Kelly saw the ritual. She knows I’m hiding something from her. How long until Jane breaks down and tells her the truth and I lose Kelly forever?
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
MAEVE
Kelly and Jane avoided me for the rest of the morning. They didn’t go back to Gwen’s house, and when I saw them coming out of the village teahouse, they quickly turned and fled in the other direction.
My heart sank into my shoes. I didn’t know what to do.
The guys and I ate lunch in a thatched-roof pub. Our table was right next to an old stone well descending through the flagstone floor and deep into the earth. I ordered beef and Guinness pie and didn’t eat a bite. Kelly’s words pounded against my skull. The guys gave up trying to get me to talk about it and just ate their lunch in silence.
Corbin pushed his chair back. “Maeve, we have to go.”
I nodded miserably. Yesterday I’d been so excited about the possibility of meeting Robert Smithers and getting to the bottom of this. Today, I couldn’t care less.
Corbin turned to Blake. “Can you join us? I have a theory I’d like to test out.”
Blake shovelled in a last mouthful of curry and grabbed his leather jacket. “Sure.”
We left Arthur and Rowan sampling local chocolates at the pub and hopped on the bus out to the institution. I expected an imposing Victorian building with spindly trees, like something out of a horror film. Instead, we walked into a bright, modern building of glass and steel. Solar panels dotted the roof and colorful vegetable gardens and flower beds lined the winding driveway. A nurse admitted us with a smile.
“He doesn’t get many visitors,” she said. “Follow me. He’s in the reflection room. If he starts getting agitated, press the call button by the door and we’ll come to assist you.”
She ushered us into a small room. Two walls held large canvases depicting what I might describe as “tranquil” scenes – a calm beach surrounded by palm trees, and water rippling over rocks on the edge of a wooded stream. A white recliner sat under the window, facing the garden beyond. A head of dark hair with flecks of grey poked out over the top of the chair.
“Robert Smithers?”
The man didn’t answer. I stepped forward, coming around the side of his chair until I could see his profile. His handsome features had sagged a little with age, his sharp cheekbones softened, his strong jaw less defined, but the resemblance to the artist in Clara’s book was unmistakable. My heart fluttered against my chest. I knelt down beside him, placing one hand on the arm of his chair. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, Mr. Smithers. We were just wondering if we could speak to you.”
Still no reply. Blake leaned against the forest scene, his eyebrow raised nearly to the ceiling. “Look, Maeve, this painting is so realistic it’s almost as if I’m leaning against this tree.”
Corbin smirked. I ignored him. “Robert, I’m Maeve Moore. Do you remember Aline Moore, from Briarwood? Well, she’s my mother. You might have believed I was dead, but I’m alive and I very much want to talk to you about a painting?—”
“Bloody rubbish,” the man in the chair muttered.
“What’s rubbish? The part about me being alive, or about being Aline’s daughter?”
Robert raised a shaking finger and pointed it at the forest painting. “Not real,” he muttered. “No soul.”
Of course.We were speaking to an artist. Even I with my total lack of any artistic ability could see that those murals were garbage.
Blake’s face broke into a grin. “That’s right. They’re complete rubbish. And you’d know, wouldn’t you? You were one of Britain’s greatest living artists for a time. How come they didn’t ask you to paint the contemplation room?”
Smithers shook his head frantically. “Not me. I can’t make the colours work anymore.”
“I know who you are.” I pulled out the Smithers’ book from my bag and opened it on his lap. “You used to be an artist, didn’t you? These are your paintings.”
“I painted that one,” he mumbled, jabbing his finger at a dry portrait of a Duke. He moved his finger over another portrait, this one of a woman with flowing red hair. “Robert painted that one.”
“Robert? But you’re Robert.”
The man tapped his head. “Robert lives in here. Sometimes he paints instead of me when I get tired. But we don’t paint anymore.”
“How come?”
He shrugged. “Nothing left to paint. Robert doesn’t want to.”
“And you always do what Robert says?” Blake asked with a twitch of his mouth.
