She hadn't wanted to come. It was Sarah, her next-door neighbour, who'd insisted on dragging her reluctant bones along to the town hall so that she could be publicly humiliated for the amusement of several million viewers. Sarah who, just at the moment when she'd needed her for moral support, had disappeared in search of a loo.

Pregnancy was no excuse…

'What have we got here?' The "expert"-permanently tanned, silver-haired, a darling of the blue-rinse brigade-was familiar from the many evenings she'd sat watching this programme with her grandmother.

'I don't know,' she said truthfully, putting the brown padded envelope she had been clutching to her chest on the baize-covered table in front of him. 'To be honest I feel a bit of a fool bringing it here-' She felt better for getting that out, disassociating herself from any pretence to have found "treasure" '-but my neighbour lived in the Middle East for a while and she thought it was…interesting.'

Oh, lame, Violet Hamilton. Pathetic to blame someone not here to defend herself.

'Well, let's have a look at it, shall we?' He tipped a rag-wrapped bundle out onto the table in front of him.

'That's just how I found it,' Violet said quickly, not wanting him to think she routinely kept her valuables wrapped in rotted black silk. Not that she had any valuables. 'This morning,' she added. 'When I put my foot through the floorboards.' The cameraman pointed his lens at her strapped up ankle. Terrific… This was her "fifteen minutes of fame", and already her ankle was more interesting. 'It must have been there for years,' she said.

Without a word he carefully unfolded the rotted silk to reveal an ornately decorated dagger. Around them people crowded in to get a closer look.

That it was old was not in doubt.