Chapter 5
Lew was just turning off the lights in preparation for closing up for the evening when the doorbell tinkled and a customer walked in. An old lady holding a box.
‘Oh are you shut?’ she said.
‘No, no, you’re fine, come in,’ said Lew, with a smile. ‘I’ll put the lights back on if you want to have a browse. No rush. I never turn a possible sale down.’
‘I’ve not come to buy, I’ve come to sell. I’ll be quick because I’ve got a taxi waiting.’
‘Okay then,’ said Lew, stepping forwards to take the box from her because she appeared to be struggling with it. She gave her arms a grateful shake when the weight was transferred.
Lew put the box down on the counter and carefully took out the most prominent piece, sticking out of the box, wrapped clumsily in newspaper. It was a white Gulvase. This had to be the lady Bonnie Brookland had told him about. He lifted it up to the light, checked it carefully for nibbles and cracks, but it was perfect. And the weight felt right for it to be a genuine piece. It still had the original Holmegaard sticker on it, bearing the Danish flag.
‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Very nice indeed.’
‘Is it really?’ asked the old lady. ‘I went to another shop earlier on but the woman in there told me to go somewhere else to sell it.’ She leaned over as if about to impart an onerous secret and was scared of being overheard. ‘I think I dropped her in it. I feel awful because that bloke Grimshaw was only going to give me a few pounds for everything and she said it would be worth a bit more than that. Look at this.’ And the garrulous old lady plunged her hand into the box and brought out a medal. ‘That’s got to be worth summat, ’an’t it?’
Lew could see instantly that it was a fake. There was no age to it at all. The market was overrun with fakes, some of them clever ones too. The ‘ancient’ Chinese vase in the box which the old lady lifted out was a fake as well but the pot with the chipped top that she almost dropped onto the counter had interesting character marks. People presumed because there was damage to pieces that they were worthless, and Lew didn’t like to think of how many treasures had ended up in the bin because of that misconception. Also in the old lady’s stash was a coloured Chinese saucer, terribly cracked and repaired with iron staples. He guessed the saucer started off with a plain blue pattern in the 1600s, but then was painted over and repaired in the 1700s. Those staples were part of its history too.
‘There’s the matching cup in there,’ said the old lady. ‘It’s knackered an’ all.’
Lew felt prickles of excitement creep over his scalp. If this two-piece was genuine, it could be worth a small fortune. It was so hard to tell because there were whole streets in China filled with artisans producing plates complete with overglaze and rivets, ageing them to look like ancient treasures. He’d need to take some time over making a decision whether or not to buy them.
‘And there’s this, look.’ It was a mug commemorating the coronation of Edward VIII. ‘They made these but he was never crowned. That’s got to be rare.’
Funny how people judged what was valuable, thought Lew. You could pick them up for fifteen pounds on markets everywhere yet an unused Nazi toilet roll could fetch eight times that. Wrapped in newspaper in the bottom of the box was a collection of carvings in white stone: a hand, a crab, a disc, a hook. Lew felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a renewed wave of scalp-pricking ensued.
‘I think these might be jade.’
‘Give over, jade’s green,’ laughed the old lady. ‘You trying to pull the wool over my eyes?’
‘No, I mean white jade. Where on earth did you get these pieces from?’
‘My husband’s dad was a sailor,’ she answered. ‘When he died the family went through his stuff like locusts. This box was all that was left and so they gave it to us. We had it in the cellar for years. I’d forgotten about it but I’ve just moved into a maisonette and had to empty the house.’
‘You do have a couple of nice pieces in here, but I’ll need to have a really good look at them. Do you want to leave them with me? I promise I’ll give you a fair price.’
The old lady narrowed her eyes. ‘Aye, I’m full of them tricks.’
He knew that if she took away her box, he wasn’t likely to see her again. He decided to take the chance that she had something very special. He was absolutely sure the Gulvase was genuine, even if nothing else was.
‘What if I said a hundred and fifty pounds?’
The old lady spasmed so violently that her glasses nearly fell off. She clearly hadn’t been expecting that much.
‘Or, as I say, you can leave them with me for a few days and I’ll—’
‘I’ll take the money,’ said the old lady. ‘That’ll do nicely. I’m going on one of them coach holidays in Italy with my sister in September and that’ll do towards my spend.’
‘Would you like to give me your name and address,’ said Lew. He knew that if the carvings and the cup and saucer were what he thought they might be, he wouldn’t have slept easily in his bed knowing he’d paid so little for them.
‘My name is Pauline Twist.’ She started to recite her details before Lew had picked up a pen, so he had to ask her to repeat them. He sent her away with a hundred and fifty pounds and a big smile on her face. It seemed that Bonnie Brookland might have been a good luck charm to him today.