‘He did. Failed to take the nine milligrams into his calculation, it seems.’

‘But someone a lot closer to home is getting supplies of much more serious stuff. I should like to find out how.’

‘If you’ll open up and tell me who, perhaps I might have an answer as to how.’

‘Estelle.’

Orlando spent a few moments absorbing this information before shaking his head sadly. ‘Now you come to mention it … Yes, I can see there were signs there for those sharp enough to pick them up. The eyes! The mistimed gestures! The surges of jollity! Oh, Lord! What am I supposed to think now? I like the girl. So do the children. Why couldn’t it have been that appalling pseudo-Russian? That impresario or whatever he is … Director of the Ballet Impérial de Lutèce—that’s what he calls himself … Pretentious twerp! I’d have enjoyed watching you kick him out. I shall look forward to handing him the keys of his Hispano-Suiza and waving goodbye.’

‘So that’s his car? I had wondered. Well, on the subject of Monsieur Pederovsky—’

‘I think it’s Petrovsky.’

‘Thank you. You may well yet have the pleasure of watching him depart in double-quick time. I’m sure his chiselled profile is known to the Vice back home. And if he’s who I think he is, believe me, you wouldn’t want him under the same roof as the children. But I make accusations without proof. I want you to come along with me to his quarters while he’s at lunch and we’ll look through his drawers.’

‘Oh, I say! Poking about in a chap’s privacy? Not sure I could do that.’

‘You don’t have to. Just stand in the doorway, and keep watch while the Law gets its hands dirty. I don’t think we’ll need to look further than his passport.’

‘What colour are Russian passports? Do they have passports or do the poor blighters still just escape over the border and head for Paris?’

Joe groaned. ‘Go back to your painting when we’ve finished here. At the lunch table, make sure that our ballet-loving friend is sitting there in best bib and tucker and then make a vague statement about regretting sending me off on a wild-goose chase somewhere about the place—I’ll leave that to your invention—excuse yourself and come after me. We’ll roll up, arm in arm, ten minutes later making apologies. Got that?’

‘Got it!’ Orlando tried to get to his feet in relief that his ordeal was over.

‘Not so fast, blood brother!’ Joe put his hands on his shoulders and pushed him down again. ‘There’s more I want from you. And you’re not leaving until I get it! There’s another little mystery I’ve been asked to clear up. I know you have the answers to my questions. There are just two of them. First: Who is—or was—Dorcas’s mother? And second: Where is the lady now?’

Chapter Eleven

‘No good, I suppose, telling you the answer to both your questions is: “I don’t know”? Thought not. And if I added: “None of your bloody business! Go away and leave me in peace, you nosy bugger …”’

Orlando got to his feet rebelliously and made for the door, to find that Joe was already blocking his way.

‘Why don’t we take a walk down to the stables, old man?’ Joe said, unruffled. ‘I’m sure I’ve heard horses somewhere in the distance. I’d like to take a look. You can always get the measure of a man by checking his horses—I’ve heard you say it. And, as the lord himself seems to be eluding me, it’s the best I can do.’ He knew that Orlando loved horses even more than art and would never raise an objection to strolling out to admire a selection. Orlando fell into step willingly enough. ‘We can get a bit of fresh air before the day heats up,’ Joe persisted cheerily. ‘If you care to burble a few confidences into a sympathetic ear as we go, I can assure you of my utter discretion. And it is my business, I’m afraid. I’ve been engaged by Dorcas to find her mother. She seems very certain that she’s to be found down here in Provence.’

Orlando sighed. ‘And that’s all the information you can count on. Why do you suppose I come down to this part of the world every summer? I’m still hoping to find her again. Laure. The love of my life. Well, the first love of my life.’

‘Laure?’

‘Yes. Like the name of the poet Petrarch’s inamorata. We met in Avignon. Half the girls there are called Laure. The half that aren’t are called Mireille. I’m not even sure that was her name. She was a bit of a storyteller. And secretive. Dorcas is very like her.’ His smile was tender.

‘Dorcas tells me all she knows is that her mother was a gypsy and a dancer and that she abandoned her at the age of one year and returned to France.’

‘Village gossip. She wasn’t a gypsy—just dark as the Provençaux are. Ancient Greek and Roman ancestry, of course, and it shows—the straight nose, the lustrous eyes, the black curling hair … But, of course, to the good Saxon folk of Surrey, dark equals gypsy. She was slim and lithe and looked like a dancer but she wasn’t one. Not professionally. As far as I know. I found her in a state of destitution. On the street, sleeping in a doorway near the Pope’s Palace. She’d fled her village and come to the big town looking for work.

‘No honest work available for a homeless girl. She’d been earning a crust or two singing outside cafés. There was a sort of folklore festival on. Gypsies and other performers in town. People were more willing to open up their purses for a pretty girl singing the old tunes. But it was clearly not going to last. I was going through my Modigliani phase at the time and here was a girl my idol would have smacked his lips over. Thin, dramatic, enigmatic, beautiful …’

‘Get on, Orlando!’

‘She became my model and my mistress and I took her back home to England with me. I was very young myself … and the money soon ran out … By then, she was pregnant with Dorcas.’

Joe recalled the acid remarks, the hard slaps he’d seen meted out to Dorcas by her grandmother, and cringed. He could imagine the impression that flinty nature and unyieldingly aristocratic bearing would have made on a young and pregnant foreigner.

‘A year? She survived a year under your mother’s roof? A happy time was had by all, then?’

‘You know my mama! I have tried to sell her to the Devil but he’s having nothing! Hatred at first sight! She made Laure’s life a misery. Tormented her, rejected the child when she was born. I did what I could. But, after a year, the moment the child was weaned, Laure disappeared. Left me a note asking me not to try to find her and to take care of Dorcas. I haven’t even got a portrait of her. She burned all the canvases. Made a bonfire of them in the orchard while I was away in London. Not that you’d have recognized her from those pictures.’ Orlando grimaced at the memory of his early work. ‘And that’s it. It was the year before the war broke out. For the next five years there was no possibility of travelling through France but every year since then, I’ve done my best.’

‘And your other children?’

‘All illegitimate like Dorcas,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Never married any of their mothers. Or rather they wouldn’t have me. I told you—nothing and nobody ever sticks to the smooth surface of the life and character of Orlando Joliffe. Money, lovers, children, friends, they all lose their foothold in the end and they drift away, heaving sighs of relief. You will too …’

‘Stupid, self-indulgent sod!’ said Joe mildly. ‘What about that angel, Nanny Tilling? That tower of strength, your groom, old Yallop? They’ve given their lives to you and your progeny. My sister Lydia is not unconcerned and it’ll take more than a bit of self-deprecating hand-wringing to dislodge me, mate!’

‘A good kick then? Will that work?’

‘Not even. Would you like to hear what I’m planning?’