Drawing the Line

by Judith Cutler

  ‘I’ve no idea – it’s not the sort of thing you ask someone, is it?’ But I should have remembered: I’d done all that research after all. ‘Hang on – is there something called a marquess?’

  ‘Of course there is.’

  ‘Well, I think he’s one of them. As for his behaviour, let’s just call him eccentric.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s just that? Some perfectly sane people pretend to be mad so they can get away with things. Does he have something to hide?’

  Of course he had something to hide. That John Bull printing press. The lino-cut printed curtains. The woodcuts on the schoolroom walls. My revered father couldn’t have revived some of his old talents, could he? He had plenty of old tomes to cannibalise for blank pages. He had time on his hands. He had champagne tastes, which he deeply indulged, on a beer income. He’d admitted he had Natura Rerum. And he was dead cagey about that one room when he’d been happy for me to see the whole of the rest, his bedroom apart, that is. Perhaps he’d been saving that for a day when he hadn’t had brewer’s droop. I swallowed bile.

  Dave was waiting for an answer. Remember Griff’s maxim that the less you said the better: ‘Just plain weird.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Maybe he’d lose interest if I fended him off. ‘I’ll tell you all about him when you don’t need to concentrate on the road, Dave, if you don’t mind.’

  How had Lord Elham described it? Casting up your accounts? I wasn’t given to car-sickness, but if I didn’t keep my eyes straight ahead, I’d be doing the same.

  ‘So you’ve been attacked by the Kitty Gang – possibly. Griff’s been attacked by the Kitty Gang – possibly. And now this Lord Elham’s been attacked by the Kitty Gang – possibly. A lot of possiblys, there, Lina.’

  And some he didn’t even know about: where did the Oxford guy fit in? The old lady and her spoons? The thief from Harrogate? ‘And a lot of real attacks, don’t forget. I don’t care who or what these people are called, so long as we stop them attacking Griff or his friend.’

  ‘What d’you think they’ll do if they find no one at home? Trash the place? Torch it?’

  I gulped. Not with car-sickness, either. ‘Aidan’s got the same sort of burglar-proofing system as we have, with bells on. But I suppose a petrol bomb…’ Straight through that exquisite fanlight? ‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘because what I think they’re after would be destroyed, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Another antiques dealer, is he, this Aidan?’

  ‘Griff’s lover,’ I said firmly. They said some gay men were more promiscuous than their straight counterparts. I hoped Griff hadn’t been like Lord Elham. Or at least if he had, I hoped he’d left his partners with more kindness in his memory. So long as these days he was my dear old Griff, I’d simply have to draw a line under his past. Maybe one day I’d manage to do the same with Lord Elham; somehow I doubted it.

  ‘So what are they after that would burn?’

  ‘A piece of paper they think was torn from a valuable book and is worth hundreds. I know it’s a forgery, and more to the point I’ve found where the book is. More or less. And it’s worth thousands. Perhaps hundreds of thousands. It’s not my area, so I don’t really know.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t found out?’ he gasped.

  ‘Why should I? Not my book, after all. But,’ I added, ‘if people are prepared to do so much just for a page, the whole tome must be worth –’

  ‘Killing for? So how did this duke get away from his assailants?’

  ‘Oh, the Devil looks after his own. They knocked him out. When he came to he had the sense not to bother telling them, so he crawled through to the main house, which is separated from his quarters by a serious door. There’s a trail of blood: I think he was telling the truth. And jemmy marks – they obviously tried to follow him but they gave up. Maybe because I arrived.’

  ‘Why didn’t they wallop you?’

  ‘I didn’t exactly tell them I was unarmed and on my own. Dave, that lorry was pretty bloody close!’

  ‘Close your eyes if you don’t like it. And don’t bloody scream again – it puts me off.’

  ‘Sorry. But won’t your Tenterden pals be able to do everything?’

  ‘Your expectations of a rural force are a tad higher than mine. In any case, you said you wanted to come along,’ he added accusingly.

  ‘Only to make sure Griff’s all right. Not to try a spot of citizen’s arrest!’

  ‘Bloody right. If there’s any action you stay in the car. OK? I don’t want to be worrying about looking after you when my mind should be on the job.’ He killed his speed abruptly. Already we were in the outskirts of Tenterden.

  I navigated him to Aidan’s house, not that it took much doing once we’d turned into the right road. Dave’s pessimism was ill-founded: there must have been five police vehicles littered about the street, with a dozen men and women in uniform milling around looking ghostly in the blue flashing lights. That was something that had always puzzled me: why didn’t they switch them off when they’d arrived? I turned to ask Dave. But he’d already got out of the car, and was running towards his colleagues. There didn’t seem to be anything I’d describe as action, so I got out too, peering over the car. Several of Aidan’s neighbours were doing the same: ultra-respectable people pretending to disapprove but probably as excited by stuff straight off the TV as my birth father would have been. Birth father. Biological father. Whatever. Maybe I could try living with those terms for a few days. He certainly didn’t feel like a father sort of father.

  One of the neighbours peeled away from the others and started to walk towards me. If it was OK for him to be on the move, no doubt it was OK for me, too. What about the car, though? Dave had left his key in the ignition. Talk about leading folk into temptation. I fished it out, locked the car and pocketed it.

  And then I bunched my hand round it, so the key, a cylindrical affair, not the old-fashioned flat sort, protruded between my first and second fingers, like a mini knuckle-duster. After all, I’d had enough to make me think twice about anyone, even a neighbour in such a respectable place as Tenterden, who was wearing a black hoodie.

  For a moment I wondered if it might be Marcus under that hood. After all, there hadn’t been any more attacks while he’d been staying with us. Was it possible that he’d been the person I’d tripped in Harrogate? Security had never caught anyone, and the thief had had a lot of things a quiet person like him might just have known about. But he’d been with me too soon, surely – he simply wouldn’t have had time to shake off his pursuers and return to me. No, the theory didn’t hold water.

  Casually I crossed to the other side of the road, still clutching the key. I felt a lot less casual when Hoodie crossed too. What next? The police were still far too occupied doing whatever police officers do in a minor crisis to notice people walking along the pavement, whichever side of the road they chose. Actually, I might just choose the other side again.

  Mistake? When he followed me he would come from behind. But while I’d never won any school sports day prizes, I could run faster than most on the streets. And for screaming I might have got an Olympic medal. But what I was best at was digging the elbow into an attacker from the rear, and yelling at the same time. It was a good job, really, because that was what I had to do.

  I was good enough to bring him down, but must have been out of practice, because he stumbled half upright and tried to scuttle off. I lunged and floored him again, pushing his hood back. I stared straight into the eyes of someone I’d met. The friendly Harrogate security guard who’d been so kind to Griff. Mal.

  My stomach’s turn to sink. What if he was one of Griff’s boyfriends now?

  I didn’t get the chance to ask, of course. Not with all those interested policemen gathering round.

  ‘Where could be safer than London, dear heart? You insist that Aidan and I keep out of the way, he has his flat there, complete with key-code entry, and now you’re not happy. You tell me you are, but I can see you’
re not.’ Over the silver and linen that Aidan’s sort of hotel runs to even for breakfast tables, Griff cocked his head sideways. ‘Come, Lina: eat those scrambled eggs before they lose their fluffy perfection, then tell me what’s troubling you.’

  So hungry it was hard not to wolf everything in sight, I had no trouble obeying the first instruction. The second was harder. Swallowing hard, I tried several times before managing, ‘I – just wish – I don’t know.’ I just wish you could be there to go home to and make everything as it was before that damned page turned up.

  ‘Are you afraid of being in the cottage on your own? I could ask Mrs Hatch –’

  I shook my head. I didn’t want Mrs Hatch. I wanted my Griff. But if he caught on, he’d throw up the chance of safety in the Smoke and come back to Bredeham and put himself at risk. ‘I shall be fine,’ I lied firmly. ‘I’ve got a lot to do, after all. Looking after Lord Elham, for one thing, and there’s the Ramada fair – we usually put in a presence there.’

  ‘There you are, then,’ Aidan announced, plonking down his serviette – no, his napkin – as if no one need worry about anything. ‘I’ll settle up, shall I, while you have your little chinwag about price-fixing. Take care, Evelina, my dear.’

  His dear. Maybe I’d have liked him more if he hadn’t had that upper-crust accent that can make its owner sound as if he’s patronising you even when he’s not. But he was at least trying to be tactful, leaving Griff and me alone.

  ‘I notice,’ Griff started, reaching for the butter, catching my eye and toying with the low-fat spread instead. At last he abandoned both for margarine, not paint-pot orange in a plastic tub but deep and treacle-gold in a proper bowl, just like we had at home. ‘I notice that you always refer to your birth father as if he’s a complete stranger. Have you not discussed a more intimate nomenclature?’

  Shaking my head wasn’t enough. I owed him more than that. ‘He’s never asked me to. And he’s not the sort of man you can ask – ask anything that you want. It’s like –’ I was floundering ‘– like trying to reason with a toddler. He sort of throws his toys out of the pram.’

  ‘Violence!’

  ‘No. He retires to his favourite TV programme. Griff, I’m afraid he’s not a very nice man. I can’t tell you all about everything now, but – Oh, the police!’

  Every head in the room turned, of course, but I don’t think anyone else got to their feet ready to run.

  ‘Panic not, fair one. I know old habits die hard, but aim for a little decorum!’ He put his tongue into his cheek to remind me he was teasing. ‘He probably wants to talk to us about that security guard. I’m afraid the delay will irritate poor Aidan.’ Suddenly he took my hand. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come too? Or want me to come home?’

  It was a good job the arrival of the policeman stopped me replying. We exchanged polite good mornings as he briefly flipped his ID, and a rabbit-eyed waitress offered more coffee as he sat down, parking his cap on the chair Aidan had left vacant. I’d hoped for more than a uniformed constable. I wanted something more like in Morse – a heavy-weight plain-clothes chief inspector and his sergeant.

  ‘We don’t have those resources,’ PC Brown said. ‘But that’s not to say CID aren’t involved with the Kitty Gang. And maybe with this, if we can prove a link.’

  ‘Couldn’t it be its own little gang? An antiques gang? After something only valuable to a dealer or collector?’ I asked.

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Such as something CID know all about.’ I crossed my fingers on the lie. At least they would when I’d talked to Dave, who seemed the best prospect, all things considered. ‘But what did the security guard say? The guy I floored,’ I added with a helpful smile.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that too loudly. Criminals these days like to sue for assault.’

  ‘But he grabbed me from behind. If I hadn’t had Dave’s car key in my hand, he could have overpowered me. When he put his arms round me, I didn’t think it was a friendly hug. After that, all I did was try to hold him down till someone came to my assistance. And in the struggle I recognised him as someone who said he was a security guard at a big antiques fair in Yorkshire.’

  ‘Delectable in a green uniform with a battledress top, as I recall.’ Though it had been his bum Griff was more interested in. ‘He appeared, officer, to have been extremely solicitous about my health, claiming he’d found me unconscious in the open door of the caravan. But he could equally have hit me on the head in order to sift the contents of our home from home. When we go to far flung corners of the country, we take our own accommodation,’ he explained.

  ‘“We?” Are you related?’

  I heard my voice come out loud and clear. ‘I wish we were. Griff’s much better than my real father at taking care of me.’ There, I’d nearly said it. I’d nearly told him how much I loved him. Nearly. One day I would.

  As it was, he took and squeezed my hand. ‘What do you think brings the young man down here? He certainly wasn’t invited.’

  ‘Ah, that’s something we need to find out. It wasn’t to visit you, sir?’

  ‘When I was staying at the home of my long-term partner? Absolutely not. In fact, I was down here very much to keep out of harm’s way.’ He patted the plaster on his wrist. ‘My last little encounter with Kitty or whatever. I’m sure my partner Aidan won’t have told people I was there, apart from those we met for supper the other night – he’ll furnish you with their name and address. And the only other person apart from Lina here to know my whereabouts is a young charmer called Marcus, who for some reason phoned to tell me he was abandoning Lina, who he was supposed to be assisting in running our business, to return to his cousin and lover, a print and map dealer called Laurence Copeland.’ He reached for my hand. ‘I did hope, my dear, that you’d have realised without my spelling it out, that he dances at both ends of the ballroom.’

  PC Brown wasn’t as quick on the uptake as I, nor as thrown by the news. Why hadn’t Griff told me before? It would have explained so much! My face must have said something of what I felt.

  ‘Ballroom dancing? Why shouldn’t he? Oh. Er…’

  Griff squeezed my hand a little tighter: ‘Experiential learning, I think they call it, dear heart. I hope you’re not too upset.’

  ‘Not so much by that as by the thought that he might be in cahoots with Peachy Bum from Harrogate.’ I sank back into my chair. ‘And,’ I added, ‘by the thought that it may be him who roughed up Lord Elham last night. I wish I could sort the whole thing out!’

  Aidan reappeared. ‘I wish you could too, my dear, and quickly too. Griff, your carriage awaits you. The sooner we slip into the anonymity of London, the better.’ He helped Griff to his feet. ‘Meanwhile, Evelina, disregard that last comment. Do nothing, absolutely nothing, because every minute he can’t keep on eye on you our old friend here is in agonies of worry. Now the professionals are involved, for goodness’ sake regard your safety as a priority.’ He patted my hand. ‘Promise?’

  I managed to smile back. Perhaps he wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. ‘If I have anything to do with it, my skin will stay in one piece.’

  Griff shot me a look: he knew that was no sort of a promise. But he submitted to being led quietly away. Not until he’d had the hugest hug either of us could manage, though. He nodded in the direction of his chair – he’d left a nicely anonymous envelope containing that page.

  As he left, in walked Dave Trent, looking as unpolicemanly as it was possible to look. The two officers eyed each other. Dave flashed his ID. ‘DC Dave Trent. And who the hell are you?’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It’d be nice to claim that I’d done the same neat job of flooring the man in uniform as I had that hoodie. Or that Dave had been as deft with his footwork as with last night’s driving. But we were both frustrated by an old, old lady, bent as Josie, with a Zimmer frame. Maybe she thought that Dave was a villain, the other man a cop in trouble. No one could have blamed her, after all. Or maybe she hadn’t
a clue what was going on, and was simply jammed in the doorway with her frame at a funny angle because she still needed L-plates.

  Dave spat into his mobile phone, before turning his attention to me. ‘How come you couldn’t tell the guy was a fake? You must have seen IDs before!’

  ‘No need to drag up my past.’

  He blushed, putting up a hand in apology. ‘I meant with all these burglaries and assaults. Honest. Sorry. But –’

  ‘Because he did what most policemen do: he gave it a quick flash and put it away.’

  ‘What did he find out? When he was questioning you?’

  ‘That Griff and Aidan have gone off to London, leaving both Aidan’s house and our cottage unprotected. That I recognised the man who jumped me last night. Not a lot else. I’m not as green,’ I told his disbelieving face, ‘as I am cabbage-looking. When he didn’t seem to be up to speed, I said I’d told CID everything. Which I suppose I better had. But not,’ I added, ‘till I’ve phoned the William Harvey and told them to tell Lord Elham I shall be a bit late and to look after his headache a bit longer.’

  In the end I agreed that Dave counted as CID and that I’d bring him up to speed as he drove, more slowly, this time. But then it seemed we were heading not for Bredeham and the hire car, but Maidstone, and Kent Police headquarters.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘What do you mean, no thanks?’

  ‘I don’t do police stations. Not when I can avoid it.’

  He accelerated. ‘Looks like this time you can’t avoid it.’

  ‘Just stop the car, Dave. Unless I’m under arrest?’

  He slowed, but only a little. ‘You’re not under arrest. The guy you clocked is. Well, he’s being held for questioning. But they need a proper statement from you, Lina, or they have to let him go. It won’t take long. Just a matter of telling an officer exactly how you met him before, and why you floored him this time. Otherwise, he’ll be free to hound you some more.’