Read Online Ring of Guilt by Judith Cutler - Free Book Online

every day. However urgent it is, I can’t do it tonight and give it back tomorrow. If you want that, find some other restorer.’ I looked him straight in the eye.
    When he wasn’t looking so full of himself, and managed a bite of the lower lip, he looked altogether more human. Like a little boy caught nicking a couple of Mars bars, actually.
    â€˜You did this, didn’t you? Not a client?’ I must have sounded like his mum. No need to wait for an answer. ‘No wonder you want a speedy job. But you have to promise me – absolutely promise – you’ll tell whoever owns it what you’ve done. Because I’ve got my reputation, same as you’ve got yours.’
    â€˜Very well.’
    â€˜Maybe the fee I charge –’
fee
always sounded pretty professional, I thought – ‘will convince them you’ve done your best. So when I print the invoice for you and your insurance company, I’ll do a copy for them – so they can’t claim on theirs, of course,’ I added with a grin. You’d be amazed how people try to diddle anonymous companies in ways they wouldn’t dream of if it was the guy next door.
    â€˜How long will it take?’ he asked humbly.
    â€˜Allow a fortnight. That’s the best I can offer. And I really ought to have the other in the pair. No? I shall just have to hope the both handles are exactly the same.’
    â€˜I’ll check with a micrometer and let you know. You’re sure you can do it?’
    â€˜As sure as I can be. But it has to be done at my own pace.’
    â€˜Thank you,’ he said with something of a sigh. ‘I take it you don’t work here?’
    â€˜My workroom’s in our cottage.’ I nodded across the courtyard.
    â€˜So it had better travel in style.’ He touched the vase and its box. ‘Shall you do the honours or shall I?’
    â€˜Still your baby,’ I said, letting him wrap the vase as tenderly as if it were really an infant. ‘Have you come far?’ I added chattily, as he swathed it in bubble wrap and laid it on little pads of scrunched up tissue.
    â€˜Wellington.’
    Where the hell was that? It wouldn’t be the New Zealand one, would it? Or was it the one we’d once been to a fair at and Griff had pointed out a shop sign – the Wellington Boot Company – in Somerset, I think? And wasn’t there one in Shropshire? None of them close.
    I raised my eyebrows in surprise that he’d come so far – from wherever it was.
    â€˜I drove overnight,’ he said. ‘I had this terror of an M25 pile-up.’
    At this point Mrs Walker came trudging in, as if she’d journeyed from John O’Groats. By foot. ‘M25? You’re quite right. I’ve just been in this incredible M20 jam. I must have sat there an hour, seeing the junction I needed but not being able to get to it. And men peeing by the roadside and everything. You’d think they’d use a bottle, for goodness’ sake,’ she said, muscling in on the conversation as she always did, poor woman. One day I’d buy her a parrot to talk to – except she’d have to bring it with her, since it wouldn’t be fair to leave it alone all day. No, not a good idea. ‘Do you mind if I get the kettle on? Or . . .’
    â€˜Of course not. And Griff’s topped up the biscuit barrel – the more you have the less for him. No, fewer,’ I corrected myself. ‘I was just going to show Mr Sanditon where I work, so don’t worry about us. After you,’ I said, ushering him out of the back door and across the courtyard garden into our cottage.
    â€˜Miss Bates,’ he breathed as I closed the door behind us.
    â€˜So I’ve always thought, and would have sacked her,’ Griff said, standing at the table unpacking the groceries he’d bought en route, ‘only Lina said she owed her a debt of gratitude and you’d be