recently ‒ it’ll make you feel more alive. And that can only be a good thing, Seb’ll notice the difference. And, he’ll never have to know either. If he did, he’d probably advocate it anyway ‒ wasn’t that his rationale about Smelly Doug ‒ a social experiment. ’ Hermione paused and Anna could almost hear her brain thinking of a new tack to take. ‘And anyway, you should come up to London, set up some meetings. Did I tell you I bumped into your little assistant the other day, the one who stole all your contacts. What was her name?’
‘Kim,’ Anna said, nodding vaguely at the customer as they did another lap of the shop.
‘Oh yes. Well, she said you should have a catch-up. And, look, listen to this, it says on Wikipedia that a pitchfork has long, thick, widely separated, pointed tines. Tines, Anna. Tines. See, always right, Anna. Hermione is always right.’ She snorted a laugh down the phone.
The bell tingled over the door again and Anna heard the familiar out-of-breath panting of Mrs Beedle, so scrabbled to get her feet down off the counter, ‘Look I’ve got to go, H,’ she whispered.
‘Only if you swipe that man into your Yeses, Anna. Swipe him,’ Hermione carried on regardless.
‘OK, fine.’ She pulled her phone out from where she’d quickly shoved it in her pocket and swiped Luke Lloyd into her Yeses. ‘I’ve swiped him. Happy? Now I have to go.’
Anna cut Hermione off, but kept the telephone to her ear as Mrs Beedle came towards her. ‘Yes,’ she said to the dial tone, ‘Absolutely, we have a range of different antiquities, something for everyone, and if there’s something specific you require, we can have it in mind as we scour the markets across the country and across the channel. Oh yes, many of our pieces are from France.’
As she hung up, she noticed that Mrs Beedle was smiling, which never happened.
‘You sold the Russian clock?’ she said, dumping a shopping bag of milk, custard creams and an antiques magazine that Anna remembered her father getting delivered, down on the counter.
‘No.’ Anna shook her head. ‘I haven’t sold anything.’
Mrs Beedle paused and then looked out into the street. ‘I just saw a man leave with it.’
‘Not from here.’
‘Anna, it was from here.’ Mrs Beedle huffed back to the front door but there was no one in the street. Anna could see her standing on the pavement with her hands on her hips, looking right then left, calling to the group of men sitting on the bench on the other side of the square who shook their heads in response. When she finally came back in, she was shaking her head. ‘Bother,’ she sighed.
Anna straightened her shoulders. ‘He didn’t buy it from here.’
‘I bought that clock as part of a repossession auction of a Russian oligarch. Anna, it was the only clock of its type west of the Ukraine. Don’t tell me that wasn’t my clock.’ Her cheeks started to flush. ‘Clearly he didn’t buy it at all. See over there‒’ She pointed to a cabinet that had a dust-free square on the top about the size of a shoebox. ‘That’s where it was when I left.’
Anna glanced over at the shiny, polished square of emptiness and bit her lip, then pushed a strand of hair from her face and said, ‘Was it expensive?’
Mrs Beedle closed her eyes and sucked in her top lip before muttering, ‘You could say that.’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Anna said, almost without thinking.
‘I’d rather you didn’t say that, Anna.’ Mrs Beedle opened her eyes, she looked sad and tired and old suddenly, and glanced from Anna over to the CCTV monitor that was currently rolling the closing credits of Murder She Wrote.
Anna felt herself inwardly cringe as Mrs Beedle squeezed past her, took the remote down and flicked the TV back to the security monitor, then took her bag of shopping into the stockroom.
Anna yanked off her gloves and rubbed her hand over her brow. All her usual defence mechanisms kicked in straight away. It wasn’t her fault. It could have happened to anyone. Even if she had been watching, what would she have done, tackle him to the ground? She leant against the counter top and gave it a bit of a polish with an old rag to look like she was doing something, anything rather than go into the back room with Mrs Beedle. As she polished and listened to the kettle being flicked on and saw the cat scamper underneath the curtain, her eyes kept being drawn to the dust-free patch on the top of the mahogany cabinet. She could actually remember the clock, and she knew it was probably the most expensive item in the shop. Gold and magnificent with two lions holding up the dial and an eagle on the top, its wings spread wide. A square base with claw feet like talons. She had remembered admiring it as quite a gem amidst the taxidermy, the assorted crockery and the jumble of chairs that blocked the back half of the shop.
When Mrs Beedle came out with her tea, Anna leant back against the counter and mumbled, ‘I’m sorry.’
Mrs Beedle paused as she brought the mug up to her mouth. ‘That’s not really much use to me.’
Anna bristled, unused to that kind of reaction. She thought of Seb squeezing her hand and telling her that it was OK after she’d lost all their money. ‘It could have happened if you were here or not—’
‘Anna.’ Mrs Beedle locked her with a look that cut her off immediately. ‘Don’t make excuses to me. It wouldn’t have happened if I was here, I know that, because this shop is my life and the things in it are my life. To you they may be nothing, but to me they are my livelihood and I respect them. I have given you a job when a lot of people here wouldn’t and all I ask in return, is you show my possessions just a little respect. That’s it. That’s all I ask,’ she said, her lips taut, her jaw as rigid as it could be in her round little face.
Anna opened her mouth to reply, but chose instead to say nothing, just nodded.
‘I don’t need you here. In fact, I’d rather you weren’t here. But your father has been my friend since I was at school and he asked for a favour. I’m not putting up with your shit, Anna Whitehall. I see through you. And, quite frankly, I’d say it’s about time you grew up.’
At five on the dot, Anna grabbed her bag and sloped out so that Mrs Beedle wouldn’t see her, and once outside she’d never been happier to feel the scorching heat of the afternoon sun on her face.
Pausing for a moment to sit on one of the chairs outside the French bistro, she leant her head against the wall and took a deep breath. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon flitting between fury about her telling off and guilt over the clock theft. Why had this had such an effect on her? It was just a crappy antiques shop, but it felt like the culmination of everything. The conversation with Hermione had rattled her, shaken her foundations. Her relationship with Seb felt like it was being wedged apart by a huge Nettleton crowbar, and now she had the big, sad, watery eyes of Mrs Beedle’s disappointment to contend with.
‘I don’t care,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘I do not care.’
As she was repeating the mantra to herself, the owner came out of the bistro where Anna had taken residence of one of his chairs. He very good-looking in a dark, Gaelic way she thought as he started watering the pots of red geraniums with an old glass bottle. ‘Bonsoir, Mademoiselle. Can I get you something to drink?’
‘Oh no sorry, I was just sitting.’ Anna pushed herself up. ‘I’m just going.’
