Ring of Guilt

by Judith Cutler

  Will froze the frame. ‘We can get that printed off, ma’am.’

  ‘God, in a broom cupboard like this, I’m Freya. And to you, too, Lina. Yes, we need that. Lina? Are you all right?’

  ‘Shhh. Just a minute.’ I sat with my eyes closed. I saw dogs and beeswaxed oak. ‘I know where I’ve seen the bowl before. Before you ask, it’s only just come to me because I see a lot of bowls, and you forget where . . . But I know where I saw that one. Mattock Farm. It’s not far from Dover. It belongs to a couple called Broad-Ticeman. They wanted me to handle it,’ I breathed. ‘She kept stopping beside gorgeous items and willing me to pick them up. And there was a camera on every single one.’

  ‘Did you touch any of them?’ Freya asked quickly.

  ‘Normally I would have.’

  ‘But not this time?’

  I shook my head. ‘There was something wrong with the whole visit.’ I explained. ‘But that didn’t stop them trying, did it? All I had to do was pick it up when it appeared on my stall and bingo, prints and DNA all over it.’

  ‘Have the Broad-Ticemans any reason to bear you a grudge?’

  ‘Heavens, no. He’s a big international fine art dealer, way, way out of our league. I’ve never even met him. Just his wife, who was really nice to me when we first met. But the second time I saw her she treated me like a leper. No reason for either.’

  ‘Look at the man again. Are you sure you don’t know him?’

  ‘Sure. If he was a genuine stall holder, his details would be kept on record, wouldn’t they? By the organizers? And by the hotel?’

  ‘So I’ll show them this frame too.’

  ‘Slow down, Will. You’re Heritage Man. Anyone can do the day-to-day routine. You’re only here to keep us company, remember? Now, one more set of CCTV footage to look at, and you two can push off.’

  I waved Will goodnight – for some reason neither of us suggested a meal together might be nice, not in the future but there and then – and set off for home. It was only a step, or I might have gone for our emergency option, staying for the night at the hotel. We always carried emergency bags in case of winter weather or a breakdown. Unfortunately my pack didn’t include Tim the Bear or Griff, so home it was. At least Mr Banner was dealing with Mrs Walker, so I didn’t have to deal with her chatter.

  I drove slowly, something fluttering round my brain. It wouldn’t get close enough to the surface to be called an idea, however – it just niggled away like Griff’s tooth must have done, before it went really bad. The thought of him sitting there worrying brought my foot harder on to the accelerator, and it wasn’t long before I was in his arms being fussed and given a reviving glass of wine.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  At some time after two, or it might have been three, in the morning, Tim the Bear sighed and said the best chance I had of ever getting to sleep was to make a list of the things going round my mind. When I’d got to the end, I should fasten the pad with a rubber band, tuck the pencil in it, and put them both at the bottom of a drawer. Where he’d got that from, I don’t know, but it sounded very much like what my therapist once said.

  Griff. (Yes, I underlined the heading.) I was worried about him. Definitely. But his face was much less swollen and the itching bearable. He’d taken his book to the shop, had a couple of sales, and was now sleeping deeply – occasionally I’d catch the sound of his snores.

  Me. Who would hate me enough to persecute me like this? Goodness knows I’d hurt and offended enough people when I was younger, but not the sort of person who could go in for subtle revenge – they’ve have been much more likely to use their fists. The only people I could think of were the dodgy ex-boyfriend, now stuck out in the Falklands, and Lady Petronella Cordingly. She was now in jail, and hadn’t liked me much before. But was either of them in a position to hurt me?

  Tim looked at me unblinking. I wasn’t getting very far, was I?

  Arthur Habgood. He’d been spreading gossip about me, enough to come to the ears of the police, and I still couldn’t understand how a man claiming me as flesh and blood should want to spoil my reputation, especially as he’d no doubt want to involve me in his crumby little business if he could prove we were related. The seedy man at today’s fair had spread it, too; at least if the police ever ran him to earth they could ask him for me.

  Bernie Winters. He’d sounded really vindictive when he’d thought I was involved with night hawks. And Sir Douglas Nelson had looked at me in much the same way as Mrs Broad-Ticeman had, second time round. (All this underlining made it look very official.) Griff and he were supposed to be friends, so perhaps he didn’t approve of me for that reason and wanted to separate us. Except something niggled, didn’t it, Tim? Griff had called him Dear Douglas, but had been very vague about their relationship. We’ve known each other forever, he’d said, when I asked. So could this really be just an attempt to separate me from Griff? I didn’t think so. On the other hand, someone else, apart from Habgood, that is, had tried to split Griff and me up. Harvey. What if all Harvey’s sweet words had been another way of separating us? No, I couldn’t go there, not yet.

  I tried another tack. When did all this start? When I found the body? Or when I found one ring and bought another? Or when we showed the rings to someone – that was the first time the police got interested, and when the rings went into police hands. From where they had now disappeared.

  At one point Griff had said that anyone attacking me attacked him.

  I put the pencil down and stared at Tim, who solemnly held my gaze.

  Could that really be what was happening? Did it all start with Sir Douggie and Griff? Really? We’d have to have a very long conversation tomorrow.

  I stowed the pad, as I’d been told, at the bottom of a drawer. It joined the photo of my grandmother. Had Harvey sent those digitally enhanced photos through yet? I’d never even looked in the office when I’d got home, let alone switched on the computer and checked my emails – I knew Griff wouldn’t have opened anything addressed to me from Harvey. If I tiptoed down I might not wake him. In any case, the biscuit tin was calling pretty loudly and might wake him if I didn’t open it.

  The photos looked pretty good, but if I printed them off tonight – this morning – the noise of the printer might well interrupt those snores. So I saved them and headed for the kitchen. Milk and biscuits. Chocolate ones. And the big Times crossword. No, not the proper one. The easy one. Griff and I usually made a point of doing it together every Saturday evening, but the grid was still blank. Would he mind if I put in the word CAUTION, which must be the answer to seven down? Ten down might be BULLDOG. I munched, the noise amazingly loud, and sipped and pencilled in. And then I found my head nodding hard enough to hit the table. Tim the Bear would be really fed up if I went to sleep down here.

  As I tiptoed back upstairs, I heard the sound of a car slowing to a halt by our cottage. In a village like this, with no street lights and very little traffic, the noise was alarming. I might tell myself that if anyone approached the house, they’d have their photo taken; if they tried to get in, first there’d be another mugshot, then a seriously loud alarm. But what if someone threw a petrol bomb? They’d tried a lot of other things, but that might just get us if the thatch caught.

  I switched on the security monitor, and toggled round till I found what I was looking for. The car was parked right outside our door, with the lights off. There was someone inside, but whoever it was simply hunched down in the driver’s seat, only moving in the way you would if you were trying to get your head comfortable. On the other hand, in a car like that it’d be a damned sight easier than in our van. A car like that? The car outside was a BMW. Harvey’s BMW!

  He’d ignored my protests and driven all that way to see me. To stop me going to the fair? Well, he wouldn’t manage that, would he? Cold and forlorn as he looked, Harvey had just moved himself up to be number one suspect.

  Maybe.

  On the other hand, he might just have driven all that way just to see me. Fu
ll stop.

  ‘Lina! Ah, there you are – oh! I do beg your pardon.’

  Gorgeous in his dressing gown, Griff had burst into the living room, flinging open curtains, singing cheerful songs and generally being the sort of damn nuisance anyone would be rousing you when you’d had about three hours’ sleep but knew they were right to disturb you since you had to be showered, changed and on the road in half an hour flat.

  It wasn’t just me he was waking, however. I’d had to fetch Harvey in, hadn’t I? And feed him biscuits and a glass of one of Griff’s single malts? Had to. We’d snuggled up romantically together on the sofa, and managed to ignore Griff’s clock striking every hour by falling deeply asleep in each other’s arms. Harvey kept rubbing his neck, and I had pins and needles in both arms and both feet. The bloody clock struck nine.

  Griff put on an expression of suppressed urgency. ‘Harvey, you will find a spare razor in the bathroom. Pull the red cord to switch on the shower, which is set at a moderate temperature. And are you an English breakfast man?’

  ‘Toast and black coffee, please. My bag’s in the car.’

  Griff waited till he’d gone out and come back in again, taking the stairs – riskily – two at a time before he turned to me. ‘And might I ask—?’

  ‘Ask away. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t manage the crossword without you. I found him asleep in his car. And toast and tea for me, please.’

  As I came down, showered and dressed, I could hear Harvey giving his version of last night’s events. ‘I tried to persuade her to abandon the fair and take some time out. OK, time out with me. But when she said that doing that might ruin your business – and on reflection I had to agree with her—’

  Griff nodded. ‘He that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed . . .’

  I’d have to introduce him to Freya Webb.

  ‘Exactly! So I decided to come up anyway and join her on her stand. That’s if she’ll have me, and you’ll agree,’ Harvey added, suddenly a good deal less assured.

  What sort of face was Griff pulling? He was very good at pretending to be a Victorian father, but we’d agreed that interrogating each other about our love lives was forbidden.

  ‘You mean, you hope by the simple fact of your presence to redeem her reputation in the eyes of the cognoscenti?’

  ‘I wouldn’t presume . . . I just thought that it might be nice for her to have someone to stand shoulder to shoulder with if you were still unwell.’ He sounded much shiftier than he had earlier this morning.

  ‘She has Mrs Walker.’

  I’d have liked to hang around to hear how the conversation progressed, but didn’t have time. ‘And Mrs Walker has Mr Banner,’ I said, ‘and could have prevented some of yesterday’s problems if she’d been more concerned with preventing what went on than recording it on her phone.’

  ‘But the phone evidence might be crucial,’ Griff began.

  ‘It might not have been necessary if she’d stopped whoever it was dumping the Broad-Ticeman’s tea bowl on our stall in the first place.’ On three hours’ sleep I didn’t feel forgiving. ‘Sure, it’s nice to have the incident on CCTV, but all those people heard his accusations! And he couldn’t have made them if he hadn’t put the bowl down.’

  ‘Are we talking about a sacking offence, my love?’

  ‘Of course not. Once she’s over the first throes of love she’ll be fine.’

  Harvey gave a crack of laughter. ‘You sound as if your ages were reversed.’

  I sent him a smile over my toast, irritating Griff by catching the crumbs on my hand, not on a plate. ‘She’s actually a terrific worker—’

  ‘But can talk the hind legs off a donkey, as I recall. I shall try to be discreet and silent. If you’re not too unhappy with the situation, Griff?’ He put his plate back on the table and downed his coffee.

  Griff gave a reluctant smile. ‘Your presence will not go unremarked by those who know about the trade.’

  ‘May I take that as a yes? And Lina, we might talk about the Broad-Ticemans as we go. Your van or my car?’

  ‘The stuff’s still locked in my van. Give me two minutes to print off the photos you sent. We may have to pay a visit to my father on the way back, Griff.’

  ‘I shall delay supper until your safe return,’ he said, with a bow.

  But the old bugger had done it again, hadn’t he? He’d ensured I was chaperoned for the evening.

  TWENTY-SIX

  In not much more than the time it had taken Harvey to shave and shower, I’d enlarged the photos as much as I could and printed them off in highest definition. They were now in a folder, ready to show my father. But was I introducing Harvey to him just as a possible heir to Nanny Baird, or as my current squeeze? That sounded horribly as if I might be asking for his approval, which was something I wouldn’t even ask Griff for.

  Once I was in the van I felt shy. Curling up with a man not because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other but because we couldn’t keep our eyes open was one thing; facing him with Griff as an interested spectator had been quite another. And now having to talk to him about everyday things was different again.

  ‘Tell me about Arthur Habgood,’ I said, all businesslike, waving to Griff as he locked the yard gates behind us.

  ‘And how nice it is to see you, too,’ he said, leaning over to stroke my hair, still damp from the shower. ‘Have your feet got warm yet? I must say, I’ve never seen slippers like those you were wearing last night.’

  They were like baby pink Ugg boots, with a fringe of fleece where the tops met the soles and another fringe like a cuff. ‘A Christmas present from Griff. He said they were ironic. I don’t understand the irony myself. They’re very cosy, although I suppose they do make my feet look like giant paws.’

  ‘Therein lies the irony, I fancy. But they weren’t doing their job very well.’

  ‘That’s because I spent about four hours roaming round while they sat beside my bed. Didn’t even think to put my dressing gown on. I was a bit stressed, to be honest.’

  ‘You don’t say. So what’s the first worry I can help get rid of?’

  I took a big breath and plunged in. ‘I don’t know that you can get rid of it. But you might help me understand something. Why should Arthur Habgood be so vic . . . vin . . . vindictive? How well do you know him? He’s based in Cullompton, after all, not so far from you.’

  ‘Sure. We run into each other at house sales. But as you know, we’re not competing for the same lots, which is fortunate, because he really does not like being outbid. He bears grudges. If anyone annoys him, he bad-mouths them. A while back he was saying all sorts of unpleasant things about a woman who’d rejected him. When someone ran into his van—’

  So he had form. Was that reassuring? ‘Does he accuse everyone who crosses him of handling stolen goods?’

  ‘No, because they’re not all libelled – or near enough – in the trade press. That Cordingly woman did you a lot of harm. Tried to,’ he added hurriedly. ‘Not as much as she came to herself, of course. But people and their friends have long memories.’

  ‘Are you saying that this hate campaign is down to her?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘You’re taking a hell of a gamble to be seen with me,’ I said bluntly.

  He touched my hair again. ‘Your reputation has possibly taken a knock at the bottom end of the market – the sort of fair we’re going to now, amongst people who will think there’s no smoke without fire. But believe me, amongst people wanting restoration of the highest order done, your reputation’s embarrassingly good. Not just for your skill, but for your probity.’

  That sounded a really good word. Did I dare ask him what it meant? Why not? He might as well learn about my problem sooner rather than later, and preferably from me. ‘Harvey, you may not know about my childhood. After my mother had died, that is. I ran wild. Had so many foster parents I lost count. More schools than I can remember. And very li
ttle education. Griff’s done his best.’

  ‘And a very good best it is,’ he said obligingly.

  ‘Well, it might be now, because he’s taught me as much as he can about everything from music to cooking and books. But my memory for a lot of things is still poorer than I like. My vocabulary’s so bad I actually have a book to write long and unusual words in to help me memorize them. And I’m afraid that one isn’t in it. Could you repeat it and spell it so at least I can try to remember it, even if I can’t write it down just yet.’

  More embarrassed than I was, I think, he did as I asked.

  ‘And it means?’

  He explained. Then he said, ‘To hear you no one would know you were an autodidact . . . That’s—’

  ‘I know that one! But I told you, I’m not self-taught so much as Griff-taught. And it was he who taught me my . . . probity. How to be . . . I don’t suppose there’s a describing word, an adj-whatever-it-is, from probity? Probous?’

  He put his head back and laughed. ‘If there is, I don’t know it. And I was educated at Eton and Oxford. Lina, do you tell everyone so much about yourself?’

  ‘Only people I like and trust. I don’t want them to like me on false pretences. My false pretences, not theirs, I mean. You’re taking a risk for me. I’m taking a risk trusting you with all this. Quid pro quo,’ I ended triumphantly.

  ‘You see that lay-by there? Just pull over, will you?’

  I did as he asked. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, darling Lina, since nine o’clock this morning I’ve wanted to kiss you, and I can wait no longer.’

  There was a lot of police activity round the hotel, and when I found the ladies’ loos still cordoned off I drew the logical conclusion – whatever injury poor Dilly had suffered it was probably not self-inflicted. As if I’d ever believed it might have been . . .

  Harvey put his arm round me and pulled me close, dropping a comforting kiss on my head. ‘It’s about time the police updated you,’ he said, as we made our way to the Tripp and Townend display.