Chapter 51
For a few days, The Mudlarkers’ Club WhatsApp chat went quiet. Gemma suspected the others were, like her, coming down from their high. Life resumed as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened, or that they’d completely imagined it.
Then, on the first of December when a cold snap hit and the Thames shivered with the rest of London, Nick called. Seeing his name appear on her phone made her heart dance. She twirled a strand of hair and put her feet up on the sofa.
‘Not more media interest?’ she said light-heartedly.
‘No, sorry.’ He laughed. ‘You’ve had your fifteen minutes of fame.’
‘Thank goodness for that.’
There was a pause. Gemma waited for Nick to say why he was calling but he didn’t. They said nothing for what seemed like a few very long seconds.
Then, Nick suddenly became animated. ‘Hey, I don’t think I told you my news, what with all the excitement over the brooch.’
‘News?’
‘There’s been some drama at the Roman site. One of the archaeologists has been arrested for selling stolen sixteenth-century pots in an online auction – pots he took from a different site five years ago – and I got the reporting gig.’
‘That’s great, Nick. For you, of course, not for the pots or the archaeologist! What an idiot he was.’
‘Yeah, some people. But it turns out that’s the tip of the iceberg.
There’s a whole black-market trade for looted antiquities out there, involving an underworld of crime syndicates, money launderers and tomb raiders.
Wealthy collectors buy ancient relics without checking their sources.
Night hawkers raid archaeological sites with their metal detectors and sell what they find.
It’s not a new thing but it’s getting worse.
Online illicit markets are one of the major vehicles for the international trafficking of cultural objects. ’
‘Gosh, who knew?’
‘I know! The Guardian has already expressed interest in the story.’ She could hear the satisfaction in Nick’s voice.
‘It’s the scoop I’ve been waiting for. Even better, it’s given me an idea for a new novel because I’m ditching the other one.
I’ve got it all plotted in my head. A madcap comedic heist set in the dark world of illegal artefact trading.
And when it gets turned into a movie, I imagine Daniel Craig as the lead.
Or maybe it’ll be a woman. That’d be better, wouldn’t it? Someone like, I dunno, Michelle Yeoh …’
‘They’ll be desperate for the part.’
‘You’ve got to dream big.’ Gemma nodded, even though she’d always felt more comfortable dreaming mid-size.
‘Anyway, how are you now that all the excitement has died down?’
‘Life seems rather boring now.’ She sighed a bit more dramatically than she’d intended.
‘I can imagine. It’s definitely been the most thrilling thing that’s happened to me in a long time.’
‘Me too.’
‘For all of us mudlarkers, I reckon.’
‘Uh-huh.’
There was another silence.
‘So, are you doing anything tomorrow?’ Nick asked.
Gemma went to the fridge to check the tide chart. ‘I’m afraid the low tide is going to be at three in the afternoon. I’ll be at work.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of mudlarking …’
‘Oh,’ she said trying not to sound disappointed.
‘I fancy going back to The Anchor pub for a drink.’
‘Oh,’ she repeated, feeling a breath-holding moment of anticipation.
‘I was wondering if you’d like to join me?’
She said yes without even thinking about it.
At night, the Thames undulated as if it were black silk and the lights of the illuminated city buildings on both sides made the river spangle like tinsel.
A northerly wind had blown in that afternoon and the air was icy.
Gemma walked quickly from the Tube station, along the river at Bankside towards The Anchor.
Nick was downstairs in the dimly lit Clink Bar, perched on a stool.
He looked smart in a collared shirt, patterned, Gemma realised as she got closer, with tiny flowers.
He’d had a haircut and had shaved off his beard.
He looked good. Then again, he suited both having a beard and not having one, and she couldn’t decide which one she preferred.
He grinned and waved, then stood up formally.
‘Hi,’ he said, semi-extending an arm and leaning towards her as if he wasn’t sure whether to shake her hand or give her a hug.
She didn’t know what to do either, so she did both, first taking his hand and then leaning in for a brief side hug.
‘Right, I’m getting the drinks,’ he said. ‘I’d have already ordered but—’
‘—you didn’t know what I’d want?’
‘No, I wanted to be sure you’d come.’
‘You’re in luck, I didn’t get a better offer,’ she teased.
‘Phew.’ He pretend-mopped his brow. ‘Okay, what do you want?’
As Nick went to order at the bar, Gemma pulled out a stool and sat down. She stared at the old prints on the wall in front of her and tried ever so hard to be fully in the present and to not, for one second, think about what the night may or may not hold.
‘Here we go,’ Nick said, returning with two drinks and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps.
‘My favourite, you remembered,’ she said.
‘A journalist never forgets.’
‘I thought it was an elephant.’
‘Them, too.’
For a moment neither of them spoke.
‘So …’ she started.
‘Yeah,’ Nick agreed. ‘Here we are. Any update on the brooch?’
‘No. Everyone keeps asking!’
‘Sorry. I guess the museum didn’t give you a date?’
‘I really wish they had.’
‘Oh, well, I guess we’ll know soon enough.’
‘Hopefully.’ She smiled quickly then said, ‘Have you been on one of Timothy’s Spotlight tours yet?’
‘No.’ Nick shook his head.
‘Me neither.’
‘We should.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Gemma sucked Aperol through the straw, wishing their exchanges weren’t so painfully awkward. ‘Have you been mudlarking again?’ she asked.
‘Me? Nah. You?’
‘Just the once.’
Nick nodded.
The pub was beginning to fill up and take on the smell of battered fish and chips. Suddenly Nick burst into life as if he’d finally thought of something to say. ‘Hey, I know …!’
‘Yes?’ Gemma said, trying to avert her gaze from the attractive wisps of chest hair visible at the top of his shirt.
‘Why don’t you come to Amsterdam with me?’
‘What?’ That was not what she was expecting.
‘I’m going to Amsterdam because … well, actually, I can’t go into too much detail, except to say that I’ve got interviews lined up for that story I was telling you about. A Dutch art detective for one.’
‘You’ll be working?’ Gemma said.
‘Yeah, it’s a business trip. Didn’t you say you wanted to go to Amsterdam? You could be my sidekick and carry my stuff. When I say, “pen”, you can pass me my pen like we’re in an operating theatre, and I’m a surgeon and you’re a nurse. Oh, hang on, you are a nurse, ha-ha!’
Gemma frowned. She couldn’t work out whether to take him seriously or not, nor where the conversation was going.
‘You did say you wanted to go to Amsterdam, didn’t you?’ he said.
‘I did but—’
‘You’d rather go with someone else?’
‘No. I mean—’
‘Gem,’ he said touching her knee as if in apology.
‘I was only joking about the pen. Of course, I don’t expect you to be my sidekick.
You can go off and see the city while I do my work, and then we can, you know, do some sightseeing together.
Or something.’ He looked into his beer glass as if that ‘something’ was to be found there.
Gemma thought about how when she wasn’t with Nick, she missed his infectious laughter, his enthusiasm for life, his obvious respect for and support of her.
How he didn’t diminish her, like Adam had, but lifted her higher than she’d ever lifted herself and kept her there, buoyant with self-belief and optimism.
‘Okay,’ Gemma said. ‘I will.’
‘Really?’ Nick sounded taken aback.
‘I think it sounds lovely.’
‘It’s just, I wasn’t sure—’ he began.
‘Wasn’t sure …?’ She left the question hanging.
‘About us.’
Gemma nodded thoughtfully.
‘Well,’ she said, feeling suddenly emboldened. ‘We could go to Amsterdam as friends. Or we could go as something more.’
Nick studied her as if calculating her intentions.
She gave an enticing shoulder shrug and smiled.
Then she held his gaze and didn’t let it go.
The noise of the pub muffled and faded so she could barely hear it at all.
Someone may have accidentally knocked her on their way to the bar, she couldn’t be sure.
Nick leant towards her. He smelt musky with a hint of Guinness.
She closed her eyes and felt his lips touch hers.