Chapter 22: Two winter grandfathers share one velvet chair at the toy stall

Yolanda Reyes's toy stall takes up a whole bay of the Long Hall in December. Wooden tops stand in rows, a rocking horse with a real horsehair tail waits by the pillar, there are jars of glass marbles, and a red postbox for children's wish letters.

In the middle, on a low platform, stands a carved chair with a velvet cushion worn into the shape of one particular man.

That man is Rowan Usher, the stall's Winter Grandfather for twenty-five years. Children who once sat on his knee now bring their own children to sit there, and some of them cry a little, quietly, because this is the last winter there will be a chair to bring them to.

The answer to the second costume is in Yolanda's hand: a letter on the toy stall's own paper, sent to the costume hire shop at the end of October, asking for “a second costume, the same as ours, for our second Grandfather”.

Yolanda never wrote it. Her paper lies in a pile by the till, where anyone buying a top can take a sheet to wrap it in.

The parcel sat in the parcel office for a month and was collected on the first of December by a man who signed for it as R. Usher. Somebody has planned to be Rowan for a day. On the last Saturday before the winter holidays, at noon, somebody is.

First: Two red coats and one velvet chair

At five to twelve there are two Winter Grandfathers at the toy stall. Same red coat, same white fur trim, same white beard, same black boots. Each says, kindly and firmly, that he is Rowan Usher. Each holds a collecting tin for the children's toy fund. The children think it is wonderful.

You have seen a good many odd things in the Old Market this year. Two Winter Grandfathers arguing politely over one velvet chair is new.

You lift both collecting tins to compare them. Both are heavy with coins, both rattle the same way, and at a glance both have a round red seal on the lid. The children's mothers are already reaching into their purses for both.

You stand between them and ask each one a question about the stall, and each one answers. Both know Yolanda's name, the name of the rocking horse, and that the wish letters go in the red postbox. Whoever the copy is, he has done his homework, the way a chess player learns an opening before a big match.

Yolanda is nearly in tears. Rowan arrived at eight, she tells you, put on his costume in the back room among the lavender bags she hangs there against moths, and has not left the hall since.

She brought him tea at ten. At a quarter past eleven he walked over to the café for a mince pie, which is under the same roof. That is all.

Her mother had the stall before her, she says, and Rowan was a young porter then, lifting crates in the Fish Hall. The year her mother's Winter Grandfather retired, Rowan put on the red coat as a favour, for one Saturday. That was twenty-five winters ago.

The nearer Grandfather nods hard at that. “Just back from the café,” he says. “Mince pie. Same as every year.” The one on the velvet chair says nothing, but there are crumbs of pastry in his beard.

So you walk over to the café and ask. Mrs. Odile Fenn sold one mince pie to one Winter Grandfather this morning, at a quarter past eleven, and watched him limp back towards the toy stall. “Only the one,” she says. “Two of them, I'd have noticed. I'd have charged double.”

Back at the stall, Yolanda tells you what everyone in the Long Hall knows. Rowan's left knee has not bent properly since a football match forty years ago, a sliding tackle on a muddy pitch. He climbs onto the platform right foot first, and he lifts children onto his right knee, always, because the left one will not take the weight.

Outside the main gate, as on every winter morning, the chestnut brazier is roaring, and its smoke drifts across the square and the gate. You walked through it at seven, and your scarf still smells of it. Inside the halls there is no smoke at all, only snow light falling grey through the glass roof.

A little girl called Zara, aged seven, settles who goes first by marching straight up to the nearer Grandfather. He kneels to her on his left knee to hear her whisper, then lifts her up and sits her on his left knee. Zara wrinkles her nose. “You smell like the chestnut man,” she tells him.

The other Grandfather lowers himself onto the velvet chair with his left leg stuck out straight in front of him, and when Zara comes to him next, he lifts her onto his right knee. She sniffs him too, because she is seven and thorough. “You smell like Yolanda's cupboard.”

At noon Pim rings the bell. Both Grandfathers look up at the same moment, as everybody in the market does, the way a whole stadium looks up at a high ball.

Inspector Elena Dorn watches both of them, then the children, then the roof. It is the cup game from the fairground, she tells you, two cups and one pea, and the trick is to stop watching the hands and start thinking. Then she gives you three lines to think with.

Check the body before the costume. Two coats from the same hire shop are twins; two knees never are.

Check what clings to cloth. Wool and fur keep the smell of where they have been for hours after the wearer has forgotten.

Check where the real one has been all morning, with someone who was there, and then check where each of them says he has been.

Second: The first way, by the knee that will not bend

The real Rowan cannot kneel on his left knee and cannot hold a child on it; forty years after that tackle, the knee still will not take the weight. The nearer Grandfather knelt on his left knee without a wince and sat Zara on it, easily, as any man with two good knees would. You saw it yourself, from an arm's length away.

The Grandfather in the velvet chair kept his left leg out straight and used his right knee, just as Rowan has for twenty-five years. A costume can be copied from the same hire shop, button for button, and a stall's habits can be learned by standing and watching. But nobody can copy a stiff knee they do not know about.

Third: The second way, by the woodsmoke in the white fur

Now leave the knees and follow Zara's nose. The real Rowan put his costume on at eight among Yolanda's lavender bags and has been under the market roof ever since; his only walk was to the café, under the same glass, where it smells of coffee and pastry. Nothing in the halls smells of woodsmoke.

The chestnut brazier stands outside the main gate, and its smoke hangs over the square. A red coat that smells of chestnuts at noon has spent the morning out there, by the gate, not in the hall.

And the nearer Grandfather says he has just come back from the café. The café cannot have given him that smell. The brazier can. And Mrs. Fenn served only one Grandfather all morning, and watched that one limp back to the stall.

Two roads, one answer: the nearer Grandfather is the copy. The man on the velvet chair smells of the lavender cupboard where Rowan dressed at eight, and he has the crumbs of the café's mince pie in his beard as well.

Dorn asks the nearer Grandfather, very gently, to step behind the rocking horse and take off his beard. Underneath is Wilbur Talbot, who has spent the morning collecting at the square gates with a tin painted to look like the toy fund's. Yolanda's tins carry a wax seal stamped with the market's mark. His has only a red circle of paint.

He came inside just before noon because the snow had emptied the square and the crowds were all in the halls. He had watched the stall for a week from the café window, learning its names and habits like lines in a school play. He had never once noticed which knee Rowan used.

The money goes into the real tin, every coin. Rowan settles carefully onto his velvet chair, stiff leg out, and the children queue again as if nothing had happened, which for them is true. Zara is first again. She says it is only fair, because she found him. Rowan, before he lifts her up, leans down to Wilbur Talbot and says something nobody else hears. Later Wilbur tells you what it was. “Harder than it looks, isn't it, lad?”

Remember: a costume can be copied stitch for stitch, but never the body inside it.

On your way out through the Long Hall, you look up at the great clock that has told the market's time for a hundred years. Someone has tied a paper ticket to its pendulum case, with a number written on it in thick black ink. Why would anyone put a number on the market clock?