‘Any sign of Alastair downstairs?’ asked Simon.
Sorrel shook her head. ‘They haven’t returned yet from the broad.’
‘How long does it take to find a boat and bring it back?’ said Simon tightly. ‘Or is he hiding from us?’
‘Who knows?’ said Sorrel. She began pouring out the tea. ‘When you’ve drunk this, Rachel,’ she said, placing the mug on the nightstand next to the bed, ‘I’ll make you something to eat. What would you like? A piece of toast perhaps, with your favourite Nutella?’
Rachel hesitated. ‘You know what I’d really like, Mum?’ she said. ‘A bacon sandwich.’
‘I wouldn’t mind one of those myself,’ said Simon. ‘Plenty of brown sauce too. Why don’t I go downstairs and put some bacon under the grill?’
‘There’s no need; I’ll do it. You stay here and drink your tea with the girls.’
He took the proffered mug. ‘Sorrel, you do realise, don’t you, that you can’t keep me locked in here forever? I intend to have my say with Alastair and Valentina, there’s no avoiding that.’
Jenna had now finished speaking to Callum and was passing the mobile back to Rachel. Sorrel gave her a mug of tea. ‘There’s no point, Simon,’ she said, ‘you won’t gain anything by taking out your anger on them. I’m afraid to say Valentina has already made it very clear that she has Alastair’s support, that she won’t have Nikolai and Irina turned into scapegoats.’
‘You’ve spoken to her?’
‘Just now when I was making the tea. She couldn’t have made her position any clearer. She’s a player, Simon, a pro. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and is taking great delight in outmanoeuvring us.’
‘I knew it! I bloody well knew it!’
‘Dad, please don’t make a scene because of me, will you?’
Both Simon and Sorrel turned to look at their daughter. ‘Nobody’s talking about a scene, love,’ said Simon. ‘But there are things that have to be said.’
‘But it was my fault. I told you before, I’d drunk too much and was making an idiot of myself. Just ask Jenna.’
‘That may well be true,’ said Sorrel, ‘but from what Jenna told us before, they urged you on. That’s what is so unforgivable. Darling, just think what would have happened if Jenna hadn’t been there with you?’
‘Maybe they would have rescued me.’
Simon guffawed loudly. ‘Yeah right, from all accounts those two ninnies were about as useful as a pair of chocolate teapots.’
‘But if you blame them it’ll spoil everything and we’ll have to leave and I don’t want to. Please don’t ruin the holiday because of my stupidity, especially when it’s our last time here.’
Sorrel knew that Simon could refuse Rachel nothing; it had been that way ever since she was born. He looked at her, then back at Sorrel, his dilemma plain to see. What was more important to him – Rachel’s happiness to let things go, or his need for retribution?
Chapter Forty-Three
Out on the terrace Valentina was finishing her coffee which she had been drinking before Sorrel had appeared. She was savouring her victory over a woman who had obviously seen herself as the guardian of Alastair’s wellbeing since his wife’s death. It was foolish of Sorrel to think she could intimidate Valentina, not when her every word and gesture revealed her to be pettily vindictive and laughably jealous.
The last of her coffee now drunk, she went back inside the kitchen, placed the cup and saucer, along with the spoon, in the dishwasher and, flouting any attempt at recycling, dropped the yoghurt pot into the bin. She then opened the cupboard where yesterday she had noticed a collection of labelled keys hanging on a row of hooks. She selected the one that interested her most, and seizing her opportunity, she went out to the garden, following the path to the left of the house. Hidden behind a tall beech hedge, she kept on going until the winding path brought her to a small secluded clearing.
Before her, and framed by a canopy of leaves shimmering in the sunshine, stood a green painted one-storey cottage with pretty white trim to the eaves and windows. There was a sense of magical isolation to it. If Linston End had reminded Valentina of the lavishdachasof the Russian elite, this put her in mind of the humble wooden clapboarddachain the summer village of Peredelkino near Moscow, where her mother holidayed with her cousins.
When alone on the river yesterday with Alastair, Valentina had glimpsed what looked like a romantic hideaway through the trees, and on asking who it belonged to, he’d said it was his, or more precisely it had been his wife’s. ‘We bought the land many years ago so Orla could have a proper studio,’ he’d explained. ‘It was where she liked to think and be alone,’ he’d added, but without inviting further comment.
Valentina inserted the key she’d taken from the kitchen into the lock and turned the handle. Initially the door refused to budge, but after jiggling the handle and pushing hard against it, the door creaked open.
She stepped into the cool interior, brushing away a cobweb and wrinkling her nose at the fusty smell of dust. The interior wasn’t at all what she expected. There was no narrow hallway leading to a couple of cramped rooms stuffed with tables, chairs, chests and cabinets filled with china and samovars, as in thedachaher mother frequented, but instead there was one large open and airy space.
The floor was of white painted boards and at one end was a scruffy rug, a small log-burning stove, an empty log basket, a wooden table with a mixed assortment of chairs around it, a tall larder cupboard, a sink beneath the window, and a two-ring gas stove on which stood a battered metal kettle. There was a daybed against one of the walls and opposite it, several easels, and a functional bench on which stood a number of statues of birds, otters and hares.
Above the bench was a noticeboard with sketches pinned to it, some detailed, some no more than a swift and fluid stroke of a brush or a pencil capturing the flight of a bird. The sketches of a heron launching itself into the air, and seen from three differing angles, caught Valentina’s attention and she leaned over the bench to take a closer look. Grudgingly she had to admit Orla had had an enviably deft touch. The sculptured works, which she knew Orla was known for, impressed Valentina less. To her taste, they seemed generic in comparison to the sketches. Why had the woman squandered her talent on churning out these spiritless sculptures when it was quite evident her real talent lay in the uncomplicatedness of a brush and pencil in her hand?
Had that been the source of what Alastair described as his wife’s perpetual sense of failure, the frustration that she could not portray through the medium of clay or bronze that which she could so effortlessly put on paper?
