Silverweed road, p.7
Silverweed Road, page 7
The voice on the end of the line was weak and reedy, with a grainy Mancunian twang. It was the tone, however, that had really captured Fry’s attention. The questions were limp and gullible, coated in a tang of desperation. Augustus sprawled in his chair, stroking his belly, a plump predator sensing fresh prey. Where there was desperation, there was money to be made.
Mr Butterworth, he’d called himself. Didn’t give a first name. Didn’t own a computer. Didn’t have email. Couldn’t supply a photograph. ‘Were hoping you’d come up,’ Butterworth had said. ‘Give it once over.’
Augustus gazed around his office as Butterworth droned on. Based in the upstairs back room of 17 Silverweed Road, it had been a fallow few months for Solomon Antiquities. A stolen Anglo-Saxon brooch had gone to a collector for £7,000, but that had been August; now it was November, and his blank glass cabinets glared back – a few sorry shards of Iron Age pottery, six bodkin point arrowheads, and an ugly Viking loom weight that looked like a limestone doughnut. Augustus totted up their value – £200 of ancient tat from an antique Christmas cracker. Ramses, the long-suffering Persian cat he’d inherited from his late mother and a convenient mop for Fry’s frustrations, slinked into the office and rubbed against the door frame.
Butterworth finally got to the point. Augustus uncapped his fountain pen. Ink scratched on a silver repoussé writing pad.
Ring. Engraved. ‘Goldy coloured’ Age???
Blind viewings were rarely rewarding. Augustus, nonetheless, sensed this ‘goldy coloured’ ring might warrant a viewing. Most promising of all, its owner sounded deliciously stupid. Visit agreed, call ended, Augustus read the address on his pad: 9 Deanbrook Road, Rivington, Bolton. A 250-mile drive north.
Augustus was familiar with the area. In the 1960s, a Bronze Age burial cairn at nearby Noon Hill had yielded two sacrificial knives, one of which had entered the black market eighteen months ago. It was Augustus himself who had sniffed it out, snapped it up, and sold it on for a healthy profit. Two collectors, Marcus Tidswell and John Gaunt, had battled over the knife in a rally of bad-tempered bids. Tidswell had lost, Gaunt had won, and Fry had collected £40,000.
Augustus poured his third Famous Grouse of the afternoon, ushered Ramses from the office with a scooping kick, and twisted his argan-oiled handlebar moustache, ends upturned on a face that never smiled.
The following night, Augustus booked a suite at Manchester’s Lowry and packed his Mulberry travel case: mustard waistcoat, Harris Tweed two-piece, and black wing-cap Carreducker brogues – all counterfeit. Carefully cultivated to intimidate with impunity, Augustus routinely dressed like a plump Victorian plutocrat – a look, he was certain, that would overawe Butterworth. Born and raised on the Corvid Estate, Fry’s aristocratic mirage was, like so many aspects of Augustus, a protective shield and extravagant deception. Honesty was for idiots. Lies rewarded, took you places.
After scraping a tin of sardines into Ramses’ bowl, Fry crunched up the gravel driveway into the night, casting a sneer at the gloomy slabs of mock-Tudor semis. Ever since his tyrannical mother passed and he’d inherited the house they shared, Augustus had been trying to sell his childhood home. The place held nothing but memories that pickled him in bitterness: no more so than the Woods at the road’s dead-end, where young Augustus would cower among the blackthorns, hiding from the neighbourhood bullies. Cursed by joke offers and withdrawn bids, no. 17 had been on sale for three agonising years. It was if Silverweed had decided it would never let him go, burying him alive in its mock-Tudor purgatory.
Augustus sat behind the wheel of his Land Rover and turned the key, primed for the drive up to Manchester. Glaring through the windscreen, his eyes met the entrance to Silverweed Road, taunted by the flickering street lamp. He revved the accelerator, itching with irritation.
The flowers from the crash. They had to go. When that stupid woman drove into the lamp post, Augustus had stood rubbernecking in the rain with everyone else, scowling at the wreckage.
The council still haven’t fixed the lamp post. And that weirdo at no. 10 keeps coming out at night, talking to those mouldy bouquets. The woman’s completely mad. And the smell, the smell … the wretched shrine stinks of rotten meat.
Augustus parked by the corner, climbed from the Land Rover with an audible pop, and stomped over to the flowers. He picked a bunch of burnt pink orchids, looked around for a wheelie bin, and nearly jumped out of his mustard waistcoat. Her, from no. 10. She was standing right behind him, a screaming storm of black hair. Fending off a blur of punches, he dropped the flowers and ran to the car as fast as his counterfeit brogues would carry him.
Augustus sped off into the night, flashing a look in the rear-view mirror. The woman stood raging under the lamp post. She clutched the flowers close to her chest, her livid mouth a rip of red.
Fully rested after several whiskies from the minibar and four Nurofen Plus, Augustus awoke in his Lowry suite feeling the need to be angry about something. He phoned room service and demanded to know where the coffee he’d never ordered was. Two minutes later, he was lounging in a fluffy white gown, sipping coffee, berating the room service waiter for forgetting to bring the breakfast he’d also never ordered. When his Full English arrived, Augustus slammed the door to his suite. He ate fast and noisily, copper moustache writhing, relishing the rewards of his bogus fury.
The address was everything Augustus had feared. Accessible by a dirt track lined with trees that spiked a fossil-grey sky, the emerging farmhouse appeared to slant in the battering wind, creaking and decrepit. There was no money to be made here.
‘Aye, Mr Fry. Come in, come in. Right quaggy outside.’
Augustus bent under the low front door and greeted his host with a stern, ‘Mr Butterworth’. The old man offered a bony hand to shake, which Augustus obligingly crushed. Frail, shrunken, with hunched vulture shoulders, Butterworth had dressed up for the viewing: his best brown woollen suit, favourite flat cap and freshly polished shoes. He tottered into the low-ceilinged living room, invited Augustus to sit at a butcher’s block table.
Augustus exchanged sneers with a wiry dog curled around the wood fire. A dusty wall clock ticked. It was barely 11 a.m., but the room was already night-dark, the air thick with the scent of wet dog. In the corner, a camping gas cylinder lit the room in muddy blots of yellow.
Already impatient, Augustus turned down tea, coffee, lemon squash and water and asked to see the piece. Butterworth fumbled a green ring box from his trouser pocket and placed it on the table. The lid opened with a tantalising whisper.
‘May I?’ said Augustus. He held the ring up for inspection.
It was large. A man’s ring, either worn by an ogre, or made to fit over a thick gloved finger. Augustus scrutinised the dull metal. A little murky, perhaps, but agreeably weighty, and quite possibly gold. Augustus maintained a poker face as his fat heart quickened. He pulled a jewellers’ loupe from his waistcoat pocket, reviewing the engraving that formed an unbroken band around the ring. The runic symbols looked authentic: primal, vivid and Anglo-Saxon. Augustus turned the ring, searching in vain for a hallmark or a carat stamp. As he raised it in the muddy light, the dark runes simmered a deep burnt red. The wall clock ticked. Augustus suppressed his excitement.
‘What’s the provenance?’
Butterworth shifted in his chair, whiskery eyebrows muddling.
‘Its origin, Mr Butterworth,’ Augustus said, voice lowering. ‘Where did you get the ring from?’
‘Here.’
‘Yes, I understand it’s here now, but how did you come across it?’
‘S’always been here.’ Butterworth shrugged. ‘Been here since I was a lad. Been here since my father, his father’s father, father ’fore that, father ’fore that … Been here centuries, Mr Fry.’
‘And your certificate of ownership? You do have documentation?’
Worry lines rivered through Butterworth’s face. He sank into his chair, as if the air had leaked from his body, leaving just a crag of vulture shoulders. To Fry’s delight, Butterworth shook his head.
Untraceable. Possibly gold. Anglo-Saxon runes. This was too good to be true …
Augustus switched tactics, softened his tone.
‘So, am I correct in thinking this is an heirloom?’
Augustus realised he was twirling the ring a little too seductively in his hand and placed it back inside the box.
‘Mr Butterworth, I suggest you get this verified. Naturally, I’d be happy to arrange that for you – at a very reasonable price.’
‘Aye? How much?’
‘Entirely depends on the expert. I would say …’ Augustus looked at the ring, at Butterworth, at the fuggy interior, the wiry dog. ‘Two, three thousand would be sufficient.’
‘Pounds? Was looking to sell, Mr Fry, not squander. Can hardly afford dog’s scran as it is.’
‘I see …’ Let him stew, thought Augustus. Let him stew in his cheap itchy suit. Let him stew with his cheap itchy dog.
‘Mr Butterworth,’ Augustus finally exhaled, satisfied with the manufactured tension of his pause, ‘with no proof of ownership, it’s impossible to place a value on your ring. For all I know, it could be stolen. If the ring were to pass into my hands only to be exposed as a black market acquisition, it would put my spotless reputation at risk. It’s certainly not gold, I can assure you of that – it’s brass. As for its age, I’d hazard late 1800s. The engraving, however, is twentieth century. See the edging on the runes?’ Augustus picked up the ring and ran his finger over the banded lettering. ‘Diamond-drag engraving. Unmistakably so. I’m afraid you’ve not just wasted my time – you’ve wasted yours. Good day to you, Mr Butterworth.’
Augustus pushed his belly against the table, unstuck himself from the creaking chair. He rose and marched for the front door, confident of a postponed exit.
‘Mr Fry,’ called Butterworth, standing up, straightening his trousers. ‘Must be worth something, surely?’
‘I’d be doing you a kindness at £100,’ Augustus lied. He turned around slowly, slipping his hand into a jacket pocket. He furtively separated five £20 notes from a roll of £300. ‘Would cash suffice …?’
Augustus left the farmhouse barely able to contain his laughter. The man was a fool. As his Land Rover crunkled back up the dirt track, the ring awakened in his pocket. A slow heat simmered from the reddening runes.
Augustus thundered upstairs, kicked Ramses from his office with a swiping brogue, and settled behind his pedestal desk. The box opened with a whisper. He took out the ring, testing its weight in his jigging palm.
Was it gold? An unresponsive magnet dragged over its surface suggested it could be. Copper moustache twisting eagerly, Augustus reached deep into the desk drawer. Ramses returned and curled at his feet, hoping to be fed. He laid a black touchstone on the desktop and gently rolled the ring against the stone, leaving a stripe of metallic film. When he applied the aqua fortis and saw the line stand firm, his fat heart hastened. Mouth dry and throat purring, Augustus dripped aqua regia on the strip. If the mark dissolved, the ring was categorically, unmistakably, ecstatically gold.
The mark dissolved.
Augustus grabbed the ring, showering it in oily kisses. ‘A toast to Mr Butterworth,’ he declared, slugging Famous Grouse direct from a decanter. ‘You magnificently stupid old fool.’ He snatched up Ramses, threw him into the air, started whistling ‘We’re in the Money’, didn’t think to catch the cat. Ramses scattered, squowling from the office.
Augustus locked the ring in the office safe and toppled downstairs, intending to get gloriously shit-faced. Alone in the lounge, Augustus drank to himself, toasting his own magnificence.
Upstairs, in the pitch-black safe, the runes of the ring burned a ravenous red.
At 2.39 a.m., a short, deep, sickening bang rocked through no. 17. Light bulbs swayed and clinked. Fake Gainsboroughs quivered in frames. Glass cabinets rippled like broken water. Slumbering Ramses toppled from a bookcase, jumping up with spikes of fur.
Shocked from his drunken slumber, Augustus tumbled out of bed, landed on his coccyx and bellowed like a stag. He wobbled to his feet, rubbing his back. Fry’s bones still trembled from the quake. Above his head, a crystal lampshade chimed and swung. An uneasy after-hum settled in the house.
A thief. A break-in. The ring. My ring …
Emboldened by booze, Augustus fumbled for the wrought-iron poker he kept under the bed. He edged towards the bedroom door, shushing at his drunken self to be quiet. Cautious step by cautious step, Augustus inched down the landing, passed the bathroom, and stopped. The office door creaked open. A poker raised in the dark. Augustus slapped the light switch.
His reflection flashed from the cabinets. Fry swung the poker at empty air. His startled heart slowed to a puff of relief. No break in. No thief. Just his own reflection. A silky heat seemed to simmer from the safe as he checked the ring was secure in its box. In the low night-hum of the night-blue house, Augustus crept down the stairs.
Still twitchy from the sickening bang that had shaken him awake, Augustus approached the front door. As he checked the bolts, his face warmed to a peculiar heat that seemed to haze from the frame. Augustus unlocked the door and stepped into the night.
A fuming outline caught his eye.
In the centre of the oak front door glowed a livid lava-red hand print. Its width was twice that of his own plump hand, the size as unnatural as the smoke that fumed from it. Five thick fingers fanned from the palm, in the shape of a halt or a push.
Too drunk to feel the fear he should, Augustus prodded the mark, recoiling from its fiery snap. His sizzling finger leaped to his lips and cooled inside his mouth. He glared at the hand print, bewildered by the source of the sickening bang. Culprits flashed through his mind.
Who would dare vandalise his door? The infernal kids who put bangers in the postbox? The mad woman with the orchids? Certainly not a disgruntled client: he hadn’t sold a thing since late August. Tapping the poker in his hand, Fry scanned the street. In the powder of night, there was neither sound nor motion, the houses dark as tombs. No door was marked with a glowing hand other than his own.
Augustus jumped at a black blur that seemed to dive down from the moon itself. A jackdaw landed on the roof of his Land Rover.
‘Don’t you even think about it,’ Augustus slurred, worried his car was about to be soiled.
Augustus glowered at the bird. The bird glowered back, with double the spite. Held by the shine of silver eyes, Augustus felt a flickering chill, as if a heartbeat had been stolen.
With a flick of the wings and a cry of ack-ack, the jackdaw soared into the night. Augustus watched the black dot fade towards the Woods, the ghost of a shiver receding.
When Augustus turned towards the front door, the livid red hand print had vanished. He scrubbed his eyes, looked again, stroked his hand over the cool oak frame. It was as if the door had never been marked.
Bolting the locks, Augustus toppled upstairs and sloshed back into bed. Walls pitching and lurching around him, certain his reality was but a vivid, swaying dream, he closed his eyes, wishing for sweeter visions.
As drunken Augustus heaved and snored, a slow heat built within the house. Passing through walls, casting no shadow, the ghostly haze of a crimson hand toured the rooms in silence. Fingers flexing from a hot-plate palm, it glided across the darkened landing, towards the simmering safe.
Rising late at 10 a.m., whisky hangover batting his temples, Augustus stood on his driveway, glaring at the entrance to no. 17. No red hand. No fuming smoke. Just the same old boring oak front door. Was the sickening bang no more than an inebriated fever dream? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d hallucinated after a bottle of Famous Grouse. A fortnight back, he’d been so shit-faced, Ramses’ face had morphed into his mother’s. Just how drunk had he been last night?
Upstairs in the back-room office, seated in an ill-fitting imitation silk kimono, Augustus inspected the runes on his new acquisition. He took a book from the shelf, Danbury’s World of Anglo-Saxon Treasures, and flapped it open on his pedestal desk.
There are seven known Anglo-Saxon rings featuring runic inscriptions: Kingmoor, Bramham Moor, Linstock Castle, Wheatley Hill, Coquet Island, Carmond and the Thames Exchange. The most celebrated piece, the Kingmoor Ring, denotes a spell said to staunch the flow of blood, interpreted by Prof. Axen of King’s College Cambridge as ‘pure magical gibberish’. This priceless artefact …
‘Priceless?’ Augustus mocked as he compared his ring to a photo of the Kingmoor. ‘Everything has a price.’
The smile slid from his face. The similarities really were quite striking. The rings even shared the same diameter: a bulky 27 mm, fit for an ogre or an iron glove. Augustus shuffled in his chair, reread the entry. There are seven known Anglo-Saxon rings featuring runic inscriptions … ‘And I,’ Augustus told the ring, ‘have the eighth.’
The antiques business was a callous world. Augustus had always considered Indiana Jones an idealistic nincompoop, the Antiques Road Show a nostalgic buttered crumpet that sentimentalised the cut-throat reality. No, the world of antiquities was a Cold War thriller, seething with suspicion, where everyone thought everyone else was the double agent. For all he knew, Butterworth might have stolen the ring. The sale would have to be discreet – and swift.
Augustus turned the ring in his hand. Seduced by the promise of its glimmering runes, dreams of escape twirled and fluttered. If it was worth what he suspected, he would finally be free of this accursed road. No more mock-Tudor houses for Augustus Fry. He would have the real thing. A Tudor cottage in the Cotswolds, perhaps.
Stroking the horns of his copper moustache, Augustus considered his network of contacts; a rogue’s gallery of grasping archaeologists, bent curators, shady excavators and crooked detectorists … He poured himself a breakfast whisky. Marcus Tidswell and John Gaunt. They’d already battled over that sacrificial knife stolen from the burial cairn on Noon Hill. Both wealthy. Both Anglo-Saxon fanatics. And, best of all, neither could stand the sight of the other. Get them in the same room together and a bidding war would erupt like Krakatoa, belching golden coins.
