Sandwiched between Camille and Laura in the back of Massoud’s limo, Alice felt like a defendant going to court. Every fibre of her being longed to be going to Hawthorn without the Messents and to be rid of their horrible, colossal, illegal mess. Because now, the very place that had been a safety net all her life, had inadvertently turned into possibly the most dangerous place on earth — or certainly for her.
She couldn’t shake the image of Thérèse on her bathroom floor, or Detective Rigby’s reaction. Thank God he’d enough faith in her to let her leave Thérèse’s flat. Because, as she’d hurried back to the Messents’, it had all slotted into place, and the little experiment she’d performed before they’d left the house just now had confirmed it all.
She thought of the garbled, whispered voice note she’d left for the detective explaining everything she’d discovered and said a private prayer now that he’d listened to it and would soon be on his way to Hawthorn too. But the gulf between what had to happen next – to get to Hawthorn, for Gerda to catch Alex Messent ‘red-handed’, as was her intention, for Detective Rigby to galvanise his troops and get to Hawthorn on time so that the murderer could be revealed – seemed with each passing mile to be virtually impossible.
‘Tiffany did a good job,’ Camille said, flicking Alice back to the present.
Camille had her crocodile skin handbag open on her lap like a mouth and was admiring herself in the compact mirror she’d retrieved from inside, flopping her hair over her shoulder, then back again, ‘but she really took an age.’ She snapped the compact shut. Alice couldn’t help but shudder, thinking of her own compact mirror and what she’d seen in its reflection – Alex Messent and Thérèse in a passionate clinch. And now Thérèse was dead.
‘I’m sure she was just trying to do the best job possible,’ Alice said, covering for the fact that Tiffany had deliberately taken her time. ‘She has such a good reputation.’ One Alice would do everything to enhance if she ever got out of this alive. Tiffany had played her role in the proceedings to perfection.
‘Can you go a little faster?’ Camille said, speaking in a louder voice to Massoud.
‘It’s an average speed check, Madame,’ he replied. His eyes caught Alice’s for a second in the rear-view mirror. ‘There are cameras everywhere.’
‘I’ll pay the tickets, just hurry up. I should have been there at least an hour ago.’ Camille sat back in her seat and, with a grim set of his shoulders, Massoud sped up into the outside lane and Camille made a little grunt of satisfaction at getting her own way. ‘You know, it’s so strange Thérèse didn’t phone,’ she said, checking her messages on her phone again and jabbing at the screen.
‘I’m sure she had her reasons.’ Alice’s voice sounded strained. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Camille what she’d just witnessed in Thérèse’s flat, but she couldn’t. And now she heard the faint vibration of the phone in the bottom of her bag. Thérèse’s phone. The one Alice had taken from her apartment. The one Camille was texting right now. She quickly had to take her own phone out of her bag to pretend there’d been a text.
Thankfully, she’d turned the ringer to silent after the call she’d made from Thérèse’s phone earlier. Remembering the code Thérèse had called out to Camille, Alice had pressed 2232 and the phone had opened. She’d scrolled through the messages – mostly orders from Camille in French, then one from a number without a name attached. One that had simply said: You have the picture. You owe me.
Had someone murdered Thérèse because they’d been blackmailing her? And what photo were they referring to? Alice had called the number straight away, but it went through to a voicemail. And she’d recognised the voice immediately.
‘You know, between you and me, after this event today, I have the feeling that Thérèse will be leaving our employment,’ Camille said in a confidential tone. ‘She hasn’t said as much, but I think she’s going to change direction.’
Alice had a flash of Thérèse’s body rigid on her bathroom floor. She wasn’t changing direction any time soon.
‘Oh? But she seems like one of the family,’ Alice said, remembering in the nick of time to use the present tense.
‘Yes, of course she is, but she’s a young woman. She never says it, but I think she’d like a family of her own. Is that something you’ve ever wanted, Caroline?’
Alice swallowed hard. ‘No, I’m happy the way I am.’
‘That’s good to hear, because I was thinking, if Thérèse were to leave, then I’d happily employ you as my personal assistant.’ Camille smiled graciously at Alice and turned to lay her perfectly manicured hands with their sparkling diamond rings on Alice’s arm. ‘You’ve fixed so much for me and, really, just been the best housekeeper I could ever imagine, but your talents are wasted. You’d be a perfect assistant. We’d have to get you enrolled onto a French language course, but I know a great guy who could get you up to speed.’ She smiled again, enthused by the idea and looked at Alice, clearly expecting a similarly enthusiastic response.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘I would just like you to think about it. Obviously, we’d come to a private arrangement. About your contract.’
‘But Miss Beeton should at least be aware,’ Alice said, in an oddly automatic little defence of the real her.
‘Oh, God. Agency people. I can’t bear them. Really don’t worry, Caroline. That Miss Beeton person — she’s a nothing,’ Camille said, flapping her hand and smiling. ‘Trust me.’
‘OK,’ Alice said, pressing her lips together. She didn’t dare catch Massoud’s eye. ‘Well … er … thank you. I’ll think about it.’
Laura sat imperviously tapping her foot to the beats on her headphones. She was wearing particularly heavy make-up today and Alice wondered if that was for Jacques’ benefit. But there was something in the grim set of her mouth that made Alice wonder if there was something else on her mind. Despite not wanting to believe it, Alice remembered Laura’s altercation with Thérèse. The way she’d furiously stomped upstairs. And Alice hadn’t seen her again last night. Isn’t it possible she could have got an Uber to Thérèse’s flat?
Soon they were off the motorway. On the final approach to Hawthorn. Alice felt her mouth go dry. The gates swung open automatically ahead of them, and Massoud drove through.
On either side of the drive, the sacks of rubble had been cleared away and the tall hedges shaped beautifully. Barney had done a typically fine job.
But the biggest shock of all were the absurdly expensive cars parked in front of the house, including a yellow Ferrari. There was even a sleek grey helicopter on the lawn. Sassy would be beside herself if she could see this, Alice thought.
‘Oh, this is lovely,’ Camille said, craning her head to look at the house. Laura took off her headphones and looked too as Massoud drove with a crunch over the gravel and stopped the car. ‘Laura, remember what I said. You are to stay out of Papa’s way.’
‘Whatever. I’ll go and help Jacques,’ she said, getting out of the car.
Camille waited for Massoud to open the other door for her, then she stepped out and stood for a moment, looking at the house. ‘How did you say you found this place, Caroline?’
‘It belongs to a friend of the family,’ Alice said, getting out behind her, glad that Hawthorn had passed muster.
Ahead of them, Elijah stood in a smart black suit outside the front door. He didn’t make eye contact with Alice, who was now stopped by Massoud as Camille and Laura strode ahead. He slipped the mobile phone into her hand, nodded and squeezed her arm briefly.
Alice unzipped her bag and put the third mobile phone inside. They were like buses.
Then the front door opened, and Jinx stood in a smart black uniform with a tray of champagne glasses. Alice’s footing faltered briefly and, for the first time all day, she felt just a little bit more grounded. Jinx was here. Thank God. Whatever unfolded next, they had each other.
Jinx offered a glass to Camille as they walked in.
‘Oh, that’s kind,’ Camille said, taking one and then sweeping past into the hallway, where there was a giant pedestal of flowers at the bottom of the staircase.
‘Where’s the kitchen?’ Laura asked.
‘That way,’ Jinx said, eyeballing Alice, urging her to stay silent. ‘The guests are just in the hall with your husband,’ she said to Camille.
‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ Alice said to Camille. ‘I just need to …’
Jinx covered for her, putting down the tray on the hall console table. ‘Madame Messent, could I take your coat? I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is that from the Saint Laurent Autumn-Winter collection?’
‘Yes,’ Camille said, impressed. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Oh, I read Vogue,’ Alice heard Jinx say, as she walked quickly into the kitchen after Laura.
Jacques was bent over the kitchen’s central island, squirting something with a blue plastic piping bag onto the row of plates before him.
‘Laura,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks,’ she said with a big smile. ‘Is Thérèse here?’
Jacques shrugged. ‘No, I haven’t seen her. I thought she was going to meet me here this morning, but she hasn’t arrived yet.’ Alice stared at him and he frowned, not understanding, and Alice felt her cheeks flushing. How awful that she’d even considered for one second that Jacques might have anything to do with Therese’s death.
‘Oh, that’s weird. I should tell Maman,’ Laura said walking past Alice into the hall.
‘Is everything OK, Alice?’ Jacques asked.
‘No, not really. Can you cover for me?’ she whispered.
‘Sure.’
‘Don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone.’
He nodded. ‘Got it.’
After slipping out of the kitchen and through the laundry room, Alice peeked through the back door. Outside, there was a sleek Porsche four-by-four and a driver next to it, playing a game on his phone.
She closed the door, pulling the ancient curtain across the glass, then moved stealthily behind the coat rack, pulling it aside, to reveal the damp, hidden corridor that Jasper and Sassy had blocked off, but which the servants had once used to avoid being in the main areas of the house. It led to the back stairs and up to the top floor.
Silently climbing the rickety worn wooden stairs, and batting the cobwebs out of her path, Alice found herself behind a thick red curtain on the top-floor corridor next to Sassy and Jasper’s room. She peeked through to check the coast was clear, but a heavyset man in a black suit and a crew cut with a walkie-talkie on his belt stood like a brick wall at the end of the corridor. Another one of Alex Messent’s security detail, she guessed, wondering how many of them he had around the property.
When his back was turned, she slipped across the corridor, tiptoeing through the door opposite and up the rickety stairs into the old playroom, then, moving the old rocking horse aside, through the baize door in the corner and up into the even more rickety attic.
Barney turned as she walked towards him across the creaking boards. ‘Alice,’ he said, putting his hand on his chest. ‘Thank God it’s you,’ he said, coming over to her and embracing her in the cramped space under the eaves.
‘Oh, Barney, am I pleased to see you,’ she said, hugging him.
‘This is quite the thing going on here,’ Barney replied, impressed, nodding behind him. Everything in the attic had been shoved to one side and the old trestle table was loaded with laptops. Gerda sat in front of one of them on Pop-Pop’s old canvas director’s chair with headphones on, peering at the screen. Two men sat beside her, similarly engrossed.
‘We’ve rigged up hidden cameras,’ Barney said. ‘And we’ve been filming everyone.’ He sounded like an excited little boy. ‘Gerda … Goodness, Alice. She’s quite something.’ Barney blushed and Alice saw, with a jolt of recognition, that he was smitten. ‘Wherever did you find her?’
‘I didn’t, remember? She found me.’
Gerda nodded at Alice from the desk, and she longed to ask where Agatha was, but now was not the time. Gerda was speaking in Dutch to the guy next to her, although she did hear the words ‘Alex Messent’. Alice moved closer, stooping under the eaves to see the camera footage on the screens. Alex Messent was now in the main hall greeting his guests with Camille, while just off it, two more burly security men stood either side of the library door.
‘That’s where they’re keeping the Rembrandt,’ Barney said, before leaning in, ‘if it is the Rembrandt.’
‘You mean, you’ve still not seen it?’ Alice felt a shudder of alarm. She’d been hoping that at least this one particularly important unknown might by now have been taken out of the equation. Because still that other possibility nagged at her. That this might be a perfectly legitimate art sale. And she’d got everyone here for the wrong reason.
‘A van arrived last night and unloaded a ruddy great packing case that was then brought through the house into the library,’ Barney explained, ‘but we haven’t got a camera in there and the security’s been too tight around it since, for us to get anywhere near it. From all the intel, Gerda is ninety-nine per cent sure that it is, but …’
Alice continued to watch the monitor, as Helly, in a smart dark apron and with one hand professionally behind her back, circulated amongst the guests, topping up their champagne glasses. There were about twenty or so people in the hall including a small, elderly Japanese man dwarfed by a towering Nordic-looking woman in very high heels, a couple in white suits who looked like they’d just stepped off a boat in the Riviera, several men and women in business suits, accompanied by several more academic-looking people, along with a sinewy man in jeans and trainers.
Camille and Alex were stationed near the library door, and Camille’s smile didn’t falter for a second, as she clutched onto his arm. She nodded as one guest, in a well-cut suit, came out of the library with a big grin on his face, patting the back of another man who was carrying a briefcase.
‘It’s the Rembrandt,’ Gerda said. ‘It has to be.’
‘Yes, a lot of the guests seem to have brought rather less well dressed, science-y types, who could well have been examining it to check on its authenticity,’ Barney added.
‘Science-y.’ Alice smiled. ‘If you think you’re having that next time we play Scrabble, you can bloody well think again.’
‘A shame,’ Barney said. ‘It could be a fifty-plus word score, that one.’
Back on the screen, Alex gestured for another couple of his guests to go through to the library.
‘We’re so close, but I’d really like to see the painting for myself before I can give the order to break up his little gathering,’ Gerda said.
‘There is a way,’ Alice said. ‘And I’ll show you, but Gerda—’ Alice’s voice broke ‘—first you’ve got to tell me that Agatha’s safe?’
‘Oh, yes, yes, of course she is,’ Barney said, looking between Gerda and Alice as if it were absurd that she could think of Gerda as in any way other than a force for good.
‘Then you’d better come with me,’ Alice said.