Precious Things by Kelly Doust

disappeared.
    â€˜Zac, wait—’ she called, but he was already gone. The finer details of who precisely was waiting for her, and why they wanted to see her was apparently information Zac didn’t find necessary to pass on. With a sigh, Maggie got up from her desk and stretched her arms above her head. It hadn’t been a bad thing, that TV spot, even if Bonningham hadn’t been too impressed by her making an enemy of Penelope Smiley. She’d already been contacted by ten or so people since the segment had aired, and some had even supplied her with promising leads for future sales.
    Stepping out onto the auction room floor, Maggie saw the woman immediately. Petite and dark, with jet-black cropped hair, she was as out of place on the auction floor as a Japanese slipper orchid in a garden full of weeds . . . We really have to get some new stock in , thought Maggie, weaving her way across the floor towards her. Everything looked so shabby, somehow, beside this woman’s understated but classic style.
    Standing tentatively by the antique irons and trivets, she wore a strange look on her face, as though she wasn’t really there in that moment but somewhere else entirely, somewhere far away. Whereas everyone else on the floor was wandering about casually, this woman looked somehow fragile and preoccupied, as though she was holding herself very tightly together. In her fifties or so – a very well-preserved fifty , Maggie thought – the woman snapped to with a small smile when she saw her approach. She had almost the bluest eyes Maggie had ever seen.
    â€˜I haven’t come across one of these in years,’ the woman said, reaching out to touch the black surface of the stove-top iron. There was an accent to her voice that Maggie couldn’t quite place. ‘They used to be everywhere – remember? So lovely.’
    â€˜I know,’ said Maggie, smiling. She liked this woman already.
    She studied the woman more closely and realised, on second thought, that she must be at least sixty. Didn’t they say you got the face you deserved around that age? This woman looked like she’d spent her early years relaxing on a deckchair in Portofino under a vast sun umbrella, and her later years being waited on hand and foot by a team of manservants. There was something decadent, almost regal about her creamy white décolletage and handsome, makeup-free face: like she’d spent her childhood fed a diet of strawberries and cream scattered with blanched almonds. Her clothes were sleek and modern, very Jil Sander, and Maggie could tell they were expensive. Her handbag alone probably cost more than Maggie’s monthly salary, even though there were no discernible labels on it.
    â€˜Hello, sorry, I don’t know your name, my assistant . . .’ Maggie trailed off, looking at the woman expectantly. ‘I’m Maggie Walsh-Mason, can I help you with something?’
    â€˜Oh yes – I’m sorry,’ said the woman, hands fluttering to her chest. ‘Francesca Yeshov. I just had to meet you, when I saw the . . .’ She paused, and seemed to be willing herself to slow down. ‘Where to start? The thing is, I just recently put my mother in a nursing home – she has dementia unfortunately, and my father died years ago.’
    That would account for the dark circles under the woman’s eyes. Maggie gave Francesca a sympathetic smile, assuming she wanted to talk to her about selling off some of her mother’s old things. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, it must be very hard.’
    â€˜It is . . .’ said the woman, trailing off. ‘But that’s not why I’m here.’ She stopped to take a deep breath. ‘I know it sounds odd, but some time ago, actually a long time ago, I know I had that thing you were showing to the cameras the other day, the headpiece, or crown – what did you call it? You must think I’m mad, but I recognised it