The childhood passion had stayed with him through school, through university, through a brief tenure lecturing in art history at a small college. Then he had abandoned the steady salary for a much more precarious- and infinitely more interesting- life as a dealer in English porcelain.
"So, will this bowl make your fortune? If you can bear to part with it, that is," Otto added with a twinkle born of long association with dealers.
Alex sighed. "Needs must, I'm afraid. And I have an idea who might be interested."
Otto gazed at him for a moment with an expression Alex couldn't quite fathom. "You're thinking Karl Arrowood would want it."
"It's right up Arrowood's alley, isn't it? You know what Karl's like; he won't be able to resist." Alex imagined the bowl elegantly displayed in the window of Arrowood Antiques, one more thing of beauty for Karl to possess, and the bitterness of his envy seeped into his soul.
"Alex-" Otto seemed to hesitate, then leaned closer, his dark eyes intent. "I do know what he's like, perhaps more than you. You'll forgive my interfering, but I've heard certain things about you and Karl's young wife. You know what this place is like"- his gesture took in more than the café- "nothing stays secret for long. And I fear you do not realize what you're dealing with. Karl Arrowood is a ruthless man. It doesn't do to come between him and the things he owns."
"But-" Alex felt himself flushing. "How-" But he knew it didn't matter how, only that his affair with Dawn Arrowood had become common knowledge, and that he'd been a fool to think they could keep it hidden.
If the discovery of the delft barber's bowl had been an epiphanic experience, so had been his first glimpse of Dawn, one day when he'd stopped by the shop to deliver a creamware dinner service.
Dawn had been helping the shop assistant with the window displays. At the sight of her, Alex had stood rooted to the pavement, transfixed. Never had he seen anything so beautiful, so perfect; and then she had met his eyes through the glass and smiled.
After that, she'd begun coming by his stall on Saturday mornings to chat. She'd been friendly rather than coy or flirtatious, and he'd immediately sensed her loneliness. His weeks began to revolve around the anticipation of her Saturday visits, but never had he expected more than that. And then one day she'd shown up unannounced at his flat. "I shouldn't be doing this," she'd said, ducking her head so that wisps of blond hair hid her eyes, but she had come inside, and now he couldn't imagine his life without her.
"Does Karl know?" he asked Otto.
The other man shrugged. "I think you would know if he did. But you can be sure he will find out. And I would hate to lose a good customer. Alex, take my advice, please. She is lovely, but she is not worth your life."
"This is England, for heaven's sake, Otto! People don't go round bumping people off because they're narked about… well, you know."
Otto stood and carefully reversed his chair. "I wouldn't be so sure, my friend," he replied before disappearing into the kitchen.
"Bollocks!" Alex muttered, resolved to slough off Otto's warning, and he ate his dinner and drank his wine with determination.
His good humor somewhat restored, he walked slowly back to his flat, thinking of the other find he'd made that day- not a steal as the delft bowl had been, but a lovely acquisition just the same, an Art Deco teapot by the English potter Clarice Cliff in a pattern he had seen Dawn admire. It would be his Christmas gift to her, an emblem of their future together.
It was only as he reached the entrance to his mews that a more disturbing thought came to him. If Karl Arrowood learned the truth, was it his own safety which should concern him?
Bryony Poole waited until the door had closed behind the final client of the day, a woman whose cat had an infected ear, before she broached her idea to Gavin. Sitting down opposite him in the surgery's narrow office cubicle, she shifted awkwardly, trying to find room for her long legs and booted feet. "Look, Gav, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about."
Her boss, a bullet-headed man with shoulders that strained the fabric of his white lab coat, looked up from the chart he was finishing. "That sounds rather ominous. Not leaving me for greener pastures, are you?"
"No, nothing like that." Gavin Farley had taken Bryony on as his assistant in the small surgery just after her graduation from veterinary college two years ago, and she still considered herself lucky to have the job. Hesitantly, she continued. "It's just, well, you know how many of the homeless people have dogs?"
"Is this a quiz?" he asked skeptically. "Or are you hitting me up for a donation to the RSPCA?"
"No… not exactly. But I have been thinking a good bit about the fact that these people can't afford care for their animals. I'd like to do some-"
She had his attention now.
"Bryony, that's extremely admirable of you, but surely if these people can afford a pint and a packet of ciggies they can bring a dog in for treatment."
"That's unfair, Gavin! These people sleep in the street because the night shelters won't take their dogs. They do what they can. And you know how much our costs have risen."
"So what can you possibly do?"
"I want to run a free clinic every week, say on Sunday afternoon, to treat minor ailments and injuries-"
"Does this have something to do with your friend Marc Mitchell?"
"I haven't discussed it with him," Bryony replied, her defenses rising.
"And where exactly did you think you'd hold this clinic?"
She flushed. "Well, I had thought Marc might let me use his place…" Marc Mitchell ran a soup kitchen for the homeless- "rough sleepers" the government liked to call them, as if they had voluntarily chosen to take a permanent camping holiday- down the bottom end of the Portobello Road. Of course there was the Sally Army further up, but in the business of providing for the needy there was no such thing as competition. There was never enough to go round. Marc gave them a hot lunch and supper, as well as whatever basic medical supplies and personal items he could get. But perhaps most important was his willingness to listen to them. There was an earnestness about him that encouraged the baring of ravaged souls, and sometimes that in itself was enough to start a person on the road to recovery.
"And how exactly did you intend to pay for the supplies and medications?" Gavin asked.
"Out of my own pocket, to begin with. Then maybe I could ask some of the local merchants for donations."
"You might get a bob or two," he conceded grudgingly. "I don't imagine having mange-ridden dogs hanging about outside one's shop draws in the customers. But say you can get this off the ground. What are you going to do once you form a relationship with these people, then they begin to show up here with a badly injured dog, or an animal with cancer?"
"I- I hadn't thought…"
Gavin shook his head. "We can't cover catastrophic care, Bryony. We just survive as it is, with the increase in rents and your salary. There's no room for noble gestures."
"I'll deal with that when I come to it," she answered firmly. "If nothing else, I can always offer them euthanasia."
"And pay the cost out of your own pocket? You're too noble for your own good." Gavin sighed with resignation as he finished the chart and stood. "I suspected that the first time I saw you."
Bryony smiled. "But you hired me."
"So I did, and I've not regretted it. You're a good vet, and good with the clients, too, which is damn near as important. But…"
"What?"
"It's just that we walk a fine line in this business between compassion and common sense, and I'd hate to see you cross it. It will eat you up, Bryony, this feeling of never being able to do enough. I've seen it happen to tougher vets than you. My advice is, you do the best job you can, then you go home, watch the telly, have a pint. You find some way to let it go."