the orangery for the wedding reception and she was looking for Leonard. She clearly wasn’t interested in Dorothy’s hat, and the third person was vacuuming the carpet with an industrial-looking cleaner. I waved the hat in his direction and began to explain what I was doing in the house, but the man had earbuds in and he wouldn’t have heard me anyway over the noise of the machine. I felt ridiculous as he turned away from me to carry on with his work.

I found my way into Leonard’s library, which was accessed from the hall by a small dark corridor with some dusty-looking curtains covering the window which, if I had my bearings right, would look out onto the inner courtyard.

The library took my breath away. The showroom of the house, elaborately decorated with beautiful wallpaper of trailing honeysuckle in pinks and greens. Five huge bay windows, all with cushioned seats, lined one side of the room, while a bank of dark mahogany bookcases ran along the other. The fireplace in the centre was surrounded in marble with a tapestry hanging above it. The leather settees looked worn but comfortable. I could smell the old leather and imagined how many people had sat there over the years, a small glass of port or sherry on the side table and a large leather-bound tome in their hands.

The most remarkable thing about this room was the ceiling, though. It was in bright-white intricately carved plaster. My first thought was that it was old and perhaps restored, and I tucked Dorothy’s hat under my arm so I could take my phone out of my pocket again. When I took a photo and enlarged the image I could see the emblems were actually modern portraits of authors. I recognised Arthur Conan Doyle, C. S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, then Ian Rankin and that made me laugh at the unexpectedness of a contemporary writer. I walked across to the other side of the room and took more pictures: Agatha Christie, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, Kate Mosse. It was a wonderful idea and something I had never seen before. I walked further down the room completely lost in the faces above my head.

As I crooked my neck for a better look to see who else I recognised, I failed to hear the light footsteps coming across the Persian rugs that ran down the centre of the room, and it was only when he spoke that I realised I wasn’t alone.