Part 23 (2/2)

Before long, though, these thoughts were pushed to the back of her mind, and she immersed herself in what she'd been doing before the phone call. It was nearly an hour later, when she'd finished compiling a code, that she remembered Dangerous Dave had wanted her for something.

The thing about R.E.M., Will thought as he drove out of town on Tuesday morning with the volume turned up on his outmoded ca.s.sette player, was that you could tie yourself up in Michael Stipe's lyrics. Some made no sense at all, while others were diamond-bright with the strength of their clarity. Those were the lyrics you had to think about. That was often when Stipe was being his most enigmatic and was fooling you into believing you'd got him sussed. Which was how life was, Will had come to realise. One minute you had it all in place and the next you were flailing around helplessly.

Ever since his spectacular fall from grace, his life had jogged along quite nicely. The trick, he'd frequently told Marty, was to keep things simple. And he'd done that to great effect. Until now. Now there were complications coming at him from all sides. The biggest one was Suzie. She was six months pregnant and Maxine was still struggling to come round to the inevitable. She had taken to ringing Will to discuss Suzie's future. Or lack of it, as she saw it. 'Steve and I were looking forward to that day when we'd have the house to ourselves,' she said on one occasion. 'Now we're going to have a baby living with us. And for how long? It's not fair to Steve. He didn't marry me only to end up with a baby permanently under his feet.'

Will could sympathise; he enjoyed his freedom after all. 'Suzie's more than welcome to move in with me,' he'd said.

'How very magnanimous of you,' Maxine had replied stiffly. 'But I somehow don't see Suzie forgoing her comfortable bedroom and en suite bathroom to rough it with you in Maple Drive.'

'Thanks a bunch.'

'Oh, please don't start; you know what I mean.'

'Aren't you forgetting we started out in far less salubrious surroundings? When you're young you can rough it without even realising it.'

'Thank you for reminding me that I'm getting older.'

'It happens to the best of us, Maxine. Or should I say Granny?'

The attempt at humour hadn't gone down well. But grandparents they were about to become, whether they liked it or not, and the sooner Maxine got used to the idea, the better for them all. He couldn't exactly say he was thrilled at the new persona he was about to adopt: Grandfather. It put at least another twenty years on him, which he'd rather not feel right now. And that brought him to the other equally unexpected complication in his life.

Harriet.

He wasn't used to being turned down by women and he wasn't sure he could handle it if Harriet said no. He still hadn't plucked up the courage to ask if she'd like to come to the Jools Holland concert with him. Part of him reasoned that if he left it to the last minute, he could convince himself that if she turned him down it was because she already had something else arranged. But he really wanted her to say yes, and not just to please his vanity. In a way he wanted to test himself and see if he really was as intrigued by her as he thought he was.

It would serve him right if she said yes and then made him wear a bag over his head like John Hurt in The Elephant Man. 'You didn't actually think I'd be seen out in public with you, did you?' he could imagine her saying.

Every time he thought of Harriet - which he did frequently - he was reminded of that tough, determined spirit of hers. There was something quite magnificent about her, he'd decided. Heroic even.

He was five minutes early for his eleven o'clock appointment, but it didn't bother the elderly lady who answered the door of the terraced house. She ushered him through to the sitting room, where there was a tea tray awaiting his pleasure, and a coal fire that was hissing and spitting noisily. 'I've only just made the tea,' she said, 'so we'll let it brew, shall we?'

Will preferred his tea weak - like gnat's pee, Marty joked - but he said, 'That'll be perfect.' The old ladies always made tea for him and he always made a point of drinking it politely, no matter how stewed it was. 'Do you want to show me the cabinet you mentioned on the phone?' he asked. He'd already clocked the furniture in the sitting room; mostly post-war utility, which in itself had a market, but not one Will was interested in.

He followed her back out into the hall, which now felt like the Arctic after the heat of the small sitting room, and then along the narrow pa.s.sage to a dining room. Whenever he dealt with the SOLs - the Sweet Old Ladies as Jarvis called them - he kept in mind one of his mentor's apocryphal tales. 'Beware Laddie,' Jarvis had warned him, 'of the helpless old dear who gives you the sob story about her husband dying from lung cancer and how she doesn't know how she's going to sc.r.a.pe together the money for the funeral. It's the oldest scam going. You look at the woodworm-riddled bit of tat she wants to sell and you know it's worth thirty quid tops, but you feel so sorry for her you divvy up sixty. Meanwhile, round the back is her son, dusting down the next piece of heartbreaking tat.'

'It belonged to an aunt,' this particular old lady said now as she pointed towards a cabinet that was packed to the gunwales with pieces of china and silver. Strictly speaking it wasn't a cabinet, it was a credenza - trust the Italians to come up with a posh word for a side cabinet with display shelves at either end. This was a very fine Victorian example - burr walnut with a marquetry frieze, a central panelled door flanked by two glazed doors, tapering columns with gilt metal borders, a plinth base and bun feet, and only a modic.u.m of wear and tear. The patination of the wood was exquisite and he ran a hand up and down one of the elegant columns. A s.h.i.+ver ran through him. Without inspecting the back or even opening the door, he knew he was looking at four thousand pounds' worth, give or take.

'What do you think of it?' the woman asked anxiously, as though he was judging a favourite child.

'I think it's beautiful. But do you really want to part with it?'

'Oh, yes. My friends and I are planning a holiday and I thought this might help pay for it.'

Will could hear Jarvis hissing in his ear. Beware Laddie! Remember those SOLs! 'Where are you and your friends thinking of going?'

'A coach trip to Scotland. My husband, when he was alive, wasn't much of a traveller, but now I'm on my own, I've decided to have some fun. Do you think this might pay for a few nights in a guest house?'

Thinking of his mother's fondness for travel since she'd been widowed, Will said, 'I'll be dead straight with you. This will pay for more than a coach trip to Scotland. You could go on a luxury cruise with the proceeds.'

'Oh, dear me no. That would never do. I get seasick just having a bath.'

He smiled. 'What I'm trying to say is that this is a really fine piece of furniture. Its value is about three and a half thousand pounds. Maybe a tad more.'

'Really? Are you sure? It just belonged to my aunt. She was nothing special.'

'I don't know about your aunt, but this I am sure about.'

'Well, in that case, we'd better have that cup of tea. Goodness. What a day it's turning out to be.'

Two cups of tar-strength tea later, he was on the road with the credenza in the back of his car. He'd given the woman a fair price and knew that Jarvis would be frothing at the mouth when he laid eyes on it. It was a beauty. The kind of find that brightened the darkest of days.

He drove back to Kings Melford, where he was meeting Marty for lunch at Brian's burger bar. For once, Marty was late and Will chatted to Brian about the weather, the lack of punters and the c.o.c.k-up the government was making of everything. 'It's all them spin-doctors,' was Brian's considered opinion as he slapped two burgers about on the hotplate. His conviction was such that Will didn't feel inclined to argue with him. Instead he wrapped his fingers around his polystyrene cup and scanned the market for Marty's approaching figure. It wasn't like Marty to be late. Perhaps a client had overrun and kept him. He took a sip of his hot chocolate, glad of its sweet warmth.

The forecast was that winter was on its way. Just as it should be. It was, after all, bonfire night in two days' time. He thought of all those years he'd put on monster displays of fireworks for Gemma and Suzie. There'd been times, looking back, when perhaps he'd been a little reckless. One year he'd nearly blown his hand off. Maxine had gone berserk, screaming that he was out of his mind and that he could have got them all killed. Very calmly, despite the searing pain in the palm of his hand, which he was trying to subdue with a packet of frozen peas, he'd said, 'I think I'll just pop along to the hospital if that's okay with you.' That was the year he'd spent seven hours in casualty and a week off work. He still had the scar and sometimes, when he stretched his hand open too far, he was reminded of what an idiot he'd been.

He caught sight of Marty hurrying over and waved. 'Sorry I'm late,' Marty said, his face flushed red from the cold.

'No worries. Difficult client I presume?'

'Yeah, something like that. Have you ordered?'

'Naturally.' He turned to Brian. 'How are the burgers doing?'

'Ready when you are.'

They took their lunch and strolled through the market - Brian's only table and set of chairs were already occupied. 'How's Suzie?' Marty asked, as they stood absently browsing a CD and DVD stall.

'Other than not liking how pregnant she now looks, she's well. The sickness has eased off.'

'And Maxine?'

'Not too much change there yet.'

'She'll come round.'

'Even for a lawyer you sound unfeasibly sure.'

Marty shrugged. 'People just need time to adjust.'

'My, you're philosophical today.'

When Marty didn't respond, Will said, 'You okay? You don't seem your usual self.'

Marty picked up a CD of an old s.e.x Pistols alb.u.m. 'Do you remember us thinking this was the last word in world-changing music? How we ever fell for it, I'll never know. It'll take more than a few clever lyrics and bashed-out chords to change the world for the better.'

<script>