Alice spent the rest of the day dealing with the various maintenance people Thérèse had organised to visit the house – a man to service the boiler, a florist who refreshed the flowers, and the cleaners.
Just as she’d promised Gerda, Alice talked to all of them in turn, but although they’d been here to help set the house on the day of the party, they’d all left long before the first guests had arrived. And none of them had anything useful to say about either the Messents or Enya herself.
She turned her attention to the laundry, noticing that Alex Messent wore black silk socks with a small gold motif, which needed a cool wash, and there were a few white shirts that would need a much hotter wash. None of them were actually very dirty, but Alice noticed that one smelt different — although she felt rather ridiculous for sniffing one of his shirts — definitely more like perfume than aftershave.
By the time Laura came back, Alice was exhausted. The Messents’ daughter had already eaten at a pizza place with her friends so Alice left the simple salmon and vegetable supper she’d prepared for her in the fridge. She must have found it, though, because at midnight, when Alice came down to make a camomile tea, she saw the dirty plate beside the dishwasher. Or perhaps that had been her mysterious father, who as far as Alice knew, had not left the house all day.
The next morning, Monsieur Messent finally did leave, but without a word to either Alice or Laura who were both in the kitchen. Alice noted the way Laura’s cinnamon toast paused midway to her mouth, as they heard the front door slam. She continued eating, but she seemed somehow relieved that he’d gone. What a strange and frosty relationship they had. But then Alex Messent was a very chilly person. Alice couldn’t imagine having a father like that or living in this mausoleum of a home. No wonder poor Laura didn’t want to spend any time here.
When she left shortly after breakfast with her backpack full of books to meet her friends, and with no clue as to when Alex Messent might suddenly arrive back home, Alice felt unnerved. Standing in the big hallway, she felt simultaneously alone and observed, in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
‘Come on, Agatha,’ she said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Fifteen minutes later, when Alice and Agatha alighted from the bus in Sloane Square, she waved at Jinx who was waiting for her outside Peter Jones. She was wearing a baby blue fake fur coat, a leather skirt and zippy ankle boots and — rather optimistically given the dull day – large Dior shades. It was only seeing Jinx’s friendly face that made Alice realise how much tension she’d been under, and she felt unexpected tears prickle in the corners of her eyes as her friend hurried towards her and pulled her into a tight embrace. Only Agatha barking caused Jinx to break away.
‘Oh, you jealous girl,’ Jinx said, smooching Agatha, who practically swooned with love.
They set off towards the mews where Charles Tavistock had his studio, Jinx linking her arm into Alice’s.
‘So? How is it? Being on the other side?’ she asked.
‘It’s not a game, Jinx,’ Alice said, miffed by her tone. ‘I’m taking a serious risk.’
‘I know you are, darling, I know.’
‘I mean, to be honest, it’s awful. I don’t have a second to myself. And Mr Mantis finally got back to me, but I was so busy yesterday I couldn’t take his calls. You know how he goes on, and I can’t risk anyone overhearing my conversation. Honestly, I’m on eggshells, Jinx. What if someone realises that I’m not Caroline Doulton? The tension is unbearable.’
‘You can do it,’ Jinx reminded her. ‘You’ve done the hard bit. They’ve employed you. And …’ Jinx probed. ‘More importantly, what have you found out?’
Alice gave her a blow-by-blow account of everything that had happened since she’d arrived at the Messents’ house, including her encounter with Alex Messent himself.
‘What’s he like in the flesh?’ Jinx asked as they arrived at the mews, waiting for a black cab to reverse out of its narrow entrance.
‘Hard to describe,’ Alice said, remembering how his physical presence had been so intimidating. She didn’t want to tell Jinx she’d been scared.
‘Don’t give me that. Come on. In two words …?’
‘Inscrutable and French.’
‘And his wife?’
‘She’s ridiculously beautiful and glamorous, but we haven’t been properly introduced. I have to say, I’m astonished the Messents are both so trusting. Just leaving me in the house.’
‘Why? You came highly recommended. Helly and I worked hard on those fake references.’
‘But I could be anyone.’
‘Not if you’re recommended by The Good Housekeeping Agency. You haven’t built a reputation for years for nothing.’
They walked down the cobbled mews, past the row of expensive cars, until, near the end, Jinx stopped and pointed.
‘It’s this one,’ she said and bounded up to the red door and knocked loudly. Agatha sniffed around the planters and then the door opened.
‘Ay ay. Double trouble,’ Charles Tavistock said with his cockney drawl.
He was tall and rangy, his straggly shoulder-length curls styled to cover a thinning patch. His extremely white teeth contrasted his slightly orange fake tan and he was wearing a grey, loosely knit jumper with a whole array of silver pendants on a leather chain. His tight jeans were frayed at the bottom, just above his fur-lined biker boots.
‘Hey, Charlie. Long time, no see,’ Jinx said, kissing him on both cheeks. ‘Wow. This place hasn’t changed a bit.’
‘And neither have you,’ Charles said, with a lascivious guffaw and a wide smile. Goodness, those gnashers really were quite something, Alice thought.
He was clearly waiting for Jinx to return the compliment, but instead, she noticed his balding head, smiled and made a ‘huh’ sound, before swishing past him into his studio.
With a jovial shrug, Charles turned his attention to Alice, greeting her like a long-lost friend, even though he’d only met her once, briefly, years ago, when he’d only had eyes for Jinx.
Inside, the ground floor of the mews house had been hollowed out into a cavernous space, the brickwork painted black with matt black floorboards to match. In the centre of the room was a vinyl backdrop in a vivid mustard yellow, with two huge umbrella lights facing it.
‘You still got my gorilla?’ Charles asked Jinx. ‘She nicked it off a shoot with the Stones,’ he told Alice.
‘You gave it to me,’ Jinx said.
‘Did I, though?’ he asked. ‘That’s not how I remember it.’
‘You were rather stoned yourself,’ she joked.
‘You should give it back,’ Alice told Jinx, ignoring her wideeyed glare of betrayal. ‘It completely overtakes your flat. Plus, she’s recently committed to de-cluttering,’ Alice told Charles.
‘Yes, I suppose I did get rid of one very annoying thing a couple of days ago,’ Jinx sniped, pointedly.
Agatha sniffed around the floorboards.
‘You can let him off the lead,’ Charles said.
‘Oh, Agatha’s a girl.’
‘Right. She can smell the cat, probably. He’s around here somewhere,’ he said.
‘So … what can I get you?’ Charles asked, rubbing his hands together. ‘Coffee? Or something more bubbly?’
Alice agreed to a coffee, but Jinx was straight in there with the champagne. ‘I’m just greasing the wheels,’ she whispered to Alice, who had to forcibly stop herself from eye-rolling as Jinx set about flirting with Charles as he poured a long-stemmed glass of fizz. She subtly pressed her shoe on Alice’s toe and Alice bit in her cheeks, knowing she had to trust that Jinx would eventually turn the conversation in the direction they needed it to go. But as the minutes ticked by, Jinx laughing at Charles’s lame jokes, Alice became increasingly impatient. Fortunately, Charles’s cat made an appearance, hissing at Agatha who practically leapt into Alice’s arms and it took quite a while to calm them both down.
‘Come on,’ Alice whispered to Jinx as Charles put his cat outside. ‘I don’t have much time. Get on with it.’
When Charles came back, Jinx leant on one hip and smiled at him. ‘So, you’re still very much on the society scene,’ she said. ‘I heard about a party at New Year’s Eve you were photographing.’
‘Oh yeah, that,’ Charles said, giving nothing away.
‘Only … and I know this is probably a long shot,’ Alice said, ‘but my niece was at the same party.’
Jinx’s eyebrows shot up, but Alice gave her a reassuring look. ‘And the thing is, she was so hoping to get a photo that night. She was wearing a dress by a young designer, you see. And she’d kind of promised she’d get a good snap in return for the dress.’
‘But then the woman who hosted the party …’ Jinx said, riffing on Alice’s bluff, ‘who was it, Alice?’
‘Oh, er, Camille … er the Messents, right?’ she said, as if trying to remember.
‘Yeah, well she never showed any of the pictures.’
‘She um …’ Charles said, rubbing the side of his face. ‘She never ordered any prints.’
‘But you’ve got them all?’ Alice pressed, innocently.
‘Sure. They’re on there,’ he said, nodding towards a big desk in the corner with a computer screen the size of an aircraft window at its centre.
‘Oh, Charles,’ Jinx said, folding herself around to stand in front of him, ‘you wouldn’t be an absolute darling and let Alice take a look, would you?’
He looked unsure and Alice smiled.
‘Just to see if there’s any shots of my niece …’
‘Lucretia,’ Jinx said and Alice caught the glint in her eye. Surely she could have come up with a less ridiculous name for Alice’s invented relative?
‘I mean, you may remember her from that night,’ Alice said. ‘Tall. Blonde.’
‘Amazing figure …’ Jinx embellished.
Charles was interested enough now. ‘OK, you can have a look, but only in the strictest confidence.’
‘Absolutely, of course,’ Alice said, with what she hoped was a grateful smile.
Leading them over to his computer, he clicked through a bunch of folders and then opened one full ofjpeg files. He gestured for Alice to sit in the black leather office chair in front of the screen.
‘There you go,’ he said. ‘Knock yourself out.’
Alice put on her glasses and leaned in towards the screen. Jinx, being the star she always was, drew Charles away, skipping over towards the yellow backdrop.
‘So what’s this for?’ she asked, doing a pose, although Alice noted that Charles didn’t pick up his camera.
Alice tuned out as she opened the folder. The pictures of the Messents’ New Year’s Eve party were all timestamped, and Alice went through them one by one, noting the shots of the partygoers arriving in their finery, of Camille and Alex Messent greeting them, with Alex’s hand on his wife’s arm, and then of Camille — with diamonds glittering at her throat, dressed in a spectacular long blue dress, with a lace skirt studded with sparkling embroidery – her head back laughing. They looked perfect. The kind of gracious, cultured couple who had no idea that the peace of their luxurious home was about to be shattered.
Alice methodically scrolled through more and more shots – of delicious-looking canapés on silver trays, gleaming flutes of champagne, and giant pedestals of chrysanthemums and roses. Alice could almost hear the atmosphere of relaxed yuletide chatter ringing out through the screen.
As suavely relaxed as Charles was in person, he was obviously a real stickler for detail too, as all these shots had been arranged here in chronological order. 20.45 … 20.46 … 20.47 … And now their timestamps got closer to the moment of Camille Messent’s speech, her guests gathering into a semi-circular crowd before her, while she stood on the slightly raised stage area at the back of the vast drawing room beneath that raging seascape in oils.
And now here was Camille addressing the crowd. One shot captured her extending her hand to her husband … another showed him stepping towards her, staring adoringly up. 20.57 …
Charles had clearly turned the camera on the guests at this point, using some kind of wide-angle lens to capture the entire crowd – and this was probably the image that the police had used to eliminate everyone as suspects, Alice supposed. But looking now across the sea of smiling faces, she spotted someone who was neither really in the room or out. Thérèse was standing in the doorway to the hall, staring in, with her face set and determined.
But did her being in the doorway mean she’d just arrived? Or was she about to leave? From her stance, it could have been either, but it oddly looked like the latter. But why would she be going out in the middle of Camille’s speech? And where? In less than four minutes, Enya would be dead. Murdered by someone upstairs. Could Thérèse have got up in the time to have either seen something, or been somehow otherwise involved? Or, again, was Alice simply letting her imagination run away with her? Sadly, there was no way to tell.
She went through the rest of the pictures, but Charles had stopped taking photos altogether, it seemed, during the minute’s silence, and then there were only a few shots of the ceiling and floor, possibly taken accidentally in the panic and the confusion that must have followed.
Glancing up, she saw Jinx was still posing against the lurid yellow background, with Charles’s encouragement. Clicking back through the photos of the crowd, Alice double-checked to see if she’d missed anything. Just as she was zooming in on another snap of Thérèse right near the start of the party, she was interrupted by Jinx.
‘I’ve been keeping him distracted,’ Jinx said, swishing her hair over her shoulder. ‘But I can’t for much longer.’
‘Yes, you can. You’re a natural,’ Alice said.
‘He says I could still do a bit of modelling if I wanted.’
‘For what? Saga magazine?’
Jinx huffed and tutted and came around the desk. ‘So, any joy? What are you looking at?’
‘Thérèse. The Messents’ secretary. That’s her,’ Alice said, pointing to the screen.
But Jinx’s look darkened. ‘Typical. Look whose hand she’s holding.’
Alice hadn’t even realised. But yes, Jinx was right. Subtly, in fact even barely noticeably, Thérèse did seem to be touching her fingertips against a man’s as he stood back-to-back with her, talking to somebody else.
‘Why typical?’ Alice asked.
Because, look, you ninny,’ Jinx said, her expression turning positively thunderous now, ‘that’s bloody Laars, of course.’