It had only been a fortnight since Poppy’s last visit, but the change in Alex was shocking. His mind was still clear—he even managed to crack a couple of feeble jokes at Rita’s expense—but his body was shriveling away.
It was a heartbreaking sight.
One of the round-the-clock nurses hired to look after him hustled Rita and Poppy out of the room after just a few minutes. Alex needed morphine and rest.
‘I need a stiff gin,’ Rita sighed when they reached the kitchen. She sat down heavily and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. Then she looked up at Poppy. ‘The cancer’s everywhere. They’ve given up on the chemo. There’s no point. All they can do now is control the pain.’
They drank massive gin and tonics. Rather unsteadily, but feeling that she should, Poppy made a plateful of cheese and tomato rolls.
Rita managed a couple of mouthfuls then gave up and smoked five cigarettes, one after the other, instead.
‘Anyway, enough about us,’ she said half an hour later. ‘Time to change the subject. Come on, Poppy, cheer me up for Gawd’s sake. Tell me what you’ve been getting up to in the last couple of weeks.’
Poppy told her all about the Wilhelm von Kantz painting, which was due to be auctioned at Gillingham’s next week. The Daily Mail was running a feature on how the lost work of art had been discovered. Dorothea de Lacey’s grasping daughters were wild with fury, foaming at the mouth and threatening to sue the auctioneers who had handled the sale at Chartwell-Lacey Manor. Thanks to their incompetence, the sisters had raged at the journalist who had gone to hear their side of the story, they had missed out on a fortune.
‘It’s quite good, saves us having to feel guilty,’ Poppy explained. ‘If they’d been nice, we would have done. But they sound like complete witches. The journalist told me he’d spoken to practically the whole village. Not one person had a decent word to say about them.’
‘So this chap of yours,’ said Rita, ‘this Jake. Pretty eligible now, is he?’
She was looking more cheerful, Poppy noted with relief.
‘Don’t start matchmaking. There’s nothing like that between me and Jake.’
‘All right, what about Caspar?’ Rita thought Caspar was wonderful. Stupid name, but that wasn’t his fault. Poppy rolled her eyes. ‘There’s definitely nothing like that between me and Caspar.’
‘That’s your trouble, there’s nothing like that between you and anyone,’ Rita pointed out with characteristic bluntness. ‘You want to get yourself sorted, girl. Get yourself a decent bloke and settle down. Find one and grab him before someone else does.’ She gave Poppy a sly look. ‘Are you sure this guy Jake wouldn’t fit the bill?’
The auction of the von Kantz at Gillingham’s was over in no time flat. Four telephone bidders battled it out, and in less than ninety seconds it was all over.
If Poppy had nipped to the loo she would have missed it. She clutched Jake’s arm as the auctioneer’s gavel fell. Dead Hamster on a Patio had just been bought by a New York collector for seven hundred and seventy thousand pounds.
‘How do you feel?’ asked Ross Wilder, the journalist from the Mail who was sitting next to Poppy.
‘I need a pee.’
‘Congratulations.’ He shook Jake’s hand.
‘How do you really feel?’ Ross murmured in Poppy’s ear as they made their way out of the auction rooms.
‘Look,’ said Poppy, ‘since I started working for Jake, all I’ve ever done is muck things up and lose him money. Now, for once in my life, I’ve done something right. I couldn’t be happier,’ she told him firmly. ‘Nobody deserves it more than Jake.’
She meant it, she really did. And Ross was almost sure he knew why.
‘You and Jake,’ he said, nodding encouragement, ‘tell me, are you two an item?’
Jake was walking ahead of them. Poppy caught up and tapped him on the shoulder. His green shirt had a nylony slither to it.
‘Ross wants to know if you’re going to make an honest woman of me.’
‘Honest?’ Jake looked incredulous. ‘Remember a certain cheese and pickle sandwich? You still owe me fifty pence.’
The nurse gave Alex his midday morphine injection. He eased back against the pillows and felt the pain blessedly melt away. With it came the irresistible urge to sleep but he wouldn’t. Rita was sending the nurse down for her lunch break, shooing her away so they could have some time alone together. It was like having a bleeding minder, he thought frustratedly. These days they never seemed to get a moment to themselves.
He had to stay awake awhile at least…
When he woke up, Rita was sitting in the armchair next to the bed reading a newspaper. The play he’d been half-listening to on the radio earlier had finished; a boring lecture about economics burbled on instead.
For several minutes Alex lay there, just watching her. His woman. He loved her so much. They had been such a good team.
God, he hoped she wouldn’t drink herself to death when he’d gone. He hoped she’d meet someone else, in time. He wanted her to be happy again.
Rita looked up. Her face softened.
‘You’re awake. What are you thinking?’
‘That you could do with a visit to the hairdresser. Your roots need doing, girl.’
‘You always were a smooth-talking bugger.’
‘I mean it. You could give that Nicky Clarke fellow a try. You fancy him, don’t you?’
‘Not so much as I fancy you.’ Rita smoothed his hair away from his forehead. ‘How are you feeling? Anything you need?’
Another wave of exhaustion swept over him. Alex squeezed her hand and felt his eyes close.
‘You’re here, aren’t you? You’ll do.’
Rita bent over to kiss him. The paper on her lap slithered off her knees and onto the floor.
‘Why the Daily Mail?’ he said as she gathered it up. ‘You don’t usually read that one.’
‘It’s got the piece in it about Poppy and that painting she found.’ Rita held up the relevant page. ‘I was going to show it to you. The reporter reckons there’s a bit of a thing going on between her and Jake. Did I tell you how much that painting went for in the end?’
Alex didn’t have the energy to study the article himself. His eyelids were closing again.
‘Read it out to me.’
He kept his eyes closed while Rita began to read.
‘“…and Jake’s young assistant, twenty-three-year-old Poppy Dunbar.” Talk about not believing what you read in the papers,’ crowed Rita, ‘they haven’t even got her name right. It’s Dunn, for Chrissake, not Dunbar. And look, they’ve done it again—’ she pointed to a section further down the page—‘what’s the matter with these people? Why’d they keep putting Dunbar? What a stupid mistake to make.’
Some names you never forgot. Alex was glad his eyes were closed. His mind flew automatically back to almost a quarter of a century ago. To a country club on the leafy outskirts of Bristol and a beautiful girl called Laura Dunbar.
And then it all clicked into place.
Of course.
It explained everything.
Poppy was Laura’s daughter.
Alex frowned slightly. He wondered why Poppy had never told him. Then he remembered something else Rita had just said.
‘How old did they say she was?’
Rita double-checked.
‘Twenty-three. At least they managed to get that right. It’s her birthday in May. Anyway, pay attention. Let me read you the rest.’
She carried on but Alex didn’t hear another word.
Poppy Dunbar wasn’t only Laura’s daughter.
She was his too.
When Rita had finished she looked up. Alex was smiling to himself.
‘What?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing,’ said Alex.