Guilt Edged

by Judith Cutler

‘Not with Mary and Paul here. By the way, they’re only taking a week for their honeymoon. And guess what they aim to do!’

  He sighed again when I mentioned the romantic evenings they planned – not, I suspected, because he yearned for them for himself but because he worried that my evenings were far less pleasurable. Then – and I could almost hear him squaring his shoulders – he said, ‘But we have an extraordinary piece of good fortune, my child. It turns out that Sir Richard Walker, the owner of Warebank Court, is an old friend of Aidan’s. We’re going as his personal guests. All of us.’

  ‘You mean—?’ I prompted stupidly.

  ‘My love, whereas last time we enjoyed an al fresco delight in the sylvan setting of his grounds, never penetrating, as mere tradespersons, beyond the scarlet rope separating the haves from the have-nots, this time we will be sleeping under his roof. I’ve no doubt we shall be waited on and butlered – or is it butled? – to pleasurable death. Though not literally, I hasten to add.’

  ‘Does this guy know a mere tradesperson will be leaping across his have-not rope a couple of times a day?’

  ‘Indeed. It seems he remembers you clearly from our last sale – you pointed out an imperfection in a famille rose plate he was about to buy. He was most impressed.’

  But, as I recall, backed out of the purchase. ‘Why didn’t he know about you and Aidan before?’ I asked bluntly.

  ‘Apparently, he did – but he only knew my first name, and, I gather, had no idea that his old public school chum should be associating so – er – intimately with someone so low in the food chain.’

  ‘Associating – how many years have you two been together?’

  ‘Since before it became acceptable for people like dear Aidan to come out, sweet one. Theatrical types like my friends have always been tolerant of homosexuality – indeed, accepting, welcoming. But other people made laws against it, and enforced them, remember.’

  All before my time, of course – but I was fuming at what I could only see as cowardice on Aidan’s part; cowardice that kept such vital information about him from even his own family.

  ‘Now, we must make sure we have appropriate togs, dear one.’

  ‘Black tie?’

  ‘I was thinking more of the heated indoor swimming pool.’

  And I was thinking that we didn’t have anything to sell.

  Since I was downstairs I raided the freezer for supper (the healthy M and S option I’d spurned a couple of weeks back), going round the house drawing curtains and setting room alarms while I waited for the microwave to ping. No wine. Not if I was going to get another couple of hours’ work out of my hands. I couldn’t manage anything requiring fine detail, of course, good though the lighting was, but at least I could unglue some of the badly repaired items people had passed on to me to restore properly. I told myself I simply had to complete at least five repairs by the end of the weekend.

  There were times, I told Tim (when, at past midnight, I persuaded my aching back – it felt like a question-mark – into bed), that it was a good job I no longer had a boyfriend to worry about. Or one in the offing, of course, I added.

  His smile was extremely smug.

  SIXTEEN

  I hadn’t intended to stop working all day Saturday, but a phone call from Robin changed my mind. He claimed my visit to Freya had lifted her spirits and hoped I might manage to pop in again. If I knew her it had been the good food, not me, that had done the job, so once again I popped into the deli for supplies. Since I hadn’t had any lunch myself I bought two baguettes this time, one – because I was hungry – filled with the sort of unpasteurized cheese I knew pregnant women were forbidden.

  ‘What are you doing in Kent? Hasn’t Morris won you back yet?’ she greeted me, her eyes full of unshed tears.

  ‘He must have found a new babysitter,’ I said lightly. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Still here, still pregnant,’ she said. ‘Did you know that that basket makes you look like Little Red Riding Hood?’

  ‘I think maybe it’s my waterproof,’ I said mildly, slipping it off and letting it drip unhygienically all over the floor.

  She looked blankly at the window. ‘I didn’t even know it was raining. Is that Coronation chicken in there?’ She tucked in, retrieving odd bits of chicken as they fell on the sheet. ‘Now, how did you get on with my team?’

  I braced myself for all sorts of awkward questions about Carwyn, but to my relief Robin, as wet as I’d been, put a streaming head round the door, rewarding me with his angelic smile. To divert Freya further, I told them about Griff’s plans for the Cotswold weekend. Robin looked really interested, but it was hard to tell with Freya. Thinking I was what Griff – and Morris, come to think of it – called de trop, I shrugged on my coat again and prepared to leave.

  ‘Sir Richard Walker?’ Freya put in – just when I thought she’d not been paying attention. ‘Name rings a bell. Is he kosher?’

  ‘Far as I know,’ I said, taken aback.

  ‘Freya, darling – he’s a friend of Aidan Thingy, Griff’s partner!’ Robin looked genuinely – but, of course, naively – shocked. ‘An aristocrat.’

  ‘There are some dodgy aristos around,’ she said, adding, looking straight at me, ‘and some have extremely dodgy mates.’

  Despite the weather, Griff had been for another walk and had even ventured into some shops. As he sliced late beans for the supper I found myself cooking, he declared that his next target was to walk to St Mildred’s for Communion the following morning. He’d got a lot to thank God for, he insisted, when Aidan growled anxieties about other people’s germs on the Communion cup, and he agreed to compromise by dipping his wafer into the cup as if it were he who had an infection.

  Admittedly, the next morning, he sat for the prayers, instead of managing his usual courtly kneel, and he was clearly glad to get back to Aidan’s after battling with a quite vicious wind. Aidan tepidly suggested I might want to stay for lunch; I said with absolute truth that I had so much work on that I simply had to get back. When I told Griff which clients were waiting he practically pushed me out of the house, but not before he’d pressed a foil pack into my hand, bulging with enough of last night’s chicken to keep me fed till Monday night.

  A warning call to Titus that Freya clearly had him and Pa in her sights wasn’t as easy as it sounds. For one thing, it isn’t exactly legal to warn someone you suspect of committing a crime that the police are on to them. So Titus had told me never, ever to implicate myself in such a thing. I had to introduce a completely innocent-sounding word into the conversation – easy enough when people natter for hours, but, of course, that wasn’t our style. Most of our conversations lasted less than a minute. So I worked out in advance what I had to say, said it, and then destroyed even the piece of paper I’d written on, burying the charred remains in the compost bin. It wasn’t just Titus’ skin I was worried about, remember, it was Pa’s – and mine and thus Griff’s, too.

  For the rest of the day, I developed a manageable routine, alternating between emails and Internet enquiries and restoration.

  By pacing myself I found I could spend much longer in my workroom, though Griff would have been furious with me for toiling till Sunday midnight. Even angrier when I started before six on Monday morning.

  When the rest of the world woke up, I contacted Geoff, our security contact.

  ‘I’m worried about tomorrow,’ I said baldly. ‘Most of the time – as I’m sure you’ve seen from the footage – we have Mrs Walker’s fiancé keeping an eye on things in the shop. Our own private muscle. Tuesdays are his golf days, and I wouldn’t want him to think he should give them up. So what can we do extra, for those times Mary’s alone in the shop?’

  ‘Ed fitted an alarm strip, didn’t he? So all she’s got to do is touch that and we check our screens here and alert whoever’s on patrol. Right? Or are you thinking something extra? One of our staff on duty? Inside or outside the premises, of course. Maybe something more sophisticated like a utility compa
ny digging up the street?’

  ‘That’s all a bit heavy, Geoff,’ I said. And the bill would be astronomical. ‘I’ll have to consult Mary and see what she thinks. Meanwhile, any news of the guy who pretended to work for you?’

  ‘We know who he is – an ex-employee, as you’ve probably already worked out.’

  ‘The logo and the ID might just have sucked me in. But a uniform? When your people always look like chance visitors? Why should he think I’d buy that?’

  ‘Because people do, sweetheart. People always fall for a uniform and an ID shoved under their noses. Think of all those dear old ladies letting fake gas men into their cottages – all smiles and cups of tea, and meanwhile Chummie there is stealing their poor little engagement rings worth tiddly-push and all the cash they’d hidden in a safe place. Safe! Ha! Robbing bastards,’ he concluded viciously.

  ‘So you know who he is but not where he is?’

  ‘Couldn’t put it better myself.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll be back?’

  ‘That’s the question you’ve been wanting to ask all along, isn’t it? Well, nothing’s shown up on my monitors, and I’ve been keeping my beadies open, as you can imagine. But the trouble with villains is that they never really change their spots, if you get my meaning. Or do I mean they’re like dogs returning to their vomit? So all I can say is that I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.’ He must have heard the snatch of my breath because he continued, ‘But there’s nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart – not with us watching over you.’

  Not while I was in fortress Tripp and Townend. But sometimes I’d have to leave it – as would Mary and Paul, doing their daily commute and generally going about their business.

  ‘And don’t worry about extra personnel tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’m on duty myself so I’ll keep my very own eye on you – how’s that?’

  ‘Couldn’t ask for more,’ I lied.

  I was just checking our emails when a text came through from Carwyn. He was working flat out, he said – no time for a trip to London. So how about that video conference?

  Excellent, I said. At least a text wouldn’t betray my huge sigh of relief. As for Helen and Brian, when I emailed them, they thought the same. Good result all round. But I still urged them in one last email not to tell anyone else. At all.

  Mary seemed perfectly happy to hear that Geoff would be keeping a special eye on her – ‘Like having a guardian angel,’ she told Paul happily. ‘And no more talk of giving up your game tomorrow – they say it’ll be mild and dry for a change. Now, Lina, Mondays are always quiet – can I contact some of your owners for you and get them to collect their pots? Safer than the post, after all. Any that can’t, Paul and I can start wrapping.’

  ‘Which reminds me,’ I said, blushing, now it came to it, at having to mention money to people who were friends, ‘Griff’s been worried about the amount of your time you’ve been devoting to us, Paul. It’s one thing you sitting in the corner writing poetry: it’s quite another us absolutely depending on you to help Mary.’ My blush deepened. ‘Would you be prepared to come on our payroll – at least until Griff returns and can start pulling his weight again?’

  His blush matched mine. ‘There honestly isn’t any need, Lina. What would the tax man say?’

  ‘If anyone could predict that, you could,’ I retorted, with a grin.

  ‘Thanks but no thanks,’ he said. ‘I appreciate the thought, but I’m happy to be wherever Mary is, and doing whatever she has to do.’ He turned to her and kissed her.

  Yucky or touching, depending on your point of view. Touching, in my book. Inspired, I headed back to another pair of devoted lovers, this time a Dresden shepherd and his shepherdess, both with damage to their headgear.

  Tapping on the office door, Paul brought me a cup of tea, setting it down beside the computer. I was hoping that the Internet would help me track down some local sales, which might well supply what we needed for our weekend away.

  He peered over my shoulder. ‘Lyminge Auctions?’

  ‘Yes: it’s still trying to establish itself, and it always attracts a really mixed bag – both stock and punters, come to think of it.’ I pointed to their virtual catalogue. ‘This is what’s coming up on Friday. And I’d better be there.’

  ‘Why? You can do it online. Or over the phone.’

  I shook my head in shame. ‘I can never get a true sense of what’s on offer just from pictures and descriptions.’

  ‘But I’ve seen people on TV paying thousands for what they can’t see – at least in the flesh, or whatever you’d call it. And you certainly don’t want to stop people doing just that for items we offer.’

  We: he really thought of himself as part of the firm, didn’t he? ‘Quite. And where would we be without them? But I couldn’t do it myself.’

  ‘But it would save you hours. And think of the petrol you waste. This calls for a rethink, Lina.’

  I was afraid he’d stay and argue. Instead, nodding home his point, he picked up the cup and saucer and headed off.

  There was another auction on at the same time the far side of Hastings. Why did everyone want to sell things on the same day? Crazy. Surely the local auctioneers could have got their heads together and avoided clashes. The Hastings one looked more promising, with some highly desirable china and some fine art. Though the guide prices were low, I suspected that the actual prices would be much higher. As I couldn’t be in two places at once, perhaps what Paul said made sense.

  He repeated his arguments over lunch.

  Mary answered for me: ‘You forget that sometimes Lina relies on a sense the Chinese long-distance bidders don’t have.’ She touched her nose. ‘Don’t you? Your divviness.’

  Paul shook his head, as he always did when my weird gift was mentioned. But then, he was an accountant.

  ‘As for your father,’ he said, out of the blue, ‘I think Mary’s already suggested we could take food parcels when he needs them. We live practically next door, half the time at least.’

  I swallowed hard. Even assuming Pa would let him in, what would he find?

  He might be an old crook, but he was my father. What if anyone else happened upon those Elizabethan books he’d left casually lying around, all with lovely unused pages at the front and back, ready for him to remove and print his lovely fake words on? I might tell myself that no one else would understand their significance, but that wasn’t the point. Pa and I had never actually spoken about his ‘work’, though he was quite happy to discuss what he did with Griff. It was time we had an adult conversation. But not yet. Maybe I wasn’t quite grown up enough. More likely he wasn’t. Meanwhile, Paul was awaiting a response.

  ‘I’d be really grateful – you know that, Mary – but he’s pretty weird, you know, and might not even open the door. Which would be a shame after you’d buggered your suspension going up the track to his wing. And he is my pa, after all,’ I finished lamely.

  ‘Quite. And ought to be thinking of securing your future, as I’ve said before.’

  I had a weird vision of Paul trying to give Pa financial advice as he handed over a jumbo pack of loo rolls. ‘As for my future, Paul,’ I said quietly but firmly, ‘it doesn’t lie with him. It lies with me. In these.’ I held out my hands.

  ‘But if your father and Griff aren’t careful, those hands won’t be living in this cottage or working for this firm.’

  I wanted to shout that it was none of his business. But, of course, since he was an accountant that was exactly what it was.

  Mary stepped in, pressing more salad on me. Who’d have thought a lettuce leaf could prevent a quarrel? But it did, or rather the little slug sharing it with me did. I don’t know which of us shrieked loudest. By the time we’d all calmed down, the moment was passed, and I dug out some of the noblesse that was supposed to oblige. ‘Tell me, have you decided where you’re going to live? You won’t be commuting between the two cottages for ever?’

  Apart from regularly popping into the shop to ma
ke sure Mary was OK, my working life continued to involve little more than watching paint dry. At least on Wednesday morning I was due to be part of the video conference. I’d never done anything like it and was half excited, half anxious. But I needn’t have been either. At the last minute – I was literally just getting dressed in what I thought might be a videoconferencing outfit – Carwyn phoned to say it had been postponed. His boss wanted him to drop everything to tackle something else. Brian and Helen had wanted it to go ahead without him, but he insisted he wanted to be part of it. How about Friday?’

  ‘Brian’s auction day.’ As I listened to his muttered swearing, I added, ‘You know what Brian will say?’ I told him without waiting for a reply: ‘I told you so. That’s what they’ll say. And they’d be right.’

  ‘Please don’t take it personally.’ He sounded quite upset.

  ‘Carwyn, as far as I’m concerned fraud is personal. Particularly when I’m dragged into it by Mrs Fielding and her darling little Puck.’

  SEVENTEEN

  More drying paint, then – not to mention, of course, drying glue. But suddenly I wanted air – maybe it was the glue fumes getting to my brain – and bolted, without telling Paul exactly where I was going, because I was off to check the two auction houses’ offerings.

  There was nothing top-end worth bidding for at the Lyminge one, but I left low bids for some items that should do well in the shop or in everyday fairs. The Hastings one was more interesting, with one or two gems tucked away in quite unexciting lots. Real gems: an eighteenth century Lowestoft bowl shoved under a twentieth century Winfield basin – Winfield being Woolworth’s range, of course. Perhaps that one would have sentimental value, as opposed to the very real value of the Lowestoft. And there were other things in the room too. I didn’t know exactly where. But there was something I had to respond to.

  At last I found a pile of china, as haphazard as any of Pa’s heaps still awaiting my attention. There were some decent Victorian plates, part of a dinner service, some twentieth century Wedgwood, and other odds and ends. And sandwiched between two very handsome late sixties Royal Worcester dessert plates was a piece of Delft. Eighteenth century. Adam and Eve. With the least bit of TLC it’d fetch upwards of three thousand pounds. I checked. The estimate for the entire lot was one to two hundred. OK, that was my Friday booked. But since other people were milling round, I simply put on my uninterested face and drifted on. Miniatures. No, I was absolutely not interested in miniatures.