Guilt Trip Read online

  It was only when I got home that I remembered about Morris’s note. But before I read it, I checked our security, had a shower, slapped on some anti-itch cream and started some supper. Cheese on toast. I hadn’t had that since Griff had been told to reduce his cholesterol intake, but there was no reason why I shouldn’t rub in the garlic and slosh on the Worcestershire sauce the way he’d shown me – I wasn’t going to be kissing anyone for a bit.

  Full of cheese and halfway down a glass of Griff’s favourite Burgundy, I fished the note from my pocket and spread it out in front of me.

  I never mind being grovelled to, especially when the grovellings are accompanied with lots of nice endearments. And he’d been right to stay with Griff, I had to admit that, even though he was worried he might have given Griff what felt like the start of flu. And he couldn’t have done anything to help the police – might have got in their way. But I did wish, more deeply in my heart than I cared to admit, that he’d stuck up a couple of fingers at his Interpol colleagues and been late for their urgent meeting. It was only about money, after all. Rich people whose pride had been hurt wanted action. Let them wait for it. If they hadn’t been so keen on their status symbols, they’d never have been duped in the first place.

  I knew I was being unreasonable, denying all the principles Griff and I lived and worked by. But all I’d wanted was the comfort of a hug – ten minutes, tops – and all I got was a piece of paper, now stained with a couple of tears and great big cheesy thumbprint.

  ‘You just mark my words,’ Tim the Bear said, when I crawled up to bed, ‘he’ll try to sweeten you up with another damned limited edition collector’s bear.’

  Monday morning found me in housekeeping mode. Nothing could have kept me in my workroom. Nothing kept me anywhere for long. But in between my flittings I stripped Griff’s bed, made it up with fresh linen and ensured he had fresh towels and a newly vac’d bedroom. As a treat I spring-cleaned the bathroom – truly, I like few things better than to polish taps and baths.

  After that I tackled the living room and kitchen. Then the office. And why not deal with my room? All the traipsing up and down stairs might free up the bruised knee. If not, tough.

  It was still only eight thirty.

  There was nothing to stop me nipping into Maidstone to buy a new phone. Griff wouldn’t be phoning till twelve thirty at the earliest – probably much later. But I had to stay within earshot of the landline. I sanitized and recharged his phone. He’d be relying on the hospital payphones to contact me.

  What about some cooking? That would pass the time.

  I couldn’t face it. Griff was the cook, after all.

  The phone. Surely, it couldn’t be Griff?

  It was. Just to say hello and that he was fine.

  Back to work. If only there was something to do.

  Eventually, I did the obvious thing: I went back to my workroom and started to tackle the backlog of hideous Toby jugs I’d been putting off for days.

  They stared at me reproachfully when I opened the cupboard I’d stored them in, just as they had when I’d taken advantage of a stallholder’s ignorance to get some cheap Swansea ware. The day I spotted all those dodgy boxes, of course. Were they connected to the goings-on in the unit near the oast? I must ask the police.

  Could I really work on one of those ugly faces?

  I hadn’t checked the day’s emails. What was happening to my mind?

  When my restoration work built up, the online business was in the hands of Griff. On the other hand, our clients weren’t to know that he wouldn’t be working today, so I’d better switch on the computer and at least warn them of a delay responding to their enquiries. If I’d hoped for a message from Morris to my personal email I was disappointed, so I switched quickly to our business account.

  There were a couple of straightforward questions, both of which I could manage. But then there was a long email which fortunately had all the preceding correspondence attached – in reverse order, of course. Ulysses S. Grant? The guy whose Parian ware bust I’d bought for twenty pounds? What the hell was Griff doing asking twenty grand for it? OK, twenty thousand dollars, not pounds, but all the same. Not just asking, either. The guy he was corresponding with was definitely nibbling. Not enthusiastically, but nibbling – like those little fish they put in foot spas, maybe. He was upping his offer by a few hundred dollars each time Griff declined an offer. What if I upset Griff by accepting too low a figure? What if I put off the buyer by being greedy?

  Twenty thousand dollars. It was a big secret for Griff to keep.

  After a good deal of lip-chewing, I made a note to ask Griff’s advice and sent the guy a reply saying the person dealing with the bust was out of the office today but would contact him tomorrow.

  If Griff had been working on a twenty-thousand dollar deal without telling me, what else had he been keeping quiet? If I switched on the computer again I could actually check all his Internet use, not to mention the rest of the business emails.

  That wasn’t how we worked, was it?

  There was a shelf of really lovely china awaiting my attention, but, now I came to look at my hands, I wasn’t sure if they were steady enough to deal with anything really delicate. So, praying for a diversion, it was back to the Toby jugs.

  I got the ugliest of the bunch nicely taken apart. He’d been badly glued, and the only thing to do was start all over again.

  The house phone rang. I nearly dropped the piece I was holding. But it was only Julie, asking how I was.

  ‘You’re never working! Not after all you went through yesterday.’

  Now wasn’t really the moment to explain the difference between full-time salaried workers and freelance self-employed ones. ‘Keeps my mind and hands busy,’ I said.

  ‘Would you mind if I popped round? You asked various questions yesterday and I’m beginning to get a few answers. I’ll be with you in – say – ten minutes.’

  She cut the call before I could argue.

  She brought Mike. Both looking solemn, they established themselves in the living room, round eyed as they checked out the lovely furniture. I just hoped they wouldn’t have the same attitude as Wayne.

  Balancing the eighteenth century coffee can on his knee, Mike said, ‘Yesterday you were asking about the death of a policeman, and we hadn’t the slightest idea what you were talking about, to be honest. Well, we’ve now established who he was, and why he died. I’m afraid it’s not pleasant listening.’

  I put my hands to my mouth. ‘Was it his body that was in the oast house yesterday – the theatre? DCI Morris made sure I didn’t see it – and then I was rather too busy doing other things.’

  ‘Quite,’ Julie rushed in, as if she’d rather not be talking about the oast. ‘How’s that knee of yours, by the way? I should have asked earlier. And any problems after the bang on your head?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, because I was – as long as I didn’t think too hard about the oast. As if I could blank out the face on my mobile phone, I buried my face in my hands. ‘How could I be such an idiot? It was Paul, wasn’t it? The body,’ I added when they looked blank.

  ‘It was the body of DC Phil Haddon,’ Mike corrected me carefully.

  Julie was about to say something, but a look from him silenced her.

  I carried on putting two and two together, for my benefit, if not theirs. ‘While I was in France I was sent a photo of a man I knew as Paul. He’d been badly beaten up. I took this as a warning not to mess with the so-called Charles Montaigne any more. And certainly not to mess any more with Paul.’

  ‘Mess with Paul?’ Julie repeated.

  ‘Have anything to do with him, at least. Or rather, let him have anything to do with me.’

  Not surprisingly, they both looked blank.

  ‘I’m sorry. My grandfather’s still in hospital, and I’m afraid my brain’s gone quite soggy. Maybe it’s that bang on the head . . . The man I knew as Paul met me secretly – at a garden centre of all places – to
tell me to pull out of the play and everything going on at the oast. I thought he’d taken a beating as punishment for contacting me. The two heavies admitted dealing with a policeman – presumably, Montaigne somehow discovered who he really was, an undercover officer.’ To stop myself crying, I asked, ‘Did you pick that up from the phone?’

  Mike nodded reluctantly. ‘It all tallies with what we found out. Well, obviously not just us. The team. Both Sussex and Kent police, plus Interpol. In fact, the man you called Paul had taken a tremendous risk warning you off. Someone with an organization as big as this – we believe it stretches as far as the US in one direction and Italy in the other—’

  ‘Mafia,’ Julie put in.

  ‘—doesn’t like dissent in the ranks.’

  ‘Dear God, why didn’t I put all this together before?’

  ‘Because, as you said, you were rather busy doing other things. And I should have thought that forgetting that someone else had died might be part of some self-preservation instinct.’

  Julie was inclined to take the other view, that it would have generated extra adrenalin, but I didn’t want to join the discussion.

  Eventually, I raised a hand to stop them bickering. ‘Charles Montaigne. What’s his real name? Not that it’ll mean anything to me, but I don’t like fakes, even when it comes to names. And another thing: how did this so-called Montaigne find out so much about me personally? I’d really like to know. There were bits and pieces only people who know me could have told him. About my father, and about my relationships.’ All those postcards. I’d better hand them over as evidence. They weren’t worth anything to me.

  ‘No idea,’ Mike said. ‘But people who want info can charm it out of stones. Remember what is said on those war posters: careless talk costs lives!’

  ‘It could have cost me mine,’ I said bitterly. ‘Or my soul, I suppose, if I’d actually agreed to work with him.’

  This seemed a bit beyond them.

  ‘And his name is? Montaigne’s, of course.’

  ‘He’s got a number, actually. Camille Monet, for a start.’

  ‘Spare me! That’s when he’s dealing in Impressionist art, is it? His real name – the one he was born with. I just need to know. Humour me.’

  ‘Christopher Mills. French mother, English father. Bilingual. Double first at Cambridge. Brilliant man. Until he went wrong. He runs an army of forgers – you were spot on with the French Impressionists. Nice line in anything fakeable. Manuscripts, miniatures. Never soiled his hands. Always got other folk to do the dirty work – some more successfully than others.’

  I nearly threw up. What if Pa was working for him? Pa and Titus? No, surely they were too low down the food chain. And even they had principles – of a sort. But Freya had definitely wanted gen on Titus. Deep breath time. Buy a moment on my own time. I popped upstairs and gathered the cards. I felt cleaner as I watched Mike stow them in an evidence bag.

  Nodding as if that wrapped up one line of questioning, I said, ‘Now let’s talk about the good guys. I know about Griff and Morris, but I haven’t a clue about what happened to Emilia Cosworth after she was taken to hospital. I know Griff would want me to send flowers.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re supposed to divulge confidential health information to a third party,’ Mike said cautiously.

  ‘In her position I’d want flowers,’ Julie said. ‘Always assuming the hospital allows flowers – it’s amazing that a simple flower should be a Health and Safety issue.’

  ‘But—’ They were going to start again, weren’t they?

  ‘So she’s still in hospital and likely to need cheering up,’ I prompted them. ‘So the fit she had—?’

  ‘You’d really need to talk to the medics.’

  ‘You know as well as I do I’ve no idea where she is, and even if I turned up at her bedside the staff wouldn’t tell me. OK, I’m being nosy. But Griff and she go back forty years, and he’s entitled to know what’s happened to an old friend.’

  They looked around the room, I swear, as if to check for eavesdroppers. ‘If your grandfather’s that ill, it might be better not to tell him. Not if they were – you know . . .’

  ‘They were friends,’ I supplied. ‘So she’s very ill?’

  ‘They think she’s got a brain tumour,’ Julie said with a rush.

  ‘Does that mean she’s going to – oh, my God . . .’ All those things I’d done to provoke her. On the other hand . . . ‘Is that why she’s been behaving so . . . oddly?’ Griff wouldn’t have wanted me to speak ill of the nearly dead, so I replaced the word I wanted to use with a kinder one.

  ‘Could be,’ Julie continued. ‘They say that’s why Mo Mowlam was so unconventional, don’t they? Poor woman.’

  There was no need to reveal my ignorance by saying I wasn’t sure who she was talking about; I made a note to look her up later.

  ‘So Emilia’s in hospital. And where is Charles Montaigne? Christopher Thingy? Surely, they won’t let him have bail this time. He’s done a bit more than diddle rich people.’ I wanted to sound jaunty – I think it came out more like desperate.

  ‘They won’t. We take the murder of our own very seriously, as I’m sure your boyfriend will have told you.’

  The boyfriend who was too busy sorting out the poor deprived rich to stay with me. Or even phone me, on a morning he must have known I’d be beyond scared. ‘Of course,’ I said loyally. ‘May I ask something else? In early September there was an antiques fair in Hythe, with a stall dealing in tea caddies, writing slopes, work boxes – all very heavily and badly restored. I’ve mentioned it to DCI Morris, but he hasn’t been able to tell me – was it anything to do with the Montaigne-Mills empire?’

  The notion seemed to surprise them. They both scribbled in their notebooks and got to their feet. I didn’t try to detain them. I had a phone call to make. Titus might be weird, but he was a mate – and mates, as I could have told Morris, should always be there for each other.

  TWENTY-NINE

  ‘Me? Work for anyone else? Specially some bugger I told you was a nasty piece of knitting! You got to be kidding, doll. In any case, the rate your Pa works, he wouldn’t have time to supply anyone but me. Been lying very low, we have, since you warned us about that Freya woman wanting to nail me. Good job, considering you only went and told the fucking pigs to make sure no one took a pot shot at the old bugger.’

  ‘Sorry, Titus. But I was really scared – the bloke calling himself Montaigne knew so much about me. And about Pa. And when they tried to kidnap Morris’s daughter, I panicked.’

  ‘I suppose you might,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Any road, the old geezer played the innocent – pretended to be really grateful when they turned up on his doorstep. Yes, officer, thank you very much, officer. All that crap. That Freya still sniffing about?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘Don’t know. She’s giving me the cold shoulder. Totally freezing me out.’

  ‘Shit. Could mean she’s really got us in her sights. Don’t worry – nothing at the Hall to give him away,’ he added kindly. ‘Not any more. Send my best to Griff – actually, no. Don’t want him to have a heart attack. Sorry. No laughing matter. Hey, doll – for your ears only – that guy who topped himself. Croft. Under pressure to pretend he was producing real antiques, not repro. And sell them to just one dealer. Get my drift?’

  ‘Montaigne—? You should tell the police.’

  ‘Fucking hell. That’s really bloody likely, doll.’

  End of call.

  There was still no news from the hospital. Any moment I’d phone the ward myself. But they’d told Griff he was just one of a list of patients having the same procedure, so he might just be at the tail end of the queue. What might that mean? That he was worse or better than the others?

  If only I could have settled to some decent restoration, but, confronted by the pieces of the Toby jug, I really lost heart and left them where they were. Perhaps while the spring-cleaning bug was still in me, I should tackle the shop, closed since
it was a Monday.

  Not a speck of dirt anywhere, of course, under Mrs Walker’s regime. Not a single mote dared hang in the air. In fact, the place looked far better than it had for years, our previous assistant having been far too grand to so much as waft a feather duster. She’d died of heart failure. Not a good thought at the moment.

  Reduced to playing Solitaire and Freecell on the computer, I intermittently checked our emails. Even an online survey would be better than nothing. I even checked the weather forecast, the latest celeb gossip and anything the screen threw up. I had mail! Yes!

  And it was serious mail. It was from the guy wanting Ulysses. He wanted him now, and twenty thousand was his final offer. Pounds, if I insisted. I did. The deal was done, with a cyber handshake.

  So there was another task – a useful one this time. If Ulysses was going to fly across the Atlantic, he’d travel in style. More to the point, in an acre of bubble-wrap. I might not reach Mrs Walker’s standards of neat elegance, but I could pack anything so well that it’d survive being kicked round a Royal Mail sorting office.

  There was nothing on the answerphone when I got back from the post office, having broken all records for the journey time there and back. I’d cut short half a dozen conversations with our nice chatty neighbours, all with time on their hands and none waiting for news of Griff.

  I picked up the phone and dialled the hospital.

  The line was busy.

  So I did what I wanted to do anyway. I headed off to the William Harvey, so jumpy and prone to road rage that I told myself if I wanted to get to Ashford in one piece I’d better pretend I was on my driving test.

  The hospital car park was heaving. It would be visiting time any moment, and people were jostling for the few remaining spaces. We circled like vultures. And at last, forgetting all about manners, I found a place and nipped in. There could have been a row, but I ran to the pay station as if my life depended on it, darted back, and began running again.

  ‘Lina! Lina, for goodness’ sake.’