‘Marvellous, don’t you think?’
Rachel Savernake stood back to admire the painting Cliff Trueman had hung above the art deco sideboard. The latest addition to her collection occupied pride of place in the elegant drawing room of Gaunt House.
In the whole of London, there were few finer residences in private hands. An outsider would expect the domestic staff to number upwards of a dozen, especially given that Rachel had money to burn. Yet between them, Trueman, his wife Hetty, and sister Martha did everything necessary. No blood tie connected Rachel with the Truemans, but the four of them were as tight-knit as the closest family. There was no question of anyone else working at Gaunt House.
Trueman, shirtsleeved, folded his beefy arms and scowled at the hotchpotch of bright colours and irregular lines. A dozen examples of surrealist art jostled for attention in the drawing room, but this was the most inscrutable of all.
‘Put me out of my misery. What is it?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Do I gather you’re unmoved by the artist’s vision?’
His grunt was eloquent. ‘You want my honest opinion?’
‘Always.’ She smiled. ‘Though I suspect I’ll live to regret it.’
‘I can’t fathom what you see in this stuff. It makes no sense to me. Looks like something out of a kindergarten.’
She pretended to flinch. ‘I asked for honesty, not brutality.’
‘Look at it, a jumble of meaningless shapes. I can’t make head nor tail of it. What’s the point? It’s not as if you need to cover up a damp patch. I daren’t think how much you forked out for it.’
‘Don’t try to guess,’ she said gaily. ‘I’d be heartbroken if you dropped down dead in front of me. I paid a fair price, let’s leave it at that.’
‘You were robbed, whatever you spent.’
‘Believe me, I beat the dealer down until he was almost sobbing with pain. My final offer was a fraction of his original asking price. His first sale in a month, so it was easy to drive a hard bargain. The Slump has devastated the demand for fine art.’
‘Fine art?’ The big man’s face creased with incredulity.
‘Fine art, yes.’ A touch of steel entered her voice. ‘The strangeness of surrealism enchants me.’
He shook his head. ‘Takes all sorts. You always were one of a kind. Determined to go your own way.’
‘Believe me, the best avant-garde artists of today will be admired long after you and I have shuffled off this mortal coil. Quite apart from its intrinsic merit, this painting will prove an excellent investment. Not that I have any plans to sell.’
‘Pity.’
She laughed. ‘You’re such a curmudgeon. A true Philistine.’
As she spoke, Martha Trueman bustled in. Like Rachel, she was in her mid-twenties. As far as the outside world was concerned, she worked as a housemaid. Within these four walls, she and Rachel were as close as twins.
‘He enjoys being grumpy,’ Martha said. ‘Anyone would think he’s in his dotage. If I didn’t know better, I’d never believe he’s not quite forty.’
Her brother glared. ‘Age doesn’t come into it. Don’t tell me you can make any sense of a series of random splodges?’
Martha considered the artwork. ‘I like the vivid shades of orange and brown, yellow and blue. The way he’s mingled them together is… intriguing.’
‘Highly diplomatic.’ Rachel pointed to a squiggle in the bottom right hand corner. ‘But your detective skills are getting rusty. The artist is female.’
Moving closer to the painting, Martha screwed up her eyes and peered at the tiny signature.
‘Virginia… Penrhos?’
Trueman made a scornful noise. ‘Looks like she finds it hard enough to write her own name, let alone paint.’
‘Don’t underestimate her,’ Rachel said. ‘I’m the first to admit that her work is uneven, but I admire her ambition. Her willingness to take chances. She’s one of the women taking surrealist art in fresh directions.’
‘You said the same about Damaris Gethin,’ Trueman said in a low voice. ‘Didn’t do her any good.’
‘No.’
Rachel’s expression darkened. A few weeks earlier, the shocking death of Damaris Gethin had led the pair of them to a fatal rendezvous in a house in a quiet cul-de-sac in Rye. They would never forget Sepulchre Street.
Martha wasted no time in changing the subject. ‘Virginia Penrhos… mmm… the name rings a bell.’
‘You must have heard of her. When we arrived in London eighteen months ago, she was still quite obscure, but since she turned to surrealism, her reputation has come on in leaps and bounds. She has an eye for publicity and a taste for sensation.’
‘Wasn’t she in the news some time ago? Something rather scandalous?’
‘Last summer, a gallery in Camden Town held an exhibition of her work. Surrealist versions of the naked female form. Virginia Penrhos announced her intention to appear in the nude at the private viewing. The aim, she insisted, was to display her artistic integrity.’
‘Among other things,’ Trueman muttered.
‘She claimed to be making an emotional connection with her models. Standing together with them, making the point that the anonymous figures are as important to art as the artists who paint them.’
‘It’s coming back to me now,’ Martha said. ‘She stirred up quite a fuss.’
‘Guardians of public decency were duly outraged.’
‘When are they not?’
‘Questions were asked in the House of Commons about declining moral standards.’
Martha gave a playful smile. ‘Thank goodness for our Members of Parliament. We can always rely on them to behave with the utmost integrity.’
‘Rather like the newspaper barons. Leader articles ranted and the forces of law and order were urged to do the right thing. Public protests were threatened. Virginia Penrhos was warned she faced prosecution if she went ahead with her plan.’
‘And did courage fail her?’
‘Courage never came into it. She issued a defiant statement saying that under duress she’d told the gallery owner to cancel the private viewing. The statement even included a catchy line for the headline writers. Because she didn’t wish to expose him to the risk of prison, she’d chosen not to expose herself.’
Martha laughed. Her brother sighed.
‘Virginia didn’t stop there,’ Rachel said. ‘Her forced surrender was a Pyrrhic victory for tyrannical and outdated conventions, buttressed by a debased and archaic legal and social system. As for the art critics and the rest of the cultural establishment, they only cared about Old Masters and their Young Mistresses. They’d spat in the faces of women with independent minds who longed to break free of cultural enslavement.’
‘At least she got all that off her chest,’ Martha said.
‘Whatever you think of her work, Virginia Penrhos is as smart as her own paint. She gained all the publicity she could dream of without so much as peeling off a garter.’
Trueman jerked a thumb at the wall. ‘What’s so fascinating about this particular masterpiece?’
‘Look closely,’ Rachel said. ‘Notice anything unusual?’
‘Easier to spot something that isn’t unusual,’ he retorted.
Martha inspected the painting. ‘Is it… a seaside scene?’
‘Bravo! Yes, once your mind is attuned to her style, you see the sun and the sea and the sand. As well as that shadow cast over the rocks by cliffs. And a lighthouse.’
‘Yes! It’s almost like an optical illusion.’
Rachel turned to Trueman. ‘Now does anything strike you?’
Grudgingly, and for the first time, he gave the picture more than a cursory glance. After fully half a minute, he straightened.
‘Is that a person, obscured by the shadow? Sunbathing on the rocks? Face down?’
‘I doubt Virginia Penrhos was portraying a sun worshipper. Any other ideas?’
‘Give me a hint.’
‘There’s such a stillness about the figure.’
Trueman and his sister stared at the painting.
‘I see what you mean,’ Martha said softly. ‘It’s ambiguous, but…’
‘Art’s almost always ambiguous.’
‘And alliterative?’
Rachel laughed. ‘So what do you think?’
‘A dead body? Is that why the limbs are stretched out in such an unnatural pose?’
‘Yes,’ Rachel said. ‘Once the penny drops, you see that it must be a corpse.’
‘Someone who jumped from the cliffs? Or the lighthouse?’
‘Or was pushed.’
Hetty sighed. ‘You’re incorrigible.’
‘What is the painting called?’ Martha asked. ‘The title might give us a clue.’
‘Quite right. Virginia Penrhos named it after a watering hole in Lancashire. Not a product of her imagination, but a resort on the north-west coast.’ Rachel smiled. ‘Hemlock Bay.’
*
‘Hemlock Bay?’ Hetty Trueman poured from the sterling silver teapot with infinite care. ‘The name rings a bell, but I’ve no idea why.’
The residents of Gaunt House were taking afternoon tea out on the roof garden, high above the leafy square. There was a conservatory and a swimming pool and far-reaching views across London. The fragrance of blue agapanthus lilies scented the air. The garden was an oasis of calm in the heart of the capital.
Martha was racking her brains. ‘Is it… notorious?’
Hetty raised her eyebrows. ‘Notorious?’
‘In some circles, yes,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve become intrigued by the place.’
‘We all know what that means.’ Hetty sighed. ‘You won’t rest until you’ve found out everything you can about the place. Go on, I can see you’re bursting to tell us.’
Rachel laughed. ‘I’ve devoured The Illustrated Guide to Hemlock Bay. Before the war, hardly anyone knew it existed. There was just a small bay with a splendid beach, flanked by a stretch of sheer cliffs on one side and a tiny, secluded cove on the other side of a steep strip of headland. Fishermen and farmhands lived in scattered cottages and there was an old, decaying manor house. The main landmark, close to the cliffs and a treacherous outcrop of rock, was an old lighthouse.’
‘Sounds pleasant,’ Hetty said. ‘Not overwhelmed by crowds.’
‘To the north, a narrow channel of water cut the area off from Heysham and Morecambe. Because there was no bridge, you could only reach Hemlock Bay by going miles out of your way. If you made the journey, there was nothing to do but admire the scenery. As the crow flies, it wasn’t so far from Blackpool. In every other respect it was a world away.’
‘I can’t be doing with Blackpool,’ Hetty said. ‘Too brash and noisy.’
‘The tower is marvellous,’ Martha said dreamily. ‘On a clear day you can see north Wales.’
Hetty made a face. ‘You’d never catch me going up there. I’ve no head for heights.’
‘I love the Illuminations and riding along the front on the tram. And there are three piers. No wonder they call it the Wonderland of the World.’
‘Three piers in one resort?’ Hetty retorted. ‘If that isn’t overegging the pudding, I don’t know what is. Give me Morecambe any day.’
‘We went to Morecambe on our honeymoon,’ Trueman said. ‘Stayed at a guest house on the front. Rained every day we were there.’
‘I still have happy memories,’ his wife said.
Rachel tasted her drink and gave a nod of approval. ‘Ah, Darjeeling. The champagne of teas. Actually, you weren’t many miles from Hemlock Bay. Not that you’d have wanted to interrupt your marital bliss with such a tedious journey.’
Hetty blushed. ‘Rain or no rain, we had a lovely time, and I’ll say no more than that.’
‘Turner was one of the few visitors to venture as far as Hemlock Bay. He travelled there on a sketching trip and said it was as pretty as Paradise. A glowing endorsement, but nothing much changed in the next hundred years. No candyfloss, no saucy postcards. Only a legend about a mermaid displaying her charms on the rocks.’
‘The rocks in your painting?’ Martha asked.
Rachel nodded. ‘In bad weather, those coastal waters are extremely dangerous. In olden times, ships were often wrecked on the rocks and sandbanks beneath the cliffs. Some were deliberately lured to their doom. The fishermen and farmers of Hemlock Bay supplemented their income by smuggling contraband through a maze of underground passages. Rather less romantic than the folk tale about a beautiful mermaid who lazed on the rocks, combing her luxuriant tresses and distracting sailors from their attempts to navigate a safe passage. Lancashire’s very own Lorelei.’
‘The smugglers were explaining away their own crimes?’
‘Yes, it’s always convenient to blame someone else for one’s own misdemeanours. In the story, the mermaid’s shameless bosom-flaunting was responsible for one disaster after another until finally the widow of a drowned sailor took a terrible revenge.’
‘What did she do?’
‘She swam up behind the mermaid, slit her throat, and left her on the rocks to bleed to death. The outcrop became known as Mermaid’s Grave.’
‘So your painting shows Mermaid’s Grave?’
‘Virginia Penrhos’s version of it, yes.’ Rachel paused. ‘But in modern times, Hemlock Bay has changed out of all recognition.’
‘What happened?’
‘Before war broke out, a bridge was built over the stream, shaving a good half-hour off the journey by road. Motorists who made detours to the coast liked what they saw. Of course, natural beauty wasn’t enough for trippers. They needed somewhere to stay and expected to be entertained when they got there.’
‘That kind of place draws speculators like moths to a candle.’ Hetty shook her head. ‘Such a pity. Does Hemlock Bay now have three piers of its own?’
‘Not so much as a single jetty, you’ll be delighted to hear. A rich man called Jackson got in ahead of everyone else. He bought a lot of land cheap and set about developing a small and select seaside resort, complete with esplanade, fashionable hotel, and eighteen-hole golf course. No expense spared, no opportunity missed. The lighthouse had been decommissioned and he turned it into a residence for visitors to rent. Pleasure grounds were built on Hemlock Head, which divides the main bay from the small cove. There’s dancing, an aviary, all sorts of amusements.’
Hetty sniffed. ‘Fun for all the family?’
‘Turner’s phrase was adopted by the advertising men. The amusement park is modestly known as Paradise.’
‘Paradise? Sounds more like purgatory.’
‘Jackson is supposed to be a civilised fellow. Cambridge-educated and married to a glamorous American.’
‘Ha!’ It wasn’t clear whether Hetty’s scorn was targeted at the wife’s nationality or Jackson’s alma mater. Or both.
‘They met and married shortly after war broke out. He was fighting in France and there was every chance he’d be killed as soon as he went back to the front.’
‘But he survived?’
‘Thankfully, yes. Meanwhile, her great-uncle died. He’d become her guardian while she was still a babe in arms, after her parents were killed in a car crash in San Diego. She came into the fortune the old man made during the California Gold Rush.’
‘Lucky her,’ Hetty said.
‘Sounds romantic to me,’ Martha said.
‘A bit of both, I gather. Her money allied with his vision for the future. Jackson was never a typical hard-bitten speculator, not simply in it to soak the trippers and make a quick profit before finding fresh fields to conquer. He and his wife fell in love with Hemlock Bay. They settled there permanently.’
‘A modern-day lord and lady of the manor?’ Martha said.
‘Exactly. With two boys to carry on the line in due course. Jackson rebuilt the crumbling old manor house and turned it into a luxurious family home. His achievements were recognised eighteen months ago. He was given a knighthood, the ultimate seal of respectability.’
‘Or badge of corruption, depending on your point of view.’
Rachel finished her drink. ‘Jackson and his wife seem to have won over the locals. He’s limited the amount of new building and that sort of exclusivity always appeals to people who are already there. He even squashed proposals to build another bridge that would carry a branch line of the railway into his new resort.’
‘To keep out the common herd?’
‘Whatever his faults, he doesn’t sound like a snob.’
‘But so many people don’t own a car.’
‘They can travel by coach. He didn’t want his resort to be overrun, or to destroy the natural beauty that attracted people in the first place. Such a small resort could never compete with bigger towns like Morecambe, let alone Blackpool. His dream was to make Hemlock Bay somewhere special. A haven for the discerning visitor, if you believe the advertisements.’
Martha wasn’t impressed. ‘You mean genteel and boring?’
‘Hardly. The Slump has affected everyone. Sir Harold Jackson is presumably no exception, but he’s nothing if not enterprising. Last summer, he opened a new venture with much fanfare.’ Rachel allowed herself a smile. ‘The Hemlock Sun and Air Garden. Proudly advertised as an Eden of Education and Enlightenment.’
Hetty’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t by any chance mean…?’
‘Yes, a club for nudists, with its own beach in the cove on the far side of Hemlock Head. The Garden boasts complete privacy and the grounds are patrolled by a watchman with a big dog to deter intruders. Tall hedges and spreading oaks protect the members from prying eyes as they prance around in the open air, playing volleyball and listening to lectures about the benefits of frolicking in puris naturalibus.’
‘Latin!’ Hetty said darkly.
‘An excellent language for asserting moral superiority. In return for a handsome fee, you can cast off your clothes and your inhibitions. Hence Hemlock Bay’s recent notoriety. Several newspapers have kicked up a fuss about the nudist craze. They’re furious that Britain has become engulfed by a wave of depravity disguised as healthy outdoor living.’
‘Jacob Flint’s rag is in the vanguard, then?’ Trueman said. ‘Frothing with outrage, as usual?’
‘The Clarion? They aren’t the worst offenders, but of course they’ll seize any opportunity to trumpet moral indignation on behalf of their long-suffering readers.’
‘You’ve done a lot of homework,’ Martha said. ‘As usual. What I don’t understand is why you’re so interested in Hemlock Bay?’
‘The Virginia Penrhos connection was the starting point. You know I like to research paintings before I buy. She comes from the Welsh gentry, but she moved to Hove to pursue her passion for painting. She wasn’t an overnight success, but she always refused to compromise her artistic integrity.’
Trueman made a scornful noise. Rachel smiled at him.
‘I admire her single-mindedness. Of course it helped that she had plenty of money. She kept working on her technique and in the past year or two she has finally begun to make a name for herself. This spring, she moved to Hemlock Bay.’
‘Permanently?’
‘The dealer who sold me the picture told me she’s taken a six-month tenancy of the lighthouse.’
‘The lighthouse in the painting?’
‘Exactly. Her decision to move astonished the dealer. Mind you, he regards anywhere north of Watford as barbarian territory.’
Martha laughed. ‘I bet she wants to recruit a fresh supply of models from the Sun and Air Garden.’
‘I’m curious. Virginia Penrhos already lived by the sea. So what prompted her to move from one end of the country to the other?’
‘Obviously the place took her fancy. If Hemlock Bay was good enough for Turner…’
‘There’s something else.’ Rachel’s face clouded. ‘While I was looking up Hemlock Bay in the newspapers, one paragraph caught my eye.’
‘Why was that?’ Martha asked.
‘There was a report of an inquest into the death of a young man from Liverpool. He’d jumped off the cliff at Hemlock Bay.’
A brief silence was broken only by a distant rumble of traffic from the streets below.
‘Very sad, but if he was out of work and depressed…’
‘On the contrary, Edward Hillman worked in the offices at the Mersey Docks and was engaged to be married. What’s more, he’d recently won a jackpot on the football pools.’
‘Gamblers,’ Hetty said, as if that explained everything. ‘They are unhappy people.’
‘Not when they are winning. He seemed like someone with everything to live for. Hence the story made the national news.’
‘You know what they say.’ Hetty was never afraid to give them the benefit of her homespun wisdom. ‘There’s nowt so queer as folk.’
Rachel exhaled. ‘I find it hard to understand.’
‘You’re not suggesting he was murdered?’
‘No. An elderly couple who were visiting on holiday, and a local dog-walker both saw Hillman approach the cliff edge. He was on his own. Unless they were lying, nobody else was around, certainly not close enough to give him a shove. Before the witnesses knew what was happening, he’d jumped.’
‘How dreadful.’
‘What puzzles me is this. There was no indication that Hillman had any links to Hemlock Bay, other than the fact he’d taken his elderly mother there for a short holiday. Yet he made a special journey there to end his life. Why?’
‘There aren’t many other cliffs in Lancashire.’
‘Unfortunately there are a hundred other options for someone who wants to kill himself.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘It strikes me as a peculiar choice. Yet it must have some significance.’
‘A lot of things are peculiar in this day and age,’ Hetty said. ‘You can’t worry your head about all of them.’
‘I can’t help feeling curious, given that the same small resort also exerts a powerful attraction on an artist whose work I admire. So much so that she’s painted a picture of the place, featuring a corpse and a lighthouse. And then gone to live in the lighthouse.’
The older woman sniffed. They all knew what she was thinking. Curiosity killed the cat. And one day it will kill you.
‘Do you think there’s a connection between the body in the painting and the young man from Liverpool?’ Martha asked.
Rachel shook her head. ‘From what the dealer told me, there’s no doubt that Virginia Penrhos completed the painting before Hillman’s death. Besides, his body finished up in the sea, not on Mermaid’s Grave.’
‘Pure coincidence, then?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Look at how many people plunge to their doom from Beachy Head.’ Rachel stared into the far distance. ‘Some places attract death.’
‘You think Hemlock Bay is one of them?’
‘Everything I read about the place makes it sound too good to be true. Can somewhere so delightful have no dark side?’
Martha laughed. ‘The Jekyll and Hyde of seaside resorts?’
A strange light came into Rachel’s eyes. ‘I wonder.’
‘Why do you think it attracts death? Is it just because of the cliffs?’
Rachel shook her head. ‘I wonder if some kind of serpent has slithered into Paradise.’