The Bronze Lady (Woodford Antiques Mystery Book 2)

Kathy Morgan lives in Wiltshire with her partner who is an antiques dealer, and a variety of animals. Kathy chose to train as a librarian when she left school, she reasoned she could enjoy her love of books and have time to ride horses!

She worked in a number of public and school libraries, before joining the antiques trade over fifteen years ago.

The Bronze Lady is Kathy’s second book; the first is The Limner’s Art.

Readers’ comments for

The Limner’s Art

‘Well you made a reader out of me. Not just a reader but someone who had to pick up your book every day to discover who was who, who they were related to or was having a relationship with.

A reader that got excited and smiled or said out loud 'what'!

And a reader that realised she was coming to the end of the book, and who wanted to get to the end to see what happened, but didn't want to get to the end because she didn't want it to end.

OMG well done.’

- Linda H.

‘Thoroughly enjoyed it, easy to read and I didn't want to put it down. Well done Kathy.’

- Lydia C-L.

‘Within a few pages I was hooked! I loved the flow of the book and all the images of the characters I now have in my head.
I highly recommend this.’

- Jacqui G.

The

Bronze Lady

by Kathy Morgan

Kathy Morgan’s

Woodford Antiques Mystery series

The Limner’s Art

The Bronze Lady

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright June 2016 Stormybracken Publishing Kathy Morgan.

Printed by CreateSpace.

1st edition

The author Kathy Morgan asserts their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

In loving memory of Storm.

Acknowledgements

Thank you Bob, for allowing me to wake you up in the early hours of the morning (well, seven o’clock onwards usually, Bob doesn’t ‘do’ early) so I can read sections of this book out to you.

My mum and dad who have been generous in their support, thank you.

Special thanks to Fiona, Janet, Jeannette, Kate, Lydia, Nova, Steve and Zaria.

Thank you to all my antiques, equestrian and zumba pals who have been so enthusiastic, and provided me with inspiration and motivation.

All plot errors and typos are my own!

Chapter 1

Thursday 19
th
November 2015, 9.00pm

The town of Woodford is situated on a hill in the county of Brackenshire in the south west of England, and overlooks a number of villages to the west and the east, but the town was enveloped in freezing fog that November evening so nobody could see further than a few yards in front of them. The weather was even preventing the light of the half-moon from penetrating the darkness of the evening. The exterior lights of the local public house, The Ship Inn at the top of the high street, shone strongly through the gloom, providing a welcoming invitation for locals and visitors alike.

This evening was busy as usual for the landlords Mike and Sarah Handley, who had bought the freehold to the pub ten years earlier and established a comfortable environment with excellent food. By nine o’clock most of the meals had been eaten, and the drinkers were long gone, so there were probably only about a dozen customers left in the pub, scattered throughout its various rooms. The atmosphere in one corner of the bar was at odds with rest of the pub, and was more in harmony with the outside temperature because it had been distinctly chilly all evening, and even the brightly burning log fire could not permeate the heavy pressure of an unresolved disagreement between the friends who were sat around one of the tables. Paul Black and Tony Cookson were barely speaking to each other, but neither would tell the third member of their group, Cliff Williamson, what the discord was all about. Instead they were either morosely looking into their pints, or staring off into the distance; neither one was prepared to make light-hearted chit-chat with the other. 

Cliff Williamson was in need of his friends at the moment after a trying few months in which he had come very close to losing his business, had destroyed his marriage and ruptured his comfortable family life. He had lost the respect of many family members, friends and work colleagues. As well as being friends, all three men worked in the local antiques trade, and so Cliff felt that Paul and Tony’s support was crucial if he was to climb up to his former position of prominent local business person. In the past week he had begun to venture back out into the local community after a self-enforced period of withdrawal, and tonight he was upset that his friends, who had been such strong providers of help to him, were clearly at odds with each other and not enjoying a pleasant evening of their usual banter over a couple of pints. Cliff was keen to try to return to his familiar social life as quickly as possible, and wanted to give back some of the goodwill and support to them, so decided it was up to him to be the grown-up and make them sort out whatever the problem was between them.

‘Right, come on then you two, you are not in the playground now, we all grew out of this kind of behaviour thirty or forty years ago! On the contrary you are meant to be helping me get my life back on track but neither of you has said a word all evening.  What is going on?’

‘Sorry mate,’ said Paul, snapping out of his inner-fury. ‘You are right, we should be thinking of you. We have had a disagreement over something, but it’s nothing, and it’s over.  Isn’t that right Tony?’ Cliff noticed the slight pleading tone in Paul’s question.

‘Oh, er, yes that’s right. Just a silly tiff between us; a stupid mis-understanding. Paul got the wrong idea about something, that’s all. I am sure he can see things clearly now and realises the error of his ways.’

Cliff noticed Paul bristle at Tony’s choice of words, and sighed. Whatever their problem was it wouldn’t be resolved if Tony was going to start baiting Paul.

‘Hey, this has nothing to do with me, don’t you blame me for all this. I wouldn’t call it silly or stupid,’ Paul said with a flash of anger. ‘It is looking fairly serious from my side of the table.’

‘Yes, and from my side,’ Tony’s temper was rising too and Cliff wondered if they were going to start punching each other. Neither of his friends were inclined to resort to fisticuffs over anything, but the aggression in the air was palpable. He regretted pushing them.

‘Everything OK over there lads?’ Mike Handley, the landlord of The Ship Inn, called over from behind the bar. He had noticed something was amiss with the group earlier in the evening and was keeping an eye on them. He had seen the look on Paul’s face and then Tony’s response to it and decided to intervene by making them focus on him, rather than putting himself at risk by walking over and standing between them.

‘Alright alright, calm down,’ Cliff hissed at them. ‘We’re fine thanks Mike,’ he called over, before turning back to his friends who were now sitting looking slightly shame-faced at being caught posturing like two angry cockerels. He decided to try one last time, now that they knew other people were watching them. ‘Just tell me what has happened?  I may be able to help.’

‘No, Paul’s right, it’s nothing. Who wants another pint?’ said Tony, convincing nobody.

‘Oh nothing for me thanks Tony,’ said Cliff as he also stood up. ‘My body hasn’t quite got back into the swing of long sessions in the pub.  If you two aren’t going to come clean about your tiff then I had better be heading for home or I’ll never get up in the morning.  Three pints in an evening is plenty and I can already feel the negative effects!’

‘Oh, I’ll walk back with you,’ offered Tony. ‘Somebody had better make sure you get back safely now you have turned into a lightweight.’ His teasing went a little way to breaking up the tension, as they all laughed at the thought of the tall, fit, well-built Cliff Williamson being unable to hold his drink.

‘Oi I’m not that bad! Anyway, I live in the opposite direction to your house, your wife will be waiting for you.’

‘No, come on, the walk will do me good, and Lesley isn’t expecting me home any time soon. She is working late tonight, and I made a chicken casserole earlier today for her to eat when she came in so she won’t be waiting for me. In fact knowing Lesley she will be curled up on the sofa watching some drama, and not missing my ‘helpful’ comments about the flimsiness of the storyline at all. I’ll walk down with you, and then probably make my way home from there. I have been stuck indoors all day, and think I need the exercise.  Come on Williamson, get your coat, you’ve pulled!’

As the two men left the pub laughing, Mike Handley said quietly to Paul ‘Are you alright Paul?  You have been looking out of sorts all evening.’

Paul sighed and wondered how much to reveal to Mike. He knew Mike could be trusted not to betray a confidence, but after a few seconds of internal debate decided this was too risky to share. ‘Yes I’m fine thanks Mike; I just have a complicated situation to sort out. Nothing for anybody else to worry about, but I have let it drag on too long. Time to put an end to this thing once and for all.’

If Paul had known then what it would take to resolve his differences with Tony, he would have confided in Mike Handley while he had the chance.

Chapter 2

Thursday 19
th
November 2015, 9.15pm

As Mike Handley watched Paul Black leave the pub, his wife, Sarah, nudged him and quietly pointed out another man who was sitting on his own and had been observing the exchanges between the three men. The man wasn’t a Regular in the Ship Inn, and neither Mike nor Sarah thought they had seen him in the town before, but it wasn’t unusual for lone men, or women, to come to Woodford for business or a holiday and use the pub for their lunchtime or evening meal. Because the man had shown such close interest in the friends’ exchanges Mike and Sarah wondered if he was also in the antiques trade and had seen them somewhere before.

Running a business in a town which was so closely involved with the antiques trade, Mike and Sarah Handley had developed a system for describing the various people who came into their pub so they could make provision for when they were likely to be busy with customers attending one of the auctions at Black’s, or for when their clientele was predominantly tourists while the antiques season was quieter in the summer. They agreed the man was probably a ‘Q’. In their code they divided their customers into the ‘Q’s who were antiques dealers, and the ‘P’s who were not. A customer who was a ‘Q’ was likely to want a quick sandwich washed down with a coffee or an orange juice at lunchtime; a ‘P’ wanted to savour their lunchtime meal, often using the time to recover from a long walk through the Brackenshire countryside before resuming their route after a pie and a pint. The Ship Inn could be very quiet at lunchtime, but if there was an auction taking place, or during the summer holidays, Mike and Sarah could easily be serving over eighty customers.

Over the years their Regulars had joined in with the game, and further divided the ‘Q’s group into: antiques dealers they called a divvy; members of the public dabbling in antiques were nicknamed wannabes; and the final group were the profiteers, the people who ran venues for the sale of antiques included auctioneers, market organisers, and shop owners.

Cliff, Tony and Paul were all happy to be classed as ‘Q’s and put up with the teasing about being called divvys. Antiques Dealers are the Professionals in the business. Tony Cookson was a postcard dealer with an interest in militaria, and he more than the other two lived a typical antiques dealer’s life of early morning road trips, driving hundreds if not thousands of miles most weeks, drinking lots of cups of tea or coffee or coca-cola, and he always had a mobile phone very close by. They are usually people who both love antiques and who love to deal. They are generally blinkered to the goings on outside of the antiques world unless it is an international event which somehow affects the gold or silver markets, for example a stock market crash or terrorist attack. Ask an antiques dealer about the Foot and Mouth outbreaks in Britain fifteen years ago and you will find they are well-informed due to the number of antiques auctions and fairs which were cancelled because the venues, traditionally livestock markets and fields on farmland, were under quarantine restrictions. Similarly the SARS virus outbreak a couple of years later directly affected sales of antiques because of the impact the spread of the infection had on international flights in the days before dealers and auction houses were routinely able to sell their stock via the internet.  They rely on each other to stay in business, and it is said that an item of stock will be bought from a member of the public and then pass through at least seven pairs of antiques dealing hands before re-appearing back in public ownership again. 

Sarah Handley willingly put herself in the ‘Q’ group as a wannabe, and wasn’t at all offended by the teasing of the Regulars. Sarah had an interest in portrait miniatures, and loved to have a chat over the bar with any of the antiques dealers who had recently bought one, or who wanted to look at an item she had bought. She was knowledgeable about her chosen subject, and if she had been interested in dealing in them rather than purely collecting them, the antiques dealers knew she would be a force to be reckoned with in that field. 

Members of the public provide the source for antique items through private sales, house clearances, or auctions, and are also the customers, like Sarah, at the end of the cycle who will buy from antiques shops, fairs or auctions. They will often have gleaned their knowledge of antiques and the antiques trade from television programmes, and it shows, resulting in a sometimes antagonistic relationship with other groups in the antiques trade who resent someone haggling over an extremely well-priced nineteenth century silver spoon as though they were at a car boot sale where everything else is being sold for twenty pence.

This lack of knowledge can also lead to false hope, and one of the hardest jobs in the antiques trade is telling someone that Granny Jones’ ‘antique sideboard’ which has been in the family for generations and everybody can relate fond memories to you about, and from whose sale they are hoping to use the money for a Once in A Lifetime Family Holiday, was actually bought from MFI in the 1980s and is now only fit for firewood. On the other hand one of the most rewarding is being able to reveal that the doorstop which has been in place for as long as Granny Jones’ grandson can remember is a Renaissance bronze figure worth more than twenty thousand pounds.

Both Cliff and Paul also fit into the third category, the profiteers, and neither was particularly keen on the occasional teasing from their fellow Regulars about this classification, but both put up with it in the name of good neighbourliness. Cliff Williamson established Williamson Antiques nineteen years ago, and his friend Paul Black worked in the auction house his own father set up before taking over as manager five years earlier. They both lived in the town of Woodford, and Black’s Auctions was situated at the other end of Woodford High Street to the antiques centre.

The people who own antiques auction houses, shops and centres usually have a history in antiques dealing but have tried to opt for the relative security and comfort of bricks and mortar in which to run their business, as opposed to the ramshackle arrangements most antiques dealers work within of sheds, garages and market stalls. It is usually this group of people who are only in it to make money out of the antiques trade, as opposed to the antiques dealers who live and breathe antiques; and the public who treasure and are often in awe of the items. Within this group antiques market organisers also fit, although these days they rarely have a background in the antiques trade and forget that it is the antiques dealers who pay them to sell their stock at the event who are their customers, not the members of the public who only come through the turnstiles because of the quantity and quality of goods available inside. Auctioneers and market organisers are commonly mistrusted by antiques dealers and members of the public alike, and tend to find their own job is very similar to herding cats. 

It is unusual to have three people from different sections of the antiques trade to form as close a bond as Tony, Cliff and Paul.  Antiques dealers, shop owners, and auctioneers do not tend to mix well; they all mistrust each other, and people they regularly deal with may be suspicious of any particularly close friendships which develop between them.  The antiques dealers think the auctioneers are ignorant and sneer at their mistakes; the auctioneers believe every antiques dealer is ringing their auction and reducing their commission; and the antiques centre owners and the antiques dealers who rent shop space from them are often in direct competition with each other. 

Tony, Cliff and Paul put aside their differences many years before, and managed to go about their daily business comfortably without stepping on each other’s toes.  The three of them often worked and socialised together, and could regularly be found drinking tea in the Woodford Tearooms or pints in their local pub. Mike and Sarah Handley had a lot of time for the three men, and not just because they were very good customers in their pub. All three were both hard-working and friendly members of the local community. As people began to head home, and the couple started their routine of cleaning up and wiping down prior to closing for the night, they entertained themselves by trying to guess what the cause for the disagreement between Paul and Tony could be.

By the time the pub was empty of customers, the last embers in the fireplace were safely enclosed by the pub’s ornate fireguard, and the glasses, cups, plates and cutlery had all been stacked in the dishwasher which was now noisily whirring and splashing, they were no closer to an answer, but agreed that they hoped whatever had caused the obvious discord this evening would be easily and quickly resolved.