‘Who was this other person?’
‘His name was Mikhail Moszynski, a wealthy Russian businessman.’
‘Oh yes, you told me, Emerson, didn’t you? I was upset at the funeral, and I don’t think it registered. Well, what of it?’
‘Are you aware of any connection?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I have some photographs here on my laptop that I’d like to show you.’
Kathy pulled out her computer and quickly opened up the file and began to show the pictures to Janice, beginning with individual shots of the Moszynski household, including Vadim Kuzmin, Nigel Hadden-Vane and Freddie Clarke.
‘No, I know none of these people.’
‘Nancy took some family photographs with her to London. Perhaps you could just identify the people for me.’ They opened the pouch and went through the pictures, Kathy taking notes of the names of cousins, uncles, grandparents.
‘I really don’t see the point of this. Most of these are ancient. How can they possibly be relevant?’
‘Nearly finished, Mrs Connolly. Just a few more.’
‘Hang on,’ Emerson said, peering over Kathy’s shoulder at one of the photos. ‘Isn’t that Maisy?’
It was a picture of three adults and a teenage girl grouped together on the steps of a building, their eyes half closed against the bright sunlight on their smiling faces. Emerson was pointing at the woman who was standing between two men.
‘I’m sure that’s your mother, Janice.’
Janice gave it another reluctant glance. ‘Maybe.’
‘And isn’t that your father with her? And the girl-could it be Nancy?’
Janice gave a sigh of annoyance. ‘Very likely. So what?’
‘Well, that looks a lot like Chelsea Mansions in the background, where we stayed.’
Kathy looked more closely at the background, tall sash windows in dark brickwork, a black doorway with white painted surround. It might be Chelsea Mansions, she thought, or a thousand other similar places in London, or Boston come to that. ‘What about the other man?’ Kathy asked. ‘Do you recognise him?’
‘Obviously someone they met somewhere. I’ve never seen him before. And I’m not convinced that’s Nancy. It’s probably the other man’s daughter… oh.’
Something had struck Janice. She stared again at the photo. ‘That dress, it was Nancy’s. I remember now, Pop and Mom took Nancy to London for her sixteenth birthday. I was only five. They left me behind with Grandma.’
‘When would that have been?’ Kathy asked, but Janice waved her hand dismissively.
‘This is nonsense,’ she said impatiently. ‘This has no relevance to you.’
Kathy didn’t press the point. She asked Janice to recall later trips made by Nancy to the UK. There had been two that she remembered, both with her husband, staying at the Hilton.
‘And now I must ask you to leave,’ she said. ‘I have another appointment.’
At the front door she added, ‘Your police must have a lot more time and money to spare than ours, if they can afford to send an inspector across the Atlantic just to check a few trivial details like this.’
‘Many thanks for your time,’ Kathy said evenly. ‘I’m sorry to have interrupted your afternoon.’
‘Dadgummed bitch,’ Emerson breathed when they got back into the car. It was such an uncharacteristic outburst from the gentlemanly Emerson, and said with such feeling, that Kathy had to laugh.
‘But that was Nancy and her parents,’ he protested, ‘and they were standing outside Chelsea Mansions. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘It’s possible. I could get someone in London to check.’
‘If Janice was right and this was Nancy’s sixteenth birthday, that would make it the twenty-sixth of April, 1956.’
He slowly turned the car and began the long drive back to Boston. On the way Kathy sent a text message to John with the date and asked him to check the background to the photograph, then sat back to admire the well-maintained clapboard houses they passed in picturesque villages or set back among the trees of private acreages.
‘You know what I find so upsetting?’ Emerson said after a long silence. ‘The idea that Nancy might have kept it a secret from me. How could she have gone through that whole charade, choosing the hotel and all, and not told me the real purpose of the trip for her?’ Then he added, ‘Unless it was something shameful. Do you think that could be it? Might she have wanted to revisit the scene of something bad, something embarrassing? Might she have been abused there, perhaps? Was she revisiting the scene of a trauma she couldn’t confess to me?’
‘It needn’t be anything like that, Emerson. She may just have been a bit reticent about telling you that she wanted to revisit a happy memory from her past. Especially when she discovered that Chelsea Mansions wasn’t the splendid hotel she remembered.’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘I guess you’re right. And if she was there in her teens it could have nothing to do with her murder, after all. Those other people in the old pictures are all dead and gone.’
When they got back to Beacon Street he said, ‘Will you be leaving now?’
‘I suppose so, yes. I’ll have to check available flights.’
‘It seems a shame to have come so far and seen so little. Let me at least take you out to dinner at one of Nancy’s favourite haunts. Nothing fancy, just a very friendly little Italian place down in the North End where we often went on a Saturday night. What do you say?’
‘You’ve given me so much of your time already, Emerson, I’d feel guilty about taking more.’
‘Nonsense, it’d cheer me up no end. I’ll phone Maria. I’m sure she’ll squeeze us in when I explain. Shall we say eight o’clock?’
So she agreed, and spent an enjoyable evening with him, talking about all the places she should have seen, and would have to return to one day.
THIRTY
T he following morning Peter was already setting places in the dining room by the time Kathy came downstairs for her run. Today Tom was offering honeyed yoghurt with fresh berries followed by French toast stuffed with peaches. ‘He’s a star,’ Peter said, seeing the look on Kathy’s face.
This time she headed down through the South End and then east into Chinatown. As she pounded through the empty streets she tried to clear her mind. It felt as if she’d been here for a long time, much more than two days. That’s what happened when you had a change of scene, she told herself, time expanded, became more generous. It had been a blessing to get out of London. It was absurd that she’d never been to America before-never been out of Europe in fact. Her work had constrained her, narrowed her focus. Was that why Guy’s invitation to go to Dubai had seemed so appealing? What a disaster that would have been. No regrets there.
She returned to Beacon Street, skipping up the front steps, blood singing. After a quick shower she went downstairs and opened the dining room door. The smell of Tom’s cooking hit her and she said, ‘Wow,’ then stopped dead, staring at the figure sitting at a corner table. He lifted his head and she said, ‘It is you,’ and John Greenslade got to his feet with a cautious smile. There was a suitcase on the floor beside him.
‘Ah, you do know him then, do you, Kathy?’ Peter said from the door behind her. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to let him in. But he looked so forlorn, I thought I’d better give him something to eat.’
She sat down at his table and asked what on earth he was doing there. He looked as if he hadn’t slept, which, as it turned out, was pretty much the case, his flight being a nightmare, through Newark.
‘There was something I needed to show you, Kathy, about the photographs,’ he said.
‘Oh really?’
He registered her doubtful look and was rescued by the arrival of French toast and coffee, with Peter clearly trying to interpret what was going on. ‘Will he be requiring a room?’ he asked.