Ring of Guilt

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Could you do your patteran thing and go back and send them over?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I’d better stay here.’

  ‘Couldn’t you do your radio thing and guide them over?’

  ‘You really are freaked out, aren’t you?’ He sounded more disgusted than anything – like Griff when one of his TV cricketers misses an easy catch or gets run out.

  ‘And you wouldn’t be?’ In my anger I plucked at a fistful of paper overall. He wanted patterans, he’d get bloody patterans. But it wouldn’t tear and I was left impotently tugging at the stuff.

  ‘Hello, there!’ The voices calling us sounded so everyday, so ordinary you’d have thought they dealt with bodies every day. It was only when I saw the first very businesslike cases and other gear that I realized they did. It seemed they even had someone in the team to deal with wimps like me, and before I knew it I was back in a warm car heading back to Maidstone.

  One of the things that bothered me was the amount of explaining I’d have to do to Griff. It was one thing to persuade Will that I’d been wandering round on my own in the woods, but another to convince Griff. But the truth, that I was in the company of Titus, would be even less to his taste.

  I phoned him from Maidstone to explain. And got, thank goodness, his voicemail. It was reasonably easy to lie, and say that Will and I were having a bite of lunch. Finding a skeleton wasn’t the sort of thing you could leave a message about.

  As a sergeant, Will was much too important to take my statement, which was fine by me. In any case, he was only a man for old bones, not new ones. Much as I’d liked him at first, he’d slipped so far down in my estimation that I didn’t want to see him again. Except for one thing. As I signed where I was told, I said to the woman I’d dictated everything to, ‘Before I go, I need to see DS Kinnersley again.’

  ‘It doesn’t quite work like that,’ she objected.

  ‘On a personal matter,’ I said, looking straight at her with my still puffy and bloodshot eyes.

  I was lying, of course. Technically.

  She managed what might have been a sympathetic nod, and slipped out of the room. I didn’t bother checking to see if I was locked in or not.

  After about twenty minutes, during which I repaired my make-up as best I could, and practised what I wanted to say, in came Will, looking so apprehensive I nearly laughed. I didn’t. Stern-faced, I got to my feet and said, ‘I know you’ve got plenty of other things to worry about. But I really think it’s time you returned my property to me, Will. Unless it’s an essential part of your enquiry, of course.’

  ‘Property? Oh, the rings.’ He pulled a face. ‘They’re still bagged up as evidence, as far as I know.’

  ‘Evidence? Against whom?’ I remembered to add the m right at the last moment.

  ‘Well, I suppose it was against you. But the receipts and everything were kosher, so you should be getting them back. Unless you want me to find a collection for them to go in?’

  ‘If I decide they should go to a museum, I shall choose it myself, thanks. So do I sit and wait?’ I plonked myself down again.

  ‘Er . . . Look, as you said, I’m rushed off my feet now. Can I drop them round later? May have to be tomorrow. Perhaps we could have a curry or something?’

  Damn, when I should have been saying that that wasn’t quick enough, I took the curry bait. ‘In Bredeham?’ I squeaked in spite of myself. As far as I knew there was only one decent place to get a curry in the whole of Kent, and that was the Gurkha-run restaurant in Folkestone. What I ought to have done was tell him in no uncertain terms where to go. And I promised myself I would, the moment the rings were back in my hands.

  EIGHTEEN

  I spent the journey home rehearsing the version of the truth that Griff was most likely to swallow. I wouldn’t lie, but there had to be a plausible explanation for my visit to the woods. And then I realized I had a trump card – Will not handing over my rings. That should get him so annoyed he’d forget to question me too closely about anything else.

  There was a very nice car parked outside our cottage. Had Griff’s partner Aidan come up with a new model? No. He was a Mercedes man, and this was a BMW. Whoever the driver was, he was just turning away from our front door, looking fed up. I pulled up behind him and gave a light toot. And then a smile and a wave. Our visitor was Harvey Sanditon, no less.

  Even if you don’t fancy a man, to have someone’s face light up like that does your ego no end of good. So does having someone run to open your van door for you, as if you were minor royalty getting out of a Rolls. And though I’m no delicate flower, having a hand to support you as you wriggle out is quite nice too. So suddenly Harvey was flavour of the month, and I gave him one of my more welcoming smiles. Only to find I was being kissed, not the cheeks, one-two, either side, but full on my lips

  ‘How wonderful! I thought I’d been so foolish, calling in on the off-chance, and here you are!’

  ‘Yes, I’ve just got back,’ I said, stating the obvious. ‘And Griff’s not in?’

  ‘I was just going round to the shop to see if he was there. But it was you I wanted to see.’

  ‘Another casualty?’

  ‘You don’t think I might just want to see you?’

  Not on the basis of that dinner we had together, I thought, but didn’t say aloud. Well, I couldn’t think of anything to say aloud, as it happened. So I blushed (not something under my control) and gave a half smile. And then I thought of something. ‘Well, me and a lady you might want to see even more,’ I said. ‘Let me just lock the van in the yard and I’ll introduce you.’

  ‘Lady in a Swing!’ he said, turning the étui gently. ‘Perfect? Or did you have to help her?’

  ‘I had to wash her hair and give her a bit of a facial,’ I admitted. ‘But nothing involving the glue pot, I promise.’

  ‘And she’s for sale?’

  ‘I did want to keep her for myself,’ I admitted, more or less truthfully. ‘And then I thought about the V and A – they have a collection of Gouyn’s stuff, don’t they?’ Thank goodness that breakfast coaching session had stuck in my mind.

  He put the étui down very carefully. ‘But something held you back – my goodness, I can’t believe you thought of me!’

  When a man smiles at you like that, it’s hard not to smile back. And then get kissed, quite seriously this time. Well, it was better than staring at a skeletal hand, that was for sure. Stupid woman, thinking about that. I stepped back.

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’ No wonder the poor man was confused.

  ‘No! It’s me. Something that happened earlier today.’ Hell, this was not the moment for bursting into tears. But I was very close to it.

  ‘Tell me. Or can I get you a drink?’ He looked wildly around, as if he might find a drinks cabinet in our office.

  ‘Let’s have a cup of tea,’ I said, with a horrible unromantic sniff. I grabbed some tissues. ‘Oh dear, that sounds like something from one of those daytime war movies Griff watches if he has a cold.’ But I led the way into the kitchen. ‘Green or builder’s?’

  We agreed on Lapsang Souchong, and I dug in the cake tin. He watched while I laid a tray – some of my favourite old but damaged china – but insisted on carrying it through to the living room.

  He sat me down and fussed almost as well as Griff did. But there was an altogether different feel from Griff’s hand as he held mine and asked me to tell him what was wrong. And then he did exactly what Will should have done: he pulled me to him so I could bury my face in his shoulder. Shame about his suit. But maybe the fine cloth would deal with mascara and tears.

  At this point Griff let himself in through the back door and came sailing into the living room.

  ‘Harvey, how nice to – But Lina! My dear one!’ He sat the other side of me, and took the spare hand.

  ‘She was saying something about finding a body!’ Harvey explained.

  Letting go of both hands, and gesturing for a bit of breathing space,
I explained the background to Harvey, then gave them both a believable version of the day’s events. ‘Will told me about the archaeological dig, and I’d never seen one, except on Time Team, so he said he’d take me. We came across this badger’s sett and what I thought were roots turned out to be a man’s hand. Oh, Griff, if only I’d stopped that day!’

  Harvey grasped my hand again. ‘This body was moved from where it lay to where it was found? My God, Lina, if you’d gone to investigate you might have ended up as a skeleton in a sett too! It doesn’t bear thinking about!’

  I stared. ‘I was afraid they’d rob me and steal the van. I never thought of any other sort of danger.’ Dabbing my eyes with a hankie that Griff handed me showed how much eye make-up I’d lost. There’s a difference between tears and mascara streaks, so I excused myself as soon as was tactful. I wouldn’t change. Just repair the face. A few minutes to clear my thoughts. That was what I needed. Time to ponder how much Griff had bought of my story, and time to ponder why Harvey was here. I’d been right about his reaction to the étui. How would he react to the price?

  The answer to the second question was simple. He shoved his plastic into the terminal and tapped. Then he asked both Griff and me for dinner, but Griff swiftly said he was already booked. I’d bet any money that he’d just nip off to Tenterden to spend at least the evening with Aidan. It meant, of course, that he’d given me his tacit blessing for anything that might develop.

  Harvey booked us into the Silent Woman, another Bredeham restaurant. It was less formal than the Two Bays, and the menu less pretentious.

  With no vase sharing the table with us, conversation rattled along. In fact, although we’d arrived pretty early in the evening, by the time we got round to leaving, we were amongst the last there. We walked back slowly, hand in hand. All that developed was a pretty nice snog. After a while, Harvey said goodnight, and nipped off to the Two Bays, where he was booked in. But he’d made an interesting suggestion, which got those dratted antennae (see! I could still remember the word!) working again. There was an upmarket auction at a minor stately home the next day, and he thought it might be nice for us to combine business and pleasure and go together.

  It would, now I came to think of it. I suppose. Actually, at a sale like that, there wouldn’t be much that Tripp and Townend would want, which is why it wasn’t in our diary. The booze I’d sunk told me it’d be really pleasant to spend a day with a guy who was nothing to do with bones. Lovely.

  And then I wondered how long it would be before he asked me to pull my divvying trick. If he did, it would be curtains for him. If he didn’t – well, we would see.

  I didn’t scream but I only just stopped myself. I was trapped in my van by a fully grown lion, which kept prowling round, trying the doors and shaking the whole thing and its load of valuable china. I don’t know whether I was more scared of the lion or by the insurance claim. I knew it was a dream and that you didn’t get lions in Bredeham, but when its huge paw changed before my eyes into a skeletal hand, I thought it was time to wake up properly. Eventually Tim the Bear told me it was quite safe for me to drop off again; after all, he said, I needed my beauty sleep to look good for my trip.

  Since our van held more than his car, we went in that, with me at the wheel. Having come to Kent specially for the sale, he’d already cased the joint and knew what he wanted to bid for. As you’d expect, he’d also got a top limit for each item. Unlike the house sales we go to, all the bidders were well turned out, as if it was a social event, not a matter of hard business. People were also bidding online and via phone links. All very impressive. Possibly intimidating.

  I always have a chip ready to pop on to my shoulder. But if I’d let it out this time, it would have spoiled the day, and I might have missed things I ought to be bidding for – within a tighter budget than Harvey’s, of course. So I told myself that Bossingham Hall was altogether more impressive as a building than this, and the contents of the main part of the building were decidedly superior to many of the objets d’art here. But for a piece of paper I might be Lady Evelina, or at least an honourable. I’d never asked my father to explain about titles, for some reason. Anyway, I held my head up high.

  I wasn’t even on the starting blocks for most of the items but didn’t mind watching other people push prices far too high – Harvey included. But my antennae gave a dreadful twitch as he plunged in after a perfect Chelsea gold anchor piece, two mythological characters sharing a plinth, guide price twenty thousand pounds. I gripped his hand tightly and, as he looked at me in alarm, wrote NO on my catalogue.

  Up and up the bids went.

  He pressed his mouth to my ear. ‘Why not?’

  I returned the compliment. ‘I don’t know. But I wouldn’t touch it at half the price. And certainly not – my goodness, twenty-five thousand pounds! And still rising!’

  Since it would be a couple of hours before the next items he wanted came up, he guided me on to the terrace.

  ‘What was all that about? I had a buyer ready!’ I wasn’t sure if he was amused or angry. Perhaps he wasn’t either. He looked at me closely. ‘Do you know something I don’t?’

  ‘I don’t know anything. I just . . .’

  Could he have been about to get angry? No, he reached out a finger and stroked my cheek, much as he’d stroked the étui’s, come to think of it. ‘Are you sure? I felt you tremble – for a moment I was afraid memories of yesterday had recurred.’

  Recurred. Griff would have liked that. He always gets so worked up when someone says reoccurred. He did explain once, but I still don’t quite get it.

  I hadn’t wanted to do this, but perhaps I must.

  I looked him straight in the eye. ‘Harvey, did you know I’m a divvy?’

  He took a step back. ‘You’re what? You mean, you can—?’ He dropped his voice, looking around him.

  ‘You’re sure you didn’t know? Because I can think of any number of dealers who’d give their teeth to take me to an auction like this.’

  ‘I genuinely didn’t. I promise you.’ He grinned. ‘But if you are, I’d like to join that list of possible escorts! Lina, you’re full of surprises and I love you more every instant. Let’s forget all this and go and have a nice lunch somewhere.’

  A man like Harvey use the L word! And throw up a chance to get some really nice pieces with astonishingly low guide prices. I must keep my head. I made a little rocking gesture. ‘A nice lunch and then back here? There’s something you haven’t marked in your catalogue but I think you might want to bid for after all. And there are a few things at the fag end that might just suit Tripp and Townend.’

  ‘All sorts of things fetch up in kitchens and attics,’ I said, as we paid for our purchases at the end of the day. ‘Things that in less grand houses would be in display cabinets. Those Coalport plates I bought, for instance. I suppose one got chipped and Her Ladyship decided it was time for a nice new set. And that so-called sauce boat – why are folk so mealy mouthed?’

  ‘Because ladies aren’t supposed to want to pee, Lina. Oh, what a delight today has been.’

  I thought he was going to kiss me there and then, but he didn’t. The man who’d paid twenty-eight thousand pounds for the Chelsea group had come up behind us, and was mocking him for having dropped out of the running so early.

  Harvey responded with the sort of Mona Lisa smile that always irritates people.

  He waited till we’d taken our purchases to the van. ‘What exactly was wrong with the Chelsea, by the way? The provenance looked good enough.’

  ‘I don’t know. Not exactly. But . . .’ I closed my eyes to see it again. ‘One of the arms was the wrong colour. Not by much. But enough to make me think someone like me had been at work.’

  A sudden frown. ‘Not you?’

  ‘You know my policy. And if it had been my work I’d have leapt up and protested – like someone saying a wedding shouldn’t take place.’ I pulled a face. ‘Wouldn’t I have been popular!’

  ‘In both si
tuations, actually. So it wasn’t just your divining instinct?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know how much is that and how much common or garden observation,’ I said. ‘I only know I have to go with it. And I also know it never works to order. So I’m not going to make a million on Lotto. And it doesn’t work with people.’ Perhaps my voice was more sombre than I meant it to be.

  He didn’t say anything, but took me in his arms, and gave me a wonderful, Hollywood kiss.

  As if it were comedy, not romance, my mobile rang. He set me upright and waited while I scanned the display. Will. I despatched him straight to voicemail.

  I checked what he’d said a few minutes later as we got into the van: ‘Lina, there’s a bit of a problem. Could you pop over and I’ll explain?’

  Harvey raised an eyebrow. ‘Important?’

  ‘Could be. Would you mind if I returned the call? It’s the policeman I was with when I found the skeleton.’

  But it wasn’t that that Will wanted to talk about. ‘I’d rather talk face to face, Lina, if you don’t mind. Any chance you could come round? Now?’

  ‘That sounds serious,’ I fished.

  ‘I’ll explain when I see you,’ he said, and cut the call.

  ‘Problem?’ asked Harvey, who’d been kissing each finger of my spare hand.

  ‘Will – that’s the sergeant who admired your vase – wants me to pop into police headquarters to discuss something,’ I said. That sounded as if I might be snubbing him. ‘I don’t know what.’ That was better. ‘It’s pretty well on the way home, so I’d really like to drop in. If you don’t mind. Won’t take long.’

  ‘So long as I can take you out to supper tonight. To celebrate not buying the Chelsea piece.’

  ‘You’re on. I’ll tell you what I suspect it’s about as I drive . . .’

  ‘You’re prepared to give something to the nation, Lina? That’s very laudable of you.’

  ‘I didn’t say give the rings, Harvey. I said offer on permanent loan. Or sell. Once I can get my hands on them, of course. But I have a funny twitch about my antennae. The sort I get when I’m about to divvy something.’