‘Kenneth’s a fool!’ said Pamela, with sudden anger. ‘An idiot! Ay had no idea what he’d done! Ay’d have stopped him, but he didn’t tell me, didn’t tell may sister – he re-mortgaged their house, borrowed some exorbitant sum at a ludicrous rate of interest, cashed in all their shares – may sister knew nothing, nothing until it was too late. Insanity! Ay could have told him his stupid scheme wouldn’t work!’
‘What sch—?’
‘He paid much more than the Murdoch silver was worth – lunacy! He thought John Auclair – he’s a well-known collector – would come trotting along to his grotty little shop and give him half a million for it! Nobody in their rayte maynd would have paid that much for the stuff! Kenneth’s a fool, an absolute fool!’
‘You didn’t think he’d make a profit on the collection, then?’ asked Robin.
‘Of course not!’ said Pamela impatiently. The Murdoch collection’s really only of interest to a narrow subset of people.’
‘You mean masons?’ asked Robin.
‘Yes. Well, not necessarily only masons…’ The chance to talk about her specialist subject seemed to be soothing Pamela slightly. ‘A. H. Murdoch was quate a romantic figure, Ay suppose. One of those Victorian explorer taypes. Some of the pieces he collected had artistic merit on their own terms, but most of it – Skene’s dagger, and the Oriental Centrepiece, which quayte frankly is a monstrosity—’
‘That’s the piece that was delivered here, by mistake, isn’t it?’ said Robin.
‘Yes. Enormous, ugly thing, covered in masonic symbols, over three feet tall. Ay can’t imagine who’d want it, frankly. Ay told Rachel two years ago when they bought the shop, “you’re making a mistake!”’ said Pamela, with a resurgence of anger. ‘Everything, from start to finish, was misgayded, but she wouldn’t listen! “Kenneth thinks it’ll do very well”, “Kenneth knows the market”, “Kenneth knows people who’ll queue up to buy” – and of course, they’ve been making a loss ever since they opened! The location’s dreadful, and there simply isn’t a demand for that kind of specialist shop… if they’d been content to sell onlayne… but Rachel’s always been silly about business. Nayther of them had the first idea what they were doing. She was miffed our father put me in charge here, and Kenneth hates his day job and thought he was going to be able to give it up and talk masonic silver all day. And nayther of them have a clue about proper security. You’d think, with Rachel being a Bullen’ – Pamela said this rather as someone might have done on declaring their sister a Mountbatten-Windsor – ‘she’d realise what’s needed. This,’ said Pamela, gesturing around at the Silver Vaults, ‘is the fourth most secure building in the world. There’s never been a theft from the London Silver Vaults, ever. Stupid, baying that rundown place, thinking they could do everything on a shoestring. Ay tried to tell them! And then look what happened!’
‘It was very kind of you to go and help them out,’ said Robin.
‘Well, Ay had to. After may nephew…’ Tears welled in Pamela’s eyes again, ‘… and then m’sister had her stroke… of course Ay trayed to do what Ay could. Nayther of them wanted to let the shop go. “It’s all we’ve got now.” Naturally, Ay said Ay’d help.’
‘John Auclair did come in to view the collection at Ramsay Silver, didn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ snorted Pamela, ‘but one doesn’t get to be as rich as John Auclair is bay being a fool. Ay know John, Ay’ve sold him a few pieces over the years. He knew perfectly well Kenneth paid way over the real value of the silver. Ay knew John was coming in on the Monday to decide what he was going to take once Kenneth got desperate to claw something back. But of course, he never saw any of it, because…’
‘Awful, losing it all like that,’ said Robin, who didn’t want to introduce the subject of the body too early.
‘It was dreadful,’ said Pamela, with a shudder. ‘Ay had no idea anybody had been in the shop over the weekend. Wrayght didn’t work Saturdays, Kenneth looks after Rachel at the weekends, and Ay couldn’t be there, because Ay was attendin’ may cousin’s wedding.’
‘Presumably,’ said Robin, ‘you and Mr Ramsay were the only ones who knew the codes and had keys?’
‘Yes – well, I suppose Todd mayt have known where the camera controls were, but he shouldn’t have known the alarm or the vault codes, and he definitely didn’t have keys… Kenneth came rushing in after Ay arrayved, frayghtened he’d missed John Auclair, sneaking out of his office, as usual – he’s hanging by a thread at his day job – so he went down into the basement, and then he yelled out.’
Pamela swallowed.
