your business than mine is.’ I wasn’t going to tell this brute about Griff’s occasional and very discreet away-days with friends. And certainly not about his long-term friend Aidan.
I turned pointedly away from Copeland, and drifted over to Marcus. I know: I was off my head. But I’ll swear the words came out of their own accord. ‘That drink we didn’t have last night – why not make it tonight?’
‘Because,’ came Copeland’s voice, ‘he’ll be packing up here, that’s why. Not making sheep’s eyes at a cunning little tart like you who he lets sweet talk him into selling my property at a crazy price. Just piss off, will you?’
The punters abandoned Marcus for much better entertainment. He flushed and looked everywhere except at me.
Cunning little tart, was I?
I looked Copeland in the eye. ‘I’d have thought you’d be grateful to me, paying though the nose for something with no provenance at all. Come off it, Copeland – have you been taking lessons from Titus Oates?’
And then I beat it. Fast.
Chapter Five
If anyone kept a list of things in history better not said, that would have gone down as one of them, wouldn’t it? I didn’t dare tell Griff, because he’d know I’d only lost my cool because Copeland had been snide about him and our relationship. And by losing my cool, I’d lost any chance of wheedling out of Copeland – and possibly Marcus – where the frontispiece had come from.
Sh – No, Griff didn’t like me to swear. Poo, then or even Pooh, as in Bear! I wished I’d never seen the thing.
No, I didn’t. I was glad I had and I was desperate to know all about it.
Which meant that somehow or other I’d have to catch Marcus on his own and be extra nice to him so that he’d raid Copeland’s files. Otherwise I’d simply no idea how to find out anything about the frontispiece’s origin. Correction – provenance.
During the course of the day several people were extremely nice to me, far nicer than usual; others cut me dead. It didn’t take me long to work out that all this was because everyone had heard about my spat with Copeland. Two lovely old friends of Griff’s, who might not have been flattered by his private description of them as ‘absolute darlings but the ugliest dykes in the Western world’, insisted on buying me an ice cream, which I hadn’t the heart to refuse, though I’d just had a burger and chips. Fortunately Titus Oates himself wasn’t gracing this fair, but I knew the grapevine would carry the news swiftly and unerringly to him, and he might just want to sue me for slander, with which he’d been known to threaten customers who queried some ofhis absolutely genuine Shakespeare letters.
A sudden late afternoon rush just at the time we should have been packing up meant Griff was too busy to ask any embarrassing questions. He sold in very rapid succession some highly gilded and therefore very pricey Royal Doulton plates, and some nice early Wedgwood, so there was much less to pack and the promise of plenty of good food and drink for the rest of the month. The Rockingham plate Griff had suggested yesterday I might have to reduce went for its asking price, so I was happy to do a deal with a nice American on some Worcester, the profits being shared equally between my gewgaw fund and repaying Griff’s loan.
All the same, in the van I felt as I used to when confronted by an irate school attendance officer. OK, anything Griff would say would be more in sorrow than in anger, to borrow one of his quotations, but I’d still feel guilty. Sure enough, he coughed with embarrassment, but just as I was braced for a real wigging, he said mildly, ‘Mrs Hatch would have been proud of you, dear heart. She tells me she likes gals with courage – the sort of gal who made the Empire great.’
‘So long as she doesn’t want me for peace-keeping duties! Oh, Griff, it wasn’t very bright of me. To make two enemies in one day. Well, quite a lot more, since people
I turned pointedly away from Copeland, and drifted over to Marcus. I know: I was off my head. But I’ll swear the words came out of their own accord. ‘That drink we didn’t have last night – why not make it tonight?’
‘Because,’ came Copeland’s voice, ‘he’ll be packing up here, that’s why. Not making sheep’s eyes at a cunning little tart like you who he lets sweet talk him into selling my property at a crazy price. Just piss off, will you?’
The punters abandoned Marcus for much better entertainment. He flushed and looked everywhere except at me.
Cunning little tart, was I?
I looked Copeland in the eye. ‘I’d have thought you’d be grateful to me, paying though the nose for something with no provenance at all. Come off it, Copeland – have you been taking lessons from Titus Oates?’
And then I beat it. Fast.
Chapter Five
If anyone kept a list of things in history better not said, that would have gone down as one of them, wouldn’t it? I didn’t dare tell Griff, because he’d know I’d only lost my cool because Copeland had been snide about him and our relationship. And by losing my cool, I’d lost any chance of wheedling out of Copeland – and possibly Marcus – where the frontispiece had come from.
Sh – No, Griff didn’t like me to swear. Poo, then or even Pooh, as in Bear! I wished I’d never seen the thing.
No, I didn’t. I was glad I had and I was desperate to know all about it.
Which meant that somehow or other I’d have to catch Marcus on his own and be extra nice to him so that he’d raid Copeland’s files. Otherwise I’d simply no idea how to find out anything about the frontispiece’s origin. Correction – provenance.
During the course of the day several people were extremely nice to me, far nicer than usual; others cut me dead. It didn’t take me long to work out that all this was because everyone had heard about my spat with Copeland. Two lovely old friends of Griff’s, who might not have been flattered by his private description of them as ‘absolute darlings but the ugliest dykes in the Western world’, insisted on buying me an ice cream, which I hadn’t the heart to refuse, though I’d just had a burger and chips. Fortunately Titus Oates himself wasn’t gracing this fair, but I knew the grapevine would carry the news swiftly and unerringly to him, and he might just want to sue me for slander, with which he’d been known to threaten customers who queried some ofhis absolutely genuine Shakespeare letters.
A sudden late afternoon rush just at the time we should have been packing up meant Griff was too busy to ask any embarrassing questions. He sold in very rapid succession some highly gilded and therefore very pricey Royal Doulton plates, and some nice early Wedgwood, so there was much less to pack and the promise of plenty of good food and drink for the rest of the month. The Rockingham plate Griff had suggested yesterday I might have to reduce went for its asking price, so I was happy to do a deal with a nice American on some Worcester, the profits being shared equally between my gewgaw fund and repaying Griff’s loan.
All the same, in the van I felt as I used to when confronted by an irate school attendance officer. OK, anything Griff would say would be more in sorrow than in anger, to borrow one of his quotations, but I’d still feel guilty. Sure enough, he coughed with embarrassment, but just as I was braced for a real wigging, he said mildly, ‘Mrs Hatch would have been proud of you, dear heart. She tells me she likes gals with courage – the sort of gal who made the Empire great.’
‘So long as she doesn’t want me for peace-keeping duties! Oh, Griff, it wasn’t very bright of me. To make two enemies in one day. Well, quite a lot more, since people
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