Stolen

by Susan Lewis

  ‘You know, I think Dad did get in touch with the people, but they didn’t want it back so he decided to hang on to it. You know how he likes to tinker about with things. Don’t worry, it doesn’t work, so he’s not in danger of shooting himself.’

  ‘That’s not the point. What if it was used in some sort of crime? I think you should take it to the police.’

  Daphne rolled her eyes. ‘You’re definitely my daughter,’ she teased, ‘finding a drama in everything, but OK, you can take it if you want to … Is that your mobile ringing?’

  ‘Yes it is,’ Lucy replied, and dropping the gun she quickly hiked the phone out of her back pocket. ‘At last,’ she cheered, seeing it was Ben. ‘Are you there now?’ she cried, clicking on. ‘Are you OK?’

  Laughing, he said, ‘Hey Mum. Yeah, I’m here and everything’s cool. Seriously hot, but cool. How are you? Missing me?’

  ‘No, not a bit.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  Her heart was singing. ‘How was the flight?’

  ‘Long and cramped, but at least we made it. We’ve checked into this hostel not far from the airport which seems pretty decent. There are loads of students around, American, Australian, British … Anyway, I take it you’re at Granny’s now?’

  ‘Yes, we arrived yesterday afternoon, and I still haven’t forgiven you for sneaking out …’

  ‘Cut me a break, Mum! I’d still be there if I hadn’t. So how’s my baby sister? Still kicking up?’

  ‘Let’s say she hasn’t been quite as bad as I feared. She’s going to miss you though. We all are, and remember if you want to come home …’

  ‘Mu-um!’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  ‘How are Granny and Grandpa?’

  ‘They’re both well. Grandpa’s down at the cottage and Granny’s here making breakfast. Would you like to say hello?’

  ‘Love to, Mum, but I can’t afford to stay on the line. Just thought you’d like to hear my voice.’

  ‘Find an Internet cafe and email me.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘I’ll send Dad your love.’

  ‘Tell him I’ll text him. And Hanna.’

  ‘Love you.’

  ‘Yeah. Got it. Bye then,’ and a moment later the invisible thread that had tied them so briefly was gone.

  Daphne was smiling as she turned round to start serving the breakfast. ‘Well, at least we know he’s still in one piece,’ she commented wryly. ‘I wasn’t sure we’d hear from him this soon.’

  Lucy’s eyes were flooding with tears.

  ‘Oh, come on now,’ her mother chided. ‘He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself and the last thing he’s going to want is you getting upset every time he’s in touch.’

  ‘I know, I know, it’s just the strangeness of not having him around. It’s like everything’s changing and I don’t know why, because being here is absolutely what I want, but suddenly I’m feeling ridiculously insecure.’

  Daphne started to look worried.

  ‘But I’ll get over it,’ Lucy assured her hastily.

  ‘Of course you will,’ Daphne agreed. ‘It might have been easier if Joe had come with you, but I know how much his work means to him.’

  Wondering how her parents always managed to be so understanding about Joe’s ‘work’, when she had such a struggle with it herself, Lucy decided it was best to change the subject now. Confiding any sort of doubts or innermost thoughts to her mother had never been wise, since Daphne always seemed to take everything to heart and would then fret about it in a way that seemed to make it all her fault.

  How difficult would it be for her, Lucy wondered, if she were to confess that the nightmare that used to plague her as a child had staged an unexpected and unwelcome return last night. For years she hadn’t even thought about it, but then, out of the blue, the woman had started screaming again, screaming and screaming … Instinctively she knew it was her mother, but she looked different and terrified and all the time she was screaming she kept slipping further and further away, as though she was being sucked into a long dark tunnel.

  When Lucy was young the nightmare used to distress her so deeply that she’d been almost impossible to console. This morning, being so much older and less easily fazed by the subconscious, she was managing to shrug it off much like any other dream. However, as she’d discovered a moment ago, lurking beneath all the heady emotions of excitement, joy and anticipation, an odd sense of insecurity and even loneliness was trying to stake its claim.

  Chapter Seven

  THOUGH SARAH BARELY knew Lucy Winters, this was the first time since she’d left Paris that she’d felt not only brave enough, but even eager to make a new friend. She wondered why Lucy, when there were so many other women in the area that she could have tried to connect with. There were even a few she’d known since childhood, but for some reason she’d remained buried in her shell until these past few days. Was it Lucy’s newness to the village that was making her feel more sure of herself? Or had her instincts picked up on something about Lucy the first time they’d met that she’d only begun to recognise now? She had no clear idea, she only knew that she had a very good feeling about Lucy and wasn’t even going to try to imagine them not getting along.

  Annie had worked a miracle with her hair. Sarah had never worn it short before, and couldn’t imagine why not now, when the cute, boyish cut emphasised her chocolate-brown eyes and shapely mouth in a way that made her look like a young Twiggy, Annie had declared. Sarah had even laughed with delight, a sound she hadn’t heard emanating with such enthusiasm from her own lips for way too long. She’d tried to pay Annie, of course, but Annie wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘It’s worth it just to see you smiling like that,’ Annie had clucked away happily. ‘All you need now is a bit of make-up and some decent clobber and all the blokes will be after you.’

  Though that was the last thing Sarah wanted, or needed, she hadn’t been churlish enough to say so, instead she’d thanked Annie with all the warmth she could muster and had promised to call and make another appointment soon, which she absolutely insisted on paying for.

  It was amazing how uplifting a new haircut and the possibility of a new friend was proving, she was thinking as she flitted about the kitchen putting biscuits on a plate and coffee into a pot. She hadn’t dared to feel this optimistic since the day her world had been shattered by a speeding truck. She wouldn’t think about that now though, she didn’t want the pain to anchor her soaring spirits back to the loss at her core. She wanted to be the person she used to be, if only for the next hour or so, effervescent, energetic, even quite extrovert at times and definitely brave.

  Twenty minutes later she was feeling wonderfully like that person, as she and Lucy sat on the hastily weeded terrace drinking coffee and absorbing the sun that was turning the spectacular view across the fields to the estuary into a fairy-tale vision. To Sarah’s mind, at least, they seemed so comfortable with each other it was as though this was something they did every day.

  ‘I’m starting to feel as if I’ve died and gone to heaven,’ Lucy sighed, shading her eyes as she watched a bundle of sheep milling around the gate to the next field. ‘It must have been lovely growing up here with your brother and sister and the village right on the doorstep.’

  Sarah smiled. ‘I suppose it was,’ she agreed, ‘but like most children, we took it rather for granted.’

  ‘Has the house been in your family for long?’

  ‘Mm, quite. As far back as my great-great-grandfather, anyway.’

  Lucy looked impressed. ‘Are any of your grandparents still alive?’

  ‘No, the ones on my dad’s side died before I was born, and the others have gone now too. How about yours, are they still around?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘No, sadly. My grandmother on my dad’s side died when I was about four, I think, so I don’t have many memories of her. Everyone says I’m like her though, lanky, olive-skinned, too much to say for myself … We’ve always
referred to her as racy Granny because she used to sing at the local pubs in Carlyle, and she actually got a divorce.’

  Sarah covered her mouth in mock horror. ‘And no brothers or sisters?’ she smiled.

  Lucy sighed. ‘No. Mum was already getting on a bit when she finally managed to have me – she’d had about eight miscarriages before that – and my birth wasn’t easy so the doctors advised her not to have any more. Before I was old enough to understand I used to beg her to make me a brother, so I’d have someone to stick up for me when the other children were mean.’

  Sarah felt a pang of sympathy. ‘Were you bullied?’ she asked.

  Lucy shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t go quite that far, but we moved around such a lot thanks to my dad’s job that I was always the new girl in class, the awkward one who didn’t fit in, and then by the time I did we were off again. The worst part of it was having parents who were so much older than everyone else’s. I used to get really upset when the other kids called them names, and then, typically of a child, I would go home and take it out on them.’

  ‘That’s so sad,’ Sarah commented, hating to think of any child being pushed around or spurned by the others, and knowing how hurt she’d have been if anyone had ever said cruel things about her mum and dad.

  Lucy smiled. ‘Enough about that,’ she said. ‘Tell me about your family. Are you close, all of you?’

  Sarah felt herself warming. ‘Yes, I guess you could say that,’ she replied, ‘even though we’re all in different countries now. My brother and I get along particularly well. We both lived in Paris until quite recently – he’s still there. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what I’d have done without him over the last few years.’ Her eyes went anxiously to Lucy. ‘I don’t know if anyone’s told you about what happened …’

  ‘Yes, Mum did,’ Lucy interrupted softly, ‘and I’m so sorry.’

  Sarah swallowed. ‘Thank you, but I only asked in case I … Well, I tried to hold it together, but after my marriage broke up there didn’t seem to be anything to hold on to any more.’

  ‘Apart from your family?’

  Sarah nodded. ‘Mummy’s been wonderful about letting me stay here and not nagging me to get on with my life the way she’d probably like to, and probably ought. My sister doesn’t hold back much, but I know she means well.’

  Lucy’s eyes were full of compassion as she said, ‘Heartbreak doesn’t generally recognise time.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Sarah sighed, as she gazed blankly out at the view. ‘I keep telling myself I should be more like my sister: she’s so much tougher than the rest of us, knows how to overcome all her problems, she even sets goals for where she should be with them and by when. What’s more, she usually achieves it. Mum and I are nothing like that. We go to pieces and then struggle to put ourselves back together in any way we can, and heaven only knows how long it might take us.’

  ‘Then you’re like most of the rest of us,’ Lucy said comfortingly.

  Sarah smiled her gratitude. ‘Simon’s a typical man, of course,’ she went on, ‘keeping everything bottled up, and being strong for us all but we all knew how hard it hit him to lose Daddy. They were very close.’ She gave a gentle laugh. ‘Everyone used to say that I was Daddy’s favourite, but Daddy wouldn’t hear any of our nonsense, as he called it. He said he loved us all equally, and I suppose he did. We adored him. He was just that kind of man, you couldn’t help it.’

  Lucy was watching her profile and feeling the aura of sadness around her as though it were a cocoon. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than losing a child, but to have lost such a beloved father at the same time, and then for her husband to go and make another woman pregnant … It was no wonder Sarah had buried herself away down here – she must be terrified of what the world might throw at her next.

  Glancing at her, Sarah forced a smile. ‘I thought your daughter might come with you today,’ she said. ‘Is she excited about getting involved in the business?’

  Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘I’m afraid the reverse would be true,’ she replied. ‘She thinks we’ve come to the end of the world with no U-turn.’

  Sarah chuckled. ‘What about your son? Ben, is that right? Is he going to join you?’

  Feeling a quick tightening of anxiety inside her, Lucy said, ‘He’s just started his gap year, so I’m having to deal with the fact that I’ve no idea when I might see him again.’ Suddenly realising what she’d said, she felt herself starting to colour. ‘I’m sorry, I …’

  ‘No, don’t apologise. I understand completely how you feel. I’d be the same in your shoes. How old is he now?’

  ‘Eighteen.’ She felt she should get off the subject of her children now, since it had to be unimaginably painful for Sarah knowing that she’d never see her son grow up.

  ‘Your mother said Joe’s not coming to help with the business,’ Sarah commented.

  Lucy’s smile was wry. ‘I know you won’t have forgotten about the wardrobe incident,’ she said, ‘so I’m not entirely sure that help, as we know it, would have been on his agenda. I think we … Is that your phone ringing inside?’

  Sarah glanced at her watch as she stood up. ‘It’ll be Mummy,’ she said. ‘She generally calls around this time. I’ll just tell her you’re here, and that I’ll ring back later, then maybe we should make a start on working out whether or not my family bric-a-brac is of any interest to you.’

  Getting up too, Lucy followed her inside and rinsed the cups as Sarah said to her mother, ‘I don’t want you to get overexcited, but I have company this morning.’ She turned and gave Lucy a wink. ‘You’re right, it is Lucy from the auction. Yes, I’d forgotten I told you last night … No I haven’t been into the attic, or the cellar. You said yourself, there’s enough stuff in the house that we ought to get rid of, without going rummaging around … Don’t worry, it’s there, ready to go, but God knows who’d want to buy it.’ She laughed, then said, ‘OK, I’ll speak to you later. Love to Sheila, and to you.’

  As she rang off Lucy finished drying the cups, and said, ‘OK, so lead me to it.’

  ‘It’s all laid out in here,’ Sarah told her, starting through to the dining room. ‘There’s everything from Grandma’s false teeth – joke – to an old portrait of my mother that she simply detests. I’m sure if I don’t sell it she’ll pay me to burn it.’

  Laughing, Lucy followed her into a large oak-panelled room where the dining table was covered in sheets to protect it from the collection of wares awaiting her inspection.

  ‘You might have guessed that I’m doing this because I need the money,’ Sarah confessed as Lucy took out her camera and laptop. ‘I’m not completely broke, but I’d like to try and fix this place up a bit and I certainly don’t have enough for that.’ She wouldn’t mention anything about a job just yet, it would be far too presumptuous.

  ‘Then we’d better get you the best prices we can,’ Lucy declared, and after opening up a fresh screen on her laptop ready to make a list she started to look everything over. ‘Let me see, what’s this?’ she said, picking up a large china bowl with garlands of roses around the rim and a handle on the side. ‘It’s either a jumbo tea cup …’

  Sarah gave a choke of laughter. ‘… or a chamber pot,’ she finished.

  Lucy gave her a wink. ‘Do we have a date on it? Or a manufacturer?’ she asked, turning it over. ‘No, it doesn’t seem as though anyone’s been brave enough to put their name to it, but I do believe we have a matching sponge dish and toilet pail to make up the set. Thirty quid the lot?’

  ‘Done,’ Sarah agreed.

  Lucy typed in the details, allocated a number, then said, ‘OK. Next?’

  ‘And here we have,’ Sarah said, raising the next item as though she were presenting the prizes on a game show, ‘a shiny pair of candlesticks in silver plate with heavy base and historical residue of wax dating from circa 1992.’

  Dutifully photographing them, then entering the details, Lucy gave them a more careful once-over and said, ‘Starting
price, twenty to thirty pounds the pair?’

  ‘Done,’ and putting them aside Sarah lifted a painting from the floor. ‘This little chef-d’oeuvre is a portrait of the highly disreputable Bancroft family featuring Douglas Bancroft himself …’

  ‘But you can’t get rid of that,’ Lucy protested.

  ‘Believe me, we have dozens of family portraits, and this one was done by the same dreadful artist who did the one of my mother, which is around here somewhere. We only kept them because he was a distant cousin of sorts, but he’s popped his clogs now so we can let them go. Fiver?’

  Lucy looked dubious. ‘Ten,’ she decided, feeling sure that Sarah’s father and his siblings didn’t really have heads that were far too small for their bodies. ‘Next?’

  ‘Aha, here we have a China candle snuffer in the form of a nun holding a prayer book.’

  Lucy blinked.

  ‘Before you ask, no idea where it came from, and no we aren’t Catholic, but Daddy received some pretty wild gifts in his time and this doesn’t even begin to do it. What do you think? It’s Royal Worcester, so it might fetch a decent price.’

  Lucy treated it to her inexpert eye. ‘Fifty quid, but I’d like to run a comparison before we commit.’

  ‘You mean with similar items you’ve sold in the past?’

  ‘Exactly. What’s that?’

  Sarah turned to look where she was pointing. ‘Ah, now that,’ she declared mysteriously, ‘is not what you might think it is.’

  Lucy was all intrigue. ‘Not difficult, as I don’t have the faintest idea.’

  ‘Well, if you look closely you will see that it is a rather ghastly oversized weathervane with, my mother assures me, nineteenth-century figures of a lady and gentleman in eighteenth-century costume.’

  ‘Fantastic. What lives they must have led. How much, do you think?’

  Sarah looked lost. ‘Tenner?’

  Lucy wrinkled her nose.

  ‘OK, five.’

  ‘I was thinking forty,’ Lucy said.