Guilt Edged

by Judith Cutler

  ‘I have, and very grand it is too. Whether I’ll ever find it again without assistance I doubt. I meant to leave a trail of breadcrumbs, but someone would have hoovered them up straight away. What have I said?’

  I pulled a face. ‘A building like this must cost an arm and a leg to maintain. Yet it’s not rented out for weddings or conferences or any other money-spinner except these fairs. What I’ve seen of the grounds suggests they’re immaculate. You mentioned a swimming pool. There are staff wherever you look – not to mention Charles the secretary. Tell me, how does Sir Richard pay for it all?’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Before Griff could answer, he had another crony to greet and I another client. It was like that for the rest of the day. I was worried that he was overdoing it, but amazed when he stood up and announced it was time for his walk.

  ‘Every day, without fail, was what I resolved, and while I’m having the time of my life I mustn’t stop,’ he declared. ‘Besides which, I wish to explore the grounds.’

  This from a man who only ever walked from A to B because he had to! Since I was cradling three thousand pounds’ worth of porcelain at the time, all I could do was smile and tell him to take care of himself.

  By the end of the afternoon, we’d made a decent profit. I was wondering what to do about stowing the stock back into boxes, when a posse of men in uniforms turned up. It seemed we could leave everything as it was: it was to be under the eyes of security staff all night. Someone – Sir Richard or Charles – clearly had an eye for detail. I was even more impressed when Charles appeared from nowhere to bid goodbye to the other stallholders and invite me to afternoon tea.

  And then dinner. Did posh folk never stop eating? At least I had time to shower and change before Griff and I presented ourselves for sherry before dinner. Sherry? I felt as if I’d been sucked back into the era of Downton Abbey. And as terrified as a tweeny would have been in those days. But I had to be part of the conversation, not an underpaid onlooker.

  Fortunately, I’d been partnered (partnered! It was as formal as that!) with Charles for dinner itself. Might Pa be a conversational asset? No, I couldn’t make mock of him, not to a stranger. If not him, what or who? I couldn’t leave everything to Charles, who seemed to have developed a talent for small-talk at the same time as he cut his milk-teeth.

  At last I recalled what Griff had said about Millfield and cricket. And won the jackpot. Suddenly, he was a young man with passions, instead of politeness, and I heard all about how he’d wanted to be a professional batsman until he’d injured his eye when a ball had somehow squeezed between his helmet and the protective visor. It was only after a few uncomplimentary comments about several well-known players that he remembered where he was and came to a sudden halt. ‘But you can’t be interested in all this,’ he said apologetically.

  But I could be and I was, and soon we were talking about matches I’d watched with Griff on TV: he’d actually been to some of them.

  It was only when Griff caught my eye that I realized I should have been giving some attention to the man the other side of me, allowing Charles to speak to the woman beside him. I grimaced back. At least, thanks to him, I hadn’t got the cutlery wrong as well as the etiquette.

  At some point on Saturday Charles popped into a heaving hall to ask me if I fancied going to the village hop after dinner. In a lowered voice, he told me he’d cleared it with Sir Richard, who thought it was an excellent idea. As did Griff, of course. There was only one problem. I had work clothes and smart clothes. Nothing remotely village hoppy. Cinderella had nothing on me. But at least I had a fairy godfather.

  ‘If you think I can’t take over from you for an hour while you nip into Cirencester or even Cheltenham you are sadly mistaken,’ Griff declared. ‘Two hours! Whatever you need. I’m sure that Titus will always take over if I can’t cope.’

  And I had a terrific time at the dance. OK, everything about it was amateurish. The hall was badly lit and the floor wasn’t sprung and the sound was like a bad radio in a bathroom. But Charles and I danced pretty well non-stop till time was called at the rural witching hour of eleven. I couldn’t think of anyone I knew who would have thought it was fun to rock and jive all night in the slightly fussy ballroom version of the dances that Griff had taught me – and that someone had clearly taught Charles. We had no breath to talk – and wouldn’t have been able to hear each other anyway. Which, considering how much I liked his voice, was probably a good thing.

  ‘It seems, dear one, that you may have to sing for your supper tonight,’ Griff murmured over breakfast on Sunday morning. We were the first ones down and had been invited by a maid, no less, to help ourselves while she went in search of the green tea Griff had asked for. ‘It’s regrettable, but as host I suppose he does have some claims.’

  ‘Like having me suss out a few items to sell on commission so he can pay his bills, like I do for Pa?’ I asked ironically.

  ‘Quite,’ he said with a twinkle. ‘You weren’t very late last night,’ he added, sounding disappointed.

  ‘Chucking out time is eleven in the country,’ I said. ‘Actually, it’s half-past ten in Bredeham, isn’t it? So we were gay to dissipation.’ I wished I could remember which book I was quoting but my brain was too furry this morning. ‘What’s Sir Richard want me to look at, anyway?’

  ‘Who knows? Miniatures?’ He threw me an impish glance as he helped himself to smoked salmon and capers from the sideboard. Wholemeal bread and no butter. He was taking this health business seriously, thank goodness.

  ‘But I don’t know anything about miniatures! Anything at all. I even let Mary take that book back to the library,’ I wailed.

  ‘I dare say you’ll find he’s got several learned tomes on the subject. But I digress. I was hoping you and Charles … might have established a little rapport, shall we say?’

  ‘And how do you suppose Aidan would have reacted if that rapport had extended to a quick shag under his mate’s roof? It would have confirmed all his worst opinions about me.’ But I mustn’t let the merest hint of wistfulness creep into my voice. ‘Roll on those dance classes you were talking about.’

  After all, it had been the dancing that was fun – hadn’t it? Not that Charles wasn’t a great person to be with. We had such good fun, though, and nice friendly sex would have been a lovely but horribly complicating way to round off the evening. If we lived closer I might even have been smitten, but I’d had more than enough of long-distance love affairs.

  Business was very slow till almost lunchtime, so at last I had a chance to gossip in a very Griff-like way with some of my fellow dealers. None of them would have been in the market for Beswick horses, of whatever colour, but some of them ought to be warned about the dodgy Ruskin ware. One of them was Harvey Sanditon. Since the rug woman was busy, I drifted over to him, to be greeted with a flamboyant double-air kiss.

  ‘Never think that my eyes have left you for a second!’ he declared for all the room to hear. ‘But you’ve been perpetually surrounded by attractive young men, dancing attendance on you and plying you with lobster patties and champagne and goodness knows what else.’

  ‘One, and he was paid to,’ I said with a theatrical sigh. I added, more quietly, ‘Harvey, I wanted to thank you for the wonderful flowers you sent Griff. And the work you’ve put my way.’

  I could hardly hear his next words: ‘I meant the flowers for you, Lina – you know that, don’t you? I was so afraid – for you both, of course. As for the work – I’d no idea how you’d be placed financially if anything went wrong and …’ He took my hand and kissed it.

  ‘Thank you.’ The moment lengthened. He’d loved me, I didn’t doubt it, and I suspected he still did. No doubt his wife suspected he still did. I continued more briskly, ‘Now, I know it’s only a little thing, in return for what you’ve done for me – but something’s going on you should know about …’ I withdrew my hand.

  He listened intently, as he always did when money and his reputation were invo
lved. At last he stroked his chin. ‘I do have a terrible suspicion … An art potter in Totnes who was very much down on his uppers has suddenly shown every sign of increased prosperity … But the South East – not his patch at all …’

  Totnes: that might explain why the guy who sold a horse to the dealer at Folkestone had a West Country accent.

  The rug lady finished her transaction and headed possessively towards us. He must have noticed – in fact, turning towards me, he raised an ironic eyebrow – but he kissed my hand again. ‘If ever I can help, in whatever way, you only have to ask. You know that.’ And he turned and embraced the rug lady as if all he’d ever wanted to do was inhale more of her quite vicious perfume. What would his wife say when she found lingering traces of it on his clothes?

  My conversations with other china dealers were altogether less dramatic, but also, in one case at least, productive. A woman from Yorkshire I’d hardly met reported seeing more white horses than usual in her area. Since she was married to a Trading Standards officer, she promised some action.

  Was I disappointed not to see Charles, who’d not put in an appearance all day, at the informal cold supper Sir Richard had arranged for Sunday evening? Probably. Particularly as I’d have liked his take on Aidan, who was inclined to hold forth. Our host himself plied us with food and drink and let him get on with it, until Aidan asked him about some detail of his military career. It seemed he’d worked as part of a UN peacekeeping force, which had seen, in his words, serious action. Griff and Aidan started to bicker about the military hijacking of the word theatre, which Richard didn’t seem particularly interested in. Since there were only four of us at the table, starting a supplementary conversation with him might have seemed rude, but I’d have liked to know more about him – even if I wouldn’t have had the cheek to ask outright how he’d come by enough cash to maintain a place like this.

  Funnily enough, it was cash that he collected. Roman cash. A numismatist? Is that right? He’d led us from the dining room to what he called his snug. Snug! In a room the size of our cottage, he had drawers and drawers of coins with neatly printed cards detailing each one as if it were part of an important museum collection. In my heart, I had no doubt that that was where they should be – available for all to see. But now he was talking about the access he allowed scholars.

  ‘Students too,’ he continued with a smile. ‘After all, I fell in love with coins when I was young. It’s good to encourage others when you get the chance. Though I’ve never had a protégée like yours, Griff. Lina, may I ask you to help me? Aidan tells me you’re a dowser and can sort wheat from chaff in an instant. Are these what they seem?’

  ‘Aidan will also have told you I know absolutely nothing about coins,’ I said with a shake of the head. I might have sounded grudging, because I was. Being an expert on things you know at least something about is one thing; fishing anonymous rabbits out of unknown hats is another. I managed an apologetic smile. ‘Anything I’d say would be guesswork. Which is your favourite?’

  He looked taken aback, but pointed to what looked like a battered bit of tin. ‘That one. I found it in my very first dig. It suddenly dawned on me as I held it in my palm that I was the first person to touch it for eighteen hundred years. Instant connection with the past. It was like an electric shock. That was how this started,’ he added almost apologetically, gesturing at his vast collection.

  ‘And it means more to you than everything else in the house, doesn’t it?’ I blurted.

  He produced a huge smile, unembarrassed about showing unwhitened teeth and receding gums. ‘You see, you are a dowser!’ Locking the cabinets and then the door behind us, he led the way down a wide corridor: we must be in the Georgian part of the house now. ‘I am too, in my way. I could tell that you were shocked that one man should have so many things in a private collection. But at least I enjoy them, and encourage, as you’ve heard, others to enjoy them too. If they were in a national museum, they’d probably simply be locked away in a safe, and never, ever be seen or handled. Such a waste. A friend of mine has a similar collection of miniatures, which I understand are another of your interests.’

  Drawing to a halt beside a cabinet full of presumably undamaged famille rose, I said firmly, ‘I might like them – I do! – but I don’t know anything. Whereas I could give you chapter and verse on these—’

  ‘Including the vase I didn’t buy,’ he said.

  ‘Quite! I happened to buy a miniature the other day because I just fell in love with it. But really, truly, I’m totally ignorant about them in general. There’s an intern at our local auction house who puts me to shame. Knows every painter’s dates and training and chosen medium and best work. Can set a value on it at a glance. Brilliant.’

  ‘Would he buy one just because he loves it? I think it’s you my friend would welcome. Shall I make a phone call? Toby’s house is pretty well on your route home. Valleys, it’s called.’

  We waited while he fished out his mobile and dialled. The conversation was short. At one point Richard frowned as he turned to us. ‘Can you be there at nine? Excellent. Nine tomorrow morning it is, then.’

  I didn’t care how many people he might have killed in his past, or how he’d made his loot; in my book Sir Richard was suddenly a friend. Particularly as it was clear he wasn’t including Aidan in the proposed visit.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Valleys, not surprisingly, was tucked away where two streams joined, deep in the eastern part of the Cotswolds. I suppose its chief security lay in the fact that no chance traveller would guess it was there, the drive like just another farm track, with no entryphone or obvious security cameras.

  Likewise, the house looked ordinary – large, yes, if not on the scale of Warebank Court; late Jacobean; beautifully weathered. It wouldn’t have been out of place in the National Trust portfolio, but it was far too ill-kempt to be taken for a publicly-visited stately – more like my father’s territory, for instance, than the trustees’ chunk of Bossingham Hall land.

  A man about Pa’s age and with a similar disregard for the niceties of fashion, not to mention shaving, opened the door. ‘Toby Byrne,’ he said, shoving out a hand. ‘And you must be Mr Tripp and Ms Townend.’

  ‘Griff and Lina,’ Griff suggested politely.

  He nodded. ‘Toby. Welcome to my poor abode.’

  I wasn’t so sure about that description, because now I could see some serious security – only partly concealed by the door frame was another frame, with the sort of sensors you get in some shops that scream if you try to leave with tagged goods. All the windows were locked, too, with gratings in place where there weren’t original shutters. Deep within the house some very large dogs bayed – and though they sounded as if they came from the same sort of electronic source as our Fido, I didn’t want to go and check.

  ‘No trouble, no trouble at all!’ he declared, overriding Griff’s murmured apologies. ‘There’s a steady stream of students and scholars – not the same thing at all – coming to look at my collection. I’m sure Richard told me, but I forget: which are you? Student? Scholar?’ He nodded at each of us in turn.

  ‘Neither,’ Griff replied. ‘I’m a humble antiques dealer. My young partner is an international expert on fakes and forgeries – just back from an assignment for Interpol.’ Talk about over-egging the pudding. But he wouldn’t want me to glower at him in public.

  Toby regarded me from under eyebrows that needed reaping, not a simple trim. ‘Background?’

  ‘Not academic,’ Griff put in again. ‘In fact, as Richard may have told you, she’s an unqualified success.’

  I managed a demure stare at my shoes. But I was squirrelling away the phrase for future use – on someone like Tris when he sneered at my background.

  The two men laughed at his joke. They seemed to have taken to each other. How would Aidan feel about that?

  ‘Coffee? Before or after you’ve looked your fill – not during, as some young people seem to assume. Would you believe I caught o
ne eating chocolate with one hand, a priceless specimen in the other? This way then,’ he continued, assuming we’d gone for the latter option. ‘Oh, just leave your coats and bag there, please. The room’s kept at a constant temperature; constant humidity too.’ He pointed to a bin which he locked, pocketing the key. All very efficient, no matter how informal he might be.

  Toby Byrne had chosen an inner room to house his collection, and, like Sir Richard, he stored it in long, shallow flat drawers. ‘Look your fill. Please use that desk and those pencils if you want to take notes. Use the spotlight sparingly. And, of course, cotton gloves at all times. Even when you’re jotting – don’t want you forgetting to put them back on.’ He barked a laugh and stepped outside. ‘I’d prefer to lock you in, which is my usual practice, but Dick assures me you’re kosher. All the same, I’d rather you pressed this button when you want to come down.’

  Rather to my surprise, out on the landing Griff got into a technical discussion about security systems and their pros and cons; I let them get on with it. All I wanted to see was the contents of the drawers.

  They were arranged chronologically, with sections for major artists. There were subsections marked ‘Attributed To’ and ‘School of’. Unable to resist, I headed briskly for my favourites, Hilliard and Isaac Oliver – but stopped myself. ‘Attributed To’ and ‘School of’ first. Porridge first, and only then the marmalade.

  ‘Oh, you can have more light than this, young lady!’ Toby declared, making me jump out of my skin. As he twirled the dimmer switch, he added, ‘Your grandfather’s gone to the lavatory. So listen for the bell – I’ll need to escort him back. Now, why are you wasting your time on the Championship players when you can have Premier League? Look!’ He closed the drawer I was looking in and opened the one above it. And howled like an animal in pain.

  In the centre, in pride of place, was a card marked Nicholas Hilliard: unknown gentleman. Above it was a delicate gold frame. But it was empty.