The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder: A Novel (Volume 1) (Antique Hunter's Series) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

C. L. Miller is the internationally bestselling author of the Antique Hunter Series. She started working life as an editorial assistant for her mother, Judith Miller, on The Miller’s Antique Price Guide and other antiquing guides. She lives in a medieval cottage in Dedham Vale, Suffolk, with her family. Visit her at CLMillerAuthor.com.

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Prologue PROLOGUE
If Arthur Crockleford had been a normal antiques dealer, then perhaps this night would never have arrived.

Arthur hunched over his desk making his final preparations. He had just finished gluing the last photograph into his journal when he heard the rumble of tires on the cobbles behind his antiques shop. He checked the time on his Georgian longcase clock—he adored that clock; it was one of the first antiques he’d ever bought, from a dealer on Portobello Road—the brass hands showed twenty-eight minutes past one in the morning.

A rush of icy night air swept through the back door as it opened and down the long corridor to enter the shop, which was lit by the table lamp on Arthur’s desk. The gust pricked the hairs on the back of his neck.

They’re here.

He shivered, and his fountain pen marked the final full stop in his journal. The clock chimed the half hour.

Time is up.

Arthur rose and hurried to the stairs leading to his apartment above the shop. He knew each noisy step and had to climb over a couple to avoid detection.

His old knee injury clicked.

At the top of the stairs he stopped, scanning the shadows below him, wondering which one of them had come. All the lights in the apartment were off and he was surrounded by thick black night.

A sweep of the rooms reassured him that everything was in order.

The tap of someone’s footsteps on the medieval floorboards below made Arthur shudder.

For decades, he had loved every second of his secret life. Until Cairo. If he’d made different choices, left this underground world behind, then maybe tonight could have been avoided. But what was done, was done, wasn’t it? He could only hope Freya would one day understand. And that it wasn’t too late to make things right.

Arthur walked back down the stairs, this time intending to be heard.

In the dim lighting, he scanned the antiques around him. Each was priced to sell, but it didn’t mean he wanted to part with them. Seeing all the treasures he loved ignited a fury in him, but he knew this was one fight he, at last, would not be able to win. Arthur ran his hand through his shaggy gray hair, readjusting his cravat with the other. If this was to be the end, at least Carole would be proud he’d made such an effort to die stylishly.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” he called, hoping the neighbors would hear him. It would give a more accurate time of death if that was needed.

He positioned himself beside a mahogany tilt-top table, which held a couple of his favorite vases.

Maybe he should’ve tried to set off the alarm. Maybe he should’ve screamed out. Maybe he should’ve raced for the phone to call the police. But the darker side of the antiquities world was finally catching up with him and he conceded that he probably couldn’t outrun it forever. He was too old for running.

It’s over to you now, Freya.

Out of the coal-black corridor a figure emerged. Arthur strained his eyes. Shadows hung over the intruder’s face, but Arthur could just make out what they were doing: they were tugging at their gloves—checking they were on.

They stepped into the shop and into the light.

“You weren’t who I was expecting,” Arthur said.


Chapter 1 1
“All hunts begin with something that has been lost… or taken.”

—Arthur Crockleford

Freya

Outside the Victoria and Albert Museum in London I brushed my fingertips over a shrapnel dent in the building’s wall. It had seen a lot, that wall, and had survived whatever had been thrown at it since being built in 1909. No war or hurricane had taken it down. I wished I were as strong.

Early that morning I’d left my house before the real estate agent arrived and fought the commuter’s hustle, bus after bus, to get to South Kensington. I’d waited in a café nearby until the museum opened. The V&A was the place I always escaped to, my very own safe haven.

A smiling man opened the museum’s main entrance. I was one of the first inside—the tourists were probably still having their buffet breakfast.

The familiar smell of polish hit me, then the echo of my boots tapping on the tiles in the cavernous hall. I smiled. It was almost enough to make me forget the “For Sale” sign being nailed to my gate.

Ever since my ex-husband, James, moved out almost nine years ago he had insisted the house be sold. Apparently, a large Victorian house in an expensive suburb was wasted on me. James had finally agreed I could live in the house until our daughter, Jade, was eighteen, and now that she had left for university in America there was little I could do to stop the sale. I couldn’t afford the mortgage alone when the child support stopped—Jade wasn’t a child any longer.

I was almost on autopilot when I reached the beginning of the British Galleries on the first floor. I passed the Great Bed of Ware, an enormous bed so large it could sleep two families and so famous it was mentioned in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Farther along on my right was a freestanding bookcase like the one Samuel Pepys once owned. Eventually I reached the stone stairway to the third floor and the Chippendale furniture. I hadn’t been part of the antiques world for over twenty years, but I still adored a finely crafted chair or a beautifully gilded mirror.

I knew each item in the Chippendale furniture section by heart, and something about the Chippendale Garrick Bed (named after the once-famed actor David Garrick) looked wrong. I leaned as close as I dared and studied every inch of the ornate fabric. A couple of moments later I saw it. A very slight indent on the cover. A visitor had decided to check the comfort level of the mattress and left their mark.

Annoyance bubbled inside me and I looked around for a gallery assistant.

My phone rang with Aunt Carole’s ringtone. Jade had put that jingly ringtone on before she left for LA and I’d never gotten around to changing it. I pulled out my phone and silenced it. I desperately wanted to hear my aunt’s voice, but now wasn’t the time. I scanned the empty gallery and walked back toward the stairs in the hope of finding a member of staff when my phone rang again, vibrating insistently in my pocket. I should’ve known Carole was not to be ignored. She would only keep calling until I answered.

“Carole,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Freya, darling,” Carole interrupted dramatically. “Is it today?”

“Yes, they’re putting a sign up this morning,” I replied.

“What a rotter James is.” She was trying to sound annoyed, but there was something strange in Carole’s tone; it was the voice she used when she was acting. “Might be time to let go? Find a new path, a new adventure somewhere—”

“I won’t move.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “I won’t give him the satisfaction.”

“Of course.” Carole sniffed. “But, darling… I may need you to come home for a bit.”
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