Guilty Pleasures (10 page)

Robin gave his story first, but I was almost as disappointed as Freya by the lack of detail. He didn't even recall the make of the car, just that it was large, black and mud-spattered. ‘At first I thought it was bad driving,' he said. ‘And then I thought of Lina and that accursed box.'

At which point, it was my turn. ‘If Bugger Bridger really didn't recognize the snuffbox,' I concluded, ‘then I wonder if someone put it in the box while it was in his old stable. Or at the fête itself, of course. And then they wanted it back.'

Robin blinked. ‘So why didn't they simply ask for it? I'd have been happy to hand it over.'

Exactly. Chummie's mistake had been to grab it and run, not ask politely. Robin would have asked a few questions first, but if he'd been satisfied, he'd have been reasonableness itself.

I might have been, too.

‘Perhaps it wasn't really his to ask for,' I said. ‘If it was stolen in the first place, he could hardly make a reasonable case for its return, could he?'

He looked troubled. ‘It's a big assumption.'

Freya laughed kindly. I wondered how long she'd find his nai . . . nia . . . his innocence funny. ‘I think it's a justifiable one, given all the events since. I've had one of the team go through the missing property register, but I can't find an exact match. But we're not experts, of course. It's not really Will's period, is it, Lina?' If she expected a blush from me, she didn't get one. ‘So I contacted Reg Morris, from the Met.'

I joggled my mug of coffee, as if to stir the milk in better. ‘Fancy calling a kid Reg,' I said. ‘No wonder he prefers just Morris. Anyway, what did he say?'

‘You'll be able to ask him yourself later. He's working somewhere in Sussex and said he'd make a detour in on his way back to London.'

A casual look at my watch, as if I had other things to do with my day than hang around. ‘Any idea what time he's expected?'

‘Five-ish? Six-ish?'

She didn't seem particularly interested, and why should she? She probably had more than enough to do until then. Killing time was my problem. My first task was obviously to take Robin back to his car – except I had a shrewd suspicion he'd rather someone else offered. So when my phone announced an incoming text, I took it at once. It was from a client, happy with a restoration job and telling me to expect a call from a friend wanting me to tackle a broken statuette, but Freya and Robin weren't to know.

‘Problem?' Robin asked, professionally concerned but not really ready to leap to his feet and abandon his coffee and the company.

‘Not if Freya can organize a lift for you.' I maintained my serious expression.

Freya said easily, ‘I'm sure we can manage that,' but couldn't suppress a tiny blush. ‘I'll tell Reg Morris to call you to fix a meeting place, shall I? Before his journey's end?' she added with a little malice in her smile I didn't understand.

‘It had better be here,' I said firmly, digging in the bag. ‘Because this is where the snuffbox is staying. OK?' I plonked it on her desk, where it sat as pathetic and bedraggled as a wet sparrow. ‘I'd like a tattoo on my forehead saying I haven't got it any more, but I don't suppose you can arrange that, can you?'

What she could arrange was someone to escort me out. Suddenly, the air felt fresher: I had an anonymous set of wheels, Robin might soon have another squeeze and I'd got rid of what had come to feel as heavy as an albatross. What else could a girl do but head for Maidstone M & S and buy some new undies?

Not to mention some Fairtrade T-shirts and, for the freezer, some of the flavoured chicken pieces Griff likes with the salad lunches I inflict on him. I was just wondering how else I could waste a little time when my foot was firmly trodden on by a heel attached to a well-upholstered body. As the guy turned, I placed him as the man I'd encountered in Canterbury Cathedral crypt. The one who'd stared at me with such hostility. He was cornered up against the olive oil.

‘We've seen each other before,' I said. ‘At the Cathedral. You looked at me like you're looking at me now, as if you'd rather I didn't exist.' I managed a smile, but one on the grim end of the scale. ‘Could you tell me what the problem is?'

‘I think you've got the wrong person, madam. So sorry about your foot.' He edged sideways.

‘I've got another one,' I said lightly. ‘Look, the other night you seemed to think we'd met before. At least, I presume you don't always go round glaring at strangers like that.'

‘No, not at all, dear lady. Of course I remember our charming encounter.'

That wasn't how I'd have described it.

‘They say everyone has a doppelgänger,' he said, edging away as if he thought I was a local loony.

Perhaps I was. But I couldn't quite let go. ‘In what circumstances did you meet this double of mine? I'd really like to know.'

An arm wove its way between us. ‘Other people want to buy their extra virgin too, you know,' said an aggrieved voice.

By the time I'd apologized, he'd gone.

As I paid for my goodies, I pondered the thought of my double. I'd like to meet her, especially if she turned out to be one of my half-sisters, which wasn't impossible, given my father's generosity in spreading his favours about Kent. He knew of about thirty of us brothers and sisters – except there was a neat word for all of us, wasn't there? Possibly there were more he'd been too dozy to record. Since he'd promised me that whoever turned up, he'd still value me, I tried not to worry. From time to time, he still agonized about finding his mother's engagement ring for me. Given the state of his wing, it was more likely that I'd come across it in one of my periodic trawls for a really big find for him. As it was, on special occasions I wore the Cartier watch he'd insisted on giving me – a gift very far from being sneezed at.

So in theory I didn't find her a threat. She might have a share in my father, but she didn't have any share at all in Griff. And he was still by far the most important person in my life.

However, now the idea of a sin . . . a sid . . . a
sibling
– yes! – had wormed its way properly into my head, I thought I'd do something about the version of me that Josie had said she'd seen in Hastings. I'd have nipped down to see her, but this disruption of my working day had been long enough. I must get back to Bredeham. If a little voice suggested I might be thinking about spending time to make myself look nice for my forthcoming encounter with Morris, I shut it up abruptly. I had a queue as long as my arm of items waiting for me to restore them, and they needed the sort of steady hand you had when you weren't thinking of your private life.

TEN

F
or all my good intentions about devoting the next few hours to my job, I couldn't resist phoning Josie. She picked up first ring.

‘It's killing me, all this rest,' she told me. ‘Bored out of my skull I am, and I'll swear my back's worse without all the stretching and bending I was doing in the shop and at fairs. And quiet! It's so quiet round here. If you hear I've been dragged off kicking and screaming by the men in white coats – except they wear green dungarees, these days, don't they? – then you'll know why. Make sure you never let dear old Griff retire, won't you? I'd hate him to come to this. I can't even ask you to come down for a cuppa because I know you're always busy – have you fixed that crack in Elspeth's plate yet, by the way?'

‘It's on my list. Towards the top,' I promised her. ‘And I'll drop in for a cuppa and some of your cake when I take it back to her. But I want you to do something for me. No one else can, Josie, because no one else was there. That time you saw me and I didn't wave. Remember? I want you to jot down exactly where it was and what I was wearing. And if you can recall anything about the young man I was with, that would be a bonus, too.'

‘You're thinking I made it all up, aren't you?'

‘Absolutely not. The thing is, you're not the first person who says they saw me and I didn't acknowledge them,' I said, not quite accurately, but never mind. ‘I'm just wondering if I've got a double. Well, not exactly a double. More a relative. And if I have, then I'd love to meet her.'

‘Yes, you could do with some company your own age,' she said, surprising me. ‘I mean, you and Griff were made for each other, but you need boyfriends and girlfriends too. That handsome man who fell head over heels with you, he was old enough to be your father,' she added with a sigh, though I wasn't sure why.

He was married, anyway. I hardly ever thought of him these days, except when he put high-class restoration work my way.

‘Boyfriends might take me away from Griff,' I said. ‘And he's done so much for me, it'd have to be someone really, really special to take me away from him.'

‘I know that, lovey. But a few mates to giggle over new nail varnish with – that'd be lovely, wouldn't it, now? So I'll keep my eyes open for this other you. But I'll be a bit discreet, if you know what I mean.'

‘In that case I'll pop Elspeth's plate right on top of my waiting list. So make sure you've made some cake.' Apart from anything else, a spot of baking might fill some of those suddenly empty hours for her.

‘I'll go and buy some eggs this very afternoon,' she declared.

Five o'clock and no call from Morris.

I was so jumpy I could hardly have attached mud to velvet. I'd changed twice, and I'd spilt tea down the outfit I really wanted to wear. And I was so cross with myself that I'd snapped at Mrs Walker almost unnecessarily. I'd apologized afterwards and actually asked to see the photos of her and her fiancé Paul Banner at a ballroom-dancing weekend they'd spent at a nice hotel in Devon. So we parted friends again when she drove off back to Bossingham. I locked up as carefully as I always did and made sure all the security cameras responded to my cheery waves.

Still no call from Morris.

By six thirty, I'd watered the tubs and hanging baskets and was thinking about cleaning the van. In my nicest sandals, for heaven's sake. Maybe if I went and changed and got thoroughly soaked, he'd phone then.

I did, and he didn't. At least we had a nice clean van ready for when we could use it again.

What about supper? I'd sort of assumed we might all have supper together, once the business of the snuffbox had been dealt with, so I'd put off cooking anything. Of course I could eat two full meals without turning a hair, but I didn't want to do that too often, or those fifties dresses with their neat waists wouldn't fasten any more and I'd have to sell them again. Not a good thought.

It must have been about nine when the phone rang at last. Freya Webb.

‘Just to let you know Morris has been and gone. There was a bad RTA on the A26, so he got held up. Anyway, he doesn't recognize the snuffbox either, not as such, but he was certainly excited and he's taken it away for safe keeping. I thought you'd be OK with that.'

‘Absolutely fine. Thanks for letting me know. I take it he'll be in touch with you when he finds anything out?'

‘Don't see why. Your property after all. Hang on.' There was a murmur her end. Was it Robin? Combining work with pleasure? With my solitary omelette almost forgotten, I had a tiny and very irritating pang, but not of hunger.

‘Sorry about that. Now, when you're out and about, keep your eyes peeled just in case our friends haven't given up yet.'

I would indeed.

At ten o'clock, it was time to take my advice to Josie. I set to and baked. I couldn't eat the mound of scones I produced, but, as I told Griff in a nice long gossipy phone call, at least there'd be plenty of his favourites in the freezer when he got back.

It's hard to make a couple of days spent literally watching paint dry sound exciting. But in its own way it was satisfying, and eventually I was able to phone Josie and tell her I'd be ready to return her friend Elspeth's plate the next morning. I'd come back via Tenterden to catch up with Griff in person, too.

Elspeth lived in a very ordinary modern house not far from Josie's equally ordinary modern house on the outskirts of Hastings, so I shouldn't have been surprised when she declared she'd walk round to Josie's with me.

‘She needs a bit of company, doesn't she?' she confided, looking for an umbrella though the sky was vividly blue. We strolled, very slowly, arm in arm, to be greeted with huge hugs and squawks of delight. For an instant I wondered what I was doing eating cake with two old ladies, however kind and generous they were, in a cluttered and airless little room, when I could have been down on the sea front, walking as fast as I could and letting the wind take my hair. Or running along hand in hand with . . .

But the cakes were brilliant, and the least I could do was pay attention to Josie and conscientiously jot down everything she could recall about the other me.

‘In other words, you've got nowhere fast,' Griff sighed as I finished my account of my morning's doings.

We were having lunch in the garden room – nothing as vulgar as a conservatory for Aidan, but then, it would have been a sin to tack anything like that on to his perfect Georgian house. Aidan's idea of entertaining was to buy the best Waitrose could offer. But Griff, despite his bruises, was rarely happier than when he was cooking, and the perfect flan was definitely home-made, full of double cream too, if I knew Griff. But he was looking so much perkier, I didn't tell him off.

‘Exactly. All she could remember was that she looked like me, only with a harder face. And the bloke looked shifty. I think she was inventing details – if you can call them that – just to please me. But at least I've shortened the waiting list, and she paid in cash. And I saw the sea in the distance, all blue and sparkly. And now I'm here with you. So although I've not made the best use of my time, I haven't wasted it. And this is a perfect lunch.'