Free Unfinished Portrait by Anthea Fraser

eventually.
    So, as the waitress moved away, she asked, ‘When did you first realize she’d gone?’
    â€˜The eleventh of May last year – my daughter’s seventeenth birthday. She’d had a party for her friends on the Saturday, and the family celebration was the next day. Naturally, Elspeth was invited; she’s Gillian’s godmother as well as her aunt.’
    She paused, toying with the crumpet on her plate. ‘But . . . she never came. We waited for a while, and phoned both her home and her mobile, without success. Then we started worrying she might have had an accident driving out to us.’
    â€˜When had you last seen her?’ Rona interrupted.
    â€˜Earlier that week. My last words to her were, “See you on Sunday.”’
    â€˜And she seemed all right then?’
    Naomi hesitated. ‘It’s difficult to say. She’d been . . . unpredictable for quite a while.’
    Rona leaned forward, interested, despite her resolution. ‘Unpredictable how?’
    â€˜Well, she’d been through a period of intense depression, worried that she’d lost her way, and couldn’t paint any more.’ Naomi Harris looked down, biting her lip. ‘But it wasn’t only that, it was the body-clock thing. She was over forty, and she’d never even had a love affair – been too wrapped up in her work. She felt life was passing her by.’
    â€˜Did she actually say so?’
    Naomi smiled wryly. ‘She was as private with me as with everyone else, but I do remember her saying once, “I live a very narrow life, Naomi. To be a great artist, I need to experience it far more fully.”’
    Rona stirred uneasily. Max had said Elspeth’s work had fallen off; he also suspected she was dead. Severe depression, loneliness, loss of her talent – might they have led to an undiscovered suicide?
    â€˜But then,’ Naomi was continuing, ‘about three months before she left, she suddenly seemed to throw off her depression, became much brighter. I half-wondered if she’d met someone, but there was no hint of that and she refused to give any explanation, except to say she’d pulled herself together.’
    â€˜I interrupted you,’ Rona apologized. ‘You were telling me about the dinner party?’
    â€˜Yes. Well, as time went on and there was no sign of her, my parents in particular became more and more anxious, so Leonard, my husband, got the car out and went to look for her. He drove all the way to Buckford along the route she’d have taken, even knocked at her front door But the house was in darkness, so he came back again. We phoned the hospitals, but there was no record of her having been injured or anything. Then, later, when we went to the house, we found Gillian’s birthday present, ready wrapped, in her sitting room. Surely that meant she’d intended to come?’
    â€˜She hadn’t told friends she was going away?’
    â€˜Miss Parish, she had no friends. Not really. The only person she was close to, Chloë, had – died a year or so earlier.’
    Rona frowned. ‘Died how?’
    Naomi gave a little shudder. ‘Threw herself under a train, actually. It was all very distressing, and Elspeth was knocked sideways.’
    â€˜That was when her depression started?’
    â€˜No, actually; it had begun some months earlier.’
    â€˜So who was this Chloë?’
    â€˜Chloë Pyne. She was an artist, too, though not as successful as Elspeth. They met at secondary school, went on to university together, then the Royal College of Art. They were inseparable, really. Until a month or two before Chloë died.’
    â€˜What happened then?’
    Naomi Harris sighed. ‘The old story: a man entered the equation. He fell for Chloë, kept phoning her, sending flowers. It wasn’t mutual, but Elspeth was . . . I suppose jealous is the only word