Silver Guilt (2 page)

‘Not much champagne there, I'm afraid,' I said. ‘A bottle at most.'

As I dried and stowed the gloves, I pondered. The champagne flutes had been in pairs. The empty food packaging had been in pairs. Had he had a visitor?

If so, who?

One possibility was Titus Oates, of course. Titus was a dealer at the very dodgy end of the antiques market, but he'd done me a couple of good turns in the past, one of which had certainly kept Lord Elham out of jail. On the other hand Titus preferred not to make house calls, preferring to do business in pubs still without CCTV. He operated using prepaid mobile phones and no one I knew claimed to know his home address.

Another possibility was Robin Levitt, the local vicar. Robin might, twenty years ago, have modelled as a golden-haired cherub. He was still very attractive in a sweetly innocent way, but packed a good punch when required. I suspected Griff would have carried a torch for Robin, had he not had a long term partner. As it was, Griff insisted that Robin carried a torch for me, and would no doubt declare that any pastoral calls on Bossingham Hall were only made in the hope of renewing our acquaintance. I thought better of Robin than that. If anyone needed a spot of redemption it was Lord Elham. But I couldn't imagine Robin quaffing champagne and tucking into Healthy Option ready meals while he was wrestling for the old guy's soul.

There was no point in asking outright. Anything like that and Lord Elham clammed up immediately. So I humoured him. ‘OK, let's find something better to sell.'

‘Can you do your trick?'

‘It's not a trick; it's a gift.'

Since I'd gone to live with Griff he'd taught me as much as he could. The trouble was, being in care I'd been sent to a lot of schools, and I'd never bothered going to any of them very much. So even though I was desperate to pick up Griff's learning, my head often found it very hard. Funnily enough my hands didn't. If he found a chipped or cracked plate that needed restoring, he asked me.

But there was one thing Griff didn't need to teach me – couldn't have, even if he'd wanted to. How to be an antiques diviner – like a water diviner only without a twig. Somehow, don't ask me how, I knew if there was a valuable ring in a tangle of tatty old costume jewellery, or a Bow figure in a basket of assorted china.

This was why Lord Elham was so welcoming today. A shortage of champagne meant I had to pick something out to sell for him. Apart from the green tea I sometimes managed to force down him, champagne was the only thing he drank – I mean, even for breakfast, though I had persuaded him to mix it with orange juice. So he needed to sell some of the goodies crammed into his rooms. My job was to pick out small but valuable items. Then I would clean them, which was always vital, and restore them if necessary. Did I want to use my divining gift today? Probably not. All the same, it wanted to be used. For no reason I found myself drifting towards the stairs, an area I'd not much bothered with before. I didn't go up, but turned to the door on the right.

Usually Lord Elham opened doors eagerly; this time he asked reluctantly, ‘Are you sure?'

‘You haven't started forging again, have you? Because if you have, I really do not want to know. Any dealings you have with Titus are strictly your own. When you go to prison, I don't want to be an accessory to the fact. OK?' I turned on my heel, generally giving the impression that I was about to leave. Actually, I was so strongly drawn to whatever was in that room that you'd have had to drag me away, but I was learning to deceive – no, Griff had taught me a better word than that. I was learning how to
dissemble
.

Don't ask me what I expected to find when at last he unlocked and opened the door. But what I certainly did not expect to find was a cigarette stubbed out in a Victorian Worcester saucer. Not just a fag end. A spliff end. Amongst all his sins there was one Lord Elham didn't number, and that was smoking, even the legal sort of cigarette – a good job when you consider all the smoke alarms, connected direct to the fire station in Canterbury. I pretended to ignore it, my mind working overtime. Titus had given up smoking long ago, so he wouldn't get nicotine stains on the delicate work he was doing; Robin Levitt wouldn't burn money he could give away to other people.

‘Company?' I asked lightly.

He pretended not to hear – Griff called it selective deafness – but started to rummage round the piles of stuff on the floor. I wasn't drawn to any of it, but didn't want to let him down. So I headed to the table that occupied one end. Not drawn? I was positively yanked to one end. What was it? Apart from another fag end in a Spode casserole? A six-sided dish of some sort. I breathed on the edge and polished it with my sleeve, which would infuriate Griff if he spotted the mess it left. Silver. With flower sprays in the border – they were pushed up from underneath: Griff would know the term. There was some sort of inscription I couldn't read.

What I should have done was tell Lord Elham I wouldn't tell him what I'd found unless he told me who his visitor was. But Griff would have been appalled by what he'd call blackmail.

‘You really should tell your visitor not to use something like this as an ashtray,' I said severely, patting the poor casserole.

He managed to look greedy and hangdog at one and the same time. ‘I will,' he said. ‘And now we should have some lunch or I'll miss
Neighbours
.'

I
waited until Griff, who'd been looking after the shop all day, was back in the cottage before I showed him the dish, now gleaming after my efforts with a specialist silver polish. At last he switched off the spotlight and put it down on the Regency occasional table beside his favourite chair. He looked hopefully at the clock, but found it was still not time for his seven o'clock first drink. ‘You did get a receipt for this, didn't you, dear heart?'

My heart beat faster as it always did when he asked me if my paperwork was in order. It meant the item was valuable, and he wanted to protect us. ‘I always do. His copy's clipped inside the folder I gave him. And I got him to initial it and my copy too.'

He nodded approvingly, but shot a look under his eyebrows. ‘You really don't trust him one bit, do you? For all he's your father.'

‘Probably because he's my father. So what did I find today, Griff?'

‘You tell me.'

‘I can see it's silver, with some gilt round here. And I don't know any of the marks underneath, so I presume it's not British. OK so far?'

‘Very good. It's called parcel-gilt. As to the marks, I don't know them either. It's very pretty, isn't it? I'm bound to say I think he'd do better to sell it at auction.'

‘But then he'd have to pay auctioneer's commission and the tax man might notice. So he'd rather get a thousand less but keep it all – my commission apart, of course. And at ten per cent, Griff, how much am I likely to get?'

He laughed. ‘That's a very roundabout way of asking how much it'll sell for. And I really don't know. After all, it's not our usual range, dear one. Though you might be able to inveigle one of your admirers into selling it for you, especially if we can find out all about it. Speaking of finding all about things—'

When Griff changed gear with a clunk like that I knew he was going to say something I didn't want to hear.

‘That man Habgood's been on to you again, has he?' I snapped. I didn't know whether to be furious or fascinated. Arthur Habgood was a fellow antique dealer, who ran a twee outfit called Devon Cottage Antiques. He was desperate to prove that I was his granddaughter; in other words, that it was his daughter whom Lord Elham had seduced. When I told Habgood that I didn't need a grandfather, he rather sadly pointed out that he'd rather like a granddaughter. But I wanted an honest grandfather. Once I'd sold him a heavily restored plate, at an appropriately low price – only to see him triple the price and try to pass it as perfect. So I wasn't at all sure that he'd be any better as a grandfather than Lord Elham was as a father. However, since, if he was my grandfather, he'd be able to tell me all about my mother, I hadn't quite shut the door on his regular pleas.

‘He's repeated his offer to pay for a DNA test,' Griff continued, bravely, obviously afraid that Habgood would lure me down to Devon but determined to be fair. ‘It wouldn't hurt: it's only a matter of—'

‘I know what a gob swab is,' I said. ‘But it's not that sort of hurt I'm worried about.' Let him chew on that. ‘Now, who do you suggest I wheedle into selling this here dish?'

He took a deep breath, the sort he always took when he was about to suggest something I wouldn't like. I braced myself.

‘You know that Aidan's sister is something of an expert on silverware?'

‘His sister? Does that make her a Lady or an Honourable or something?' I didn't sound very enthusiastic. Aidan and I had never really liked each other, and why should we? He was Griff's long-time lover, and saw me as a horrible brat taking Griff's energy and draining his emotions. As for me, deep down I was angry that anyone should have known and loved Griff longer than I had. Illogical, I know, but all the same . . . Plus Aidan was filthy rich and spoke with several plums in his mouth.

‘No need to look so mutinous. Being born with a silver spoon in her mouth doesn't mean she hasn't worked as hard as I have for a living. Anyway, she's coming down to stay with Aidan this weekend. He's invited us both to dinner tomorrow evening.' After a long silence, he said, ‘Please say yes, my love.'

I'd rather put pins in my eyes and pull out my toenails. But I'd come to realize that for Griff's happiness, a bit of self-sacrifice was sometimes in order. Besides which, I could pick someone's brains for free. So, a bit late, I smiled, as if I'd been thinking about clothes and nothing else. ‘Do you think that Christian Dior number would be over the top?' I'd found a wonderful New Look outfit in my size that for some reason the dealer had grievously underpriced, perhaps because it was not just small, it was designed for someone short. In other words, Dior might have pinned it on to me himself, all those years ago.

‘I don't think silk is ever over the top. Just chic. But you must be careful not to overdo the accessories. You'll come?' he prompted, with a beam I found impossible to resist.

‘So long as Aidan isn't cooking.'

‘Let's hope it's Nella. She learned at finishing school.'

Not the finishing school I went to, I'll bet.

‘You may find her manner a little offhand. If you want to put it in that vocabulary book of yours, I think the best word's brusque. Don't let it put you off, my love. Or her accent, which is a good deal more Upper than either Aidan's or your father's. If you find yourself going into prickle mode, retire to Aidan's cloakroom till your hackles have dropped. Promise?'

To do Aidan justice, he'd actually booked a cab to collect and return us, so that Griff could relax what he called his self-denying audience – or something like that; I must look in my vocabulary book – and I could risk more than a sniff at a glass. If he was prepared to go to so much effort to make Griff happy, then I must try even harder to like him. It wasn't so hard with a pre-dinner glass of champagne – which was as good as Lord Elham's daily tipple, but not up to his celebration vintage stuff. He might be a rotten father, but when it came to bubbly Lord Elham took his responsibilities seriously.

Then Aidan's sister emerged from his top of the range but rarely used kitchen, flourishing a couple of plates of dinky nibbles. She could have been anything between fifty-five and seventy, iron-grey hair cut so severely it declared to the world that Lady Nella Cordingly was too busy for any colour and blow-wave nonsense. But it must have cost a bomb to make it fall like that. Her dress was also beautifully cut, but a rather unkind lime green. It screamed aloud for sheer stockings and elegant heels, but got black tights as thick and pilled as a toddler's and aggressively flat black shoes.

‘Nella, you know Griff, of course.' Aidan paused while they air-kissed, the plates tilting ominously. I couldn't stop myself from grabbing the nearest, lest the perfect little canapés – at last I remembered the proper term – landed on the perfect silk rug. ‘And this is his – ah – protégée, Lina.'

‘Indeed.' The ‘ee' sound went up and down like a hospital temperature chart, but never managed to reach the point marked ‘enthusiastic'. ‘How do you do?'

At least Griff had told me never to reply, ‘Fine, thanks,' so my ‘How do you do?' was all right. And I'd taken the plate with my left hand, so I was able to shake hands properly. Then I did the obvious thing. I held the plate so that Aidan and Griff could help themselves. What I wanted to do was take one myself, but wasn't quite sure if Nella would approve. She was still following me with her eyes, as if I were some animal in a ring and I might or might not get a rosette. Perhaps the Christian Dior really was OTT.

A silence gathered and fell. Was I doing something wrong? If only they'd start talking again.

At last she sat down, putting her plate of goodies on the table beside her and helping herself before swigging champagne. Perhaps I should put the other plate beside hers. Offer it to her first? By now I was practically weeing myself, I was so nervous.

I shot Griff a look, but he had that horrible ins . . . incrust . . . unreadable expression on his face that always made me want to scream. But I knew that screaming would certainly earn no brownie points, so, putting my plate between Griff and Aidan, I moved back to my chair and picked up my champagne flute. Just to show there was no ill-feeling, as Iris used to say, I raised it to my lips, but didn't actually sip any of it. Sober, that was the watchword.

At last Griff smiled approvingly – I'd got it right, without his needing to prompt me! – and he said, ‘Lina's been asked to sell a silver dish.'