He had been suspicious at first, disinclined to trust this unknown female, but when Donna confronted him with what she had seen, he turned truculent. Yes, he had taken stuff, he said. So what? They had enough, didn’t they? All those things, just for people to come in and stare at. They wouldn’t miss one or two.
‘Or three or four,’ said Donna very deliberately.
They looked at one another. Donna said, ‘We’re in the same game. And here’s the deal. You let me into Quire, we’ll take the stuff, and I’ll get rid of it. We split fifty-fifty.’
‘How do I know you won’t rip me off?’
‘You don’t.’
‘How do I know you aren’t a copper?’
‘You don’t know that either. But suit yourself,’ said Donna, and turned to walk away. She had taken four steps before he said, ‘How would you get rid of it?’
‘I’d take it to one of the jewellers in London who deals in secondhand stuff.’
‘Wouldn’t he guess it’s nicked?’
He was so small-time, so na?ve, Donna wanted to laugh. She said, ‘For God’s sake, look at me! I’m the ultimate in respectability.’ And so she was that day, wearing a plain suit, with her hair combed back behind her ears. ‘I simply say it was my grandmother’s jewellery or china–no, I’ll make that great-grandmother–and that I need the money. And believe it or not, that’s perfectly true. I’m flat broke. That’s why I went to Quire House today.’
‘To see what you could nick?’
‘Yes. It’s a good scam,’ said Donna, mentally reading from the script she had prepared for herself. ‘I go round museums and smaller stately homes–places like Quire. But I only take small things–things that I can pocket. No one ever suspects me, because I don’t look like a thief. Then I sell what I’ve picked up. I use a different jeweller each time, of course.’
The suspicious eyes assessed her for a moment. Donna’s heart thumped. Had she sounded convincing? Most of her expressions had come from crime books and might be wildly off the mark, but she did not think Greg Foster was likely to know the real jargon.
‘All right,’ he said at last.
‘You’ll do it?’
‘Yeah, why not? Nothing to lose, is there? If you grass on me, I can deny it. Or say you approached me and I told you to sod off. I’ll get the stuff and meet you here.’
‘No,’ said Donna. ‘I’ve already seen that you haven’t the least idea of what’s valuable and what isn’t. So I’ll be the one deciding what we take and what we leave.’ She frowned, as if thinking hard. ‘Quire House doesn’t have any electronic alarms or anything like that, does it?’
‘No. Dr Toy locks the doors when we’ve all gone and that’s it.’
‘Good.’ Very good indeed; this had been one of her real worries. She reviewed the time-scale of her plan, and said, ‘We’ll make it the day after tomorrow. You let me in after the place has closed. I don’t suppose you’ve got a key, have you? No, I thought you wouldn’t have. In that case you’d better pretend to go home at the usual time and sneak back to hide somewhere. A loo or a cupboard or something like that. At a quarter to seven I’ll come to the main door and you’ll let me in. Be there on time, Greg, or I really will grass you up.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘We’ll choose what we take, and be gone by seven–quarter past at the latest.’
Donna thought he had been half over-awed and half-afraid, but whichever it was he had played his part. He had let her into Quire shortly before seven and they had gone like two shadows into the music room. Once there Donna swung the sandbag at his head. It had been child’s play fashioning that; a stocking filled with actual sand and she had worn a jacket with deep pockets so that it was quickly accessible.