Chapter 39
Thirty-nine
The cream marquee billowed and snapped in the stiff Devon breeze, its canvas walls shuddering against the guy ropes with each gust. Beneath the shifting canopy, the crowd churned – dealers with eagle eyes, wealthy collectors with silk scarves and sharp smiles, curious villagers keen to bag a slice of Brambleton history.
The air inside had grown stifling. Though the breeze tugged at the canvas, the heat of hundreds of bodies trapped beneath it was enough to turn the space into a sauna.
Tina could feel sweat sliding down her spine, soaking into the waistband of her skirt, but her focus remained fixed on the crowd ahead – scanning desperately for Percy.
Where the devil was he?
She threaded her way through the throng, the heavy bag on her shoulder forcing her to constantly twist and pivot as bodies pressed close.
Every brush of a shoulder or elbow tightened the coil of anxiety in her stomach, the bag’s bulk making her clumsy as she manoeuvred it around jutting elbows and swinging arms. She shuffled past Ivy, smiling as she recalled their last meeting, where she saved the retired vicar from splurging church money on fake silver.
Wearing a voluminous yellow dress, Ivy sat beside Trish, who had left her father in charge of Prosecco & Prose.
‘I’m hoping to get some antique teacups for the café,’ she explained.
‘Plenty of those,’ replied Tina, and you’re safe buying them, not worth faking. Somewhere behind her, a catalogue slipped from someone’s hands and flapped loudly to the ground. A woman tutted. A phone rang. A man laughed too loudly.
Tina pulled out her phone, fingers slick against the glass.
No signal. Or rather, just enough to taunt her with calling .
. . before it fizzled out, and the screen went blank.
She jabbed at the buttons in frustration, redialled, and lifted it toward the tent’s ceiling, as if an extra inch might conjure reception.
Still nothing. She lowered it with a groan and glanced toward the auctioneer’s rostrum, a raised dais positioned near the back of the tent, ringed by tables laden with treasures soon to be sold.
Mounted beside the rostrum, a digital display blinked relentlessly: 11:48. The lot number remained blank for now, but the red LED digits pulsed the warning.
Twelve minutes.
Twelve minutes until the auction began. Twelve minutes until they committed the loving cup – Lot 179a – to the sale.
Earlier, Tim had admitted under questioning that he and his father aimed to power through the early lots at nearly 100 per hour. But once they hit the important silver, the pace would drop dramatically – closer to 30 lots an hour, if they were lucky.
Tina had immediately registered to bid, intending to slow the auction. The house fund would cover her if she got a little too enthusiastic with her bidding paddle.
The display tables groaned under the weight of porcelain and silver.
Lot tags fluttered lightly in the breeze like little white flags of surrender, waiting for their new home.
The loving cup stood beneath a glass dome – three-handled, mid-eighteenth century, its engraved surface softly burnished by age and secrets.
Stunning. Tina wondered how many silver experts had hurtled down the M5 to Devon for a last-minute viewing and recognized the work of the master silversmith, Paul de Lamerie.
She turned, scanning the tent again. No sign of Percy.
And then, as if summoned by her dread, another familiar face slid into her peripheral vision – one she’d rather not have seen.
‘Well, well,’ came the drawl, oily with disdain. ‘Still pretending you’re welcome in this family.’
Tina gritted her teeth. Hugo, leaning lazily against a display stand, cradling a hip flask in one hand. Despite the early hour, his cheeks were red, his eyes watery. His linen blazer had seen better days, and the shirt beneath it gaped open at the neck, faintly stained with something dark.
Marmalade lay slumped at his feet, tongue lolling, tail giving an occasional lazy thump against the coir floor matting. The dog looked up at Christina with vague recognition, then let out a tired huff and rested his chin on his paws.
‘You’re drunk,’ she said flatly. ‘Again.’
‘Yes, but to quote Oscar Wilde, in the morning I’ll be sober. You’ll still be responsible for losing the family wealth.’ He took a swig from his hip flask, eyeing her over the rim as he did. He stoppered the flask, then smirked. ‘I give it a week before Hamish realises what you are and walks.’
A voice cut in. ‘That’s enough.’
She didn’t need to turn. That voice had the polished steel of a Tudor courtier – sharp, unhurried, and wrapped in loyalty. Hamish stepped beside Christina, taking her hand in his. Marmalade thumped his tail again, rising to his feet and wagging uncertainly between the two brothers.
‘You want to talk about lost fortunes, Hugo?’ Hamish said lightly. ‘Tina isn’t responsible for her father’s actions. She’s made mistakes. She’s also made something of herself. You, on the other hand, are still using Henry VIII as a role model. All appetite, no conscience.’
Marmalade’s tail stopped wagging. Sensing the sudden shift in tone, he whined and paced a half-circle before pressing himself against Hugo’s shin.
Hugo flushed, but Hamish didn’t stop. ‘You didn’t just take to drink – you built a throne in the wreckage and crowned yourself the martyr.
’ A few nearby heads turned at the raised voice.
Hugo, cowed by his younger brother’s words, muttered something unintelligible.
But watching him slink away, his hip flask clutched as tightly in his hand as Elspeth used to cling to her childhood teddy bear, Tina felt a wave of sympathy.
She knew Hamish was trying to persuade his brother to seek professional help for his drinking.
‘That was unnecessarily flattering,’ she said under her breath.
‘He needed reminding. And I’ve always been partial to a metaphor,’ Hamish replied. ‘Especially Tudor ones.’
Tina smiled up at him, then looked again at the red digits ticking away beside the rostrum: 11:56. She turned in a circle, surveying the crowd. Still no sign of Percy. ‘Have you got any signal?’ she asked.
Hamish took out his phone, then shook his head.
The auctioneer, Toby Hartwell – Tim’s father – hauled himself up onto the rostrum.
At sixty-two, he carried himself with the same effortless grace his son exuded, though decades of good living had softened the sharp angles of his jaw.
His salt-and-pepper moustache was trim, and his suit hung with an understated perfection that spoke of good taste.
When he smiled at the assembled crowd, it was Tim’s smile – warm, easy, and utterly convincing – the smile of a man who could make you believe you were getting a bargain even as he emptied your wallet.
Toby adjusted the microphone with a sharp screech of feedback, then tapped it twice.
‘Can you hear me at the back?’ he called out, already thumbing through a stack of papers.
Tina stood, half-hidden behind a pole, her eyes pinned to the entrance flap, fanning herself with her bidding paddle, willing Percy to arrive.
‘Don’t fret darling,’ said Hamish, ‘plenty of time yet.’
Toby cleared his throat into the microphone, loud enough to make the first few rows flinch.
‘Splendid, splendid! Ladies and gentlemen, what a day we have for you. Some exceptional lots, and a few surprises too, if you know what to look for. Now, I trust you’ve all registered and are ready to bid with enthusiasm – and deep pockets!’
Laughter rippled through the crowd. Tina twisted the paddle around in her fingers.
‘Right then. Now, before we start a few announcements,’ Toby continued. ‘We’ve got a couple of late additions to the catalogue,’ he said, flipping a page. ‘Lot seventy-four –Victorian watch fob, found in a drawer, no reserve . . .’
Tina tuned out his words and turned back to the entrance, scanning again. She could feel the pressure building, like air sucked into a vacuum.
Toby raised the gavel and gave the microphone one final tap.
‘Let’s begin. Lot number one,’ Toby announced, ‘a delightful Georgian tea service, hallmarked London 1798. What am I bid? Shall we start at five hundred pounds? Five hundred? Four hundred then? Come on now, don’t be shy – this is solid silver, not plate! ’
The marquee swelled with noise. Bidding paddles lifted like petals to the sun, flicking up in rapid succession.
For over an hour, Tina watched, half-hypnotised, as Toby conducted the sale with the energy of a man possessed. The gavel fell again and again with cracking finality. Toby was proceeding at lightning pace, the red LED display clicking over lot numbers like a ticking fuse edging toward the blast.
Tina’s heartbeat pounded in her throat. She clutched her catalogue in white-knuckled fingers, barely seeing the pages. Lot after lot blurred past – silver jugs, porcelain inkwells, Georgian cruet sets. But her mind wasn’t on the sale. It was on the absence.
Where was Percy?
‘Six hundred, seven, eight – do I hear nine hundred?’ purred Toby.
‘Nine hundred with the lady in the blue hat. One thousand? One thousand pounds with the gentleman by the door. Any advance on one thousand? Fair warning . . . sold to bidder number twelve!’ Smack.
Down came the gavel. ‘Right, lot number one thirty-six . . .’
The minutes seemed to stretch and warp in the stifling heat.
A man walked past her, attempting to muffle a coughing fit.
Somewhere across the marquee, someone sneezed.
She barely registered either. Her eyes kept darting to the front of the marquee, to the place Percy should have been, halting the sale.
The digital display announced Lot 155. Lot 179a was less than thirty minutes away.
Toby’s voice as smooth as silk. ‘And now we reach the climax of the silver, the superb collection of pieces by Paul Storr.’