‘Who am I supposed to be touching? The vendors, to tell them to accept offers, or the punters, to tell them to reach for their wallets?’
‘He did say you might try your hand at negotiating.’
Did that mean becoming one of the permanent staff with a regular wage? But that was a question I could hardly ask Claire.
‘So I’ve got to go and sweet-talk the owners?’
She said carefully, ‘Of course, if an opportunity comes up while you’re doing your homework… A Mr and Mrs Thorpe. Shall I phone and tell them to expect you before lunch?’
Claire deserved far more than the measly bunch of flowers Greg had seen fit to give her. She deserved a medal, even a halo. Greg knew I wouldn’t have accepted such a suggestion from him, not without clarifying my position. But I couldn’t tell Claire what I thought of the idea, not while she was still dewy-eyed with gratitude for the irises and tulips, which were probably dying already.
It would look more professional to bowl up to the Thorpes’ front door in the company Ka rather than in my Fiesta. I reasoned that I was going off my usual beat, and the cottage wasn’t the sort of property to attract the interest of Couples A, B, C and D. Or indeed Couples E and F, if and when they turned up.
Out came the Nicole Farhi viewing suit again. It still looked beautiful. The shoes, however, wouldn’t cope much longer – the polish I regularly applied was probably thicker than the leather underneath it. I cycled to the office to pick up the Ka, even though it meant touching up the slap and the hair once I’d got there. And changing. There was no way I’d expose the suit to the perils of a cycle chain. It didn’t seem to mind being folded into my backpack.
Sloe Cottage was the sort of place that Meredith Thrale assumed I’d live in, and in the same ideal location. The very sight of it, set in an old-fashioned country garden, almost made me dribble. Perhaps I would have done if the price the Thorpes wanted hadn’t already made my eyes water. However, I resolved not to mention that until I had visited every lovely room, making notes in my impressive Burford Estate Agents leather-bound folder. With a fountain pen, no less. (These touches had been my idea originally – Greg had adopted them enthusiastically, but with no concrete expressions of gratitude.)
Mr Thorpe was an upright man in his seventies, his wife – much the same age, probably – a ditzy white-blonde whose hands sawed the air every time she spoke. It was hard to work out where the power lay, however, because although he held himself well and was smartly dressed, his intermittent barks of opinion (stated as facts) suggested that not much lay between the impressively bewhiskered ears. Her giggles – which with the whirling hands must have afflicted him every day for the fifty-six years she told me they’d been married – would have been grating in a girl of seventeen, let alone a woman deep into bus pass territory.
I managed to disentangle just about enough information about the history and structure of the cottage, which was contemporaneous with the more famous place just down the lane, to convince a bored flea. So if I did have to show anyone round, I might have to spend more time explaining that the house everyone thought was Mary Arden’s wasn’t in fact hers at all, current scholarship suggesting that in fact it was a nearby property, until recently occupied by a very old lady reluctant to make any changes – a historian’s dream.
Surely they could give me something more to go on? Anything.
‘You’d like a cup of tea? Or coffee? And I made some cakes this morning. Something about making sure the house smells nice when you’re showing visitors around?’
I didn’t have the heart to point out that I wasn’t a punter, but accepted the tea as an opportunity to speak to Mr Thorpe on his own while Mrs Thorpe fussed audibly in the kitchen. It transpired that Mr Thorpe had been in the army, and had reached, as he put it, his majority. Mrs Thorpe had accompanied him all over the world, moving some twenty-three times in twenty-five years. Apparently they never threw away the original packaging of any large item, so they’d be ready to move at the drop of a cheque. She could speak half a dozen languages, most of them, however, he said with a slight smile, in the imperative. I couldn’t square the idea of makers and maintainers of world peace with the two loquacious old people in front of me.
‘He’s never been telling you about the ghost, has he? Silly old duffer,’ she said, without waiting for an answer. She plonked a tray with far less elegance than I’d achieved with Allyn’s on what looked like an antique table. ‘He’s always rabbiting on about things people don’t want to hear.’
‘Not that cake, Isobel, I told you to bring biscuits,’ he declared simultaneously.
‘Ghost?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘We have this Elizabethan lady—’
‘Jacobean, she can never tell the difference—’
‘Only I don’t think she’s a lady, if you know what I mean.’
‘How can you tell? It’s not as if she holds her knife like a pen, woman.’
‘Knife?’ I croaked.
‘Not that sort of knife anyway, not cutlery. More like that.’ She pointed at a poniard in a small painting on one side of the window. The dagger was in the hand of a young man with a spade beard and a ruff. The painting was too filthy and ill-lit to see anything of his clothes, so I had no idea what period he came from. I didn’t do antiques, but I had a friend who did, and I reckon he’d have loved to get his hands on it, if to do no more than hold it up to the light and recommend restoration.
‘So you’ve got the ghost of a woman who carries a poniard,’ I said.
‘You must think he’s off his head. Ghosts, indeed.’
‘But have you seen it too?’
‘Of course she has. She has a bit of a weep and a wail and—’
‘Not me, the lady. Fancy you calling it a poniard. It’s not a thing we girls know about.’
‘I told you I knew her. I saw your Beatrice, madam…’ He offered a most courtly bow.
‘I didn’t realise you’d left the stage, Lady Vena.’
‘I’m not a lady. Not in that sense,’ I added swiftly. My head was reeling, what with their double act and their ghost. A resident ghost! I could sell this place in ten minutes, with a bit of editing and embellishment to the story.
Provided I could get them out of the house while I did it. ‘It’s about time you were. Made a lady,’ she clarified.
Music to my ears.
He nodded. ‘All the other old actresses seem to be. Or dames.’
Old!
‘Mostly dames,’ she corrected him. ‘I can’t think of any ladies. Not that you shouldn’t be. Not with your lovely voice. We had a record of your reading the sonnets with Whatshisname. And didn’t you do that advert?’
‘No, she wouldn’t stoop to advertising.’
‘They were wonderful chocolates,’ I said, to deflect them from the other voice-over. Just to make sure, I added, ‘And you made that equally delicious-looking cake yourself, Mrs Thorpe?’
‘Oh, and I haven’t even offered you a slice, and that tea will be cold.’
‘That tea’s coffee,’ Mr Thorpe declared.
It was. And it was cold.
During the subsequent discussion about whether it should be reheated, I managed to raise the question of price. ‘Most vendors these days set a target figure,’ I said, ‘but then consider any offers in the light of the current market and accept one on the basis of the estate agent’s advice, taking in the would-be purchaser’s own situation, the financial climate, other properties in the area and so on. Have you had any thoughts on the matter?’ I asked casually.
‘A price is a price, Dame Vena. I’ve only asked what I want to get. So let’s have no talk of offers if you please.’
‘We need the money, you see, to pay for our bungalow,’ she almost pleaded. ‘We wouldn’t get a mortgage at our age. We need to buy outright. And Henry thinks that this price will cover all the costs of removal.’
‘And stamp duty and the agency fee,’ I murmured.
‘A fee? We
have to pay a fee?’
‘Didn’t my brother explain? Mr Burford?’
‘He said something about a sliding scale.’
‘The higher the price the higher the fee. We usually negotiate that before we put the property on the market.’
‘He did say something… But what if we don’t get what we need?’ she wailed, genuinely upset.
‘You could always sell something. That picture – have you had it long?’ I pointed to the young man.
He blinked. ‘It was here when we bought the place. As a matter of fact, one of the people looking round offered to buy it. He said it was worth a couple of hundred.’
‘It might be worth more than that,’ I said carefully. ‘Whatever you do, promise me you won’t sell it without getting it properly valued.’
He spread his hands and winced. Given the poor arthritic knuckles it was hardly surprising. ‘Who could I trust to do that?’
I didn’t do altruism, any more than my brother did. Yet I heard myself saying, truthfully, ‘I know someone who’s as honest as the day is long. Do you want me to take it to him?’
‘It’d be safer than leaving it there with all these people traipsing round the place,’ he said.
‘What he means is we’d be ever so grateful.’ With a surprisingly decisive action, she removed it from the wall.
‘Don’t be grateful until we know what it is. Meanwhile, it would be helpful if we can cover that patch.’ I pointed to where the picture had obviously hung for a very long time.
‘We’ve got plenty in the loft. I’ll send him up for one.’
‘Anything like this?’ I asked carefully.
‘You mean as old as this?’ he asked.
She surprised me. ‘Or the same topic?’
I hate being nonplussed, but wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘Anything,’ I hazarded, ‘that wouldn’t attract unwelcome attention.’
‘But if someone made us a good offer, that might be welcome attention.’
‘She doesn’t think two hundred pounds is a good offer, woman!’ he yelled.
‘It might well be,’ I said. ‘But it would be good to make sure. There are a lot of dishonest folk about.’
‘And how would we know this friend of yours is honest?’ he demanded.
‘I only thought he might value it, not that he’d offer to buy it.’
‘That wouldn’t do any harm, would it?’ she temporised. ‘Now what are you doing?’
‘Going up into the loft. If she’s an expert, she might want to see some of the others. I’ll pass them down to you, if you like,’ he told me.
I followed. It was clear from the bottom of the loft ladder that there was an immense amount of stuff up there. I could hear him swearing as he rooted around, but within a few minutes I was holding half a dozen filthy frames. And what did they hold? The first was a badly foxed Victorian print of And When Did You Last See Your Father? That would do nicely as a replacement. As for the others, they were all apparently old oil paintings, each as filthy as the next. Mr Thorpe came gingerly down the ladder, and then started to bustle about in the master bedroom, emerging with what looked like a pair of underpants.
He grabbed one of the paintings.
‘Look what you’re doing, man!’ Mrs Thorpe expostulated – rightly, in my book.
‘She can have a go.’ He offered both painting and underpants to me.
I took the former, waving the latter away. ‘We mustn’t do anything to harm the surface. My friend will know how to deal with them.’ I started down the stairs, wondering what all this was doing to the Nicole Farhi.
‘There are some more behind the cold-water tank,’ he called.
‘Why not leave them there? They won’t come to any harm, will they? But you must absolutely promise me not to tell anyone they’re there. In the meantime, let’s hang this one where the young man came from, and no one’ll know, will they?’
He followed me, staring critically at the replacement, which contrived not to look too naff. ‘Maybe not. Now what are you writing?’
‘A receipt, Mr Thorpe. I wouldn’t take away anything like this without you having proof who’s got it, would I?’
They shook their heads in synch.
So Greg’s leather pad and Waterman fountain pen came in useful after all.
As for the pictures, I had to get them to Ambrose Beech’s shop in Kenilworth. I phoned ahead to make sure he was in.
‘Vena, my love, I’m always closed on Mondays! It’s the weekend rush. It’s so draining.’
I didn’t do feigned exhaustion. ‘I’ve got half a dozen very old paintings I need you to look at. Pronto.’
‘How old is very old?’ His voice shed twenty years.
‘Possibly Elizabethan. From a cottage within spitting distance of Mary Arden’s house.’
‘In that case I’ll put the kettle on,’ he declared.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘But Vee, you could have parked in the little yard behind the shop,’ Ambrose expostulated, as I presented myself at the front door of his cottage, just across the road from his antique shop. He was immaculate in the sort of linen jacket that looks good even if it’s creased to death, and beautifully cut jeans. I was hot and visibly sweating under my burden, which was swathed in one of the Thorpes’ bin liners and a newly acquired Sainsbury’s bag-for-life carrier.
I shrugged. Should I confess to him my increasing fear of being tailed? I’d parked the Ka in the pay and display at the side of Sainsbury’s, and dived into the store one way, and out the other. Even though I was sure no one had followed me to the Thorpes’ cottage or from it, even though a variety of cars had filled my rear-view mirror, and even though I’d taken the most devious route possible to Kenilworth, I still would not risk drawing the attention of any of those sinister couples to an innocent old friend. Innocent in one sense, anyway.
‘I’ll explain later,’ I said. ‘But I’m dying for a cup of tea.’
Ambrose led the way through the cottage – more a nineteenth-century artisan’s house, really – into the sensitively extended kitchen. He took the bundle of pictures from me, laying it gently on the scrubbed pine table.
‘Your whim is my command,’ he declared, holding my filthy hands away from him, but kissing me very convincingly nonetheless. Like me he’d started out on the stage, but had realised very soon there was more money to be made elsewhere. ‘I have a single-estate sword pekoe just dying to be tasted.’
‘Have you indeed?’ I asked with barely concealed irony. It might have been Ambrose who put me on to green tea, but I couldn’t quite share his passion. Not for tea, anyway. All the same, he was a kind man and I didn’t wish to mock him, so I added, with fairly genuine interest, ‘And where does it come from?’
‘You might be able to tell me,’ he said kindly, filling his kettle and switching it on. Then he reached for his favourite china, setting it on a tray already covered with a linen napkin.
The kettle came to the boil, but he didn’t pour the water on to the tea. ‘We have to wait for it to cook slightly,’ he said. ‘Down to 80C for preference. So we can unwrap the pictures first, can’t we?’
‘They’re filthy,’ I warned him.
‘Plenty of water in the tap and soap in the dish,’ he said with a smile to die for. Camp though he might be, he was not, on the evidence I had seen, gay. ‘Though that gorgeous suit might never be the same again. I hope you’ve got a good dry-cleaner. Gently does it.’ He unwrapped layers of the Daily Telegraph. ‘Oh, the poor things.’ He blew on the one in his hands, raising a distinct cloud of dust. ‘Is this the one that caught your eye?’
‘Yes. I’ve not had a proper look at the others. They may all turn out to be geese, of course.’
‘But this is almost certainly a swan.’
‘As one of the punters whom he’d shown round the house realised. He offered my client two hundred pounds.’
‘It might be worth no more than that, of course. However…’ He blew again, and then laid it dow
n almost tenderly. He slipped out of the kitchen, returning with what looked like a make-up brush, a bright light and a magnifying glass. More dust swirled into the air, golden and dancing. ‘Well, he’s not Shakespeare, is he?’
‘I suppose that would have been too much of a miracle.’
‘Can you imagine Shakespeare scholars over the years knocking on the doors of all the cottages in the village in search of memorabilia and not being offered this if it were him?’
‘Do you know who it might be?’
‘Are you hoping for Wriothesley? He’d got the same high forehead.’
‘What about Robert Dudley? Wilmcote’s not so very far from Kenilworth, after all.’ Despite Amy Robsart’s fall, I’d always had a bit of a soft spot for Elizabeth’s favourite.
‘Robert Devereux had one, too. Perhaps they were all just suffering from receding hairlines.’ He touched his own widow’s peak, more exaggerated than it was last year. ‘Or maybe they were fashion items, like the pendulous noses and double chins in Lely court portraits.’
He put it down, and undid another. ‘Painted on wood, eh? But I’m not so sure… What we ought to do, Vee, is get these properly cleaned. Then we can tell how much of a nest egg your clients are sitting on.’
My heart sank. ‘I had hoped that you’d be able to give the Thorpes an estimate yourself based on what you see now. Cleaning will cost money. What if the egg turns out to be addled?’
‘If you don’t speculate you can’t accumulate, as my grandfather used to say.’
‘That’s fine if you’ve got the money to speculate with in the first place.’ I spoke with the passion of experience. I added quickly, ‘They’ve put their cottage on the market for way above value and have turned down offers because they’ve worked out to the last penny how much they need for the move they want to make. And that was before I reminded them of agents’ fees and stamp duty. I think I might be able to get better offers, but not that much better. And I couldn’t look them in the eye if I actually lost money for them.’ I patted the pictures.
‘Let’s have our cup of tea and then consider what’s best.’
Staging Death Page 12