Authors: Rachel Green
“Don’t you want to go to the poplars?”
Julie stopped and turned around. “There’s somebody there I don’t want to talk to. He frightens me.”
“Who?” Felicia looked toward the trees, holding her hand to shadow her eyes. “I don’t see anybody.”
“He’s there, just the same. Let’s go to the rose garden instead. There’s just Mrs. Blesset there.”
“All right.” Felicia tried to keep up with Julie’s strides. “I don’t understand this. Is there really something on your shoulder?”
“Yes.” Julie reached a bench and sat. “Look. Give me your purse.”
“Here.” Felicia handed it to her. “What do you want it for?”
“This.” Julie opened it and pulled out the first note, holding it up to her right shoulder. “A ten pound note.” She held up a second. “A twenty. A photograph of an old woman.” She paused. “Is that Mother?”
“Yes. She got old. You’ve been here twelve years.”
“Is it really that long?” Julie stuffed the notes back into the purse and handed them back. “I didn’t realize.”
“You’ll be thirty this year.” Felicia closed her hand over Julie’s. “Do you want to see her?”
“She won’t come.” Julie stared into the distance. “She never has.”
“I’ll tell her you’re getting better.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Julie stood. “I have to go back in now.”
“Must you? It’s early yet.” Felicia pulled her into a hug
Julie pushed her away. “The sun’s going down.” Her voice warbled with anxiety. “I have to go.” She turned and hurried back along the path, making several apparently random twists and sidesteps.
“See you on Sunday.” Felicia expected no reply and lost track of Julie when she turned into the hospital courtyard.
* * * *
Felicia drove back to her flat irritated by her sister. What had caused her to spiral further into her make-believe world? She’d been getting better, surely? Where had this idea of an elemental come from? It sounded like something from the
Twilight Zone
or the
Hammer House of Horror
. Had they changed her medication? She’d tried to see Julie’s doctor but he was “available by appointment only” no matter how much Felicia had pleaded.
She pulled into her usual spot and walked up the short flight of steps to her flat. She owned the top floor of an old Victorian schoolhouse with a preservation order. She couldn’t replace the single-pane windows but the high ceilings afforded her space to display paintings and sculptures, and the polished oak floors were easy to sweep clean.
She threw her jacket on the sofa, kicked off her shoes then poured herself a glass of wine. Despite the early hour, she felt she deserved it after Julie’s craziness.
She dropped into the armchair and dialed Patricia Turling’s number.
“Mum? It’s Felicia.” She listened to pleasantries before interrupting. “I saw Julie today.”
“Really? How considerate of you.”
Felicia frowned at her mother’s sudden icy tone. “You can’t ignore her forever, Mum. She’s your own daughter.”
“That's not my daughter. My daughter left a long time ago.” Patricia’s voice was distant. “Not like you. You’re a good girl, Felicia.”
Felicia cringed. That was not what she’d said when they were kids. In those days Julie had been the good girl, despite her penchant for invisible friends.
“I think she needs more help than they’re giving her. She seems to be getting worse. She says she’s got an elemental on her shoulder.”
“Stuff and nonsense, darling. Too much television. I spoiled you both when you were little.”
“Yes, Mum.” Felicia sighed. “I’ll drop in tomorrow, shall I? Before work?”
She replaced the phone, leaned back and sipped her wine. Why did her mother always deflate her good moods? If she told her mother she was getting married, Patricia would tell her she was lucky a man had found her worth having when, as everybody knew, it would be quite the opposite.
Chapter 3
Felicia pulled into Sandringham Crescent and onto the drive of number four, parking behind her father’s immaculate Volvo. He’d been dead for nearly five years and, although her mother didn’t drive, she paid one of the neighbor’s lads to wash it every week and the garage to keep it serviced and roadworthy. She felt she couldn’t separate the man from the car he loved and to let the car go would be to say goodbye.
Mostly Felicia ignored it. The amount Patricia spent on the unused vehicle in a month would have kept hers going for a whole year. She left her car unlocked as she went to the house. Years of growing up in this neighborhood meant she trusted the residents, or at least their twitching curtains.
She pulled down the visor and checked her reflection in the mirror. She looked good for pushing thirty, though her mother would no doubt comment on her choice of foundation, how short her hair was and how it matched the indecent length of her skirt. She refreshed her lipstick, dabbed a spot of powder on her nose and forehead, took a deep breath and got out.
The door unlocked with her father’s key. The death of her husband had been the only reason Patricia Turling gave her daughter a key to her own house. She had moved out, rented and eventually bought a place of her own before her mother had conceded she was responsible enough to have a key to this one.
Felicia was used to her mother's foibles. Despite the constant nagging about her job, her partners and her life in general, she hadn’t wished her mother dead for months.
She stepped inside, holding her purse under one arm, and picked up the milk bottles that had been left first thing this morning. “Mum?”
“In here, Felicia.”
The voice came from the kitchen. The house had been built in the late nineteen-forties by someone who had made a good deal of money in the post-war housing boom. Although not extravagant, it was composed of the finest materials salvaged from bomb sites and closed-down architectural warehouses. Despite the lack of natural light in the hall, the only window being high over the three-turn stairs, the light from the pendant glass lampshades lent a soft glow to the polished oak paneling.
Niches built between the supporting beams held neo-classical sculptures in bronze and marble, and the clever piece of
trompe l’oeil
led the eye of any viewer standing at the front door into an Italian vista. Four heavy oak doors, varnished slightly darker than the surrounding panels, led to downstairs rooms, and a passageway under the stairs to the kitchen, scullery and pantry.
Felicia hated the house with a passion matched only by her loathing for sensationalist art critics.
Her formative years had been spent skulking through shadows, careful not to leave fingerprints on the polished wood, scratches in the floor or, as a teenager, beer stains on a ceiling recovered from a seventeenth-century church in Whitechapel. Even now she was certain to tread only on the Persian rug, necessitating a rather longer step than usual to get from the end to the relative safety of the stoneware tiles in the kitchen passage.
A milk bottle in each hand, she negotiated the long step between the hall rug and the tiles, and entered the kitchen where her mother mouthed a “good morning” over the sonorous tones of the radio.
“Hi.” Felicia mouthed back, crossing to the fridge to put the milk away. She sat, sipping coffee and glancing through the paper while her mother listened to the radio.
A headline caught her eye.
Fire claims two victims
A mother and her young son died last night when their house on Park View caught fire in the early hours of the morning. Neighbors were alerted to the fire when flames broke out of the second-story window and the fire brigade was called.
Carol Goodwin, 36, and her six-year-old son Peter, died in the inferno which did no damage to the surrounding buildings. Police are investigating, but foul play is not suspected. Pictures on page 7.
Felicia turned to a photograph of the post-fire scene. There was almost nothing left, just a small pile of bricks, and slates from the roof. The editor had found an old picture of the house when it was built two years previously for comparison, and a neighbor had helpfully supplied a picture of Carol and her son Peter taken in Plymouth the previous year.
“Tragic.” Her mother spoke only when the radio changed to business news. “I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
“It’s just a fire, Mum. House fires happen all the time. Did you know them?”
“Park View?” Her mother sneered. “As if I would. They’re all council houses down there.”
“I’m sure they were lovely people, Mum.” Felicia closed the paper and looked at her watch. “Is there anything you need? I’ll have to go to work in a minute.”
“I don’t think so, darling, thank you.”
“Okay then.” She washed up her empty coffee cup and set it on the draining board.
Her mother clicked her tongue. “Don’t leave it there, Felicia. It makes the place look untidy.”
“Sorry.” She dried it with a tea towel and put it away in the cupboard.
“You said you’d been to visit your sister.”
Felicia was surprised. This was the first time her mother had brought up the subject of her younger daughter in years. “That’s right. She’s doing very well, actually.”
“She’s still at St. Pity’s then?” Patricia tried to appear disinterested, but Felicia could tell she had a point to make.
“That’s right. We sat in the rose garden until it started to go dark. Why?”
Her mother picked up the paper and began to leaf through it. “Have you got an insurance policy on her? One that’s about to mature?”
Felicia sat again. “No, Mum. She’s still there under a section. There’s no policy that would touch her.” She frowned. “What’s all this about?”
“There was a man here earlier looking for her.” Patricia pulled a card out of the kitchen drawer. “He told me a policy on Julie had matured. She was listed as being at St. Marples, though, so he wanted to verify where she was.”
“That’s odd. Is that his card? I’ll chase it up.”
“Yes.” Patricia handed it over.
Felicia looked at it, flipping it once to see if anything was written on the back. “Was he a tall chap in a trilby?” she asked. “I met him yesterday.”
“That’s right. Did he ask you about her?”
“No.” Felicia frowned. “He didn’t mention it. He just bought some paintings from the current show.”
“That’s odd.” Patricia put the paper down again. “Fancy him coming to see me as well. I told him you deal with everything to do with her.”
“Julie, mum. Her name’s Julie.”
“I know.” Patricia managed to sound hurt. “She is my daughter, remember. All the hardships I had to go through with her. Especially when she went blind.”
“You didn’t do anything, Mum. Dad always dealt with Julie and I took over when he died. It’s only the mention of money that’s got your attention. Well, there isn’t any. I’ve been Julie’s legal advocate for five years. I’d know if there was a policy. This Raffles bloke is a scam artist.”
Chapter 4
A perk of both the job Felicia did and the lifestyle she led was to choose how to spend her evenings. In contrast to her early closing the day before, she stayed late at the gallery, surprised by the increased number of art lovers who dropped in because the lights were on. After selling an expensive ceramic and two watercolors in less than an hour, she made a mental note to adjust the gallery’s opening hours to allow businessmen to stop in after work. She spent until seven catching up on the paperwork and searching on the internet for information on the mysterious Raffles.
It was after seven when she finally left, and she headed to a private viewing at London’s Progression Gallery, leaving her car between two Beamers in the reserved parking area. Her passing acquaintance with the security guard was enough to get her in through the back door, and she walked through a storage area full of canvases stored in vertical racks. The murmured echoes of conversation filtering from the gallery ahead interspersed with the chink of wine glasses and muted Chopin. She breathed the heady scent of pine and linseed oil.
There were between forty and fifty art lovers present, mainly comprised of the collectors and agents on the gallery mailing list but punctuated with a few students out for free booze and the inevitable sycophants clustered around the artist.