It was still early, barely half-past six, but four tables were taken and there was a small group at the end of the bar. Rowan looked but couldn’t see Emma. The barman was wearing a beanie and a faded red T-shirt with a transfer that proclaimed the Flying Burrito Brothers. ‘Yeah, hold on,’ he said. While she waited, Rowan perused the drinks board, recognising none of the beers nor any of the extensive list of gins, all of whose names suggested they’d been made in someone’s bathtub.
She’d doubted Emma would remember her but as she emerged from the kitchen, it was clear that she did. Emma looked quite amazing, Rowan thought. She was wearing a red fifties-style halter-neck dress covered in polka dots and a pair of studded biker boots. Since Rowan had last seen her, she’d acquired large tattoos of a bannered heart, a topless woman and several feathers. A matching polka-dot ribbon tied her black hair into a high ponytail.
‘How are you?’ she said, leaning her hip against the bar. ‘I heard the news, obviously. Sorry.’
‘Thanks. We weren’t in touch any more, though.’
‘Really?’ Emma gestured to the barman who handed her a glass of what looked like lemonade. She took a sip through the straw, careful of her cherry lipstick. ‘What did she do to you?’
Rowan shrugged. ‘Nothing. Just one of those things.’
‘Well, you know you didn’t miss much.’ Emma took another sip. ‘But if it’s nothing to do with Marianne, then why – with respect – are you here?’ She raised plucked and pencilled eyebrows.
There was nothing to be gained from beating about the bush. ‘I wanted to ask you if there was any gossip doing the rounds,’ Rowan said.
‘Like what?’
‘Anything. You know everyone in the art world, I remembered, you’re so well connected. I thought that if anyone knew anything, it’d be you.’ Emma gave a cat-like tilt of the head, pleased. ‘Look,’ Rowan said, ‘Marianne was with James Greenwood, obviously, but I wondered if there was anyone else. If she was messing around.’
Another coquettish sip, Betty-Boop mouth closing on the straw. ‘If there was someone, I’d tell you, lovely, I promise, but as far as I’ve heard, there wasn’t.’ She reached across the bar and gave the glass back. ‘I wouldn’t have put anything past Marianne, though, would you? She just wound men round her little finger – personally, professionally, whatever. I used to watch her flirting with critics – no wonder she got such great reviews. Everyone’s saying she only got that show at Saul Hander because she sucked up to Michael Cory.’
‘Michael Cory? Really? I hadn’t heard that.’
‘Oh, yeah. He showed some photographs with Greenwood a year or so ago; that’s how she met him. Useful, having a top dealer as your boyfriend, isn’t it? Nice career move, Marianne. Alfie – that’s my boyfriend – he’s a photographer and he went to the private view and saw her batting her eyelashes, fawning all over him.’
‘He was there? Cory, I mean? In person?’
‘I know – I guess that’s Greenwood for you. Anyway, Cory’s repped by Hander in the States and she clearly wanted him to put in a good word. Lo and behold: one exhibition for Marianne Glass in New York City, baby. Makes you sick, doesn’t it?’
Ten
Rowan drove back from London with the sense of a day wasted. Even Emma’s bitchy remarks about the New York show were toothless: the Greenwood Gallery’s homepage mentioned an affiliation with Saul Hander, and Marianne had never needed to flirt to get ahead.
When she reached Fyfield Road, the house looked forbiddingly dark. She’d expected to be back from London before nightfall so she hadn’t left any lights on, and anyone could see the place was empty. On the motorway, she’d been trying to contain her anxiety: what if someone had broken in, turned the house upside down, stolen Marianne’s work? What would she say to Jacqueline? Now she swallowed the anxiety as best she could, unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car.
As she unlocked the front door, her heart beat faster, and she reached round the jamb and turned on the ceiling light before stepping in. Everything in the hallway was just as she’d left it, however, and when – turning on lights as she went, ears primed – she took the stairs to the kitchen, the back door was still locked and secure, all in order.
Nevertheless, the thought of an intruder had set her on edge, and after checking the whole house and making sure lights showed at both the back and front, she took her laptop, locked up again and got back in the car.