Julius thanked her for her unoffered condolences and excused himself, saying he needed to take care of things. Mrs Mack offered to help, but the idea of her stepping into Charlie’s house filled him with revulsion; she was already peering over his shoulder, eager to snoop into Charlie’s private life.
Closing the door, he leant against it and took a deep breath. This wasn't helping. He walked into the study and looked around. The computer was gone, but he assumed the police would have taken that. His phone would have been on him, but he wondered if they had also taken his tablet. There were a few postcards and photos up on a pin board. Above the desk the pin board was covered in more work related items; images of stacking dolls, Fabergé artwork, and news clipping about the Russian revolution. This was clearly the current project, but then, Julius knew all this already. The only thing that was catching his eye was a pile of sand on the side table. Fingers had trailed tracks through it. He sat down and studied the sand. That was completely out of place. Pausing to think, he studied the bookshelves. Charlie had lined this room with them, while the paintings had been relegated to the staircase and bedrooms. The shelves didn't only house books, but mementoes that had been collected on his travels. There were spears, spent tank shells and carriage clocks.
He laughed when he remembered the carriage clock. Charlie had got a real bee in his bonnet about it. He was convinced it was a rare early example of a particular French clockmaker. He had found it during a house clearance in Ireland. At the bottom of the clock face was a very unusual date and maker’s mark. “Oth. 1.1.66” rather than the more usual “January 1st 1866”. Something about the date rang alarm bells for Julius, and he warned Charlie to not pay over the odds. Charlie bought it anyway, as he had never seen dating like that before and thought it might be very rare. A few days later Julius remembered the old diaries he’d been reading by a travelling curate. The curate remarked on a clever set of forgeries he had seen a local metal worker making. He was making carriage clocks in the style of a well-known Frenchman. The curate had not approved of the deception but admired the artistry, and had told the forger to engrave his clocks with a warning, “1.1.66”. The metalworker had, but few knew their Shakespeare well enough and the warning became a clue too well hidden.
So, whilst Charlie had paid a decent price for an undiscovered early carriage clock in the French style, he had paid grossly over the odds for a forgery. In the end, he kept it. Julius felt his friend could have made some money back on it, with the provenance that he had dug up, but Charlie was determined. He enjoyed the fact that he had run after something that had glittered, and ignored his friend’s warning. After that he generally phoned Julius before making an expensive purchase, just in case it rang more alarm bells.
Julius continued to look along the shelves at some of those items. A few were certainly collectable, or even valuable, but most were just mementoes of a trip or a person. Nor was there any particular theme; fossils, vases, wooden boxes, an ivory totem, a carved glass bust, and there, in the corner, an old wooden stacking doll. That was new. And Russian.
As he reached towards it, he heard a small creak from the upstairs floorboard. He recognised that sound. Whenever he slept over following a late night, he would stay in the back room and would creak out of bed.
Julius wouldn't call himself brave, but right now he would go with pissed off. If someone were hiding upstairs, then they were simply being rude. Part of his mind was screaming that this wasn't the time to get in a twist over good manners, but this was Charlie’s home and Charlie had been murdered. It just wasn't on for someone to skulk around upstairs.
He headed for the staircase, calling out, but heard nothing. Walking into the back bedroom, he saw a small woman crouched down peeking out over the sill of the window.
‘Who the hell...’
She turned and looked at him, gesturing wildly. ‘Get down, you idiot!’
‘I beg your —’
‘Now!’ she hissed with the full force of a command. She was small and wiry, with straight black hair. At a guess he would say she was southern Mediterranean, and possibly pretty if she wasn’t quite so intimidating. It wasn’t that intimidating people couldn’t be good-looking, it was just not very high on his list of priorities.
Julius paused and crouched down, then crawled over to her. Peering over the sill, he saw two men in the back courtyard. One tried the handle of the back door, and when it wouldn't give, he took off his jacket and placed it against the glass pane, then broke it. Leaning in, he dropped the deadbolt and opened the door.
‘I'll call the police,’
The strange woman stared at Julius as if he were an idiot and put her finger on his lips. Taking the phone from his hand, she switched it to mute and put it back in his pocket.
‘I need you to stay very still and silent,’ she whispered. ‘Things are about to get very scary. Tuck yourself into that corner.’
Julius looked to where she gestured and shook his head. She gave him a small shove, and he hissed back. ‘The floorboard squeaks.’
The woman tipped her head, then cracked a small smile and rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, stay here and stay quiet.’
She edged to the bedroom door and listened to the men below. Julius followed her to listen as well, earning a
