NINE

There wasn’t any need for us to drive from the hire-car firm in Ashford in convoy, so Robin set off in the van – I was only insuring the car for me – while I finished off the paperwork. I got a deal for three days. By the time I had to return it I should have worked out my next move. Should. Very big should. Maybe, more accurately, a might.

Once I’d got used to the new wheels – a silver Ka, pretty well invisible amongst all the other silver Kas, I thought – I drove briskly, taking the A20, not the M20, which the hire car guy told us was bunged up after a lorry had shed its load. Poor Robin would be stuck outside our yard until I arrived, unless Mrs Walker decided to risk letting him in.

It’s a really nice route, once an art . . . artisanal . . . artesian? . . . road. It had been the main one to the coast till they built the M20, which was so often used as a giant car park during Operation Stack that I tended to use the old one as my regular route. Arterial, that’s it! Mostly it’s an ordinary single carriageway, without too many overtaking opportunities, as Robin had discovered yesterday. It had its share of rubber on the tarmac, where motorists had skidded back into their own lane, or been forced over by petrol-head overtakers coming towards them. Now, in a winding stretch between two picture-book villages, with woodland either side of the road, there was a brand new set of skid marks. They led straight into the grass verge, which had been chewed up by the car as it’d struggled free.

I felt very cold.

Telling myself that at least there was no wreck visible, so if it was him he must be safe, I pressed on.

Mrs Walker made a good mug of tea, and Robin was securely wrapped round one when I ran him to earth in the shop. The van, splattered with mud, but intact, was safe inside the yard, the gates locked and security activated. I decided I must discuss with Griff the possibility of giving her a rise.

‘This guy tried to run me off the road,’ Robin said. ‘But then he backed off: something to do with a police car coming in the opposite direction, maybe. Why on earth didn’t they book him? Anyway, knowing the roads round here I was able to dodge around a bit and shake him off. So here I am, safe and sound. But as soon as you’ve had a cuppa too, I must ask you to take me back to my car. I’ve got a benefice to run, Lina.’

This was the most firmly he’d ever spoken to me.

‘No problem. And while I’m on the road, I’ll pop on to see Freya Webb, or one of her minions. Unless you think you were the victim of straight bad driving, maybe you should come too. I doubt if we’ll see her, since DCIs seem to spend their lives in budget meetings, but I’m sure she’ll have a well-briefed underling.’

He nodded without comment, and soon, having called ahead to warn her, we were on the road.

To my amazement, ready to sign us in and give us our visitors’ IDs, there was Freya in person, looking very spruce, with fresh make-up. Actually, I wasn’t amazed at all. This time Freya’s blush was matched by one from Robin. He must be seven or eight years younger than she, but who cared? I wasn’t going to go down the cougar-toyboy route. Griff would rub his hands with glee when I told him, despite his not very secret hopes of Robin and me getting together.

Robin gave his story first, but I was almost as disappointed as Freya by the lack of detail. He didn’t even recall the make of the car, just that it was large, black and mud-spattered. ‘At first I thought it was bad driving,’ he said. ‘And then I thought of Lina and that accursed box.’

At which point, it was my turn. ‘If Bugger Bridger really didn’t recognize the snuffbox,’ I concluded, ‘then I wonder if someone put it in the box while it was in his old stable. Or at the fête itself, of course. And then they wanted it back.’

Robin blinked. ‘So why didn’t they simply ask for it? I’d have been happy to hand it over.’

Exactly. Chummie’s mistake had been to grab it and run, not ask politely. Robin would have asked a few questions first, but if he’d been satisfied, he’d have been reasonableness itself.

I might have been, too.

‘Perhaps it wasn’t really his to ask for,’ I said. ‘If it was stolen in the first place, he could hardly make a reasonable case for its return, could he?’

He looked troubled. ‘It’s a big assumption.’

Freya laughed kindly. I wondered how long she’d find his nai . . . nia . . . his innocence funny. ‘I think it’s a justifiable one, given all the events since. I’ve had one of the team go through the missing property register, but I can’t find an exact match. But we’re not experts, of course. It’s not really Will’s period, is it, Lina?’ If she expected a blush from me, she didn’t get one. ‘So I contacted Reg Morris, from the Met.’

I joggled my mug of coffee, as if to stir the milk in better. ‘Fancy calling a kid Reg,’ I said. ‘No wonder he prefers just Morris. Anyway, what did he say?’

‘You’ll be able to ask him yourself later. He’s working somewhere in Sussex and said he’d make a detour in on his way back to London.’

A casual look at my watch, as if I had other things to do with my day than hang around. ‘Any idea what time he’s expected?’

‘Five-ish? Six-ish?’

She didn’t seem particularly interested, and why should she? She probably had more than enough to do until then. Killing time was my problem. My first task was obviously to take Robin back to his car – except I had a shrewd suspicion he’d rather someone else offered. So when my phone announced an incoming text, I took it at once. It was from a client, happy with a restoration job and telling me to expect a call from a friend wanting me to tackle a broken statuette, but Freya and Robin weren’t to know.

‘Problem?’ Robin asked, professionally concerned but not really ready to leap to his feet and abandon his coffee and the company.

‘Not if Freya can organize a lift for you.’ I maintained my serious expression.

Freya said easily, ‘I’m sure we can manage that,’ but couldn’t suppress a tiny blush. ‘I’ll tell Reg Morris to call you to fix a meeting place, shall I? Before his journey’s end?’ she added with a little malice in her smile I didn’t understand.

‘It had better be here,’ I said firmly, digging in the bag. ‘Because this is where the snuffbox is staying. OK?’ I plonked it on her desk, where it sat as pathetic and bedraggled as a wet sparrow. ‘I’d like a tattoo on my forehead saying I haven’t got it any more, but I don’t suppose you can arrange that, can you?’

What she could arrange was someone to escort me out. Suddenly, the air felt fresher: I had an anonymous set of wheels, Robin might soon have another squeeze and I’d got rid of what had come to feel as heavy as an albatross. What else could a girl do but head for Maidstone M & S and buy some new undies?

Not to mention some Fairtrade T-shirts and, for the freezer, some of the flavoured chicken pieces Griff likes with the salad lunches I inflict on him. I was just wondering how else I could waste a little time when my foot was firmly trodden on by a heel attached to a well-upholstered body. As the guy turned, I placed him as the man I’d encountered in Canterbury Cathedral crypt. The one who’d stared at me with such hostility. He was cornered up against the olive oil.

‘We’ve seen each other before,’ I said. ‘At the Cathedral. You looked at me like you’re looking at me now, as if you’d rather I didn’t exist.’ I managed a smile, but one on the grim end of the scale. ‘Could you tell me what the problem is?’

‘I think you’ve got the wrong person, madam. So sorry about your foot.’ He edged sideways.

‘I’ve got another one,’ I said lightly. ‘Look, the other night you seemed to think we’d met before. At least, I presume you don’t always go round glaring at strangers like that.’

‘No, not at all, dear lady. Of course I remember our charming encounter.’

That wasn’t how I’d have described it.

‘They say everyone has a doppelgänger,’ he said, edging away as if he thought I was a local loony.

Perhaps I was. But I couldn’t quite let go. ‘In what circumstances did you meet this double of mine? I’d really like to know.’

An arm wove its way between us. ‘Other people want to buy their extra virgin too, you know,’ said an aggrieved voice.

By the time I’d apologized, he’d gone.

As I paid for my goodies, I pondered the thought of my double. I’d like to meet her, especially if she turned out to be one of my half-sisters, which wasn’t impossible, given my father’s generosity in spreading his favours about Kent. He knew of about thirty of us brothers and sisters – except there was a neat word for all of us, wasn’t there? Possibly there were more he’d been too dozy to record. Since he’d promised me that whoever turned up, he’d still value me, I tried not to worry. From time to time, he still agonized about finding his mother’s engagement ring for me. Given the state of his wing, it was more likely that I’d come across it in one of my periodic trawls for a really big find for him. As it was, on special occasions I wore the Cartier watch he’d insisted on giving me – a gift very far from being sneezed at.

So in theory I didn’t find her a threat. She might have a share in my father, but she didn’t have any share at all in Griff. And he was still by far the most important person in my life.

However, now the idea of a sin . . . a sid . . . a sibling – yes! – had wormed its way properly into my head, I thought I’d do something about the version of me that Josie had said she’d seen in Hastings. I’d have nipped down to see her, but this disruption of my working day had been long enough. I must get back to Bredeham. If a little voice suggested I might be thinking about spending time to make myself look nice for my forthcoming encounter with Morris, I shut it up abruptly. I had a queue as long as my arm of items waiting for me to restore them, and they needed the sort of steady hand you had when you weren’t thinking of your private life.