Ring of Guilt (24 page)

To my surprise the cogs in my head started to move again. If I wasn't under arrest, I could use my phone. Morris? I brought up his numbers, both at home and at work. But either way I didn't want to upset things between him and Penny. And in any case, the pendant wasn't the problem.

So it had better be Will, even though this was nothing to do with ancient artefacts and everything to do with saving my skin.

Voicemail. I managed a bit of a hesitant message.

Griff? Absolutely not. Nor my father.

Harvey? What could he do, long-distance hugs apart?

Seemed I was on my own.

Where had I seen that tea bowl before? I knew it from somewhere. The blue design – the Good Cross Chapel – mocked me, daring me to pick it up. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected I'd not seen it on my morning round. I'd have clocked it as a desirable item even though it was slightly early for us to handle. And who on earth was my accuser? I'd never seen him before either. At a small fair like this you knew everyone, and the sisters, cousins and aunts who regularly helped out.

If I could make only one call, in a situation like this, it wasn't to any of the people I'd thought of before, but to Titus. And hope he'd choose to pick up. Not to mention, when he heard the hubbub in the background, deigning to speak to me at all before he cut the call again.

The last was the biggest if.

I took a deep breath and dialled.

I
should have known better. There was no response. I didn't even bother leaving a message, since the CSO was now paying me a lot more attention.

‘Am I under arrest?' I asked.

‘Not yet. But I wouldn't advise you to do anything you might regret, miss. Such as running away.'

‘And leave hundreds of pounds' worth of my stock behind? Not to mention five hundred pounds' worth of someone else's? I don't think so, officer.' I tacked on the last word to make it sound a bit less insolent.

I'd have sworn his ears pricked, like a dog's. ‘You admit it's not yours, miss?'

‘I'll go further,' I said, trying to think like Griff. ‘I actually insist it's not mine. I've never seen it before in my life, so far as I know. My theory is,' I said, lying in my teeth, ‘that a punter saw it on someone else's stall, fancied it, picked it up and just forgot to put it down. And then he panicked, and realized what he'd done, and dumped it here. I'm not saying he wanted me to take the blame. Just that he wanted to be rid of it.' No, I didn't believe a word of it, but it sounded better than claiming I'd been framed, which might just sound para . . . paranormal? Paranoid! ‘Why not ask the guy who owns it if he saw anyone lurking? I had three shifty characters over here just a few minutes ago. Someone must have seen them,' I added. If Mrs Walker hadn't still been fiddling with that damned phone of hers, she'd have been able to support me.

One of the constables mooched over. Everything was happening so slowly. Didn't they realize that every minute this was going on, my professional reputation was shrivelling? I tried telling them just that.

‘But it's a very serious allegation, miss,' the constable said. ‘And I gather it's not the first time, either.'

Talk about that thing Griff talked about, something you'd already seen. Day-something view. My eyes narrowed. Two people in the Kent Police with the same idea. Two too many. ‘Would you like to tell me what you're talking about?'

‘You've handled stolen silver, haven't you?'

‘Tell your informant that if I hear that once more I shall sue. And you'd better check your facts. Here.' I brought up Morris's home number on my mobile: I told myself a fellow officer asking questions wasn't the same as me badgering him. ‘Try talking to DI Morris.' I pressed the dial button and passed it to him. ‘He's in the Met,' I added, praying he wasn't switched to voicemail. ‘And make sure you tell him I managed to sell the pendant and gave the cash to the person concerned. That's really, really important.'

As soon as he started talking he moved right away from me so I couldn't listen in. The CSO saw me trying to drift nearer, and plonked himself between us.

‘I told you, I'm not going anywhere – especially without my mobile. But it'd be nice if you could tear your colleague away from my assistant—'

‘Who?'

‘Mrs Walker. The lady with your colleague and another man.'

‘Isn't she the boss?'

‘I'm Townend and Tripp's at home with toothache,' I said. ‘What he ought to be doing is checking for the three yobs. I know there are hardly any CCTV cameras in the place, but they ought to be on record somewhere.' Trying not to sound sarcastic – after all, I was the one who needed to think, and it had taken all this time for the idea to struggle up from the depths of my brain – I added, ‘You might even see whoever put the tea bowl on my stall. He seems to have disappeared, doesn't he?'

He stared. ‘You're serious, aren't you?'

‘Dead serious. Especially about the fact he's vanished without trace.'

The other young man looked almost relieved to be summoned. Mrs Walker stuck to him for a while, but Mr Banner held her back.

Before Constable Two reached us, however, Constable One returned, my phone in his hand. He might have been chewing on a very sour lime.

‘So who do you think's responsible for all this?' he asked.

I held out my hand for the mobile. ‘I gather DI Morris convinced you that I was more likely to be innocent than not?'

‘He said something about someone trying to incriminate you.'

‘Yes. I've got there. But who and why? And more to the point,' I added, looking at the people still looking sideways at me and whispering behind their hands, ‘what are you going to tell that lot?'

They agreed to go with the theory I'd spun them – that someone wanted to buy the bowl, and put it down absent-mindedly in the wrong place, then panicked and accused me. They made an official announcement over a husky PA system and put out flyers saying that I was absolutely innocent. So far so good. But there was a lot more to find out, as I pointed out to Constable Two – the other and the CSO had disappeared, with the tea bowl in an evidence bag – over a cup of really evil coffee. I insisted we drank it in front of my stall, and asked him to smile a lot for the benefit of any punters who might still have doubts. He obliged. When he did, he looked quite nice, despite the close-cropped hair that made him look as if he could head butt me as soon as blink. He'd be about thirty and his name was Steve – but never Chalky – White.

‘We'll run through the CCTV – it's a pretty poor system,' he said. ‘But I gather your boss – I mean, your assistant – has some useful photos on her phone. They don't put you automatically in the clear, but do confirm what you said about the yobs. And there's a picture of you at the stall which doesn't seem to show the bowl, although we need to have it digitally enhanced to make sure. And another with the bowl in place. She told us all about how she'd taken them, and how she'd sent them to Mr Banner, just to make sure.'

Any other time, I'd have cracked a joke about her – the young man was certainly inviting me to – but it seemed that all the time I'd thought she was letting me down she was saving my bacon. ‘Do you think she'll make a good witness?' I said, as a compromise, but also as a nudge back to the fact we were dealing with a serious matter.

‘You think it'll come to that?'

‘I certainly hope so. You see, I think your colleagues will find something interesting when they examine that bowl. Or rather, not find. They won't find my prints, for a start. I made sure I never touched it. And I'd be surprised if they find a price label. Because I don't think that it came off any of the stalls here. I'd have noticed something like that. I think the idea of accusing me of stealing another item fell flat, so they had to rush in with another one.'

‘That'd be the pendant your friend DI Morris was talking about. The one you said you'd sold and given the money to the rightful owner.'

‘Right. Here's the receipt. As you can see, it's a bit more detailed than you might expect. Belt and braces.'

Steve looked at me with narrowed eyes, but more as if he was sympathizing with me than accusing me. ‘And hands in pockets, I'd say. So the person I have to speak to is whoever runs Pretty Lady. No? What have I said?'

The obvious, really. ‘Just make sure no one else is around when you do. I think her husband beats her . . .'

‘I'll get a woman colleague on to it. Very discreetly. What's her name?'

‘Dilly Pargetter. But she specializes in jewellery, not china.' My protest was feeble. I wanted it to be overridden.

‘Which makes it all the more likely that if she or anyone else connected with her planted that bowl, it was a deliberate act. And if it wasn't one of her contacts, it puts her in the clear.'

I took several deep breaths, not because I was afraid of going wild with my fists, but because I was looking for a bit of bravery lurking somewhere inside. ‘What if I had a word and got her to – well, come to you people and confess? If there's anything to confess, of course.'

‘Can you fix it so I can overhear?'

I shook my head. ‘Seems too much like spying. I'm not a cop, remember. Just an acquaintance. In any case, the usual place women for women to have their heart to hearts is the ladies' loo.'

Josie, the woman who had the stall next to Dilly's, and who dealt with any would-be customers, was an old friend of mine. Each time I saw her she'd shrunk a little more; each time she insisted that this was her last fair. Frowning, she said she'd not seen Dilly for half an hour or more, when she slipped off to get a coffee. As far as she knew she'd gone on her own.

‘And with that husband of hers, she wouldn't dare do anything different. Great thug. Poor child pretends she's walked into doors or fallen down the stairs. I tell her, get the law on him. But then, he is the law, isn't he?'

‘I've never met him,' I said. ‘What's he like?'

‘A total sweetie, you'd think. Butter wouldn't melt. And can he turn on the charm? He'd have all the ducks off the water before you can say orange sauce. You can see why she won't leave him.'

‘Has she tried?'

‘Three or four times. But she always goes back. They do, you know.'

‘But she should report him to the police—'

‘D'you suppose they'd take any notice? Look after their own, don't they? Now, where's young Griff . . .'

I explained, trying not to upset her by edging away too quickly. But at last I came straight out with it. ‘I'm worried about Dilly, you know. I'll go and have a look for her. And if he's hurt her, I might just dob in PC Pargetter myself.'

‘PC . . . Oh, you mean the inspector. And he's not called Pargetter. She's really Mrs . . . now what is it? Mrs Mason, that's it. And you want to be careful not to make things worse, luvvie. He's a big bloke.'

So he was big. ‘Does he have a hoodie and pair of shades in his wardrobe?'

‘Not exactly in his wardrobe, silly – not when he's wearing them!'

There was no sign of anyone in the rather overblown ladies' cloakroom, which had gone wild with a rose motif – wallpaper, carpet, even the tissues and hand towels. But one of the doors was shut. Shut but not locked from inside. Not that I could budge it much. And then I realized one of the huge pink roses was redder than it should have been.

Jabbing 999 on my mobile, I ran outside and screamed for help. The emergency switchboard responded more quickly than the people milling round – perhaps they thought I'd cried wolf earlier. When at last people started to take notice, Steve was the first to come running. I dodged back inside. There were no gaps under the cubicle walls I could crawl under, and I was too short to see over the walls, let alone scale them. All the time the blood stained the roses more deeply.

It seemed hours before they came, but soon the room was full of emergency workers, and for once I was happy to be jostled to the back. In fact, I actually retreated, quite fast, to use my phone. ‘Will? What does the name Mason mean to you? Inspector Mason? Because some time soon someone's going to tell him his wife's badly hurt. Only it might not be news to him, if you see what I mean.'

‘Slow down, Lina. I need to get this right. OK?' Little by little Will extracted the information he needed. Soon I was talking to his boss, DCI Webb.

‘Is there any way,' I asked, ‘that I can see his photo before anyone tells him about his wife?'

‘He's not rostered for this weekend. He could be anywhere. But I can get a car over to collect you so you can look at his photo on file.'

‘I've had your people crawling all over my stand this afternoon.' I explained. ‘My reputation's in shreds.'

‘You've lost the immortal part of yourself, have you?'

It was only because of Griff's evenings with me reading plays aloud that I dimly recognized the quotation. There was something else, about being bestial, but I couldn't recall it accurately. I just said, ‘I can't go whizzing off in another police car. I won't have a business left.'

‘OK. I'll come out myself. If this Dilly's been assaulted, then there'll be a police presence anyway. And I'll be in plain clothes. It's very unfortunate that it had to be you that found her. Actually I bet there's a nice fat rumour around that it's you who did it.'

‘That's not funny,' I said.

‘It's not a joke.'

I
looked at the photo DCI Webb laid on the display cabinet in front of me.

Wearing a fleece and jeans, she'd arrived as unobtrusively as a woman with her hair could be expected to arrive, and had done an impressively slow circuit, as if she was a genuine punter checking out each stall. She'd come to a halt in front of my stall, and was pretending to be attracted by a piece of Crown Derby that clashed something shocking with that hair. At least, I hoped she really was only pretending. It was a very vulgar piece.