“I never needed that for you.” My own wicked smile was there now. “I can show you if you want proof.”
“Can it wait until the van’s been? I’m not sure speed is our talent anymore.” A look of victory crossed her face. “Got the bastard.”
She sat back up, pulling her hand out, holding a wide box that was low.
“Why did we think it was a good idea to put anything down there?” It’d very nearly been forgotten.
“If we were burgled, they’d never find it. But it should’ve gone to Killian’s to keep safe. Or we should’ve distributed these.” She opened the box and gave a sigh of relief. “Emeralds and diamonds. These really should’ve been secured.”
“What do you want to do with them?” I shuffled closer and looked at them. They were another family heirloom, won in a card game years ago, maybe a century, and kept in Marie’s family, passed on as a rainy day fund that’d never been cashed in.
“Immediately or long term?”
“Both. Because I don’t want to keep them in the apartment and the kids don’t need them as a rainy day fund anymore.”
“Immediately, Killian. Long term, they’re for splitting between the grandkids, ours and Bernadette’s. The others get something else – I can’t remember what. I think we meant to let the kids use them as engagement rings or something like that but well, they did their own thing. We could have them made into jewellery for their twenty-first birthdays. I’ll speak to Bernie.” She stood up, wincing slightly which would’ve been her knee. There was every chance that a knee replacement was on the horizon, for which the recuperation would be spent in Oxford, not in London, which would be time away from most of the grandkids.
“Speak to Bernie. Want me to take these round to Killian’s?” I took the box off her.
“You can’t just walk round with them. What if you’re mugged?”
I shrugged. “No one will know I’ve got them. Claire’s in Oxford so he can’t come round here and leave the kids, so I’ll take them to him.” Killian had his own security firm, which meant his house was like Fort Knox. He had a panic room, which Claire had locked herself in once when she’d had enough of her girls, and a safe that there was no way anyone was getting into.
“Drive round then.” She looked concerned. “How the fuck did we nearly forget them?”
I shrugged. “We wouldn’t have. You remembered. But maybe we need to look at some of your parochial habits and bring them into the twenty-first century. I bet these were hidden under floorboards at some point, weren’t they?” I looked at the box, which wasn’t in the best of shape.
“Undoubtedly. They were in the bread oven in my auntie’s kitchen for a time too, and under her mattress. No one would’ve dared steal them from her. She’d have chopped their hands off.”
“I get the feeling you’re not joking.”
“You met her. The Christmas after we got married and spent it in Ireland. She died about three days after New Year and one of the older cousins was really pissed off because she still owed her card money.”
“That auntie?” I did remember her. “She was lethal.”
“Exactly. Now get those round to Killian’s and tell him not to tell Claire about them, else she’ll have them made into earrings or something.”
I walked round, because when else would I get chance to walk anywhere carrying jewels worth more than a small country, although for all Marie knew, they could be cut glass. I doubted they’d ever been valued or assessed, and I wasn’t sure they everwould. If they’d been won in a card game a century or so ago, there was every chance they weren’t real, but family legends were.
Killian was covered in what looked like vomit when he opened the door. I eyed him with suspicion. I knew only too well the power of a bug when it whipped around children and I wasn’t stepping in there if it was contagious.
“What happened?”
“Orla and chocolate milk, ice cream and whipped cream for breakfast. With cereal. That’s what happened. Don’t tell Claire.” He let me through. “Feel free to get a cloth out. I just need to dump her in the bath.”
He left me to it, so I made myself useful and cleared up the vomit before someone or something walked through it, and then I made coffee, the jewellery box on the side, perfectly safe.
My granddaughters were all occupied, two of them reading in the lounge, and the youngest making bracelets out of beads. I was pretty sure I’d be made to wear one of them before I left and take at least one home to Grandma.
Killian entered the kitchen looking cleaner and smelling better. “Thanks,” he said looking round. “Orla found it really funny, which didn’t help.”
“Is she still in the bath?”
He nodded. “She’s contained in there so I’ll have a bit of peace, for oh, about ten minutes. Is that coffee?” I passed him a mug I’d made.
I’d known Killian a long time. He’d become friends with Max in their first year at Oxford university, spending holidays and summers with us in Oxford. I’d seen early on how Claire looked at him because she’d never been very good at masking how she felt, and I hadn’t been surprised when Marie told me they’d been secretly seeing each other, which involved her breaking hisheart first. He was a good man, a good husband and an excellent father, and now in charge of the family jewels.
“The family jewels?” He frowned when I explained the box.
