Death at the auction, p.1
Death at the Auction, page 1
Death at the Auction
The Stamford Mysteries
E. C. Bateman
One More Chapter
a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
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Copyright © E. C. Bateman 2022
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Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022
Cover illustration © Katie Cardew
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E. C. Bateman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
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Source ISBN: 9780008564919
Ebook Edition © November 2022 ISBN: 9780008564902
Version: 2022-09-27
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Thank you for reading…
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Prologue
Stamford had never looked better. It was a day of exquisite, languid beauty, of English spring sunshine on honey-coloured stone. And, yet, Colin Creaton didn’t see any of it.
He was running faster than he ever had in his life.
He plunged down the narrow, twisting passageway between the houses, the sound of his shoes ringing off the ironstone walls that pressed in close on either side. The only thing louder was the rush of blood in his ears, singing, whistling like a boiling kettle as he gasped in ragged snatches of cool, shadowed air.
His heart bloomed in his chest, and he lurched to the side, one hand scraping down the rough-hewn wall, fingers finding purchase in the centuries’ old chisel marks that still remained. He dared to allow himself to pause, just for a moment. Half a moment, even. Then he pushed away from the wall, staggering onwards. He burst out into the bright light of Broad Street, blinking in the sudden whirl of colour, movement and chatter. The wide thoroughfare thronged with people; Saturday morning shoppers clutching takeaway coffee cups, browsing the market stalls with their pinstriped awnings, locals with their dogs trotting alongside them, striding purposefully one minute, then bumping into someone they knew the next and falling into animated conversation, apparently any earlier impetus forgotten in the face of leisurely conviviality.
He weaved amongst them, limping now, his joints screaming with the unprecedented strain they’d been put under. Craning his neck, he tried desperately to peer through the crowd, but heads kept blocking his view, the sea of bodies seeming to crest and eddy like waves before his eyes.
He knocked into someone, an elderly lady with snowy white hair. Stuttering a panicked apology, he forced himself onwards, tripping slightly on the uneven cobblestones.
He was running out of time. Out of chances.
His eyes moved heavenwards, towards the crocketed spire of All Saints’ Church, silhouetted against a clear, lupin-blue sky. The gilt hands of the clock glinted in the sunlight. His throat tightened in terror.
He veered up the wide stone steps to his right, ascending to the front door of a grand, three-storey townhouse. With the last of his strength, he flung himself across the threshold, groping for the edge of the reception desk.
“Too late…” he rasped. “Please. No time. Too… late.”
The secretary looked down at him with a pleasantly puzzled expression.
“No, sir, you’re not too late. The auction doesn’t start for another ten minutes.”
“Colin?” A strident voice echoed across the marble foyer. “What on earth are you doing? You were only meant to be parking the car.”
Colin sagged against the desk, his whole body suffused with relief.
“Sorry, Margaret,” he said meekly. “Market day traffic. Couldn’t find a space anywhere.”
“Well, you’re about to miss it if you’re not careful,” she said shortly, slipping her plump, woollen-gloved hand into the crook of his arm and steering him away with an apologetic glance at the receptionist. The sort of glance he’d noticed her giving more and more lately. “And after you’ve made such a fuss about this wretched toy train, too. You know I didn’t want to come into town today, but you insisted…” her chin wobbled faintly before settling into a resolute line. “Insisted! I haven’t heard of anything else for weeks. And now to miss the thing… at least I had the foresight to get your bidding number for you.” She waved a ping-pong bat-shaped paddle at him.
“Sorry, Margaret,” he murmured again, but in truth, he scarcely knew what he was saying. For once, he wasn’t even smarting over her description of his overarching passion as a mere plaything. His heart was blooming again, except this time not with fear and panic, but with elation.
He hadn’t missed it. Thank God, he hadn’t missed it.
The saleroom was already packed. Every chair was filled, and the latecomers had been forced to cram around the edges, squeezing into the spaces between the items of furniture that hulked at intervals around the room. Beside him, Margaret was pursing her lips in disapproval at not being able to get a seat. He’d hear about it all the way home in the car, he knew. Probably for the rest of the day. But it would be worth it.
He allowed himself to be established next to a formidable-looking wardrobe in pitch-dark wood. Leaving him with firm instructions not to move under any circumstances—“I mean any circumstances, Colin”—Margaret went off in search of tea. He stood obediently in position, resting his shoulder against the wardrobe as he studied his catalogue. Everyone else in the room appeared to be doing the same, the low drone of murmured conversation culminating to a dull roar as heads bent over booklets, fingers pointing out various lots.
Suddenly, he became aware of another sound, much quieter than the rest, and much closer at hand. A sort of long, slow scraping, like fingernails on wood. He eyed the wardrobe next to him warily. He sincerely hoped there wasn’t a rat in there. Margaret would absolutely have a fit if she—
“What are you staring at that for?” She was standing in front of him, two polystyrene cups in hand. “You’re not planning to put a bid on it, are you?”
She sounded horrified.
“Uh, no,” he moved away from it quickly.
“Good,” her relief was palpable. “’We’d never get it up the stairs. Why people want to buy old furniture is beyond me. Buy something nice and new which comes apart and hasn’t had anyone else’s underwear in, I say.”
A proclamation like that didn’t seem to warrant a response. Colin looked at the wardrobe again, finding himself edging further away from it, driven by a sensation he couldn’t explain. Certainly not to Margaret, of all people. But there was something about that piece of furniture; something strange, foreboding. It made him uneasy, somehow.
“Colin?” She said sharply. “What is wrong with you today? It’s like you’ve seen a ghost.”
No, he thought. Not that. Not that way around, at least. If it didn’t sound so ridiculous, he would almost have said that it was more like a ghost watching him. He could feel eyes on him, eyes he couldn’t see. It gave him the shivers.
He would never know just how right he was in that moment. Behind him, illuminated by a thin seam of light creeping between the join in the heavy wooden door, an eye blinked, then melted back into the shadows as the hubbub died down, the bidders turning to the rostrum in tense expectancy.
The auction was about to begin.
Chapter One
Felicia Grant surve
There were things everywhere. Boxes of bric-a-brac balanced precariously on the edges of desks. Bin bags overflowing with newspaper and bubble wrap mounded on the floor. A huge teak bookcase occupied one wall, files apparently having been stuffed into it at random, then, later, papers not even making it into the files at all, but simply getting piled on the top. The Aubusson carpet underfoot was scarcely visible, and where it was, it was so thick with dust and general grime that the delicate pink rose pattern was impossible to distinguish from the faded beige background. Random objects were dotted about, some with old sale stickers on, apparently stuck in a purgatory of unknown owners, uncollected purchases, and—every auctioneer’s worst nightmare—the bought then never paid for. A celestial globe sat on the highest shelf, golden constellations gleaming under the fluorescent strip light that was doing its best to illuminate the low-raftered room. On the small, cramped windowsill, a Qing period blue-and-white Chinese ginger jar perched next to the office tea-making paraphernalia. Stacks of gilt-framed paintings leant against the walls, waiting to trip the unwary.
It was even worse than she remembered.
Auctions weren’t supposed to be glamorous; she knew that better than most. But they weren’t supposed to be a death-trap and a bio-hazard rolled into one, either.
Why had no one told her it had got this bad?
“I expect it’s a bit strange, being back here after all this time.” Hugo Dappleton hovered behind her warily, fiddling with his tie. It had garden tools on it in a jaunty pattern; she wondered if he’d borrowed it from his dad. Everything Hugo wore looked like it had been borrowed from someone much older and larger than himself. Perhaps it was because he looked so young—he was so young, Felicia reminded herself—or perhaps it was because his cataloguer’s wage didn’t stretch to much better. He still lived with his family on one of the estates at the edge of town, in a crammed-to-the-rafters house that occasionally became roomier when his father flounced off on one of his well-known hiatuses. These could last for days, if not weeks, and she suspected that a lot of Hugo’s earnings went into the family pot to support his four younger siblings during these lean periods.
She liked Hugo immensely. She’d been the one to hire him, in fact, eight years ago, just before it had all blown up between herself and her father and she’d stormed out of the auction house—and the career she’d built—never to return. Or at least, that’s what she’d promised herself. And she’d stuck to it… thus far, at least, she amended, glancing around the room again. How many memories were trapped within the dusty air of this office. How many late nights and weekends had she spent finishing catalogues, uploading photographs, unboxing consignments? Too many to count, that was for certain.
Hugo had been a fresh-faced sixteen-year-old then. He’d turned up at the front desk with an unsurprisingly sparse CV but an eagerness in his eyes that had spoken as much to her business sense as her softer emotions. She’d taken him on as an assistant porter, but she’d always known that he would be more one day.
Now, here he was, having worked his way up to their main cataloguer, and he was training under her father to become a valuer. She was incredibly proud of him, and, more to the point, she knew that none of this was his fault. She dreaded to think how hard he’d been working, trying to hold it all together. So she spared him her true emotions; instead, she just smiled wryly.
“You could say that.”
She’d been unceremoniously tugged from her sleep by the persistent buzzing of her phone on the nightstand next to her side of the bed.
With a groan, she prised open one eye. The room swam into focus, illuminated by the sunlight that crept around the edge of the curtains, casting everything in a sepia wash.
The ringing stopped. With a blissful sigh, Felicia rolled onto her side, taking the duvet with her.
It started again.
Biting back a curse, she stretched out an arm to retrieve it, slapping it to her ear with an exhaled, “yes?”
“Fliss? Are you awake?”
“Cassie?” At the sound of her best friend’s voice, she struggled into a sitting position shielding her eyes from the low early morning sun. “No, of course I’m bloody not. What time is it?”
“Earlier than you’re used to, I’ll wager. If you had three kids under seven, you’d think the day was half over already.”
“I was sensible. I stopped at one.” Felicia groaned, flopping back against the plush pillows. “Please tell me you didn’t wake me up at this ungodly hour just for a chat.”
“No, I didn’t.” Cassie’s voice had taken on a serious note, enough of an incongruity to make Felicia’s eyes, which had just started to drift close, snap open again. “Listen, Fliss, can you come up to Stamford? Like, now?”
“Cass?” Felicia could hear the anxiety creeping into her voice. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Just… can you?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so.” Felicia looked around her helplessly, as though the duck egg blue décor of her bedroom might somehow provide the answer. “We can be in the car in the next half an hour. But what…”
“It’s your dad…”
Felicia felt herself go very still. Her fingers meshed into the edge of the duvet, bit down. She waited.
“He’s fallen down the stairs,” Cassie was beginning to sound breathless. Felicia wondered if she was on the move. It wouldn’t surprise her; Cassie was constantly rushing about, often doing multiple things at once. “Tripped over the cat, apparently. But he’s fine,” she added hastily, at Felicia’s sharp intake of breath. “Crotchety and a bit annoyed with himself, but fine. It’s just a fracture, the hospital says. They’re letting him out later.”
Felicia felt her whole body relax with relief.
“Thank God you were there.” She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, phone wedged between her neck and shoulder as she pulled on slippers. “I dread to think… what were you doing there so early, anyway?”
“Walking the baby,” Cassie said shortly. “Bloody thing won’t sleep. Alistair and I take it in turns to trawl the town at dawn. Your Dad’s always at the window when we go past, making himself a cup of tea. It’s become a bit of a thing, to wave at one another. When he wasn’t there this morning, I was worried. Luckily I always carry that spare key you gave me.”
Felicia bit her lip. She knew it wasn’t all as casual and coincidental as Cassie made it sound. The morning route past her father’s house would have been deliberately engineered; Cassie had taken it upon herself to watch out for Peter ever since Felicia had left. It was one of those tacit things, never asked for, never discussed.
“Thank you, Cass.” For everything, not just this. She didn’t need to add that last part, and Cassie wouldn’t want her to. But she’d know it was there all the same. “We’re on our way.” She pictured the hospital, a Dickensian-looking building with turrets and gables in the distinctive golden stone that all of Stamford was built in. “Tell Dad I’ll be with him in—”
“Actually, you’re needed elsewhere first.” Cassie suddenly sounded hesitant. Immediately, Felicia felt suspicious. That tone never boded well. “It’s an auction day, Fliss. Had you forgotten?”
