What it was doing here, she couldn’t imagine, but if Mason was going home he might as well give her a lift and at the same time he could tell her what was up with Polly. She walked toward it. It was parked facing away from her, so she was looking at the large spare wheel on the back and the high rear window. The car looked empty. But as she peered through the window she saw movement inside. She edged around the side. To a clear view. A view she didn’t want to see. Christopher Mason in his shirt-sleeves. He was stretched out on his stomach on the front seat, the back of his slick brown head bobbing and weaving, his hands moving over something under him.
It was Valentina.
Lydia turned and ran.
‘Hello, Lyd.’ Polly did not look ill. Nor did she look pleased to see Lydia on her doorstep.
‘You weren’t at school today.’
‘No. I was sick.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Something I ate.’
‘Right.’
There was an uneasy pause. Lydia began to worry that Polly wasn’t going to invite her in.
‘I’ve brought you the new term’s timetable to copy out. And some sketch maps we did today in geography.’ Lydia opened her schoolbag and started to rummage in it.
‘Oh… thanks.’ Polly stepped back, her wide eyes flicking away from Lydia. ‘Come on in. Do you want some hot chocolate? Mummy’s out at her bridge club, but she’s made a ginger cake if you’d like some.’
‘Yes, please.’
Polly led the way into the kitchen. Most kitchens were dreary, meant only for servants, but because Anthea Mason so enjoyed whipping up soufflés or baking cakes and fresh rolls, the Masons’ kitchen was modern and bright. Linoleum on the floor, tiles on the walls and a marbled enamel stove that was so much smarter than the usual black range. In the scullery behind it, Lydia could hear two servants working and talking in soft Chinese voices. Polly concentrated on heating the milk and scooping out cocoa into cups instead of talking.
Lydia filled up the silence with chatter about the first day back at school and how James Malkin had arrived with his leg in plaster after falling off his garage roof while retrieving a kite. Polly obliged with a smile. When they were both sipping their hot drinks Lydia felt the blood return to her chilled fingers, but her mind was still numb with shock.
Valentina. In the Buick.
Why?
But Polly was still avoiding her. Staring at the froth on her cocoa and blowing lightly to cool it.
‘Polly, he’s gone,’ Lydia said.
Her friend’s worried gaze at last met hers. ‘Who?’
‘You know who. Chang An Lo.’
‘Gone where?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did soldiers take him?’
‘No. He escaped. So you don’t have to worry anymore about… well, you know… what you saw.’
Polly released a huge sigh of relief. ‘I’m glad.’
‘So am I.’
They smiled quietly at each other, and then Lydia put down her cup on the table, went over and hugged Polly. All the stiffness immediately left Polly’s slight frame and she squeezed Lydia tight. They laughed, the awkwardness sliding away, and took their hot drinks into the drawing room.
‘Wait here, Lyd, while I just run up to my room with the maps and copy them out. I won’t be long. Eat up the cake.’
The moment she was gone Lydia abandoned the drawing room, tiptoed across the hall’s parquet, and tried the door of Christopher Mason’s study. It opened. In a weird sort of way, that disappointed her. If you leave doors unlocked, you can’t have anything to hide, can you? She slipped in and shut the door behind her. The room was gloomy. The shutters were half closed and the tall bookcases along the wall looked… threatening. As if she were shut in. Trapped. A shudder rippled up her spine and she shook her head to clear it of foolish notions.
The desk. That’s where she had to start. She nipped behind it and found Mason’s leather-bound diary for 1929 placed neatly in the middle of the desk. She skimmed through the opening days of January and it was there, in bold black writing. Monday. Three-thirty. VP. Not VI anymore. Valentina Parker. Lydia wanted to hurl the wretched diary through the window.
Quickly she went through his desk drawers. Nothing of interest. Except a gun. In the top right-hand drawer under a fluffy butter-yellow dustcloth, it lay like a warning. Lydia picked it up. It was an army type, a revolver, heavier than she expected and smelling of oil. She squinted along the sights and aimed it at the door, switched the safety off and on again but didn’t risk pulling the trigger, and then she replaced it. She rummaged some more. Just household accounts, stationery, two gold fountain pens that three months ago she might have taken, a few letters from England. Not helpful, just chat about someone called Jennifer and someone else called Gaylord. A jade paperweight. A box of cigars. Nail clippers. And in the bottom one, a photograph of his cat, Achilles. Disappointing.
A sudden noise. Lydia froze. Listened. A servant’s footsteps crossing the hall. She breathed again, pushed the drawer shut, and looked elsewhere. An oak tallboy stood in one corner. Big brass handles. The first three drawers contained bottles of what smelled like chemicals of some sort, a sheaf of photographic paper, a cardboard box packed with reels and reels of negatives on top of which lay a silver hip flask. It dawned on her that Mason must be a keen photographer who developed his own work. It fitted with when she caught him in the library that time. He’d been looking at a book on photography then.
It was the bottom drawer that gave her a kick of hope. It was locked. Something to hide.
This was it. She took a moment to look coolly round the room. No keys in the desk. If she owned this room she would hide a key… where? The bookcase. Had to be. She listened intently for Polly’s footsteps on the stairs. No sound. Quickly she ran her fingers over the books and the shelves. Any one of the volumes could be hollowed out to secrete a key. No hope of finding it if that’s what he’d done. None. Instead she dragged over Mason’s big leather desk chair, climbed on it and stretched up above her head to feel on the very top of the bookcase itself. Nothing. A smattering of dust. A dead spider. She shifted the chair further along, searched again. This time her fingers touched metal.
‘Lydia?’
Polly’s voice. Still upstairs. Lydia rocketed off the chair and opened the door a crack.
‘Yes?’ she called.
‘Nearly finished.’
‘Don’t rush.’
‘I won’t be long.’
Lydia shut the door again, leaped back onto the chair, and retrieved the piece of metal. A key. It lay on her palm. Her mouth was dry. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was in that drawer. Already her head was filling up with suspicions. She took a long breath, as Chang An Lo had shown her, exhaled slowly, and then strode over to the tallboy and crouched in front of the bottom drawer. The key turned easily and the drawer slid open as if well used.
It was full of photographs. Tidy bundles of them in elastic bands. She rifled through them. Every one was of a naked woman. Lydia felt she should be embarrassed, but she didn’t have time for that. She snatched up each pile in turn and inspected it quickly. The sight of a Negro girl mounted by a black greyhound made her shudder but she didn’t stop, peering closely at the faces of the women. Most were hard and painted. Prostitutes, she assumed. She’d seen faces like that in the streets and hanging around the bars at the quayside. It was in the fifth bundle that she found it. A sultry picture of a slender white woman lying naked on a bearskin rug, one arm thrown in abandonment above her head, her hand twined in her thick long hair, showing off her breasts. The nipples were painted a dark color. Her legs were eased apart, one finger trailing in her dense pubic bush, a glimpse of something pale and glistening inside. The woman’s full lips were smiling but the dark eyes looked dead.