The Last Letter

by Kirsten McKenzie

  She wandered around, trying to keep to a logical pattern, down the left hand side of one long row, then up the other side. Pause, examine, make a note, move on. Always moving. The same faces kept passing her, or were they all just variations of the same type of people? This was her first fair as a professional buyer. She’d been to plenty where she was choosing for herself, but purchasing for a shop was a whole different experience. Firstly, she knew she couldn’t just buy what she liked, otherwise the shop would be full to the brim of Maling lustre plates and Sylvac bunnies – most definitely not everyone’s taste. Trying to identify what was desirable was like predicting the winning lottery numbers, nigh on impossible.

  She’d spent the previous night looking at all the hot auctions on eBay, hoping it might shed more light on the current trends. But several hours online had merely given her a headache, and reaffirmed her own knowledge that sterling silver was in high demand, which probably meant there wouldn’t be any bargains here today.

  A cup of tea ought to help clear her head, so, after completing a whole circuit of the fair, she made her way to the crowded tea shop, elbowing her way through a queue of elderly ladies with blue rinses, and carrier bags filled with Lladro nudging their baggy stockings. An empty chair was in the corner by the rubbish bin, and Nicole slipped into the seat, balancing cup and saucer on one knee, to review the notes she’d made the night before on her iPhone.

  “Silver (pre-1900)

  Avon bottles (complete)

  Rodd Cutlery

  Limoges – unusual stuff

  Pipes”

  So far, she’d found an eggcup dated 1898, Sheffield. It was a good price, probably because there was only one. Once it would have been part of a boxed set, or a christening set at the very minimum. The stand with the Scotty Dog Avon bottle also had another of their bottles in the shape of a pipe. Not quite the smoking pipe she was after, but it tickled her fancy. An elderly French dealer had two Limoges pepper grinders, still with their original sales tags on. Limoges, and different, and in mint condition – if they were still there, she’d be adding them to her list too. She sighed. There were so many beautiful things here, she wanted to buy everything. How do other dealers manage to buy well, and sell successfully? It was like playing the lottery. It seemed you took a punt and hoped for the best.

  Her eye was caught by the woman at the table next to her, laying out her purchases for her companion to admire. Nicole couldn’t help but ‘admire’ them too, albeit with her tongue firmly in her cheek. The table was groaning under the collective weight of Jim Beam bottles, most of which were still sealed, and therefore full of vile American whiskey. The sad thing was that most of those types of bottles were worth less than half of what they cost originally. Because Jim Beam had had such great success with their novelty decanters, tens of thousands were produced. The market had been flooded, rendering any collection worth less than the cabinets they were displayed in. But, to the woman sitting next to her, they were as exciting as a puppy is to a five-year-old. She was ecstatic with her purchases. Each to their own. That was the beauty of an antique fair. Everybody had different tastes.

  She finished her tea. She was going to enjoy herself, and shop, shop, shop.

  THE BROTHERS

  Joe Jowl stood over his brother, who was quivering beneath him. The fury on Joe’s face was as dark as the sky had become. Without respite, the elder brother hammered the younger with question after question, ‘What happened here, Jimmy? What was the girl doing out? Why are you out? Where has she gone? Did you want the neighbours to gossip? What would Mother say?’ Pausing for breath, he homed in with the last words, ‘You have shamed the family.’

  Leaving his brother cowering on the ground, Joe spun around, scanning the retreating audience for the native and the girl, both of whom were now destined for very short lives.

  There was no sign of either of them. Spitting in disgust at the backs of his sanctimonious neighbours, he spun round to Jimmy and kicked him in the side to ‘encourage’ him up off the ground – the closest form of affection he could be bothered with. Without a word of complaint, or instruction, Jimmy hurried to pick up the bottles strewn over the rough ground. Two were beyond redemption, fragments thrusting their jagged edges skywards. Six bottles had survived the altercation, leaving one unaccounted for.

  ‘There’s one missing Joe.’

  ‘That filthy bitch. She’s stolen from us again. No one steals from the Jowl family. Come on, we’re going home. Family business is for behind family doors. We’ll talk about it there.’

  Together they trudged up the hill, Jimmy’s eyes firmly on the ground, avoiding the curious curtain-twitchers in the houses along their path. Joe’s head was held high, looking neither left nor right. Neighbourly relations were not the Jowl brothers’ strong suit, and not having their neighbours know their business was a basic rule.

  The front door of their home was still open, causing Joe to freeze at the gate.

  ‘You left the door open?’

  ‘She was getting away. I said she was trouble. I told you. I was trying to get her back for you.’

  ‘Did you not consider that someone could have gone into the house, our home?’ Joe’s face was incredulous, challenging his brother to answer.

  Jimmy’s head hung low, his shoulders already pulled forward by the weight of the crate in his muscular arms. It was a miracle Sarah had escaped his wrath. His strength was such he could have throttled her with just one of his huge hands. His hands twitched thinking about the fear in her eyes when his hands finally closed around her white neck. The way her eyes would bulge out, like bubbles in boiling water. He longed to hear those tiny noises only true strangulation could bring. Not the rasping sound a choking victim made, but an almost silent panicky flailing, followed by the most delightful blue tinge, as if he’d applied an artist’s palette to her lips. The thought of what was to come would carry him through what his brother was about to do to him.

  ‘Inside,’ Joe directed, letting his younger brother mount the steps of their villa before him, the clanking bottles in the crate reminiscent of the bells used in the church to herald the weekly service.

  With the door firmly closed behind him, Joe shed the mask of restraint he’d held in place since Wiremu and Sarah had escaped. The first punch landed in Jimmy’s soft solar plexus. Stumbling in shock, the crate careened corner-first into the kauri floorboards. The bottles which had survived the street fight protested at their latest treatment by shattering within the confines of the crate. Wafts of pungent alcoholic fumes enveloped both men. Hunched over, Jimmy struggled for breath, his back an open invitation to Joe. Another punch, this time to Jimmy’s exposed kidney. Crumpling to the ground, Jimmy gasped in pain, but never retaliated. Like any long-term victim of domestic abuse, he took his punishment, knowing the less he fought, the sooner it would be over.

  ‘It gives me no joy, brother, but you have shamed the family.’ A well-aimed kick to his silent brother’s stomach concluded his attack, leaving Jimmy wallowing in the bitter alcohol saturating the golden floor boards.

  ‘Clean up that mess. I’ll be working on the books. These breakages need to be accounted for.’

  His brother curled into a ball, the dampness of the alcohol barely registering. Detached from reality, he watched as the broken bottles around him swam in and out of focus – in his mind’s eye, he held each glassy peak primed to plunge into the stomach of Sarah. In and out. In and out. As dreams of Sarah’s violent death mingled in his damaged mind, he disappeared into himself, and his subservient side emerged, ready to bow to his brother’s demands.

  THE VAN

  Indecisively, Sarah stood by the open door, watching Nicole walk away. She was torn between her business, and her past. Or was it her future? Jesus. She stood in the chilly air, not sure whether the goose bumps on her arms were from the cold or the knowledge that the contents of her van might hold the key to her father. A sob escaped her throat. All these thoughts of her father, yet she’d b
arely given her mother a thought. Her wonderful mother. When she was younger there were delicious moments when Mum would emerge from her bedroom, dressed for a night out. She’d be made up like a model, her jewellery glittering in the evening light – With a decorous application of Chanel perfume, a sequinned Oroton bag casually slung over her shoulder, and silver high heels completing her elegant outfit. Always the Oroton, and always the diamonds.

  There were times when Sarah had been allowed to try on all the rings in her mother’s Victorian jewellery box, each layer reverently laid on the bed. With her fingers brimming with rubies, emeralds and diamonds, she’d felt like a princess. Her mother had certainly reminded her of one.

  Closing the door gently, she rested her forehead on the peeling paint. She’d wait. She had no one else to turn to, other than Patricia. She’d wait for her. A headache crept around her forehead, leaving painful impressions until they ringed her head in pain.

  She fumbled her way upstairs, sinking gratefully into the couch, hands on her head. Her whole life was one complete muddle. Now she had nothing. The heavy weight of depression settled on her shoulders. That, coupled with the headache, saw her stumble up to her bedroom. Still dressed, she slipped under the musty covers. Expecting sleep to take her, she lay there, eyes open, replays of her life running on a loop: a bike accident when she was nine; helping her father at work; her mother dressed up for an evening out; the police – so many police; her parents gone. Then Lord Grey; India; the strange Arab; Betsy. Warden Price; Major Brooke. Seth. And finally Isaac. The memory of him dying in her arms made her physically ache, and the tears flowed. Giant, all-engulfing sobs. The sort that starts from the bottom of your stomach, and cascades out of your body in relentless waves. It was her fault he was dead. She knew it. And she’d never felt worse than she did right now. Completely alone in the world.

  Pulling the duvet tighter around her shoulders, she stared unseeing at the pile of unread books on her bedside table. It seemed so long ago that she’d had the time and the luxury to loll about in bed reading. On the bottom of the stack next to her bed was a book by Stephen King, although she’d been too chicken to read it. Above him was a well thumbed copy of The Hobbit, there mainly as her go-to read for comfort. The first two books in some fantasy fiction series she’d found among her mother’s belongings. A series she kept meaning to start, but some other book always seemed to be more enjoyable than reading a series with a cast of a thousand characters with peculiar names.

  And on the top of the pile was a slender volume on the archaeological investigations at the Vindolanda fort in Northumberland. It had long been a dream of hers to volunteer there, but the shop had made that impossible. Still, she indulged her daydreams by reading up on the excavations every time a new publication came out about the latest developments at the site.

  Her eyes slipped past the stack of books, each one mocking her with their air of neglect, until they fell upon a dirty sheet of paper, covered with poorly formed scratchings of smudged ink, held down by a lumpy rock masquerading as a paperweight.

  As her be-fogged mind processed this, the clouds in it parted, her eyes widened. Not just a rock, a nugget. A gold nugget. She remembered at once that this was the nugget from Isaac’s pocket, with his letter to his mother. Her heart plummeted further. She was meant to get this to his mother.

  Closing her eyes, she dredged up all the history she could recall about life in Wales around 1860. Undoubtedly, receipt of this gold would have changed the life of Isaac’s family, and she’d let him down. He’d died in her arms, just after she’d promised to send his letter and his gold to his mother, and she had not followed through on her promise.

  Knuckling her eyes, she blinked away the tears. So many lives ruined because of her. It just wasn’t fair. She was completely alone in the world, with no responsibilities to anyone other than herself. Yet, through no fault of her own, she’d ruined lives. Lives had ended because of her.

  She stared at the ceiling. Something else that needs attention – the cream paint had, over time, been tarnished with cigarette smoke and stale air. Perhaps I could trace the descendants of Isaac’s family?

  Gripping her spare pillow, she rolled over and buried her face into the soft cotton, long since void of its clean washing powder smell, yet there was still a vague hint of domestic bliss, of times when her greatest worry was which café to go to for breakfast at the weekend.

  Later. Everything could be solved later. Isaac’s family could be traced later. For now she just needed to sleep, and later everything would be better. Even the contents of her van wouldn’t be so daunting, later.

  THE AMERICAN

  With no summons from Don Claire’s office, Harvard felt secure enough to sign out for the day. Leaving through the staff entrance, he’d avoided the preparations downstairs for that evening’s auction. Had he made his way through the crowded foyer, he might have seen Bryce Sinclair lurking to the side of the proceedings, himself looking for some glimpse of Sarah, who he’d realised was the key to untold wealth and fortune, should she be ‘persuaded’ to share her secret with him.

  The security personnel to guest ratio was high, which was to be expected since the tragic incident between Richard Grey and the Christie’s clerk Leo Hayward. The firm had toyed with installing a small plaque commemorating Hayward, but had decided against it. In this instance, no publicity was better than some publicity, and therefore there was no visible reminder of that fateful auction, apart from the increased number of security staff, most of whom were too elderly to be really effective.

  Sinclair had bluffed his credentials easily. Given the economic climate, Christie’s were more concerned with money being spent than they were with who spent it, or where the money had come from – a vast difference from the pre-financial crisis times, when you really had to be someone, or know someone, to be invited into the Christie’s enclave.

  Sinclair was not the only dubious character attending tonight. The room trilled with foreign accents, mostly those of bidders from former Soviet Union states, and the unfathomable languages and dialects of more than two dozen Chinese bidders, wives draped over their arms like porcelain dolls – perfect skin, their jet hair styled by the best hairdressers in London. Jewels which would feed entire Chinese villages graced their slender fingers and necks.

  With neither the language, nor societal skills, to converse with these oligarchs, he loitered at the back, drinking rather than sipping the Taittinger he’d been served – by a supercilious waiter, who’d been around long enough to know that this man didn’t fit.

  Sinclair’s eye took in the jewellery, the foreigners, the overt and subtle wealth displayed in the room. It was the subtle wealth he was interested in. Those who flaunted their riches were usually teetering on the precipice of insolvency, or their wealth was tied to the coat-tails of someone more influential, who had the power to take it away with the stroke of the pen – or the knife. No, the subtle touches, indefinable but obvious, were an indication of class, longevity, and serious wealth. In the absence of Sarah, someone else would do to assist in his quest for a comfortable life – the sort of life he’d been denied but which he was owed.

  Centre stage was a bloodwood and kingwood ormolu cabinet by Beurdeley, dated 1894. Women clustered around it, like flies to a honey pot. It was unlike any piece of furniture he’d ever seen. He was used to utilitarian pieces hewn from ancient kauri trees, knocked together, not by a master craftsman, but by a journeyman. Such pieces would never have been permitted to enter these doors; more than likely they would have been turned into firewood, or sold as ‘shabby chic’ at some High Street design store; code for falling apart, and rescued from the tip.

  He approached the cabinet. He could admire its lines, even if it didn’t move him as much as it did the crowd of women cooing over its serpentine shape, and the Chinese chinoiserie figure playing a mandolin on the centre door.

  Picking his moment, Sinclair bumped into a woman with a dead animal reclining on her shoul
ders. From behind she’d looked alluring – her buttocks shown off to their full advantage in a figure-hugging pink sheath, her calves extended by the highest of heels. Almost every woman in the room looked like some version of this one, but she was the only one on her own. Everyone else was with partner, or travelling in a pack.

  She turned to admonish him on his clumsiness. He almost gagged as he inhaled her perfume, for it smelt like she’d bathed in the stuff – or perhaps she’d been preserved in it, for her face told a very different story from her backside.

  Recoiling slightly, he appraised her features – eyebrows pulled almost into her hairline gave her eyes a feline look, but failed to disguise all the wrinkles. But she was alone, so, swallowing deeply, he apologised, his accent enough to pique her interest.

  ‘Oh, your accent, adorable. Are you English?’ Her elongated vowels marking her as an American.

  ‘No, not exactly, But I’m living here now.’

  ‘Really? How wonderful. What do you think of this piece then? I fell in love with it, and I know I could have bid online, but there’s nothing like seeing something in person to be able to really imagine how it’s going to look in your own home. So I just had to fly out to have a look.’