THERE WAS NO PHONE CALL the next day, although the letters would have been delivered that morning—if the postal system worked as it was meant to do, which it usually did. Isabel spent the first part of the morning at her desk and the rest of the day at the delicatessen, standing in for Cat, who had a trade fair to attend in Glasgow. “All the food people will be there,” she had said. “Miles of Italian sausage—miles. Tankers of olive oil. Everything.”
“Then you must go,” Isabel had replied. “I’ll help Eddie. You go to Glasgow.”
“Angel,” said Cat, blowing Isabel a kiss.
“Well, I’m not sure …”
“But you are. You’re a rock.”
Isabel had wondered whether one could be both an angel and a rock. Angels were somewhat flighty; rocks were more … well, more rocky. What Cat might have said was that she was a brick; that was a compliment that people paid to those on whom they could rely, but the expression was dying out. Her father had talked about people being bricks—their mechanic, for example, had been a brick because he had been prepared to come and collect the car for its service when her father was too busy at the office to take it to the garage. That was the action of a brick.
She went to the delicatessen shortly after eleven, ready to help Eddie during the busiest period of the day, which was between twelve and two. There was time for a cup of coffee before she got down to work preparing bread rolls for lunchtime, and it was over a cup of coffee that Eddie mentioned Diane.
“Ah, Diane,” said Isabel. “How is she?”
“She’s going to London.”
“Oh. And are you going with her? Have you been to London, Eddie?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never been there. I’ve been to America, but I’ve never been to London.”
“Well, maybe you should go with her. How long is she going for, the weekend?”
Eddie reached for a jar of pickles. “No, she’s going down there to finish her course. She’s transferring to another college.”
Isabel frowned. “But what about you, Eddie? Are you going too?”
He shook his head. “Not me,” he said carelessly. “You wouldn’t catch me living in London. Too big.”
Isabel digested this. “So?”
“It’s not a big problem,” said Eddie. “We’ve finished. It’s over.”
Isabel put down her coffee cup. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Eddie.”
He shrugged, and then extracted a pickle from the jar with his fingers.
Isabel shook a finger. “You’re not meant to do that, Eddie! Use a fork. You don’t put your fingers in jars.”
“Sorry.” He put the pickle in his mouth. “It’s only for me.”
“But your fingers have been in the vinegar. You put germs from your hands into the vinegar. Now all those other pickles could be full of your germs.”
“OK,” he said. “I won’t do it again.”
She returned to the subject of Diane. “What happened?”
“I thought we should cool it,” said Eddie. “So I did. She’s cool with that.”
Isabel was somewhat surprised by this abrupt change of heart and was about to say something but stopped herself. She had not interfered before in the issue of the two of them living together and would not do so now. He was just too young.
“You’ll miss her,” said Isabel, largely out of a want of anything else to say.
“Maybe,” said Eddie. “Maybe a bit.”
Men don’t miss women, thought Isabel. More women miss men than men miss women. That was probably right. It was depressingly right.
Work resumed, and it was not until three o’clock that things slackened off sufficiently for Isabel to telephone the house and ask if there had been any calls for her. Grace answered, and said that the glazier had called about a window that needed repairing but there had been nothing else.
She went home at five, leaving Eddie to do the last hour or so by himself. Again there had been no message, and there was no call either that evening. The next morning, though, shortly after eight, the telephone rang. It was Duncan.
“Astonishing news,” he blurted out even before giving his name. “The Poussin’s back.”
Isabel started to say something, but was interrupted.
“This morning,” said Duncan. “I went down this morning and it was back in its place. Somebody had put it there last night. Astonishing. But it’s safe—that’s the important thing.”
“Yes,” said Isabel. “That’s the important thing.”
“I’ve told the insurance people,” Duncan continued. “I woke that chap up, I’m afraid. I called him at six.”
“I doubt if he minded,” said Isabel. “It’s rather good news for them.”
“Yes,” said Duncan. “He sounded pretty chipper. So that’s it. Case closed. There’s no claim from me, and that makes them extremely happy. Nothing more to be done.”
Isabel had her doubts. “Do you think so? Surely the police will want to pursue the matter.”
There was silence at the other end of the line.
“Have they said anything?” pressed Isabel.
“I haven’t informed them yet,” said Duncan. He sounded guarded.
“But you’ll have to,” said Isabel. She was thinking quickly; he seemed reluctant to inform the police and there had to be a reason for that. He was the one; that was the reason. Why else would he not wish to speak to the police? They would have to know eventually, but presumably he felt uneasy about talking to them himself. “After all,” she went on, “this is a crime. A very valuable item was stolen. The police aren’t going to want to let that go.”
Again he was silent. Then: “I don’t see what interest the police will have in dealing with something that’s no longer a problem. They have better things to do with their time, don’t you think?”
She did not get time to answer. Had she been able to say what was on her mind, she might have said that the issue was not so much theft as it was insurance fraud.
“Look,” Duncan said. “Do you think you could come down here this morning? I know it’s an imposition, but it would be much better to speak face-to-face. There’s rather a lot to discuss.”
Yes, thought Isabel. There was a great deal to discuss, but she did not see how she could discuss it with him. How could she? Would she accuse him of attempting to defraud his insurers? And if that was what she thought, was she not morally bound to go to the police with her suspicions?
She agreed to go. Jamie offered to accompany her, but she declined his offer. “It will be better for me to go by myself,” she said. “I shall be perfectly safe.”
She drove up to Doune in the Swedish car, not noticing the skies this time, nor paying much attention to the countryside unfolding on either side of the road. Her mind was occupied with what she might say to Duncan—that is, if she were to say anything, which was far from sure. Her earlier certainty that Duncan was responsible for the theft had been replaced by a measure of doubt. Now she thought: I really don’t know. I know very little here, and I should simply leave the whole issue where it is. It was no business of hers to bring anybody to justice, nor to interfere in the affairs of a family that she barely knew and that had difficulties enough without her adding fuel to the flames of their dysfunctionality. By the time she arrived at Munrowe House, she had decided that her visit would be a brief one. She would listen to whatever it was that Duncan wished to say and then she would withdraw.
Duncan greeted her on the steps in front of the house. He was smiling broadly, and ushered her in warmly.
“Let’s waste no time,” he said. “Come into the drawing room. The painting is back where it belongs.”
She followed him into the room, which was cold, in spite of the summer weather outside. Old Scottish houses were inevitably cold, she realised; it was the thickness of the stone walls. He saw her shiver. “I make a fire, even in summer,” he said.
Isabel did not say anything; her eyes had gone straight to the Poussin.
“Back home,” said Duncan.
Isabel walked forward and stood before the painting. She felt as she always did when she stood in front of a great work of art: a sense of marvel that she was so close to an artefact that was once worked upon by an artist of such stature as Poussin. He did this, she mused: he thought this painting, he touched this canvas.
She went a step closer. Duncan was now standing beside her. She heard his breathing. She felt his presence.
She turned her head, just slightly, so that she could see Duncan’s face. His eyes were bright; there was joy in his expression. This man, it occurred to her, could not have engineered the disappearance of this painting. He could not be dissembling; he simply could not.
She looked at the sky in the painting. She saw the clouds, and behind them the blue of the void. Beyond the range of hills that the artist had painted in the background she could make out a glow in the sky that was the sun, and she remembered being in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and seeing Poussin’s picture of Celadion standing on the shoulders of the giant, Orion, and guiding him towards the sun, that his sight might be restored. On the shoulders of great men we go towards the light …
“We should take a seat,” said Duncan, indicating the sofa. “We can gaze at this lovely sight while we talk.”
She sat down at one end of a chintzy sofa, with Duncan at the other.
He did not hesitate. “So you found out,” he began. “Frankly, I wasn’t surprised.”
“No?”
“No, I’d dreaded it. I suppose I suspected it all along, but I didn’t really want to face up to the fact that my own son could have done something like that.”
She was still. “Your son?”
“Yes, Patrick. As I assume you’ve discovered.”
“Why do you think it was him?” she asked gently.
He laughed. “Because it’s obvious. The house was locked last night. This morning the painting was back in its original position, as if nothing had happened. There are four or five copies of the keys—mine, my wife’s, my daughter’s, my son’s, and a spare set we keep in a drawer.”
Isabel asked him where his wife was. He replied that she was in Paris and would be away for the next two weeks. He had spoken to her on the telephone, though—to give her the good news. “Needless to say, she’s delighted.”
“But I still don’t see—”
He interrupted. “I assumed that you spoke to him after you discovered the truth.”
Isabel shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”
“Then he must have realised that you knew.”
She was not sure what to say. “Do you think so?”
“Yes.”
He looked up at the painting. “He’s gone on and on about redistribution—he’s harped on about it for years. But I never thought he’d take his animosity to me and my concerns to such an extent.” He shook his head ruefully. “Never. I would never have dreamed it.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” said Isabel gently.
He looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean? Who else could it be?”
“You have two children,” said Isabel.
He laughed. “Alex? No, that’s out of the question.”
Isabel looked down at her hands. I could tell him, she thought. I could list the factors that pointed to his daughter: her financial need, her attachment to the painting, her deliberate involvement of Isabel through Martha.
Duncan now rose to his feet and took the few steps that brought him close to the painting. He gazed at it, his back to Isabel.
“Do you know something?” he said, without turning round. “When I asked Martha to contact you, I never imagined that you would be able to sort the whole thing out. I hardly dared hope. I expected that you would be a comfort to me in the whole business—as I told you—but I had no idea that you’d bring the matter to a successful conclusion.”
Isabel sat where she was. “When you asked Martha?”
He seemed surprised by her question. “Yes. I got in touch with her. I didn’t want to speak to you out of the blue. I suppose I’m afraid of rejection.” He looked at her and gave a curious, self-deprecatory shrug. “Who isn’t? We’re all a bit weak, I fear.”
“I don’t think it was your son,” said Isabel.
Duncan appeared to weigh this—but not for long. “You don’t have to protect him, you know. I’m not going to do anything about it, as I told you. After all, he’s still my son.”
Isabel stared at him. “Do you love him?”
“Of course I do. In spite of everything. I’ll get over this.”
She was astonished. “So this will make no difference to your relationship with him?”
Duncan sighed. “Probably not. We are very far apart, you see, in many respects. And I don’t think this was directed against me. The painting was going to come back—he was merely going for the insurance company. He hates people like that—fair game, in his view.”
“What if I told you,” said Isabel, “that it was definitely not your son? What if I said that it was somebody else altogether?”
He sat down again. She had his full attention. “Why? What do you mean?”
She closed her eyes briefly, trying to order her thoughts. “It was somebody else, but I cannot reveal who. I’m sorry. But I assure you that I am one hundred per cent sure that it was not Patrick.”
Duncan looked confused. “Then who …?”
“I can’t reveal that,” Isabel repeated. She had made her decision. It had all fallen into place and she knew what she had to do. “You yourself said that the important thing is that the painting is back.”
He corrected her. “You said that.”
“No, you did.”
He looked doubtful. And Isabel thought: Did I say it, or did he? And if we can’t remember who said what, then how could anybody be sure about who spoke to Martha? But one thing was clear: it was right not to tell him that his daughter was behind the theft. If she was, which Isabel thought was probable. Or perhaps not … “I think I should get back to Edinburgh,” she said.
“I owe you a great deal,” said Duncan. “I’m very grateful to you.”
She had been about to stand up, but at this, she remained where she was. “Then I’m going to ask something of you.”
He was guarded. “Yes?”
“I’d like you to make some gesture towards your son,” she said. “You said that you loved him. Well, he doesn’t think so.”
He began to protest, but she cut him short.
“Yes, I mean it. He thinks that you disapprove of him.”
“He disapproves of me,” blurted out Duncan.
“Disapproval can sometimes be an act of self-defence,” Isabel pointed out. “And in this sort of situation it’s not necessarily a good idea for people to blame each other for starting things. You have to short-circuit all that. You have to forget about it. Tell him that you value him. Tell him that you are happy with what he is. Don’t deny it. He’s not going to change his nature, you know. Tell him that that’s all right. Say it. Embrace him. Put your arms around him and say that you’re proud of him and you love him.”
He stared at her.
“Or lose him,” she said.
She rose to her feet, glanced one final time at the Poussin and began to leave the room.
SHE WAS BACK in Edinburgh well before lunchtime. Jamie had been practising that morning—he had a demanding concert coming up in which he was playing Mozart’s bassoon concerto, and he was working his way through that, ironing out difficulties, making sure that his playing was as polished as possible. Now he was ready for lunch, which he suggested they have in the garden as it was a warm day—one of the warmest of the year so far—and they could eat on a picnic rug on the shady part of the lawn. Isabel agreed, and prepared a plate of sandwiches and a jug of the slightly tart lime cordial that she had made a few days previously.
Sitting on the rug, she told Jamie about her trip to Munrowe House and about the conversation she had had with Duncan. “So who was it?” he asked.
Isabel picked at a sandwich. “Ham,” she said. “You should have the ham ones and I’ll have tomato. Who was it?”
He took the ham sandwich from her. “Yes. Who was it?”
She extracted a tomato sandwich from the small stack on the serving plate. “Who was it? Sometimes it’s difficult to say. You think you know the answer, then you don’t.”
“But you must have some feeling about it,” pressed Jamie.
“The daughter,” said Isabel. “I may be wrong, but I think it was her. The last thing I wanted to do was to tell Duncan that. He is very fond of her, and I’m not sure that it would be helpful for him to know that she’s dishonest. Frankly, I think it could even be the end of him—that knowledge.”
Jamie understood. “So you kept that from him?”
Isabel nodded. “I did. I think I had to.” She paused for a moment. “But it could have been somebody else. I’m not sure. It could even have been Duncan—I doubt it, he was so obviously delighted about having the painting back that I more or less dismissed the idea, but it’s theoretically possible. Just.”
Jamie was silent. He had started on the ham sandwich and was making quick work of it. Within a minute, it had disappeared, and he reached for another one.
Once their lunch was over, they lay down on the rug. Isabel, feeling relaxed and relieved that the Poussin was back in its home, reflected on the fact that the best solutions in life are sometimes the vaguest and least clear-cut. That was true, no matter how much we strove for certainty, for the cut and dried, for the harsh truth that admitted of no nuances, no qualifications. I am glad that I do not live in a world that requires such certainty of me, she thought. I am glad.
“Look at those clouds,” said Jamie, gazing up at the sky. “Look at them.”
“Yes,” said Isabel. “They’re very beautiful, aren’t they? Clouds are very beautiful and yet so often we fail to appreciate them properly. We should do that. We should look at them and think about how lucky we are to have them.”
She turned to Jamie, lying beside her. He was still on his back, his hands tucked behind his head, making a rough-and-ready human pillow. Had she been able to write haiku, she thought, she would write one to him now. You beside me / The grass beneath / I think … and so on. But she could not, and what she wanted to say to him now was all jumbled up inside her. She could kiss him perhaps; that might express her feelings every bit as eloquently as if she were to speak at length. But she felt a piece of tomato on her teeth and she did not want to kiss him until that had dislodged itself, or been dislodged.
“Look at the shape of the clouds,” she said. “What do you see in those beautiful clouds, Jamie?”
She thought he might find a shape of the clouds that they could treat as an omen, a portent perhaps, but he did not. Instead, he waited for a few moments, waited until a bee that had been crawling on a nearby flower went on to something else.
“I see you,” he said.