Chapter 6 #3
Bart, blushing slightly to be the focus of Molly’s high-voltage smile, fetched a couple of hardbacks from the ‘New In’ section.
‘Great,’ Molly said, not looking at them. ‘And something from the non-fiction section… He’s interested in old stuff – history, architecture, you know…’
It was a broad brief. Jenna handed her a book about the architecture of some of the Oxford colleges. Molly glanced at it with disfavour. ‘That looks a bit heavy. How about this?’ She grabbed a copy of a coffee table book stuffed with photographs of beach huts all over the world.
‘That’s a fantastic choice,’ Bart gushed, winking at Jenna, who remembered that the glossy book was thirty pounds.
‘Great.’ Molly tucked it under her arm. The wide lacy sleeve of the white dress fell back and Jenna saw that she was wearing a big statement gold bracelet around one tanned wrist made of twisted metal and huge pearls. Jenna stared. She had seen those pearls before. Her stomach dropped away.
Molly caught her looking. She tensed and there was a flash of something that looked like spite in her eyes. Spite and triumph.
‘Wow.’ Jenna swallowed hard. ‘That’s a gorgeous bracelet, Moll. Where did you get it?’
‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’ Molly flicked her sleeve back down to cover it. ‘I got it in the Gold Souk in Dubai. It’s part of a pair and I have matching earrings too.’ She picked up the rest of the books and shot Bart another smile. ‘Thanks for these. See you soon!’
She turned on her stiletto heel and walked out.
‘Wait, what?’ Bart looked poleaxed as the door closed behind her. ‘She didn’t pay! Hey, this isn’t a library, you know!’
The roar of the car’s engine was the only reply. ‘It’s okay, I know where she lives,’ Jenna said. ‘Molly’s been helping herself to stuff for as long as I’ve known her. Stick it on my account and I’ll get the money off her at the weekend.’
Bart was still looking put out. ‘Sorry, boss, but that one’s a grifter,’ he said.
‘You’re not the first person to say so,’ Jenna said. But she wasn’t thinking of Molly’s blatant shoplifting of the books, she was thinking about the gold bracelet with the pearls.
The last time she had seen those pearls in real life was 500 years ago, but she had seen a photograph of them much more recently.
‘Can you hold the fort for a bit longer?’ she asked Bart. ‘I just want to pop upstairs and check something in a catalogue.’
‘No problem.’ Bart nodded and moved to serve a customer who was looking for local maps, whilst Jenna went through the door at the back of the shop, along the narrow corridor packed with boxes of books, and up the stairs to her flat.
She’d always loved living above the shop.
It was bijou – or tiny, as Molly had once pointed out – but there was everything she needed.
Her bedroom had a view over the jumbled rooftops of the town towards the squat church tower.
The living room was piled with more books and the wide window looked across the road to a little park whose tall trees and fast-running stream could make you believe you were out in the country.
On the low table by the sofa was the guidebook from Winterhill Hall that Jenna had put aside after her visit.
She’d leafed through it but hadn’t read it in detail.
One thing that had caught her eye, though, was a collection of Tudor jewellery and artefacts that was on display in the house itself, pieces which belonged to the Swan family and were on loan to the Foundation.
Suddenly impatient, Jenna turned the pages to find the reference.
There was a full page of photographs from a display case in the Long Gallery and she scanned it closely.
The collection included a gold sweetheart ring, a silver pendant in the shape of a wheel inset with ruby enamel, and a golden armlet with a pattern of entwined swans.
Jenna caught her breath. The ring was child-sized, as though it had been a baptismal or birthday present.
Both the pendant and the bracelet bore the devices of Anna of Cleves – the spoked wheel in the shape of a star and the swans that represented the House of Cleves.
There was a lump in Jenna’s throat. She had been there when Anna had given those gifts to her son, along with many others.
She – Marris – remembered the occasion well.
It was both poignant and heartwarming to think that they had remained treasured Swan family heirlooms down the centuries.
Jenna rubbed away the prickle of tears from her eyes and focused on the other item that was on display in the photograph. It was a rope of pearls, artfully displayed on a red cushion. The caption noted that the necklace was thought to be from the Tudor period and originated in the Netherlands.
Jenna realised that she had a hand resting on her chest as though she were touching an imaginary necklace. Fierce emotion shot through her as she remembered Will giving the pearls to Marris. They had been exquisitely beautiful.
She could not be absolutely certain that the same jewels were now in the bracelet that Molly had been wearing, but the three drop pearls attached to the main chain were very distinctive.
Marris had worn the piece often and Jenna knew it well.
And there had been that look of amusement and spite in Molly’s eyes which Jenna knew she had not imagined.
It had been like a challenge thrown down.
She had wanted Jenna to know she had something that had once belonged to Marris…
Jenna put the brochure down slowly. How on earth could Molly have got hold of the Winterhill pearls?
Perhaps they had been sold by the family and she had bought them and had them reset in a more modern style?
The twisted gold of the bracelet had looked new in contrast to the old lustre of the gems. Yet it was odd that the necklace still featured in the guidebook, which had been printed the previous year.
Any sale must have been recent. Or any theft, for that matter…
Jenna tapped her fingers on the table thoughtfully.
Maybe she was taking a bit of a leap in suspecting Molly of stealing the pearls from Winterhill, and it would not have entered her head if her sister hadn’t had past form in helping herself to things she liked the look of.
Molly had always been a magpie, attracted to shiny things since childhood, and not exactly keen to pay for them.
Plus, Molly had lied; she had told Jenna she’d bought the bracelet in Dubai.
And all the while she had given her that look – contradict me if you dare…
Jenna gritted her teeth. She was sure that Molly had taken the pearls for revenge as well as personal gain. It was Rose’s revenge on Marris. It had been a long time coming, but that would only make it all the more satisfying to Molly.
One thing was certain. She needed to go back to Winterhill Hall to make sure that her suspicions were correct.
Only then could she confront Molly about what she had done.
Jenna gave a groan and dropped her face into her hands.
The issues around the archaeological dig were bad enough but now her sister was up to her old tricks as well.
She was in even more trouble than she had imagined.