Ring of Guilt (13 page)

As for our possible relationship, Habgood had the idea that his daughter, who'd stayed with her mother when they divorced and changed her name when her mother remarried to that of her new father, was my mother. There were two obvious ways of testing his theory – the DNA test he was always pressing on me and a short interview between him and my father. In view of this afternoon, I ruled that out as firmly as I'd ruled out the gob swab. After all, my father kept a swagger stick beside him to repel any intruders who'd penetrated his new security system, and might have been tempted to use it on someone casting aspersions on me.

Unfortunately the person whose advice I really wanted would be torn in two if I raised the matter – Griff. So I needed to think of someone else whose opinion I valued. Or at least someone who could be guaranteed to have the low down on him.

Titus Oates.

Actually there was another person I could speak to about him, as I realized when an email from Harvey Sanditon popped up.

I wasn't quite sure about sending information about what might be a completely different item so I asked him to send me a photo of the plate. I'd have liked to send a crude enquiry asking what he knew about Habgood, but for some reason pulled back. Perhaps, like talking to Dilly, it was best done face to face. Although it took me a good half hour to check the rest of my mail – there were several orders that needed proper attention – he didn't respond, so I logged off and went down to play Scrabble with Griff. If I allowed my mind to wander even for a minute or two, he'd beat me hollow, so I put Habgood firmly to the back of my mind. And still got beaten hollow.

Early the next morning a little note appeared under my bedroom door. All it said was,
Have a lie in.
His anonymous friend was back.

This time the conversation didn't take long, and as soon as I heard footsteps in the hall and the click of the front door, I shot down to the kitchen. The windows were wide open and the extractor on.

Griff didn't bother with an explanation. ‘My love, what do you think of this?'

He handed me what was basically a cylinder, about five inches long. The longer bottom section was white, with tiny sprays of flowers. The top was in the shape of a human head.

‘Oh, Griff – isn't she lovely? With her lace cap and her mask and – are those diamonds in her eyes?' I pulled gently. Inside the little body were all the needles an eighteenth century lady would have needed for her fine embroidery.

‘Can you say anything more? What do we call this sort of needle case?'

‘An étui,' I said promptly. I put her down carefully. ‘Is she from that little factory with a funny name?'

He smiled. ‘You're nearly there. What do you fancy for breakfast? Some smoked salmon with our scrambled eggs?'

So it was a really good find.

‘I know you won't allow me any Buck's Fizz,' he continued, turning his mouth down at the corners in the way that always made me laugh.

‘Certainly not. Charles something. London?'

‘Go on. At least we should have freshly squeezed juice.'

‘Charles whose name I can never spell.'

‘G-o-u-y-n. Floreat 1749–59.'

‘
Floreat . . .
Working from–to?' I wrinkled my nose. English was bad enough, but Latin really stretched my brain. ‘Girl in a Swing!' I don't know whether the guy ever called his factory that, but the experts did, like the people at top museums.

‘My darling, you never cease to delight me. What do you think we should do with her?'

I took her apart – everything inside was just as it should be. ‘As far as I can tell, she just needs a good clean.'

‘I meant about selling her. Our friend Harvey has the right sort of well-heeled clientele – if I'm not mistaken, she should fetch at least five thousand pounds,' he added.

‘But you've only given X peanuts.' Having so nearly been an X myself I still worried about the justice of the situation.

‘You'd have him drink himself to death? Really, my love, you mustn't get sentimental about the man. Now, shall we contact Sanditon or an auction house?'

‘So long as you don't consult your friend Douggie . . .'

The next fair, one day only, was in a village hall. It was the sort that Harvey Sanditon, who still hadn't sent a photo of the dodgy Majolica plate, would never patronize, but at which Dilly might have a stall. Titus, who didn't like anything as fixed as a display stand in a place like this, with no dark corners, might just float in, to buy cheap and later on sell dear somewhere else. Just like the rest of us, come to think of it.

But I'd rather talk to them both without Griff as an audience.

As luck would have it, the next few days were really cold and damp; if he thought I wasn't watching, Griff would rub his arthritic knuckles and even take a painkiller or two. I hated to see him suffer, but it suited me to have him laid low for a bit. So I reminded him how cold and draughty the hall had been last time – how he'd almost dropped a Crown Derby plate his fingers were so numb. We'd not done much trade, either, but it was worth taking a punt with some of our cheaper stock. So why didn't he stay at home and deal with the recent orders and enquiries, and let me go on my own?

‘My sweet, you work so hard.'

But I could see he was tempted.

‘Not as hard as dealing with that guy from Argyll who always wants one more detail.' Or keeping Mrs Walker company, of course. ‘And it's only an hour away. I'll leave after breakfast and be back in time for supper. A nice warming one, please.'

‘It's a long time since I cooked one of my casseroles . . .'

Since I set up on my own, there was no time to do my usual drift round fellow dealers' outfits; I'd have to pick my moments for that. I put out quite a lot of restored china amongst the lustreware and Ironstone; if people had any money to spend, they had plenty of choice.

‘Pocket money stuff,' Titus observed with a bit of a sneer, emerging from a shadowy corner as I unwrapped my sandwich lunch. I passed him a round. Griff's special cheese and home-made coleslaw on wholemeal, also home-made.

‘Trouble is with pocket money, it seems to like it where it is,' I said. ‘In pockets. With hands wrapped tightly round it.'

He chewed slowly – might have been waiting for something.

‘Any idea why Habgood's spreading muck about me?' I prompted him.

‘Can't say I have. Haven't even heard any.'

I explained. ‘To the fuzz,' I added

‘Fucking hell, that's out of order! I mean, person to person's one thing,' he continued, dropping his voice again. ‘We all do a bit of that. But the filth . . . Anything to do with that gob-swab you won't do? All the same, seems a bit weird, mind, dissing someone you want as family.'

‘Quite.'

He reached for another round, and nodded. ‘Griff hasn't lost his touch, I'll say that. I'll get on to the other old bugger.' And was gone. For the rest of the afternoon, as far as I could make out.

For some reason, just as I'd wrapped my hands round a mug of coffee, there was a little rush, and I sold several things. None of them fetched more than twenty-five pounds, but since I'd probably not paid even a fiver for most, that was fine. And I more than covered the stall rental. At last, asking the next-door stallholder to keep an eye on things, I headed for the loo. It all looked very casual, I hoped, but in fact it was because I'd seen Dilly going that way, and on past experience I knew there'd be a queue – a good chance to fall into conversation with her.

Unless she was a brilliant make-up artist there weren't any bruises, recent or otherwise, on her face, but I noticed she carried her shoulder a bit awkwardly. Now I had the chance, I really didn't know what to say apart from the obvious things about business being slow and the weather being vile.

She nodded to both – didn't try to talk at all. Which did interest me. Broken teeth? While she used the cubicle, I tried to work on a Plan B. While I used the cubicle I tried to work on a Plan C. Useless.

At last I did the obvious, wondering why it hadn't been Plan A in the first place. I went over and rooted in some of the boxes on her stall. I came up with a heavy gold Victorian pendant, with two entwined locks of hair in it. Normally I'd have coughed up the fiver she asked and scuttled off, pleased with my booty. This time I said, ‘Are you sure this is in the right box? I'd have thought you could get a few more quid for it, it's so pretty. Good clear hallmark too,' I added, with my dealer hat back on.

Her eyes widened. ‘How much?' she whispered.

At this point it dawned on me that though it was cold, there might just be another reason for the scarf round her neck. Nothing to do with a sore throat, either. When I'd worn one for a few days, it was because someone had tried to throttle me and I wanted to hide the bruises. I hadn't had a voice much above a whisper, either.

I weighed the pendant in the palm of my hand. ‘I'd have thought – look, this is more Griff's job than mine – but I'd have thought on the basis of the gold alone you might be asking well over two hundred.' Which was a bit more than a fiver.

So why didn't she look pleased? Just terrified? She grabbed it, and shoved it in her coat pocket.

‘If I tell you all about it, you could write down and reel it off if anyone asks.'

She fished it out and stared first at it, then at me. I had to bend close to hear what she said next. ‘Will you sell it for me? On commission, of course,' she added quickly. ‘But I'd want cash. Cash.'

‘Of course.' It went into my trousers pocket. ‘How do I get in touch?'

‘Keep it. Keep it till I tell you. And don't tell anyone – promise! Anyone. Not even Griff,' she added.

‘Can't promise that. He's senior partner. And my friend. Can't pull wool over his eyes.'

She looked wildly over my shoulder. ‘Give me a quid and take this.' She thrust a viciously ugly green plastic frog at me.

‘What if I kiss it?' I asked, but by then she didn't want to hear me. And I was too busy trying to see who had scared her so much without obviously looking.

No luck. Just the back of a big guy in a hoodie. I kissed the frog anyway.

In a final spurt, I sold a lustre jug, the sort with a mask for a spout, and a piece of green Jasper ware. So I hadn't had a bad day. But though I smiled and waved as people packed up and went home, I felt as if the pendant was burning a hole in my pocket. The sooner it was in a little jewellery box the better – did I have one, in our odds and ends box, along with the tape measure and bubble wrap? Of course I did. Wrong decade, but it'd do. I stowed it with the rest of the stock.

But I still felt – what was the word? Vulnerable. Yes, I even remembered to say the ‘l' in my head. No idea why. I made sure I went backwards and forwards to the van with other people around me, and chose the M20 route home – further, but a lot more public than the little lanes that were the alternative. The frog, quite a friendly character, now I came to think about it, sat on the passenger seat.

‘It seems to me that it would be much better all round if we didn't sell it for her at a local fair,' Griff said, doling out ladlefuls of goulash and dumplings spiked with caraway seed. ‘By the way, there's an email with an attachment from Harvey Sanditon on the system.'

‘Why didn't you open it?'

‘It's not me he's trying to seduce from Tripp and Townend, cherub. Or seduce full stop,' he added with an anxious-looking twinkle that didn't fool me for a minute.

‘Too far away; too old; too full of himself,' I said, sipping a heady Hungarian wine which Griff had served in a tiny, old-fashioned crystal glass.

‘An enormous alcohol count,' he said, touching the bottle. ‘So easy to quaff too many units. All right for an old bugger like me—'

‘Hmph. After what the doctor said about your liver?'

‘He then said it had made a remarkable recovery, didn't he? All the same, if it makes you happy . . .' He swapped his glass for one my size. ‘Cheers. Are you going to mention the étui to Sanditon?'

‘As a sale, or for him to sell on commission?'

‘Either. It depends if he has a passion for Girl in a Swing. Or if he has a passion for Girl in an Antique Shop . . .'

Cracked and restored Harvey's Majolica plate might be, but I'd never seen it before, as I told him, pleased that I hadn't sent him a load of information he had no right to. Why hadn't he checked the quality before he'd bought it? It wasn't as if the damage wasn't pretty obvious. It didn't make sense for a man of his experience.

Did a man who'd been caught out like that deserve the étui? On the whole, I thought not. I was so unsure of what – if any – our relationship might be, my email just said it wasn't the same plate. Nothing more.

It was only at about three in the morning that I realized I hadn't followed our golden rule. I hadn't given Dilly a receipt for her pendant. I went hot and cold. Anyone else I could have phoned and asked for one. But clearly she wanted the matter kept quiet. Perhaps the money was part of an escape fund. In which case keeping quiet was the best, if not the only thing to do. On the other hand – and here my brain raced ahead so far and so fast I had difficulty keeping up with it myself – what if it, like the ring I'd bought from her, was dodgy?