Silent Faces, Painted Ghosts Read online

  ‘A nun more like.’ Peter unexpectedly grinned which suddenly made him look much younger. It occurred to her that he was still remarkably handsome in a craggy sort of way, a thought which obscurely made her more irritated.

  ‘Well she can’t do all her cooking with a microwave. I’m going to have to let her use the kitchen sometimes.’

  ‘Are you? Well...’ He waved a dismissive right hand. ‘...as you wish, my dear.’

  As I wish, thought Angela. Hardly. She toyed with suggesting that Terri could eat with him each lunch-time but knew that would go down badly. In any case it seemed rather strange to have a member of staff regularly installed at the family table. She fixed him with a wary gaze.

  ‘I’m still not sure it was wise to offer her accommodation.’

  He hesitated, frowning, and began to look rattled as if the full implication of his decision had only just sunk in. ‘I did think it through, Angela,’ he said, irascibly. ‘She’d be more likely to talk if she stayed in the village and you know I won’t have that. It’ll be easier to keep an eye on her here, you know, control her. Anyway, as I said: she’s come to do a job. End of story.’ He stabbed at the table with an emphatic index finger. ‘Just make it clear to her where she can go and where she can’t. I’ll leave that to you.’ His tone softened; he almost smiled. ‘The house is your domain after all, dear: your rules.’

  That’s only partly true, thought Angela, though she suspected that in the unfathomable workings of Peter’s mind he might genuinely believe it. But Peter had his own rules, rules which were never even voiced, they just existed, as if they were part of the very fabric of the house and the air which they breathed.

  ‘She’s going to be late,’ said a husky voice behind her.

  Angela turned quickly in her chair. A white-haired woman wearing blue dungarees had appeared silently at the kitchen door. She was standing flicking an artist’s brush back and forth across the gnarled index finger of her left hand. Her frizzy hair fell to shoulder length and a splodge of red paint was smeared across her left cheek.

  ‘What are you talking about, Celia?’ Angela demanded.

  ‘Terri is going to be late. There’s some problem with her flight.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Celia wandered across to the island separating the long pine table from the kitchen proper and took an apple from the bowl of fruit. She bore a striking resemblance to her brother: tall and rangy with the same icy, pale blue-grey eyes. She could also be similarly evasive and irritating. Now she was polishing the apple on her less than clean dungarees. Angela’s lip curled in disgust.

  ‘She’s just rung from Gatwick,’ Celia replied, after closely examining the apple. ‘She’s not sure what time she’ll arrive. Sometime this evening probably.’

  ‘You answered the phone?’

  ‘Someone had to.’

  ‘I thought Lindsey had.’

  ‘She’s just left for work.’

  ‘Oh? She didn’t come to say goodbye.’

  ‘Well she’s a big girl now,’ said Celia, and bit into the apple.

  Angela’s eyes narrowed and she glanced towards Peter who was staring out of the window as if the conversation were not taking place. ‘I’ve asked you before not to answer the phone in the house,’ she snapped at Celia. ‘What did you say to her?’

  Peter glanced shiftily between the two women, pushed his chair back and eased himself to his feet. ‘I’m just going to rest for a few minutes,’ he said, heading past Celia towards the door and pausing briefly as if he’d just remembered something. ‘I’ve got something particular I need to finish Angela. I’ll be working late tonight.’

  Celia watched her brother out of the room and turned back towards Angela who was now on her feet, facing her. ‘I wished her bon voyage, of course,’ said Celia. She smiled blandly, took another bite of the apple and strolled out of the room.

  Angela sighed, looked heavenwards and cleared the table. She had made plans for the evening and now she would have to shelve them to sort out this Challoner woman. So Peter would be working late. That was no surprise; he always was. No doubt he was now upstairs, stretched out on the bed for his routine siesta.

  She loaded the dishes into the dishwasher, straightened up and leaned against the kitchen unit, her thoughts returning to Terri Challoner. Exactly what position was the woman going to have in their household for the next six months? Angela felt a growing unease. It wasn’t that it was unusual for Peter not to tell her things, far from it – he was a secretive man - but still there was something odd about this whole situation.

  Out of the window to the front she saw Celia pushing that ridiculous pram across the terrace, the apple now apparently finished. She’d probably thrown the core into one of the huge flower pots and Sammy would complain.

  *

  Night had long since fallen by the time Terri drove up the last winding track, shuttered on either side by the dark trunks of pine trees, drew the unfamiliar hire car into a gritty parking area and turned off the engine. She relaxed back in the seat and stretched her neck. It had been a tedious journey from Marseille airport. Peter Stedding’s estate lay in an obscure spot, a little outside the village of Ste. Marguerite des Pins in the foothills of the Luberon mountains. Twice she had lost her way. The directions Peter’s secretary had given her over the phone had been brief and of limited help.

  She peered out into the darkness. A security light had triggered high up on the corner of the wall above a run of garages to her left. Ahead of her the scrubby ground rose steeply from behind a low retaining wall and to her right she could see a curving run of steps rise between bushes. The house was out of sight. It was called Le Chant du Mistral: The Song of the Wind. Just at the moment it sounded more romantic than it looked. She exhaled a slow, nerve-quelling breath, got out into the squally rain and walked round to open the boot. The sound of a footstep on gravel made her look round sharply. A man had materialised at her shoulder.

  ‘B’soir M’dame,’ he muttered in a low voice. He was olive-skinned and towered above her, lank and wiry, a neat, grizzled moustache on his upper lip and a large, thick cap pulled forward on his head. ‘M’dame Challoner?’

  ‘Yes. Oui?’ She hesitated; her French was rusty. ‘Je...’

  But the man had gone. He’d pulled her suitcase out of the boot and was walking away with it. She grabbed the rest of her belongings and hurried after him up steps and along a path to a house which rose, dark and imposing against the blacker outline of the woods behind. There was a square of light in a window to her right, another somewhere upstairs then a lamp clicked on above the front door as they approached. Her mute companion opened the door and walked straight in, dropped her suitcase on the floor, touched a bony finger to his cap and walked out again, closing the door silently behind him.

  Terri glanced round. She stood in a deep dark hallway with a terracotta tiled floor and a sweeping staircase to the left and rear. To her immediate left was a closed door. To her right an open door spilt a broad wedge of light across the floor. In the well of the staircase, its curved form picked out by the dim glow of a lamp from the upstairs landing, stood a life-size bronze of a kneeling naked woman, turning sideways and reaching out one suppliant hand. In the half-light it was an eerie, disconcerting piece.

  ‘Hello-o?’ she called out.

  The house was still; no-one appeared. Terri dumped her flight bag and walked cautiously through the door to her right.

  ‘Hello?’ she said again.

  Now she was in a cosy sitting room where three sofas circled a glass coffee table before a marble fireplace. Two large table lamps suffused the room with warm yellowy light. A handful of pictures hung on the walls and there were two bookcases filled with a mixture of old books. A sleek television and a DVD player stood in the corner of the room. There was no sign of life. Terri glanced along the bookshelves curiously. The titles were a mixture of French and English, a few hardbacks but mostly yellowed paperbacks of varying ages.

/>   Spotting a full length portrait hanging at the rear of the room, she forgot the books and moved towards it, instantly magnetised. A young, dark-haired woman stood in an olive grove. She had a clear, straight gaze, a teasing smile and wore a red check, halter-necked dress, fifties-style, her long hair tied back in a ponytail. It was an arresting image - a modern ‘Mona Lisa’ - and had been signed simply: P S. Of course: Peter Stedding always signed his work that way. Terri stood, open-mouthed.

  ‘You must be Terri,’ said a fluting voice behind her.

  Terri perceptibly jumped and turned.

  The woman standing in the doorway had strawberry-blonde hair and a slim, shapely figure. She was lightly made-up and wrapped in a shiny satin peignoir.

  ‘I thought I heard a noise.’ She came forward, smiling. ‘I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting.’

  ‘It’s fine - I’ve only been here a minute.’

  ‘I told Sammy to let me know when you’d arrived.’

  ‘Was that the man who brought me in? He didn’t say and he’s just left.’

  ‘Well, he’s a man of few words and rather impatient, I’m afraid. He’s Algerian. Does the gardening. He lives above the garages and when a car arrives a bell rings in his apartment.’ The smile broadened and she offered a soft hand. ‘I’m Angela, Peter’s wife. It’s a relief to see you here. I was starting to get worried, darling, imagining all sorts of horrors.’ Two striking green eyes were fixed on Terri’s face with a look of mild reproach.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late. The plane was delayed for hours and I’m afraid I drove rather slowly – I’m not used to driving on the right.’

  Terri struggled not to stare. Angela was not what she had expected: Peter was seventy-seven; Angela could be little more than fifty. And the woman with the gravelly voice she had spoken to on the phone had sounded much older. Terri had assumed she was Mrs Stedding.

  ‘I believe you rang and spoke to Celia earlier,’ Angela said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘She’s Peter’s sister. I hope she didn’t say anything to trouble you?’ She raised neat arched brows.

  Terri remembered Celia’s voice clearly, speaking in an overly familiar way: Do you know anything about the family? No? Are you sure? Well maybe it’s just as well. It had been a strange conversation but this didn’t feel like the right moment to say so.

  ‘No,’ she replied now to Angela’s enquiring expression. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, sometimes she says odd things which can be unnerving if you don’t know her. She lives in the old pigeon house and doesn’t come into the main house very often.’ Angela’s tone suggested this was a good thing. ‘But you’re wet darling. Is it raining? Let’s get your bags and take you to your room so you can get settled in.’

  Carrying the flight bag from the hall, Angela led the way across the sitting room to the facing door, took a left along a dimly lit corridor, navigated another door and another passage, and then she was in a doorway, flicking a light switch on.

  ‘‘Van Gogh’. This is your room.’

  Terri paused, looking at the hand-painted nameplate on the door. Around the artist’s name was a tiny pastiche of an olive orchard, cleverly cribbed from one of his paintings. Given the reputation of the man who owned the house, it seemed a surprising touch of whimsy. She followed Angela in and dragged the suitcase to a halt. To her immediate left was a bedroom and bathroom. Beyond was a tiny living room with an armchair and television and patio doors to the side. Against the back wall stood a cupboard with a kettle and the smallest microwave oven Terri had ever seen.

  ‘The keys are in the doors,’ said Angela. ‘The second one on the main ring opens the back door.’ She glanced round critically. ‘I did ask Corinne to freshen it up. She’s our bonne. You’ll see her on Monday. I hope you’ve got everything you need. There’s tea and coffee...and whitener I think.’ She waved an elegant hand vaguely towards the cupboard and turned back to Terri with a warm smile. ‘Do let me know if you’re short of anything. Did you want something to eat?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks. But perhaps your husband was expecting to see me this evening...?’

  Terri left the question hanging and Angela hesitated, then smiled a little too carefully.

  ‘Peter’s in the studio, working. He won’t want to see you tonight. Now for your breakfast, go back to the hall and through the door opposite. That’s the kitchen. I’ll show you round in the morning and we can talk about how this is going to work.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Angela turned to go and Terri followed her to the door.

  ‘You know that portrait in the sitting room,’ she said. ‘It’s a remarkable picture. Who is it?’

  Angela gave a brief, tight laugh. ‘Oh it’s no good asking me about Peter’s paintings, darling. I don’t know anything about his work. Sleep well, won’t you.’

  She left. Terri locked the door and turned away, surprised.

  ‘What an odd thing to say,’ she muttered to herself.

  She crossed to stand in front of the patio doors but all she could see was her own pale, pinched reflection in the glass. Flicking the curtains across, she heard a slow, muted howl well up from the rear of the house, drop pitch then climb again before finally dying away. After some rasping, creaking groans, it started again. ‘It’s the wind in the trees,’ she said out loud, and almost laughed at the panic in her own voice. So that was the reason for the name: Le Chant du Mistral; it sounded more like a scream than a song.

  She made herself a mug of tea, pulled a folder out of her flight bag and took them both across to the armchair. The folder contained a copy of the contract she’d signed and a sheaf of articles about Peter Stedding printed from the internet. They charted his training in the great art studios of Florence, his portraits of royalty, politicians and movie stars, and his admission to the Royal Academy at just twenty-eight. Then he’d become increasingly controversial, complaining abusively about the current state of art education, scuffling and rowing with photographers and journalists. One grainy photograph showed him in front of a major London gallery, setting fire to a pile of ‘modern’ paintings in protest, mouthing angrily towards the camera. The stories dried up after that and he’d become a virtual recluse, painting less celebrated personalities and teaching the few he thought worthy of his talents.

  Terri stared at the chilling photograph, then let her gaze wander dejectedly round the clinically furnished room while the wind continued to howl outside. Every sense told her that this was a mistake. She was filled with a mixture of self-pity and self-loathing: she’d let Oliver drive her to this.

  Chapter 2

  The wind continued to howl intermittently throughout the night. Terri slept poorly, wakefulness interrupted by bizarre and unsettling dreams. In one of them, Oliver had turned up at the patio doors, staring in at her balefully, occasionally banging on the doors and trying to get in. When she drew back the patio curtains the next morning, she was irrationally relieved to find no-one there. Light flooded the room. The doors gave onto a small terrace with potted plants and a tiny wrought iron table and chairs. Beyond, bathed in thin sunshine, she could see paths and shrubberies, and trees which still danced in the breeze. It was a far more innocent scene than the one she had pictured in her mind’s eye.

  The night before, overtaken with weariness, she had abandoned her bags and fallen into bed. Now she stowed her clothes away in the neat painted furniture in her bedroom. Reaching the bottom of the case, she picked out a small hard-backed book on Indian art, carefully wrapped inside a cotton cardigan, and she stood, brows furrowed, flicking through its jewel-like illustrations.

  It was a fine second-hand copy, tracked down on the internet by her father the previous year: a birthday gift to replace one she’d loved as a child, one he’d thrown on the fire one evening when he was drunk. Not that the book had offended him particularly, but it had been in his line of vision when he’d felt compelled to take his frustration out on something. It still amazed her that he’d remembered
and had thought to replace it. But she couldn’t understand why she’d bothered to bring it to France with her.

  She put it to one side and finished unpacking.

  It was nearly nine o’clock when she left the annexe but the house was still silent and she retraced her steps of the night before, crossed the hallway and opened the door to the kitchen. It was a large modern space with black marble worktops and a broad horseshoe of cream-painted units hugging the wall, separating the kitchen from a walkway through to another door beyond. At its centre was an island unit and to the right a wooden breakfast table where a young blonde woman now sat, eating toast and flicking through a celebrity magazine. She looked up, expressionless, as Terri walked in.

  Caught off guard, Terri straightened defensively.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I’m Terri. Mrs Stedding told me to help myself to breakfast.’

  ‘I know.’ The girl sounded bored. ‘You’ve come to work for my father. I’m Lindsey.’ Her gaze raked Terri disdainfully before returning to her magazine. ‘The bread’s in the fridge.’ She turned a page. ‘Cereal’s in the cupboard.’

  ‘Thanks. And is there tea?’

  Lindsey didn’t reply.

  A large, stainless steel toaster stood on the island unit. Terri crossed to the fridge, extracted a sliced loaf and put two pieces of bread to toast. She glanced round. At the back on one side of the worktop was a run of storage jars. She picked up the one labelled tea, pulled out a teabag and ran water into the kettle. Leaning against the island unit, she stared out of the front windows over the terrace, its stone and gravel surface broken up with huge evergreens in terracotta pots. At its centre was a round stone basin with water trickling into it from a sculpted column and, at its furthest edge, a gap in a line of low walling gave onto a sunken parterre. Beyond, far in the distance, she could just make out the next line of hills. It was the first time she had realised what a stunning place this was.