Page 51 of A Curious Ending

‘Possibly,’ was Abby’s unsatisfactory reply.

Lara remembered something else that had been annoying her. ‘Why is everyone so interested in this painting?’

‘Ah, three musicians around a harpsichord? My goodness, Lara,’ Abby replied, somewhat patronisingly, ‘please don’t tell me you have never heard of The Lost Vermeer!’

Chapter 25

Lara was tempted to say something very rude in reply, possibly in Arabic (which she found a satisfyingly expressive language). But then she remembered that Abby spoke Hindi, and she didn’t put it past her to have mastered this language as well. So instead, she simply repeated, ‘The Lost Vermeer?’

‘Oh, yes indeed. The Dutch artist Vermeer created very few paintings in his short life, all of which are now enormously valuable. In 1990 a painting called The Concert was stolen from a gallery in Boston. It depicted three musicians around a harpsichord, two women and a man, thought to have been painted in the 1660s. It has never been seen again.’

‘Whoa! And you think this could be it?’ Lara exclaimed.

‘Well…’ Abby replied evasively.

‘How much do you think it could be worth?’ Lara demanded.

‘As to that, it would be hundreds of millions of pounds, I imagine.’

‘Now, that feels like a proper motive,’ Lara declared. She had always thought the tea service was a bit of a red herring, whereas a painting worth millions? ‘Although…’ she continued, and her thoughts became muddled. Was this even the lost painting? Wasn’t that a bit of a leap? And why would anyone need to kill Lady Porter for it? Maybe Dr Patil if he knew he was inheriting it? Or someone who just wanted to get their hands on it? The more she considered it, the more confused she became.

Meanwhile, Abby sat straight-backed on a chair imitating the playing of a harpsichord. She started to hum.

‘You know something about it, don’t you?’ Lara demanded suspiciously.

‘Not precisely,’ was all the reply that Lara could get from Abby who finished her imaginary playing, turned and bowed her head to Lara, then disappeared into thin air.

A split-second later, Kate popped her head around the door. ‘Oh, there you are! Sarah and I were worried about you. You okay?’ Kate queried, stepping closer to look at Lara.

Lara stooped to pick up an empty wine bottle to avoid her gaze. ‘I’m fine. Just coming back to get more wine.’ For some reason she felt reluctant to talk about her ‘fall’.

She followed Kate back to the Dress Circle Bar where Sarah was talking about the startling performance that had taken place in one of the boxes. ‘Even the management didn’t know it was planned,’ Sarah told them. ‘Did you see it?’

Not wanting the ensuing fuss Lara denied all knowledge of it and hoped word would not spread of her nose-dive. She was pretty confident that no one would have recognised her from below. At least she sincerely hoped so. Instead she drew Sarah and Kate aside and told them about all she had ‘overheard’. As this covered Richard and Pinky arguing about the fraudulent power of attorney and the second will this took some time.

‘Joe?’ Sarah and Kate kept declaring in unison. ‘You mean, gardener Joe?’

‘But he’s so… I mean, harmless,’ Sarah added.

‘I know he once got done for drugs,’ Kate commented.

‘But it was only weed,’ Sarah insisted. ‘And old Mrs Dune who said he’d stolen her garden statue was as mad as a box of frogs. The next day she said the postman had done it.’

All of this was news to Lara.

‘But Joe?!’ her companions repeated.

‘Yes, Joe,’ Abby corroborated, wandering into the small kitchen where the three women were cloistered. Lara gave her the shadow of a smile.

‘For myself, I never approved of him calling Lady Porter…’ Abby paused and shuddered slightly, ‘…“the old girl”.’

Kate and Sarah then spent several fruitless minutes discussing Joe’s possible link to Lady Porter. Neither of them had ever got any inkling of this and struggled to see a family resemblance. ‘But half a million?!’ Kate finished, clearly astounded. Lara had decided to pretend she had overheard a lot more than she (or rather Abby) actually had, so she could bring the two women fully up to date.

When Richard, Pinky and Joe’s inheritance had been exhausted, Lara quickly filled them in on the other parts of the legacy, Mrs M’s pension, the proposed gift for the church and specifically, the paintings to Dr Patil. Again, she made it sound like she had ‘overheard’ Richard Porter and Jason Honeybourne talking and found herself commenting, ‘You must have heard of The Lost Vermeer,’ studiously avoiding Abby’s eye as she said this.

‘Boy, you’ve been busy,’ Kate exclaimed. ‘I hardly heard anything. Just Pinky arguing with someone, I presumed Richard, but I couldn’t see them.’

‘What was she saying?’ Lara asked.