Toad in the Hole (11 page)

But, as we neared the Waterloo Bridge, the River Thames widened and boat traffic began to clog our path. I knew we were close to our destination, Blackfriar Pass. Being on a boat felt confined and I looked forward to stretching my legs on land. “Slow down. Our dock is just before the next bridge.”

A tourist riverboat cruised so close to us that I could hear the script, “The Hayward and the Strand galleries are a five-minute walk. Trafalgar Square, the London Dungeon a ten-minute stroll. The Waterloo Bridge’s name is in memory of the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian victory at the
Battle of Waterloo
in 1815. Thanks to its location at a strategic bend in the river, the views of London from the bridge are in my opinion the finest.”

Travis pointed.

I nodded.

Dwarfed by the city, a set of docks blended in with the shoreline. I wouldn’t have spotted our stop except for a building that had
Bankside Pier
painted across it. After two days of navigating currents between channels and locks, Travis had a feel for
Her Grace
, and adjusting for wind and current, he maneuvered the tiller and throttle toward an empty slip.

A man in ripped jeans starting shouting, “You can’t leave your vessel here. This is a private dock.”

Travis cut the engine.

“We have a reservation,” I shouted. “Geneva McCarty booked a slip for
Her Grace
.”

Removing a brown tweed flat cap from his head, he scratched sparse pieces of blond hair. “Throw me a line.”

I didn’t hesitate.

Securing the ropes in front and back, he motioned a hand. “Wait here, while I check with the gaffer.”

“Rachael, what if we get booted from here? We’re on a quarter of a tank.”

I started closing cabin windows. After slipping the oyster brooch into an inside pocket of my jacket, I counted four hundred pounds and handed a portion to Travis. “If we can’t stay, we’ll have to ask where we can get fuel and a dock for the night.”

A clanging bell tolled. Besides our boat docking, there wasn’t any late afternoon activity under the shadows of the Blackfriars Bridge.

Planks around the slip creaked and the fellow with the cap returned. “You’re all set.” He held a clipboard. “Just need a signature.”

“What do we owe you?”

“All been pre-paid. We’ll get you some fresh water, groceries, flush the sanitation tank, and re-fuel her before you depart. Is there anything else you’ll be needing?”

I tinkered with the eye of Horus I wore around my neck. “Clothing, food, a shower, and serious luck.”

The dockhand scratched his bearded chin.

Travis gripped my elbow and guided me onto the dock. “Can we get a taxi from here?”

LONDON’S GOT EVERYTHING. Not ten miles beyond Victoria’s Embankment, where we’d caught our taxi, we hit the jackpot: a Marks and Spencer department store. Travis agreed on a forty-minute time limit to find and purchase all the clothes and underwear we needed to get through the boat trip. I finished shopping in thirty, and found him drooling over a Barbour jacket that he claimed was to die for. The price tag popped my eyes wide. Tugging his arm, I dragged him away. “Let’s get to Regent Street before the shops close.”

“What’s the rush? There’s still tomorrow.”

“Let’s get all the shopping and jewelry inquires over with. Tomorrow, we can be tourists.”

“I can’t believe your grandmother sent us up the river without our luggage. Some of my favorite clothes were packed. I hope she didn’t leave it behind at The Oakley.”

My feet locked. “Let’s call the front desk.”

He pulled my arm. “Call and ask to have our luggage delivered?”

I shook loose. “Exactly.”

“Is that code for something?”

“GG may have left a message, in case we call. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before now.”

He squinted at me.

Passing through cosmetics, a woman spritzed me with Calvin Klein
Eternity
. “I saw a red phone box on the street corner. It can’t hurt, right?”
I liked winning him over.

“Stop rushing. We don’t even have the phone number for the hotel.”

Pushing through the front glass doors, we landed on the sidewalk in Covent Garden where shops butted against brick pavers and a bustling street. To the left was the telephone box. I dug in my pocket, past the Pall Malls, I clutched a pack of matches. A gargoyle like the ones on top of The Oakley Court smirked on the match pack front flap.

Peering into my hand he flipped the matchbook over. On the back was the address and phone number. “You smartass.”

I gloated, of course.

The two of us squeezed into the red box and I held out my hand. He removed a palmful of coins from his pocket. “Which one?”

“The one with the queen on it.”

“All the coins have the queen on them.”

“The gold one.”

After I dialed the number, I got rapid beeping and finally figured out by reading the information on the phone that I needed to dial 020 first. The sound wasn’t at all American, but a bling-bling in rapid succession.

“The Oakley Court. May I help you?” a sprite British woman answered.

“I stayed with you earlier in the week and think I left some luggage behind. I was wondering if you could check for me?”

“Most certainly. What name?”

“I’m O’Brien, but the reservation was under my grandmother’s name, Geneva McCarty.”

“Will you hold please?” she said, and switched the line to “Do You Want To Know A Secret.”

“What’d she say?”

Wind rattled the partially open booth door. I put the phone to his ear. “They love their Beatles.”

I held one large shopping bag and Travis had two. Stuffed into a space smaller than a portable toilet, I noticed that a similar smell permeated the air. The longer I waited, the more I began to think about who’d been in here before me and what they’d done.

Travis eyed the golden arches down the street and quipped, “Where’s the beef?”

I began to drool over the thought of a Big Mac and Coke with lots of ice. After some of the meals we’d eaten, the thought of the special sauce made my mouth water.

Without room to move and air that hung around us like week-old sweat socks. Travis said, “Hang up.”

About to bail on the Oakley angle, I pulled the phone from my ear when I heard a man’s voice ask, “Rachael O’Brien, is it?”

“Yes.”

“We do have some items left for you. If you can give me your location, I can have a car bring them to you.”

A wayward crumpled newspaper blew past the booth, triggering a switch in my head. The voice that spoke on the phone was different. It was British, but the way he addressed me was slow like I was a child. “What items do you have exactly?”

He paused. “There’s a suitcase in back with your name pinned to it.”

I could hear a slight clicking on the line, subtle and not as raspy as static.
This was taking forever.
“Just one suitcase?”

“As far as I know. Are there others in your party?”

Travis pretended he was holding a burger then thumbed a gesture in the direction of the McDonald’s down the street.

“Are there any messages for me?”

“Messages?” he repeated. “If you’ll hold the line, I’ll…”

“Please deposit another twenty pence,” a voice echoed. I hung up.

Travis futzed to get the door open. “What was all that about?”

“He said they had a suitcase of mine.”

“A lot of good that does us.”

“They said they’d drop it off.”

“Is someone from the hotel coming to the dock?”

Burying our heads in our jacket collars we moved down the block. “I think he was fishing for our location so I hung up.”

NOTE TO SELF

Have a sinking feeling that whatever went down at The Oakley Court the night we left was not good.

S
acked

I
slid out of the taxi on Regent Street. Standing beneath the glow of a streetlamp, a twinge of guilt flinched in my chest. Truth be told, it was the Big Mac I’d greedily consumed. Eating American fast food in a foreign country somehow seemed indulgent. No one said anything, but my conscience told me I’d snubbed English cuisine.

After paying the taxi driver, I stood on the sidewalk and hesitated. A few businesses up the street were open, but it was dark inside Garrard’s storefront.
Dead end
, I thought and cursed myself for letting the taxi go.

Arm in arm, two well-endowed women with outlandishly tight, low cut dresses and four-inch heels waddled toward us. One of the ladies had a sparkly purse under her arm.

Travis gawked as they passed and one abruptly stopped. “Buy us a drink, lover, and there might be some fluff and tickle in your future.”

“Are you a pearly queen?” Travis asked.

Each had thirty years on us but they didn’t seem to care. Placing a hand on her heart, she pursed her lips, “If that’s what you fancy, then I am.”

Slipping my arm through Travis’s, I tugged. “Have a nice night.”

“Charming, be that way.” Giggles softened as the two continued on their way down the street.

“Are you sure this is the right address?”

I was sure GG’s handwriting in the notebook read Regent Street.

The storefronts we stood against were constructed from a white-gray stone. The elaborate building entrances were intricately carved with cherubs and vines placed in repetitious symmetry on top of the arched windows. Up and down the cobbles, Union Jacks were strung like clothes on a line, connecting one side of shops to the other.

In front of number one hundred and twelve the overhead lights were off, but we could see a pile of papers, dust, and flattened cardboard boxes unevenly stacked in the center of the marble floor. A dustpan and broom lay nearby. The velvet-lined jewelry cases were bare. In the corner, a wispy-haired old geezer in a tweed vest and tartan bowtie sat slumped with his chin on his chest in an office chair.

Turning on his heel, Travis said. “Well, we tried. Let’s find a pub walking distance and sample all the ales.”

I reached for the door and Travis gripped my hand.

“Rachael, this place is empty.”

“Maybe they moved. The guy inside may know something.”

“These shopping bags are heavy. Let’s get back to the boat, unload, and regroup.”

“We’re here,” I said as I swung the door open.

The man in the chair tipped his head back and swigged from a bottle of amber scotch. Without acknowledging us, he broke into a low and somber tune. “Through the streets broad and narrow, crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O.”

It surprised me that the door of a vacant shop was unlocked. I had both feet inside when Travis warned, “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

With a wave, I said, “Hello, Sir.”

The man in the tweed kept singing. The next verse came out louder and slurred. “Crying cockles and mussels and mussels and cockles and cockles alive-O.”

“Is everyone in this town a pearly king?” Travis asked.

When we were halfway across the room, Travis stopped to rest the shopping bags on top of an empty glass case.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“Ah no. This is your show.”

I handed him my purchases and moved toward the karaoke king in the corner. He’d stopped singing words, and started to hum.

“Excuse me. So sorry to trouble you. We were looking for Garrard’s Jewelry store.”

“Gone. It’s all gone,” he stammered then took a heavy gulp from the bottle.

Travis motioned a come-hither wave in my direction. “Alrightie. Thanks very much. We’ll be going now.”

“What do you mean it’s all gone?”

“A lad,” he said emphasizing the ‘a’ into a long vowel. “An apprentice to my father at fifteen I was.” Raising a finger, he made sure we paid attention. “My old man worked on the crown jewels and the world’s finest collections under a fine sovereign, the ‘Uncle of Europe.’ Fifty three years of my life!”

Struggling to decipher his words, I snapped to attention when he spouted, “Go on, get out of here. Garrard’s is closed. As management liked to say, merged. They’ve shagged the competition. My position is eliminated. Sacked, goddamn it.”

My feet shuffled backward and locked. A tingle of excitement surged. “I didn’t catch your name?”

“They call me Sonny. It’s my disposition. Always cheery you know.” he said, attempting a smile that turned into a crooked leer.

Travis held the door open and bobbed his head in the direction of the street.

“Lad’s got a funny tick,” Sonny said. “Ought to get it seen to.”

Fishing inside my jacket pocket, I opened my palm, holding the amethyst-encrusted oyster.

My hand was steady, but the old man’s left eye began to twitch.

“Can you tell me anything about this?”

“Who are you?” he rasped.

“I’m Rachael O’Brien.”

“Another bloody American. She didn’t have children. Not with him. Are you some destitute descendant of that woman?”

I noticed the glint of a golden chain fastened to his buttonhole and the jeweler’s magnifying loupe that hung down his chest. “You must have me confused with someone else.”

He drew back and gave me a bleak look. “It’s junk. The door’s behind you.”

“It’s an Asprey.”

 “Hapless amateurs,” he spat. “They can go to hell.”

A gust from outside blew the swept dirt pile into disarray. Travis’ foot lodged against the glass door. “Come on, Rachael. You must have misread Geneva’s note.”

I knew I hadn’t. It definitely said Sonny at Garrard’s on Regent Street.

A cane I hadn’t noticed was hooked on the back of Sonny’s chair. Snatching it, he leveraged himself up and moved forward. “Geneva McCarty?”

I nodded.

“She asked me to look you up. The oyster brooch was gifted to her from Wallis Simpson. She wanted to get it valued and find out if there’s any history behind it.”

“Where is she?”

Travis let go of the door and it shut.

I focused on the toe of my shoe as I drew circles on the gritty floor tile. “It’s a long story. The short version is that while we were staying at The Oakley Court there was some kind of raid. Geneva, my grandmother, sent us down the river on a boat. We’re due to meet up in a few days.”