The Room Beyond (29 page)

‘I am so fortunate to have met you. How can I ever thank you?’

‘You could start by telling me where we’re going.’

‘Oh, of course. We’re going to a place called Limehouse, to find
Walter Balanchine.’

Serena’s Story

I heaved my suitcase up the last few steps and rammed the door open
with my shoulder.

‘Welcome back.’

Seb was sitting on the edge my bed, pale faced and scruffy.

‘How was your Christmas?’ I asked.

‘Lonely. How was Druid Manor?’

‘Lonelier.’

He fidgeted with his hands. There were dark circles under his eyes. Neither
of us seemed to be able to say anything. I began to unpack, my art things
first, pulling open the drawer where I kept my hundreds of sketches.

‘Oh my God!’ I cried.

‘What?’

‘My drawings, they’ve all gone.’

I brushed my hand against the bare wood at the bottom of the drawer
and then began pulling all the other drawers open as well, rummaging under bits
of clothing and anything else inside. ‘No they’ve gone. Gone. Who could have
taken them? Do you know?’

Seb had stood up, his shoulders seemed thin and hunched. He shrugged
them.

‘I have no idea.’

The fire rose up inside me. ‘Even if you did, you wouldn’t tell me
would you?’

He shook his head. ‘You’ve changed. I knew you would.’

‘No I haven’t, I’m just... tired. Sorry.’

And I really was. In a moment my anger fell away again and left me
with exhausting hollowness. I wanted so much to tell him about it all, before
he had another chance to speak, but the words just jammed in my mouth. Instead
I took him in my arms, gripping on as tightly as I could. He smelled of home
and love and of being loved, his cheek nestled on the top of my head.

His hands moved down to my waist, pulling my top up and over my
head, running his fingers down the sides of my ribs. And then, kneeling down,
he found the scar on my side with his lips. I shivered at their touch, knotting
my fingers in his hair and drawing him closer and closer still.

There was a letter waiting for me in the kitchen when I went down
later.

‘How was your Christmas?’ I asked Gladys as I ran my finger under
the seal.

‘Passable!’ she replied. She was feverishly whipping life into some
egg whites at the kitchen table.

The letter was from Jessica.

Dearest Serena

I hope this gets to you before Christmas. I’ve been rather rushed
getting ready for my cruise. If not then I hope they treated you well at Druid
Manor. Is this our first Christmas apart?

I’m writing because I’ve uncovered a
few interesting things about that street you’re living on. You asked me when I
came to look into the cause of the missing house next door. I had a rummage
through the archives (you can see that I’ve included some photocopies of
various census records in this letter) and this is what has emerged:

It appears that in 1891, number 34
Marguerite Avenue was very much in existence. It was occupied by a seemingly
childless couple called Tristan and Miranda Whitestone. Number 32 was owned by
a family named Smithson and 36 by a couple called Alfonso and Lucinda Eden.

Now, the strange thing is that when
you get to the census of 1901, there’s no record of 34 or the Whitestone couple
whatsoever. A family by the name of Bone is now living at 32 and your house,
number 36, is by then inhabited by Hartreves: Charles and Virginia Hartreve and
their three children.

I’ve been through every manuscript and
rotting piece of documentation I can find, but there is NO evidence of 34’s
existence after that time. There are various records relating to the Whitestones
from before then: their marriage certificate for example and documents
appertaining to Tristan Whitestone’s profession. He was in India for a while
but then returned, under a dark cloud it seems, to run his father’s business in
London, which went into liquidation just a few years later. All records
relating to his later movements and eventual death seem to have miraculously
disappeared. His wife is nowhere to be found either.

All a bit of a mystery isn’t it? I’ve
mulled it over again and again and although this sounds rather dramatic, I
can’t help but think that someone has actively tried to make it all disappear. I’ve
looked everywhere I can think of, but this particular little slice of
Kensington history just seems to have been lost forever. So there you go. Perhaps
it would interest your hosts to pass on this information, or then again, it
might be better to let sleeping dogs lie. I’ll leave that one to your
discretion.

Much love,

Jessica

I picked up a pencil and began to dawdle on the back of the torn
envelope.

‘Gladys?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve been working here a long time, haven’t you?’

‘More years than I can count.’

‘What do you know of the house next door?’

She brushed the egg white off the spoon with her forefinger.

‘You mean number 32?’

‘Yes of course... there is no other house, surely?’

She raised her eyebrows and began to remove her apron.

‘It’s owned by the Herberts, or something like that. They’re never
around. She’s French and they spend most of their time over there. Before them
there was old Mr Bone.’

‘Bone?’

‘Yes. He inherited it from his parents, the youngest child and only
son of an endless stream of children. I don’t know how his mother did it, silly
little blonde thing!’

‘You speak as if you knew her.’

She patted her hair, hurrying to the door. ‘He lived well into his
nineties, old Mr Bone, and then the house got sold out of the family. Is that
the time? I’ve got all the unpacking to do and the washing. You don’t know how
long it takes to get that damp Druid Manor smell out of those clothes...’

As soon as she was gone I dropped the pencil and picked up the
census copies that Jess had included with the letter. The 1891 record sat on
top and I scanned the list of names until my eyes landed on hers, Miranda Whitestone,
in thick black handwriting. Surely this was the same Miranda White? She’d been
married to a man called Tristan, and Lucinda, the rebellious young woman I’d
seen in the painting, had been her neighbour. But the second record, ten years
on, bore no number 34 on it at all.

The door swung open and Sasha walked in.

‘Good afternoon. I trust you had a good Christmas with the family,’
he said, pursing his lips into a tight little smile. ‘I’ve been looking for
young Beth, do you know where she is? Upstairs in her room perhaps?’

The hairs on my arms stood up. ‘Yes she is but she’s rather tired
and we have unpacking to do. Sorry.’

I snatched up my things and dashed out, passing Edward on my way up
the stairs. His face looked sullen and hard, like a prison wall. He nodded at
me but said nothing. Somewhere in the house there was a large thud.

Upstairs Beth was lying on her bed with three pillows over her head.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Eva keeps arguing and slamming doors. It’s driving me mad!’

Just on cue a mighty slam from below shook the walls of Beth’s room
and up drifted the muffled sound of voices barking at each other in
high-pitched tones.

‘Do you know what’s going on?’ I asked her.

‘Oh there’s a big article in one of the newspapers about Eva’s
ex-boyfriend today. There’s stuff about her in it too and she hates it when
it’s brought up.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I listened to her on the phone with Raphael.’

‘Beth!’

‘Don’t be angry! I do it all the time.’

‘And that’s supposed to make things better?... Look, I tell you
what, let’s go to the park. We’ll kick some leaves about and get some fresh air
and hopefully by the time we come back it’ll all be over.’

‘Alright then. But I want to bring my new scooter.’

‘Good idea.’

We meandered through the grey streets together, Beth scooting on
ahead and the winter sky so low that it threatened to devour us. I had hoped it
would feel better to be back in London, but the city was dead, its usual busy
crowds still locked away consuming the dregs of Christmas leftovers.

We passed a small newsagent with an
open
sign in its door. A
pile of newspapers was stacked up in the window.

‘Beth!’ I called. ‘Come back and I’ll buy you some sweets.’

‘Oooohh, yummy!’

I found the article whilst she was deliberating over the pick ‘n’ mix.
It was on the second page of one of the tabloids:

      
Oligarch Flees Home After Police Enquiries

It was Eva’s ex alright, not that I’d ever met him, but there was a
picture of her standing right next to him bang in the middle of the article. He
was rather handsome: blonde and tall and she was sipping a glass of champagne
under a big floppy hat. There were several lines about Eva:

... pictured here with his on-off partner Eva Hartreve who has a
rather shady history of her own. Born into good English aristocratic stock she
set tongues wagging a few years back with a teenage pregnancy: a result of
dallying a little two merrily with one of her father’s friends, Lord Burnside. Is
it ‘Ten Lords A-Leaping’ in the Christmas ditty? Well this Lord leapt all the
way to South America, leaving his wife a miserable recluse in her Richmond
shack. Society darling Eva Hartreve sure knows how to pick them. A close source
has also indicated that there might be something even more to this cosy
Burnside Hartreve relationship. Is such a thing possible? And could it carry
the stench of dirty money along with it? Stay with us as the story unfolds.

A close source
. Oh God, Sasha really was
honing in on them now.

‘You found it then?’

I started and felt my face turn a guilty red as two blue eyes gazed
up at me.

‘Found what?’

‘The article. The one that goes on about that silly Lord. They’ve
got it all wrong you know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s not my daddy.’

I scrunched the paper closed. ‘Then who is? Do you know?’ I asked
her in a voice that barely sounded like my own and instantly made me feel sick
at myself.

The blue eyes blinked back at me. ‘Sorry, I can’t tell you. I’ve
always promised not to tell anyone. But I thought you’d guessed? Maybe it’s
true...’

‘What’s true?’

‘That sometimes people can’t see what’s right under their noses.’

I put my hands on her shoulders and squeezed them softly.

‘I’m sorry I asked you.’

‘It’s alright. Can we buy the sweeties now?’ she shrugged me off. ‘Look,
I’ve chosen all my favourites and some of yours too.’

When we returned to the house Sasha was loitering in the hallway.

‘Hello!’ cried Beth.

‘Yes yes, hello there,’ he answered through gritted smiling teeth. ‘Now
run along to the kitchen. Run along.’

I followed after Beth as she trotted away but his arm snatched out
at me, grabbing my elbow towards him so hard that I winced. He drew his face
close to mine; I could see the moisture on his teeth.

‘I have your picture,’ he whispered through them.

‘Oh! So
you
took my drawings. How dare you! I want them
back.’

He drew his eyebrows together and fished something out of his pocket.

‘I don’t know what you mean about drawings but this is what I have,’
he muttered.

In his hand I saw the torn envelope that Jessica’s letter had come
in. I’d dawdled a picture of Seb on it; his mouth and his eyes so sad.

‘You left it, in the kitchen. I want... I need to speak to you about
this,’ he said, his eyes flashing.

I backed away from him across the hallway. ‘Not now.’

‘Then when?’ he snarled, but there was a hint of desperation in his
voice.

‘Not now. I don’t know when.’

A flock of seagulls skirted up into the white sky and then fell back
down again, eyes bent on a catch. I couldn’t see the river behind the houses
but I could smell its closeness in the air: damp and onerous.

She wasn’t in. I knocked on the door once more - nothing. The
seagulls soared up again, screaming into the sky. Then something moved behind
the smoked pane of glass at the top of the door; the fuzzy silhouette of
someone’s head.

‘Hello. Is that Lady Burnside?’

‘Who are you? Why are you disturbing me?’ came a clipped, queenly
voice from the other side.

‘My name is Serena; I’ve come here to speak to you about the Hartreve
family.’