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you should do it,” Chanel went on. “It’d be great PR for the shop.”
    “And not only that,” Ruby said with faux brightness, “it would give me the perfect opportunity to bump into Dr. Double Barrel. Not to mention the American doctor.”
    “Oh, come on, you won’t see either of them. When you arrive, this Jill woman will probably whisk you straight into a lecture room and afterward there’ll be a quick cup of something herbal and disgusting and you’ll be on your way.”
    Ruby let out a long slow breath. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “I’m just being silly. I’ll give Jill McNulty a call. It’d be daft to pass up a chance like this.”

Chapter 4

    That evening Ruby should have been having dinner at Laura and Jack’s. She hadn’t seen them since they got married a few months ago. They were old friends from her Camden Market days. Jack still ran their stall selling art deco glass and porcelain, while Laura now worked for a small arts theater in Islington where she was in charge of wardrobe. She had rung Ruby to say that Jack was cooking Thai and that she was inviting actors. Seriously cute actors, she’d said.
    Then, last Saturday, Ronnie had phoned Ruby at the shop and also invited her to dinner on Monday. Ruby said she would love to have come if she hadn’t already accepted Laura and Jack’s invitation.
    “I don’t suppose there’s any possibility,” Ronnie began tentatively, “that you could beg off.”
    “I guess I could,” Ruby said, “but what’s so special about me coming on Monday? I can make any other night next week.”
    “It’s just that your dad and I decided on the spur to take a short trip to Rome next week and Monday’s the only night we’ve got free before we go.”
    Ruby asked what was so vital it couldn’t wait until they got back the following weekend.
    “There’s just something I have to tell you, that’s all.”
    “But why can’t you tell me now?” Panic suddenly engulfed her. “Mum, there’s nothing the matter, is there? You’re not ill, are you?”
    “I’m fine. Honest—and Dad’s fine, too. It’s nothing like that. Please just say you’ll come. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”
    “OK, but can’t you just give me a clue about what’s going on?”
    “I’d rather not over the phone and anyway I’ve really got to run.” Ronnie couldn’t get off the line fast enough. “I’m meeting a couple of girlfriends for lunch and I’m late. Bye, darling. See you Monday.” That had been it. End of conversation. Her mother had hung up.
    For nearly three days Ruby had barely stopped thinking about what could be so important. Now, driving toward her parents’ house in Hendon, she was still trying to work it out. The most likely answer was that her parents were going to announce that they had come into some money. But if they’d had a windfall, surely they would have been bursting with the news. They wouldn’t have kept it a secret.
    She knew there was an inheritance in the offing, but Ronnie and Phil had been perfectly open about it. Grandma Esther, her father’s very elderly and ailing mother, had died a few months ago. Maybe she had left a fortune that nobody knew about.
    Ruby had always assumed—along with her parents—that Grandma Esther didn’t have much more than a few savings and the flat in Hackney where she and Ruby’s late Grandpa Leo had lived for the last forty years. Her grandparents’ glove manufacturing business had made them a reasonable living, but Ruby never got the impression it had done that well. Phil had always been nagging them to expand and buy more up-to-date sewing machines and cutting equipment, but Grandpa Leo refused to believe new equipment would increase his output. The truth was that neither Leo nor Esther was particularly bright. In the twenties, just after they got married, they decided to emigrate from Germany and make a fresh start in New York. They bought boat tickets from some shyster