The food, in fact, was very substantial indeed, and Lucy realized with surprise that she was ravenously hungry. She was just wondering who had prepared everything, when Alice said, ‘I’m no longer as domestic as I used to be, Lucy, but fortunately there are two very nice girls in the village who come in a couple of times a week to deal with cleaning and cooking. So after Michael made his second phone call to say he was bringing you and Francesca here, I rang one of them. Do all help yourselves to whatever you want, won’t you. Don’t wait to be offered anything, it’s so stultifying to have to wait to be offered things.’
Lucy thought: she has dined with crowned heads and exiled royalty and she has entertained the rich and the famous and the fabulous. And she probably half starved inside Auschwitz along with goodness knows how many other poor wretches. But now she’s presiding over this quite ordinary table with us. And then she looked at Alice again, and knew nothing she did would ever be entirely ordinary.
‘Michael, I don’t suppose your injured hand will allow you to brandish a corkscrew or deal with a champagne cork, will it? No, I thought not. Then, Mr Devlin, could I impose on you for that small service, please.’
‘Baroness, if you are serving us Clicquot, I will open an entire cellarful of bottles for you,’ said Liam, and Lucy saw that three bottles of an honourable champagne were standing in a silver cooler but that there was mineral water and fruit juice as well. Style, she thought. That’s what she’s got, and that’s what she’s always had. She’s over ninety years old, but she’ll have style until she dies. If this really is a dream I don’t want ever to wake up.
Liam dealt with the champagne competently and filled the glasses, somehow ending up in a seat next to Lucy. ‘Are you thinking this is pure gothic?’ he said. ‘Unknown cousins, and wicked family solicitors turning up?’
‘I was thinking it’s like something from The Prisoner of Zenda or Rudolph of Rassendyll,’ rejoined Lucy. ‘I wasn’t expecting the wicked solicitor as well.’
‘When this particular client calls, I ditch everything else to obey,’ said Liam, and smiled across the table at Alice. ‘She never pays my bills, although that might be because I usually forget to send her any. But she’s my favourite client.’
‘Mr Devlin’s been my agent at Ashwood for several years,’ said Alice. ‘It’s a good relationship. He’s a very good lawyer.’
‘I’m very good indeed,’ said Liam, grinning. ‘But I’d have to say that until last weekend, I really did think I was acting for a lady called Alice Wilson.’
‘You’re Ashwood’s owner?’ said Lucy to Alice. ‘No, you can’t be, though – Michael said—’ She stopped. How acceptable was it to refer to Alraune in this house?
‘Over fifty years ago,’ said Alice composedly, ‘I bought the entire Ashwood site. Land, buildings, cottages, fields – everything. I did so under my real name of Alice Vera Wilson—’ She broke off as Lucy looked at her in surprise, and then said, ‘My dear, no smouldering silent-film star with any self-respect would have got far with a name like Alice Wilson. And you wouldn’t believe how useful it is to have two identities. It meant that when I bought Ashwood no one suspected that the wicked baroness was still alive, and buying up parcels of valuable building land. Explain that part, would you, Mr Devlin.’
‘She did own Ashwood,’ said Liam. ‘But three years ago we transferred the ownership of Ashwood Studios to her son, Alan Salisbury. To comply with HM Land Registry laws I had to formally register the land at the time. So if Edmund Fane really did apply for a search for the title—?’
‘He did. We know that.’
‘Ah. Well, then, he’d receive a brief report showing that the land had passed from the ownership of A. V. Wilson to Alan Salisbury. Relatively ordinary names,’ said Liam, looking at Michael questioningly.