In the Frame - By Dick Francis Page 0,22

bit smaller, dear, I should think.’

‘Look,’ Donald said. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘Trying to make sure that there are no more coincidences.’

He stared, but without any particular feeling.

‘On the way up here,’ I said, ‘Maisie told me everything’ (but everything) ‘of the way she came to buy her picture. So could you possibly tell us how you came to buy yours. Did you, for example, deliberately go looking for a Munnings?’

Donald passed a weary hand over his face, obviously not wanting the bother of answering.

‘Please, Don,’ I said.

‘Oh…’ A long sigh. ‘No. I wasn’t especially wanting to buy anything at all. We just went into the Melbourne Art Gallery for a stroll round. We came to the Munnings they have there… and while we were looking at it we just drifted into conversation with a woman near us, as one does in art galleries. She said there was another Munnings, not far away, for sale in a small commercial gallery, and it was worth seeing even if one didn’t intend to buy it. We had time to spare, so we went.’

Maisie’s mouth had fallen open. ‘But, dear,’ she said, recovering, ‘that was just the same as us, my sister-in-law and me, though it was Sydney Art Gallery, not Melbourne. They have this marvellous picture there, “The Coming Storm”, and we were admiring it when this man sort of drifted up to us and joined in…’

Donald suddenly looked a great deal more exhausted, like a sick person overdone by healthy visitors.

‘Look… Charles… you aren’t going to the police with all this? Because I… I don’t think… I could stand… a whole new lot… of questions.’

‘No, I’m not,’ I said.

‘Then what… does it matter?’

Maisie finished her gin and tonic and smiled a little too brightly.

‘Which way to the little girls’ room, dear?’ she asked, and disappeared to the cloakroom.

Donald said faintly, ‘I can’t concentrate… I’m sorry, Charles, but I can’t seem to do anything… while they still have Regina… unburied… just stored…’

Time, far from dulling the agony, seemed to have preserved it, as if the keeping of Regina in a refrigerated drawer had stopped dead the natural progression of mourning. I had been told that the bodies of murdered people could be held in that way for six months or more in unsolved cases. I doubted whether Donald would last that long.

He stood suddenly and walked away out of the door to the hall. I followed. He crossed the hall, opened the door of the sittingroom, and went in.

Hesitantly, I went after him.

The sittingroom still contained only the chintz-covered sofas and chairs, now ranged over-tidily round the walls. The floor where Regina had lain was clean and polished. The air was cold.

Donald stood in front of the empty fireplace looking at my picture of Regina, which was propped on the mantelpiece.

‘I stay in here with her, most of the time,’ he said. ‘It’s the only place I can bear to be.’

He walked to one of the armchairs and sat down, directly facing the portrait.

‘You wouldn’t mind seeing yourselves out, would you, Charles?’ he said. ‘I’m really awfully tired.’

‘Take care of yourself.’ Useless advice. One could see he wouldn’t.

‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Quite all right. Don’t you worry.’

I looked back from the door. He was sitting immobile, looking at Regina. I didn’t know whether it would have been better or worse if I hadn’t painted her.

Maisie was quiet for the whole of the first hour of the return journey, a record in itself.

From Donald’s house we had driven first to one of the neighbours who had originally offered refuge, because he clearly needed help more now than ever.

Mrs. Neighbour had listened with sympathy, but had shaken her head.

‘Yes, I know he should have company and get away from the house, but he won’t. I’ve tried several times. Called. So have lots of people round here. He just tells us he’s all right. He won’t let anyone help him.’

Maisie drove soberly, mile after mile. Eventually she said, ‘We shouldn’t have bothered him. Not so soon after…’

Three weeks, I thought. Only three weeks. To Donald it must have seemed like three months, stretched out in slow motion. You could live a lifetime in three weeks’ pain.

‘I’m going to Australia,’ I said.

‘You’re very fond of him, dear, aren’t you?’ Maisie said.

Fond? I wouldn’t have used that word, I thought: but perhaps after all it was accurate.

‘He’s eight years older than me, but we’ve always got on well together.’ I looked back, remembering. ‘We were both