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by Kirsten McKenzie

  ‘Fiona? Any further questions?’

  Fiona looked up in mock surprise — they had their interview technique refined to a fine art.

  ‘I have a couple,’ she said, flicking back through her notes. ‘The first one is about the “we”?’

  ‘Pardon?’ Sarah asked, looking to Fujimoto for clarification.

  ‘You said “we only got back from India” and I was wondering who “we” was?’

  ‘Warren Brooke.’

  Fiona scrawled in the margins, underlining the name twice. ‘And your relationship with Warren Brooke?’

  ‘What does that have to do with the katar or the statue?’

  ‘It’s not just the statue, Miss Lester. Someone murdered a man, with your knife-’

  ‘Katar.’

  ‘A weapon you sent to auction. Another item whose ownership is in question, like the statue…’

  Sarah toyed with the gold bangle on her wrist, a twenty-first present from her father. She twisted it round and round her wrist. It wasn’t the most expensive piece of jewellery she owned, not by a long shot, but it was reassuringly solid and unbroken around her wrist. She’d always considered it symbolic of her relationship with her father. A father who hadn’t wanted her to stay and who didn’t want to come home.

  Crushed by the realisation that he loved history more than her, she tugged the bangle off, leaving it spinning on the scarred table between her and the police officers. It spun loudly until it felt flat against the table.

  Fiona sighed, turning the page in her notebook and trying again, ‘And Patricia Bolton?’ she asked, underlining more words in the hardcover book.

  ‘What about Patricia?’

  ‘Where is she?’

  Sarah stumbled over her reply. Should she tell them that she’d left Patricia in 1860s India, cosseted in taffeta and silk? The truth was usually the best answer. ‘She’s in India,’ Sarah said, spinning the bangle with a finger.

  ‘India?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that where you both fled to after murdering the guard at the Foundling Museum?’ Fiona asked, an expectant grin on her face as she delivered the question.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You heard me. The murdered night guard, Ravi Narayan, an aspiring actor, a husband and a cat owner. Bludgeoned to death. You and Miss Bolton were the only ones on the CCTV.’

  ‘Do you want to reconsider your lawyer?’ Fujimoto asked.

  ‘We murdered no one. He helped carry in the boxes and then he went back to his office, or to do his rounds. Trish and I unpacked things and then we unrolled the tiger-skin rug.’ Sarah paused. ‘And I don’t remember what happened after that.’

  ‘Come on. Do you really expect us to believe that?’ Fiona snapped.

  ‘I don’t know what else to tell you. Trish is in India. I came back with Major Brooke, and I’ve got no idea what happened while I was away.’

  Fiona started to ask another question, but Fujimoto interrupted before she could get the words out, waving her quiet.

  ‘Miss Lester, I’m advising you now to get a lawyer. And we’ll recommence this interview once you have representation. This is best for all of us. I’m terminating this interview at 1045 hours,’ said Fujimoto, and he flicked a switch, extinguishing the lights on the equipment.

  Fiona opened the large cardboard file box on the chair next to her, shoving in the notebooks and folders she’d referenced during the interview.

  ‘Hang on, Fiona,’ Fujimoto said. ‘Can you pass me those evidence bags?’

  Fiona fished out two small see-through bags, and all but flung them at her supervisor.

  Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘Where did you get those?’

  ‘From your apartment, while you were in India,’ Fiona mumbled, slamming shut the file box.

  Fujimoto glared at his counterpart. ‘Given its value, I thought it prudent that we looked after it in your absence. Normal people don’t usually leave things like large gold nuggets on their bedside tables.’

  ‘You’ve never met my father then,’ Sarah said, taking the bag from Fujimoto’s outstretched hand.

  ‘I bet you’re going to say your father is in India too,’ Fiona quipped.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sarah, ‘that’s exactly where he is.’

  The police officers sat together in stunned silence, as Sarah’s words sank in.

  ‘Can I go now?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Fujimoto said, swiping his card to open the door, surreptitiously gesturing to Fiona to keep quiet.

  The London traffic made for a slow, silent drive back to The Old Curiosity Shop, as Fujimoto mulled over Sarah’s revelation about her father, a man missing for the past five or so years. Sarah sat beside him, fiddling with the bangle, the bracelet she’d nearly forgotten in the interview suite — he’d had to remind her to grab it as they left. The evidence bags lay unopened in her lap, which gave him a conversation starter, one which wouldn’t get him in any trouble with any legal watchdog.

  ‘How much is the gold nugget worth?’ he asked, a much safer question than asking about her father.

  ‘This one? I don’t know. A couple of thousand pounds, somewhere round there. It’s not mine, I’m meant to be delivering it to the family of a friend who died.’

  ‘In Wales?’

  ‘That’s right, how did you know?’

  ‘The note under the nugget. I can help you track down the family if you like?’

  ‘I don’t rate your chances, they’ve probably moved by now,’ Sarah laughed, her humour not making its way to her eyes.

  ‘Tracking people is my job,’ he joked, trying to establish some rapport with the strange woman next to him.

  Sarah shook her head, ‘Not this family.’

  ‘Will you let me try?’

  ‘It’ll be impossible, but sure.’

  ‘I didn’t record the address so I need to get that off you,’ he said, satisfied with how things were panning out. There were several ways to skin a cat.

  Fujimoto pulled up outside The Old Curiosity Shop, noting the closed sign facing the disinterested foot traffic walking by. How the shop had survived this long was a mystery to him, and only enforced his belief that, if not Sarah herself, then her father must have been trading in goods with a darker than usual history to them.

  Sarah had opened the car door, stepping onto the footpath before he remembered the nugget. He called out, ‘The address?’

  Without turning back, Sarah replied over her shoulder, ‘I’ll email you.’

  Fishing her keys from her purse, she unlocked the door. After entering the shop, she tore open the exhibit bag and reached in for the scrap of paper with Isaac’s mother’s address, and disappeared.

  The Museum

  Eliza Broadhead, the head curator of Textiles and Fashion at the V & A Museum, clapped her hands, strands of jet beads jiggling between her ample breasts. It wasn’t every day she got to unpack tea chests filled to the brim with sketches and swatches from an era long gone. Her excitement was infectious.

  The tea chests had been in the deep freeze in the bowels of the V & A Museum, killing off any nasties still inhabiting the dusty old chests. She hadn’t thought it necessary, but the museum had its own rules, and blah, blah, blah, she had to obey them. Ridiculous waste of time in her opinion.

  She pushed the porter out; she wanted to be alone when she opened the chests. It was as if it was Christmas, albeit a Christmas in a temperature-controlled climate in an office with windows instead of walls. But now she was in her own world, ensconced in the moment, oblivious to the gaggle of onlookers pouring into her little room until one of them spoke.

  ‘Come on, open them. Let’s have a look.’

  For a woman the size she was, Eliza turned faster than a cheetah changing direction, to find the eager faces of her coworkers, who’d all heard about the V & A’s latest acquisition.

  ‘I… what are you doing in here?’

  ‘We want to see them,’ Steph Chinneck said
, the latest intern in the Textiles department of the museum.

  Eliza had no time for interns, they came and went, and knew very little about anything. This one was undoubtedly the same.

  ‘It should only be full-time staff allowed in here,’ Eliza muttered, loud enough for Steph to hear, but not quite loud enough to cause a stir amongst the other staff members, who were all quite taken with the Australian intern.

  ‘Hurry, we want to see them. Comms have asked for some photos for the museum blog,’ called out another voice.

  The large woman harrumphed, turning her back on Steph whilst laboriously donning a clean pair of white cotton gloves. This was her moment to shine, and she didn’t need a fly-by-night intern cluttering up her space.

  Eliza had cleared her desk, ready for her newest acquisition. And one-by-one, Eliza removed the fragile fabric swatches, cradling the attached sketches so none of them came adrift from their fabric companions.

  ‘Those colours,’ whispered Steph.

  ‘Do we know who the designer is yet?’ asked someone else.

  ‘No, we do not,’ replied Eliza, her chest heaving as she tried to control her temper. Idiots surrounded her. How on earth was she meant to have discovered who the designer was when she hadn’t even emptied the first chest, let alone the other ones?

  The room filled with a chorus of oohs and ah’s as Eliza laid out the contents of the box. Some sketches had faded, and two fabric swatches had disintegrated in Eliza’s bejewelled hands, but what remained on the table was a remarkable snapshot of the fashion and style of the British Empire, circa 1870 to 1890, or even 1900.

  The crowd shared their own theories about the designer, and took a thousand photographs - both official, and unofficial; the unofficial photos flooding Instagram with a hundred different filtered artistic shots, before the onlookers thinned as almost everyone returned to their work.

  Eliza sank into her chair, exhausted by the exertion. She dabbed at her temples with a handkerchief extraordinarily delicate for a woman of her robust size.

  ‘I can help,’ Steph offered.

  ‘No, no you can’t,’ Eliza replied, stuffing the hanky into the depths of her cleavage and struggling to her feet.

  ‘Yes, she can,’ replied Jasmine from the open door, the younger woman walking over to examine the sketches herself.

  Eliza’s chest tightened at the sight of the management trollop, sticking her nose in where it shouldn’t belong. Why wasn’t she out for lunch somewhere posh, wooing the wealthy donors? Wasn’t that her job? Instead of tottering around on ridiculous heels as if she knew something about the important work the collections staff did here.

  ‘Steph is here to learn, and who better to learn from than you, Eliza?’

  Eliza sniffed, fiddling with the beads at her neck as she considered her reply. She wasn’t stupid, she realised Jasmine, for whatever reason, held an influential position with management. It paid to keep abreast of whoever was the flavour of the month at the top, given it changed more often than the prime minster did, and Jasmine, with her overt floral perfume and manicured nails was the current wunderkind.

  ‘I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts on how we’ll manage this collection, it quite overwhelmed me,’ Eliza lied.

  Jasmine Gupta nodded, her face unreadable.

  ‘Steph has plenty of experience from her time with the Australian Museum, so she’ll be a real asset to you in preparing these for our exhibition during London Fashion Week this year.’

  Steph grinned, but Eliza looked distraught.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ she said.

  Jasmine smiled. ‘That’s why you need Steph’s help to ensure they’re ready for September,’ she said, winking at Steph, and leaving them to it.

  ‘It’s not enough time,’ Eliza pouted, pouring herself back into her chair and fanning herself with the nearest auction catalogue.

  ‘Where do you want to start?’ Jasmine asked.

  ‘Start?’ Eliza exclaimed. ‘Start? Where we always start, by photographing everything and entering it into the register. That’s where. And don’t imagine you’ll be handling these things, they are terribly fragile. You can do the data entry,’ she said. ‘That’s all I trust interns to do.’

  ‘I’ll get my laptop then,’ Steph said.

  ‘No, there’s no space for your machine. It would probably infect us with a virus, anyway. Use my machine,’ Eliza said, opening the in-house system. The enlarged clock icon flashed in the screen’s corner. ‘Oh my goodness, is that the time? Well past morning tea, and I’m dying for a drink. You set up the camera and tripod — they’re in that cupboard, and I’ll be back soon,’ Eliza said. ‘Can’t believe the conditions we’re expected to work in,’ she complained, waddling off to the lunchroom, leaving the incredulous intern alone in the office.

  It took Steph a moment to realise that the older woman really had left for morning tea, abandoning her with a table full of unprotected exhibits, artefacts at risk of disintegrating if someone as much as sneezed anywhere near them.

  It was all very well telling her to set up the camera, but shouldn’t protecting the exhibits be her priority? There was no one around to ask. All she could see through the glass windows were empty offices or heads bent over other fragile pieces of clothing. Steph was certain they’d help her if she asked, but she had half a Bachelor’s degree under her belt, and plenty of work experience, so trusted herself to figure it out on her own.

  She’d heard rumours about Eliza Broadhead and her wanton spending of the department’s budget on items she deemed important, rather than on things to complement or enhance the museum’s collection. These sketches and fabric samples fell into that category, and with her heart in her mouth, Steph donned her own pair of white gloves, the ones with butterflies embroidered on the back so she never got them confused with anyone else’s, and moved the first fragile sheet of paper and attached fabric square over to the microscope and light.

  The swatch was a supple brown leather, but already showing signs of red rot, which wasn’t really rot despite its name but something which caused the leather to take on a red crumbly appearance. She had to treat it with a consolidator before anything else. Steph looked around the room — it mirrored most other labs she was familiar with, except for the old pattern-making desk Eliza used — not the most sterile of environments to work on.

  Steph opened cupboards and drawers until she found the chemicals she needed. First she’d need to separate the sketch from the leather, which meant finding a tool to tease out the rusted staple from the upper left corner.

  With a mask over her face, and her cotton gloves replaced with blue latex gloves, and a scalpel in her hand, Steph more resembled a surgeon than a museum studies student. With the staple bagged up and out of the way, and the leather moved to the more sterile lab bench, Steph took a moment to examine the sketch under the powerful magnifying glass. The original artist had a good eye, and the proportions were amazing for a sketch done in freehand and not via a state-of-the-art computer programme.

  Steph moved the magnifying glass around the sketch. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but found the whole experience surreal, knowing that the last time someone had been this close to this piece of paper, was when the artist prepared the sketch, well over a hundred years ago. She moved the magnifying glass to the bottom right of the picture of a man in uniform and paused. Under his heel were two tiny stylised letters, both in lowercase — pb. The artists initials.

  Without hurrying, Steph moved the sketch to one side, leaving it next to the leather sample, and the bagged staple, and selected a second picture. She knew she shouldn’t move on without properly dealing with the first sample, but there was a frisson of excitement running through her, she needed to check… And yes, more initials, identical to the first pair, underneath the heel of the right foot, two stylised lowercase letters, “pb”.

  The initials were familiar, and Steph wracked her brain gazing off into the distance as she trawled
through her memory. After work experience in countless museums and galleries, three years of full-time classes and innumerable research papers, sometimes it seemed like everything she knew blurred together, merging seamlessly until her brain couldn’t differentiate between a Roman hobnail boot and one of Vivienne Westwood’s fantastical creations. But she knew those initials, they were on the tip of her tongue, shimmering on the periphery of her past.

  Just as Steph felt the pieces of her memory finally slotting in space, a shriek jolted the threads from her mind.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Eliza screamed.

  Steph explained, words rushing out over the top of each other, tangling themselves on her lips.

  ‘Stupid, stupid girl. Get out, get out now.’

  Steph protested, but Eliza cut her off.

  ‘Don’t touch a thing. I have never… What do you think you are doing? You young girls are all the same. Swan in here playing at being a curator or conservator. You only signed up for a museum internship because your daddy probably threatened to cut off your trust fund unless you did something worthwhile with your time. I’ve seen it all before and none of you last. You catch yourself some rich donor at one of the posh fundraising dinners, get a ring on your finger, and then you’re out of here as fast as your Manolo’s will take you, leaving nothing but a mess behind you. You’re all the same. Stuck up little snobs. You’d be better off working for those criminals at the auction houses, they like pretty, useless things.’ Eliza paused, cheeks flushing a dangerous shade of red. The pause gave way to a hacking cough, and Eliza pulled her hanky from her bra, coughing into the tiny square of fabric before once again wiping the sweat from her brow and the spittle from the corners of her mouth. She tugged at her open collar, pulling it further away from her fleshy neck.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Steph.

  ‘No, I’m not okay, you, you little…,’ Eliza faltered, grabbing the edge of the nearest tea chest, the sharp metal edges slicing into her palms.