The House of Secrets by Sarra Manning (45)

 

Win’s infamous wall planner had been repurposed and pinned up in the kitchen. On it Zoe had drawn symbols for each room they’d had sex in. A sofa for the living room, appropriately enough as that was where the deed had been done – among other places – Win still had the rug burns. A stove for the kitchen. An artist’s palette for her studio. They’d also amassed a number of gold stars between them, though Win had the lion’s share. He was far more competitive than Zoe and had his eyes on the prize, which was a weekend when the victor had their every sexual desire catered for.

Not that Zoe was worried. She’d been sleeping with Win for the last twelve years so she was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to blindside her with a request that she don a gimp suit or whip him with an egg beater. Besides, he was really going all-out in the pursuit of those gold stars, which worked in Zoe’s favour.

The sex was good, some of the best sex they’d ever had, but much as Zoe relished the length and frequency of her recent orgasms, what she relished even more was the closeness she and Win shared afterwards.

‘I never stopped loving you, Zo,’ Win had said the night before. They’d made love in their own bed for once then showered together and eaten dinner in the front room. With their empty plates still on the coffee table, they were lying top and tail on the sofa to accommodate Florence who needed a wide turning circle so she could snuggle against either of them at will. ‘But I feel like I’m falling in love with you all over again.’

‘Me too,’ Zoe had said, though that wasn’t an adequate way to describe how Win could make her experience all the best emotions: lust, tenderness, joy and a warm cosy glow all in the space of an hour.

To the casual observer, Zoe knew that their lives would seem unremarkable, even boring, but she cherished where they were right now. In a state of very domestic bliss and soon enough, it would be shattered by ovulation thermometers, pregnancy tests and dreading the thought of her period arriving.

But for now the world outside 23 Elysian Place receded and even Libby was the last thing on Zoe’s mind, so when an email arrived from Parminder, their solicitor, it was an unwelcome intrusion.

She opened the email with some trepidation.

As she and Win walked to Highgate Woods with Florence in tow, Zoe’s mouth was dry and her stomach juddered with every step she took.

‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ Win wondered, when Zoe told him how she felt. ‘Best case scenario is that this Mrs Leigh is Libby and Hugo’s daughter or granddaughter. Or else she’s horrified that her father or grandfather had a mistress and it all becomes incredibly awkward. Still no reason to throw up. You won’t, will you?’ he added with a wary glance at Zoe. ‘You do look a bit green.’

‘I’m not,’ Zoe confirmed. ‘I just don’t want Libby’s story to end badly. It will break my heart and also tragedy can leave a sort of indelible psychic stain on places. If something awful happened to Libby in our house, then it will have left a dark atmosphere, a bad energy, and we’re stuck living there.’

‘The house does not have a dark atmosphere and if it did, which it doesn’t, aren’t you meant to burn sage or something? Though if it were my choice, I’d rather have a dark atmosphere than the house reeking of sage.’ Win pulled a face. ‘It’s my least favourite herb.’

‘No, it’s not.’ Zoe rolled her eyes at Win who smiled in a maddening way. ‘Let’s not forget that you’re the man who wrote a letter of complaint to Pret a Manger about them putting coriander in all their sandwiches.’

‘The devil’s herb,’ Win agreed cheerfully. ‘Still, sage runs a close second.’

They’d reached the open air café in the centre of the woods. Though it was a colourless, cold November day, there were quite a few people sitting at the tables, bundled up in hats and scarves, hands curled round steaming mugs.

Zoe peered at them all in turn, not sure who she was looking for. Then she caught the eye of an older woman, sitting with a man of similar age. The woman gave Zoe a searching look then raised her hand imperiously in greeting.

‘Is it just me or does that feel a lot like a royal summons?’ Win muttered.

It did and Zoe thought she might really throw up as she unlatched the gate and tried to smile, though it was more of a frozen grimace.

‘Ah, the couple from that charming home-made book,’ the woman said as Zoe reached their table but before introductions could be made, someone sitting nearby told Win crossly that dogs weren’t allowed in that part of the café and they all had to retreat to the cordoned-off dog-friendly area.

Eventually, all parties were settled with a hot drink and cake for those who wanted it, Florence had been fussed over, Win and Zoe had thanked the couple for agreeing to meet and Zoe could turn to the woman who’d greeted them when they’d first arrived.

She was tall and elegant, with tanned skin and what must have once been fair hair, now turned white. She had a dancer’s grace and the look of an ageing fashion model. There was something quite Avedon-esque about the jut of her impressive cheekbones. ‘So, are you Hugo’s daughter?’ The woman frowned and Zoe realised her mistake. She couldn’t be Hugo’s daughter when she looked as if she was only in her sixties. Not unless Hugo had had her late in life. ‘His granddaughter?’

‘Who on earth is Hugo?’ the woman asked. ‘My father was Frederick Morton.’

Win and Zoe looked at each other. ‘Freddy?’

‘You knew Freddy? But how? This is all very confusing. Let’s start again.’ The woman threw up an elegant pair of hands, her long tapered fingers covered in rings and finished with long red nails. ‘We haven’t even introduced ourselves. My name’s Marisa Leigh. I’m Freddy’s youngest daughter and this distinguished gentleman is my older brother, Arthur.’

Arthur had the same long limbs and snowy-white hair as his sister and, despite the November chill, was wearing a cream suit and a panama hat accessorised with a thick, stripy scarf. ‘We had an older sister, Luciana, but she died in a car crash a couple of years ago.’

‘So sorry for your loss,’ Zoe murmured while Win made similar noises. Zoe was in an agony of not understanding the connection. Why was she sitting across a plastic table from Freddy’s (Freddy’s!) two children? How did Freddy fit into all this?

Zoe realised that they were all sitting there in a stilted silence. ‘This suitcase we found, that we wrote to your solicitor about, it belonged to a woman called Elizabeth, known as Libby, who was married to Freddy.’

‘No, that’s not right. Daddy wasn’t married before, was he?’ Marisa said to Arthur, who shook his head. ‘We’d have known if he was. Though the name Elizabeth Edwards does ring a vague bell.’

‘It does rather,’ Arthur agreed.

‘She was an actress,’ Win explained.

‘Oh! Was she a very famous actress?’ Marisa asked. ‘Would we have seen her in anything?’

‘I doubt it,’ Zoe said. ‘But I do have a picture of her.’

She opened her bag to take out the file where she’d placed a few of the more important documents.

‘This is Libby,’ she said, putting one of Libby’s publicity photographs on the table where Arthur and Marisa could see it. ‘She married Freddy in September of nineteen thirty-five at St Pancras Town Hall. Libby was pregnant when they got married. They went to Paris for their honeymoon and she lost the baby…’

‘Oh, how sad. Daddy would have been devastated. He absolutely adored children,’ Marisa said and Zoe and Win shared another look.

Win nodded once as if to say, I’ve got this. ‘I’m afraid it wasn’t quite the case,’ he said, swallowing hard. ‘Libby was still in hospital in Paris when Freddy left her. We have letters. He went to Spain to cover the start of the Spanish Civil War for the newspapers and Libby came back to London where she lived in Hampstead with Freddy’s mother, Millicent —’

‘Millicent! Granny Morton! The house in Willoughby Square! Good God,’ Arthur exclaimed. ‘Terrifying woman. She lived to well in her nineties, you know. Daddy lived to one hundred and three, can you believe? We seem to do longevity rather well in our family, apart from poor old Luciana.’

‘I wonder why Daddy never mentioned that he’d been married before?’ Marisa fished out a pair of glasses from her handbag and put them on so she could scrutinise the photo of Libby. ‘Tell us more about this Libby.’

Zoe, with Win chiming in, told them what they knew. About Hugo. The affair. Libby pregnant again. Freddy getting shot and Libby going to Paris to bring him home. Libby still planning to leave Freddy and move to Highgate with Hugo and then nothing…

‘The diary just peters out and we couldn’t find a birth certificate for the baby or any details of Hugo or Libby’s divorces.’ Zoe sighed because it never got less frustrating. ‘None of it makes sense. I’m at even more of a loss now. How did Freddy’s children come to own a house that we thought was bought by Freddy’s wife’s lover?’

‘We knew nothing about the house until Daddy died,’ Marisa said. ‘His affairs were in a terrible mess. It was years before we reached probate.’

‘Shall we tell you a little about Freddy?’ Arthur suggested and Zoe and Win both nodded because Freddy might be the key to solving the puzzle of Libby. ‘Well, he was a journalist, but you already know that. He had a book published in nineteen thirty-seven warning about the rise of Fascism, which had him pilloried for scaremongering, though events proved him right and subsequently he went on to have a very good war, as they say.’

During the war Freddy had worked for an undercover outfit in Whitehall, devising all sorts of ingenious schemes to gather intelligence and turn German agents; techniques which would later form the basis of modern spycraft. After the war he’d returned to his beloved Spain where he’d married the younger daughter of a minor Swedish aristocrat and wrote the first of the Jack Faraday novels, about an RAF flying ace turned private detective, which had become part of the same cultural pantheon as James Bond.

‘He worked with Ian Fleming during the war,’ Arthur said. ‘Fleming couldn’t stand him, told everyone that he was a terrible hack, which Dad thought hilarious. He’d always send Fleming a bottle of champagne and a clipping of The Sunday Times book charts each time a Faraday novel hit the number one spot.’

‘Frederick Morton. I never made the connection. I was obsessed with those books when I was a kid.’ Win turned to Zoe. ‘Jack Faraday was always getting into these tight spots, surrounded by thugs, certain death five minutes away, and he’d wriggle out of it by doing something cunning with a bunch of keys and a box of matches. Me and Ed would see the films with my granddad the weekend that they came out. Did you never read them?’

She shook her head. ‘No, but I’m sure my dad has a few of his books.’

Every man and boy in Britain owned at least one Jack Faraday novel so no wonder Freddy was able to provide his family with an idyllic life; dividing their time between Hampstead and a huge villa in Ibiza surrounded by olive groves and orchards, long before Ibiza became fashionable.

‘He was simply the loveliest, kindest man,’ Marisa said a touch defensively as if she were still bristling at the suggestion that Freddy would have abandoned his mysterious first wife while she lay in a hospital bed. ‘He was always such great fun and we were so lucky to have him with us for as long as we did.’

When Freddy died in 2007, his estate was in disarray and before order could be restored, his eldest daughter Luciana had contested the will and sued her brother and sister.

‘I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Lucky didn’t have a lick of common sense,’ Arthur said.

‘She was the proverbial cuckoo in the nest,’ Marisa said crushingly. ‘Married for the fifth time to a horrible little man half her age. They produced a letter, supposedly signed by Daddy, which left everything to Luciana. Arthur and I were almost bankrupted by legal costs. Then Lucky caught her husband cheating, began divorce proceedings and admitted the letter was a fake. Written by a friend of her husband who dabbled in art forgery. She was killed in the midst of all this.’

‘We had to sell the house in Hampstead to pay off the lawyers,’ Arthur said. ‘It went to a property developer who carved it up into flats that mostly sold to foreign investors, so when we found the deeds to the house in Highgate we wanted to find a buyer who’d turn it into a proper home.’

‘We haven’t even told you how grateful we are. We’d never have been able to afford a house in London if —’ Zoe got no further than that when Marisa clicked her fingers at Arthur.

‘The deeds,’ she said. ‘What were the names on the deeds? I’m sure one of them was a woman’s. And the other chap, Hugo? His name sounds familiar too. Where are the deeds now?’

‘The building society has them and I think man will land on Mars before they ever get round to answering our request for a copy,’ Win said.

‘Curious and curiouser.’ Arthur rubbed his hands together. ‘No other clues?’

‘We’ve reached a bit of a cul de sac,’ Zoe said. Win covered her hand with his.

‘I’d love to have a look at the diary,’ Arthur said baldly, then gestured at his sister. ‘And this one loves snooping round other people’s houses. She’s the type who goes to a party and rifles through the host’s bathroom cabinet when she’s meant to be powdering her nose.’

‘You can tell everything about a person from their bathroom cabinet.’ Marisa looked quite unrepentant. ‘Do you mind?’