Page 54 of A Curious Ending

‘She didn’t have any other children?’

Dr Patil shook his head, but his comment had given Lara an idea. Maybe her true family was Reggie’s family?

‘Did her husband have a big family?’

‘No. I believe he was brought up alone by his widowed father.’

So much for a nephew that Lady Porter might have felt connected to. Lara tried a different approach, ‘You mentioned once that Lady Porter was very determined and that it ran in the family. What did you mean?’

‘Did I? I don’t recall that,’ Dr Patil said evasively, busying himself with topping up their drinks.

Lara thought she was getting nowhere fast. She sipped her drink, wracking her brains for what to say next. Looking up, she smiled. ‘Did Lady Porter mix Pink Gins for you?’ she asked in what she hoped was a friendly manner, all the time mulling over what she really wanted to ask.

When the doctor nodded and smiled back, she plunged in, ‘Do you think Lady Porter drank too much?’

Dr Patil’s response surprised her. ‘Not you as well! Is it not enough that her son and daughter-in-law and people like Julian Armstrong are spreading this around? Elizabeth Porter was not a drinker and I find it very hard when I hear people describing her as if she was a drunk.’

Lara didn’t know what to say. Like Dr Patil she hated this type of gossip about her friend, and it was something she had never seen on her visits. Plus, Kate certainly didn’t think her ‘Lady P’ drank. On the other hand, Sarah had claimed to see her the worse for wear – as had Thomas the ghostly gardener. Lara had no idea what to think. Before Lara could formulate this into something that she could share with Dr Patil, he continued, ‘There are other reasons that someone might be unsteady or confused.’

‘You mean she was ill?!’

Dr Patil rubbed his hands on his thighs in agitation. ‘No, that is not what I’m saying,’ he said emphatically. ‘But I am saying that Elizabeth Porter was not a drunk.’

Lara was at a loss. What was it that the doctor was trying to tell her? She sensed there was something behind his words. Before she could formulate what to say he demanded, ‘Lara, why all these questions?’

Instead of answering this, Lara decided on one last attempt, ‘Dr Patil… Mo… did you ever suspect that Lady Porter might be being blackmailed?’

Dr Patil looked stunned. Then his laugher rang out around the room. Lara looked startled. ‘I would like to see someone try!’ he said, laughing some more.

‘So you don’t think…’

Dr Patil interrupted her, ‘You knew her, Lara, she was a woman of huge spirit. Can you really imagine her giving in to a third-rate trick like blackmail? She would rather have spat in their eye!’

‘But,’ Lara continued like a dog worrying a bone, ‘if she was so fearless why did she kill herself?’

Without looking directly at Dr Patil, Lara sensed the change in the atmosphere. She had succeeded in really annoying him. If she was honest with herself she was not surprised, she had been more of an interrogator than a grateful guest. She studied him warily. He was holding himself in check, but there was no mistaking the anger in his eyes. ‘You have to leave this alone, Lara,’ he retorted. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He spoke with staccato emphasis. Lara watched as he drew a deep breath and let his shoulders drop, until once again he had himself under control. Dr Patil sighed and looked her directly in the eye. ‘Perhaps if you’re willing to drop your preposterous line of questioning, I’d be happy to show you the paintings Lady Porter left me and perhaps we can remember her together.’

Lara, feeling appropriately chided, nodded, and followed the doctor from the sitting room and into the back room of the house. The paintings were laid out on a desk at the rear of the room. Some of them she recalled from Gillmore House. They were a collection of small studies made up of interiors and still life compositions of jugs and fruit. They were restful and Lara thought they were lovely. She had no idea if they were valuable. She scanned the desk for one that met the description of the harpsichord player or what Abby had called The Concert. Nothing fitted, although Lara could see the edge of a slightly larger painting that was obscured by a pile of papers. She was unsure if Dr Patil had hidden it, or if this was just how the papers had landed. She took a step closer to the desk and in doing so knocked the doctor’s drink to the floor from where it had been resting on the edge of the desk.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ Lara exclaimed, dropping to her knees and making a half-hearted attempt to mop up the spillage.

‘Don’t worry, Lara, you’re getting your dress wet, I’ll get a cloth.’

Lara could not have hoped for better. The doctor hurried off and in an instant she twitched the papers aside and took a swift photo of the remaining painting with her phone. She only had a moment to glance at it before she heard the doctor returning from the kitchen and she pushed the papers back in place. She could see immediately that she hadn’t replaced them quite as they had been and that they were in danger of slipping off the desk, so as Dr Patil set about mopping up the gin from the carpet she nudged the papers back into position with her hip.

It was then that she saw it. She was looking down on a note, clearly written by Dr Patil. She didn’t take in the words. It was the handwriting that leapt out at her. She could have sworn it was the same handwriting as the ‘Forgive me’ note that had been left on Lady Porter’s grave.

Now, all Lara wanted was to be safely back in her own cottage. She would even have welcomed a visit from Abby. Without trying to appear rushed, she gathered her belongings and thanking ‘Mo’ for the drinks, headed speedily for the door. In a matter of minutes she was standing alone in the road outside Dr Patil’s house.

Lara’s journey back to her cottage was swift and uneventful. She passed a few people in the square, but no one she knew to say hello to. She did have a vague feeling that someone was watching her and wondered if Abby was nearby. She might have felt less comfortable had she known that not one, but two pairs of eyes followed her home.

Chapter 27

Sunday was Lara’s one lie in of the week. So naturally she was wide-awake at 6am. She tried reading her book but could not settle. Finally, she decided that some sort of activity might help so she made her way over to the shop. She took the Christmas boxes with her that she had unearthed from the shed the previous day. Her left arm was slightly swollen at the wrist, but she found the pain from it quite bearable, so she simply strapped it up.

The flower shop was cold and very quiet. Most of the buckets were empty, the majority of them stacked by the sink ready for the new delivery of flowers on Monday. The shelves and tables were unusually bare. The windows were covered in condensation, which created an eerie white light in the shop. Beyond the misty windows, Lara imagined families and couples out collecting the Sunday papers, stopping for coffee and walking their dogs in the park. She felt extraordinarily lonely. She cleared a patch in the condensation with the corner of her apron and looked out across the square. There, as she had imagined, were couples, some walking hand in hand, some with children.

And then she saw the Porters. They were standing in the middle of the square and were clearly arguing. Nothing new there then. Abruptly Pinky broke away from Richard and walked quickly in the direction of Gillmore House. For Lara, this seemed to underline that time was moving on and that soon the Porters would be living across the square from her. Perhaps people would begin to forget Lady Porter?