‘Oh, Albert’s here, is he?’ he asked, grinning.

Before I could reply a voice called out, ‘Paul, me old mate!’ A man in a flat cap and padded jacket was strolling towards us. Paul introduced me to Dennis.

Dennis doffed his cap. He was distressingly bald. I’m not talking sexy, stubbly bald, I’m talking shiny, slightly pointed bald. I felt an overwhelming urge to tap him on the head with a spoon.

‘You got those paintings I phoned you about?’ he asked, putting his hat back in place.

Paul produced from under the table some oil paintings, which I realised I’d not seen since we loaded my stuff on the van. He’d been keeping them back for Dennis and now he laid them out on the table – six traditional farmyard scenes: old breeds of spotty pig and horned sheep, a cockerel and hens, a donkey looking over a stable door, and so on.

‘Lovely!’ Dennis chuckled. ‘Well done, my son.’

‘Watch that one,’ Paul pointed. ‘It’s still a bit wet.’

I thought he was joking. The paintings were obviously nineteenth century, or even earlier, their colours darkened, muted with age and grime. I laughed.

‘What signature did you put on?’ Dennis asked, donning a pair of specs, and bending low for a closer look.

‘Henry Wain.’

‘Ah, good old Henry! He’s got quite a following, you know, in town.’ He pulled a bulky wallet from his pocket. ‘The usual?’ he asked, thumbing notes off a wad.

‘A pleasure to take your money, sir,’ Paul grinned, folding the notes away in his pocket.

‘And can you do me another half-dozen Arnold Bishops?’ Dennis asked, picking up his purchases and tucking them under his arm.

‘Seascapes?’ Paul asked.

‘Yes, lovely! You give us a call when you’ve done ’em and we’ll sort out when we pick them up. Nice to meet you, Juno,’ he added, and then looked me up and down and grinned. ‘’Ere Paul, what d’you think to a few classical goddesses? Juno here could model, couldn’t you, love?’ And he went away, chuckling, highly pleased with himself.

I turned to gape at Paul. He stared back, trying to look serious, his dark eyes shining with mirth.

‘You painted those?’ I managed at last.

‘Yup,’ he responded, grinning.

‘But they were old!’

‘About a week.’

‘But how … they were old – they were faded and dark …’

He beckoned me close. ‘Darkolene,’ he whispered softly in my ear. I shook my head at him dumbly. ‘It probably went out of production before we were born,’ he explained. ‘Before the days of polyurethane varnish, it’s what folks used to darken their wooden floorboards. A coat of Darkolene adds a hundred years to a painting – at a stroke, as it were.’

‘And you paint these … antique paintings … to order, for Dennis, who sells them as genuine, in his shop … to customers who think they’re buying an antique?’