Page 67 of A Curious Ending

Julian looked down at her and smiled his crooked, attractive smile, caught one of Lara’s curls and ran it between his thumb and forefinger, stroking the side of her face as he did so. Lara suddenly realised she was trembling. As Julian’s arm started to snake out towards her waist she could still feel where his fingers had traced their way down her cheek. She was possessed by a rage that was pure and white in its intensity. In one swift movement, she swept her arms above her head, knocking his arm away, and in fluent Arabic poured down upon Julian’s head a stream of ancient curses and verbal abuse.

She dashed her hand across her body and brought it up to his face as if throwing a handful of dust in his eyes. When she ran out of abuse, she used every phrase she could recall from her four years at university studying Middle Eastern languages to lambast him. Lara had obtained a very good degree, so there were many. Julian backed away from her, stumbling over the chair he had been using to bar her way. His face was a picture of shocked dismay. He tried to speak, but Lara cut him short with a guttural crescendo of words. Words which had Julian been able to translate would have told him exactly what the weather was like in Muscat. She ended by saying very clearly in English, ‘Do not ever presume to touch me again.’

Julian muttered something that nobody could hear and walked back to his table. He tried to amble away with his normal, lazy swagger, but even he knew he looked like a fool.

The room was filled with the sound of clapping. Richard Porter was sitting at one of the empty tables, Abby now seated by his side. They were both applauding her. But whereas Abby was smiling, the look on Richard Porter’s face was very different.

He was certainly smiling, but there was a nasty gleam in his eye, and his applause was clearly ironic.

As she reached the table, he stopped clapping and looked up at her for a long moment. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you? But for all your sneaking and spying there is so much you don’t know. You think you can pin this on us? You have no idea what the police would find if they started digging. And I can tell you this, Miss McGregor, they wouldn’t be pointing a finger in my direction.’ He thrust a stubby finger towards her. ‘Why would they, when there’s a convicted murderer so near at hand. You think they’d be interested in me, when my mother was living with Maggie Mopping.’

Lara felt ice cold with shock and a shiver ran through her body.

Even Abby gave an involuntary, ‘Good gracious!’

Richard smiled in smug satisfaction. ‘I told Mother she was mad to take her in. She bleated on about how her husband had been a beast to her. But that doesn’t change the fact your precious Mrs M did away with her husband. It was in all the papers. She started with a sleeping draught, then finished him off with a plank of wood with a nail in it. Very nice I must say.’

‘And you knew this?’ Lara was incredulous.

‘Oh, you knew my mother! She went her own way, whatever I said. Even back then.’

He added grudgingly, ‘I can’t say that Mrs M didn’t serve her well. Well, she would have, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t risk people knowing about her past.’

‘Did anyone else know?’

‘Well, of course she changed her name. You don’t really think she’s called Mrs Mopping, do you?’ Richard gave a hollow laugh and took a big slug of wine. It struck Lara that he was very drunk. ‘She’s called Maggie Linton. You can look her up if you don’t believe me.’ He stared into his wine for a moment then looked up at Lara, his eyes bleary. ‘I can tell you one thing though. If you start stirring up trouble for us, I can stir up a whole lot more for Maggie Linton.’

Lara was reeling. She didn’t want to believe what Richard Porter was telling her, but it had the undeniable ring of truth about it. She felt slightly sick. ‘But if your mother was murdered, don’t you want to find out who did it?’ She wondered, now with Mrs M firmly in the frame – who she liked so much – was she asking Richard or herself this question.

Richard’s head shot up. ‘My mother wasn’t murdered. It was suicide, plain and simple. She lived the way she wanted to and she died that way too. Selfish bitch!’

Before Lara could respond in kind, she heard Abby’s quiet, ‘Sshh.’ Looking more closely at Richard Porter, she could see he was crying. Whether this was for his mother or in self-pity she wasn’t sure.

Now all Lara wanted was to go home. She wanted to be alone to think. The story about Mrs M had rocked her. She fervently hoped that Kate and Sarah did not want to make a late night of it. She ran them to ground in the conservatory where they were dancing with a crowd of friends. This included Pinky and Joe. They looked to be having a great time and Lara could not think how she was going to break this news to them about Mrs M. They all liked her, in much the same way they had liked Lady Porter. She stayed watching them, Abby mercifully quiet by her side.

As a new track began, Joe made his way to her and pulled her onto the dance floor. She made a half-hearted protest but this died on her lips as Abby sped past her onto the floor. She called over her shoulder to Lara, ‘It can all wait, Lara, now is the time for dancing.’ As Lara began to move to the music, some of the thoughts that troubled her dropped away. She smiled at Joe, and as they joined the crowd around Sarah and Kate she felt her spirits lift. As she danced, she watched Abby and her smile became a broad grin. There was something stately about how Abby moved to the music. She was always in time, and her twists and turns appeared choreographed and fluid compared to the random bopping of the rest of the room. She was clearly enjoying herself enormously. At one point, Richard Porter appeared and, keeping well away from Lara, tried to remonstrate with Pinky and pull her off the dance floor. However, Pinky was having none of it and batted him away, returning to dance with Sarah and Kate. Julian also appeared at the door but spotting Lara, quickly withdrew.

After a few songs, Lara realised that Joe was talking to her. ‘Do you fancy coming back to my cottage for coffee or some more wine after the next one?’ he asked her.

Lara was just about to answer – although even she did not know what she meant to say – when she saw Sarah trying to attract her attention. ‘Hang on, Joe,’ she stalled and moved closer to Sarah.

‘Shall we think about going?’ Sarah asked, and nodded towards Pinky who was none too steady on her feet. ‘I think we might need to take Pinky with us as she’s refusing to go home with Richard.’

Lara realised her reaction was one of relief. If she was honest, she had not wanted to go back with Joe. What surprised her more than this was that she really wanted to ask Sarah, Kate and even Pinky back to her cottage; so she did so.

Sarah smiled and nodded, then glanced at Lara and then at Joe. ‘Oh, have I interrupted something?’ she asked anxiously.

‘No, it’s okay,’ Lara said.

‘You sure?’ Sarah checked. ‘He’s a nice guy.’ She seemed keen to give Joe a chance.

‘He is. No doubt about that,’ Lara agreed, ‘but to be honest, I’ve got other things on my mind.’ A lot more, she thought. Mrs M! How was she ever going to get her head around that?

She could see that Sarah was still watching her anxiously so she added, ‘And I don’t think “nice” is enough. Plus, he keeps on calling Lady Porter “old girl”, which is really annoying me.’

Sarah nodded like she understood. Lara paused and twisted her head as if listening to someone behind her. She turned back to Sarah and laughing, added, ‘And he didn’t catch me when I fell.’ She left Sarah looking slightly bemused and headed over to Joe to make her apologies.

Ten minutes later the four of them were squeezed into a taxi. Five of them including Abby, who was perched on Sarah’s lap in the front seat, which Lara found particularly unnerving. Pinky was wedged between Lara and Kate and was keeping up a monologue about her art. ‘It really is the biggest load of crap, all those bloody dogs, you have no idea how boring it is. I’m pretty rubbish really,’ she slurred. ‘But the Honourable Richard likes them. Thinks they’re the sort of thing a wife of his should paint. God, he’s a pompous fart. How the hell did I end up with him? I studied in Paris, did you know that?’ Pinky poked Lara and Kate in turn. ‘Paris, did you know that? Should have married Claude, God he was gorgeous. He hated bloody dogs. Should have married him and…’ At this point, Pinky started rambling away in French about what she would have liked to do with the mysterious Claude.