I stayed with Matt that night. His home is less than one mile from the world-famous 'Richard Arkwright’s Mills' at Cromford. I wished that I had more time so that I could visit the place where mechanised cotton spinning was invented but I wanted to get back to Oxford before nightfall.

Matt and I spent the morning working on my accounts for the year. Things were slightly complicated because Roxy was my place of work and a good proportion of her running costs could be written off against tax. Thankfully, Matt had drilled into me the need to keep records of my expenses. I had them all but they were not really what you’d call organised.

Matt tolerated my disorganisation because we were friends as well me being a client of his. At least all my receipts were separated by month.

After being gently scolded a few times for missing some vital expenses, we concluded our business just after lunch. Matt would produce the formal records in a few days and he’d submit them to Companies House by the end of the month. That ordeal was over for another year.

“One last thing,” he said as we wrapped things up.
“I know that your name is Lauren Savannah but you seem to be going by Savannah yet, you signed all the official documents as Lauren Savannah? Why?”

I smiled back at my long-time friend.
“Savannah sounds a lot better for an Artist. I’ve been signing all my painting as Savannah Hall since day one. So, I’m going by that name apart from on official documents.”

Matt shook his head and smiled. He’d always been the very serious one of our little trio. He liked things just so. That’s perfect for an Accountant but I’m a little more mixed-up sort of person.

Matt took me to the local Station in plenty of time for the stopping train to Derby. If the gods were with me and all the connections worked, I’d be back in Oxford by six in the evening. That would give me plenty of time to prepare for the weekend.

---

Once I was back in Oxford, I logged on to check my email while Melody was doing the washing up. She’d been rather reticent to talk about Heidi. I didn’t press her but the spring in her step from a few days before was noticeably absent. I knew from past experience not to press her about it. I was in no doubt that she’d tell me in good time so I let it ride.

The only email was from Evan letting me know that my declarations had been delivered by courier directly to the investigations department at Companies House. The matter of the directorships was now in their hands. That was another thing on my 'ToDo’ list ticked off. That left my confrontation with my family at the top of the list.

I had to find something special to wear for the confrontation with my father so, I decided to enlist the help of Melody in the hope that it would get her out of her mood.

“Fancy a trip to London tomorrow?”

“London? What for?”

“I have five paintings that need to be delivered to the Gallery and then I need something to wear when I meet my father and brother. I would love to have another opinion as I don’t want to look like a total dork now do I?”

Melody chuckled.
“You can never look like a dork.”

“Bollocks. You are far better at passing than me.”

Melody didn’t answer right away.

“Well? Are you up for it? It will make a change from Oxford. We’ll take the train tomorrow morning, drop the paintings off at the gallery and go shopping. Then we can have an early meal in a restaurant before coming back here?”

She nodded her head.
“Ok, I’ll go.”

"Good. I'll book a taxi for eight-thirty."

---

Our train to Marylebone was pretty busy but we managed to find a couple of adjacent seats. I propped up the paintings on our laps and closed my eyes. I’d had a restless night due to my brain refusing to switch off. The things that Matt had told me just made me angry and when I’m angry, I can’t sleep.

The motion of the train helped me relax and I did drop off. It was only the nudging of Melody that woke me from my slumbers. I was having a very pleasant dream about the future and that I’d found a lovely woman to share it with me. Fat chance of that at the moment.

“We are going to be arriving in Marylebone in a few minutes,” said Melody as I opened my eyes.
“You were sound asleep,” she added.

“Sorry. I couldn’t sleep last night.”

"That's ok. Train rides can be boring and are as good a time as any to catch up."

I smiled and thought about how much she’d matured in less than two months. That’s what living in a relatively stable environment with someone who cared about her could do. I could only hope that her obvious disappointment over her relationship with Heidi could be put behind her sooner rather than later.

We walked the relatively short distance from Marylebone Station to the Gallery which is located on Marylebone High Street. I felt a lot better after my sleep on the train and hoped that we’d have a good day.

My hopes were totally dashed when I saw my brother David emerge from the Gallery looking very pleased with himself. We’d been about to cross over the road to the gallery when he came out onto the street.

“Quick, we need to duck into this shop,” I said to Melody as I literally dragged her off the pavement.

Thankfully, the shop was a seller of coffee and tea.

“Buy us some Green Tea and some Guatemalan Coffee,” I said to Melody as I thought of something on the fly.

Melody, to her credit, didn't quibble. She engaged with the shop staff while I watched the street. I saw my brother get into a Taxi that did a 'U' turn and headed north up the road towards Marylebone Road. I knew that the taxi would have to turn left onto that road. I wondered if David was heading for the Station and the train to Stratford upon Avon. That was the nearest station to our family home.

My deliberations were interrupted by Melody.
“Can I have some money? The cost of the tea and coffee came to more than I have in my purse."

“Oh… sure.”

I switched back from thinking about David and paid for the items. Melody put them in her bag and we left the shop. We walked a few yards down the street and I led her into a side street.

“That man coming out of the Gallery on the other side of the road was my Brother. Sorry for the panic back there. He was just about the last ”

Melody smiled.
“That’s understandable. What do we do now?”

“As we are here, we should go into the gallery and find out what my brother David was doing there. If his visit has anything to do with my show then I’m going to blow my top.”

Melody laughed.
“You are always telling me not to over-react and here you are doing just that…?”

I thought for a moment. She was perfectly correct.

“It must be those hormones. It is sometimes hard to keep my emotions in check.”

“Then use them positively. Don’t react, get even. Find out what he was doing and plan to get ahead of him. You know how he operates. Can’t you guess what his next move is? Base your next move on the facts.”

“Don’t go repeating my advice like that. It hurts,” I said defensively.

“But deep down, you know that it is true.”

She was right.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten.

“Time to get moving I think.”

Melody grinned as we walked back towards the High St.

---

Jonathan Fields, the owner of the Gallery was surprised to see me. He recognised Melody straight away and then realised that it was the new and hopefully improved me that was with her.

“Savannah! This is a surprise. Melody, nice to see you again,” said Jonathan.

"Hi, Jonathan. We are here to deliver the final canvasses for my show."

“Oh good. Well, that’s good. I was actually looking forward to a trip to some canal bank in the middle of nowhere to collect them in the next week or so. It is nice to get out of London from time to time.”

"Sorry to disappoint you, Jonathan. I need a decent outfit for an event so we decided to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Next time I’ll drag you to some out of the way canal bank and show you the real country…"

Jonathan was a city person but could manage short visits outside London if his arm was twisted hard enough.

“Well, you are here now so shall we get down to business?” he said changing the subject.

I turned to Melody and said,
“Why don’t you take a look around at what Jonathan has on display while we go over the paintings?”

Melody just nodded her head and after putting down the two paintings that she was carrying, she left Jonathan and me alone.

Jonathan as usual ‘ummed’ and ‘ahhed' as he looked at the five pictures. In the end, he smiled.

“These will sell well. We have had a lot of interest in your work. Once we put your show up on our Website, we have had a good few responses for opening night.”

“That’s nice to know.”

“What’s even better,” said Jonathan smiling.
“I pre-sold six paintings only today. You missed the buyer by just a few minutes.”

My heart sank to the floor. Jonathan noticed my reaction.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you like selling your work?”

"Sorry, Jonathan. I do like selling my work but if the man that was just here before us is the buyer then I want nothing to do with him or his filthy money."

“Why? Why is his money filthy?”

“Because he’s my brother.”

Jonathan knew a little of my family history, especially why I wasn't using my family name.

“How did he pay for the paintings?”

"He gave me a cheque. It is post-dated for the day of the show. I told him that if someone else wanted to pay more than what he had offered, I was duty-bound to sell them to the other person. He didn't like that one little bit so he upped his offer to a grand over the price we agreed just to make sure that he obtained them."

“Can I see the cheque?”

“Sure,” said Jonathan.

Jonathan soon found the cheque and gave it to me. If I wasn’t angry before I was angry now.

“He’s using the company account. Bastard.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Far too much to explain. It involves possible fraud.”

Jonathan looked worried.

“I’ll keep this cheque and any related documentation like a bill of sale or receipt copy if you don’t mind. Those paintings are unsold and will remain unsold until the opening night.”

“Are you sure about this? It is money in the bank?”

“Is it? What if there is no money in the bank and it bounces?”

“Ok, I get you,” said Jonathan.

“I’ll sign a receipt saying what I have taken today. Take copies of it all just to keep some records on your end. Then you can’t be accused of complicity.”

"That's a good idea. What will you do with this evidence? I assume that it is the evidence?"

“I’m going to show it to my Father. He is chairman of the company whose name is on the cheque. I thought that seeing the new me would get them out of my life once and for all but this scam… yes, it is just the latest in a long line of scams and grift by my brother to get me to take the fall for his shady business dealings but this tops any of them by a huge margin.”

Jonathan made copies of all his documentation. He made a copy for me and gave me that and the originals.

“Did my brother give any indication that he would be attending the opening?”

“No. Quite the opposite. He said that he’d be away on business.”

“That’s good to know.”

Then I hesitated a moment.

“Jonathan, I’d like your opinion on something.”

“Sure. That’s what I’m here for if it is an item of artwork that is. Anything else comes under the maybe category,” he replied trying to lighten the atmosphere a bit.

I pulled out my phone and showed him a picture of the piece I’d painted for Matt’s Grandfather.

“I did this as a commission for an old friend.”

Jonathan took a good look at the scene.

“That is certainly different. Very different from your normal fare. Are you thinking of doing more like this?”

"I don't know. I enjoyed painting it especially the research that went into it. There are a lot of photographs of old railways but they are mostly record shots. I tried to put some life into this scene."

Jonathan ‘ummed’ and ‘ahhed’ once more. It was more like a cat purring than anything.

“It might be outside what I’d sell but I am sure that there is a market for pictures like this and even more so for a limited run of prints. Prints of Steam Locos by David Shepherd sell very well for several hundred quid a go. At fifty quid a pop, you don’t need to print more than a hundred and you have a decent income. Plus…” he said grinning.
“I know I shouldn’t be saying this but you could save on my commission at the same time.”

I smiled back at him.
"Thanks, Jonathan. I’m no David Shepherd but thanks for being honest with me. I’ll have to do some thinking about this sort of thing.”

“Are you getting bored with your landscapes?”

“Not exactly but I need some new challenges.”

Jonathan chuckled.
“As if becoming the new you isn’t enough of a challenge. Speaking of which, I take it that this will be the first show where the artist will be actually here?”

I'd been at the openings of my previous shows but as pretending to be a prospective buyer and not as 'Savannah Hall, Artist' and would be the centre of attention.

“Yes, I’ll be here provided that I can find something to wear that is.”

He just smiled and shook his head. He knew the foibles of us arty types only too well.

---

After seeing my brother up to no good, I nearly didn’t go through with the rest of our plan for the day but a bit of gentle arm twisting from Melody over a pub lunch convinced me to carry on.

Her final words as we left the pub were… were prophetic.
“If you think I’m going to miss the showdown with your family then you had better think again. After all, what are sisters for but to look out for each other?”

“Ok, ok. You win.”

We left the pub and walked the short distance to Oxford St, the home of more shops that cater to the whims of women per square foot than just about anywhere I knew. Our problem was sorting the good from the bad, the brilliant for the rubbish and the gold from the crap or words like that.

We’d walked all the way from Marble Arch to Oxford Circus and back before either of us found something that tickled our respective fancies.

Melody found her perfect outfit well before I found mine. We seemed to have very similar tastes and they complimented each other.

“Now for shoes!” demanded Melody.

I sighed and prepared myself for another large debt on my credit card but it was all in a good cause.

Melody once again found her knock’em dead shoes before me. As much as I'd love to wear heels that high, I couldn't. I have long toes and my foot proportion is all wrong for pretty well anything over 3inch in height.

“You had better wear them a lot before Easter Sunday. I don’t want any complaints while we are at my father’s home.”

Melody just grinned back at me. Oh, what it is to be a teenager!

Time was passing and I began to feel that I’d never find the right pair when I decided on a different tack. At the very next shop, I found what I wanted, a pair of knee-high boots with a 2in block heel.

Melody laughed at my choice.

“These will be perfect when we have to leg it from my old home.”

We both had a good laugh at that.

---

We didn’t stay in London for dinner instead, we returned to Oxford where we had a Chinese before taking a taxi back to our temporary home.

“That was an interesting day,” said Melody when we arrived home.

“Started out bloody awful but got better after lunch.”

“What are we going to do about your Brother?”

“What’s this ‘we’ thing?”

“You need moral support when you lay it onto them. You gave me that support now it is time to pay you back at least some of what I owe you for getting me out of London and letting me start to live a life. My life and not the one that someone wanted for me. You and I are alike in that aren't we?"

Who was the adult here? Melody was talking a lot of sense.

“Besides, I can give all the wrong messages to David. That will confuse him.”

"That is the one thing that you won't do. David will reel you in and spit you out in a million pieces. If you are going to give any signals, it has to be that you bat for the other side."

Melody laughed.

“I get you. Cock a snoot at him.”

“Something like that but we need to be ready to leave at a moments notice. They won’t like what I’m going to say.”

“Lauren, do you have any falsies I can borrow? Now that you have your own…”

I smiled back at her.
“I do but they are back on Roxy. We can take a trip to the boatyard tomorrow. I need to see when she’s going to be ready.”

“Thanks.”

“They are yours. As you say, I don’t need them any longer. I have some adhesive and remover as well.”

“You are a lifesaver; you know that don’t you?”

“Was there any post on the mat?” I asked changing the subject.

"I just put them on the kitchen table. I needed the loo if you remember."

“Oh yes,” I said as I remembered the dash to the toilet.

There were two letters on the table. One was for me and one for Melody. I wondered who knew her address. The one for me was easy to identify. It had come by airmail and was from Professor Fergusson.

His letter told me that he was taking a few weeks off to visit Washington DC and was going to try to attend a hearing of the US Supreme Court before returning home at the beginning of May.

His words reminded me that I owed him a painting in return for letting us stay in his home rent-free. I knew the scene I wanted to paint as we'd stopped in Pangbourne specifically to allow me to take a few photographs of the building he'd talked about when we'd last met. The book he'd shown me about the life of the Miller of Pangbourne in the late 19th Century was on his bookshelf. That was going to be the subject of the painting. Thankfully, he’d made a copy of the book for me as it went out of print in the 1980’s.

Melody appeared from the kitchen with our last cups of tea of the day.

“This letter is for you,” I said grinning.

“Me?”

“Yes Melody, for you. That’s what it says on the envelope.”

She literally tore the envelope open.

“It’s from Heidi,” she said smiling.

I wondered it if was the final nail in the coffin of their fledgeling relationship.

“She says sorry for letting me down the other day. They had a fire where she lives. Some other students let a prank get out of hand.”

“Couldn’t she just have phoned you?” I asked slightly puzzled why she’d written in this day and age?

“This was inside,” said Melody handing me a printed card.

It was an invite to the May Ball as Heidi’s ‘plus one’.

"Wow. That is a turnaround."

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing until you have slept on the matter. Then go and see her and tell her to her face that you are going to accept.”

“But…?”

“You have nothing to wear…? I know and there is plenty of time to sort that out. You need to know what she is going to wear first. You don’t want the outfits to clash now do you?”

Melody just grinned at me. The Cheshire Cat had got its cheese.

Just then my phone rang. From the caller ID, I could see that it was Matt.

"Hi, Matt. This is an unexpected call. What can I do for you?"

“Oh. He did eh? That changes things. David forged my signature on a cheque at the gallery to buy some of my paintings from the next show. The thing is that as far as I know, I’ve never ever been a signatory on that account.”

“Yes, it is silly. Why should I buy my own paintings?”

“Oh! That could be a reason. I think we need to visit my father sooner rather than later. Can you email me the documents and the links to the Stock Exchange release? I can show them to my Father and let him make up his mind.”

“No. I think we’ll go tomorrow. Shame really. We’d both bought something nice for Easter Sunday.”

"Thanks, Matt. I'll let you know how it goes. Bye."

I hung up the phone and closed my eyes. This was how I could tell Melody that I was thinking. I needed to try to rough out a plan for the following day.

Melody was sitting patiently for me to stop thinking.

“I guess that was bad news?”

“Bad? No not bad but terrible. My dear brother has sold almost all the shares he owned in the family holding company. The notification to the Stock Exchange was posted after the market closed today. That is not good. My Grandfather gave each of us 15% of the equity in the company. Mine is in a trust. Dad at least had the foresight to do that when he sent me off to Australia. I’ve not touched them since I returned. I have no idea of the value. David as Managing Director of the company is required to notify the Stock Exchange of in advance of any sales because he is an Officer of the Company. Thirty days from now, the sale will go through. That will leave the company vulnerable to takeover. My guess is that our Father won’t know about this. He holds 30% of the equity and from what Matt has said, David’s sale notification was the only one announced today.”

“Then we go visit him tomorrow then?”

“Yes, we do but we don’t dress up. Just look smart. We go in, tell him the details and get the hell out of town ASAP. If he truly does not know what David is doing then there will be hell to pay and I don’t want to be around when David tries to blame all this on me.”

“Won’t David try to sell your shares?”

“He can try but won’t get very far. When I returned from down under, I changed the trustees from the ones that Dad appointed to Evan and Matt. They run the trust and I specifically told them not to update me on the financials. There are signed documents to that effect. That means he can’t accuse me of insider dealing or try to sell my stock out from under me. Furthermore, I can’t sell my shares without both Evan and Matt agreeing and they aren’t going to do that without some heavy artillery pointed at their heads.”

A little later, we went to bed. I had a foreboding about the day ahead. Life was so much simpler when all I needed to do was pilot Roxy along the canals and paint a few pictures. I fell asleep wondering if I’d ever get back to that simple life.

[to be continued]