CHAPTER TWO — THE TWELVE SEASONS
Daniel insisted that everybody come inside before anyone moved another piece of stone.
Carol refused until Julian pointed out that people driving past could already see the shattered base.
They entered the kitchen through the side door, leaving the damaged sculpture under Daniel’s porch camera and a clean painter’s sheet.
Julian declined coffee and spread twelve printed photographs across the table.
Each picture showed a different person performing an ordinary task, with winter coats, gardening aprons, market baskets and work boots carved into the limestone.
Daniel saw a baker lifting a loaf, a young man repairing a bicycle, and a girl balancing a book on her head.
The woman carrying pears appeared in the fourth photograph.
The original photographs had been taken at the Eastmere Garden’s opening exhibition in 1989.
The garden had lasted barely eighteen months before Bellweather closed it without explanation.
Julian pointed to a photograph of the sculptures arranged along a circular path.
“The artist called them Twelve Ordinary Days,” he said.
“Bellweather renamed them the Eastmere Twelve because he believed his own name improved everything.”
Carol examined the photographs without touching them.
“The arrangement was never a circle,” she said.
Julian looked up sharply.
“The catalogue shows a circle.”
“The catalogue shows what Bellweather ordered the photographer to shoot.”
Daniel folded his arms.
“Is this what you’ve been arguing about for thirty years?”
Carol gave him a hard look.
“For thirty years I’ve been trying not to argue about it.”
Julian explained that the statues had been carved by a local stoneworker named Ada Venn, whose reputation had grown after her death.
Their surfaces were unusual because she left the tool marks visible instead of polishing them into lifeless perfection.
A collector in London had recently advertised a private viewing of all twelve figures, claiming they had been recovered from an anonymous estate.
The offer was being handled by a gallery owner named Conrad Vale, who had a habit of finding artworks that ordinary people did not realize they possessed.
“Vale plans to sell the set Saturday night,” Julian said.
“His brochure calls it the art recovery event of the decade.”
Daniel studied the brochure on Julian’s phone.
It showed the twelve statues under bright lights, arranged in a perfect circle against black curtains.
Every figure looked remarkably clean for an object supposedly lost in a wet storage yard for decades.
Carol leaned forward when Daniel enlarged the baker’s hands.
“Those aren’t Ada’s pieces,” she whispered.
“How can you tell?”
“She carved the bread crust with her thumb, not a chisel.”
Julian slid over a magnified image.
“I saw that difference too, but I couldn’t prove anything without examining an original.”
Carol went silent when his eyes moved to the broken statue outside.
Daniel finally understood that the visitor had known where to come before Carol attacked the stone.
“You were already on your way here,” he said.
“Yes,” Julian admitted.
“I sent Mrs. Mercer a photograph of the auction brochure yesterday.”
Daniel turned toward Carol.
“You didn’t tell me somebody wanted to buy my statue.”
“I wanted you to be angry enough to sell it quickly,” she answered.
“That was the only way I could keep you out of what comes next.”
“You decided to protect me by smashing my property?”
“I decided badly,” Carol said.
Her answer surprised him more than an excuse would have.
Julian opened another photograph showing the underside of a statue base.
The brass plate had been installed inside a shallow notch rather than on the outside, hidden by an additional stone layer.
He said the numbers appeared to correspond to a pattern, but the pattern had never been published.
Daniel glanced at Carol and saw that she was looking toward his back door.
“You know what the numbers mean,” he said.
Carol did not answer.
Julian repeated his question more gently.
“Who was working at the Eastmere loading yard when the statues disappeared?”
Carol looked at a spot on the table where an old scratch crossed the wood.
“My husband, my sister, and I were there,” she said.
“And so were nine people Bellweather refused to pay.”
Julian began to speak, but Carol stopped him.
“If you’re going to call them thieves, get out of this house first.”
