The Art of Betrayal

may agree to give us time to pay up.”
“I wish I could help,” Vivian said, frowning, “but I never knew the Villiers woman personally. All I know is what I read in the newspapers—and heard from the ex-housekeeper, Ertha Green.”
“Would Ertha know where Lucy lives now?”
“She might.”
“Would she talk to me?”
“I can ask.” Vivian glanced at her watch. “I’ll phone her in the morning. Her mind’s clearest in the morning.”
“I can’t see her tomorrow. I have to break the news to Ivor.” I polished off the last bite of apple cake. “After that I’m giving my formal statement in Bury.”
“How grisly.”
My cell phone pinged a text. I pulled out the phone and swiped the screen. “It’s my mother. She wants me to call her. Do you mind?”
“Certainly not, my dear.” I started to clear my cup and plate, but Vivian stopped me. “Leave this to me. You phone your mother. Then get some sleep.”
“I will. Thanks for the tea and cake.” Kissing Vivian on the cheek, I slipped my phone in the pocket of my sundress and headed for the staircase.
“Vivian,” I said, then stopped and turned back. “Are you sure Evelyn Villiers didn’t say anything else before she collapsed.”
“She might have been trying to tell us who stabbed her,” Vivian said darkly. “Her mouth was sort of opening and shutting, but all that came out was that mice thing.”
After undressing and slipping into the cloudlike double bed in Vivian’s guest room, I called my mother.
“Linnea Larson here.” My mother, ignoring the caller ID function on her phone, always answered with her full name.
“Hi, Mom. It’s me. How are you?”
“Tip-top. I was just about to head down for dinner with James. Then Wii bowling. We’re practicing for the annual tournament against Wesley Woods. It’s a grudge match.”
I laughed. “Should I call back?”
“Certainly not. James will wait. Now,” she said in a tone that would brook no argument, “fill me in on all the doings in Long Barston.”
I did.
When I finished, the line went so silent I thought we might have lost the connection.
“Another body?” she said, echoing Vivian. “What does that make it now—three? four?”
“I’m not collecting them.”
“Of course you aren’t. What does Tom say?”
“Not much yet. Evelyn Villiers was stabbed, but why and by whom no one knows.” An image of blood on the front of that crisp white blouse made me queasy. I swallowed hard. “The thing is, I can’t figure out how she got into Ivor’s shop without setting off the alarm—and why she would try to steal something that belonged to her already.”
“But she didn’t steal it, did she? Someone else did. Maybe that person forced her to return to the shop. They killed her and took the húnpíng.”
“It just seems so unnecessary. Why wouldn’t the killer make her phone me and ask for the jar back?”
“That is a point.” I pictured my mother frowning, the corners of her mouth turned down. “I don’t know the law in the UK, but you do realize Ivor may be financially responsible for the loss. I hope he has insurance.”
“Me too.” Ivor’s insurance coverage was one of the topics I’d planned to address in the morning. “From the little Mrs. Villiers told me, it sounds like her daughter, Lucy, inherits everything. The police are trying to locate her.”
“Kate, darling—” From the tone of my mother’s voice, I thought she was going to warn me against involving myself in the investigation. Instead she said, “Lady Barbara’s comment was intriguing, don’t you think? ‘Something must have happened.’ For eighteen years Mrs. Villiers lived with her late husband’s art collection, knowing it would go to her daughter when she died. Today, after all those years of inaction, she suddenly decided to sell the húnpíng jar and possibly the entire collection. Then she was murdered.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that when the police discover what changed in Mrs. Villiers’s life, they’ll know why she was killed.”
“I just hope they find Lucy before she reads about her mother’s death in the papers.”
“You said you took photographs of the húnpíng. Can you text them to me?”
“As soon as we hang up.”
“Every jar is unique, Kate—no two alike have ever been found.”
“So if this jar turns up for sale somewhere—even in the future—my photographs will prove it’s the húnpíng stolen from Ivor’s shop.”
“Exactly. Your photos may be the only ones in existence. You should send them to the police as well.”
“I’ll do that.” I changed the subject. “How’s James?”
“His arthritis is playing up. Otherwise, he’s fine. James is partly the reason I called you. He’s invited me to join him at his daughter’s lake cottage in northern Wisconsin. We leave a week from tomorrow.”
“Lake cottage?” I tried to say, “How nice”—I really did—but the words refused to form.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not, Mom. I want you to be happy.” It was the truth. So why was I feeling like I’d been punched in the gut?
She went on briskly. “I’ll be sharing a room with his granddaughter. Bunk beds if you can believe it. Carly’s twelve, an inquisitive little thing from all accounts. Reminds me of you at that age.”
“Poking my nose in?”
“Curious—and very bright. I’ll say goodnight now, darling girl. Keep me posted.”
I clicked off and fell back against the huge square pillow. My mother, off for a week with her boyfriend. What was I feeling? Loss? Jealousy? A stab of shame pierced my heart. Who was I to resent my mother’s happiness? She’d borne so many losses—my brother, Matt, to heart disease when he was just eleven; my father, killed in a car crash on Christmas Eve, when I was seventeen. After his death, she and I became exceptionally close. We were the only family we had left.
In the early days of my marriage to Bill, my mother had spent time with us—weeks at Christmas and in the summer—helping me raise Eric and Christine, filling in at the shop when I had an auction to attend or a doctor’s appointment for one