‘Stunning,’ she breathed, her normal ebullience strangely muted by the Immaculate Conception of Aran Hunter’s den. She padded round, lifting lids, checking drawers, opening cupboards. Utterly fascinated.
The scream of a patrol car siren in the street jerked her from this awed contemplation and she hustled, confident that the man whose home resembled a filing cabinet had described the exact disposition of his socks and pants.
Swiftly filling a suitcase, she added her own little extras: some after-shave, a sketch pad, Valentino sunglasses, a framed photograph of a girl in a strapless ballgown. Rowan snarled at the simpering face held up to the camera lens and hoped his plastered leg was sexually inordinately inconvenient.
Placing the suitcase near the door, she selected another key and opened the rolltop desk, the only item in the entire flat which had seen better days. Its battered, scarred surface was reassuring, the lock flimsy and really not worthy of a key at all. Presumably, confident of the mortice locks, entryphones, unopenable windows and the televisual surveillance of Ted the doorman, the ultimate pushover of an antique desk was a sop to fatalism.
A small rectangular parcel propped against the pigeonholes was taped and secured as Aran had described. Rowan guessed she had already outstayed her welcome and the shrill summons of the entryphone came as no shock. Leaving the desk gaping, she lifted the wall-mounted receiver. ‘Yes?’
‘This is Ted, miss. Mr Hunter asked me to tell you he’s waiting.’
An edited version Rowan guessed, cheerfully assuring the porter she was on her way. She placed the brown paper parcel with the suitcase, relocked the desk and had a final look round.
Unable to resist the kitchen in any house, Rowan hurried through to see what sort of catering arrangements an art restorer felt necessary. Stuffed quails? Caviare? Moules au beurre d’escargot?
The fridge was a let-down. Butter, the mildewed remains of some Stilton, a large carton of yoghourt and some Parma ham. The freezer was worse: almost totally empty, the biggest item a party pack of ice cubes. The wine rack looked promising but, she discovered, apart from one bottle of Bollinger, contained only numerous flagons of distilled water, white spirit and industrial meths. A serious alcoholic?
Purloining the champagne, she tossed the ham and cheese into the rubbish chute, hearing it bounce noisily down to the basement. Remembering the yoghourt, she turned back to the fridge, removing the carton to throw after the odorous Stilton. Its peculiar lightness seemed odd. Expecting a foul watery curd, she opened the lid. Surprise, surprise. Inside, carefully rolled and rubber-banded, were several hundred large denomination banknotes. With reverence she mentally calculated the value of Aran’s little nest egg and let out a low whistle. And it had been within an ace of the waste chute!
Firmly reining in her imagination, Rowan pocketed the roll of notes and remonitored the flat. The sky pinned up within the frame of the huge studio window gleamed theatrically mauve after the rain, a pair of geese winging rapidly to the edge of the picture lending a lively signature. Two shiny yellow sofas upholstered in a shade she could only describe as canary in aspic confronted the cloudy sky in a largely empty room. Rowan suspected panelled wall cupboards decorously hid such ruderies as TV, stereo and ashtrays.
Turning aside, she shivered, struck by the sterile luxury of a minimalist interior. In her haste to depart she almost spun into the bottom step of the staircase, stumbled and found herself facing a french window leading on to a minuscule balcony. She peered through the glass, dismissing the balcony as a useless sitting-out area, it being barely large enough for two chairs. It overlooked the parking spaces on the ground floor. A fire escape? Only if one had a parachute. Not daring to spend more time exploring, she hurried out, snatched up the suitcase and, cradling Aran’s precious parcel and the champagne to her wonderful chest, slammed the door, relocking it top and bottom before flinging herself back down four flights of stairs.
The garage area extended along the back of the building, marked spaces numbered and mostly vacant mid-afternoon. A few BMWs, a Mercedes and one Rolls-Royce were stabled like expensive bloodstock, rendering Aran’s van incongruous as a carthorse. The van was as minimally decorated as the flat, its beige paintwork elegantly enlivened by classic black lettering which announced Aran Hunter, Fine Art Restorations, 22 Raphael Studios and the telephone number. She stowed Aran’s gear on the passenger seat and carefully backed out, using the remote control to escape through the double steel electronic gates which opened to a one-way street behind Cheyne Walk. Aran had warned her about this and she mentally plotted the arrows to arrive back at the front of the building. But they were waiting just outside in the quiet backstreet; Aran tense, Frederick exhausted, both men touchingly forlorn like luggage left at the side of the road.
Frederick brightened visibly as she jumped out of the van and between them they lifted the wheelchair in the back, clamping the wheels to a steel runner on the floor of the fitted interior before bundling the impatient patient to sit cushioned on the floor beside it. As Frederick made as if to join her in the front, Rowan explained he would have to drive the Volvo back to the riverside. Dismayed, the old man reluctantly accepted Simon’s keys and at last the Volvo lurched into convoy behind the van.
With a real sense of achievement Frederick smoothly proceeded along the Embankment and parked within fifty yards of the Christabel. Rowan applauded from the parked van, Aran invisible in the back.
Locking up, Frederick confidently approached the office, recognizing the spotty youth who disposed of the rubbish and dealt with general maintenance. He greeted the gimlet eyes, all that was visible between a thick muffler pulled up to his ears and the sharp peak of a baseball cap.
‘Wayne, isn’t it?’
The gimlet eyes bored on but, sure of his ground, Frederick pushed the car keys through the cubbyhole. These ‘punky boys’ he regarded with even less favour than the lager louts who had invaded the village most weekends that summer.
‘Mr Alington from the Christabel asked me to leave these in your safekeeping, young man.’ Frederick’s fruity Edwardian tones would have offended the sensitivities of Wayne, always alert to piss-takers, had he not been subjected to the old man’s rich phraseology on previous visits.
He nodded, shoving the keys in a drawer, mumbling some sort of response, but the words, entangled in the muffler, refused to emerge.
‘I say, what?’
Wayne lowered the grubby scarf to disclose a bruised and swollen lip. ‘I said Si told me the girl’d bring the keys back tonight,’ he repeated.
‘We changed our plans,’ Frederick answered airily, moving off.
Wayne rapped on his window. ‘Hang about, mate!’
Frederick half turned.
Wayne pointed to Simon’s berth. ‘Si’s winder-box. Found it at low tide. Right old state it’s in. Done me best but you know how he goes on about them flowers of ’is. I put it back on deck but everyfink’s broke. How’d it get shoved overboard?’
Frederick shrugged, at a loss for words. At last he murmured something about ‘A bit of a party …’ Warming to his theme, he winked. ‘High jinks, you understand. Got a bit out of hand.’
Wayne replaced the muffler and stared balefully at the over-ripe plum driving the van, now leaning on the car horn, laughingly urging the old codger to get a move on. Looked just like Sharon, she did. Fat bum … Big tits … Fuzzy bush down there, shouldn’t wonder …
He snorted. Silly bugger. Wayne knew all about old farts like Frederick. Money talks, he sourly concluded, watching the old man’s hurrying steps back to the van. As it drove away Wayne jotted down the details painted on the side. Might come in handy. Never know. Fine Art Restorations?
‘Need a bloody lot of restoring before that poor old sod could do anything for a girl like that.’