36

  Coral turned on Penny in fury. ‘Haven’t you learned your lesson? As if the fire wasn’t bad enough, you’re now planning to blow people up.’

  ‘I was only joking. I’m not Guy Fawkes. I just meant that if I could create an explosion outside parliament, I’d have MPs running to hide in the cellars.’ Penny looked shocked by Coral’s outburst. ‘I admit it was in poor taste, given what happened to Ronald Carstairs, but⁠—’

  ‘What did happen to him?’ Coral demanded.

  ‘How would I know?’ Penny stared at her in confusion. ‘You can’t believe what they’re writing about us in the newspapers. We had no idea his body was there when we started the fire.’

  ‘Didn’t you? It seems to me you think you can do what the hell you like in the name of the cause.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Penny’s face grew redder. ‘I would never hurt anyone – you know that.’

  ‘What’s that in your hand then?’ Coral pointed with the wrench she was still gripping.

  Penny glanced down at the iron pipe as if she’d forgotten it was there.

  ‘You fill it with gunpowder and light a length of string, and then…’ She trailed off, seeing Coral’s expression. ‘It only causes a small explosion,’ she muttered, placing the pipe back on the workbench. ‘It’s to damage property, nothing else. I’m not a murderer.’

  ‘You stole the painting, though, didn’t you? The Sylvie Blanchet self-portrait.’ Coral began to examine the assortment of garments hanging on the clothes rail. She stopped when she came to an elaborately structured petticoat, designed to fit under a bustled skirt.

  Coral held it up, pulling at the pliable wires dangling from the fabric.

  Penny didn’t try to deny it. In fact, she leaned against the workbench, looking quite pleased with herself. ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘A newspaper vendor saw you leaving some minutes after me and Lady Carstairs. I presume you went straight from the Westminster Gallery to the Contemporary Gallery and removed the picture from the wall while everyone else was gawping at the Churchill portrait. Then you left with it hidden under your bustled skirt, hooked to your petticoats.’

  Penny nodded. ‘Rather clever, I thought.’

  ‘Except you walked with a limp.’

  ‘It kept banging against me. My legs were covered in bruises just walking around the corner to the car. Apart from that, the whole thing went to plan.’ Penny looked stricken when she realised what she’d said. ‘I didn’t mean Marian…’

  Coral ignored her. ‘Where’s the painting now?’ Her eyes scoured the garage. ‘Did Irene know what you were doing?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Penny said with scorn. ‘The countess and Harriet trusted me to do it on my own. And there’s no point in looking for it. The countess is going to give it to Rosalind Blanchet when she’s in Paris, before they go on to Nice.’

  Coral groaned. She should have known. This had all the hallmarks of one of Minerva’s stunts. And she doubted the countess had done this purely from the goodness of her heart either. Money would have changed hands.

  Did it matter, though? The theft of the Blanchet picture meant nothing to Coral. It was Marian who dominated her thoughts, and she began to prowl around the garage again, her eyes now more acclimatised to the dim light.

  ‘I told you, it’s not here. The countess has it.’ Penny moved closer, her voice rising in anger. ‘I’ll admit I stole the painting but I did not kill Marian.’

  ‘I’m not looking for the painting.’ Coral backed away from Penny, walking into the toolbox. As she steadied herself, she saw what she’d been searching for. A piece of rug was sticking out from underneath the car.

  She gestured to it with the wrench. ‘Where did that rug come from?’

  ‘Coral, stop waving that thing around. You don’t think I’d⁠—’

  ‘Just tell me where you got it,’ Coral yelled.

  Cautiously, Penny took a step forward and peered down at it. ‘It’s only an old rug. It had a stain on it, so I cut it in half and put that bit under the car to soak up oil leaks.’

  ‘Where’s the other half?’

  ‘It’s with the trolley.’ Penny motioned towards it. ‘I use it to hold things in place when they’re being wheeled around.’

  Coral darted over to where the trolley was standing by the wall. She pulled it out, and curved against the spine and prongs was a length of rug. ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘Irene stole it from Charing Cross station. You remember that time she dressed as a railway porter⁠—’

  ‘No!’ Coral shouted in exasperation. ‘Not the trolley. This rug.’ She picked it up and laid it on the ground to examine the distinctive pattern. Flynn had described it as an antique Persian wool rug with a unique navy and red geometric design. It was unmistakably the same rug she’d seen in the portrait of Ronald Carstairs.

  Still clutching the wrench, she moved the toolbox and grabbed the other half of the rug from under the car and laid both pieces side by side. She peered at them closely, noticing small, round dark stains, almost indistinguishable on the vivid background of dark blue and red. On the half that had been under the car there was a larger patch, almost hidden by oil stains.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ Coral asked again.

  Penny looked from her to the rug. ‘I can’t remember. Why?’

  ‘Because it belonged to Ronald Carstairs. And I think these—’ Coral pointed to the marks ‘—are droplets of his blood.’

  Coral braced herself for Penny’s reaction. Would she try to escape? And more, pertinently, would she try to destroy the rug, and perhaps Coral, before she did?

  But Penny just walked over to the rickety chairs and sank into one, staring at her in bewilderment. For a few moments, neither one of them spoke.

  Then Penny’s eyes widened. ‘The rug was in the back of the car when Irene brought over the Churchill portrait.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘The night of Black Friday. Or early the next morning. I got here at around half past ten on Saturday morning, and the car had been returned. Irene had taken it the evening before to drive to the Reform Club. When I opened the doors, the trolley was lying across the back seats and the Churchill portrait was on top of it. The rug had been wrapped around the picture to stop it from moving.’ Penny gazed at Coral in horror. ‘I don’t understand. Why would Irene have Lord Carstairs’ rug?’

  Coral didn’t reply. She’d assumed Penny had gone to Leinster Gardens in fury after the events of that afternoon. Finding Ronald Carstairs alone, she’d killed him and then organised the fire at Riverside Lodge to destroy his body. From Penny’s reaction, she’d got it all wrong.

  Had Irene left the Reform Club and driven to Leinster Gardens to attack Lord Carstairs? It seemed so out of character.

  ‘Marian?’ Penny muttered that single word, and Coral knew what she meant.

  She dropped the wrench back into the toolbox and then walked over to Penny, sinking into the chair beside her.

  ‘The portrait of Ronald Carstairs in the Westminster Gallery shows him in his study, with that rug at his feet. Lord Carstairs made a point of showing it to Marian and her brother when they visited him because it’s unique – there isn’t another one like it. That morning, at the gallery, Marian stood in front of that portrait.’ Coral closed her eyes for a moment to picture the scene. ‘You told us that while you and Irene were hammering the nail into the wall, Marian was unwrapping the Churchill portrait. She must have recognised the rug and known it had something to do with Ronald Carstairs’ disappearance. She’d heard the rumours about suffragettes kidnapping him.’

  ‘Irene killed her because of it?’ Penny breathed the words, then her tone hardened. ‘But you thought it was me?’

  ‘I was trying to piece together what happened.’ Coral didn’t bother to defend her actions. After all, Penny had lied to her.

  ‘But Irene…’ Penny shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it. She wouldn’t go to a politician’s house and kill them. She just wouldn’t.’

  ‘Irene knew Lord and Lady Carstairs. They were friends with her parents. That’s how she recognised Lady Carstairs when she saw her at the gallery.’ Coral frowned at the bloodstained rug. ‘But you’re right. There has to be more to it.’

  Penny nodded, staring unseeingly into the distance. ‘I remember being at Irene’s flat once and we started talking about our families. We’d been drinking wine and saying how becoming suffragettes had changed our lives. I asked if she ever thought about giving it all up so she could see her family again. Even though they didn’t get on, I knew it was hard on her being cast out completely.’

  ‘What did she say?’ Coral asked.

  ‘Something like, “if only that were all there was to it”. I asked what she meant by that, and she told me that her father had once caught her with a man. And by that, I think she meant in some sort of compromising position. This man was older than her. A friend of her father’s, and she’d been in love with him.’

  Coral was silent as she tried to piece together what she knew of Irene’s life. She remembered Irene telling her she’d left home at the age of nineteen after joining the suffragettes. That had been over two years ago. Is that when the relationship had begun? But Ronald Carstairs was fifty years old; nearly thirty years her senior.

  Penny made a strange groaning sound. ‘Irene had a knife.’

  ‘What?’ Coral turned sharply to look at her.

  ‘At the gallery. She had a knife. To cut the string tying the carpet around the Churchill portrait.’ Penny’s face was ashen. ‘She had the same knife when she went to the Reform Club to cut the string we used to tie up the bundle of newspapers. It was a sort of utility knife with a serrated edge. She kept it in the inside breast pocket of the uniform.’

  It took Coral a while to digest this and organise her thoughts. Then she stood up, contemplating the collection of strange objects, some of them dangerous, that filled the garage.

  ‘I’ve left a message for Flynn at Scotland Yard to contact me. When he does, I’m going to tell him what we suspect. And where to find the evidence.’

  Penny followed her gaze and almost sobbed. ‘Not my garage?’

  ‘Clear out anything illegal.’ She gave Penny a hard look. ‘Like gunpowder. But don’t touch the trolley or the pieces of rug – just leave them where they are. And the deliveryman uniform.’

  All she could do was provide Flynn with what they had. But she couldn’t give him Irene. She was on her way to Dover, and Coral guessed she had no intention of returning.

  37

  It was six o’clock by the time Flynn arrived back at Scotland Yard. He’d sent Goodspeed home when his sergeant had sheepishly told him Lavender Lacey had given him tickets to The Chocolate Soldier.

  There was nothing more they could do until Irene Grayson reappeared. Two constables were waiting close to her flat with orders to arrest her when she returned.

  ‘Sir,’ the desk sergeant called as Flynn mounted the stairs. ‘I forgot to tell you earlier. Mrs Fairbanks came to see you. She said she’d found out something and needed to speak to you about it urgently.’

  Flynn turned to him in alarm. ‘Where is she? Did she say where she’d be?’

  ‘I assumed she was going home⁠—’

  Flynn shot him a withering glance as he bolted back out of the door. He began to run along Victoria Embankment, gripped by fear that Coral might be with Irene Grayson. Ignoring curious looks, he carried on running until he reached number five Adelphi Terrace.

  He hammered on the door, bent double with exertion, and when Coral opened it, he let out a long breath of relief.

  ‘Is Irene Grayson here?’

  ‘She’s on her way to Dover. I came to tell you⁠—’

  ‘Dover?’

  ‘Countess Stanmore and her companion are going to Nice for Christmas. The countess paid Irene to drive them to Dover and bring the car back. I think Irene might try to board the ship. Do you have a car? The boat doesn’t sail until ten o’clock. We could get there by then.’

  He stared at her. ‘You know it’s her. How?’

  ‘I’ll tell you on the way.’ Coral was already pulling on her coat and reaching for her hat. ‘We need a car to catch up with them. Don’t you have a police vehicle?’

  He shook his head. ‘Only Bally’s official car. It’s parked behind Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Aren’t you allowed to drive it?’

  ‘In an emergency.’ The answer to her question was actually no, he wasn’t authorised to take Chief Superintendent Ballantyne-Smythe’s car under any circumstances. It was used purely for official functions, not catching criminals. Flynn decided it was about time he made an exception to that rule.

  He dashed back through the gardens and onto Victoria Embankment, this time with Coral running beside him. His instinct had been to stop her from coming with him but he recognised that Irene Grayson was more likely to cooperate if Coral spoke to her.

  When they reached Scotland Yard, Flynn asked her to wait outside. After a little forceful persuasion, he finally got the desk sergeant to hand over the keys to Bally’s dark green Wolseley motor car.

  Coral followed him around to the rear of the building where it was parked, and with some difficulty, he managed to unlock it and hold open the passenger door for her. With trepidation, he then settled himself into the driver’s seat, trying to look as if he knew what he was doing. He wasn’t an experienced driver and wondered if he’d be better off paying the exorbitant fees of one of the taxi cabs. However, few would be willing to leave London and drive to Dover at that time of night in winter.

  Flynn started the car after a couple of attempts, trying not to feel too alarmed by the strong smell of petrol emanating from the engine. He began to feel more confident behind the wheel once he’d manoeuvred the car out of the busy streets of London and was sure he was on the right road to Dover.

  He glanced at Coral, huddled in the passenger seat. She’d wrapped herself in a thick blanket she’d found folded up in the footwell.

  ‘How did you know it was Irene?’ Although they’d left the noise of the city behind and were on the quieter roads heading south, he had to raise his voice above the wind that buffeted the car. He craned to hear as she explained about the portrait of Ronald Carstairs hanging in the National Portrait Gallery.

  Flynn was impressed by her observational skills, though felt a little uncomfortable when she said, ‘You discovered the ring you’d found was mine by examining Algie’s painting of me. I thought I’d try the same process.’

  ‘And you think Marian recognised the rug?’

  Coral nodded. ‘When she visited Leinster Gardens, Lord Carstairs took her and Charles Dean into his study to show them his Middle Eastern artefacts, including his unique Persian rug. And there was the same rug in front of her, both in the painting and wrapped around the Churchill portrait. She was the one to unwrap the picture while Irene and Penny hammered the nail into the wall.’

  ‘You think she confronted Irene about it?’

  ‘That was my first thought. Now I wonder if she made the same mistake I did and assumed Penny was somehow involved in Ronald Carstairs’ disappearance. I think Marian must have waited for Irene to leave the gallery with the trolley and rug so she could ask her about it.’ Coral turned to look at him. ‘How did you know it was Irene?’

  He described the portrait of Ronald Carstairs that Mr Treadaway had given him and the vase and silver trinket box they’d found in Irene’s flat.

  When he mentioned Oscar’s comments about the enmity between Leonard Grayson and Lord Carstairs, Coral confirmed his suspicions by telling him how Irene had been caught by her father in a compromising situation with a man.

  ‘Her portrait of Ronald Carstairs would certainly indicate she was in love with him,’ Flynn mused. ‘It reminded me of his relationship with Sylvie Blanchet, only she gave him a self-portrait.’

  ‘Look how that turned out.’ Coral shuddered – whether it was through cold or dread, he wasn’t sure. ‘I wonder why Irene took the other items from his study. And kept them.’

  He’d been pondering this. ‘My guess is she just wanted some keepsakes of him. We found them in her bedroom. I don’t think she could bear to get rid of them, though it does make me wonder what made her turn on him.’

  ‘Black Friday, I suppose. Tempers were running high. I think she went to the Reform Club to see if he was there, before going on to Leinster Gardens. Perhaps she wanted to confront him over what happened that day and ended up killing him.’

  Flynn listened as she told him about the serrated utility knife Irene kept in the breast pocket of the deliveryman uniform.

  ‘Could she have managed to move his body on her own?’ Flynn asked. ‘The pathologist said it had been manhandled. It was tipped through a small shaft into the coal bunker. Then the keys left outside by the back door to the scullery.’

  ‘I think so, with the help of the trolley. She’s disguised herself as a railway porter in the past and moved luggage around. By wrapping the body in the rug, she was probably able to manoeuvre it from the study at the front of the house to the car parked outside.’

  Flynn stretched his gloved hands, trying to ease their stiffness. ‘She knew to leave the car outside the false-fronted houses to avoid being seen. Perhaps she’d parked there before. It seems she was in the habit of visiting him when Lady Carstairs was out of town.’ Flynn suddenly hit the steering wheel. ‘I’ve just thought of something. If Irene saw the envelope with the keys to Riverside Lodge on Carstairs’ desk, it might have led to their argument. Once the Leinster Gardens house was sold, he wouldn’t have the same opportunities to see Irene. Perhaps he decided it was time to end their relationship.’

  Coral shivered. ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for her. She would only have been nineteen when the relationship started. Life has been hard for her since then. She gave up everything. All she has in the world is in that flat, and she’s been shunned by her family. To be turned away by him as well was perhaps too much for her.’

 

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