Mumbersons and The Blood Secret, The by Mike Crowl, Celia Crowl

wouldn’t dare to assume such a thing. But it’s most unusual for uncut diamonds to turn up out of the blue. Normally, as jewellers, we would purchase cut diamonds, you understand, or diamonds that have been fitted into jewellery.’
    Mr Mumberson continued to lean towards him and spoke to him as though Adiblo was a trifle deaf. ‘I would like to sell these diamonds. If you want to buy them then tell me what day I can come back for my money. Or else return them to me, and I will find another jeweller.’
    ‘That won’t be easy, not in Skittleton,’ said the jeweller, tersely. ‘You’ve come to the only place in town that would even think of dealing with the purchase of uncut diamonds.’
    ‘Fine,’ said Mr Mumberson, standing up straight again, which only emphasised how short the jeweller was. ‘What day will I return?’
    Mr Adiblo took a notebook from under the counter and wrote down something that Billy couldn’t read upside down . It looked like he was filling in time rather than working anything out. ‘Shall we say, Wednesday?’
    ‘I’d sooner it was earlier than that. Is that the best you can do?’
    ‘I’m afraid so.’ Again that sickly smile. The jeweller knew he had the upper hand. ‘Now, I’ll need your name, your address, your phone number.’ He held his pen at the ready. ‘And some identification.’
    Mr Mumberson’s face went pale. ‘Identification?’
    Adiblo looked at him, perhaps wondering if Mr Mumberson didn’t understand the word. ‘Yes, identification. It’s perfectly normal when someone brings in anything they want to sell. You realise that we sometimes have some very unsavoury types trying to sell things that they have...stolen.’ When he said the word unsavoury his nose twitched, as though he had remembered a certain smell one of the unsavoury types had left behind.
    ‘Stolen,’ repeated Mr Mumberson. He’d gone from pale to grey. He glanced at Billy out of the corner of his eye, swallowed, cleared his throat. ‘These aren’t stolen. But I do have a problem with identification. I’ve only been back in the...er...country for a few days. My...passport has been mislaid...and my driver’s licence needs to be renewed...’
    Billy looked at him, astonished. This wasn’t unnoticed by the jeweller. ‘Excuse me, Mr...’
    ‘Mumberson.’
    ‘Mr Mumberson, I must say I’m puzzled about your situation. However,’ he added, with a glance at his secondhand clothing, ‘I can see that you’re in some difficulties, and I’m not a hard man.’ He smiled his sickly smile again. Billy was beginning to hate it. ‘Why don’t you leave the diamonds with me until Wednesday, as we suggested, and I’ll see what I can do to purchase them from you?’ He wrote down Mr Mumberson’s name on his pad. Billy noticed that he spelt it wrongly. ‘I assume you do have an address, Mr Mumberson?’
    ‘Of course. It’s...’ He stopped, his mind a blank. After twenty years he’d forgotten where he lived.
    ‘It’s all right,’ said Billy, ‘This is my grandfather. He lives with us. And so does my grandmother.’ Mr Mumberson gave him a relieved look. ‘They’ve been away for twenty years. In a horrible country. They’ve been...’ He stopped, realising that telling the jeweller his grandparents had been imprisoned by a witch probably wasn’t a good idea. ‘...they’ve been treated very badly. It’s very hard for them to talk about it.’ He glanced at his grandfather. ‘They’re only just starting to feel better.’
    ‘I see,’ said the jeweller. His face, however, said that he didn’t believe a word of it.
    ‘Our address is sixty-nine Fivefold St,’ said Billy, trying to move things on again. He gave the telephone number as well, and Adiblo noted it all down.
    ‘Very well then, Mr Mumberson,’ he said, ‘we’ll see you on Wednesday.’
    ‘Thank you.’ Mr Mumberson was about to leave with Billy when he stopped and said, ‘We came past your shop late last night. It was