Guilt Edged by Judith Cutler

seemed to me, and even, I suspect, to Aidan, a contradiction in terms. Shouldn’t she have been flitting round Griff, keeping an eye on his every move, taking his pulse and generally nursing him? It seemed she regarded the baby alarm with which she connected the two adjoining rooms as quite sufficient. Aidan was most apologetic about relegating me to a room without an en suite bathroom, a little way down the corridor. I smiled and declared that so long as it came with a mattress on the bed I’d be happy.
    You’d think that having the responsibility for Griff’s welfare spirited away from me by a combination of Aidan’s ego and wealth, in whichever order, and the Northern Irish nurse who managed somehow to speak without ever moving her upper lip, I’d sleep the sleep of the just. But – probably as a result of the day’s questioning – I was suddenly getting flashbacks to the events the police were interested in. What if they cluttered up my dreams and I woke up screaming? It was best to find some way of clearing my brain before I let myself doze off. The thing that I was most interested in was dodgy china and pottery. White horses and Ruskin. If it really was all dodgy. Who would run a scam like that? Assuming it was a scam. Someone who knew his (or her) stuff, with technical ability, proper equipment and a working knowledge of the market.
    I checked my watch. Was it too late to contact Titus? Not that I suspected him or Pa of involvement, not for one moment. They forged old maps, mainly, or the odd frontispiece allegedly from an historic book. But there was very little that other people got up to that Titus didn’t know about, as much, I suspected, to protect his back as anything else. He knew the police were interested him: what better way to fend them off than to offer them a bigger scam run by a big operator, maybe with other criminal sidelines? To me this seemed no better than grassing someone up, but, as he virtuously pointed out, major crime often involved drugs and/or people trafficking. I still found Titus on his high horse almost a contradiction in terms, but never managed to out-argue him.
    Whatever the hour, there was no reason not to text him anyway. Not quite to my surprise I got an immediate response. No Ruskin he knew of. But did I know why someone should be making little gold picture frames?
    Of course I didn’t: with the price of gold these days, it made more sense to be selling the gold for scrap.
    It really was time to sleep. But before I did so I made a last visit to the bathroom, which took me past Griff’s door. Wanting more than anything else just to see him, I pushed at the door, left slightly ajar. And there he was, trying in vain to reach his painkillers and the glass of water.
    â€˜Are you allowed any more of these?’ I whispered.
    â€˜Took the last one after supper,’ he assured me.
    â€˜Promise?’ I checked the bubble-pack anyway. And then the printed sheet the hospital had sent him away with.
    â€˜Another half hour, I reckon,’ I said firmly. ‘You seem to have tipped over a bit – can I have a go at those pillows for you?’ Feeling very professional, I linked arms with him as I’d seen the nurses do, and took his weight. ‘There. Fancy some music?’ Aidan had laid on a radio with earphones. ‘Or shall I help you to the loo?’
    â€˜As far as the loo door. I may be an old man but I do have some dignity.’
    His bed tidy, the lower sheet so taut you could have bounced pennies on it, I helped him settle down again, before perching on the side of the bed and holding his hand. He was in discomfort, I figured, not actual pain, so if he was distracted he might forget he needed medication until it was time to take it. So I asked him about the miniatures of Aidan’s ancestors that covered one of the walls. Rows and rows of them in pretty frames: some gilt, some silver gilt, some padded velvet.