Ring of Guilt Read online

  All the time – every moment I wasn’t really concentrating on something else, such as repairing the tusk on a Meissen elephant for one of our regular clients – I beat myself up. As I told the reproachful figure still frozen on my mobile phone, I should have stopped and gone to help. What if he’d really been ill or been hurt? What if I could have saved his life?

  Griff kept on looking at me a little anxiously, and once or twice had his mouth open, as if he was going to ask me something. But he said nothing, and, knowing better than to interrupt me when I was on a really tough assignment, spent a lot of time ensuring that the new addition to our team, Mary Walker, knew everything there was to know about the new stock I’d bought on purpose – unlike the ring, of course. We kept quiet about that.

  When she first started to help out in the shop, we’d been afraid Mrs Walker – somehow we never used her first name – might be over-anxious. After all, she’d been wrongly sacked from her last job, and it couldn’t have been easy stepping into the shoes of a victim of an armed robbery. (I’d never actually liked poor Mrs Hatch, her predecessor, at all, but all the same being literally scared to death – she’d had a heart attack and never recovered – isn’t nice.) As it was, Mrs Walker had taken to the work like the proverbial duck to water. While Mrs Hatch had given the impression she was begrudging us every second of her time when we were away at fairs or auctions, Mrs Walker pretty well shooed us off so she could take her place amongst all the goodies. She also knew her way around our mail order system, and helped out with that when she had time on her hands. She’d even helped wash and catalogue some of the stuff I’d bought at the auction, though she’d drawn the line at the smelly box of kitchen items.

  ‘Mrs Walker reminds me of you, in a way,’ Griff said over supper one evening.

  I blinked. Much as we liked each other, I couldn’t see a retired teacher having much in common with someone my age who’d systematically skived off school.

  ‘She’s always so keen to learn,’ he explained. ‘But where you make intuitive leaps and back them up afterwards, she’s a book-learner first and appreciates things second. You did well to choose her, sweet one; you complement each other.’

  I’d asked her to work for us because ages ago she’d been kind to me when a bit of kindness was just what I needed. Griff and I had fallen out over something, and I’d stormed out of his life for ever (as if!), though it was a couple of days neither of us ever referred to. The other reason was that before she’d been sacked from the job she loved, she’d been the victim of bullying, and I’d been so often on the receiving end of that, I knew it wasn’t funny. Oh, and there was the small matter of desperately needing someone to look after the shop while Griff and I were doing other things. So I didn’t really deserve Griff’s praise.

  ‘Anyway, she’s more than happy to cover for us for a couple of days. And guess what the postie brought today! Two tickets for a show, my love. So next week we shall journey to London with as much pomp as whatever the rail company’s called these days can manage. We shall have lunch with dear Douglas, and pick his impressive brain about your ring – yes, my sweet, your ring it is! You paid a whole pound for it, remember. And then we shall go and see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. One of my old friends is in the ensemble, so it is possible that we shall go back stage afterwards, and meet some of the stars. I only hope that none of them will steal your heart and take you away from me. All those handsome young men . . .’

  Sometimes when he said things like that he wrung my heart. This time I suspected a twinkle in his eye.

  There was one in mine, too. ‘Handsome young men? More likely to steal yours, aren’t they?’

  There was one man, handsome or otherwise, that Griff wouldn’t let me meet. Not his choice, he insisted. Occasionally someone would knock on the door very early in the morning – apparently, in the days before Griff became security conscious, he’d just appear in the kitchen, and would sometimes be helping himself to breakfast before Griff realized there was anyone else in the house. Apparently he scraped an existence rooting round boot sales and selling likely items to people like Griff. Any profits went to keeping a small float for the next fair and buying rough cider. He relied for food on people like Griff, as well as the burgers and such the boot-fair punters discarded. I heard his tap early one morning; Griff slipped a little note under my door telling me to have a lie-in.

  Since the mystery guest had once seen my bedroom curtains twitch and hadn’t returned for six months, I simply had to do as Griff said and wait for Griff’s call before coming downstairs.

  This morning, despite the cold, when I was allowed down the kitchen window was wide open and the extractor fan whirring full-time.

  ‘I’m sorry, angel.’ Griff was rubbing the table with that surface cleaner that’s supposed to kill all germs. ‘Our friend X’s personal hygiene leaves much to be desired.’

  ‘You mean, he stinks,’ I said in my head. But not aloud. If it hadn’t been for Griff, I might have been a female X, without X’s eye for a bargain. ‘Has he brought anything interesting?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  He unwrapped a filthy newspaper, producing a pair of tiny bowls, both with a single silver foot. I didn’t need to turn them over. ‘Late-ish Ruskin,’ I said. ‘Very pretty. Hallmarked Birmingham 1929. A matched pair, so we get more than twice the individual value . . . Griff, you did pay him enough, didn’t you?’ I asked, doing sums in my head.

  ‘Dear one, if I paid him enough, he’d die of alcoholic poisoning in a week. I pay what he asks, though we both – we all three – know it’s not enough. But as he says, he knows if he has a problem, he can always come here.’

  The obvious place to sell them was Detling Antiques Fair, our last fair before our trip to London. We might not like the site, one of the windiest in the country, but we couldn’t miss the event itself. At least we had the privilege of an inside stall, but there were a lot of poor dealers who could only afford an outside pitch. Some had marquee-sized tents, plus heaters. Others just huddled like the roadside refugees you sometimes see on TV, selling stuff I honestly couldn’t see why anyone should want to buy. But then, since punters collected all sorts of stuff I wouldn’t have given houseroom to even when it was new and clean, I suppose they made a living.

  One man who certainly made a living drifted by as I put the finishing touches to the lights on our stall. Titus Oates. Aged somewhere between forty and sixty, and so ordinary looking no one would ever manage to put together an e-fit of him, he had a stall in the darkest corner, away from the main drag. I wouldn’t have described him as a mate, and he barely acknowledged my existence, but we did each other good turns occasionally. I kept schtum about his dead dodgy business; he’d tip me the wink about things I might find useful.

  This time, as we nodded to each other, he touched the side of his nose. ‘Word on the street is you’ve lost your touch, doll. Bought a load of tat at that house clearance last week. And you’re supposed to be a divvy.’

  ‘On a fishing trip, are you, Titus? What fetched up in the shop or in the rubbish bin is for me to know and you to keep quiet about.’

  He slapped his thigh. ‘So you did get something good? I laid a fiver you would.’

  ‘To be honest – and I know it’s a word we don’t often use, Titus – I don’t know.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Hey up, there’s one of the filth over there. Don’t want him seeing you and me together and doing the sums about me and your dad, do we?’ He disappeared before I could agree. Master forger and Cheshire Cat, our Titus. And employer of my disreputable father, Lord Elham.

  But this wasn’t the moment to worry about him, though he was due a visit. Any moment now dealers and the punters who paid extra to get in early would be upon us, and I still hadn’t had time to drift round to check out other stalls. Maybe some people looked at me a bit oddly now I was getting known as a divvy, but since it was mostly folk with a lot to hide, I took no notice. There were more cheery waves than sco
wls, and a huge hug from Josie. She got tinier by the week, and always insisted that the current fair would be her last.

  ‘No handsome boyfriend in tow?’ she asked. And then she took my hand. ‘I’m sorry, luvvie – he didn’t break your heart, did he?’

  ‘Which one?’ Griff asked, appearing at my side. ‘There are so many, Josie, beating a path to my door.’

  ‘I hope they ask your permission, Griff.’

  ‘I insist,’ he said.

  ‘I’m afraid he does. And he checks up what time I get home. But only ’cos he’s jealous,’ I added, grinning at him.

  She cackled with laughter. ‘So you won’t be coming to old Josie for a ring yet a while?’

  Not while I had two beauties from the last boyfriend to sell when the market perked up, but I needn’t tell her that. I just shook my head, mock-sadly. ‘So you’ll have to stay in business a good long time.’

  I left the two discussing their symptoms, and headed back to our stall. Already there was a man hanging round. I recognized him at once. Harvey Sanditon. He was the an . . . anti . . . He was pretty well as far from X as it was possible to be. What he was doing at a middling fair like this goodness knew, since he was LAPADA through and through. But here he was, and at our stand, no less. He couldn’t take his eyes off a piece of early twentieth century Royal Worcester. I was never quite sure how to deal with guys who couldn’t manage to shove their arms down their coat sleeves – you know, like that president of Afghanistan. And this guy wore his very fine camel-hair coat perched on his expensively suited shoulders. If you ignored all that, he had a face that was handsome in a Forties film star sort of way. I ducked into place and produced my most professional smile – what a good job Griff insisted I applied my slap before I left the house.

  ‘You’d do better to have your spotlight on that,’ he said, pointing to the Worcester vase.

  ‘Replace the Rockingham, you mean?’ I’d have liked to greet him by name, but thought Harvey was a bit familiar, while Mr Sanditon came in at the toadying end of the scale.

  He looked taken aback.

  ‘Would you like a look at the Worcester? The James Stinton pheasant vase?’

  Before he could blink, he had it in his hands. In ordinary punters it almost guaranteed a sale. Somehow the object became theirs, just because they were holding it. But he was a dealer, and I was expecting something else.

  He turned it upside down to check the mark, and also, I suspect, to work our price code – not exactly rocket science, of course. ‘You should tell your boss he’s underpriced this.’

  I shook my head. ‘You see that little mark next to the price? It means it’s been restored. So I think the price is about right.’

  He nearly dropped it, which would have ruined three days’ work. ‘Where?’ He turned it this way and that.

  At last I pointed to one of its funny little feet. ‘I never sell anything I’ve repaired without warning the purchaser –’ I nearly said punter, which wouldn’t be right to a man with such an elegant signet ring – ‘and I never attempt to sell at the perfect price. All the information goes on the receipt and into our computer records.’

  He passed it back. ‘Why are you working for such a tinpot firm as this?’

  Tinpot? How bloody dare he? I said tartly, ‘Because I’m the Townend half of Tripp and Townend.’ His eyes said I was very young to be a partner. ‘I also do a lot of restoration for private individuals,’ I added, trying not to laugh at the way his jaw had dropped. Or perhaps I was trying not to be dead furious. ‘Here’s my card.’

  He glanced at it, then at me. There were no letters after my name, of course.

  ‘Where did you train?’

  ‘I did an informal apprenticeship.’

  ‘With?’

  ‘Old friends of my partner’s.’ The couple in the Midlands who’d taught me had a national reputation. I dropped their name out casually.

  It was quite clear he not only recognized it, he knew how good they were. When his eyebrows returned to normal, he said, ‘What do you charge?’

  ‘My time and sometimes a proportion of the original value. I always give estimates and written documentation, plus before and after photos.’ Thank God Griff had rehearsed me for hours on end: I knew the words and how to deliver them in a cool professional voice. But I was glad I’d put the Worcester back in its place before I started to talk. I was so angry my hands were sweating and beginning to tremble.

  ‘I may be in touch.’ He produced his own card.

  There was something about the way he flicked it on to the counter that riled me even more. ‘I should warn you I have a waiting list several weeks’ long.’

  But even that didn’t slap him down. ‘In that case you should be working in your studio, not wasting time here.’ He turned on his heel, on what Griff would have called a good exit line. Pity he spoiled it by turning round again. ‘Did you say the Rockingham was perfect?’

  Griff had told me how to respond to questions like that, too, and to take a deep calming breath without it being seen. ‘Its provenance is excellent, and I can detect no sign at all of damage, or even wear. Circa 1835. The view in the cartouche is of Howick Hall, in Northumberland.’

  I wrapped it and stowed it for him in one of the recycled card carriers we’d started to use for our most fragile objects, and he was on his way.

  Griff mimed applause as he came back. ‘I’ve been watching from the wings, my angel. Heavens, you should be selling sand to Arabs. A piece of Rockingham to Harvey Sanditon! And at full price, too?’

  ‘I gave him trade discount,’ I admitted. ‘Not because he needed it, but because I thought he might be a useful contact. Restoration,’ I explained. ‘If you think we can trust him not to palm off restored stuff as perfect?’

  ‘His reputation’s pretty good. As it should be, the prices he asks. I’ll ask around for you. Meanwhile, my love, the ravening hordes will be upon us in five minutes, and we have a horrid blank space on our display. How shall we fill it?’

  ‘The Ruskin bowls,’ I said, giving their pedestals a final polish.

  We were pretty busy all day, quite an achievement these days, though I suppose some people – the sort we love – would rather put their money into something beautiful than trust it to a bank account offering what Griff called miserly interest. The eye-catching centre piece had to be replaced several times in the course of the day.

  ‘Is this anything to do with Harvey Sanditon’s patronage?’ Griff pondered, as we packed up the most valuable things for the night. Of course the organizers provided tight security, but we knew of other fairs where people had been robbed, despite the presence of guards and CCTV, so we went in for belt and braces.

  I shook my head. ‘Would you mind finishing up here? I need to go for a stroll.’ Something was calling me from somewhere.

  I let myself drift along with the last of the punters. I wished I could tell a nice-looking couple not to buy anything from one guy: every stick of his furniture was dodgy. I yearned to tell a woman Mrs Walker’s age that the plate she’d just turned down was worth twice the asking price. Knowledge, nothing to do with my weird instinct. But I kept my mouth shut and my hands in my pockets and strolled along, not particularly trying to catch anyone’s eye. If a mate waved, I smiled back – though I didn’t stop to talk. Not yet, not yet. Perhaps whatever it was had just been sold and was walking out right now. Shrugging, I headed back to Griff and picked up the heavy box the silly old dear was trying to lift.

  It was outside, of course. This lovely Stourbridge lead crystal fruit bowl. Thomas Webb. Oh, not very old – perhaps forty years, that was all. But the weight, the colour, the depth of cut – what skills had been thrown away when the glass industry decamped to Europe or wherever! The guy selling it was so cold and wet he might have given it me. As it was, he grabbed my fiver as if it was the first money he’d touched all day.

  ‘Cut glass is quite down at the moment,’ Griff murmured.

  ‘Are you telling m
e I won’t get my money back? Well, if I don’t, we can put fruit salad in it.’ All the same, I was a tiny bit disappointed myself. What if by talking about my gift, I’d driven it away?

  All through Saturday and right up to closing time on Sunday I had this niggle at the back of my mind. It was if someone was tugging me by one hair. But I ignored it. I was busy, for one thing, and really couldn’t say that anything other than an eye for a bargain had led me to the bowl – though it was twice as lovely now I’d washed it, and Mrs Walker said someone had been looking for something similar and had left a phone number.

  There were steady sales – the Ruskin went almost immediately – but nothing spectacular. A regular customer brought back a nice piece of early Loetz glass saying she couldn’t find a place in her new house for the light to bring out the best in it; she went away with a credit note and a funny Minton cheese dish in the shape of a beehive I’d never have associated with her. The glassware wasn’t our usual thing, of course; how Griff had come to stock it I’d no idea. Anyway, it looked good in the Ruskin’s former position under the light, and Griff upped the price a bit. Another regular customer bought the Victorian silver spectacle case I knew she’d want even though it was a bit over her usual budget. And there were plenty of people who really just wanted free valuations, and others who pointed out they’d got better at home. Security drifted round with a warning that some teenage girls looked as if they might be trying to shoplift – in other words, steal.

  Been there, done that – but found Griff.