Drawing the Line Read online

  For once I didn’t laugh. ‘This isn’t a nag, Griff, but you’ll have to have more tonic than gin every time you go on the juice. It’s much nicer,’ I added, kissing him to show we were still mates, ‘to have my morning cuppa still in the cup.’

  You’d have thought that the third day of a fair would be quiet: if I were a serious collector, I’d want to beat everyone else to the bargains. But the good folk of Yorkshire weren’t put off by the thought that all the best stuff must have gone. They swarmed in, aided and abetted by a wonderful sunny day, really hot for May – the sort of day I’d have wanted to be outside, starting my tan, if I’d had any choice. And they bought. We’d discounted some items, but I didn’t buy the tight-fisted Yorkshireman theory: most were happy to pay up without a quibble, let alone a full-scale haggle.

  After last night, we were all a bit anxious about our takings, not to mention the stuff left unsold. Many dealers, us included, had planned to stay overnight, rather than risk the long drive home after such a busy three days. But Griff was fidgeting to set off. I didn’t mind driving, but wanted to wait till quite late to hit the road: we knew from experience that both the M1 and the A1(M) would be clogged up by people scurrying back to London.

  ‘We’ll be safer on the road, even if we’re crawling,’ he insisted. ‘And I can assist with the driving.’

  Even stone-cold sober he didn’t have the best night vision, so I didn’t exactly jump at the offer. Instead, I just repeated, ‘Safer?’

  ‘From all these burglarious types, of course.’ He’d been getting more and more irritable during the day, despite our good sales.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to point out that we were more vulnerable on the road. The combination of van and caravan made us an obvious target. Then I realised that by leaving early he was denying himself the post-fair booze-up he and his mates usually enjoyed. On impulse I gave him a hug. He looked bemused, as well he might, since he didn’t know what had been going on in my head, but patted me kindly.

  I could do with a bit of kindness, of course, since I was denying myself the chance of a last minute snog with Marcus, who did no more than peck my cheek when I popped over to say goodbye. He and Copeland were going to stay over, heading to Bradford for a market on Tuesday, one that started at the God-awful hour of seven in the morning, which meant that trade would be in at six. That certainly wasn’t Griff’s time of day, and in any case he didn’t like to leave the shop, however capable Mrs Hatch’s genteel hands might be, for too many days in a row. We’d had no phone call from either her or Tony Baker, so we assumed all was well and that there’d been no more incidents.

  So I started to pack up, needing several plastic storage boxes fewer than when we’d set out. I was shoving the first into the back of the van when Titus Oates ambled past.

  We were both clearly in two minds whether to speak, but we exchanged half-hearted grins and he walked on. I reckon we were about even, now, since rumour had it that a packet of the stuff the thief had left behind in his hoodie was his, and not his usual stock in trade at all. At least, not the official one, and certainly not a legal one. Maybe next time our paths crossed I’d be able to ask him about my page. ‘You were right about the traffic,’ Griff conceded, as we pulled into the caravan’s usual field just outside Bredeham. ‘To misquote the poem, “A slow coming we had of it.” Dear God, I’m so tired and stiff.’

  I didn’t know the poem, of course. It would have been easy to snarl at him that I’d warned him and that we should have stayed over or at least eaten before we set out. We didn’t even eat a proper meal at one of the motorway service areas I’d made sure we stopped at regularly.

  ‘Dear heart,’ he’d quavered, ‘not in one of those awful cafeterias!’

  In fact he’d been so het-up he’d insisted that one of us stay on guard while the other used the loo and bought a snack to eat in the car park. I’d never known him like this, and while I’d have liked to shake some sense into him, I wondered if his twitchiness might be to do with not getting his usual drink, like the bad temper I’d seen in mates denied their fags or spliffs. I wasn’t holier than thou about either, but fortunately for me the very first time I’d smoked I had a really bad chesty cold, and been afraid I was going to cough my lungs up. It was a lot cheaper to go on abstaining. And more sensible, if that was what going without your fix did to you. Not to mention, of course, what smoking itself did to you.

  Mind you, after the drive, I could have done with some sort of pick-me-up. Two hundred and fifty odd miles in heavy and often solid traffic, in the dusk and then the dark, was not my idea of an ideal Sunday evening’s excursion. I’d had enough chocolate and burgers to guarantee mega-spots for a month and I still felt hungry.

  It was the work of moments to park up, connect up to the electricity and uncouple the car. But Griff went back three times to make sure he’d locked up the caravan, even when I pointed out it was me who’d made the final turn of the key and clamped the wheels. I didn’t argue about the extra checking at home, though, and was quite happy to go round with him to do it: gate, garage, van – four eyes were better than two.

  He started his usual routine, opening his letters and putting them down while he wandered round. ‘Just nurturing my babies, darling!’

  I’d have thought the houseplants could have waited a few more hours for water, and would have preferred conversation in daylight too. And I’d certainly have preferred not to have to trail round after him picking up scraps of paper – he never could open envelopes in one piece and in any case we saved used stamps for some historic railway he’d once had a ride on.

  If I wasn’t careful I’d snap at him. So I headed for the kitchen to make some cocoa. Only to find he’d left the milk on the table. It was off. Very off indeed. No. Nothing in the fridge. Just this yucky cheese in the jug.

  A couple of years back, I might have picked up the lot and slung it at him. I still felt like it, to be honest. Yes, jug and all. But it was a jug I liked, not because it was fine china but because of its shape, round and solid. It felt at home in your hands, as it had done in countless other hands for a century or so. And in any case, if I threw it at the wall, who’d have to get all the mess up?

  Gagging because it smelt so foul, I couldn’t pour it down the sink because I simply couldn’t face podging the lumps until they got small enough to swill away. The loo? Occupied by Griff.

  A drain.

  The one in the yard was nearest, but that meant a whole fiddle with the alarm system. If I used one in the street, it’d be a fag carrying water to flush it away but there was only one section of the alarm system to isolate.

  In broad daylight, after some sleep to put my brain back into gear, I’d have waited for Griff to complete his ablutions, even though he was might have been removing not just each tooth and giving it a good polish before returning it to its socket, but brushing every strand of hair. As it was, maybe I should have passed the time soaking his breakfast prunes.

  But all I was thinking of was getting rid of that smelly, slimy, lumpy mass. Like, now. Check: key in pocket to let myself in again; kettle full of water; stinking jug.

  I stepped out into the dark, quiet street. Thin cloud was shifting to reveal a few stars, so bright you understood why folk wished on them and why our councillor hated the streetlights that obscured them. Across the street, a nightlight glowed in the new baby’s room. Bending I tipped the curds and whey carefully down the nearest drain. And fell over. Fell? Was bloody pushed!

  An education like mine means you learn to bounce up before some bastard stamps on your fingers. So I was up and ready to run before whoever it was knew it. To run home, of course. Wrong. If Griff thought there was anything amiss, he’d have opened the door before you could say street crime, and whoever had toppled me would have shoved past him and into the house.

  So – just like an athlete feet ready for the starting pistol – I waited, tense and ready for action. Action as and when I could see who and where my assailant was
. More sodding cloud. Yes, there was a figure already pushing hard at our front door. I almost thumbed my nose and jangled the key. No. No point in bravado. I stayed put, my right hand clasping the jug, as if it would comfort me like a teddy. At last the figure gave up, heading towards a car parked under one of the village’s historic trees, much prized by our dratted councillor. Whenever pruning was mentioned, he spoke passionately of shade on hot sunny days. I muttered about providing cover on dark nights.

  The car started, first time, and pulled into the street, headlights full up. I couldn’t see the colour or make, but there was one thing I could see – it was heading straight for me. Olympic sprinters, eat your heart out: I was out of the non-existent blocks and over the nearest garden wall as if a gold medal depended on it.

  So how would I be able to identify the car again? Without thinking, I hurled the jug at it, hard as I could. The windscreen didn’t break. The jug did. And I sat on whoever’s front door step and howled.

  ‘It was my favourite, my absolute favourite,’ I sobbed, as Griff gently but firmly took the shards from my hands and consigned them to the bin.

  Tony, in the same fetching get-up as before, was swabbing the odd cut on my hand.

  ‘It’s just a jug, Lina, for goodness’ sake,’ Griff continued. ‘We’ve sold hundreds better, and hundreds worse.’

  ‘Shock,’ Tony said, out of the corner of his mouth, as if I wasn’t supposed to hear. ‘Hot sweet tea.’

  ‘But that’s the whole point,’ I sobbed. ‘I was throwing the milk away when this guy socked me and then he drove at me. And yes, I know I said his headlights were on main beam, but he must have turned them off as he went past – there were no tail-lights or lights on the number plate.’

  ‘I’ve got plenty in the fridge back home,’ Tony said. ‘I’ll be back in half a tick.’

  ‘Here’s the front door key. Don’t leave the door ajar in case they come back.’

  ‘They’re miles away now,’ he insisted, but took the key anyway.

  ‘Brandy. You need a shot of brandy,’ Griff announced, toddling off despite my insistence that I didn’t. ‘Well, I do!’ he declared over his shoulder.

  When Tony returned he declared it was better for me to stick to tea, or at least drinking chocolate, which he’d brought with him. He and Griff might see what parts the brandy reached. I didn’t argue – I loathed the stuff.

  ‘I reckon they were part of the Kitty Gang,’ Tony said, swirling the brandy round in its balloon till even I could smell the fumes.

  ‘Jesus! That’s very reassuring! Being run over by bastards with a stupid nickname!’

  ‘It should be reassuring. We’ve got extensive reports of old people being jumped when they let the cat out – or especially back in. Seems one of them makes a noise like a distressed moggie, the owner goes to look and – bingo! – he or she’s smashed over the head and their house done over. The funny thing is, a couple of times someone’s phoned for an ambulance: they can’t be all bad.’

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly put my mind completely at rest,’ I observed. ‘It could have been a thoroughly nasty person, the sort that drives their car at pedestrians lying in the road!’

  ‘That is new,’ he conceded. ‘A very unwelcome development. I’ll see the investigating officer hears about that tomorrow. Today.’ He got up, yawning as he stretched. ‘The best thing you can both do is get some sleep and tell the colleague I’ll send round all about it. OK?’

  ‘Hang on: how did Chummy know I was going to pour milk into a public drain?’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t. He – or, of course, she – might have simply been waiting for any door to open. Or been just about to miaow outside a neighbour’s – hasn’t Mrs Hatch got a cat? You just provided a nice opportunity for a bit of opportunistic crime.’

  The theory made sense. And I’d like to say I bought it.

  Griff was still sober enough to shake his head. ‘There are altogether too many coincidences for my taste. Surely you darling boys in blue should be as suspicious as I am, and start keeping a special eye on our humble abode?’

  Tony muttered things about resources and priorities and beat a hasty retreat.

  When I lay down to sleep, knackered as I was, my brains felt like a hamster on a wheel. The birds were already in mid-chorus by the time I fell asleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Georgian. Definitely Georgian,’ Griff declared, looking over my shoulder at the page I was pointing at. He’d got the idea that after the adventures during the night I must be an invalid and cosseted accordingly. We never opened the shop on Monday, so there was nothing to stop him pampering me.

  I hadn’t quite taken to the day bed in a decline, smelling salts at the ready, but Monday morning had brought thick, rain-filled cloud and it was too dark in the cottage to work without lights. So I agreed that a quiet morning reading, including some of those stately home guides, might be nice. Griff had found from somewhere a Victorian Paisley shawl in case I needed swathing. Then he’d found a couple of books on English vernacular architecture (“Everyday stuff, dear heart, not your posh palaces”) and was playing a little game of spot the period, opening pages at random, covering the caption and saying which period the house had been built in. I hadn’t the heart to tell him that all I really wanted was for him to push off to the bank and get rid of the money we’d picked up yesterday before Burglar Bill paid us another random visit. I knew a good proportion of our loot would never find its way into any official vault – that was why we discounted for cash. But he had to stash away enough to convince the taxman that everything was more or less above board.

  ‘Listen,’ I said firmly, getting up to follow him to the van, ‘remember you’re to take a different route to the bank from last week. Maybe a different branch altogether – why not Tenterden, rather than Ashford? You could pop in and have lunch with Aidan.’

  ‘But that would mean leaving you on your own, dear heart.’

  ‘And if you went to Tenterden you could pop into Waitrose.’ That would get rid of some more cash. A lot. Griff loved a good spend on food when he was flush.

  He beamed. I could never understand why but Griff had a passion for Waitrose that no other supermarket approached. ‘Pass me the shopping bags, then.’

  No, he wouldn’t ever condescend to use check-out polythene carriers, and with the number you saw flapping in otherwise lovely hedgerows round here I suppose he was right. I nipped back inside for the heavy plasticised cloth ones we use, and a wicker basket that always gave him special pleasure.

  I locked up the garage and the gate carefully behind him, and, as usual, locked myself into the house. There. Special treat day for me, too. Bother reading. I’d clean the bathroom. Griff always worried when I did housework. Hating it himself, he couldn’t understand that anyone would find it satisfying to achieve gleaming enamel and beautifully buffed taps. We’d still got old-fashioned tiles on the floor, too, and restoring them to pristine black and white gave me another thrill. Thoroughly exhilarated, I turned my attention to the kitchen. Griff was a wonderful cook but not the best mopper-upper in the world, so the Aga wasn’t looking its best.

  After that, coffee made with some of the milk Tony had given us, it was time to open those books again.

  And close them promptly. Thinking about Tony had reminded me of last night again. No, I wasn’t upset. I was intrigued. True, the CCTV hadn’t shown up much when we’d had the intruder, but what if it had seen anything that had happened in the street. We’d paid extra for one that wasn’t fixed but would scan in response to movement. I’d moved enough. Would it have recorded anything that Tony’s mates could use?

  It was the work of seconds to fish the cassette out, replacing it immediately with a new one. It took a bit longer to locate the precise footage, but at last I had a grand view of my bum as I bent down to pour away the milk. The figure of my assailant was less clear. To the naked eye there was nothing that might give a clue as to its identity. No, his. It was a m
ale, I’d swear to that. But that was all. I hadn’t a clue about age or anything. Not after eight, maybe ten viewings. You’d need the sort of enhancement Tony had spoken about. And yet – and yet…

  The more I told myself there might be something familiar about the figure, the less I knew what it was. In the end I did what I sometimes did when I was in what Griff called my divvy-mode. I walked away and concentrated on something else. In this case, those guide books.

  Ruthlessly weeding out anything not in Kent or Sussex, for the time being at least, I looked at the National Trust properties first. And was ready to give up. Most properties were castles, and my memory certainly wasn’t of great thick walls and moats. A child would remember a moat and a drawbridge, surely? Far more than an old book? Lovely as Bodiam Castle and Ightham Mote might be, they were no use to me. What about houses? Bateman’s? Chartwell? No, they’d been lived in by such famous people I’d surely have recognised a face. What about some others? Knole? No, according to the handbook it hadn’t been altered since Elizabethan times. All the same, I marked it down for a visit, it looked so wonderful. After all, I’d stumped up for membership and there was no point in cutting off my nose to spite my face.

  What about English Heritage properties? Griff had found me a 1990 handbook, assuming that not enough would have changed in the castle world to justify rooting out a new one. And castles there were – nothing but castles, apart from the odd chapel or fort. Didn’t Kent have any eighteenth-century mansions, for goodness’ sake?

  I didn’t know what to do. Or what to feel. What should I be feeling after raising my hopes so high, only to have them dashed? I wanted to cry, but it felt as if I was angry, not upset. Angry because someone had led me up the garden path – the Garden of England path, I added, furious, but smiling with grim amusement. Was that what Griff meant by a sardonic smile? I’d have to ask. I had no one to blame for my raised hopes but myself. But I was angry with Marcus for having suggested limiting myself to the immediate area. Like last night, I wanted to smash something. I was powerless in the face of all these grand buildings owned by old families and national institutions. First I hurled all the books across the room. Then I hit my temples with my clenched fists. There had to be an answer somewhere. I slapped my face to stop myself being so stupid. If only the pain in my face would numb out the pain in my head. I thumped again, like a boxer pummelling a hated opponent.