The Little Teashop of Lost and Found

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘You didn’t notice the farmer?’

  ‘No, but he would already have been on the other side of the escarpment, where the rocks have tumbled down. The full moon was starting to sink, but it was still so bright everything cast long shadows.’

  I shivered a little. ‘It sounds scary!’

  Those light eyes stared at me, puzzled. ‘I don’t know what you mean – the moor’s the same moor, day or night, isn’t it?’

  ‘I … suppose it is,’ I agreed. ‘Do carry on with the story.’

  ‘Right, well, I was just standing next to the Oldstone, looking in the direction of where the sun would rise, when my dog barked. Another one answered it from below, so I looked over the edge and there was a man holding what looked like a lamb. He called out to me to stay there while he climbed up, though I wasn’t going anywhere.’

  She rolled out the scone pastry vigorously and began thumping circles out of it with a metal cutter.

  ‘Go on, then,’ prompted Gloria, who was listening as avidly as I was.

  Em shrugged. ‘When he climbed up he accused me of abandoning a baby – he’d shoved you down the front of his shirt by then for warmth, but he showed me – and I told him he was mad and anyway, I’d only just got there. Then luckily I spotted my friend arriving in her car, so we all got into it, went to his farm and called the police and an ambulance.’

  ‘And they took me away,’ I finished for her.

  ‘Yes, but once you’d gone, the police asked us a lot of questions before we could go home, and they snooped about afterwards until they were certain I wasn’t the mother.’

  She gave a sudden smile. ‘Joe Godet was convinced I was part of a coven of witches and probably told the police I was going to sacrifice you on the rock, or something daft like that.’

  ‘As if you ever would,’ scoffed Gloria.

  ‘Was I really wrapped in just a sheepskin, with no clothes or anything else?’

  ‘A small sheepskin mat, the sort you have by the bed, that was all. You hadn’t even been cleaned up.’

  ‘I wonder if the police tried to trace the sheepskin rug?’

  ‘I doubt it. They’re ten a penny round here. No, where you came from remained a mystery, but it seemed likely to me you’d been brought there in that car that passed me. The police never traced it, so it wasn’t from the cottages.’

  ‘So it’s still a dead end,’ I said. ‘Though it’s good to hear what really happened from someone who was there. Thank you so much for telling me about it.’

  ‘I’ve thought of you whenever I’ve been up there, which is quite often. The place has great spiritual significance,’ she added, though she didn’t define what kind.

  I thought Joe Godet might have been right about the coven, but I was very sure Em hadn’t taken me there for sacrificial, or any other, purpose.

  As if she’d read my thoughts she grinned and said, ‘Joe’s son always seems to turn up when I’m there with my friends, so he probably hopes we do all the witchy things the Sunday papers go on about, like get naked and dance around.’

  By now, Gloria had poured the tea into wide porcelain teacups and they swirled with big, tattered tea leaves. I’d rather it had been strained, but said nothing and sipped carefully. The roughage, should I inadvertently swallow any of it, would probably do me good.

  Gloria took my cup when I’d drained it and I thought she was going to refill it, but instead she swirled the dregs round and peered into it.

  ‘See anything interesting?’ asked Em, seriously.

  ‘There’s what everyone expects me to find: a tall, dark, handsome man has come into her life.’

  ‘Can you read fortunes in tea leaves?’ I said, interested. ‘The man’s just my nearest neighbour, though – he’s tall, dark and very handsome.’

  ‘He’s nearer than you think,’ she said obscurely.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I?’ she snapped crossly. ‘The tea leaves aren’t like reading a book.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘Can you see anything else?’

  She scrutinized the pattern of leaves again. ‘You’ve taken a long and roundabout journey to get here, but it’s not finished quite yet.’

  I could have told her that.

  Em looked up from laying discs of scone dough on a large baking tray. ‘Those light green eyes … so unusual,’ she murmured, absently.

  I did try one or two other locations for my early morning walks with the dog, but constantly found myself drawn back to the area around the Oldstone. Besides, our visits had quickly become a part of my regular routine and I find change unsettling. Hugo seemed to feel the same way, for he whined if I turned the car in another direction.

  Luckily I had not seen Alice Rose there again, so I hoped her curiosity was sated by her earlier visits.

  35

  Tiers before Bedtime

  Outside I found Nile seated on the wall at the side of the road waiting for me.

  ‘Sitting on cold stone gives you piles. My granny used to say so,’ I told him.

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ he said in his usual grave way. ‘Did she have any other bits of helpful advice?’

  ‘Yes – eating too much sugar gives you worms.’

  ‘I should have asked if she had any other bits of advice that weren’t revolting.’ He got up and stretched, so he must have been waiting for a while.

  ‘Oh, she had lots, like eating bread crusts gives you curly hair.’

  ‘We must both have eaten a lot of crusts, then,’ he said, as we headed back down to where we’d parked the car. ‘And I take it you saw Emily Rhymer. Was it illuminating?’

  ‘It was certainly interesting,’ I said, then repeated what she’d told me about a car passing her in the narrow lane just before the turn-off to the Oldstone. ‘She thought it was a Mini, but didn’t tell the police that bit, since she couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘But if she had, it might have helped?’

  ‘I don’t know. It might have implicated someone innocent. Emily said a young local girl had one, but she knew it wasn’t her because she saw her the same day I was found, looking just the same as usual.’

  ‘But she didn’t tell you who it was?’

  ‘No, and they don’t know anyone locally with my shade of red hair, though Em said she’d seen someone with pale green eyes like mine before, she just couldn’t remember who it was. Gloria agreed with her, so I left my phone number, in case it came back to them.’

  ‘Gloria?’

  ‘The elderly lady who let me in. I don’t know if she was a relative, or the cleaner, or what. She made tea while we were talking, then read my tea leaves!’

  ‘Betty at Angel Delights insisted on reading my Angel Cards,’ he said. ‘Like the tarot, but less doomy.’

  ‘Did they say anything exciting?’ I asked, interested.

  ‘The usual: big changes were coming, I should embrace the future … that kind of thing. What about your tea leaves?’

  I shrugged. ‘A dark, handsome man was going to come into my life. I told them he already had, because he was living practically on the doorstep, but the full description should have been “dark, handsome and bossy”.’

  ‘I’m not bossy,’ he stated, then blew it by adding, ‘By the way, we’re going out for lunch.’

  ‘There you are: bossy,’ I said. ‘Case proven! And won’t Sheila wonder where we’ve got to?’

  ‘No, because I rang her to say I’d heard from a contact in Skipton, so we’d have lunch there and see what he’s found for me. Nice place, Skipton.’

  ‘I was going to spend my afternoon in the library, working on my book,’ I objected.

  ‘You’re surely entitled to a bit of free time?’

  ‘Not according to my agent … and it’s now less than two weeks to the book delivery deadline. But I suppose I could take the afternoon off, because actually after this morning I don’t think I could concentrate,’ I admitted. ‘Tomorrow morning I’ve got to deliver those
plates to the man Bel found who can turn them into cake stands, but I’ll go straight back to my flat after lunch and work all afternoon and evening to make up.’

  ‘I’ll be having an early night tomorrow, because I’m headed for bonny Scotland at the crack of dawn on Monday and I’ll be away a few days,’ he said. ‘There’s an auction I want to attend and a few contacts to go round while I’m there.’

  ‘You could call in at my friend Edie’s guesthouse if you’re anywhere near,’ I suggested, and when I told him where it was he said he could make a slight detour if I liked. ‘I suspect you have an ulterior motive?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to send her one or two things, but only if it’s not too much trouble for you.’

  ‘I expect I’ll survive. Is there anything I can bring you back? A haggis, perhaps?’ he teased.

  ‘Yes – a box of Edinburgh rock, I loooove it,’ I told him.

  ‘It’ll rot your teeth,’ he said seriously, but with a glint of laughter in his smoke-grey eyes, ‘not to mention give you worms!’

  By unspoken mutual consent we didn’t talk about anything contentious, so that our expedition to Skipton turned into one of those magical days you look back on for ever afterwards with a warm, golden, fuzzy feeling.

  First we had lunch in an ancient pub and then afterwards walked around Skipton, while Nile told me snippets about its really interesting history. There was even a canal full of narrow boats and Nile took my hand as we walked along the towpath, which was slick from earlier rain. After that it seemed the most natural thing in the world to stroll hand in hand around the remains of Skipton Castle, and I found myself telling him how, when I was a little girl and we lived near Granny Rose in Knaresborough, she would walk with me to the Dropping Well, where I was fascinated by all the strange things visitors had hung up to be petrified.

  In return, he described some of the madder things the Giddings family did when he first went to live with them, like suddenly deciding to have a long weekend in France at an hour’s notice and then only realizing they hadn’t brought the tent poles when on the wrong side of the channel.

  ‘And we couldn’t all fit in the VW campervan, but luckily it was warm weather so some of us slept under the awning, instead.’

  ‘It sounds like the sort of fun I had with Lola’s family after we moved to Shropshire when I was eight,’ I said. ‘When you put the good times in the balance, they always outweigh the worst, don’t they?’

  ‘That’s true,’ he agreed, squeezing my hand. ‘You don’t forget the bad bits, but they’re overlaid with the happier memories.’

  Then he looked at his watch and said we’d better go and visit his contact before she shut up for the day – and by then I’d totally forgotten the reason for our trip!

  Violet Grange was a small, thin, upright lady with a head of upswept white hair and a sharp pair of blue eyes. She kept a tiny but very expensive antiques shop off the main street and while Nile was looking through the things she’d put to one side for him, I drooled over a locked case of jewellery, especially a glorious ring with a single large sparkling pale yellow stone.

  ‘Yellow diamond on a platinum band,’ she said, spotting my interest with a honed hawk eye for a sale.

  ‘Oh?’ I said, disappointed that it wasn’t a citrine, which I might just have been able to afford. But before I could say anything else, she’d unlocked the lid and was sliding it on to the ring finger of my left hand.

  ‘It would be the perfect engagement ring, wouldn’t it, Nile?’ she asked, so I guessed she’d spotted us walking up hand in hand and leaped to the wrong conclusion.

  ‘I suppose it would – for the right person,’ he agreed. ‘It certainly suits you, Alice.’ He turned back to Violet wearing his by now familiar dealer’s poker face. ‘Might be a bit overpriced, though, Violet. Not everyone wants a yellow diamond – it’s a limited market.’

  ‘It’s a very good stone … and, of course, for you I might reduce it,’ she suggested.

  ‘I can’t afford it at any price,’ I said firmly and, pulling it off, handed it back, though by then I was feeling distinctly Gollum and desperately wanted it, my Precious. But there was a thin paper band looped through it bearing the price and it really was precious – way outside my reach.

  Nile picked it up and examined it. ‘I don’t deal in a lot of jewellery, but I might have a customer for this,’ he said. ‘At the right price, of course.’

  Then he turned to me. ‘This is the boring bit, Alice, where we haggle and I settle up with Violet for what I want – so why don’t you go next door to the teashop and I’ll join you in a few minutes?’

  I ordered afternoon tea for two with a lavish disregard for the expense (and a keen interest in what their idea of a good tea would be like).

  Then I slipped into a daydream in which Nile and I had just got engaged and were in Violet’s shop to pick a ring …

  But when the tall, dark and stunning real Nile walked in a few minutes later and every female head in the place turned as one to stare at him, I remembered why that daydream was never actually likely to become reality.

  Really, if I went on like this I might as well start writing romantic fiction, instead of fairy-tale horror!

  The waitress brought a stand of fairly run-of-the-mill-looking sandwiches, cakes and scones, then almost put the teapot down in my lap, because she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from Nile.

  He appeared quite oblivious to all of it and told me ruefully that, as always, Violet had got him to pay her more than he intended to for his purchases.

  I managed not to ask him then if the beautiful ring had been one of them, or later, on the drive back to Oldstone Farm. I didn’t want him to think I was angling for yet another expensive present from his stock, but it didn’t stop me wanting to pick his pockets and find out.

  If he had, I hoped whichever of his clients it was meant for appreciated it.

  Teddy and Geeta had taken baby Casper over to his grandparents for the day, and dinner that night was an Indian takeaway, in that most of it had been cooked by Geeta’s mother and brought back.

  ‘She always makes twice as much as anyone can eat and her freezer will explode if she tries to cram anything else in there,’ Geeta explained, as we stuffed ourselves.

  Casper had been so tired when they got back that he’d gone straight into his cot, and the baby monitor lay to hand on the table, though he has such good lungs that if he woke up, we could have heard him crying clearly even without it.

  As I’d long since given up trying to keep secrets from any of the Giddingses, I gave everyone an update on what I’d discovered from talking to George Godet and Emily Rhymer, so they were all up to speed.

  ‘I don’t know if Emily will ever remember who has light green eyes like mine, or if she’ll tell me even if she does,’ I finished. ‘It probably wouldn’t lead anywhere anyway.’

  ‘It does look as if your only remaining hope of finding your birth mother will be through an article in the paper, if she comes forward,’ Teddy said.

  ‘Yes, but at least I’ll have done my best to find her, so if she doesn’t I can finally put it all behind me and move on,’ I said, then since Nile was giving me one of his ‘you know I don’t think that’s a good idea’ stares I added, ‘Nile’s been buying dollies and teddy bears today. It’s probably his second childhood.’

  ‘Two Schuco miniature bear-shaped perfume bottles—’ he began.

  ‘Sweet, except you have to pull their heads off to get at the perfume,’ I put in.

  ‘And an early Victorian china doll’s house family,’ he finished.

  ‘They had big families,’ I said. ‘There are about seven children, including twin babies.’

  ‘It’s a great find, especially since all the clothes are original,’ he said. ‘I can sell them on at a profit with just a quick email or two. The same with the bears: I have two collectors for those, so I can offer them one each.’

  ‘What about the ring?’ I asked. My to
ngue got loose, even though I hadn’t had the least intention of asking about it. ‘Did you get it?’

  ‘Yes – you have a good eye and it’s a beauty. I have someone special in mind for it.’

  ‘Ring!’ exclaimed Sheila, and we all stared at her. ‘I entirely forgot – Zelda rang you hours ago and wanted you to call her back. Your mobile wasn’t picking up.’

  Nile fished it out from his pocket. ‘Dead as a dodo – must have forgotten to charge it up again,’ he said. ‘Never mind, I’m sure it wasn’t urgent and I’ll see what she wants after dinner. Maybe she’s thought over my suggestion about buying me out of the business with that money her uncle left her.’

  ‘It does seem a good idea, when you’re living so far away now,’ Sheila said. ‘I know you travel about a lot anyway, but at least you wouldn’t need to go up and down to London so much.’

  ‘What are we having for dessert?’ asked Teddy, abandoning the topic for something closer to his heart.

  ‘Norwegian waffles and home-made vanilla ice cream,’ Bel said happily.

  ‘That’s not the traditional end to an Indian meal,’ said Teddy.

  ‘No, but Sheila knows it’s my favourite,’ Geeta said.

  Floppy waffles spread with jam and eaten with ice cream were also my favourite dessert after that … and possibly the total downfall of my figure, should I ever weaken and buy my own waffle pan.

  We stayed in the kitchen, drinking coffee and clearing up, while Nile went to ring Zelda back on the phone extension in the library. It might have been as well if he’d closed the door, because we suddenly heard his raised voice saying angrily, ‘No! No, Zelda, absolutely not! No way!’

  Bel and I exchanged glances. What could she be asking him now?

  Nile came back looking like a thundercloud and poured himself a cup of coffee in silence.

  ‘She’s actually called the banns this time?’ Teddy teased.

  Nile gave him a look, said he had some more calls to make and emails to send, and then took his coffee off back to the library with him, this time closing the door with a decisive click.