mind up, and take her cheque and write the number of her cheque card on the back of it and bring the cheque up to me. And lock the shop door behind you, and put the sign to “Back in fifteen minutes”. Think you can remember all that?’
My outburst should have driven the poor little woman clean out of my shop empty-handed. But instead it flustered her into saying she would take both doorstops. The public’s funny that way. She was so flustered she didn’t even ask if she could have something off the price, which most of them never forget to do. So I drove up to the Pond in a mood of grim satisfaction.
Hermione met me, smiling. I could almost have imagined she was fond of me, and not just using me for her own ends.
‘It’s your big lucky day, Jeff!’
‘The Crown Jewels have turned up, then? Wrapped up in a Buck House laundry-bag?’
Her mysterious smile widened, maddeningly. ‘Noooooh. But you remember that story you told me – about one Guy Fawkes’ Night and a man with a big model destroyer that sank? I think we’ve found it for you.’ She led the way to the dump, and pulled a lump of sacking off something. Even under all the mud, I was pretty sure she was right. Two funnels, and the mast blown off and trailing beside it, on the end of the tangle of rigging.
‘And it’s all yours,’ she said.
I gaped at her.
‘Well, we can hardly classify it as a children’s toy, can we? We have to draw the line somewhere. It’s an adult’s hand-built scale model. Quite outside our remit. The museum wouldn’t give it house-room. Though if you restored it nicely, it would look quite well in our preliminary exhibition . . .’
I knew there had to be a snag somewhere. That model would cost a bit to restore to glory . . . But I wasn’t looking a gift-horse in the mouth.
Of course, once I got it back to the workshop, I couldn’t resist fiddling with it. While my shop remained closed-for-fifteen-minutes, James gave me resentful looks because I was playing with my boat when I hadn’t let him play with his rifle. He twice tried to interrupt me about some bloody woman and a set of stair-rods I’d promised her. But I just gave him the shop keys and got on with the boat.
The name on the bow was Viperous. One of the old ‘V’ class. Vindictive and all that lot. And the damage the fireworks had wreaked was fairly frightful. Not only was the mast blown off, but the metal plates of the hull had sprung apart in three places, which is why she’d sunk. The radio-control and even the electric motor were write-offs, and the damage the acid leaking from the batteries had done . . . it would take a real pro to restore her; even James couldn’t cope. She was going to cost me a thousand quid. Dear old Hermione!
On the other hand, the detailing was so perfect . . . even little brass breech-blocks on the guns in the open turrets . . . it would be worth it. I’d have a ship worth two thousand at least. I began wondering who I could get to do it . . .
And then I thought: suppose I did get it repaired? And put it up for auction? What about providing a provenance? And it really belonged to that ginger-haired idiot who’d sailed her on Guy Fawkes’ Night, so long ago. He’d only been a young bloke . . . almost certain he was still alive . . . and still interested in model boats. Suppose he turned up and claimed her? I’d get a name as a real crook, and lose a thousand quid into the bargain. Probably end up in the magistrates’ court . . . that would help my business, I must say. I paced up and down in a rare taking, stopping every two minutes to look at the boat again. I spent a very ratty afternoon, before I had an idea. I would consult Mossy Hughes. He was usually in the Duke of Portland in the early evening. Come to that, he was in the Duke of Portland most of the time. I put on my linen jacket and went for a pint.
The Duke of Portland is the nearest thing Wheatstone has to a local. A huge, florid building in moulded and glazed brown brick,