Dead on Dartmoor by Stephanie Austin

Author:Stephanie Austin [Stephanie Austin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749024475
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2019-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

I sat behind the shop counter, going through the sales ledger, copying out my sales and adding up my takings, which did not take long, and then counting up sales of vintage clothes for Ricky and Morris, which took a bit longer. I found that the money in the cash box was all mine, Pat and Sophie having already sensibly removed anything owing to them, so I counted out Ricky and Morris’s money and pocketed the rest.

It was only as I picked up my shoulder bag and wondered why it weighed so much, that I remembered the package I’d grabbed off the hall table that morning before I’d rushed out of the front door. It seemed like I’d been waiting ages for it to arrive. Feeling like a kid at Christmas, I tore open the padded envelope and unwrapped my job lot of hatpins and their two porcelain holders. I’d been successful in my bid for them on eBay, although I’d lost out on the 1920s handbags. I inspected each pin carefully. Some were small and dainty, some were long with wicked points and weighty, knobby ends. None of them was very expensive, but sold individually they’d fetch far more than I’d paid for them, and they’d look pretty displayed in their holders, once I’d given each of them a jolly good scrub with a child’s toothbrush, followed by a buffing up with some silver polish: that was my evening sorted.

I remembered I was supposed to have phoned my mechanic. Dave is a proper, old-fashioned mechanic, who’ll have a go at anything. He’d managed to smuggle my van through its MOT on the last two occasions. I don’t mean White Van, the bent and battered one, I mean the previous one, the burnt-out hulk. I explained White Van had been in an accident.

‘You’re not having a lot of luck, are you?’ he commented.

No, I’m not, Dave, funny you should mention that. Apart from the fact that Green Bastard Hat in the truck had smashed one of my rear lights and buckled my bumper, the newly dented back doors didn’t line up as they had before. They were sticking slightly when I tried to open them and as there was no way I was going through another experience like the one I’d had with EB, I wanted them fixed.

‘I’ll have to pay you,’ I told him. ‘This isn’t an insurance job.’

That reminded Dave that the assessor had finally turned up at the garage and declared my burnt-out hulk a write-off. I’d had to wait nearly three weeks for that assessment. Still, now at least the cheque would be in the post.

A thought occurred to me. ‘Dave, when my van was brought in, the day it caught fire, you don’t remember the name on the break-down truck?’

‘Yeh, it was Moss and Pike.’

‘Are they a local firm?’

Dave thought a moment. In the background I could hear the ring of metal beating on metal, a radio playing, someone whistling along to the music as he worked.

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