as he smiled and reached out his hand. Toni felt his long cold fingers clasp around hers for only a few seconds before she released him. The calloused surfaces of his fingers rasped against her skin on the back of her hands. Gentle but firm.
‘Good morning. Apologies if I startled you but I tried the front door and there was no answer.’ He made a point of checking his gold wristwatch. ‘And I am early. I hope that isn’t a problem.’
Oh, no. No problem at all. It was perfectly normal for her to welcome clients who looked like Viking gods when she was wearing her grungiest painting overalls!
She should be annoyed. But look at the man!
Toni inhaled deeply, straightened her back and managed to find her voice at last as she smiled back at him. ‘No problem at all. Please do come in out of the cold. I have a fire going in the living room and hot coffee on the table. Want to join me? Because I can’t wait to hear what you think about my idea. You’re going to be in the movies! Isn’t that exciting?’
* * *
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ Scott said as he followed Toni into the house. ‘You really think that TV companies will want to keep Elstrom locked in some strange hibernation so that they can use it as a film set?’
‘Absolutely,’ she replied. ‘There are plenty of location scouts who would love to use the building as a movie set for documentaries or dramas set in wartime or 1930s Britain.’ Then she winced and bared her teeth. ‘No offence but it is a bit of a time warp when you walk in those doors. And you don’t even have to clear the rooms because they will do all that for you. Scott? Are you listening?’
Listening? He was far too busy trying to cope with the sensory overload that was the Baldoni house. The entire living room was more like an expressionist art gallery than a family home.
Colour was piled on tones and shades of colour. The walls were covered in heavy red wallpaper with a faint gold pattern embossed in what looked to him like random patterns. Not that he could see too much of the wallpaper. There must have been at least twenty pictures on the walls, of all shapes and sizes. Portraits of people in various styles of dress, landscapes, fruit and flowers. It was all there on the walls of this tiny room, about the size of Freya’s kitchen.
And then there were the fabrics. Curtains, sofa and cushions. All red, all different, all bursting with pattern and shades of crimson and gold trim.
Scott couldn’t imagine a greater contrast between the cold grey February street outside and the shock of this space. It was like a rich tent in the desert. Exotic and luxuriant and bursting with interest and textures.
‘Wow—’ he coughed ‘—this is remarkable. Sorry, but my poor scientific brain is struggling to cope. I know that you come from a family of artists but I had no idea that you had to surround yourself with so many colours.’
Toni laughed and shrugged. ‘My grandparents bought the place when Hampstead was famous for the artist colonies. The Baldoni family were very popular and they bought paintings from their friends and even a few clients. You know that store room at the back of the Elstrom mapping room? I have one of those upstairs to cope with the overflow.’
‘There’s more?’
‘Oh, this is nothing. You should have seen the place before Amy and I started to declutter over the Christmas holiday. Black coffee okay?’
‘Please,’ Scott replied and strolled around the room, picking up hand-painted china ornaments then peering at the stack of books that Toni had been looking at when he’d spied on her through the window.
‘Doing some spring-cleaning?’ he asked, glancing at her over one shoulder. Her answer was the kind of laugh that made the glass in the windows rattle.
‘Cleaning? Oh, if only that was all I had to do.’ Then she must have spotted the confused look on his face and she passed him a coffee with a grin.
‘Amy and I have decided to rent the place out while she is away at university. I plan to do more travelling for work and she won’t be here and we need the loot. One of my neighbours gave me all of the details and a couple of agencies have been around. Strange how they all say the same thing. It seems that there are a few small things I need to do before I can rent this house to anyone.’
Toni squeezed her thumb and forefinger together. ‘Very small. Nothing really. Ha!’
She collapsed down on the sofa, which was covered with a dust sheet, and picked up her coffee mug and waved it towards the bookcases.
‘Fix the plumbing. Put in a new bathroom. And the big one? Get rid of ninety per cent of the books and paintings and the rest of the clutter and paint the walls a beige, creamy buttermilk-type colour. Neutral. Bland. Plain. In fact the colour of the walls in Freya’s kitchen. It looks great in a modern house. Here? Not so sure.’
‘No alternative? Rent it to art lovers? No? Ah, then I can see the problem. There does seem to be a lot of—what did you call it?—clutter?’
‘You have no idea. Elstrom was easy compared to this. Let’s just say that your father wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to change things in a hurry.’
She sniffed and looked from side to side. ‘When you’ve used this room every day it comes as a bit of a shock when other people see it differently. But they’re right. I need to clear the room, get rid of the paintings and wallpaper and start all over again...’ Her voice faded away. ‘So that is what I plan to do. A new start in a nice new bright home. All white and fresh. Oh, yes.’
‘What are you going to do with it all? Some of these paintings must be valuable.’
‘That’s why I have a professional lighting rig. Every piece has to be photographed for the insurance and then put into storage or sold.’ Toni exhaled sharply. ‘Then it’s going to take weeks to redecorate and work out what to do with boxes of ancient books.’ She glanced up at Scott. ‘Sorry. Too much to do. Not enough time. Sound familiar?’
‘Very.’ He grinned and hooked his arm over the back of the sofa and looked from side to side. ‘Are all the rooms like this?’
‘Oh, no. This is tidy. The only reason I’m working in here is the fire.’ She laughed. ‘No plumbing. No heating. Electric heaters are great but an open fire is bliss.’
Scott put down his mug with a clatter. ‘I thought that you meant the hot water wasn’t working! You should have told me! Freya’s house is so hot I can hardly breathe and she hates it when I turn the thermostat down. Please. Come back and stay there until you have heating.’
Toni smiled at him. ‘Now you’re being kind. But this is my space and, as you can see, I have a fire and lots to do.’ Then she took a breath and sat back on the sofa and brought her knees up to her chest. ‘There is one thing I find curious. You keep saying Freya’s house. Isn’t that your home too?’
The reply stuck in Scott’s throat. It was until I got married and moved into my own place. Alexa got the apartment in the divorce. I certainly didn’t want it. Not after she admitted taking Travis there.
Toni must have seen the expression on his face and immediately held up one hand. ‘Forget it. I am far too nosey and you are here for the lighting rig. It’s all ready for us in the studio and...’
Scott rested one
