THREE
Harding flew to England two days later. Luc drove him to Nice Airport in time for the early-morning flight, assured him coping in his absence would be “pas de probl`eme,” then roared away in the Jardiniera truck at a speed that suggested he for one would be enjoying the interlude.
Harding had not told his parents, siblings or any of his friends back home that he was going to be in the country. Already, for reasons he could not properly analyse, there was something faintly furtive, if not secretive, about the trip.
The flight was two hours, shorn to one on the clock by the change of time zones. But a coach ride to Reading, a long wait at the station and a train journey to the far end of the West of England main line swallowed most of the rest of the day. It was five o’clock on a dull and windless Friday afternoon when the train pulled into Penzance.
Harding had already adjusted by then to the thinness of the light, the altogether greyer tone of his homeland compared with the crystalline brilliance of the C^ote d’Azur. He and Polly had driven down from Worcestershire, so there were no reminders of their trip in the manner of his arrival. But his first glimpse of St. Michael’s Mount out in the bay as the railway line curved to meet the shore a couple of miles short of Penzance was the first of what he knew would be many tugs at his memory.
They had stayed in a b. and b., which Harding was not sure he could find even if he wanted to. This time, with Tozer covering his expenses, he was putting up at the Mount Prospect. It was a short taxi ride to the hotel’s lofty perch up a narrow side street on the eastern fringe of the town. And there again, in the view from his room, was St. Michael’s Mount, afloat in the grey plane of the bay.
Unpacking took no more than a few minutes. He was travelling light, physically at any rate. He phoned Carol and they talked so warmly and casually that he could almost believe he had imagined her anxiety about the trip. She said she was missing him already, which could not really be true, given how irregular their assignations were. Barney was due back the following morning. She said nothing about missing him.
“Met Humph yet?”
“No. I’m going round there now.”
“Brace yourself. He’s not what you’d call the sociable type.”
It was a warning Harding had already absorbed. He consulted the street map of Penzance he had bought at the station and set off.
On his way through reception, he spotted a copy of the local weekly paper, The Cornishman, lying on the counter. He took it into the deserted lounge and leafed through the property supplement to the auctions page. There it was, as he had anticipated, prominently advertised.
ISBISTER & SONS AUCTIONEERS AND VALUERS
HOUSE CONTENTS SALE TUESDAY 21ST FEBRUARY-10AM
Viewing: Saturday 18th February 10am-4pm
and Sunday 19th February 12 Noon-4pm
At HEARTSEASE, POLWITHEN ROAD, PENZANCE
We are favoured with instructions to SELL by AUCTION as above
CHINA, GLASSWARE, JEWELLERY, BOOKS, PAINTINGS,
STAMPS, COINS, BANKNOTES, TOYS, MODELS, FURNITURE,
LINEN AND GENERAL HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS
The summarized list of items filled the entire column. Gabriel Tozer had evidently been a formidable hoarder, accumulating more crockery, cutlery, wineglasses, clocks, watches, cufflinks and old books than any single man could plausibly need. The tin soldiers and 00-gauge train sets hinted at a childhood collecting mania which the first-day covers and Georgian guineas implied had been carried on into adulthood. But had he really wanted to give a mob of strangers the pick of his gramophone records and walking sticks and the run of his house while they made their choices and marked up their catalogues? The answer, baffling as it was, appeared to be yes.
It was dark by the time Harding left the hotel, and colder than he had expected. He turned up the collar of his coat, descended to the shore road that ran alongside the railway line and followed it through the fumes of sluggish traffic to the roundabout where it met the bypass at the eastern edge of town. The adjacent superstore was doing a brisk trade. The weekend was taking its customary British shape.
Beyond the roundabout lay an industrial estate and the heliport from which he and Polly had flown to Tresco. Wedged in among the warehouses was a jumble of stark, white-rendered, low-rise flats and maisonettes. A more dismal contrast with a penthouse in Monaco could hardly be conceived. Such were the widely different domiciles of the brothers Tozer.
Humphrey had a first-floor flat overlooking the heliport, reached by a flight of wooden stairs. There was a light showing through the tissue-thin curtains, but a response to Harding’s stab at the doorbell was a long time coming.
The man who eventually opened the door was faintly recognizable as a relative of Barney Tozer, but only because Harding knew him to be a relative. Humphrey Tozer was several stones lighter than his brother, gauntly thin and grey-skinned, with lank, greasy hair and a sad, sullen gaze. He was wearing decrepit horn-rimmed spectacles and a drab outfit of darned sweater, frayed shirt and trousers worn to a grubby sheen. His head twitched slightly to an irregular rhythm as he stared at Harding, breathing audibly and exuding a sharp, sour reek.
“Mr. Tozer?” Harding ventured.
“I’m Tozer, yeah.” The voice was low and gruff and hesitant.
“Barney sent me.”
“Barney?”
“Your brother.”
Tozer’s lip curled into a sneer. “I didn’t ask him to send someone.”
“He couldn’t come himself.”
“Why not?”
“Tax problems.”
The sneer became a strange, twisted little smile. “That’s a good one.”
“Can I come in?”
“What for?”
“To talk. About the auction.”
Tozer contemplated the idea for ten or twelve slow seconds. Then he said, “All right. Since you’re here.”
Tozer led the way down a short hallway and into the lounge. It was a small room and would have been cramped if it had contained even a reasonable quantity of furniture. As it was, Humphrey Tozer’s domestic comforts amounted to one armchair, a pouffe, a television, a table with two hard chairs and a bookcase of largely empty shelves. A clock stood on the mantelpiece above the unlit gas fire, but there were no ornaments and just one picture on the wall, over the clock: a framed Constable print. A rumpled copy of The Cornishman lay on the table, next to a jumbled stack of what looked like several months’ worth of the paper’s back copies. It felt colder to Harding inside the flat than it had out. He doubted if refreshment, or even a seat, was likely to be offered him.
“Who are you, then?” Tozer asked, frowning at him from the middle of the room as Harding lingered in the doorway.
“A friend of Barney’s. Tim Harding.”
“A friend? Not an employee? Not a… dogsbody?”
“As it happens, I’m here to help.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Barney’s told me all about the auction and why you want to buy one of the lots.”
“All about it? I doubt that.”
“Enough, then. He’s been in touch with the auctioneers and opened a credit account. We can bid whatever we need to.”
“We?”
“Like I said, I’m here to help.”
Tozer took a step towards Harding. His gaze narrowed. “I might have known Barney would find some way of wriggling out of his responsibilities.”
“He’s hardly doing that. He’s effectively giving you a blank cheque.”
“Giving his old school chum Clive Isbister one, you mean. I asked Barney for more than money. I asked for his presence, here, in his home town. And even he’d have to admit I’ve never asked him for-” Tozer broke off and gave a contemptuous snort. “I’m like the dog at the banquet, aren’t I? I’m supposed to be grateful for whatever scrap gets tossed my way.”
“Look, Mr. Tozer, I-”
“Don’t want to be here? I’ll bet you don’t. Doing Barney a favour, are you? Or just doing what he tells you to do? He’s always been good at controlling people. But that’s you and me both, I suppose.”
Harding let the silence that followed grow until it had drawn some sort of line under Tozer’s resentful rant. Then he said quietly, “Do you want my help or not? Whether you succeed in buying this… whatever it is… doesn’t really matter to me, you know.”
“Huh.” The grunt was accompanied by a faint softening of Tozer’s stance. “All right,” he murmured, his gaze shifting evasively. “You’ve made your point.”
“Why don’t you tell me what we’ll be bidding for?”
“Barney held that morsel back, did he? Typical.”
“If you say so. But what is it?”
“It’s in the catalogue. Under the paper.” Tozer pointed to the table. “Lot six four one.”
Harding slid The Cornishman to one side, revealing Isbister’s catalogue for the auction, folded open at a late page. He picked it up. Lot 641 was at the top of the page, circled in red ink.
A Georgian 18kt gold ring, set with an emerald and eleven cushion-shaped diamonds, London 1704, presented in a starburst-patterned ebony and ivory-inlaid box, c. 1870, 2 1/2 in (6.5cm) wide, lb2,000-3,000. (May be bid for as separate lots if desired.)
It was the description of the box rather than the ring that seized Harding’s attention. “Good God,” he said before he could stop himself. “Starburst-patterned.”
“That’s where he got the name for his company from,” said Tozer, sidling closer. “He remembers it as clearly as I do. All of it.”
“All of what?” Harding asked, looking up at him.
“All of the things… I don’t discuss with a stranger.”
“Fair enough.” Harding dropped the catalogue back on the table. “But you do believe this… heirloom… was stolen by your uncle.”
“That proves it.” Tozer jabbed a forefinger at the red-circled entry. “I’m going to see the ring tomorrow. For the first time in nearly forty years.”
“As long as that?”
“Oh yes. Uncle Gabriel clung to it for as many years as he could eke out his life. And now he hopes to cheat me of it from beyond the grave.”
“Where did he steal it from?”
“Our house in Morrab Road. Grandfather’s old-” Tozer broke off, seeming suddenly to sense he had said too much. He peered suspiciously at Harding, who had not failed to notice his use of “me” rather than “us” but tried to give no sign of it. “You don’t need to know any more.”
“Do you want me to come with you… to Heartsease?”
“No.”
“I’d like to see the ring-and the box-for myself.”
“Then go. But later in the day. I’ll be there when they start. At ten.”
It was an explicit warning-off Harding had no choice but to accept it. “All right. I’ll wait till the afternoon.”
“You do that.”
“I’m staying at the Mount Prospect.”
“Barney’s seeing you all right, then.”
And you, you miserable sod, Harding thought but did not say. “You can contact me there or on my mobile,” he said emolliently. He picked up the red ballpoint lying by the catalogue and wrote his number at the foot of the page. “I ought to have your phone number as well.”
“I’m in the book.”
“OK.”
Tozer’s gaze drifted to the catalogue. “The ring and the box… mustn’t be parted.”
“Well, they’re not going to be, are they?”
Tozer looked up at Harding. “No,” he said quietly but firmly. “They’re not.”
Harding did not wait to be asked to leave. Fresh air was what he needed after the rancid chill of Humphrey Tozer’s flat. Fortunately, there was plenty of that billowing in from the bay as he made his way back to the Mount Prospect. He phoned Carol again after his solitary dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, but elicited little sympathy.
“I told you he was bad news.”
“You never mentioned his hygiene problem.”
“I’ve done my best to forget it.”
“Well, at least I won’t have to see much of him. He’s made it obvious he wants me to keep my distance.”
“Do as he asks, then.”
“I will, believe me.”
“The sooner you’re back here, the happier I’ll be.”
“Me too. By the way, did you know Barney got the name Starburst from the box that contains this ring Humphrey wants so badly?”
“No. What does it mean-starburst?”
“It’s a pattern of some kind. I’ll see it at Heartsease tomorrow. But it’s odd, don’t you think? Barney using the name, I mean.”
“Not really. It probably just popped into his head at the time.”
“Yeah. I suppose so.” But that was not what Humphrey thought. He thought it proved the box-and the ring-meant as much to his brother as to him. And though he did not say as much to Carol, Harding was beginning to think so as well.