A letter with Kuwaiti stamps arrived the next morning. Mikki's father was taking a month's leave. A string of minor crises had forced him to put off his holiday several times. He was hoping to catch a Concorde flight on the evening of Friday the fourth, Mikki announced to the rest of the group at the breakfast table.
  Pru rechecking the date on her newspaper. "That's today."
  "The first postmark looks like August the twenty-second," said Mikki. "Some daft sod's sent my letter on a round trip to the bloody Farne Islands! Where's that? Somewhere out in the bloody South Pacific?"
  "Off the Northumberland coast," said Pru. "Just south of Holy Island."
  "I think he'd really like to have a look at this place," said Mikki. "But it's a long way for a day trip from London."
  "We could always put him in the guest room with Pru," said Haig.
  "Or he could have my room and I could camp in the study," said Mikki apologetically. "If you don't mind?"
  "Look, if you want to invite your old man down here for a while, it's okay," smiled Haig. "We'll squeeze him in."
  "Better not put him in with me," said Pru. "My private life's complicated enough already. Nigel's father hauled him into his office yesterday to tell him he was worried about the rumours about Nigel going out with a married woman."
  "Obviously, Nigel's dad doesn't do his drinking in the Seadog," laughed Mikki. "But I don't suppose Jay has had a chance to put the landlord straight yet."
  "I reckon it's all your fault anyway," Haig told his sister. "For calling yourself Ms Haig."
  "I'm not sure it's a compliment to be thought of as your woman, Jezzer," grinned Pru. "How come you didn't work it out when the well-meaning busy-bodies told you she'd been sighted with Nigel?"
  "Because I didn't know it was Nigel," said Haig. "And I still reckon it's your fault for calling yourself Ms Haig to irritate the locals. They can't slot you into a little box, can they? They don't know if you're single, married, divorced, an old maid or a lesbian."
  "Charming!" said Pru indignantly.
  "If you'd let them call you Miss Haig, they'd know you're my sister and not Van's mother."
  "Who thinks I'm Vanessa's mother?"
  "I forget. But someone did mentioned to me that Van must be grateful she inherited your looks but not your height."
  "Just because you're bigger than me, I'm not afraid to thump you," Pru said aggressively.
  Haig noticed Biffo sitting beside the fridge with his eyes closed. "I'll set the cat on you."
  "He'll probably help me thump you, you ratbag. Anyway, why shouldn't I preserve an air of mystery? You never know if a man's married. Why shouldn't I use a title that's as vague as Mister Haig?"
  "Quite right," said Haig, echoing Mikki's agreement.
  "That's just like you," chuckled Pru. "Getting me going then chopping me off at the knees by agreeing with me. Can you see a family resemblance between Vanessa and me?"
  "Not really. You're both blue-eyed blondes with a healthy tan, but the resemblance stops there. It's as likely as saying you're Mikki's mum."
  "She's not old enough," said Mikki. "My mother's about forty-five."
  "I'll take that as a compliment," Pru decided. "Is anyone going to feed Biffo?"
  "He's been fed," said Mikki. "He's just sitting there to see if he can con someone else into giving him some more grub."
  A telephone began to ring. Haig found the others looking at him. He crossed the kitchen to take a very brief call.
  "Wrong number?" said Mikki. "Or was it double glazing?"
  "Colonel March, the coroner," said Haig. "He's starting the inquest on the sovereigns next Wednesday."
  "What do you mean, starting?" said Pru.
  "He's expecting old Fullerton's relatives to make a good try to grab our loot. He thinks they'll put on a good show for him."
  "Just as long as he remembers who the good guy's supposed to be," said Pru.
  "It's about bloody time," said Mikki. "It's nearly a month since we found the sovereigns."
  "It was eleven months before they held the inquest on my Viking loot at the ford," said Haig. "I didn't like to mention that. Setting it up in a month feels like a rush job."
  "Ha!" scoffed Mikki. "What were they doing all that time?"
  "Nothing, for most of it. There was a lot of messing about to prove Terry, the farmer, really owned land that had been in his family for over a century. And they wanted complete lists of everything that came out of the dig. And when it got to the coroner's court, there was a lot of arguing about whether it was lost property or stuff that had been buried with the intention of later recovery. We had one so-called expert trying to prove the site was an armoury. In the middle of a bloody river, for God's sake!"
  "Which would make any silver or gold treasure trove," said Mikki. "Buried for later recovery."
  "Right," nodded Haig. "He kept it up even after we'd proved beyond any shadow of doubt I was right about the site being a ford. We had sediments, river mud, pebbles rounded by water action, even the remains of aquatic plants on the site. But he was supposed to have approached at least a dozen geologists to try to get one to argue his point of view."
  "What was the point of that?" frowned Mikki.
  "Greed," said Haig. "Our experts reckoned he though he had more chance of getting the stuff into his museum if it was declared Crown property and he could do a deal with the Heritage Mafia."
  "And he was right," said Pru. "You didn't let him have anything at all."
  "He was either a charlatan or a crook," said her brother. "He didn't deserve anything. It may sound totally ignoble, but I got a lot of satisfaction from seeing him get sod all."
  "I can tell what you're doing right now, Jezzer," laughed Pru. "You're busy hardening your heart in advance in case the Fullerton family comes round with a hard-luck story after the inquest."
  "Speaking as someone who spent twenty-five thousand quid on renovations after I bought this place, I reckon old Fullerton owes me a lousy five thousand sovs," said Haig.
  "That's one way of looking at it," grinned Mikki. "Are you going to do the washing up, Jay? I want to get my room ready for Dad."
  "I'd help you," Pru told her brother with a smile, "but I have to go outside for a smoke."
  "I wonder how much a housekeeper would cost?" said Haig. "And where we'd put her."

Mikki's father arrived at Barnstaple at ten past eleven on Saturday morning. The thirty-five mile train journey from Exeter had taken as long as the shuttle flight and the journeys to and from the airports at London and Exeter. Milos Valnik turned out to be a bulky man in his middle forties, probably because he was dressed for winter. The temperature was in the high sixties, but he was wearing a heavy overcoat with a fur collar. His desert tan showed through wispy, black and grey hair, proving that he was used to a climate much hotter than the tail end of an English summer.
  Two strong, capacious and much-travelled leather suitcases disappeared into the back of Haig's black van. Haig had replaced the two passenger seats at the back for Mikki and her father. There was a lot of catching up on the way back to Farne. Milos spoke fluent English with a distinctive, Central European accent. Haig grinned to himself as he realized that the conversation in the back of his van sounded like an espionage drama on the radio.
  Mikki had sent plenty of photographs of her new home and its inhabitants to her father. Milos had recognized Haig and Vanessa immediately. He stood and stared at the familiar tower when he got out of the van, as if unable to believe that it was real. Mikki smiled her pleasure at Haig. She had received several photographs from her father showing palatial Kuwaiti dwellings, but she had clearly found somewhere to live that was equally impressive.
  "I don't see why people think this looks like a lighthouse," Milos said eventually. "A tower, yes. But a lighthouse?"
  "Well, it's an old building and what you see today isn't what it looked like when it was built," Haig explained. "There was a sort of conservatory on the top originally. An iron framework that was glazed with panes of thick glass. That's what make the place look like a lighthouse rather than a tower, and it let old Fullerton, the bloke who had the place built, hold dinner parties at the top no matter what the weather was doing; wet, dry, windy. He could even give his guests the thrill of dining in the middle of a storm in perfect safety."
  "He must have had great confidence in your Victorian engineering," remarked Milos.
  "They were pretty good at building things to last," nodded Haig. "But frame seems to have suffered progressive damage in several storms and it was eventually removed in the 1930s as an alternative to rebuilding it completely to make it safe again. But we have an expert who'll be delighted to give you the official tour of the place while the porter takes your bags up to your room."
  Vanessa put on her tour-guide cap to relate the tower's history. Haig brushed aside token protests and took the two suitcases up to Mikki's room on the fourth floor. A ring on the doorbell took him down to the ground floor again. A dozen tourists had been hanging around further along the path to the mouth of the bay, waiting for signs of life at the ‘lighthouse'. Haig split them into two groups and took charge of one of them. Mikki's father remained with Vanessa's group.
  Haig noticed that two of the life jackets had gone from the rack in the basement as he was taking his party down to the cave. The inflatable boat had gone too. The two young boys in his party were delighted by their journey down to the base of the cliff. As usual, Haig had to show his almanac to the adults to prove that the tide had been going out since eight fifty-six a.m. and that the bay would empty before it filled up again.
  There was a note on his workbench on the ground floor to tell Haig that Pru and Nigel had borrowed his boat for a local trip, and they would be back at dinner time. Mikki served a picnic lunch for four in the garden. Vanessa and Mikki were called away twice to guide tourists and make money out of snacks and souvenirs.
  Milos Valnik had shed his overcoat but he was wearing a cashmere sweater over his shirt. He was used to outdoor temperatures in the forties Centigrade and a sunny day in England would feel cold for a while.
  Haig spent most of the afternoon in the garden, taking over the task of entertaining the visitor. Biffo immobilized him after the meal by climbing onto his lap and going to sleep. Milos Valnik wanted to be sure that his daughter was getting on as well as her letters suggested. He wanted Mikki to have as much freedom to develop as possible, but he was worried in case she want too far while proving her independence. He seemed reassured when Haig mentioned that he wished that he had possessed half as much common sense at her age.
  Pru and Nigel trudged up from the depths with fishing gear and a picnic basket at six o'clock. They had reported over the dinghy's CB set that they had caught some plaice, which had been foolish enough as to drift eastward from the grounds off the Cornish coast. Mikki took charge of the fish. She told the others to be ready for dinner at a quarter to seven.
  At half past six, Vanessa called Haig on the internal phone. She was on the ground floor, checking her stocks of souvenirs and doing her books. Haig was drinking sherry in the dining room with his sister and Milos Valnik.
  "Do I know some young kid called Andy?" Haig frowned absently in Pru's direction as he repeated Vanessa's message.
  "Has he got a Scottish accent?" said Pru.
  "He says you're his uncle," Vanessa added by phone.
  "Is he seventeen, reddish hair, has an Edinburgh accent?" said Haig.
  "How many nephews have you got if you can't remember their names?" laughed Vanessa.
  "I didn't think I had any in Devon," Haig told her. "What's he doing here? You'd better send him up, Van."
  Three pairs of eyes watched Andrew McCorkin enter the dining room. He dumped a heavy rucksack on the floor and stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He was wearing a dark blue sweatshirt with some sort of obscure advertising logo on the front. A bright yellow waterproof was rolled and tied on the back of the rucksack. He looked as if he had been doing some hard travelling.
  "Hello, everyone." Andrew managed to look embarrassed and confident at the same time. "There was nothing happening at home so I thought I'd come down here for a while."
  "I hope you brought a tent," grinned Haig.
  "Oh!" Andrew noticed that the dining table was set with six places.
  "I suppose we can squeeze him in somewhere," Haig said. "How did you get here?"
  "Train to Newcastle then a couple of good lifts down the motorways to Birmingham then Taunton. I got a train to Minehead, a bus to Flynton and hoofed the last three miles along the coast." The journey sounded well rehearsed.
  "Amazing how you got here ten minutes before dinner," remarked Pru.
  "I could do with some dinner," said Andrew.
  "I wonder if we caught enough fish to go round?" added Pru.
  "I'll show you the facilities then break the news to the chef," said Haig.
  The tower, he reflected, was not geared to accommodating a lot of single people. All of the private rooms were allocated, unless Andrew felt like taking a sleeping bag down to the basement. In James Fullerton's days, Haig remembered, a gardener and a general handyman had lived comfortably in the fall-out shelter.
  Alternatively, the weather was still warm enough for an adventurous young man to sleep out under the stars on the roof. The young, Haig told himself, can make an art-form out of roughing it. He had slept on his share of floors during his partying days. A shake-down would be character building for young Andrew, who had led a rather sheltered life with a well-off family in Edinburgh.

Adrian Vere-Harley knew right away that the man who had just strolled so confidently into the Anglian Gallery was not a customer. The man was in his early thirties and wearing a large, floppy, bow tie and a bright blue waistcoat. He was snooping around the silver section with the air of an expert, who could see nothing worthy of a place in his considerable collection.
  Vere-Harley flicked a speck of white link from the sleeve of his expensive jacket and drifted over to the interloper. He and the other man were alone in the gallery in the middle of a sunny Monday morning.
  "You'll be Mr. Vere-Harley," said the man in a conversational tone. "Or Reggie Bluett to the lads who went to school with you."
  Vere-Harley lifted his head slightly and looked down his nose at the man in the blue bow tie, who was at least three inches shorter than himself. The remarks, he judged, did not merit a response.
  "Detective Inspector Alywin of the City Antiques Squad." The inspector reached into his dark blue blazer. Instead of a warrant card, he produced a postcard-size, black and white photograph from an inside pocket. It showed an impressive, silver candelabrum with five branches. "I understand you knocked this out to one of your clients. Genuine Bonny Prince Charlie period, or something like that."
  Vere-Harley turned the photograph over and glanced at the information on the back. "We sold a similar item to a Mr. Mostin. But from rather later that the Stuart period. Naturally, I'd have to see the piece itself before I could be sure this is the same one."
  "What I need to know is where you got it and I want a look at the rest of your stock."
  "You have a search warrant, of course?"
  "I didn't think I'd need one, Mr. Bluett. Sure you don't have anything to hide?" Inspector Aylwin switched from a caricature of an East End villain's accent to a parody of Vere-Harley's polished tones.
  "Any search of these premises will be conducted under a warrant in the presence of my solicitor," said Vere-Harley stiffly. "The gallery has a reputation to protect, and I would consider a search warrant a basic demonstration of good faith on your part. And also proof that you're conducting an official inquiry and not just fishing. If you're making any accusations against me, I want them out in the open where I can refute them."
  "Bit touchy, aren't we?" smiled Inspector Aylwin.
  "One assumes a police officer is here in connection with an offence of some sort, and not just to further his education. Now, either tell me if there's a point to this visit, omitting the innuendo, or leave. You will not be permitted to search the premises. And if you attempt to do so, I shall call the police."
  "I am the police."
  "So you say. I don't seem to have seen a warrant card. And even policemen are required to obey the law."
  "It won't take me half an hour to get a warrant."
  "In that case, I suggest you get on with it," Vere-Harley said coldly. "I have nothing further to say to you except in the presence of my solicitor, who may well bring your manner to the attention of your superiors. The door is over there."
  "See you in half an hour, Reggie." With a confident smile, Inspector Aylwin left the gallery and crossed Anglian Place. The morning sun was high in the sky, sparkling from the windows of offices and exclusive shops. Aylwin was feeling quite cheerful despite the apparent set-back.
  "That was quick," said Detective Sergeant Brian Smith as his superior got into an unmarked police car.
  "Search warrants and solicitors before I could draw a breath, almost. Someone has a guilty conscience."
  "Or he's sure of his ground and he wants to embarrass you as much as possible by letting a lot of people know you arranged a search and got nowhere."
  Aylwin took a police radio out of the dashboard. "Paula, Sy, you in place?"
  Detective Constables Paula Webb and Simon Marvin confirmed that they were watching the front and back doors of the Anglian Gallery.
  "Keep your eyes open," said Aylwin. "Right, let's go for a drive round the block."
  "You really think we'd find anything if we searched him?" Smith checked his mirror, then headed for Praed Street. He drove past the Anglian Gallery quite slowly before accelerating to a more reasonable speed.
  "Depends what they shoot out the back door while we're away," said Aylwin. "But if we don't catch them at it, we may make them think twice about doing it again. It's all a matter of making losing his fancy reputation and a spell inside look more real to Reggie than the profit from dodgy deals."
  "The evidence is a bit thin, Gov. An expert saying he's never seen any workmanship quite like it before. I think it's pushing it a bit far to say the way someone decorated a bit of silver is as individual as a fingerprint."
  "Two experts saying they've never seen workmanship quite like it about a couple of pieces knocked out by Reggie Bluett, as was. He may be straight but he's got the feel of a crook about him. We'll see," Inspector Aylwin added confidently.
  "So what it all comes down to is you're playing a hunch, Gov?" said Smith.
  "You've got a problem with that?"
  "Just so I know where we're going, Gov."
  Back at the Anglian Gallery, Adrian Vere-Harley watched the unwelcome caller leave, then moved quickly to his office. He was there, consulting his personal phone directory, when the police car drove past the gallery.
  Hugo Piper, his solicitor, made token noises about trying to get away, then promised to be round in ten minutes. The senior partner of Piper, Hamilton and Bell did not sound rushed off his feet. Vere-Harley made a mental note to question more than a modest bill for the visit. Then he made his way though the connecting cupboards to the office of Peter Fish Associates. The telephone was plugged in to an electronic gadget that was supposed to be able to detect if the line had been bugged. Receiving an all clear when he pressed the test button, Vere-Harley made two calls to contact Barry Fantony.
  "I've just had an inspector from the Antiques Squad show me a picture of that candelabrum you sold me a couple of months ago," Vere-Harley said urgently. You know, that large candlestick for five candles," he added into a long silence.
  "Oh, right! The Liberace special," Barry realized. "So?"
  "I'm expecting him back with a search warrant. And they want to know where I got it."
  "You've not got anything dodgy in the shop?"
  "Of course, not!" Vere-Harley said indignantly.
  "That's all right, then."
  "What if they take my books? And find out I got the candelabrum from you?"
  "Let 'em" said Barry casually. "I've got a receipt for it somewhere, which proves I bought it fair and square."
  "You're sure we're all right?" insisted Vere-Harley.
  "Fireproof, as far as my stuff is concerned. You can muck this copper about as much as you like if you're the same. The quality of the silver is spot-on. And that's all you sold it as? A solid-silver thingy?"
  "Well, yes. Good!" Vere-Harley sounded relieved. "But we'd maybe better leave a little time before you bring me anything else."
  "Yeah, okay," said Barry. "Ring me again when you've got rid of this copper."
  Adrian Vere-Harley rang off and returned to his own office. He asked his secretary for a cup of Earl Grey tea with a thin slice of lemon and lit a small cigar. He ran a mental review of the current stock. There was nothing at all remotely questionable on the premises. His books were in perfect order; both the ones on paper and the electronic version on his computer. As long as he kept his nerve and hid behind a wall of icy reserve, he hoped that he would be perfectly all right.
  Hugo Piper arrived within the promised ten minutes. He chose coffee and a large brandy. He was grey-haired, well groomed, careful of movement and very sure of himself. An assistant showed Detective Inspector Aylwin and his sergeant into the office half an hour later. Aylwin had spent most of the time drinking a pint of bitter and glancing through a discarded Daily Telegraph. He was feeling slightly disappointed. The watchers had reported no activity around the Anglian Gallery and certainly not the rapid removal of boxes of suspicious merchandise.
  "My solicitor, Mr. Piper," Vere-Harley said by way of an introduction.
  "Yes, we've met," said Piper. "Inspector Aylwin is a young man in a hurry to make a name for himself. He'd like to be a high-flier. Did you find a magistrate willing to give you a warrant, Inspector?"
  "I think answers to a couple of questions will be all I need," Aylwin said smoothly. "I thought I'd better give Mr. Piper plenty of time to get here in case he was busy."
  Piper returned a smile, which told him that the inspector knew that he was far from busy.
  "If you have any criticisms of the way the gallery does its business, perhaps you'd care to repeat them in front of a witness," said Vere-Harley.
  Aylwin produced the photograph again. "Doubts have been expressed as to the authenticity of the piece in question," he said carefully.
  "You're saying it was misrepresented?"
  "Hardly. You were careful to give Mr. Mostin a very vague description of the piece."
  "And you see something sinister in the perfectly accurate information that my client supplied to you, Inspector?" said the solicitor. "My client described this candelabrum in terms of the information available to him. He listed the weight of silver, the hallmarks and commented on the quality of the workmanship. Which of these do you wish to challenge? Are you suggesting the metal was adulterated?"
  "No, that was okay. In fact, everything was all right. As far as it went," said the inspector. "He said nothing about the manufacturer."
  "My client had no information on the maker, Inspector. And we both know that it would have been misrepresentation if he had pretended otherwise."
  "What we're considering is that the piece might be a modern replica."
  "You're suggesting I manufacture such replicas?" said Vere-Harley coldly.
  "We're a little touchy today, sir," smiled Aylwin.
  "A natural reaction to your overly familiar manner earlier, Inspector."
  "Yes, my client mentioned that," said Hugo Piper. "I would have thought a police officer of your rank would have learned the normal courtesies due a member of the public. Perhaps a little more training is called for."
  "I think Mr. Bluett might have gone into the construction business." Aylwin's remark was rewarded with blank stares. "You know, making mountains out of molehills."
  "And I know you're well aware of my client's name," added the solicitor, who had supervised the official name change. "But if you insist on living ten years in the past, perhaps we should call you PC Aylwin instead of Inspector?"
  "I think we're getting rather a long way from the point," said Aylwin.
  "Ably led by yourself, Constable," said Vere-Harley with a thin smile. "If you have any real business here, let us get on with it. Otherwise, you can leave immediately."
  "I'm trying to trace back the history of this piece." Aylwin tapped the photograph on the desk. "I'd like the name and address of the person you bought it from."
  "I can see no objections to that," said Hugo Piper. "It's our duty to help the police. Just as it's the duty of the police to treat members of the public with politeness and respect."
  Vere-Harley carried out a search in his databank program then turned the monitor to face the inspector. Sergeant Smith copied the name and address into his notebook.
  "You've bought other things from this gentleman?"
  "Several. The sale of one piece frequently encourages a client to dispose of others."
  "Do you remember how you first met this Mr. Fantony? Did he approach you or did you contact him somehow?"
  Vere-Harley turned the monitor round and consulted some private notes about the client. "As I recall, he was in the gallery with a friend. They asked the price of a Georgian teapot because he had one at home just like it."
  "And did he?"
  "A rather better example than the one that I had, in fact. Once the tannin stains and the lime scale had been removed. He and his wife had it in regular use."
  "Do you know where he got the things he sold you?"
  "I don't have a record of that information, but he did show me receipts from reputable firms. And I did satisfy myself at the time that the items were his property and his to sell. And certainly not on the lists of stolen property circulated by Scotland Yard."
  "I see." Aylwin sat back in his chair. His sergeant returned the notebook to his side pocket.
  "If that's all," said Hugo Piper, "perhaps you'll remember your manners in future, Inspector. You'll find you might just get through your work more efficiently."
  "I don't need any lectures from you about efficiency, Mr. Piper," said Inspector Aylwin. "Not after the amount of my time you've wasted."
  "I've taken note of your behaviour, Inspector," continued the solicitor. "And any further lapses of accepted standards will be brought to the attention of your superiors. And we will not hesitate to seek legal redress for any damage to my client's reputation caused by groundless speculation."
  "Do you buy him by the minute or the word?" Aylwin remarked to Adrian Vere-Harley. "See you in court, chaps." With a mocking smile, he left the gallery and returned to his car.
  "Not much change out of him," remarked Sergeant Smith.
  "What is it solicitors charge? Sixty quid an hour?" smiled Aylwin. "Piper the Sniper did quite well out of that. I got a name and address to check through the computer. Then we'll head for Roehampton to have a word with our Mr. Fantony."
  "You reckon Adrian's in on the racket?"
  "If there is a racket. You know what our experts said. They can't say for sure the pieces are wrong. It's all down to their intuition. I'm positive Adrian knows he bought a doubtful item. And when he sold it on, he let his client decide whether to pay the price or not. The workmanship is excellent. It's all a matter of whether you pay the extra premium you'd expect for something two hundred years old."
  "You think he knows who made it, Gov?"
  "That all depends on how far back we can trace it," said Inspector Aylwin. "Let's go and talk to the computer."