Chapter 3: What Patricia Gull Was Hiding

Patricia Gull returned on Saturday morning with reinforcements: her husband Dennis, who had the damp, apologetic look of a man who had been married into obedience, and a solicitor named Phelps, who carried a briefcase as though it contained something infectious.

"I want my clock," said Mrs. Gull, "and I want it today."

"The clock is repaired," said Nettie. She had spent the previous evening reading every tag in the shop, and she now knew more about the private lives of Thrumble Magna than any person had a right to. She knew the publican's wife's brooch actually belonged to her husband's first wife, whom she resented with operatic intensity. She knew the retired headmaster's fountain pen was a gift from a student he had failed and never forgiven himself for failing. She knew Alderman Fitch's barometer was perfectly functional; he simply could not face the weather.

And she knew about the vestry.

"Then give it to me," said Mrs. Gull, her jaw set like a padlock.

Nettie placed the clock on the counter. It gleamed. She had polished it the night before, partly out of respect for her grandmother's work and partly because she wanted Mrs. Gull to see her own reflection in the brass.

"My grandmother's notes say the vestry is being used to store furniture. Your daughter's furniture."

The silence that followed had a texture to it -- thick, uneven, like something knitted badly.

Dennis Gull looked at the ceiling. Phelps looked at his briefcase. Mrs. Gull looked at Nettie with an expression that could have stripped wallpaper.

"That," said Mrs. Gull, "is none of your business."

"It was my grandmother's business. She believed objects should go back to where they belong." Nettie paused. She was aware that she was doing something reckless -- she who had spent her adult life avoiding confrontation with the dedication of a professional coward. "Does your sister know you have her furniture?"

Mrs. Gull's face went through several colours in quick succession, like a traffic light having a breakdown.

"My sister," she said, in a voice that could have frozen soup, "is in a care home. She doesn't need furniture."

"But her family might."

"Her family." Mrs. Gull's composure cracked -- just for a moment, just enough to show what was underneath. "Her family hasn't visited her in two years. I'm the one who goes. Every Wednesday. I'm the one who sits with her while she calls me by our mother's name and asks when lunch is, even though she's just had it." Her voice shook. "I took the furniture because I didn't want them to have it. They don't deserve it. They don't deserve any of it."

Dennis Gull put his hand on his wife's arm. She did not shake it off.

Nettie looked at the clock on the counter, ticking steadily, keeping time for no one in particular.

"Take the clock," she said quietly. "And take it back to the vestry. Where people can hear it."

Mrs. Gull picked up the clock. She held it against her chest as though it were something living.

"Your grandmother," she said, from the door, "was the most infuriating woman I ever met."

"I'm starting to understand that," said Nettie.

Mrs. Gull almost smiled. It was a near thing -- a twitch at the corner of her mouth, suppressed immediately, like a cough in church.

"Wednesday," she said. "I go on Wednesdays. If you want to come."

She left before Nettie could answer, which was, Nettie suspected, entirely deliberate.