Guilty Pleasures

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First world edition published 2011

in Great Britain and in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

Copyright © 2011 by Judith Cutler.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Cutler, Judith.

Guilty pleasures. – (A Lina Townend mystery)

1. Townend, Lina (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

2. Antique dealers–Fiction. 3. Aristocracy (Social class)–Fiction.

4. Theft–Fiction. 5. Detective and mystery stories.

I. Title II. Series

823.9′2-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-078-4 (ePub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8048-2 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-362-5 (trade paper)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

For Vanya Cheney, with thanks for all her encouragement,

not to mention the title. Thanks too to the real vicars,

churchwardens and congregations in

my life: may their fêtes always be profitable.

ONE

A
hot and sticky afternoon toiling at another village's church fête is not my idea of pleasure. But when my old friend Robin Levitt, the vicar, phoned me to beg for my help, it was hard to say no.

‘The couple who promised to take charge of the second-hand book stall both managed to pull muscles playing tennis yesterday afternoon.' He sighed down the phone. ‘Fast and furious, they said. Oh dear, why aren't they keen on something dangerous, like white-water rafting?'

Why indeed? Except there wasn't too much opportunity for that in Kent.

‘Sounds more furious than fast to me,' I said. ‘What do I need to do?' I asked, admitting defeat without so much as a skirmish.

‘Just stand behind ranks and ranks of tatty paperbacks and flog them to punters. You can do bulk discounts if you want – the former organist likes to buy a dozen crime at a time, preferably hard-boiled. Eighty-five and on a Zimmer. But she likes her blood and gore. And someone in the choir snaps up bodice-rippers quicker than you can unzip a . . . Sorry, Lina, not an appropriate image for a man of the cloth.'

His Adam's apple would be in mid-bobble.

‘Don't mind me,' I said. ‘Unzip whatever simile you want.' I was proud of that word. My education had been pretty well zero, in formal terms, but then Griff, my dear friend and better-than-a-grandfather, came into my life and rescued me from – well, everything that lies in wait for a young girl going wild on the streets. He not only gave me a roof over my head, he also taught me all he knew about antiques, and, most important of all, he loved me and let me love him. He also tried to make up what I'd missed when I'd skived off school. Similes and metaphors were just part of the latest stage of my education – simply because they existed, I suppose. Like onomatopoeia. I do love words like that, even if I can't always remember them, or, of course, what they mean.

God knows how I'd manage on a bookstall.

Robin embarked on a garbled apology. For one whose sermons were nice and short and clear – not that I heard many of them, most of my Sundays being taken up with antiques fairs – he was terribly prone to getting tangled up in everyday speech. ‘The thing is, it's special – a matter of life and death, if you can say a building lives, though it can certainly be killed. And it might be a total waste of effort, but I have to try.'

‘What time do you want me to turn up?' I asked, cutting across the knot, like some Greek hero Griff once told me about. I needed to know because Griff had a lunch date in London with an old friend and I would have to get cover in our shop. Mary Walker was always happy to work extra shifts, provided her shiny new fiancé could sit with her and tap away on his laptop. He was a retired accountant turned practising poet.

Robin was still apologetic. ‘If I could get someone to set up the stall for you . . .'

‘The best way for me to get to know what I've got is to lay everything out myself. Very well,' I mused as I jotted a note to myself, ‘so it's pretty much an all-day affair.'

Perhaps I shouldn't have used that noun. Robin once had a bit of a thing for me. I might have had a bit of a thing for him as well, if it hadn't been for two other things: the damned Adam's apple, and, more important, his calling. Some of any antique dealer's life involves buying cheap and selling dear, and while Griff and I are proud of our reputation for absolute honesty about the provenance and integrity of our stock, there are one or two things I wouldn't want people to know about. People such as policemen and clergymen, who have to keep a closer eye than the average person on what Griff calls laws temporal and laws spiritual.

He swallowed. I heard the glug down the phone. ‘We've got a Celebrity opening the fête at two,' he managed, ‘so everything has to be set up by then. There are several hundred books in the vestry already, and people may bring more . . .'

‘Excellent,' I said briskly. It was either that or swear in a way neither he nor Griff would approve of. ‘I'd better be there by eleven, then. Oh, Robin – just one thing! Which church?'

Robin juggled at least five churches, maybe six, and it would never do to turn up at the wrong one. I knew St Mary's, and St Peter and St Paul's (yes, the two saints have to share the one building) because both churches were pretty well down the road from where my father lived, but he named one I'd never heard of, St Jude's, in Kenninge, an outpost right in the south of his benefice.

‘Maybe you'd better bring a few sarnies because the tea ladies are very strict about not selling anything before the fête starts. And by then I hope you'll be too rushed off your feet to eat. The good news is there's a loo in what used to be the parson's stables,' he added. ‘A bit basic, but a loo.'

You see what I mean about Robin being honest.

Since Griff was keener on Robin than on any of the other men I'd been linked with, he rubbed his hands with glee when I told him how I'd be spending my Saturday. ‘The weather forecast's excellent. You should wear that delicious little straw hat that sets off your cheekbones so well. I'll bake a couple of cakes for those dragons of tea ladies – and you could take some of those books we got landed with at the last auction,' he added, with a bit more self-interest.

I could indeed. We'd wanted an immaculate calf-bound set of Fanny Burney for a collector friend of Griff's, and we'd had to buy eight cardboard boxes of tat to get it. I'd been meaning to take the rest of the books to my favourite charity shop, Oxfam, but maybe there'd be something the organist would fancy. Any leftovers could always go to Oxfam anyway.

When I turned up mid-morning on Saturday, I found that my stall was sheltered from any wind and most of the sun by a truly revolting Victorian family tomb, standing maybe ten foot high and draped with grumpy-looking angels. It blocked my view of what seemed to be a very old church indeed, the roof line sagging in the middle and one of the walls way out of true. There was no time to take a closer look now, however. I'd got to sort out all the boxes of books, both Griff's donation and those Robin had promised, which had been dumped beside the trestle tables. No one seemed particularly pleased to see me, and smiles only cracked faces when I produced Griff's gateaux for the cake team. Maybe it was something to do with the fact I'd used our van, with Tripp and Townend blazoned all over it. Perhaps they thought I was there to scavenge, not to give my most precious commodity, time.

On the other hand, there was an interesting-looking bric-a brac stall. And already a couple of familiar figures were sneaking up to it. Our instructions had been delivered with military clarity by a short woman clearly born to command, despite a mouthful of the worst teeth I'd ever seen. We were to sell nothing to anyone for any reason till we'd been Declared Open. The gentle-faced woman in charge of the bric-a-brac – far too much for one person to manage, spread over acres of tables – fluttered her beautifully manicured hands anxiously in a rather feeble protest. Minnie Fielding and Mel, who didn't, as far as I knew, have another name, were bottom-of-the-pond dealers who would make mincemeat of her and snaffle up anything worth having for no more than a couple of bob. And then they'd sidle up to people like Griff and me and try to flog it for as much as if it had impeccable provenance. Good luck to them – but not on my watch.

I sauntered over and simply slotted in behind the stallholder, folding my arms. Maybe I was born to command too – I might ask my disreputable father if we'd got any military glory in our genes. Mel and Minnie did a double take. Last time we'd met I'd told them where to put their identical fake Gallé vases, all four of them. And here I was guarding their prey. ‘It's not two yet,' I said.

Mumbling that they had to be somewhere else by then, they hunched away from me and fixed my new companion with beseeching eyes. ‘That little lady – I'll give you a quid,' Mel whispered, pointing at a filthy Worcester figure which, even with that damaged finger, might fetch £25 at a fair. Incidentally, if I restored her, she'd fetch a lot more.

‘It's not two o'clock yet,' I said again, as much to my companion as to them. ‘And the churchwarden will kill if we let anything go before then. If you want this lady – and she's worth twenty of anyone's money – you'll just have to be late for your next appointment, won't you?'

They agreed it would be better not to be, and sloped off.

‘If they come back, get someone to call me,' I told the bemused stallholder. ‘I'm Lina, by the way.'

‘As in Lena Horne?'

‘Yes, but spelt with an I.'

‘And I'm Marjorie.'

We exchanged a friendly smile. She was probably in her sixties, but trim and with just enough colour in her hair.

‘Those two,' I added, ‘Minnie and Mel – I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.'

‘But not if no one else wants the stuff?'

I nearly said something foolish, like, ‘I'll buy anything worth having myself and tell you what really ought to go to the tip, so it won't clog you up next year.' Nearly. Not quite. Griff would have killed me.
I
would have killed me. ‘Look, how are you pricing this lot? It's mostly tat, and dirty tat too.' I picked up a plastic cruet set with mustard still encrusted on it. ‘But some things are worth a bit. Why don't I put things on different tables: twenty pounds, fifteen, ten, five? Then the rest you can sell to anyone mug enough to offer you a quid – or even just take it off your hands.' That was by far the largest proportion. ‘And if you're in any doubt, just ask me.'