Cloche and Dagger

by Jenn McKinlay

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. He looked irritated by the question, but continued, “But I know your cousin Vivian and she sent me to collect you. I’m Harrison Wentworth.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. I shifted my bags so that we could shake hands. His grip was firm but not crushing, and his hand was warm.

  “Here, let me get those for you,” he said. “I have a driver waiting.”

  He gestured to the car parked at the curb as he took my rolling case from me and the driver opened the trunk.

  “Wait!” I grabbed my suitcase back from him. “I’ve never heard Viv say your name before. How do I know she sent you?”

  He raised one eyebrow, and the flash of irritation I’d seen before looked to go into full-on annoyed now. The air was damp and cold and his cheeks had a ruddy tinge to them. His dark brown hair was brushed back from his face in careless waves and I noticed that his eyes were a bright emerald green.

  “Nice to know Viv thinks so highly of me that she tells her partner all about my financial wizardry on her behalf,” he said.

  “Oy, I’m standin’ in traffic ’ere,” the driver called to us. “Are you comin’ or what?”

  Harrison Wentworth frowned at him. He dug into his pants pocket and handed me a photograph along with a note scribbled in Viv’s distinctive handwriting, which stated the estimated time of my arrival at Notting Hill Gate. The photograph had been taken on my trip here three years ago. Viv and I had been sitting on the steps of our shop, wearing two of her outrageous hats. We had our arms around each other and were mugging for the camera with silly grins. I felt as if I’d aged a decade since that happy summer day.

  “I’m surprised you recognized me from that,” I said. I handed it back to him.

  He tucked the photo back into his pocket and wheeled my bags over to the driver, who popped them into the trunk. Then he held the door open for me and we climbed into the backseat together.

  “My uncle, my mother’s older brother, is the one who took the photograph,” he said. “He was to your grandmother what I am to Viv, well, and you, I suppose, since you’re a proprietor as well.”

  “Mr. Turner! That’s right,” I said. I remembered the jovial, white-haired man who had come into Mim’s shop almost every week to keep track of her books for her. Mim had had no business sense. “How is your uncle?”

  “Retired,” he said. “So, in other words, happy.”

  “Good for him,” I said.

  At that moment the driver punched the gas and we shot out into the oncoming traffic, which was alarming not only because of the speed at which he was driving but also because I wasn’t used to being on the left side of the road. I kept thinking we were going to have a head-on collision at any moment and I kept flinching accordingly, you know, as if that would help.

  The driver took a sharp turn onto Portobello Road and I slid across the seat, pressing up against Harrison like a puppy looking for love. Mortified, I grabbed my armrest and hauled myself back to my side. When I turned to look at him, I found him studying me with an undecided expression, as if he wasn’t sure what to make of me just yet.

  “So, why did Viv send you?” I asked, trying to ease the awkwardness of the moment. “Did she have a client meeting and couldn’t come herself?”

  “No, not quite,” he said. His face grew grim. “The fact is Viv couldn’t come because she’s missing.”

  Chapter 3

  “Missing?” I repeated. “Define ‘missing.’”

  “Succinctly, it means I have no idea where she is,” he said.

  He did not look disturbed by this, a fact I found more than a little alarming. Granted, I’d been traveling for fourteen hours since I’d left Tampa yesterday evening and it was now a bit after midday, so my ability to process was impaired to say the least. Still, he seemed awfully cavalier about Viv’s whereabouts being unknown.

  I pressed my cold palm again my forehead in an effort to clear my head.

  “Don’t you think this is a cause for concern?” I asked.

  “If it were anyone else, I might agree, but this is Viv,” he said. “It’s what she does.”

  He shrugged as if resigned to the eccentricities of my cousin. Now I know Viv can be, oh, how do I say it? “Colorful” seems too nice but “odd” seems too negative, so she’s somewhere in between “colorful” and “odd.” I know this, but still it seemed wrong that she wasn’t here when I arrived and I couldn’t help getting a bad feeling about it.

  “But she knew I was coming,” I said. “Heck, this was her idea. She even bought my ticket.”

  “All I know is that when I was having my morning eggs and toast, a messenger came ’round with that picture and a note from Viv requesting that I meet you,” he said. “When I called to ask about it, she didn’t answer her mobile. I stopped by the shop on my way here, but it was locked up.”

  I stared at him. He seemed awfully calm about the whole thing, like serial-killer calm. I felt alarm bells ringing in my head and I pulled out my cell phone and called my Aunt Grace, Viv’s mother. She lived up in the wilds of Yorkshire, but if anyone knew where Viv was it would be Aunt Grace.

  It took a while for my phone to connect to hers and when it did, all I got was her voice mail. Drat. I left a message, hoping I didn’t sound as worried as I felt; no need to incite a panic in the upper generation after all.

  We passed the Earl of Lonsdale pub and my sudden need for a pint almost overrode all other reason. Harrison did not look the type to drink in the middle of the day, but it was the middle of the night my time, so I really didn’t think I could be held accountable for my actions until after I was acclimated to the proper time zone.

  The car pulled over to the curb with a lurch and bang. I gathered my purse and let Harrison hand me out of the backseat. The driver put my bags on the curb while Harrison paid him. I glanced up at the three-story white stone building with the jaunty blue-and-white striped awning and matching blue shutters on the windows of the two stories above.

  Presently, the awning was tucked back against the building as Viv only put it out on market days or in the summer when every bit of shade was welcome. The large picture window boasted a new display. Wide-brimmed, white straw hats with cobalt-blue trim on the brim and matching hatbands on the crown were hanging in the window at all different heights and depths, making it look like a forest of floating hats. It lured me closer to the window and I longed to step through the glass and run through the hats, which I expect was just what Viv wanted passersby to feel.

  I fished out my key. I’d had my own set of keys to the shop ever since I used to come over as a child. The door was the same bright blue as the shutters and on its wrought-iron-and-glass window the name “Mim’s Whims” had been etched in thick white letters.

  Dear Mim, five years gone and still not a day went by that I didn’t think of her and miss her. I unlocked the door and pulled it open. The mild scent of lavender danced on the air like dandelion seeds, tickling my nose and making me smile. Viv believed the scent of lavender calmed her customers and so she always had lavender sachets tucked all about the shop.

  The smell brought back memories of my last visit here and again I felt flattened by guilt that I hadn’t made time to visit more often. I knew Mim would have been disappointed in me, and the realization stung.

  “Do you want me to carry these upstairs for you?” Harrison asked.

  Since he already had all three bags and was headed through the door at the back of the shop that led upstairs it seemed a bit ridiculous that he was asking. Still, I called an affirmative after him, not that it mattered.

  My eyes swept over the shop. Other than the hats that were on display, it looked exactly as I remembered it. Viv hadn’t changed a thing. The same cobalt-blue and white decorated the inside of the shop. Built-in display shelves lined the store with hats perched on pedestals in every shape, size and color that could be imagined filling the floor-to-ceiling shelves.

  The
re were several sitting areas with stiff upholstered armchairs posed around glass coffee tables that boasted the latest issues of Look, Vogue and The HAT.

  Beyond the main shop was the back room, which was Viv’s work area. It was a large space with windows that overlooked a tiny but lush garden in back. Viv was a birder, one of the many reasons she used feathers so much in her hat designs, and so the petite garden was filled with birdhouses, birdbaths and bird feeders. How had I forgotten being awoken every day to the cacophony of birdcalls? If it was anything like the last time, I’d have to get myself over to Boots, the pharmacy at Notting Hill Gate, and buy some earplugs.

  A drafting table took up one corner with a desk and a computer beside it. From floor to ceiling were cupboards full to bursting with Viv’s supplies, which were anything from bolts of wool and sinamay to bottles of fabric dye to bags full of feathers, ribbons and beads. A large worktable filled the center of the room and on it were several hats in various stages of production. It did not look like the workroom of someone who planned to be away. Harrison’s words that Viv was missing sent a frisson of alarm through me. Surely she had just gone out unexpectedly to an appointment or something.

  I returned to the shop to follow Harrison up the stairs to the flat above. My eye was caught by the large bulky object in the corner, Mim’s old wardrobe, which had stood in that same spot for as long as I could remember.

  It was a tall piece done in dark mahogany with two doors on top of three drawers. It still had the old glass drawer pulls. The feet of the piece were carved to look like claws around wooden balls while above the seam where the two cupboard doors met, a bird’s head had been carved with its beak pointing straight out and its eyes watching me no matter where I stood. The top part of the wardrobe above the doors had been carved as if the bird’s two wings were outstretched.

  I’ll be honest, when I was younger, the bird had freaked me out, but now it reminded me so much of Mim I was glad to see it. I ran my hand down the smooth front door, tracing the rich, red-brown grain with my fingers.

  I heard a thump from upstairs and realized I should probably go tell Harrison which room was mine. With a last glance at the wardrobe, I turned to cross the room and go up the stairs. I stopped. Surely I must have imagined it. I turned back and looked at the bird.

  “Don’t wink at me,” I said. I’m not sure if I said it aloud to reassure myself or to inform the bird that impertinence would not be tolerated; either way it wasn’t the bird who answered.

  “Excuse me, but I’m quite sure I didn’t.”

  Chapter 4

  I whirled around to find Harrison standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at me as if he thought I was a couple of slices short of a loaf.

  “I didn’t mean you,” I said.

  “Because there are so many other people here for you to be talking to,” he said.

  “No, I . . .” I paused. There was no way that saying I was talking to the bird wasn’t going to sound nuts. I knew this was one of those “better to shut my mouth and be thought a fool than to open my mouth and remove all doubt” moments. “Never mind.”

  “Fine,” he said. He pushed off the doorjamb. “I put your bags in the pink room, the one that overlooks the back garden. Viv said that is your room when you’re here.”

  I smiled. My room was still pink. Mim had let me pick out the paint color when I was twelve. I’d been at the peak of my girly-girl stage back then and the pink, if I remembered right, was a sort of retina-searing pink found only on Vegas showgirls and candy.

  Harrison reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. “My number is on here if you need anything.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I realized that while I was uncertain about him, and he really wasn’t the friendliest person I’d ever met, the alternative was that I was going to be completely alone. Surprisingly, that had even less appeal.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. “You want to go to lunch? I thought you’d be knackered from all of the traveling.”

  “Well, a girl has to eat,” I said.

  “I suppose we could do that,” he said.

  His enthusiasm for spending time with me really bowled me over, I have to say. Fortunately, my self-esteem was swirling in the bowl already so I wasn’t put off by his less-than-enthusiastic response. Besides, I really felt like I needed to know more about Viv’s absence and he was my best source.

  “Excellent,” I said. “Let me just go freshen up and we can go.”

  He opened his mouth as if about to announce an abrupt change of mind, but I dashed through the doorway that led upstairs, not giving him the opportunity to rethink the plan.

  I pushed open the door at the top of the steps and stepped into Mim’s sitting room. This had been my grandmother’s favorite room in the house. Squashy furniture done in blue suede—yes, she was very partial to blue—bookcases that were full to bursting along one wall; an oval rag rug over the wooden floor and a large flat-screen television on the wall opposite the largest couch. This was the room where Mim spent most of her evenings.

  Lace curtains covered the windows where houseplants sat on narrow shelves built onto the windowsill. It even smelled just like it used to, of lemon furniture polish and gingersnaps. I was hit with a longing for my grandmother so sharp and so deep that I gasped. I missed her no-nonsense ways and her ability to always move forward no matter what challenge life handed her. I know she would have scolded me severely for getting duped by a married man, but she also would have been able to lessen my shame with a few words of perspective and lessons learned. She was good like that.

  I pushed my sadness down and strode through the room, through the kitchen and the dining room to the hallway. Here there were two doors, one that went into Mim’s bedroom and the other that led to the uppermost floor where the two bedrooms Viv and I used were located. I knew Viv had moved into Mim’s old bedroom a few years ago. It made sense since she lived and worked here. I wondered if she had done anything to her old room or if she kept it as a guest bedroom.

  I opened the door and hurried upstairs. A small foyer split the two bedrooms, and I glanced into the one that used to be Viv’s to see that it was neatly made up as if awaiting a guest. I turned and went into my old room. Wow!

  How had I forgotten how pink my room was? In fifteen years, the paint hadn’t faded at all. Not only that, but my Spice Girls poster—Viv and I had both been fans back in the day—was still on the closet door as if waiting for me to break into my dance moves and belt out “Wannabe.”

  When Viv and I worked out our routines, I was always Ginger Spice because of my red hair and even though she’s a blonde, Viv was always Scary Spice, well, because she is.

  I saw my bags sitting in the middle of my room and felt a shot of horror that Harrison had seen my room, still trapped in adolescence. Somehow this was worse than having him walk in on me in my underwear.

  I quickly grabbed a change of clothes and my bag of makeup and went into the bathroom that separated the two bedrooms. A glance at the mirror told me that I looked as if I’d carried every one of the five thousand miles I’d just traveled on my face. Ugh! Small wonder Harrison had seemed less than enthusiastic about having lunch with me: I looked like a refugee and not a well-groomed one. This was going to take a major overhaul.

  When I stepped through the door and back into the shop twenty-five minutes later, Harrison looked me over.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you meant lunch today or Thursday,” he said.

  “Today,” I said. And wasn’t that just the cleverest quip back at him? I blame jet lag. I was definitely not at the top of my game.

  “Shall we then?” he asked.

  I unbolted the front door and led the way out. I turned and locked it after him.

  “The Earl of Lonsdale is just down the road, and it is more of a locals’ haunt,” he said. “Are you up to it?”

  “That’s
fine,” I said. “Walking will feel good.”

  We walked side by side. Harrison kept his head up and his gaze at the horizon as if oblivious to my presence. I was getting the sneaking suspicion that he didn’t like me much but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.

  “It’s weird to be back here,” I said. If he heard me, he didn’t acknowledge it. Undaunted, I forged on. “I’ve changed, but the shop hasn’t and my room certainly hasn’t.”

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. I had switched into my wedge heels to be taller but I still only came up to his ear. Still he ignored me. Now his dislike for me was becoming less of a suspicion and more of a fact. As far as I knew it was completely unwarranted, so I kept up my jabber, hoping to goad him into at least blinking at me.

  “No, I guess as much as things change they also stay the same,” I said. “Same old Portobello Road, same old antique shops and bookstores, yep, not many changes of note.”

  “Clearly, you aren’t looking at things very closely then, are you?” He stopped walking and turned to face me, heedless of the other pedestrians who were forced to walk around us.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He looked torn between irritation and amusement, but at least he was looking at me and really seeing me. It was a vast improvement on the man who refused to acknowledge me a few moments before. My vanity really didn’t like for me to be ignored.

  “I was inaccurate with you before. We have met,” he said. “Seventeen years ago, in fact.”

  “We did?” I studied his face. In addition to the pretty eyes, he had a nice square jaw, full lips and arching eyebrows. I was quite sure we could not have met because he was handsome now so he must have been cute back then and I was not one to forget a cute boy, especially back then.

  “Yes, Ginger, we’ve met,” he said. “In fact, I asked you to go for ice cream with me but you stood me up so that you could chase after a dodgy football player.”