The Last Letter

by Kirsten McKenzie

  Brooke struck a match against the silver vesta box squirrelled away in his inside pocket. The sulphur flared, illuminating the Major, his features soft in the unnatural light. For a moment, Sarah’s heart caught in her throat. This man, so hard and suspicious, suddenly became something more than that. Desirable? She hesitated to give flight to that thought. After losing Price, there seemed no point in giving any time to a relationship which had no future other than in the past.

  The wick in the kerosene lantern caught and Brooke opened the front door, lighting up the terracotta tiles. Sarah followed him into a house that was at once almost as familiar as her own growing up. The devastation had been cleaned up, the few pieces of furniture that remained were shrouded in drop cloths, the lantern causing all manner of grotesque shadows to duck and dart about as they moved around.

  ‘Tell me once again, what is it that we are searching for?’ Brooke asked, tilting the lantern towards Sarah’s face.

  Abstractedly, Sarah noted the condition of the lantern; its original glass chimney secure in its mount, the brass untarnished by the passage of time. It would be a fast mover back at The Old Curiosity Shop, she mused to herself, almost hypnotised by the dancing light.

  ‘Miss Williams, what are we looking for again? Could it be under one of these cloths?’

  Broken from her reverie, Sarah looked up at Brooke – his usually inscrutable face looked back questioningly at her. ‘Oh, anything really. But in particular, some picture frames,’ she improvised, ‘Family photos, that sort of thing. I’m sure half my things never made it back to England, but I guess that’s because no one was here to supervise the packing.’ From here, Sarah had to be careful what she said. She had very little knowledge of what had happened to the real Sarah Williams after Simeon’s murder. She’d taken the snippets she’d been served at dinner, and had woven them together. It seemed that the real Miss Williams had suffered a breakdown after viewing her brother’s body, and had been shipped off to Delhi quick smart, and then back to England. She would’ve quizzed Naomi Abbott, but Major Brooke had been concerned about the falling night, so there’d been no time for fond reminiscing with her old friend. She would have been illuminated if she’d only spent a minute with Mrs Abbott.

  Brooke looked at her oddly, ‘Picture frames, of course.’ He busied himself lifting every drop cloth in the sitting room, then the dining room.

  Sarah trailed behind him, taking care not to touch anything herself. The prospect of returning to the future, without Patricia, a frightening reality. ‘Perhaps we should come back tomorrow, in the daylight,’ she ventured. ‘And perhaps with a tea chest, you know, to pack things up in. I wasn’t really prepared. I kind of thought I’d just waltz in and be able to pick up a couple of things, but ...’ She waved her arm around at the house, smothered in fine dust and insect carcasses. ‘Well, I really think tomorrow would be better.’

  Brooke settled the lantern on the barren mantelpiece, disturbing a lizard who’d been silently clinging to the brick of the chimney breast. ‘Tomorrow would be fine – tonight has not been without its enjoyment though.’ The distance between them was covered with two of his long strides. Before Sarah knew what was happening, he’d gently cupped her face in his hands. Time slowed.

  Sarah found herself tipping her head back; his touch as welcome as the sun slipping out from behind a summer storm. Her lips parted as he brought his face down to hers. Their kiss swept away the snide remarks, the exasperation with each other born from their unconscious attraction. Price was wiped from her mind.

  THE CHURCH

  Bishop Daniel Shalfoon dismissed his assistant, who scurried from the room, closing the door quietly behind him. It was in his best interests to do so, as the Bishop was prickly about noise. Shalfoon slid behind his desk, checked his watch, and picked up his phone. Quarter to six. He may be a powerful man but this was one call only he could make.

  ‘Hello, Mother, how are you feeling tonight? ... have you turned your heater on? ... what are you having for tea? ... good, good ... yes, I’ll pop by Thursday ... I’ve been working on a tricky acquisition this week but it’s turned out very well ... yes, there are some loose ends to be tied up, undoubtedly some more pieces in the hands of the seller that we’ll work towards obtaining, but very exciting nonetheless ... I’ll tell you all about it when I bring your groceries ... yes, Mother, I’ll take care. Goodnight.’

  With his nightly call done, he allowed himself a rare smile. Other than his mother, there was nothing he loved more in the world than the collection of treasures for the church, the only lover in his life. The Paul de Lamerie candelabra would be a feather in his cap, something the Archbishop couldn’t fail to notice. His mind wandered; when one treasure surfaced, there were usually more. And, with the right inducement, almost everything could be traced back to the church, and therefore, ownership could be claimed. What he needed now was something else to chase. He opened his red leather notebook, the one monogrammed with his initials. There he ran his eyes down the list of pieces missing from various churches and cathedrals around the world. This was by no means an exhaustive list, nor an official one, but one he’d spent years researching and listed some of the more valuable pieces; pieces whose return would result in much media attention and acclaim from his superiors. Shalfoon knew he was destined for great things – his mother had been telling him so since he was born, and he’d yet to disappoint. One of the youngest bishops ever appointed, his master plan for moving up the ecclesiastical food chain rested on his network of art dealers and auction houses delivering the right information in a timely fashion. He had a budget to draw from, if necessary, but a cost-effective return to the bosom of the church was more desirable.

  His finger slowly marched down the pages, occasionally pausing over an entry with a thick black line through it, denoting that an article had been recovered, but there were still far too many not crossed out. There wasn’t a single page which had been completed, yet. Finally, his finger came to rest on an entry halfway down the page, sparse in detail, it merely said “Collection of Roman statues, missing from St Thomas’s, since 10th May, 1941, when church was struck by a German bomb, then looted by persons unknown”.

  Unfortunately St Thomas’s hadn’t kept photographic records of the articles, only typed descriptions, which could have described half a hundred Roman statues without any degree of individuality. However, within the churches archives, Shalfoon had located references to a former minister, long dead now, who’d fancied himself an artist. He’d sketched various items from the church’s collection; his works had been presented as part of the local Women’s Institute show, the proceeds from which were donated to the local orphanage.

  Weeks ago now, Shalfoon had visited the premises of the old orphanage which, over time, had been a school, a war hospital, and was now the tatty premises of a humanitarian charity, whose asset register was as loose as their finances. He’d been given access to their attic storage under the pretence of trying to locate church records for orphan reconciliation. Eighty years of accumulated detritus looked very much like the contents of an auction house basement; moth-eaten tapestries, worm-riddled chairs, frames void of their contents, small leather suitcases still filled with the worldly belongings of their former diminutive owners. Whether they’d been adopted out, or aged out; their belongings had never been disposed of – left, instead, to decay, forgotten in the attic. And, just as he’d suspected, there was a tea chest filled with things which had once graced the walls of the orphanage, including half a dozen sketches by an artistic reverend of middling talent. Slipping the sketches into one of the suitcases, and quickly casting his eye about for anything else of interest, he’d thanked the hemp-wearing activists for their assistance, and took his leave.

  The pen and ink sketches were reasonably competent renderings of an assortment of Roman antiquities, in varying states of repair. But to Shalfoon they were as valuable as a Rembrandt. Now he had something to work with. The articles had been looted in the after
math of a German bombing raid but time was a great revealer of stolen property. The next generation was usually unaware of the original origin of family treasure, and history was littered with legal claims for restitution once something appeared on the open market, being sold off by grandsons and nephews for a quick return.

  He’d removed the sketches from their cheap frames, scanned them, and had fired them out to the Art Loss Register, high end auction houses, and the like. And he’d waited. He’d found, as age advanced, sleep was harder to come by. To fill in his time he’d taken to running Google image searches for the items still in his red leather notebook. Tonight was no different. The Google search for small Roman statue, within the time-frame of the last week, took less than a second to return one hundred and fourteen new results. He scrolled through the images: Julius Caesar – images from an exhibition at the Vatican; marble rendering of a small boy in a toga – publicity photo from the British Museum; a Roman copy of a Greek statue of Hercules – destroyed in a fire at a provincial Italian museum. And then the fourth image, a carved head of a Roman boy, a young curly haired Adonis-like child, listed on the website of a London-based antique shop. Shalfoon was about to scroll down further when his finger froze above the mouse. Adonis-like curly haired child. Flipping open the only folder on the immaculate desk, it fell conveniently open at the page he needed, the Roman sketches by Reverend Brian Moss. A match.

  THE WEBSITE

  One of the first things Nicole had done once she’d accepted the role at the shop, was to set up a basic website. Using free software on her laptop, luckily the domain name “The Old Curiosity Shop” was still available. Snapping it up quick smart, she threw together a home page, and read up on how to add a shopping cart to the site. Nothing was ever easy, but a dash of online help, and trial and error had seen her finally create a shopping cart that worked, and then the world was her online shopping oyster.

  She’d started out by loading a dozen odd things a week – some of the more eclectic pieces she’d found in the shop, and there were plenty of those. It had been a bit hit and miss with regard to actual sales. She’d listed each auction starting at their ticket price, so there was no opportunity for haggling – a nice respite from her normal customers. It was almost the norm for some customers to ask for discounts of up to fifty percent. It may have been their culture, but she still considered it the height of rudeness for people to try it on. Usually if a customer asked for her best price, she’d knock ten percent off, and both of them would be happy. For her regular customers, the collectors and the other dealers, something between fifteen to twenty percent was standard – but only if they asked. Most of the time people were happy if she rounded the price down to the nearest pound. It was one way of keeping regular customers happy, and ensuring new customers would be more likely to come back.

  This week she’d uncovered a trove of what looked like replica Roman statues in one of the unlabelled cartons downstairs. This wasn’t her area of expertise, but she doubted that any antique dealer would have left a carton of genuine Roman antiquities in storage. They would’ve sold like hotcakes if they were real. As it was, the ones she’d listed had already had over a thousand views. She’d watched with utter amazement as the clicks kept coming through, and the bids kept climbing.

  Closing her laptop, knowing that watching the bids wouldn’t make them climb higher any faster, she was jolted out of her reverie by the phone ringing.

  ‘Good morning, Old Curiosity Shop ... yes I have that statue listed for sale ...’

  THE PURCHASE

  Wiremu sat silently in the public bar. He’d been served by the publican, but was conscious of the filthy looks the other punters were giving him. He’d arranged to meet the man from the newspaper ad here at the Shakespeare Tavern, at two o’clock, and the man was late. He was trying to gauge how long he should wait, when a tall man dressed in a dark three-piece suit, a starched white shirt, with a coal-black tie. A gold fob chain marched its way across his waistcoat. Every item was pristine. His white moustache was groomed into a smooth plane across his face, joining a short snowy ghost of a beard.

  ‘Mister Kepa?’ His enunciation marked him as a lifelong member of the British upper class.

  ‘Mister Robley?’

  Moses Robley took a seat next to Wiremu, shaking his head when Wiremu offered to buy him a drink. ‘I understand you have some Maori artefacts you would like to sell?’

  Wiremu sipped his ale, his decision sitting like a stone in his stomach. His eyes flicked towards the crate on the floor. The adzes in the crate reached back two generations. They’d been made by his father, and his father before him. But, in the end, they were just stone. They weren’t flesh and blood. So why did he feel like he was selling his soul?

  ‘Mister Kepa, I really don’t have time to waste. I have been overwhelmed with offers of native memorabilia since I placed the advert. I have almost reached the point where I can now only accept items of exceptional quality.’ To drive his point home, he flicked open his gold pocket watch, pointedly checking the time.

  Wiremu swallowed another mouthful of ale. It tasted bitter on his tongue, and he pushed his unfinished glass away, ‘It’s not a wasted journey, Mister Robley. Sorry, it’s just ... the pieces were made by my father and grandfather, but I don’t think I have any need for them now. My family needs the money instead.’

  ‘It’s a reality of the times, Mister Kepa, hard to wrap your head around I know. There are many collectors who would put your family treasures on display, to be enjoyed by generations to come.’

  Wiremu answered, ‘Oddly, that makes it easier to accept. Of course I must sell them, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.’ He lifted the crate onto the table, loosening the nails on the top the crate with a ragged-looking pocket knife.

  Robley’s eyes shone in anticipation. This trip to New Zealand had already netted a mountain of artefacts he’d have no trouble moving on back in England for a very tidy sum. Waiting at the wharf, already crated up, were several poupou – Maori wall panels – clubs, chisels made from greenstone, four ornately carved feather boxes filled with huia feathers. His pride and joy were the three mokomokai, the preserved Maori heads heavily tattooed. They would join his personal collection. As Wiremu lifted the lid of the crate, Robley sighed with relief. The adzes were perfect.

  ‘There are about thirty or so – I haven’t counted them in a long time.’

  Robley smiled as he ran his fingers over the smooth stones. Yes these would be perfect. Sir Augustus Franks at the Department of Antiquities of the British Museum had been hankering after some examples as fine as these. Perfect.

  ‘I think, Mister Kepa, that if we can agree a price, we will have ourselves a deal.’ Steepling his fine fingers he smiled at Wiremu again. Make friends with the natives, and they’ll give you more. ‘Perhaps I will have that drink now. Shall I buy you a refill?’

  Over a drink, the two men worked out a deal. Robley pulled a wad of notes from his waistcoat pocket, peeling off half a dozen one pound notes, and laying them on the table.

  Wiremu replaced the lid, hammering the tacks back in with the base of his knife. He felt every tack shoot through his heart.

  Robley sipped his fortified wine, savouring the richness of it in his mouth. It rolled around on his tongue like velvet. Curiously, he noted his companion made no move to pick up his money. Still, the deal was done, and time was of the essence. ‘I thank you for your time, Mister Kepa. Here is my card. Should you come across any other artefacts, please contact me at the address on the card. I visit New Zealand often, but should I be out of the country, my associates here are authorised to act on my behalf. It’s been a pleasure.’

  With his goodbyes made, Robley lifted up the crate and, struggling under its weight, he stumbled from the pub. To the casual observer, it looked much heavier than when Wiremu had carried it in with the ease of someone who hauled bags of flour for a living.

  Wiremu finally scooped up the crisp notes, their fancy scri
pt blurry through tears threatening to fall. Wiping his eyes, he made to stand up, just as a pair of hands on his shoulders pinned him to his seat.

  THE SHOPPERS

  Sinclair and Melissa Crester spent what was left of the morning perusing the dozens of cabinets in the Silver Vaults of London in Chancery Lane. Melissa collected sterling silver place card holders. Sinclair had absolutely no idea what they were, but had been on a crash course for the last two hours as she spent the equivalent of a teacher’s annual salary on several sets.

  ‘You’re crazy, you know?’ Sinclair said as she showed him yet another set and asked him for his opinion.

  ‘Crazy yes, but I’m rich too. What else am I going to spend my money on?’ she joked back, nodding to the woman behind the counter, who gleefully rang up a sale for three hundred pounds, and reverently wrapped the four silver fox-head place card holders in a mountain of tissue paper.

  Sinclair had no answer for her. He’d never had cash to spare; using any money he had just to survive. Spending it on trinkets seemed a waste to him, but then he couldn’t think what he’d spend it on if he had as much money as his companion.

  ‘Shall we have lunch now? I’m famished. Let’s find a nice wine bar, and plan our attack for this afternoon. I’ve some old favourites I must visit – they’ll be expecting me ...’

  ‘Expecting your coin,’ Sinclair interrupted, not anticipating the raucous laughter that erupted from Melissa’s immobile face.

  ‘You silly boy. Yes, I’m not that gullible that they’re nice to me because they want to be friends. So far you’re the only person in this dreary country who’s seemed the slightest bit more interested in me than my money.’

  Sinclair rubbed his bald head in confusion. This woman really is crazy, but hell, I’ll go along with it. Taking the silver-laden shopping bags, he took her hand in his free one. It seemed like the right thing to do, and felt peculiarly nice. ‘Lunch it is,’ he announced. ‘There’s one shop I need to go to, and that warehouse at the docks, so we can add them to your list while we eat, if you like.’