I was faintly surprised by how cool I was about the big betrayal scene. I felt stupid more than anything. My fantasies about being the sort of woman who could have two men panting after her at the same time had been well and truly shown up for the hollow sham they were. One falls straight into the arms of the first woman who asks him. The other - well, he might have woken up to the fact that I was no longer a sullen and fat teenager, but I was fooling myself disastrously if I believed he’d ever look on me as more than a temporary and amusing diversion. And now, I realised with alarm, I didn’t have the protective buffer of fidelity to hide behind to protect me from James when he was in advancing mood either. Oh, hell!
What’s the connection between a betting shop and a gas bill? Other than if you’ve lost your shirt on the horses you might be tempted to put your head in the oven ... Except that I have no idea why the betting shop opposite my car made me think of gas. Anyway I did a quick U turn, a slow one actually, much to the volubly expressed annoyance of the man behind me, and shot back towards James’s house.
He stiffened defensively when he saw who it was rapping on his door so loudly. Conscience, or rather sense of self-preservation, working, I expect. ‘Laura—’ he began.
‘Forget that,’ I interrupted. ‘James, why did someone come to read the gas meter today when you’ve only just had the bill?’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked in a puzzled voice as he shut the door behind me.
‘One of those letters I knocked off the table was to the gas board. It’s the bill, right?’ He nodded. ‘Your message board in the kitchen has a note from your domestic treasure that the man came to read the meter. I can’t believe anyone as efficient as that would leave week-old messages on the board, so he must have been today or yesterday.’
‘Today. Dolly only comes three days a week. Yes, you’re right, the meter can’t be due to be read again for at least two months. Well done. I saw the message but I never made the connection.’
‘Well, you’ve had a lot on your mind, you must expect to miss a few things,’ I said in a smugly kind voice.
He threw me a dirty look. ‘I wonder what our gas meter friend wanted?’
‘To look for something?’
‘Dolly would never leave anyone alone even for a minute. Her mum got her pension book stolen by a supposed council worker checking for damp, so she’s very careful.’
‘To leave something?’
‘Possibly. We’d better go and check in the cellar. She wouldn’t have bothered to follow him down there and I suppose he might have used the loo too. She definitely wouldn’t have gone in there.’
It didn’t take long. The search was aided by the unusual tidiness of his cellar, undoubtedly the work of the inimitable Dolly. It had the usual complement of old furniture and unidentifiable bits that were too good to throw away and might come in useful someday, but instead of being chucked in higgledy-piggledy like the normal cellar, everything was arranged neatly in piles along the walls. It was the first cellar where I’d ever been able to walk from one end to the other without tripping over something. James started to search there while I did the downstairs loo, looking in all the obvious places like inside the cistern and behind the hand towels stacked in a cupboard. But it wasn’t until I felt down the back of the pillar that supports the basin that I felt the little package wedged between the pipes. I left whatever it was protectively encased in several layers of bubble wrap and took it to James. He had just finished running his hands along the myriad pipes that lined the walls.
‘I found those,’ he said, jerking his head back towards two more bubble-wrapped lumps that he’d put on the seat of a three-legged chair. He frowned as his fingers dug into a crevice made by a rotten brick. ‘I think that’s about it. I’ve looked everywhere I can think of, unless of course he buried something and then put a bit of furniture over it.’ He shook his head. ‘No. Too great a risk of being discovered by Dolly doing suspicious digging.’
‘A spade isn’t part of the normal meter reader’s equipment either,’ I pointed out.
And you can’t make much of a hole with a clipboard even in a dirt floor.’ James clapped grime off his hands then wiped the residue off on the seat of his trousers in a way that would have deeply shocked his daily. We bore our finds off to the kitchen and put them down on the table.
‘Should we have a look to see what they are?’ I asked doubtfully. ‘I mean, you’ll get your fingerprints all over whatever they are.’
‘Our fingerprints are already all over the wrapping. That’s probably enough to convict if anyone is so minded.’
I swallowed hard. ‘Do you think that’s what he’s intending? To plant the stuff and then give the police “new” evidence so they’ll come and search the house?’
James looked grim. ‘I don’t think so, or not yet anyway. I reckon that even Stefano knows if he goes too far he’ll never get Cressy back. She’s basically very honest.’
‘So far as he knows she’s dishonest enough to swipe his whole china collection,’ I reminded him.
James pursed his lips. ‘I’d forgotten that. Let’s hope that Stefano’s merely trying to frighten me into telling him where she is and not indulging in a game of tit for tat.’
I agreed heartily. ‘Or,’ he said, with a glance at me, ‘trying to work on you since he knows that you do know where she is.’
‘Frankly I’m beginning to feel like picking up the phone and telling him now.’
‘Laura!’ exclaimed James and glared at me sternly until I meekly said, ‘I didn’t mean it.’
He gave me one of his brilliant smiles so my heart thumped like a Labrador’s tail after it’s been told it’s a good girl. ‘Oh, well,’ he said cheerfully, ‘we might as well see what I’m about to be hauled off to clink for.’ He carefully snipped away the pieces of Sellotape that stuck the bubble wrap together and gently unravelled the package I’d found. We looked at the enamelled snuff box in James’s hand in stunned silence.
‘Good God,’ he said, holding it up to have a closer look and the movement made the sparkling stones set around the portrait on the lid of a gentleman in a powdered wig wink in the light.
‘Are those really diamonds?’
James shrugged. ‘I don’t have a jeweller’s glass with me, but they can’t be. It would be worth some astronomical amount if they were. And even if not, it’d still set you back quite a lot if you wanted to buy it.’
I craned over to have a closer look at it. ‘I wouldn’t. It’s too flashy. I preferred the boxes Cressida was supposed to have pinched.’
‘This one isn’t in quite the same league,’ said James with damning professional indifference. ‘I don’t like it much either, but that’s because of the portrait. He looks pleased with himself, doesn’t he?’
I took another look. ‘Mmm, he does.’
James held it up to the light. ‘He reminds me of someone. I wonder who? Oh, I know. He’s got a look of your Daniel,’ he said with a consciously innocent expression.
‘I hadn’t noticed,’ I said coldly. But he was right, damn him. ‘Even if the stones are only paste it still looks too valuable for a game of hunt the snuff box. What happens if Stefano doesn’t get it back?’
‘Unless he’s decided he doesn’t like it any more and doesn’t care what happens to it, he must be fairly sure that he will,’ James said in a quiet voice. ‘Let’s see what the other two are.’
They were a pair of deliciously fat painted wooden cherub candelabra, about twelve inches high. James thought he remembered seeing them on the mantelpiece of the dining room in Hurstwood House. ‘Aren’t they gorgeous?’ I said in a longing voice.
‘They’re pretty, but not, I think, very valuable,’ he said, casting a critical eye over them. ‘That one there has been restored quite heavily, and the other has broken his arm at one time and had it stuck back on again.’
‘Doesn’t matter, I still want them,’ I said. I don’t often see things I fall in love with at first
sight, but I felt a covetous longing for those cherubs. I could just imagine them at either end of the mantelpiece in my bedroom or maybe in the living room... I couldn’t make up my mind, I just knew they’d look perfect wherever they were.
James eyed the haul on the kitchen table and sighed. ‘Stefano’s being a bit slow off the mark. You’d have thought he’d have arranged for the police to come around with a search warrant already. But what the hell am I going to do with them? I can’t leave them here and I daresay that if Stefano’s detective sees me leaving with any sort of parcel he’s got instructions to ring the police and say I’m carting stolen property around.’
I hoped he was exaggerating. ‘I’ll dispose of the cherubs for you,’ I offered. ‘They’d look great on my dressing table.’
‘Laura,’ said James in a shocked tone. ‘They don’t belong to you.’
‘I know,’ I said regretfully, ‘though you could claim that Stefano had as good as given them to you by putting them in this house.’
James closed his eyes in despair. ‘Female logic. I doubt the police would see it that way.’
‘Me too, and I was only joking.’ James didn’t look as if he thought this any joking matter. ‘But unless we put them in the post and send them back to Stefano the only thing to do is for me to take them. I’ll put them in Cressida’s suitcase and no one can say that she doesn’t have a right to them.’
James brightened, then his face fell again. ‘I don’t know. What happens if you’re found with them on you?’
I shrugged. ‘Presumably even Stefano will balk at having me dragged off to jug for theft. Come on, James, it’s hardly likely, is it? It’s only a short trip back to my flat. Or I could put them in the bin on the corner if you’d prefer?’
‘You will not,’ he snapped. ‘But the stakes are getting too high, I don’t want you mixed up in this any more.’
I sighed in exasperation. This wasn’t the moment for him to start developing a sense of honour and a need to protect the little woman. ‘It’s too late to start worrying about me being involved. You should have thought of that before you started blackmailing me with threats to squeal to Imogen.’ James winced as if I’d just thrown an accurate but unfair punch. ‘Besides, what risk is there to me? All I’m doing is taking some of Cressida’s things back to her.’
‘Okay,’ he said finally, still looking unhappy. ‘But ring me at once if you get into any trouble.’
‘I won’t,’ I said, rather touched by this hitherto unseen chivalrous aspect of James’s character, at least so far as I was concerned. I didn’t expect it to last for long. I wrapped up the snuff box and the cherubs and put them in a carrier bag.
‘Oh, and by the way, did you know that Serena, of all people, went around to see Daniel yesterday?’ I said as I was about to leave.
‘Did she?’ he asked in a casual voice.
‘And do you know something else - she made a pass at him.’
‘She did?’ he asked with completely unconvincing astonishment.
‘Oh, yes.’ I smiled brilliantly. ‘And he turned her down.’
This time James’s surprise was absolutely genuine. ‘Really? You’re sure?’
‘Yes, but I wonder how she knew that he was my boyfriend.’
‘I can’t think.’
‘You can’t? I’m so glad. Anyway no harm was done,’ I said brightly and reached up to kiss his cheek before I let myself out. Yet again I was smiling to myself as I left James’s house. It seemed to be becoming quite a habit. It was great to feel James didn’t have the upper hand all the time.
CHAPTER 16
Having successfully avoided arrest for possession of stolen property I let myself into the flat, looking around in very theatrical fashion to see where Cressida was. It’d be better if she didn’t find out about some of her husband’s more dubious activities until after she’d made her all important telephone calls and I was quite sure she wouldn’t have made them without me there to force her. The sitting room was empty so I crept in and stuffed my bag of loot under the sofa then went to see her. She was sitting up in bed looking as near to plain as it was possible for her to be. Her chalky white skin and red- rimmed eyes made her look like a B-movie victim about to be the vampire’s supper for a second or third time. My initial reaction was that she was a rush off to Casualty job, but she assured me she wasn’t feeling any worse, certainly didn’t need a doctor, then burst into noisy tears.
‘I’m never going to be able to speak to Stefano again. He’ll never forgive me. Never, never, never!’
‘Forgive you for what?’ I asked, sitting down on the bed beside her and putting my arm around her shoulders.
‘I’ve been so stupid,’ she cried, more loudly. Horatio gave her a disgusted look and, declining to stay in a room with someone who made more noise than he did, got up and stalked with weighty dignity out of the room. I fetched a box of man-size tissues, put them on her lap and sat down beside her again.
‘What have you done that’s so dreadful?’ I asked. Her sobs were getting noisier and noisier. I was afraid that in a moment they’d turn into full-blown hysterics and the only cure I know for them is the old jug of water trick. I didn’t want to soak my bed if I could help it so I patted her hand and said again, ‘Come on, Cressida, why don’t you tell me what the matter is?’ As the sobs diminished a little I added soothingly, ‘You know what they say about two heads being better than one. And a trouble shared is a trouble halved. I might be able to help. You probably can’t see the wood for the trees.’ I was beginning to sound like Darian, I thought in alarm.
‘I doubt anyone can get me out of this wood,’ she said in a muffled voice and blew her nose loudly. ‘I’m sorry, Laura. I shouldn’t have broken down like this, but you’re so sympathetic.’
Was I? Curious more like. ‘Is this what’s been on your mind all week? I could see there was something worrying you but I didn’t like to ask.’
I left a hopeful silence dangling. At long last she picked it up. ‘It’s all my fault, that’s what makes it worse, me and my temper. And then I had to compound the error…’
I could have screamed with frustration. ‘I’m sure you don’t have a temper,’ I said, attempting to move the story along.
‘Oh, I do,’ she assured me, eyes wide. ‘I try and keep it under control, but sometimes—’ Her expression darkened and her fingers picked at a loose bit of patchwork on the bedcover. ‘When Stefano went away after he discovered that letter he seemed to think everything had been settled and that from then on I’d do exactly as he wanted.’ She dabbed delicately facewards with a tissue. ‘Well, I’d said I was sorry and that I wouldn’t deceive him again. I might even have said I really was going to try for a baby.’ She lifted her eyes to mine. ‘You know what Stefano’s like. When he’s angry it’s easier to agree with him,’ she said earnestly. I could vouch for that.
Cressida sniffed pointedly. ‘But he didn’t believe me,’ she said with what seemed like genuine indignation. ‘He rang me from Milan and said he’d decided I should go back to live in Italy. When I said I wouldn’t go, he said in that case his sister or his mother would come to live with me in England to teach me my family responsibilities. I said I wouldn’t have them, he said it was his house and he would invite whom he liked to stay.’
‘Oh,’ I said inadequately.
It seemed to satisfy Cressida as a sympathetic response for she nodded. ‘He wouldn’t listen. He knows I don’t like Lucrezia or his sisters and they don’t like me but he just said I’d forfeited any right to be treated with consideration. He went on and on in a horribly cold voice, no thought for what I was feeling at all.’ Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘I know it wasn’t right to deceive him but he didn’t seem to believe that I was sorry. He’s never, ever spoken to me like that before, as if I was one of his staff who hadn’t done the filing right. He said that, whether I liked it or not, Lucrezia was on her way and then put the phone down.’
She pushed her hai
r back off her forehead. ‘I’d been taking the little bronze of the dancing faun to the safe when the telephone went. I was so cross all I wanted to do was something that would upset Stefano.’
I began to get a nasty feeling.
She bit her lip and looked at me through tear-filled eyes. ‘I picked up the faun and threw it at the fireplace. And, oh, Laura,’ she choked on a sob, ‘I didn’t think I’d do it any harm, not really, because it’s made of bronze but the metal must have been thinner than I thought and it caught the edge of the fireplace. I dented it all down one side!’
I could see why she wasn’t keen to tell Stefano this, but surely all was not yet lost? ‘Couldn’t you have it repaired? Tell him you had a bit of an accident and not let him see the extent of the damage?’
‘Not letting him see it was the problem. At first I couldn’t believe what I’d done, I panicked, I thought Stefano would kill me when he found out,’ she declared tragically. ‘When Arabella rang, banging on about the seminar, it seemed the ideal solution. I had an excuse to go to London and take the faun to James, because he’d always help me and would know what to do. And with luck Stefano would think it was in the safe with the china and I might even be able to get it back without his knowing it had ever been damaged.’
From the sound of it she’d been pretty hopeful. Didn’t that sort of skilled repair take some time? Stefano would certainly have begun to smell a rat if his precious things had stayed in the safe for too long. ‘So poor Arabella didn’t make the convert she thought she had.’
Cressida smiled faintly. ‘I thought it would be quite useful to learn how to stand up to Stefano, but a lightning course in casting bronze would have been more to the point.’
Too true. ‘So what went wrong?’
‘James wasn’t there,’ she said crossly as if he’d deliberately let her down. ‘And his staff said he’d be away for two days so I went to a couple of places myself about the repairs and they both refused to touch it. One said he didn’t do that sort of thing and the other said he had a backlog of about six months. So to while away the time until James got back I went off to Folkestone to do those follow up seminars.’ She looked up and grinned with a trace of the old Cressida. ‘At least they got me out of London and Stefano’s reach - so much for standing up to him. The faun came with me, of course. I stayed with Sam.’
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