A Half Forgotten Song (32 page)

H
annah crossed straight to the bar, and held up her debit card to Pete Murray with a wide smile.

“What, all of it?” the landlord said, sounding quite surprised.

“Oh ye of little faith. I told you I only needed a few more days.”

“I know. I just . . . figured it’d be a few more.” Pete shrugged.

“Hit me with it. And I’ll be in to start a new tab later this evening.” She waited, leaning on the bar and not looking around, while Pete processed her payment. Zach drew breath to call out to her, but something stopped him. Perhaps it was the way she did not turn to see if he was there, the way she kept her eyes fixed on the drip tray, tapping the brass impatiently with a beer mat. Perhaps it was the wealth of questions that mushroomed up inside his mind. He knew she wouldn’t answer them, and so he didn’t want to ask, but there was no way he could speak to her right then without asking. Why she was giving money to somebody like James Horne, and where that money had come from all of a sudden. But when she turned to leave, he was on his feet and after her before he knew he was going to move. Her expression when he caught her arm told him everything he needed to know. Her eyes were set and guarded, her mouth a resolute line, and over all of it, a fragile coloring of regret. All of his questions died on his lips, and he felt something almost like fear. He suddenly saw himself losing her.

“Hannah,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Whatever it is . . . you can trust me with it. I hope you know that.” Her eyes widened, and for a second she looked lonely, and afraid. But then the resolve returned, and she shook her head.

“Not with this, I can’t. I’m sorry, Zach.”

T
he following day was Thursday, and Zach headed away from the coast to pick up the motorway to Surrey. It was the day of his visit to Annie Langton, the lady who’d bought one of the recently reappeared Dennis portraits. He had slept little the night before, preoccupied with thoughts of Hannah and the trouble he imagined her to be in. Perhaps she had just been desperate enough to take a cash loan from James Horne, and the argument had been about her paying it back, which Zach had then seen her do. But somehow he couldn’t quite make this version of events stick. You didn’t pay off a legitimate loan at the roadside, with a wad of cash in an envelope. You didn’t borrow from somebody like James Horne in the first place. Zach could not for one second imagine Hannah going to him for help. But if the money was for something else, then Zach didn’t want to think about what it might be. And he could not think how she had suddenly come up with the cash to put into that envelope.

He’d been so tired and caught up in it all that the only reason he remembered his appointment with Mrs. Langton was that his phone beeped to remind him. Startled, he realized that for over a week he’d barely even thought about the book he was supposed to be writing. He had copious notes, and a stack of index cards on which he had begun trying to shape chapters, cross-referencing which notes would be needed where. But suddenly there was a very real possibility that the book would never be written. The book he’d started to write was no longer the book he wanted to write. He knew it had been flawed, now he saw that it was worse than that. It was pointless.

He wanted to write about the man, not the artist. He wanted to write about Blacknowle, and the people who lived there, and how they reacted to the great man in their midst. He wanted to write about Dimity Hatcher, and about the recent works that had been sold from the secret collection in Dorset. He wanted to find out who Dennis was, and where Delphine had lived out her life, after her father died in the war. He wanted to know what Celeste did with the rest of her life. But the only person who could fill in all the blanks was Dimity, and he could hardly force her to tell him these things if she didn’t want to. The stories she’d already told him were fantastical, kept bright and fresh by her love for Charles Aubrey. But they would not fill a book. He pictured himself going back to the gallery, either to close it officially and move out, or to reopen it and try to make it work. The thought caused a wave of sickening dread to wash through him. He pictured the wire rack full of postcards, gathering dust while the sun bleached the colors from the ink. And that’s what would happen to him if he went back, he realized with sudden clarity. He would gather dust, and his colors would fade to nothing, and he would never see Hannah again.

A
nnie Langton lived in a rambling redbrick cottage on the edges of Guildford. There were climbing roses all over the front wall, shedding the last of their yellow petals onto the gravel driveway. It looked quaint enough, but Zach knew that, in that area, the cottage represented serious money. A black-and-white cat wound around his ankles as he knocked at the front door, and waited. Mrs. Langton herself, when she answered the door, was tiny and brisk, wearing tailored corduroy trousers and a fawn-colored shirt. She had iron-gray hair cut into a smooth bob, and a hooked nose beneath shrewd blue eyes.

“Mr. Gilchrist, I presume,” she greeted him, with a businesslike shake of the hand.

“Mrs. Langton. Thanks so much for agreeing to let me see your picture.”

“Come on in. I’ll make some coffee, shall I?” She led him through to an immaculate living room full of overstuffed sofas and heavy, luxurious fabrics. “Do sit down. Back in a jiffy.”

She strode back out of the room and Zach looked around at the art on the walls. She had some other lovely twentieth-century pieces, including what looked like a Henry Moore sketch, a design for one of his sensuous bronzes. Then another drawing caught his eye, because, even from across the spacious living room, he could see it was an Aubrey. He crossed to look closer, and smiled with delight.
Mitzy, 1939
. Zach remembered it—a glorious sketch of Mitzy, bare-shouldered and bathed in sunshine; it had come up for auction about eleven years ago, and Zach hadn’t even bothered to bid. He’d known he wouldn’t be able to afford it, because it was the loveliest drawing of her that existed, even though it was only loosely done. She was dressed in a low-cut peasant blouse, the tops of her breasts curving proudly, a sun-kissed moment from over seventy years ago; a beautiful young girl with light dancing in her eyes. It would be a hard-hearted person who could look at that young face and not want to cup their hands around it and cover it with kisses. Her top lip protruded slightly, budding out like an invitation.

“Lovely, isn’t she?” said Annie Langton, appearing behind him with a French press and coffee cups on a tray. She smiled proudly at the drawing. “I paid far too much for that one. My husband, John, was alive then, and he nearly had a heart attack. But I had to have it. She just sings, does she not?”

“Yes, she does. I was at the auction, that day. I couldn’t help myself, even though I knew it would be torture watching someone else buy it, and knowing I’d never see it again.”

“Which just goes to show we can never know anything in this life, not for certain. Milk and sugar?”

“Just milk, thank you.” The desire to tell Mrs. Langton that he’d found Dimity, that she was alive and he’d got to know her, was immense, but he held his tongue. Let that revelation come in the book, if he ever finished it.

“Well, as I told John at the time, money is only money. Whereas, as I believe has been said before, a thing of beauty is a joy forever.” She gazed across at the picture of Mitzy with such peculiar longing that Zach almost recognized the expression.

“Were you one of . . . Aubrey’s women, by any chance?” he said, smiling.

Annie Langton fixed him with a very stern gaze. “Young man, I wasn’t even a twinkle in my father’s eye when Charles Aubrey went off to the war.”

“Of course not. I’m so sorry.”

“Never mind.” She waved a hand briskly. “To someone as young as you, everyone over the age of fifty looks the same, I suppose.”

“I’m not that young,” said Zach.

“Just clumsy, then?” Her face remained serious, but her eyes sparkled, and Zach smiled sheepishly. With the ghost of a smile, she changed the subject. “I understand from Paul Gibbons that you have a particular interest in the portraits of Dennis that Aubrey did? Do you know who he was, then?”

“No. I was half hoping you might be able to tell me that.”

“Ah, then the mystery prevails. No, I’m afraid I have no idea who he was. I’ve done a bit of research, although I don’t claim to know as much about Aubrey as an expert like you. I’ve found no reference to him anywhere.”

“No, neither have I.”

“Oh dear—I hope you didn’t come all this way to see if I knew?”

“No, no. I have something of a . . . theory about the Dennis pictures. I was hoping seeing yours in the flesh might help me clear something up.”

“Oh, yes?” She sipped her coffee, never once breaking off her piercing gaze. Zach saw that there was no point in trying to dissemble.

“It worries me a great deal that there’s no mention of Dennis anywhere. I find it almost impossible to believe, given the dates the portraits were supposedly drawn. If the dates are correct, Dennis would almost certainly have had to be in Blacknowle at some point. But I have been to Blacknowle, and spoken to some of the people who lived there at that time. And still nobody has ever heard of him.”

“
Supposedly
drawn, you say? Am I to understand that you don’t think the portraits are genuine?”

“I know that’s . . . not something anybody wants to hear. But don’t you think it’s odd that these portraits, the only ones of Dennis we know of, all came up for sale in recent years? Apparently from the same vendor? And that they are all so similar, and yet not quite the same?”

“I agree. It is very odd. But you have only to see the draftsmanship to know that they are indeed by Charles Aubrey. Perhaps he fell out with Dennis, whoever he was. Perhaps Aubrey himself expunged the young man from his life before he died. And perhaps he himself was dissatisfied with the pictures and hid them away. Perhaps that’s why they were never sold. Until now.”

“It’s possible, I suppose. But I just can’t quite believe it.”

“Well, let me take you to meet my Dennis. Perhaps he will help you make up your mind.”

She led him across the hallway to a large study dominated by a gleaming walnut desk. The walls were lined with bookcases, and wherever there was space, a picture had been hung. Zach caught sight of
Dennis
and was already walking towards the picture when Mrs. Langton pointed it out. He knew the piece already, of course, having studied it repeatedly in the auction catalog. He studied it again now, and felt his disappointment rising with each second that ticked past. Seeing the real piece brought him no greater clarity whatsoever. He was aware of Mrs. Langton watching him closely, and decided that for the sake of appearances, he had better show more interest than he felt.

“Would you mind if I took it over to the window to look at it?” he asked.

“Of course not. Help yourself.” The picture was in a heavy wooden frame, and Zach held it tightly as he took it down from the wall. At the window, he turned it until the light shone full onto the paper. He stared at the pencil strokes, at the signature, at the young man’s ambiguous expression. He stared, and wished for something to surface, but nothing did. Yet he still could not shake the feeling that the picture was not entirely what it purported to be.

“He’s no great masterpiece, I know, but a nice enough drawing, I’ve always thought. And he was a bargain,” said Annie Langton, when the silence had grown prolonged. “Shall I leave you alone for a while?” she added.

“No, there’s no need,” said Zach.

“You’ve got what you came for? Already?”

“Not as such, no. Did you ever find out who the vendor was, by any chance?”

“No, and I did ask—I was as curious as anyone as to where these new works were suddenly springing from. Usually the buyer can be told, but not this time. Strict anonymity.” She tipped her eyebrows ruefully.

“And it was in this frame, when you bought it?”

“Oh, no. It wasn’t framed at all when it arrived at the auction house. Just rolled up inside some grubby sheets of newspaper, if you can believe that—not the best thing for it at all. Luckily the newsprint had only transferred a little onto the back of the portrait, not the front.”

“In newspaper? So whoever sold it wasn’t exactly reverent, then. Do you remember what newspaper it was?”

“The
Times,
I think, but I can’t remember for sure. Nothing revelatory—dated about a month before the sale. I still have it, if you’d like to see it?”

“You kept it? Yes, please.” Inwardly, Zach prayed that the pages would be from a local newspaper, not a national one.

“Well, as far as I am concerned, things like that become part of the provenance of a piece, however inappropriate they may be.” Mrs. Langton crossed to a large chest of drawers and bent to open the bottom drawer, withdrawing a slightly squashed cylinder of broadsheet. “Here you go, though I don’t think it’ll help you much, I fear.”

The pages were from the
Times
. Disappointed, Zach unrolled the cylinder and scanned the date and a few of the headlines. He wasn’t sure what he thought he would find, but there was a chance that, somehow, the picture’s former owner might have left some clue to their identity. He turned the sheets over and examined the other side, and then something in the bottom right-hand corner made him stop. There were a few colorful smudges on the paper; inky smears in a vibrant, emerald green. They looked like fingermarks, and as Zach frowned at them, trying to place where he had seen that color recently, he saw something that made him go cold.

“Are you all right, Mr. Gilchrist? You’ve gone rather pale.” Annie Langton’s hand was on his arm, but her voice seemed to come from far away. Zach could hardly hear her above the thumping of blood in his ears, and in his hands, the newspaper began to shake uncontrollably. In the corner of the paper, right on the edge, was a thumbprint the exact same emerald green that marked the covered ewes in Hannah’s flock. A thumbprint with the sharp diagonal line of a scar running across it, clear and unmistakable.