Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

Over the next two or three years, I’d blossomed a bit. What I was best at was restoring damaged Victorian china, and not passing it as perfect. Unlike some I could name. So people trusted me when I said something was good, you see. And my prices rose accordingly. Occasionally other dealers would come to me when they found something hard to shift. If it was pukka, and only then, I’d pop it on our stall and sell it at the usual commission. Not that I would be selling Piers’s ring on my stall, for goodness’ sake!

“What worries me,” Griff said as he wiped up, “is that despite his lineage Piers works at the lowest end of the market. Collectibles, indeed! Junk, in other words.”

“There’s room for all sorts-and we’re not exactly at the top end ourselves.”

I wished the words back: What Griff was really afraid of was that I’d abandon him.

If only I could have talked Piers over with a woman. But I hadn’t many women friends my own age, thanks to my miserable upbringing, and Griff, though he was dearer to me than anyone seemed able to imagine, was hardly a role model for someone as young and romantic as me (or should that be I? ): He’d been in a settled if semidetached relationship for more years than he cared to remember.

Washing-up done, I dried my hands and slapped on some cream. As beauty routines went, it didn’t go far, and Griff tended to nag when I didn’t use sunblock or moisturiser. I had to admit that the ring looked better on well-tended mitts than it would have done on my pre-Griff paws. Or did it look too good? Despite Griff’s offer, I took it and the eyeglass up to my workroom and switched on the strong spotlight I need for the most delicate restoration work. And then I called Griff.

“You’ve got better eyes than I have,” he said, somewhat grudgingly since I’d hauled him from his favourite television program, a docudrama about civilians being tested to SAS standards. “But you’re right. Those two stones aren’t exactly the same as the others. Pretty close. But a ring that age is bound to have been repaired.”

“Cleaned and repaired?”

“Why not? The young man wants to impress his beloved.”

“Piers didn’t say anything about a repair. He said it came straight from a sale-he’d only cleaned it up a bit to see what he’d got.”

“He’s cleaned it very well indeed. To professional standards,” Griff mused. “So why didn’t he come clean-as clean as this ring, in fact-and simply tell you it had come with two stones missing and he’d had them replaced?”

“Why indeed?”

Next time we met, this time in a church hall in the Cotswolds so cold that Griff’s knuckles turned bluey-white, the rest of his fingers purple, Piers presented me with another ring.

“I’m not asking you to choose between them,” he said pettishly as I slipped it admiringly onto my right hand: It was a sapphire version of my ruby, with a lovely Sri Lankan stone, much lighter than you get these days, that put it back into the Victorian period.

I bit my lip: I’d better not tell him I preferred it.

“I’m asking you to sell it. It’s too good for my stall: It’ll just disappear amongst all the collectibles. But you’ve got nice, classy stuff. Everything guaranteed antique, with nothing less than a hundred years old.”

I nodded. We were totally out of place at this fair, as Griff bitterly acknowledged, to which we’d only come because Griff had a Thespian friend in the area and because I could meet up with Piers.

“China, glass, and treen,” I said. “No jewellery.”

“Then it’ll stand out all the better, especially with a spotlight trained on it. And your hand to model it.” He kissed it with enough passion to tempt me.

“I’ll have to ask Griff,” I said.

“He lets you fly solo with your restored china,” he pointed out. “I can’t see how he could object if you want to branch out into jewellery, particularly stuff as nice as this.”

“I’ll ask,” I said coldly, “because I value his opinion.” He should have known by now never to argue about anything concerning Griff.

“Do I recollect that you come of age shortly, my child?”

“You know I do. And we agreed to have no fuss.” Largely because Griff was increasingly terrified by his own birthdays, and in any case celebrating being twenty-one was a bit old-fashioned these days.

“It occurs to me that you are so attracted to that sapphire ring that it would make an ideal gift.”

I looked him in the eye. “Not so much attracted as suspicious, Griff. You look.” I passed the lovely thing to him.

“The sapphire’s exquisite,” he sighed. Then he stopped. “How many dodgy stones do you make it?”

“Three this time. I shall have to mark it sold as seen.”

“And the price? If you do that it’ll never reach what he’s asking. And I have an idea you were relying on the commission to buy your wedding dress.”

“Wedding, shmedding.” I took the ruby ring off as well. The two big stones blinked enticingly at me. The diamonds surrounding them didn’t.

“Shame,” Piers greeted my confession that we’d not been able to sell the ring. “But why don’t you keep trying? And I was hoping you’d shift these earrings for me.” He produced an elaborate case, fine leather and watered silk, containing a dazzling pair with free-hanging emeralds and diamonds on tiny springs.

“Victorian again.” They were so fine I’d have expected to see them at Christie’s.

“Got this aunt who’s fallen on hard times. Doesn’t want anyone to know.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Noblesse oblige, and all that.”

My eyes widened at the price he wanted. “That’s well above our usual range-but still not enough for such a lovely set.” I braced myself. “Are you sure these aren’t off the back of some lorry, Piers?”

“From the collection of Lady Olivia Spedding.” He looked coldly down at me, rather like the Duke of Wellington, now I came to think of it, holding out his hand for the earrings.

I returned them, shrugging. “No skin off my nose,” I informed him, my voice at its most common, all accent and attitude.

I wasn’t so much surprised as taken aback when, as we packed up at the end of a not especially profitable day, Piers sidled up, dropping the familiar jeweller’s box on our stall. “Usual commission,” he said, and disappeared.

It was Griff who got first look at them with the eyeglass this time. “Continental,” he said. “And all good stones.”

“You mean-?”

“What do you think?”

I peered. “Beautifully clean. Everything hunky-dory for the period. Feel the weight-they wouldn’t half stretch the old ear-lobes. Lovely quality stones-all of them. I’d be honoured to sell these.”

I thought I heard Griff mutter something about sprats catching mackerel, but perhaps I was mistaken.

A couple of weeks later I handed over the cash for the earrings in the traditional brown envelope. It was hardly out of my hand when another slightly battered jewel case appeared, purple leather outside, purple silk in, showing off a diamond pendant and matching earrings to perfection. Victorian, again, and perhaps a bit fussy for modern tastes.

It was all so low-key we might have been business partners, not engaged to become life partners. Theoretically engaged. Anyone who could palm off a piece with stones I could feel in my bones were false was no longer my fiancé. I said nothing yet. Grassing someone up was something not to be done lightly. But in a trade that totally depended on trust, what else could I do?

Griff removed the eyepiece and rubbed his face. “And what four-letter word, first letter S, last letter M, springs to your suspicious mind?”