Guilt Edged Read online

  Although it was only about four thirty, the shop was closed. Maybe he was off at a sale – I remembered with a pang there was a house-clearance auction Griff and I had meant to go to over on the Isle of Oxney.

  Rob didn’t have the luxury of a Mary Walker to give his windows a regular polish. Or maybe the accumulated dirt was supposed to give an air of mystery to the unprepossessing items on display. Coronation plates; a pair of Charles-Diana wedding commemorative thimbles; a very ugly Portmeirion mug celebrating the Moon Landing. A Beswick horse. White. Puck’s brother, no doubt about that. Same size, same height, same stance, with its tail in exactly the same position relative to the legs as Puck’s. A clone.

  Scratching my head, I drifted back for a cup of coffee – but all I wanted was more time with Griff, of course.

  He’d sounded and looked so perky I decided I must celebrate somehow, even though I was on my own. I dropped the shopping on the kitchen table, and although I meant to return Tim the Bear, still slightly rumpled after a day safe in the depths of my bag, to his rightful place, he insisted on keeping me company downstairs, ensconced on a couple of cushions. But he’d be on his own for a bit: I dived back into the village, to the best takeaway in the world. I bought a very unhealthy option – chicken tikka in a huge fluffy naan – with a nod at healthy eating in the form of a portion of salad almost as big as the portion of chips. Afzal, who’d come round the counter to hug me when I gave him the good news about Griff, always gave me extra greenery, reasoning that some folk wouldn’t have any at all.

  Blowing him a kiss, I took my fragrant bundle and headed home. The M and S meals, basking in their balanced nutrition, glared at me until I stowed them in the freezer. Also glaring at me was a large parcel, which a neighbour had taken in for me and now dropped off as he headed to the pub. It looked the right size for a bear. Let it wait. I’d not been as hungry as this since I was a kid, and nothing was going to keep me from all those unhealthy carbs and evil cholesterol.

  At last, so full I could hardly move, I reached for some red wine – known, after all, for its health-giving properties – and a knife with which to attack the cardboard box. Even without Mary’s dire predictions the previous evening, I’d have suspected it was a teddy. However, Tim (ready to glower) and I were both mistaken. It was an exotic bouquet, already arranged in its own tightly-bound reservoir of water. Surprised – even taken aback – I fished out the printed note.

  Dearest Lina

  I hear on the grapevine that Griff is unwell. My thoughts and prayers for you both.

  Harvey

  Harvey was a fellow dealer, much higher up the food chain, who had once been smitten with me – and I with him, truth to tell, until I realized he was married. I put the arrangement in a corner near the standard lamp, where it glowed. So did the answerphone, pulsing frantically away. Eighteen messages? I didn’t know the thing would hold that many. But they’d all have to wait till I’d phoned Aidan, down in New Zealand.

  And then there were the emails. Sixty-odd, and more coming in. Personal ones, wishing us both well, and offering help. Many were in response to my messages, but clearly a friendly network had spread the information to the US, to South Africa and even to China. All were concerned about Griff; the vast majority were full of concern for me too.

  There was a knock at the door. Surely this time …? But I forced myself to walk downstairs and check the CCTV before I flung open the door to welcome Morris.

  Not Morris. A bunch of flowers. Two, possibly. And the neighbour from the cottage the other side waving at the camera.

  It turned out to be three bunches, plus a box of the neighbour’s home-made flapjack, oozing butter and golden syrup. Not ideal for Griff, but since it also oozed kindness I just smiled and tried to hold back tears.

  The cottage now looking and smelling like a florist’s, it was time for me and Tim to head for bed. But not until I’d taken this text. A text? From Titus? Had he really reached the twenty-first century? I was so gobsmacked that I sat on the stairs to read it – or that might have been because of the extra glass of red wine, come to think of it. It looked more like an eye-chart than a message: he’d obviously not got the hang of the delete button. The gist of it was that I should look at the local auctioneer’s website for details of Friday’s sale.

  I did. Guess what? Amidst a whole lot of other items, household and otherwise, were teams of Beswick horses. And viewing was at ten thirty tomorrow morning.

  FOUR

  I wasn’t in the shower when Griff phoned the next morning – worse, I was still in bed. He tried – half-heartedly – to put me off visiting in the afternoon, but we both knew I’d be there, even if I wasn’t allowed to take any of the flowers meant for him. Today he was going to start walking again. No lazing around for today’s patients, he grumbled mildly, not like in the old days when they had weeks of bed rest.

  As for me, I had a quick breakfast before dealing with all the email and Internet enquiries. As I sent off one message, another pinged in. And another. There was even one from an actor who’d briefly been a leading lady; she declared that she and Griff had once been very close, and that she would drop everything to come and nurse him. Over Aidan’s dead body – and mine, of course. How close had she been, if she thought he’d ever welcome her attentions? Or, to be fair, any woman’s.

  Putting aside such speculations, I welcomed Mary and Paul to the shop with the news of Griff. I also pressed on them some of today’s delivery of flowers: four bouquets from friends in Australia and Canada, and a couple of house plants, so far. They said they’d love some for the shop, but I insisted they should take some for their living room. Oh, and why not their kitchen and bedroom! Griff could spare them, after all. I took a photo of each bunch and accompanying card so that he could see how highly people valued him. Loved him.

  ‘None of these is from anyone who’d rather you kept them yourself?’ Mary asked hesitantly.

  I just shook my head. Since I wasn’t supposed to have heard their conversation about Morris I could hardly respond with a wry smile and a shrug and admit that he’d not yet sent a bear. Perhaps he really was ill, and I should be alarmed rather than angry that I hadn’t heard from him. Perhaps he’d expected me to phone to ask how he was. Perhaps I should have done.

  Maybe I’d have time later. Meanwhile, I’d leave my friends in charge and nip down to see what the auction had to offer.

  Baker’s had moved from an expensive spot in Tunbridge Wells, now under some new executive residences, to a former farmyard, complete with milking parlour – ripe for conversion, of course – on the edge of the village. There was still a decided whiff of manure. I pulled up in a cleanish-looking corner, where the other three or four cars had parked.

  The yard itself was old, but Brian Baker had had a new barn built, with an entirely new – and dung-free – floor. It was full of items for the next day’s general auction. In one corner was a stack of pictures; I could only see the first in line, a pretty enough Victorian watercolour. In another was a pretty weird mixture of Elvis Presley memorabilia. Bookshelves, ancient and modern, lined the longest wall. Furniture occupied most of the centre; it ranged from last year’s IKEA to some excellent antiques, including some genuine-looking Jacobean chairs. Except, when I had a close peep, I had a feeling that they were more ‘looking’ than ‘genuine’. Then there was a clump of furniture that was just depressingly old. Some easy-chairs in particular looked so sad that you could almost imagine their owners taking their very last nap in them – and not waking up. Even in these cash-strapped times, when more and more people were buying second-hand (going green, they’d call it, if they were middle-class enough), I couldn’t imagine anyone taking a wing chair in patchily balding green uncut moquette into their home. Some of the carpets should have been burned, surely: some had downright filthy patches, bringing a whiff of dog and urine to the area. The usual sad collection of unfinished whisky and brandy bottles stood on a small central table: it always made my heart turn,
wondering why the owners hadn’t gone wild and drained the lot before they turned up their toes. With Griff where he was they almost reduced me to tears.

  Brian, his short ginger hair looking, as it always did, like a guard dog’s hackles, greeted me in his usual brisk way, as if time was just about to run out on the opening bids and he was going to rap on a desk with his gavel. Like all his employees, he wore a magenta pinafore covered in a pattern of intertwined gavels and pound signs. He’d not heard about Griff’s op, but spent a minute assuring me that everything would be fine – his father-in-law had had a bypass too and was still, at the age of eighty-one, playing tennis. He waved his wife, Helen, over to verify it, and zipped off to deal with a phone call. As if she had all the time in the world, she produced real coffee in real china mugs and asked me when Griff was due home. I goggled. Home? Of course he’d have to come home, without all those machines to keep an eye on him. No nurses, either. Although that was what I wanted more than anything else, I suddenly found the prospect so terrifying that I sank, mouth wide open, on to a cardboard box. She patted my hand as she relieved me of the mug, declaring, ‘You’ll manage.’

  Digging in her apron pocket for a pencil and pad, she drifted back to what she’d been doing before – checking the items up for sale tomorrow. She also seemed to be keeping an eye on the activities of a young man I’d not seen before, tall enough to make the standard Baker’s apron look more like a pretty pinnie.

  ‘Tristam, our intern,’ Brian, who’d popped up behind me, said into my ear. ‘A Fine Arts graduate from Reading.’ He sounded drily impressed when he said it; he must have meant the university, not just the town. ‘All book-learning yet, but we’ll kit him out with the practical knowledge.’

  It was the opposite with me, of course – I’d barely read a book till Griff came on the scene.

  ‘Does he have book-learning about Beswick horses?’ I asked. ‘Or would that be your and Helen’s practical knowledge?’

  Not surprisingly he pulled a face. ‘You? Beswick horses? Bit of a departure for Tripp and Townend, isn’t it?’ He walked me over to another box – not the one I’d sat on. He dipped his hands in and came up with horse after horse. As he plonked them on a table he said, ‘What you need to remember is that quantity isn’t the same as quality. The lady wanting us to sell this lot – well, she’s acquired a lot of models with no rarity value at all. It’s like Ty Beanies versus Steiff bears,’ he said, still delving and coming up with more. ‘There are some rare models, and some very rare, which would turn in a nice little profit – but alas, she hasn’t got any of those. Just these common or garden ones. Are you looking for anything in particular? Because these have to go as one lot.’ It sounded like a threat.

  ‘I’m not so much looking to buy as looking for a reason not to buy one brought to our shop the other day.’ I showed him the photos of Puck. ‘The person wanting to sell him told me he was a collector’s item, and all I could do was nod, I’m afraid.’

  ‘How much did she want?’

  ‘She said she’d seen them going for at least six hundred – I didn’t get as far as telling her we’d offer less so we could make our profit. Actually, I saw one for a couple of hundred more in Canterbury.’

  He tapped my phone. ‘I’d say she was about right – they’ve sold for that here. So what’s the problem? And do you mind if Tristam listens in? Because it’s all grist to his mill,’ he added.

  What girl in her right mind would object to having Tristam join in? He’d got nice broad shoulders to go with his height, and a really lovely bum. Hell, what was I doing eyeing up a bloke when I’d already got a boyfriend? Even if he wasn’t much in evidence at the moment.

  Tristam wiped his hands on his apron before he shook mine, a gesture that made me think of some Hardy character I’d read about with Griff. He had a gentle, half-diffident smile revealing lovely teeth. ‘Tristam Collingwood.’

  ‘Lina Townend.’

  ‘What do you know about Beswick horses, Tristam?’ Brian asked.

  ‘The old ones made by Royal Doulton or those made by John Sinclair from Sheffield?’ He sounded awfully posh, but ducked his head like a schoolboy as he spoke. Public schoolboy, no doubt.

  ‘Doulton,’ I said.

  Tristam nodded as if I’d said the right thing. ‘You want to look for those sculpted by Arthur Gredington.’

  Brian smiled approvingly. ‘And if you wanted to go for broke?’

  ‘Oh, you’d look for the Spirit of Whitfield.’

  ‘Would you?’ I prompted, not having a clue.

  ‘Yup. There was a pit pony called Kruger who retired from some coal mine in Staffordshire or wherever.’ I didn’t know a lot about mines myself, or about the Midlands, but I wouldn’t have sounded quite so dismissive. ‘Anyway, this horse – the model, I mean – fetched nine thousand five hundred pounds. As I say, a record.’

  A lot of book-learning there.

  ‘Colour?’ Brian prompted.

  ‘Forget brown. They’re all over the place. You’d want the rarer colours.’

  ‘Such as white,’ I mused. ‘Which was what I was offered the other day.’ I showed him the photos too. ‘Trouble is,’ I said, mainly to Brian, ‘I smelt a rat.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Not you and your nose again!’

  Tristam peered. ‘It’s a very pretty nose.’ Then he, not I, blushed.

  ‘Her divvy’s nose, Tris,’ Brian said tartly. ‘Sometimes you’ll find some old codger swearing he can pick out a bargain at a hundred paces. Well, Lina’s a young codger. Thing is,’ he added, with narrow eyes, as if resenting the admission, ‘as often as not she’s right. You might want to talk to her about how she does it – but not until you’ve finished with those boxes,’ he added firmly.

  ‘My nose doesn’t know anything about these.’ I pointed at the collection on the table. ‘But the funny thing is, that one over there is the first cousin of the one this woman brought to us.’ I picked it up and cradled it. ‘Yes. Same height, same stance, everything.’

  ‘Yes. Brown fifty, white six to eight hundred. What’s the problem, Lina?’

  I pulled a face, touching my nose. ‘This. And the fact I keep seeing them. Some white, some brown.’ I pointed to his batch.

  Helen called him over to deal with some query. But he said over his shoulder, ‘Keep seeing them? Now that’s more interesting. Worrying, even. Especially as you can go for months without seeing a white one.’

  But I’d only seen three, hadn’t I? And one of the two in the antiques shops could have been the one I rejected. Maybe I was simply imagining a problem.

  Since I was here, I might as well cast my eyes over the other lots before I said a proper goodbye, so I mooched quietly round, almost listening for something interesting to summon me.

  Would I call Tristam something interesting? Possibly – though I was never sure about guys with public school accents. Maybe I was afraid that at bottom they’d be like my aristo dad. Anyway, he waved as I approached a stack of pictures in dauntingly heavy frames. Not a goodbye sort of wave. So I drifted over, not least because he was unpacking more pictures, little domestic portraits, by and large – mostly amateur, in the worst sense. On the table beside him, though, were not just small pictures but proper miniatures – to judge by the sitters’ clothes, one or two Elizabethan, others later.

  I knew even less about miniatures than I did about Beswick horses, but I liked them much more, to be honest. Not just because they’re sometimes exquisite works of art in their own right, but because they’re so personal in scale. You could imagine some guy having his likeness done for a woman he fancied – or maybe it was all arranged, dynastic marriages when the trend for miniatures started, way back in Tudor times. Just don’t ask me which Tudor.

  In fact, rather than return Tristam’s smile, I pounced on one – not literally, because handling something like this ought to be a cotton glove job. Set within a little gold frame, against a background of stunning blue, was this smiling, devil-may-car
e face. Heavens, a young man, probably my own age, with eyes like that, and that lovely curling hair – yes, he’d make your heart beat faster. But you’d never know where you were with him.

  Any more than I did with Morris, a sour voice told me. Of course, that was because he was so tied up with work. And his daughter, of course.

  And possibly the flu.

  I mustn’t start crying. Not over a man. I focused on the picture. ‘Hilliard?’ I breathed, rather hoarsely, but at least without a sob.

  ‘Do you really think so? I suppose the vellum is right, and so is the playing card backing.’ Pulling on gloves, he turned it to show me. ‘But others are more inclined to think it’s more like an Isaac Oliver.’ For others read I. ‘And, to be honest, actually no more than school of. Someone’s very first day at school, too,’ he snorted. ‘I mean, imagine something by a master turning up in the back woods like this.’ So he didn’t rate Kent any more highly than the Midlands.

  ‘Hang on, didn’t a missing Rembrandt turn up in the Cotswolds? Cirencester? Thanks to a really tenacious actioneer’s research?’

  ‘Chance in thousands,’ he said.

  ‘But this one’s lovely – head and shoulders better than anything else you’ve got.’ He looked so miffed that I added, ‘Surely it won’t be in the same sale as the Beswick beasties, anyway.’

  ‘Hardly. Next week. Fine art. They’re all one lot, by the way, since there’s nothing any good in there. My God, call these fine?’ he asked, with a sweeping gesture. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, ‘I’m just reviewing and noting their general condition before putting them in the strong room. Brian thought he’d make use of my expertise before I leave.’ He clearly meant me to pursue what he was saying so I obliged. Should I go for expertise or leave?