She winced at the false name. Ernest had told her it was ‘just a precaution’ but she hated the lie.
‘What have you brought for us today then?’ asked Clive.
Christina offered a polite smile and set the box on the edge of the desk. ‘Bits and pieces from my husband’s family home. We were clearing out the attic. Thought it might be worth checking before we sent it all to the church bazaar.’
She said this lightly, as though she didn’t have Ernest’s lecture on provenance still ringing in her ears. Always say it’s from an attic, Ernest explained. Preferably someone else’s attic. Never from your collection.
She didn’t want to learn the tricks of this side of the business, but Frank’s sciatica hadn’t improved, and she suspected with judicial use of ‘the Great Matter’, this wouldn’t be the last trip she would be forced to make to a remote auctioneer.
Clive shuffled aside a few boxes, pulled hers closer, then lifted out the tureen with both hands and gave a small, appreciative grunt. ‘Very nice. Weighty, isn’t it? This has some substance to it. Let’s have a proper look ...’
She watched as he turned it carefully in his hands. Her mouth went dry. The hallmarks were correct – she had been meticulous – but the sharpness of the stamp always made her nervous. It was a detail that could trigger an expert’s suspicion. She could only pray that Frank’s dismissive comment about the man’s knowledge had been accurate.
She held her breath as Clive peered closer, reaching for a battered magnifying glass.
Outside, a light rain had started – soft drips tapping the window. Her fingers worried at her bag strap. As Clive traced the base with a forefinger, her own itched to retrieve her silver hallmarks book.
Clive frowned, tilted the tureen toward the light, then madea small humming sound. ‘Well now, this is interesting. Quality piece, I can see that much. Solid silver, and the workmanship ... yes, this is by someone who knew what they were doing.’ He squinted through the glass again. ‘The marks are clear, a bit worn, mind you. Could be ... let me see ...’
She let out a breath. Worn was good; she didn’t think she’d overdone the aging. She watched him fumble, angling the glass this way and that. At a London auction house they’d have identified the maker within seconds. They’d have databases, experts with decades of specialist knowledge. Here, Clive was clearly winging it.
He reached for a thick, dog-eared reference book, flipping through pages with his thumb. ‘Right, let’s see what we’ve got here ...’ He tipped the tureen on its side, comparing the marks to illustrations in the book. ‘Could be ... William Eley? Or ...’ More page-turning. ‘Hang on, could be this Paul Storr fellow. The marks are quite similar, you know.’
Christina’s pulse quickened. He had no idea who either of them was – just names in a book. The disparity in value between Eley and Storr was enormous. A silver specialist would know that immediately.
‘Oh, how interesting,’ she managed, trying to sound like someone hearing both names for the first time.
‘Let me just check what these chaps are worth nowadays,’ Clive muttered, opening his laptop. She watched him type slowly, hunt-and-peck style. The irony made her smile. Here she was, someone who knew exactly what she was looking at, pretending to be clueless while he fumbled toward the truth. A moment later, Clive’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Blimey. If this is by this Paul Storr ...’ He sucked in his breath sharply. ‘We could be looking at serious money here.’
‘What’sseriousmoney?’ she asked.
Clive set down the magnifying glass and made some notes.‘Well, that’s the thing. If it’s Eley, we’re looking at perhaps three to four thousand. But if it’s Storr ...’ He whistled softly. ‘Could be fifteen, twenty thousand. Maybe more to the right collector.’
Christina’s composure cracked. That was madness – the difference between the two makers was the difference between a fun holiday and a new car. But she could hardly enlighten him. She was supposed to be Mrs Linton from the countryside, who wouldn’t know a maker’s mark from a postmark. She ran a hand through her hair as if literally pulling herself together.
‘That’s ... quite a range,’ she said carefully.
‘Yes, well, that’s the nature of attribution, isn’t it? Without absolute certainty ...’ He shrugged. ‘Tell you what, we’ll let the market tell us. We’ll put it in with a reserve of £3000 and an estimate of £3000 to £20,000. A sort of “come and buy me” range. Sometimes these pieces surprise you.’
Christina swallowed, though internally she was reeling. £3000 to £20,000? What kind of estimate was that? It was like saying a house was worth between £50,000 and half a million pounds. Antique auction houses would never get away with such sloppy cataloguing. But then again, she realized, that was exactly why she was here. Clive dealt with house clearances, not museum-quality collections.
Which, she had to admit, made them perfect for shuffling on dodgy antique silver. Silver dealers would have online alerts for makers like Paul Storr; the market would find Clive’s remote auction house.
‘I suppose that makes sense,’ she said. ‘We really had no idea. My husband’s family weren’t great record-keepers.’
‘Well, records or no records, someone in the family had good taste. This is quality work, whoever made it.’ He began filling out the consignment form. ‘We’ll put it in the next sale – that’s in three weeks. Gives us time to photograph it properly and get it online.’
Christina signed the forms as Alice Linton with a jerky hand, her heart racing.
‘Thank you so much, Mr ...?’
‘Clive. Just Clive. And thank you, Mrs Linton. Always a pleasure to see something with a bit of quality come through the doors.’
She thanked him and stepped back out into drizzle, her mind still spinning. Ernest had been right – this was the perfect cover for their operation. But seeing the reality of it, the casual way Clive had waved away the difference between a four- and five-figure estimate was more unsettling than she’d expected.
As she walked back to her car, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t just exploiting the system’s weaknesses – they were exposing how fragile the entire edifice really was. She wondered how much of the art and antique world comprised educated guesses and confident bluffing? She sighed to herself. It wasn’t too far off her own carefully constructed persona as Hamish’s wife – the right haircut, the right clothes, the right accent. She had learned to say ‘rather’ instead of ‘quite’ and ‘drawing room’ instead of ‘lounge’, but all of it was a performance, all of it designed to make the Pembertons believe she belonged in their world. Today she’d watched another pretender stumble through his act.
A gust of wind caught her coat, billowing it behind her like a sail. Her fingers dug round in her bag for her phone. She only had one more month of these forgeries, then she’d be free. Free to focus on restoring her marriage, free to divert her energy to Chase Lodge. And the best way to progress that was to speak to her financial adviser
