Last Nocturne (29 page)

Her daughter, though looking acutely miserable, went on bravely. ‘What you are saying – about Papa and Eugenia – is, is monstrous!’ she said chokingly. ‘And as for her stealing those miserable letters and, and asking for money—! Oh, it’s simply too bad!’

Grace Thurley spoke for the first time. ‘Mrs Martagon, I believe Dulcie can explain—’

‘Dulcie has said quite enough on the subject already, thank you, Miss Thurley!’

Miss Thurley’s colour rose, and Lamb saw those lovely blue eyes flash a little. She looked about to say something else but, meeting Guy’s glance, she bit her lip and remained silent.

‘Let Dulcie speak, Mother,’ said Guy quietly.

Without waiting for permission, Dulcie gulped and said, ‘You haven’t heard everything, Mama. You wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell you. I don’t believe you really think those things you have accused Eugenia of are true. No one could think that, either of her or of Papa! But I do believe she may know something about this Mrs Amberley—’

There was a silence. ‘Mrs Amberley?’ said Edwina, dangerously.

‘Mama, she’s a lady Papa and I met by chance on my last birthday, after he’d taken me out to lunch. I think – I believe, she may have been the one who wrote those letters. When I saw Eugenia that day at her flat, I told her about the meeting and – and I’m sure the name was no surprise to her.’

Mrs Martagon did not flinch. Nor did she enquire further into the circumstances of the meeting, or what had been said. It was as if, now having heard it, she’d immediately erased the name of Mrs Amberley from her mind. ‘This makes no difference. I still believe it was Miss Dart who stole the letters. She was always snooping around when she was with me, and who else had the opportunity? There, there, Dulcie, that’s enough. Dry your eyes.’ She rose majestically. ‘And that’s really all there is to it. I am sorry for incommoding you, Inspector, with what is after all little more than a domestic matter.’

‘Please sit down, Mrs Martagon. There’s more to this than appears on the surface – matters which may concern more than your own family. The letters – whether they prove of any consequence or not – must be retrieved by the police. So, if we may get down to practicalities, I would like to see the ransom note which I believe was sent to you.’

‘My dear Mr Lamb, one doesn’t keep rubbish like that. Apart from anything else, it was illiterate, and the handwriting appalling. Naturally, I threw it in the fire.’

‘So it couldn’t have been from Miss Dart. She can scarcely be called illiterate,’ said Guy, earning himself a grateful glance from his sister.

‘But you do remember what it said, Mrs Martagon?’

He thought for a moment she was going to refuse to say, but then she lifted her shoulders and shrugged. The letter had stated she would be allowed time to obtain the two hundred pounds which was demanded, she said. On the designated day, at six o’clock, the money was to be left in the ladies’ waiting room at the St Pancras station hotel. Once the blackmailer was in possession of the money, the letters would be returned.

A woman, of course, thought Lamb: the ladies’ waiting room; the disguised spelling and handwriting, probably written with the left hand; an amateur attempt with more holes in it than a leaky bucket.

‘But there is no need for all that tarradiddle. I shall see Miss Dart myself.’

‘Mrs Martagon,’ said Lamb, ‘your children are right. Recovering the letters is not an amateur business, if you’ll forgive my saying so. It’s not just a matter of getting them back – we must apprehend the person who wrote them, and as yet there’s no reason whatever to suppose that is Miss Dart. More evidence than mere supposition is generally required before acting,’ he added sternly. ‘Added to which – if not caught, that person is under no obligation to return them after they’ve got the money. This could be only the first step to demanding more.’

‘There is such a thing as moral obligation. I am inclined to believe that even Miss Dart would not stoop so low.’

‘Blackmailers are not noted for their morality. Come, Mrs Martagon, let the police, who are equipped to deal with this sort of thing, do so.’ He sensed she was wavering. ‘I’ll find a lady we can trust to leave the attaché case, who can keep watch afterwards to see who picks it up. When are you supposed to leave it?’

‘Very well, then. Six o’clock next Tuesday,’ she said, with a promptitude which made him wonder, for a moment, what he’d done to bring about her cooperation.

As he was leaving, he encountered another visitor just entering the house: Mrs Martagon’s escort, he surmised from the evening clothes, the silk hat. A foolishly amiable-looking man; rings on his fingers as he handed over his hat to the footman; a motorcar and a chauffeur outside, waiting to drive them to wherever they were to spend the evening. He and Lamb had no cause to speak, but the impression of foolishness was banished by a swift look from measuring eyes.

As the Viennese summer drew to its close, the sweet chestnuts ripened, and fell onto the cobbles with their spiky green shells split open. The fan-shaped leaves yellowed, turned russet then drifted down, blown by the increasingly cold wind into the corners of the courtyard into great, dusty, rattling heaps, which no one bothered to sweep up. Isobel no longer heard the clatter of the printing press; the gatherings in the courtyard became less frequent, then stopped altogether as the weather grew more chilly. The number of visitors making their way across to the studio seemed fewer and far between. And, as if blown in by the autumn wind, there came another resident into the Francks’ house.

‘This is Miriam,’ Bruno announced one day, coming to Isobel’s door with a woman on his arm. ‘Do you not recognise her?’

Isobel had never seen her before, but indeed she had no difficulty in recognising her. She was the woman in those paintings of Viktor’s. He might have used the bodies of the Traudls and Helgas and Anna-Maries as models, but the face he had superimposed on each and every one was this one – white, pointed, with hooded eyes – as if he were haunted by her. Wearing a multitude of bright colours and a great quantity of garish jewellery, she was tiny, dark, Jewish, pale and with a mass of curling black hair, at first glance almost plain, until she smiled. It was a slow, hidden sort of smile – enigmatic, if you like, and somehow intensely irritating. Later, she came to see just why Miriam was Viktor’s favourite model. With her dark hair unloosed and wild, her tempestuous, changeable moods, dressed in the flowing robes Viktor chose for her, she could become anyone: Venus, Circe, Salome…anyone Viktor had wished her to be.

‘Well, you’ll be seeing more of each other. She’s come to stay this time,’ said Bruno, holding her gaze.

‘Maybe,’ Miriam answered, giving him a slow look and pushing forward a reluctant little girl who was hanging behind her and clutching her skirts. ‘This is Sophie.’

‘Hello, Sophie.’

Sophie, who was perhaps about eight years old, looked down at her feet and muttered an incomprehensible reply. Miriam gave her a sharp poke in the ribs. ‘They don’t teach little girls manners where she’s been lately. But now she’s with her mother again she’ll soon learn some, eh?’ This last was accompanied by a smile directed towards Bruno and a rather hard squeeze of the child’s shoulders.

It was difficult to imagine this exotic creature as anyone’s mother, never mind the mother of this little girl. Sophie was a plain, awkward child, thin as a match, who made Isobel think of some wild, trapped creature ready to bite anyone who tried to rescue it. She looked from Bruno’s warm brown eyes and red hair to the russet lights in the thick, vibrant brown hair of the child, her only beauty. She looked for other similarities, too, but there the resemblance stopped. Sophie’s delicate build and her pale, intense face came from her mother; the long, almond-shaped eyes of an unfathomable colour and depth spoke of a Magyar, or perhaps gypsy, inheritance.

Life changed for everyone when Miriam Koppel arrived at the house in Silbergasse.

The girl models disappeared overnight. Isobel missed the sound of their chatter, their giggling and the sight of them drifting in and out of Viktor’s studio. Berta’s token grumblings and mutterings, and the dark predictions which had accompanied everything she did, like a litany, changed to a sullen silence. Miriam was restless, easily bored, alternately in high spirits and then becoming quite out of temper, sparking off irritation and quarrelsomeness in Bruno, too. Sometimes this seemed quite deliberate, as if it were simply a response to boredom. She and Viktor were at odds from the start so that he was more morose and silent than usual, if that were possible. Miriam went on smiling maliciously and brought something of the winter chill into the house. Everyone withdrew into themselves, wrapping up tightly against the cold.

Isobel learnt that Miriam had been born and bred in Vienna, the wayward daughter of elderly parents, Isaac Koppel, a bookseller, and his wife, who lived in the Ruprechtskirche Jewish quarter. But Miriam was not born to be a dutiful Jewish daughter and her wild and unorthodox way of life had taken her far from her traditional background, and kept her separated for long stretches at a time from her disappointed parents. Yet despite her behaviour and her rejection of their life and faith, they loved their only child too much to sever all connections with her and were delighted when Sophie was occasionally left to stay with them whenever it suited Miriam, rather than seeing her dragged along in her mother’s footloose existence.

Isobel very soon found that Miriam’s commitment to motherhood was as slight as her commitment to anything else, and that for as long as she condescended to stay she had no intentions of allowing it to curtail her freedom in the least. It wasn’t long before she was bringing a reluctant Sophie to Isobel’s door and begging, ‘You will look after her for me, won’t you, while I visit my mother?’ Isobel didn’t like the wheedling note in her voice, but she could scarcely refuse; the sickroom of Miriam’s mother seemed no place for a child. Then Miriam had to sit for Viktor, or see someone who could offer her work, though what this was remained a mystery Isobel didn’t want to examine. She never enquired too closely into Miriam’s concerns, who she associated with, where she found the money to live on, much preferring to remain in ignorance.

Sophie knew she was being dumped on Isobel. ‘See she does as you tell her,’ Miriam said once, leaving the child with her. ‘And you – be a good girl or the gypsies will take you.’ It was said with a laugh, but Sophie shrank and Isobel wanted to slap Miriam for her thoughtlessness. She should be more careful, especially with her child, but also, Isobel thought, with Viktor. Despite his use of her as a model, there was no mistaking the bad feeling which existed between them. She wondered perhaps if he were jealous of Miriam’s appropriation of Bruno, although the brothers appeared to remain on good terms. But there were hidden depths to Viktor – dark depths that should not on any account be probed too deeply. Here be dragons.

At first, the times Sophie spent with her were a trial – to Isobel, and no doubt to Sophie, too, poor child, she thought. She was quiet to the point of sullenness sometimes, her plain little face screwed up into a mask of resentment – at what, Isobel could only guess – but at least she was obedient and didn’t misbehave. Indeed, she hardly ever did anything else except read her battered copy of
Struwwelpeter
. This hideous book was a sinister and nightmarish collection of cautionary poems, with horrific illustrations, featuring a dirty boy with wild, turbulent hair and nails like talons, who bounded across the pages and inflicted terrible punishments on children who failed to do as they were told, such as cutting off their thumbs with one snip of the scissors because they sucked them, or dipping their heads in ink. Quite often, innocent children were summarily despatched for their supposed misdemeanours. Sophie turned the pages, her eyes flickering and frightened, yet nothing would prise her from it. She was the most uncommunicative child Isobel had ever met.

‘Why, bless you, the little mite’s only a bit shy. She doesn’t know us yet, do you, my lamb?’ And Susan took her into the kitchen, and fed her with glasses of milk and English rock cakes which, despite their name, were light as a feather. Sophie ate and drank obediently, but it was going to take more than rock cakes and Susan’s homely kindness to break through that tough carapace she had surrounded herself with.

Poor little girl. Isobel knew how it was, being dragged from city to city, feeling you never belonged anywhere; she knew what it did to you to be forced to move along, almost always just when you were making friends of your own age. The difference in their situations came from the fact that never was there any doubt that Vèronique had loved her daughter, that Isobel had adored her beautiful mother, and in the end nothing else mattered. How much or how little this was true of Sophie and her mother, she could only guess.

Apparently, like some bird of passage, Miriam never alighted anywhere for long; she was, after all, a New Woman, a free spirit. She had to remain unshackled, free to come and go as the fancy took her – the same impulse which motivated her to arrive and depart without warning or explanation into Bruno’s life, as she had done for years, said Berta, mouth turned down, though what it was that bound them together was not obviously apparent to anyone, since they seemed to spend a great deal of their time quarrelling with one another. This time it appeared she had indeed come to stay, and Isobel didn’t think she was the only one who wished she had not.