She stood in her kitchen and emptied the teapot and said without looking at him, ‘Do you know what I’ve been doing since Father died?’
‘Tracking down your sister’s pots?’
‘Yes. Maggie was very meticulous. She kept a record of each one, who bought it, what they paid and when. Some have changed hands several times since then, and a few have suffered accidents, unfortunately, but I think I can account for every one.’
‘Useful.’
‘Some people simply refuse to sell, of course.’
‘To sell? You buy the pots back?’
‘I offer a very fair price. Since Father died I have not been short of money. Altogether, I have reclaimed over seventy pots.’
‘Why? What did you do it for?’
‘For this.’
‘This?’
‘The exhibition.’
Mr Yarrow was rubbing the back of his neck. ‘I don’t understand. You don’t have to repossess all the pots to put them on show. People are usually willing to loan them.’
She smiled again. ‘You obviously think I’m soft in the head, or whatever the current expression is.’
‘I just think it’s a hell of an expensive way to put on an exhibition. Okay, it’s a terrific tribute to your sister, but where does it leave you? On the bread-line, if I know anything about the value of those pots. Even if we go ahead with the show, I can’t guarantee that you’ll get your money back.’
‘The money doesn’t interest me.’
‘They charge a commission on anything they sell.’
Miss Parmenter scarcely heard him. She said, ‘I think you should see the collection now.’
‘Try and stop me,’ said Mr Yarrow.
‘You promise to give your honest opinion?’
‘You can rely on me.’
‘Come this way, then.’ She led him out of the kitchen and through the passage to a door at the end. She stepped aside ‘You may open it and go in.’
Mr Yarrow stepped into the room.
Miss Parmenter waited outside, smiling to herself. ‘Take as long as you like,’ she called out. ‘After all, there’s a lifetime of work in there.’
A lifetime... and more. An old tune was going through her head. Something Father had often whistled when he was in a good mood, one of those mornings when a letter arrived. ‘It’s from our Maggie, and bless me if she hasn’t sold another pot. Isn’t she the cat’s whiskers?’
A pity Father couldn’t have lived to see what his other, disregarded daughter had finally achieved. Or Maggie herself, the brilliant, celebrated Maggie. Wouldn’t she have been astonished!
A step! Mr Yarrow was coming out!
He had taken off his sunglasses. He had blue eyes, and they were open extraordinarily wide, as they should have been after what they had just seen.
She was so anxious that she almost reached out to touch him. ‘Well?’
He fiddled with the collar of his shirt. ‘I’m... lost for words.’
Miss Parmenter gave a nervous laugh. ‘I expect you are, but tell me what you think.’
With a shrug, he said, ‘I’m just amazed, that’s all.’
‘I knew you would be. But you like it, don’t you?’
He turned his eyes aside. ‘It’s an incredible thing to have done. Years of work, I’m sure.’
‘I want to know,’ she told him. ‘You promised to be frank with me.’
‘Right.’ He rubbed his arms as if he suddenly felt a draught of cold air. ‘Shall we go through to your sitting room?’
‘If you wish — but you will be honest?’
Seated in the armchair, he said, ‘Are they all your sister’s pots?’
‘Yes. I told you.’
‘And the shells — did you collect them yourself?’
‘Every morning, from the beach, very early, before anyone else was about.’
‘There must be millions.’
‘I expect so. I had to use the tiny shells, you see. Big ones wouldn’t have done at all. And they all had to be sorted into shapes and colours before I could use them.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Mr Yarrow. ‘How did you fix them to the surface of the pots?’
‘A tile cement. Very strong. There’s no fear of them falling off, if that is what you’re thinking.’
‘Where did you get the idea?’
She chuckled into her handkerchief. ‘Actually, from one of the souvenir shops on the way to the beach. They have all sorts of things decorated with shells. Table lamps, ashtrays, little boxes. Crudely done, of course. You couldn’t call it art.’
‘So you took it upon yourself to buy back every pot your sister ever made and cover them all with seashells.’
‘Decorate them. My designs are very intricate, as I’m sure you appreciate. I have some ideas for the exhibition catalogue, if you are interested. For the cover, I think a close-up photograph of one of the pots, and, in white lettering, Margaret and Cecily Parmenter.’
Mr Yarrow got up and crossed to the corner cupboard. ‘You missed one.’ He picked up the vase he had handled before and rotated it slowly, looking at the glaze. ‘Why did you leave this one?’
‘This?’ She took it from him. ‘Because it’s the only one that belonged to me. She gave it to me.’
‘So it was allowed to escape.’
Miss Parmenter hesitated. ‘Escape?’
His voice changed. There was something in it that made Miss Parmenter go cold. ‘You wanted the truth,’ he told her. ‘You’ve ruined those pots. You’ve destroyed the glaze, the line, the tactile quality, everything. They are no longer works of art.’
She stared at him, unable to find words.
He replaced his sunglasses. ‘I think I’d better leave. All I can say is that you must have hated that sister.’ He started towards the door.
Miss Parmenter still had the vase in her hands. She lifted it high and crashed it on to the back of Mr Yarrow’s skull.
He fell without a sound. Blood flowed across the rosewood table, colouring the splinters of stoneware scattered over its surface.
She went to the cupboard in the kitchen where she kept her sleeping tablets. She swallowed two handfuls and washed them down with water.
Then she went into the room where the pots were ranged on shelves. She opened the window and started dropping them slowly into the courtyard among the empty beercans.
The Corder Figure
Mrs D’Abernon frowned at the ornamental figure on the shelf above her. She leaned towards it to read the name inscribed in copperplate on the base.
‘Who was William Corder?’
‘A notorious murderer.’
‘How horrid!’ She sheered away as if the figure were alive and about to make a grab at her throat. She was in the back room of Francis Buttery’s second-hand bookshop, where cheap sherry was dispensed to regular buyers of the more expensive books. As a collector of first editions of romantic novels of the twenties and thirties, she was always welcome. ‘Fancy anyone wanting to make a porcelain effigy of a murderer!’
‘White earthenware,’ Buttery told her as if that were the only point worth taking up. ‘Staffordshire. I took it over with the shop after the previous owner passed on. He specialised in criminology.’ He picked it up, a glazed standing figure about ten inches in height.
‘The workmanship looks crude to me,’ ventured Mrs D’Abernon, determined not to like it. ‘I mean, it doesn’t compare with a Dresden shepherdess, does it? Look at the way the face is painted; those daubs of colour on the cheeks. You can see why they needed to write the name on the base. I ask you, Mr Buttery, it could be anyone from the Prince of Wales to a peasant, now, couldn’t it?’