Guilt Trip Page 17

  He pushed me away. ‘My child, I have to tell you there’s a bottle of champagne on ice in my room. Let us celebrate being a family. A leading family.’

  He lifted my hand high as if leading me in a procession and together we minced through the door. Only to have our silly drama cut short by my mobile phone. We stopped, halfway across the thickly-carpeted corridor.

  ‘Don’t turn it off, loved one. The fizz can wait. But not the fuzz; not in the form of Morris, at least.’

  Without thinking, I opened the text. But it wasn’t from Morris. It was from Paul.

  ‘Go on, read it,’ Morris’s voice rang out. He was only twenty yards away, and I should have been running into his arms.

  If I began to scream, I stifled any sound before it came out. Because of Griff, of course. If I started doing what I wanted, which was collapsing in noisy hysterics, what would it do to his heart? I didn’t dare risk giving him a full-blown heart attack. So I took the deepest of shuddering breaths.

  ‘Griff, I need to deal with this. Why don’t you go and put the kettle on? There’s green tea in the top of your case.’

  ‘For God’s sake, there’s room service,’ Morris snapped. He muttered in French to a passing young man, pointing at Griff’s room. Heaven knows what he said. But the minion scuttled off. Then Morris gently pushed Griff out of the corridor through the heavy door.

  Griff wouldn’t be pushed. ‘Lina, my child, who is it?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Charles Montaigne. Off you go.’

  The moment he closed his door, I handed the phone to Morris so he could see the message. Instead of a text, we stared at what was left of Paul’s face.

  ‘Is this the price he paid for trying to help me?’ I asked. ‘More to the point, was he – is he – alive or dead?’ I tapped the screen.

  ‘Go and share the green tea with Griff. I’ll get on to this.’ As a lover’s greeting, it didn’t begin to score on the romantic scale, but I’d never heard more welcome words. ‘Thank God you’re safe over here,’ he added. Perhaps these came a close second. He kissed me swiftly before he hunched over his phone, turning away from me and giving my bum a helpful shove.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Look after Griff!’ he hissed.

  Since a young man was already scurrying along bearing a silver tray over his shoulder, I obeyed.

  I could smell the spray on Griff’s breath, but we both pretended we wanted nothing more than a healthful infusion, accompanied by some highly illicit pastries. Unable to pretend any longer, I let him take my hand.

  ‘Has he threatened you, my love? Overtly, rather than implicitly, I mean?’

  ‘Trust you to give me a vocabulary lesson at a moment like this,’ I muttered. ‘Actually, I think it’s an implicit threat.’ It wasn’t my face, after all. ‘But he’s not a nice man, Griff, and I’m glad we’re safe over here,’ I added, echoing Morris, who had still not reappeared. I couldn’t hear his voice, but that might have been because of the thickness of the door and the general soundproofing that enveloped us like a giant comfort blanket.

  The green tea was very good, as were the pastries. They occupied several minutes, with a few light comments thrown in. But I wasn’t the only one constantly eyeing the door, all the time pretending to be interested in the decor or the bloody view.

  At long last there was a tap on the door. A peep through the spyhole showed a grim-looking Morris, though by the time I’d unlocked the door he’d rearranged his face into a calming smile.

  ‘That’s all that sorted out,’ he said, though I noticed he didn’t return my phone. ‘Well, nearly all. I’ll be able to join you for lunch, which will be with the gentleman who asked for your expertise.’

  ‘Old money?’ Griff asked quaintly.

  ‘Old as the Conqueror, probably. Don’t know how he dodged the guillotine.’

  ‘In that case, with your consent, I will take Lina shopping first.’

  Morris gaped. ‘She looks pretty good to me.’

  ‘Very good, but not Paris chic. How long do we have?’

  ‘An hour?’

  ‘That’s longer than a fairy godmother would have. Come, Lina – what are you waiting for?’

  Cunning old Griff had spotted a boutique almost literally across the road from the hotel’s main entrance, and he propelled me inside, addressing the stern-looking assistant with a flurry of French. Within minutes, however, I was wearing a suit that fitted as if it had been made for me and was clutching bags containing a further suit, what Griff called afternoon dresses, a cocktail outfit and a full-blown evening dress. I hadn’t seen the bill, just the flash of Griff’s plastic. When I’d opened my mouth, he’d put his finger to his lips. OK, we’d argue later.

  ‘Thank goodness you have neat feet,’ he said, heading for a shoe shop so posh that there were only three pairs, all ominously unpriced, in the window. More carrier bags. One to hold a bag he insisted would be better than mine. That left five minutes for him to deal with my slap and tweak my hair.

  I was ready for anything. At least as far as he and Morris were concerned. But every time I looked in the mirror, overlaid on the image of a vaguely familiar Frenchwoman, the battered face of Paul appeared.

  TWENTY-TWO

  If our hotel was modern chic, the huge house we were bidden to – for some reason also called a hotel, though Morris insisted it was occupied by just one couple and their staff – was early nineteenth century chic, involving a lot of Egyptian-style furniture, gilt wherever you looked, pictures the like of which I’d only seen in galleries, and the richest of fabrics. We were shown up to a first floor salon by a manservant, no less, who bowed as he opened double doors. Time to be – well, not exactly my father’s daughter, because I never could work out his take on social class, but perhaps my ancestors’ descendant.

  As we were received (there’s no other word for it) by our host and hostess, I thanked heaven for Griff’s foray to the shops. Mme le Fèvre was dressed in a suit as finely tailored as my own; her hair was trimmed to within a millimetre of perfection; and she was Victoria Beckham slim, although she must have been in her fifties, judging by the silver-framed family photos displayed artlessly on a grand piano, which I was sure she could play. Occasionally, she showed she was human by fingering (oh yes, the manicure was perfect and understated, just like her make-up) with what seemed like nervousness the sort of brooch you see the queen wearing when she does a walkabout: elegant but with a lot of serious stones, with not a whiff of paste about them. Griff hadn’t been able to do much with my nails, but then, I was an Expert, not a mannequin.

  Whatever its state, Monsieur kissed my hand, just as they do on the movies. I managed to stand still and look gracious. I think. We had canapés, on which I was quite heavy, and champagne, on which I was deliberately very light. The stilted conversation was conducted in charmingly accented English. Then there was lunch, in a fully-fledged dining room, complete with original fireplaces (one at each end), ceilings with wonderful plasterwork, mirrors, matched console tables and everything the heart could desire. It competed with, but didn’t quite outshine, the formal dining room at Bossingham Hall.

  Lunch was the sort of occasion at which Aidan, with those long conversational manoeuvres of his, would have excelled. I just tried to look alert and not let my mind wander: what was I doing here, when a man who’d kissed me had been beaten so viciously he might not be alive?

  There was also another problem. One of my antennae was twitching. Not the one that hunts for cheap goodies to sell dear. The one that tells me I’m handling a wrong ’un.

  I was sitting at a table set with the finest crystal (I was sure it was from Stourbridge, for some reason) and eating off Limoges porcelain – and all I could do was smell a dud!

  I could hardly check the china – imagine picking up a plate and having a quick peep. In any case, it was all modern, not my period at all. So I applied myself to trying to look both charming and efficient – not necessarily possible, come to think of it �
� while ignoring the throb somewhere deep in my brain.

  Gradually, the problem emerged. Monsieur and some of his friends had once fallen on hard times, and although they had managed to cling (he implied it was a huge physical effort) to their homes, on occasion they had had to put on the market certain items. At no point did the words buy and sell foul the air. However, eventually they had been in a position to obtain similar items, very choice, very fine. But a rumour was spreading that someone was managing to pass off what could only be described as fakes.

  Ah, ha! So this was how I was to sing for my lunch. Actually, I was relieved: it wasn’t often my antennae misled me, and I’d have hated them to start now.

  I gave them to understand that my father had been forced to retrench too. That seemed to go down well. I didn’t spoil the atmosphere by saying I sometimes flogged a dozen or so of his plates in draughty church halls. I certainly didn’t mention Pa’s connection with Titus and his part in producing fakes. Eventually, we adjourned for coffee to a different salon from the first. The time the porcelain was Se`vres. Hunky-dory Sevres.

  At last I was aware that they were all looking at me, as if I were a performing seal that wasn’t balancing a ball on its nose despite all its free fish.

  Perhaps to jolly me along, Madame took me to powder my nose. En route we passed a huge gilt-bronze porcelain urn – actually, a sort of giant air-freshener – with delicate Chinese-derived pink carp floating around a wonderful mottled blue background. I’d seen an occasional one in a catalogue. Now I saw one for real, I think I yelped; certainly, I had to clasp my hands behind my back to stop reaching out to stroke it.

  ‘If only it wasn’t damaged.’ Madame sighed, pointing to the lid, which was missing a chunk. ‘A maid. Only last week.’

  ‘Damaged?’ This time I did reach out. ‘Oh dear. Did you save the piece that broke off?-’

  ‘Of course. It is safe inside. But—’

  Oh, I did like Gallic shrugs. I wished I could do them myself.

  ‘May I look?’ I don’t think I gave her time to say no.

  ‘You hold it like a doctor examining a sick child,’ she said, peering over my shoulder.

  What I needed, then, was a consultant paediatrician. I think that was the right word, but I didn’t fancy risking it on her.

  ‘Children can heal without scars,’ I said slowly as I replaced the urn on its stand. ‘This – well, I do know someone who might be able to help.’ Why was I being so tentative? I’d repaired even more valuable items for private owners and for museums. Perhaps I didn’t want to muddy the waters of my so-called expertise for sniffing out fakes by telling her I was nifty with the glue pot. ‘But there must be experts at hand in Paris,’ I added truthfully. ‘People who are experienced in this sort of thing.’

  ‘Monsieur Morris mentioned you,’ she said firmly. ‘He said you were modest about your skills and that I must not take no for an answer.’

  ‘Did he?’ Somehow the first part of her sentence sounded right, but not the second. But if my father was anything to go by, putting convenient things into other people’s mouths was how people accustomed to rule got their own way. ‘Well, since I’ve never worked on anything by Samson before, it’ll have to be a maybe,’ I said with a smile.

  Her own smile, genuinely warm, I thought, outshone mine. ‘But you recognized it as being by Samson. That is expertise indeed.’

  By now, thank goodness, we had reached the loo.

  Those in my father’s wing were designed for use by servants – yes, even the steward whose room Pa occupied was a hired hand, after all. And those on display to the public in the main part of the hall were kept in period and were rather Spartan curiosities. So nothing had prepared me for this palace of sanitation.

  But even as I marvelled at all the gilt and the porcelain, even as I choked back laughs, the image of Paul kept floating in front of my eyes.

  ‘I’d like to start in the dining room,’ I said firmly, donning my I-am-an-Expert hat so clearly, it might almost have been visible. For some obscure reason I also produced from the new bag a notepad and pencil. My antennae had given me a good start there. With luck, I’d find out what had alerted them. And I always had that preparatory reading to help if necessary. I could do it. I must do it.

  Actually, perhaps M le Fèvre had given me a pretty good clue, so I relaxed just a little. They’d had to get rid of some items and had only recently replaced them. So I needn’t worry about the table or chairs, nor, as I passed them, the pier tables. But the carved giltwood mirrors – matching, over the fireplaces at either end . . . The silvering was as patchy as you’d expect. But that didn’t mean a thing.

  ‘Italian, eighteenth century,’ M le Fèvre declared. ‘I’m sure they are authentic. They came via a very reliable intermediary.’

  And that didn’t mean a thing either. I peered at the bevelling, which in old glass is pretty shallow and often unevenly cut. This looked horribly regular to me.

  ‘Let’s try the coin test,’ I muttered to Griff, who was hovering close, as if aware that I was scared my instinct might wilt in such overheated surroundings.

  He produced one with an approving smile. It was a long time since he’d taught me this trick, and since we never needed it in our line of work he must have been afraid I’d forgotten it.

  I put the pound coin up against the glass. Old glass is thinner than Victorian, say, so the reflection should appear quite close. But not this close. Only modern glass was this thin. And now I came to look through my magnifying glass (shades of Sherlock Holmes!) I could see all the impurities were industrially regular. I passed the magnifying glass to Griff, who responded with a tiny nod. ‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ he said out loud, thus forcing me to give the bad news.

  ‘I’m sorry. The frame is lovely, but the glass . . .’

  A bit of science helped all my other divvying, as did the information that M le Fèvre pretty well spat out about which pieces his trusted intermediary had sourced. A pair of commodes might have been antique in that they were made of old wood, and even the screws and nails looked original, but there was something about those dovetail joints . . . They looked so old that they suggested that someone had set out to age them.

  Suddenly, I was back in Kent, at a bottom-end sale, looking at dressing cases. Big Dave was talking about modern varnish and modern glue. And then I was staring at a skip full of odds and ends of wood.

  ‘My instinct,’ I said carefully, ‘is that these pieces have been put together from other items.’

  ‘They’ve been cannibalized?’ Morris, who’d been surprisingly silent, prompted me, as if in disbelief.

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt to use that word,’ I said, hoping to sound wise. As I did when I worried about a table and, worst of all, a beautiful Regency desk. I was sure some of the elegant brass decoration was original. Some. But the sheer number of swags and rosettes worried me. There were simply too many mouldings, as if someone had seized on a good idea and let it run wild. If I could strip them away, mentally if not physically, and imagine the very new-looking veneer was a loveable battered mahogany, I could see a gentleman’s desk. If I put everything back again, I saw . . .

  ‘I’m afraid this is the worst of all,’ I heard myself say. ‘I’d need to take it apart to show you how wrong it is. But I’d suggest the person who negotiated the sale is the one to do that. You see, if you could restore it to the original, it would be worth – on the international market – tens of thousands of pounds.’

  ‘One went at auction the other day for ninety thousand,’ Morris agreed.

  From the silence that followed I gathered that they’d paid a good deal more than that. At last, Madame broke it with a tiny cough and the sort of polite smile that takes a lot of effort when you’d rather be spitting with rage.

  It seemed that afternoon tea was in order, English-style. Query: how did Madame stay so thin if she ate so many meals? She didn’t look like a woman who spent hours in the gym.

  Morris cam
e and joined me while Griff charmed our hosts with stories, some possibly truthful, of his life in the theatre. ‘You had me on the edge of my seat once or twice there,’ he said. ‘But by God you came up with the goods.’

  ‘Maybe I can dispense with my antennae,’ I said lightly, knowing that even if I tried, they wouldn’t dispense with me. ‘Has this been any use? Apart from upsetting a couple of perfectly nice people with more money than sense. I mean, Morris – have you seen the loo?’

  ‘It has been my pleasure,’ he said gravely, as if discussing arrangements for a funeral.

  ‘The last thing I want,’ he said, back at our hotel half an hour later as we lay on the monster bed in each other’s arms, ‘is to keep taking you and Griff out and making you do your act over and over again, as if you were a pair of performing bears, but the victim who’s invited you to dine this evening is even bigger than the le Fèvres. You’ll recognize him and his pad from TV, even if you are invited to use the unofficial entrance. And you can bet my pension that the phone lines have been trilling all over Paris with the le Fèvres’ news, so you may get even more invitations and even more fees.’

  ‘If I do, I’ll ask for your guidance about which I can accept and which safely turn down,’ I said. ‘Because Griff’s health is more important than my junketing round the city.’ He was safe in his room lying down for a rest at the moment. Safe, because there happened to be a policeman lurking in the corridor.

  ‘On the other hand, he’s been like a kid at the zoo, hasn’t he?’

  ‘True. And I’ve not seen him reach for his spray once. But for all I said I could manage without my divvy instinct, I daren’t. And I daren’t try to force it. If Monsieur le Fèvre hadn’t told me which pieces were replacements, I might have had egg all over my face.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you the desk was new.’

  ‘He did. By looking at it so anxiously.’

  ‘We’ll make a detective out of you yet,’ he said.