by Rebecca Tope
He was a solid man, of middle height and middle age. His grey-black hair was cut short, lying in crinkly ridges flat on his head. He could have been a pub landlord or an AA man, Simmy decided. He had none of the weary disillusion of a teacher, nor the apprehensive manner of a social worker. He seemed to expect people to like him. Had Christopher liked him, she wondered, in those intimate Grasmere moments?
‘Did you know Jonathan, then?’ Ben asked, with startling directness. ‘The man who was killed, that is. The one whose body you saw on Monday.’
Mr Pruitt blinked, but did not flinch. ‘I can’t say I recognised him. But then, I didn’t look very closely. He wasn’t a pretty sight. I might have seen him here, but I can’t say for sure.’
A woman then put in an appearance, carrying two mugs of coffee. She stared curiously at Simmy and Ben, casting questioning looks at Mr Pruitt. ‘Hello, Sal,’ he said. ‘I’ve been chatting to a pair of newcomers to the salerooms, wanting to know the drill.’
‘It’s not complicated,’ she remarked. ‘You’ll pick it up soon enough.’
The woman named Sal was much younger than Mr Pruitt and appeared to be intimately acquainted with him. It seemed to Simmy that he was averse to Sal’s being included in any discussion of his involvement with Monday’s drama. Something in his face confirmed this. He sat back and avoided Simmy’s eyes.
There was still half an hour to go before the auction started. The smell of the coffee appealed to Simmy, and she decided to get some for herself. There was a small shed-like building that served basic snacks, on the far side of the car park. It offered seating for a dozen or so, squashed close together, but they were happy for customers to take their cups and plates into the saleroom, to be returned later. ‘I’m going to get a drink,’ she told Ben. ‘Do you want one?’
‘Tea, I suppose,’ he said, without enthusiasm. He’d taken a notebook out of his bag and was making jottings in it. The bag was the one he’d used for school and the sight of it reminded Simmy of how young he still was. Still too young to appreciate coffee, or to fully understand the effect he had on other people. She could feel Mr Pruitt’s unsatisfied curiosity as to just who they both were and how they were related. Ben’s note-taking must only be increasing his confusion.
Waiting in the short queue, she scanned the people at the few tables, most of them studying their auction catalogues, pen in hand. How seriously did they take the sale? How important was the day for their incomes? Did they depend on buying cheap and selling dear, in the whole uncertain business? Was it sometimes so crucial to their survival that they would resort to crime to get what they needed? On the numerous television programmes featuring antique shops, fairs and auctions, everyone looked relaxed and mildly amateurish, as if it was more of a hobby or a game than a means of earning a living. That was not the impression she gained from the people around her. They were badly dressed, ill-shaven, hollow-eyed, for the most part. Although most were chatting amiably, there was a definite atmosphere of earnestness in the air. None of these people appeared to be here for the fun of it.
‘Won’t get anything as good as that stumpwork again for a while,’ she heard one man say. His neighbour just nodded, with a grimace that seemed to say And even that was a fluke.
She took the drinks back to the saleroom, settling down on her 1920s upright chair and wondering whether she could manage to stay there all day without developing backache. ‘If we left a bit early, I could drive you home and then come back before Chris has sold everything,’ she muttered to Ben.
‘How early?’
‘Two-thirty? Three? We’ll have seen more than enough by then.’
‘You don’t know that. We might have seen enough by midday. On the other hand, we could stay till five and be none the wiser. We’ve got no idea.’
‘That’s true.’ So true, in fact, that she realised she didn’t really know what, if anything, the boy was hoping to witness during his day at the auction. He had been a lot less proactive than expected so far. She’d assumed he would go round asking questions of the staff and making pages of notes. As it was, he had hardly taken his eyes off his catalogue and the monitor on the wall.
‘So many things,’ he murmured. ‘Who on earth buys them all? Where do they go? Where did they come from? There’s a story behind every one of them. It’s overwhelming.’ He shook his head. ‘The world must be so full of stuff. How many auctions like this happen across the country every week? Fifty? A hundred? All that buying and selling! I feel as if I’m on a different planet.’
‘I know. I had the same thoughts when I came here the first time.’
A bell rang, and Christopher appeared from a side door and took his place on the podium. People settled down. Two men in overalls positioned themselves in front of shelves in one corner of the room. Two women sat at computers close to the podium, but on a lower level. Chris had a monitor of his own. ‘That’ll be for the online bids,’ whispered Ben. Simmy noticed that he had sketched the whole set-up in his little book.
‘Where’s Nick?’ she muttered. ‘I forgot to ask Chris to point him out.’
‘Too late now,’ said Ben.
With a brief preamble about commission rates, the necessity of having a buyer’s number and a projected finishing time of five o’clock, the whole proceedings got under way. The men in overalls indicated the lot that Christopher announced – lifting it up if it wasn’t too big and turning so that everyone could see it. At the same time a photograph of it appeared on the monitor, and when the bidding was finished and Christopher’s little hammer had tapped the table, the final price was also displayed. The pace was brisk and Simmy could see that it had to be finely balanced. Too fast and potential bidders might still be dithering when the hammer came down. Too slow and the buyers became restless. The opening to each lot caught her interest. Chris would name a figure, which she presumed was at the lower end of the estimated value, and very seldom did anyone take him up on it. He would drop, often considerably, until a bidder almost always materialised, often at a figure of only one or two pounds. Then, almost miraculously it seemed to her, they would be back to a point just above the first figure he had mentioned. Did it always go like that, she wondered, or was it just this saleroom that followed this pattern? There were occasions when the original sum was doubled or more, as well as instances where the lot went for a small fraction of it. But mostly, it turned out to be prophetic. She found herself doubting the truth of the claim that auctions were wildly unpredictable.
In no time at all it was past twelve o’clock and Christopher had sold one hundred and ninety lots. Ben wrote down the final price of each one in his catalogue. He sometimes added brief notes as well. Simmy watched the faces. Once a person had made their opening bid, almost always with a flourish of the catalogue or number card, they went on bidding with subtle nods, winks or flick of a finger. The reason for such discretion escaped her. The auctioneer looked right at them, even saying, ‘The bid’s with the lady in the second row,’ or similar. Everybody knew who the bidder was.
‘The Rosenthal won’t come up for ages yet,’ said Ben. ‘Sometime between two and half past is my guess.’
‘You’re not really thinking of buying it, are you? I wouldn’t mind it myself, actually.’ She had little idea of how the Harkness family finances worked, but Helen was a successful architect and her husband a senior teacher. It was not impossible that Ben had enough cash at his disposal to buy a valuable piece of porcelain. The notion of young Ben or even Bonnie owing it was oddly painful. I want it myself, she thought with surprise. If anybody’s having it, I want it to be me.
‘Only in my dreams,’ he admitted. ‘I was imagining I could buy it and keep it secret and give it to Bonnie when we get married.’
‘Nice idea,’ she said lightly. ‘But I’m going to want a sandwich soon. I need to take these cups back and go to the loo, as well.’
‘Doesn’t Christopher ever need a break? How can he work right through for seven hours?’
; ‘Good question.’ She gave her fiancé a long look. He was selling a large painting of a flock of sheep, constantly scanning the room for bidders, reacting quickly when one was located, making everything seem relaxed and easy, and yet wasting not a second. Behind her she sensed a flurry and saw Chris home in on it from his rostrum. Instead of smoothly taking in the new bid, he hesitated. Then he looked harder at the person in question and stammered, ‘New bid, eighty-five pounds. Any more? Ninety to anyone?’ The words were right, but the delivery was faulty. He seemed to have forgotten what came next. ‘Eighty-five pounds,’ he said again. ‘Bidder at the back of the room.’ There was a silence, although Simmy didn’t think anyone had noticed anything unusual. ‘Sorry, then. That’s a no sale. The vendor wants more than that for it.’ And he gave a double-tap with his hammer to indicate a failed sale, the bidding too low for the reserve price.
It was the first time the Pruitt man had made a bid. He and Sal had remained quietly still all morning, and Simmy had almost forgotten about them. Their seats were low-slung armchairs, and they must have remained invisible until one of them rose up to make a bid. And Christopher had suddenly recognised the man from the Grasmere street and been thrown into confusion.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ muttered Ben.
‘What do you think? Isn’t it obvious?’ she snapped back, before lowering her voice. ‘He didn’t expect to see you-know-who behind us.’
‘Took his time to recognise him.’
Simmy didn’t grace this with a reply. ‘Lunch,’ she insisted, after a few moments.
Leaving their bidding numbers and Ben’s backpack to save the seats, they went out to the little cafe. They bought sandwiches and drinks, and grabbed the last two places. Ben flipped through his notebook. ‘Stumpwork,’ he said suddenly. ‘I googled it and couldn’t find anyone paying more than a couple of thousand for even the oldest pieces. How did Jonathan’s fetch so much? Did you say it was fourteen thousand?’
‘That’s what the papers said. It was very special. Something that several collectors all wanted, I suppose.’
‘Maybe it had gold doubloons stitched into it.’
She laughed. ‘Someone would have noticed, don’t you think?’
‘Why don’t we know where it came from? Where did Jonathan get it? The papers must have asked him that.’
‘They didn’t, because they didn’t know who the vendor was. It was meant to be a secret. Chris only told me on Tuesday.’
‘Ah.’ Ben became thoughtful. ‘So, it was still a secret up to when Jonathan was killed.’
‘We’ve been over this.’ She rolled her eyes, trying to convey to him that everything they said was clearly heard by all the other people having their lunch. It seemed unwise to speak so openly about Jonathan Woolley.
But Ben evidently had no such qualms. ‘Well, I think there’s more story to it. Who bought it?’
‘The V&A,’ came a voice from the next table. ‘It was an online bid. An American museum wanted it as well, but they dropped out. It’s a hugely valuable piece of embroidery. Part of a sequence, they think. There are two others that look similar already in London.’
Chapter Fifteen
Ben and Simmy stared at the woman who was speaking so freely. ‘Oh,’ said Ben. ‘Thanks.’
‘My pleasure. Pity Chris Henderson didn’t realise its value. Oliver nearly had a heart attack when the bidding kept going up the way it did. He’d valued the thing at five thousand, and he thought that was pushing it.’
‘So, Jonathan must have been shocked as well,’ said Ben slowly. ‘He didn’t know he’d got such a valuable thing.’
‘Apparently.’ The woman shrugged. She had dyed orange hair and looked to be about fifty. Simmy noticed her hands in particular. They were large and expressive, with long fingers and short nails. She seemed happy to share information and went on, ‘Some of us guessed Jonathan was the vendor, but when we asked him about it, he wouldn’t say where he got it or what he paid for it originally. A couple of hundred, most likely. Could have been even less.’
‘Chris is my fiancé,’ said Simmy, in a spirit of disclosure. ‘He was with me on Lanzarote – that’s why he missed the sale.’
‘I guessed that’s who you were – the way you were looking at him all morning.’
Simmy smiled faintly and blushed. ‘He’s very good at it, isn’t he.’
‘Not bad. I’m Beverley, by the way. I’m a regular here.’ Four or five other people had been frankly following the conversation. Now two men made sounds of friendly approval, endorsing the woman’s claim to familiarity. ‘It’s a small world,’ she added.
‘Are you a dealer – or a collector?’ Ben asked her.
‘Both, I guess you could say. Just trying to scrape a living, same as these guys.’ Her accent was faintly American, or possibly Canadian, Simmy thought. ‘I send stuff back to the States, mostly. They’re not as bored with china and porcelain as you folks are here. And they’ve still got space in their homes for some decent furniture.’
‘You’re American, then?’ Ben’s questions were generally very direct.
‘Originally, yeah. I’ve been here for twenty-five years now, married to a Brit, but I go back so much it keeps the accent alive.’
‘So you must have been miffed when the stumpwork went to a British buyer.’
Beverley shrugged. ‘Couldn’t care less. So far out of my league, I just enjoyed the show.’
Simmy took a good long breath. ‘Do you know Nick?’ she asked.
‘Nick? Which one? There’s three I can think of.’
‘Don’t tease the lady, Bev,’ said one of the listening men. ‘There’s only one Nick anybody’s interested in.’
‘Okay. Nick with the tax issues, right? He’s here today. The one who was bidding for that tin trunk – remember? Lot 99. And the set of leather suitcases. He can sell them in London.’
Simmy racked her brains. ‘What does he look like?’
‘Long hair. Stubble. Tall.’
It rang no bells. ‘I don’t think I noticed him.’
‘I did,’ said Ben suddenly. He flipped through his catalogue. ‘He paid sixty pounds for the trunk and fifty for the suitcases. I wrote it down.’
‘Good prices. He’ll double that.’
‘And declare the profit to the Inland Revenue?’ said Ben cheekily.
‘Of course,’ said Beverley with a straight face.
‘How much trouble is he in with them?’ asked Simmy.
‘Who knows? Nobody’s going to broadcast that sort of thing, are they? He’s pretty sick about it, I can tell you that. He didn’t do anything that we haven’t all done. It was a gutless thing someone did, reporting him like that.’
‘Somebody with a grudge against him, then?’ said Ben.
Beverley pursed her lips. ‘Cuts both ways,’ she said obscurely. ‘If you start looking for grudges, they can go back a lot further than you think.’
‘A feud!’ said Ben, excitedly.
‘If you like.’
Simmy was worrying that they were missing too much of the auction. ‘We should get back,’ she said. ‘It’s nearly half past twelve.’
‘Okay.’ He stood up and began to squeeze between people at the other tables. He clutched his notepad to his chest. Simmy threw a friendly smile at the informative woman and followed him back to the saleroom.
To their surprise, nothing was happening when they got back. Christopher’s podium was empty and both the computer operatives were also absent. ‘What happened?’ Simmy asked Mr Pruitt, who was sitting on his own.
‘Comfort break. Twenty minutes. They always do it around now. Health and safety rules, presumably.’
Not many of the buyers had left their seats. A few were eating sandwiches, and one couple even had a thermos. A minute or two later, the woman from the cafe came in and sat down next to Mr Pruitt. ‘Hello again,’ she said.
Simmy and Ben both blinked. This was a different woman to the one who had sat with Mr Pruitt
during the morning. He had swapped the youngish Sal for the older Beverley, apparently in an arrangement that suited everybody. ‘Sal gone home?’ asked Beverley.
He nodded. ‘This is my wife,’ he told Simmy and Ben.
‘We met just now in the cafe,’ said Simmy.
‘Not bidding for anything?’ Mrs Pruitt asked.
‘Not yet,’ said Simmy.
‘They’re not too keen on sightseers, you know. Taking up space and not buying anything – a bit out of order, if you ask me.’
Ben opened his mouth to retort, but Simmy caught his eye with a warning look. ‘We’ve still got all afternoon,’ she said. ‘And there are still a few empty chairs, anyway.’ The seats in question were squashed between sofas and not very easy to access. She smiled to remove any hint of defensiveness.
‘What’s the notebook all about?’ asked Mr Pruitt, looking over Ben’s shoulder. ‘You’ve been writing in it all morning.’
‘Just a little project,’ muttered the boy, clapping the book shut. Simmy herself had wondered what he was finding to write down, but she knew better than to try to see. The Pruitts were mutating into less amiable characters. Since Christopher’s wobble at the sight of the male half of this couple, she had been asking herself just what had taken place between the two men in Grasmere on Monday.
Christopher was well known across the region, she supposed. His face would be familiar to anybody who’d attended the auction even once. But Grasmere was quite a distance from Keswick, and not everybody went to auctions. Had Mr Pruitt realised instantly who it was who’d found a dead body? From what he said, it seemed probable. Had he known Kathleen Leeson? Or Philip? All of a sudden, he seemed to be a lot more connected to the central questions than had first appeared. And yet – why would he show up here, drawing attention to himself and frightening the auctioneer? Was he trying to threaten Chris somehow? A host of theories filled her mind, and looking at Ben, she suspected he was having very similar thoughts. Then his mobile summoned him with a text and he hunkered over it for a minute or two. Simmy was too polite to enquire as to the content of the messages, and he said nothing to enlighten her.
