PearlHanger 09 by Jonathan Gash Read Free Book Online Page B

her recede across the carpeted lounge. The attractive serf bringing the toast—proper slices, not like the colonel's thin triangles with no edges—watched her too. And the cleaners, and the colonel and his missus. Mrs. Vernon was watchable and obeyable, but probably not much else.
    "What do you reckon, love?" I asked, lashing out with the marmalade.
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    "I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of her," the lady confided frankly, busily rearranging the pots.
    "It is hell," I agreed. "Incidentally, tell that bloke you've dragged into your lair that the greatest antique dealer in the known world is now prepared to receive him."
    "You saucy devil. And I can't say I took to her friend, either."
    My marmalade hand froze. "Friend?"
    "Looked a right misery." The description she gave— pale, thirtyish, wary—matched up to the bloke from the seance. The one I'd felt watching me sideways. He'd apparently arrived with Donna Vernon, carefully leaving before I'd come down.
    Well, I told myself nervously after a think, there's no law, is there?
    Josh Thompson turned out to be one of those friendly utility models, no time-waster. A brisk slogger without flair, but a stayer who'd be making a good living from this delirious antiques game when much cleverer blokes have died the Icarus death of overambition. I liked him. We did a good deal for the bulk of the cards, me chopping the markup for cash (translation: taking only half profit, for filthy lucre on the spot). I paid for his coffee, big spender me, and the greedy sod nicked four slices of my toast. I felt I could trust him, so didn't, and asked him about three of the nearest people listed on Mrs. Vernon's paper. He knew two, and spoke of them with Nottinghamshire bluntness and at great length. I was delighted at the progress I was making.
    Like I say, a born duckegg.
    »
    I've met some vengeful women in my time, but this one wasn't so direct as the others. There was a reserve,
    something held back. She felt emotionally wrong. I tried warning myself off because I'd got enough trouble to be going on with, and anyway antiques are a fulltime love. It's well known that love affairs should come one at a time.
    Anyhow, right or wrong, I was becoming quite interested in Mrs. Vernon. I couldn't help watching her as we drove away: confident, sharp, aggressive. The weather promised warm and the dress she wore had a pale green self-stripe, some silk material that caught light. She drove intently, slightly hunched, casting frequent glances at the rearview mirror and rolling the steering wheel like rally drivers do.
    But even she, expert driver as she was, had a hell of a time getting us out of Nottingham. Like most ancient places its traffic now follows guess-where merry-go-rounds until good luck reprieves it and you blunder out down some side street. I was sorry to be leaving, though. I would miss the smiles and the antiques, but not Tinker. Unless the booze had hit hard he would soon be shuffling into the pub where I'd stayed. There he would find my letter and the gelt to follow at his speediest, which is small in velocity but certain. He never questions orders wrapped in money.
    "Is this the time to ask about you?" I tried.
    "No," I got back.
    "Hubby, then?"
    Her pause wasn't indecision. More for effect, to show she was still calling the tune. Then she began to explain as we made it from the inner maze and bowled toward our next joint triumph.
    »
    She had met Sid Vernon while she was a secretary for a London auction firm near Hanover Square, when he had
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    called to arrange the sale of a painting, a lovely Northcote oil of a lady.
    "Not Sir Joshua Reynolds's missus?" I cracked, smiling.
    She did not respond, which puzzled me, and sailed on: "Sid and I married. He set up business near Hampstead. I did the documentation, he the antiques. We recently moved out of London, sold the house, cheaper district, that sort of thing. Lately Sid planned to do a sweep through East Anglia because