‘It’s very inspirational,’ Maria said, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear. It occurred to Dorothea how easy it was to spin a version of the truth of her life, like creating a drawing but not colouring it in.
‘And when did your career really start to take off?’
‘When I met Gabe, my agent. He was still up-and-coming back then, but he had great contacts and he helped me get my work seen by the right people. I got lucky,’ said Dorothea. ‘I’d always been arty, but I came from working-class roots, and my parents thought art was frivolous and that I’d be forever poor. I never went to art school. Shall we move on to my collection?’ She didn’t want to talk about the past any more. It was all so long ago.
‘Yes, of course,’ Maria said, sitting up straighter and adjusting the neck of her blouse. ‘So, your new collection is mainly sculptures? The papier-mâché ones you’re famous for?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And what can your fans expect?’
‘It’s probably my most controversial yet,’ she said.
‘How exciting. Can you give the readers a hint?’
‘Magpies.’
‘Magpies? As in the birds?’
‘That’s right. You remember the rhyme? One for sorrow, two for joy …’
Maria took up the mantle in a sing-song voice. ‘Three for a girl, four for a boy. Five for silver, six for gold …’
Dorothea was enjoying this. ‘… Seven’s a secret, never told.’
Maria leaned back in her chair and assessed Dorothea carefully. ‘So, the secret?’
‘Oh, now, that would be telling,’ Dorothea said with a wink. ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’
7
Imogen
I stare at the two police officers, taking in their plain clothes and their identification cards and their grave expressions. It’s all too familiar and I’m suddenly fourteen again, unwittingly opening the door to a future without my lovely mum.
‘Has something happened to Josh?’ I blurt out.
DI Erica Shirley’s jaw softens slightly and she raises her eyebrows, and something about the way she does this tugs at my memory. ‘No. Nothing like that. We’d like to talk to you about Dorothea Roe, if we may come in?’
Relief surges through my body. ‘Sure. Yes … of course …’ I step back to allow them into the tiny hallway. ‘Please. Go through to the kitchen.’
I close the front door and follow them. I offer them a drink, which they both decline, and then the three of us stand awkwardly by the breakfast bar. The male detective whose name I’ve already forgotten gets out a notebook from inside his jacket and then perches on a stool, with one foot resting on the metal bar. I notice his trouser legsare too short, revealing a slice of very pale skin above his schoolboy grey socks.
DI Shirley does all the talking and I wonder if they tossed a coin to decide before they came in.
‘We understand that you are the main beneficiary to the estate of Dorothea Roe,’ she says, studying me closely. There’s something earnest and trustworthy about her face, but her gaze is intense. She has head-teacher energy.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
She assesses me for a few seconds. She has a cluster of sunspots on her cheekbones and deep nose-to-mouth lines, and I feel as though I’ve met her before.
‘Did you know that Dorothea had planned to leave you her house in her will?’
‘No! Of course not! I hadn’t talked to her, or seen her, in years. I … it was – is still – a shock to me.’
The detectives stare at me silently, judgement rolling off them, and I wonder if they know about my father and what he did. Is that why they’re looking at me like that?
‘Her death was an accident, wasn’t it?’ I say, remembering a newspaper article I read online after discovering Dorothea had left me her house. ‘I read somewhere that a candle started it?’
