I’m alone in the house, and I try not to flinch every time I hear the hiss of an electrical appliance or the hum of the fridge. I feel oddly stranded with Josh gone. We only have one car between us, which is Josh’s as Iused a company car when I worked at the station. When Dorothea’s money comes through I’m going to buy myself one. Nothing too expensive and it will be second-hand, but I’ve always fancied a Mini.
I try to distract myself by researching Dorothea. I’m curled up with my laptop and a notebook in what has already become my favourite spot: a wing-backed armchair in the corner of the kitchen by the patio doors with views overlooking the garden and the wood beyond. The chair is covered in a cream fabric with blowsy pink roses, which has now faded in places and still smells faintly of dog. I remember Dorothea had a very similar one in her studio and I wonder if it also got destroyed in the fire.
This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to find out more about her, but there is still surprisingly little personal information online. A few news reports about the fire and her death, a Wikipedia page, but it’s only a few lines long and vague, reviews about her past exhibitions and the agency that represents her. I manage to find a website about the art therapy centre that she set up in the late 1970s along with three other women – Annette Baker-Hume, Maisie Hill and Rosemary Farrington – and read an extract:
Annette, whose own husband had gone to prison ten years earlier for fraud, subsequently taking his own life in his cell, trained as an art therapist. She was looking for like-minded individuals to set up an arts therapy institute for women. Dorothea, already a friend of Annette’s, agreed and the arttherapy centre was born. A few years later the centre took off when Dorothea became critically acclaimed in the art world.
Annette and Dorothea bonded over their commitment to the institute. At that time there weren’t many places in the West Country where women could go to seek therapy, and a lot of their clients were women who were recovering from violent relationships. One of their first clients, Maisie Hill, whose ex-husband was serving a long prison sentence for attempting to kill her, joined Annette and Dorothea to become a founding member of the institute. Maisie, while being unable to draw or paint, was very talented at knitting and crocheting and later studied for her art therapy qualifications. Rosemary Farrington started off as a silent partner but then slowly became more involved as their success grew.
I write the women’s names down in my notebook, planning to track them down along with her agent, Gabe Mitchell.
And then I see the headline and click on to a newspaper article:
SEVEN’S A SECRET NEVER TOLD
What secrets lie in artist Dorothea Roe’s past?
By Maria Hensley
Dorothea Roe is warm and charming when I meet her in her stunning Regency villa on the outskirts of Bath. Famouslyprivate and perpetually single, not much is known about Dorothea’s past and she has rarely given interviews over the years. Over copious amounts of tea and pancakes, and with the rain battering the single-paned windows, she eventually admits to me in a moment of vulnerability that she was unable to have children, and I can sense the sadness beneath her gruff …
I scroll down, but it won’t allow me to read the rest of the article unless I subscribe. This is the only interview with Dorothea I can find, so I use the station’s password to access the rest of the article – after all, I reason, I am still an employee. The journalist has written a lovely insight into Dorothea’s world and I can just picture her here, in the kitchen, offering pancakes and numerous cups of tea, although I can see she refuses to be drawn on romantic relationships. And then I read something that makes me sit up straight, my heart thumping:
There is a playful twinkle in Roe’s eyes as she discusses her new collection. Secrets, she says, will feature heavily in her sculptures. ‘And lots of them.’ When I press her on what kinds of secrets, she refuses to be drawn. ‘You’ll have to go and see the exhibition next year.’
I ask her if they are her secrets, or do they belong to other people? She appears introspective when she says, ‘I find that secrets are like lattice pastry; there is always a point when yours will criss-cross with someone else’s.’
The theme of the collection, says Roe, is magpies. She’s done seven to correspond with the rhyme. ‘I’ve always loved birds, and what bird is more magnificent than the magpie? The keeper of secrets, the stealer of trinkets.’
‘But seven is a secret never told,’ I say recalling the rhyme. ‘Does that mean you’ll be holding some secrets back?’
‘Well, that would be telling,’ Roe replies. ‘Let’s just say that my seventh sculpture is my most explosive.’
I check the date on the article. It was published just a week before Dorothea was murdered. Did someone see this interview and panic that Dorothea was going to spill their secrets? Is that why her studio was torched and the sculptures destroyed? But why push her down the stairs? Why kill her?
I’m just about to read more when something makes me start.
A loud thud overhead.
I freeze.
Another, fainter noise. Footsteps perhaps.
It sounds like it’s coming from the room above.
Dorothea’s study.
I cast around for something to use as a weapon, my heart in my throat. The studio is still boarded up and the back door is flimsy. Josh was on the phone on Saturday lining up a builder, but they can’t start for another month or so. We only moved in three days ago – someone could assume the house is still empty. Or it could be Dorothea’s killer.
I grab a bread knife from a block by the Aga and slowly walk through to the pantry, hoping I’m being overly dramatic and that the sounds I can hear are just the moans and groans of an old house. If someone has entered through the studio, they would have taken this spiral staircase up to the first floor. I glance towards the studio and my heart drops. The door is ajar. Was it like that before? I creep up the stairs, brandishing the knife as I tiptoe along the hallway, the floorboards creaking underfoot, until I’m standing outside Dorothea’s study. The door is closed and I push it open.
Going through a box, the one with my name on it, is a man.
I gasp in alarm and the man drops the box, spilling the contents, and pushes past me so that I stumble backwards and fall against the banister, the knife clattering out of my hand and onto the bare floorboards as he makes for the winding staircase.
‘Oi!’ I shout, getting to my feet, grabbing the knife and following him down the stairs. He is wearing a hoody that hides his hair and forehead but I’d been able to see his face: blond stubble, very blue eyes, a long nose. He’s in his twenties, and wearing baggy jeans and chunky Nike trainers. I race to the bottom of the stairs but there is no sign of him. The studio door is wide open and I run through it but the room is empty, a gap in the side of one of the boards. I head through it and stand in the garden. Has he gone into the wood? The only other way he could have feasibly escaped is if he managed to vault the six-foot fence. But then I see that the side gate thatleads to the lane is wide open. It was definitely locked. I follow through the gate, stepping out onto the lane, my knees shaking.
‘Are you all right?’ a voice asks. Dennis is walking past with Solly and the black Lab.
