Page 121 of Kate and Clara's Curious Cornish Craft Shop
I glance at Jack. ‘Go on,’ he says amiably. ‘It’s fine.’
‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ I tell him, kissing him on the cheek.
I follow Julian outside to a pretty garden at the back of the hotel. The evening air is cool, which makes a nice change from the warmth and stuffiness of the reception hall.
We find a bench and sit down in the fast fading light of the evening sun.
‘What’s up?’ I ask.
‘I’m leaving St Felix,’ Julian says. ‘Early tomorrow morning, and I wanted to speak with you before I left.’
‘You’re leaving … but why? Everything is almost sorted. You can’t go now, Julian.’
*
After we’d left Maggie, Susan and her daughter at their home in Penzance, and given them reassurance and guarantees that we weren’t simply absconding with Maggie’s photos and the Wilfred Jones original, events had started moving pretty quickly. I’d gone to Julian first and told him what Maggie had revealed, and showed him both the photos and the painting. His reactions had been mixed. Shock had come first, then sorrow – there had even been a few tears before the shame at what his father had done had finally kicked in – followed by a steely resolve to put right the wrong.
‘There is the possibility that your father didn’t actually steal the paintings,’ I’d told him to try to soften the blow a little. ‘He might simply have come across them somewhere, or bought them from the real thief.’
‘Come on, Kate,’ Julian had said, ‘You don’t really believe that? My father was in St Felix at the time – we know that – and then he left for America shortly after. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why. He saw an opportunity to use someone who had some talent to try to further his own career, and it worked.’
‘But why would he go back years later and buy Freddie’s, I mean Wilfred’s, old cottage? Surely he wouldn’t want to link himself to it?’
‘Guilt, perhaps? Maybe the old codger did have some morals after all?’
‘Perhaps he did. I mean it, Julian,’ I say, when he pulls a face. ‘Maybe he felt remorse for what he’d done, bought the cottage and decided to furnish it with prints of Wilfred’s pictures. No one else would know why, but he would know that copies of the paintings had been returned to where they were originally created?’
‘I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, Kate,’ Julian says, ‘but really you don’t have to. I knew the man, remember? He was quite capable of doing this and having no remorse whatsoever. Have no illusions otherwise.’
Julian, Jack and I had all then travelled to London to speak first with a solicitor and then an art expert who Julian knew and trusted, and from that moment on things had snowballed.
As Jack and I had hoped Maggie’s photos were indeed enough evidence to prove that Winston James was not the creator of the majority of paintings that had been attributed to him. The photos not only showed Wilfred Jones in the process of creating some of his now well-known paintings, but they clearly showed many of his other works hanging behind him on his cottage walls that were in various stages of completion. This and Maggie’s original painting, which Freddie had given her and she had treasured all these years, along with her written testimony, were going to be enough to discredit Winston James and allow instead Wilfred Jones’s story to be told, so that he would be recognised not only by the global art community but also by the town where he’d lived all his life.
Something I hadn’t expected, but which had happened pretty quickly, was media interest in the story, and I had had to rapidly become adept at handling press interviews and being filmed for both local and even national news. Luckily, most of the press weren’t really interested in Julian and the company – all they wanted to know about was how I’d managed to play detective and solve this cover-up.
Jack had stayed well and truly in the background, but he’d been invaluable in helping me keep everything on track, as had Julian, who similarly had stayed out of the way, for obvious reasons.
Not surprisingly, there had been police interest, but thankfully after their initial investigations they were satisfied that Julian had had no knowledge of any theft by his father or of his passing off the work as his own. Julian now had a very good lawyer who was working with him to sort out the mess this had made of his father’s company, but he seemed confident that everything would be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
In addition, Julian had helped us put in place our plans for the new Wilfred Jones Society in St Felix. Wilfred had no living relatives, so no one had stepped forward to claim what was now his Estate.
‘And that is exactly why I’m leaving,’ Julian says as we sit together in the hotel gardens. ‘Everything is finished for me here – there’s nothing more for me to do. You and Jack have got this covered, my usefulness has come to an end. In fact, having me around could cause you problems if anyone discovered I was still involved in the new society. All links to my father need to be removed from this new venture to give it the clean start it truly deserves.’
‘But you’ve helped us so much, Julian,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t go now before the new gallery has come to fruition.’
‘I’m afraid I must. I’m going to use some of my mother’s legacy to take me on a little trip.’
‘A trip – to where?’
‘Everywhere. I am going to see the world, Kate. You’ve shown me that even somewhere as small as St Felix contains so many types of people and new experiences to be had. If I can find all that here, imagine what I’ll discover around the world! I’d never even thought about what a sheltered life I’d led until I came here and met you. A privileged life, yes, but a sheltered one as a result. You’ve opened up my eyes, Kate, and I’ll always be grateful to you.’
How odd life is, I think, as I hug Julian. If you’d told me a few months ago when I’d first met him that I’d be hugging him and genuinely wishing him well, I’d have laughed in your face. Julian had seemed like a ridiculously foolish man, full of himself and his position, but time and some very strange circumstances had proved otherwise.
‘You’re sure you can’t stay and see the gallery come to life?’ I ask again. ‘I know it’s going to be a while yet before the cottage is ready, but it seems right you should be there. After all, it did belong to you.’
Julian had offered us Freddie’s old cottage so it could be turned into the Wilfred Jones Gallery – a place where all his paintings, along with duplicates of Maggie’s photos showing the paintings in progress, could be displayed for all to see. It was a little complicated currently because of the ongoing issues with the Winston James Estate, but we had high hopes that the gallery would be able to open in the near future.
Julian shakes his head. ‘No, I won’t … but maybe you could email me some photos? I believe they have wi-fi in the remotest of places these days!’
