Pearl ribbon design with a pink heart

The pearls came back to the fair on Tuesday, in a biscuit tin with no note, just the grey ribbon knotted round the lid as if whoever sent it couldn't decide whether to keep it. You'll remember the glass case at the back of the ring toss stall, the one Mr Oakes swore was lucky and never once let anyone win. I always assumed the string was glass. It isn't. Pearl at the candyfloss van had a jeweller in Scarborough look at them last week, and he said they were real enough to make a grown man sit down.

The clasp had rusted shut, so she didn't bother with it. Instead she slid a fingernail under a loop of ribbon and found a small pink enamel heart tucked against the top pearl, chipped at one edge, as though it had been knocked about in a pocket for years. Then there's the tail of the ribbon, with a name inked on it in biro, faded but readable: Pip. Mr Oakes had a goat called Pip that rode the dodgems every August until the summer it got loose in the Co-op. Nobody ever told me whether the pearls were meant for the goat or for the man who loved it, and I've decided I'm not going to ask.

Pearl says we should sell them. I said we should send them back to whoever wrote Pip on that ribbon, and she said we don't even know who that is, which is exactly why I'm writing to you. You still know everyone from those years. Ask around the Whitby lot. Find out who kept a goat and a heart in their pocket.

I've left the tin on the counter by the coconut shy. Come down before the season ends and help me decide.

Love, Ivy