Spend Game Read online

  It took me an hour to find Tinker. He was in our local bookie’s with his mate Lemuel (not ‘Lem’, except at your peril). Lemuel’s an asthmatic and grubby old soldier who breathes like my car. He gambles his – and possibly others’ – social security money as long as it lasts, then cadges the rest of the week. Social workers are good to him, though. They bought him a wheelchair last Lady Day. He sold it after an instantaneous and miraculous recovery from his limp. He wears an old forage cap without badges.

  The bookie’s was just crowding up before the afternoon races. I caught them both there in the planning stage.

  ‘Nodge?’ Tinker thought a second. He always offers to roll me a corrupt cigarette on one of those little pocket machines.

  ‘He comes in here sometimes, Lovejoy,’ Lemuel wheezed. He took the first fag off Tinker’s assembly line.

  ‘Nodge isn’t in town yet.’ Tinker’s verdict.

  ‘How long will he be?’ You can ask Tinker things like this. He always knows.

  ‘Not long. Ten minutes. In here.’

  ‘I’ll wait.’

  They lit up, spluttering and wheezing on the ends of their respective Tinker-made monstrosities. Tinker’s fags are better-looking after being smoked than when they start off. I watched, marvelling. Never had so many lungs managed so little.

  While Tinker and Lemuel unerringly sussed out today’s losers I gazed round at the maelstrom. Our town’s gambling fraternity is an assorted bunch. I don’t often come in except for the Derby and the Grand National, maybe the St Leger. There are housewives, layabouts, neatly dressed blokes fresh from selling insurance, confident hard-faced ladies with Jags left running at the kerb, the whole gamut. They all seem to smoke. My eyes run after a few minutes. I listened, bored to death, seeing those mysterious numbers being chalked up on the boards. Lemuel, advised by Tinker, was filling in papers with a pencil stub. It was a real drag. So one horse runs faster than another. Who cares? And yet water-colours of Georgian and early William IV racehorses, not to mention the Victorian, are soaring in value. The prints as well, so be on the look-out. Always go for fame: Eclipse, Hermit, Hyperion, even as late as Airborne. For heaven’s sake, though, make sure the print you buy is named (horse, owner, the race and jockey if possible). The rule is: the more factual detail the better. If you merely want to invest and you don’t care about real antiques much, go for the best such paintings or prints you can buy at a good dealer’s. Anything up to and including even the Brown Jack era should reap rewards. When buying originals, demand certificates of provenance – that is, what the painting’s been up to since it left the artist’s lilywhites. Don’t worry so much about provenance if it’s a print, because they’re not being forged yet. I mean so far. It won’t be long.

  Nodge came in hunched and forlorn. He was startled to see me among the muttering, obsessed crowd. I was across in a flash, pulling him in and smiling. I didn’t let go.

  ‘Over here.’

  Tinker and Lemuel were huddled in a corner. There aren’t any tables or chairs in these dumps, only mounds of fag-ends and possibly a shelf to write on. Tinker gave me a bleary glance then carefully took no notice. I could say what I like. He’s on my side. Lemuel’s not, but he’s not daft.

  ‘Nodge,’ I said in an affable undertone. ‘You heard Leckie got done?’

  ‘I heard.’

  I smiled at him. ‘I think it was Fergie, Jake Pelman and you.’

  ‘Me?’ His yelp made a few heads turn for a second. ‘Me?’ he hissed, white.

  ‘Any two of the three of you.’

  ‘I wasn’t even in the bleeding car, Lovejoy.’

  ‘What car, Nodge?’ I saw the penny drop. We were muttering in the corner like punters, buffeted by preoccupied people pushing all around.

  ‘Er – it was a car accident, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t try covering up, Nodge.’

  ‘Let me go, Lovejoy.’ He was desperate now, lips trembling and sweaty. A punter tried elbowing past to reach the betting slips on the shelf, but Tinker got in the way with studied absent-mindedness. The punter swore and moved off. Tinker never even looked my way. A good lad.

  ‘You did Virgil’s warehouse, right?’

  Nodge’s eyes widened. It warned me he was going to try it on so I snapped his finger. His attempted rush for the door halted before it was begun. He squawked and doubled up.

  ‘Here, you lot.’ The bouncer started out from behind his false grille. I have him one of my looks through the smoke and he hesitated. ‘Less of that. We want no trouble.’

  ‘Just going.’ I called, smiling over the heads. The bouncer dithered.

  ‘Christ.’ Nodge was nearly fainting. There’s nothing so painful as a broken digit. It matters which digit, of course.

  ‘Yes or no, Nodge?’ I helped him into the vestibule and stood between him and the street door.

  ‘They’ll kill me.’

  ‘You did the warehouse?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What were you looking for?’ I helped him a little. ‘Come on, Nodge. I know all about Doc Chase.’

  That let him off the hook of conscience, such as it was. ‘They weren’t sure what. Summat hidden in his things. Fergus said it would tell us where the stuff was hidden in Scratton.’

  ‘Come on.’ I indicated the door.

  ‘I’d better go out on my own, Lovejoy –’

  ‘No, Nodge,’ I said contentedly. ‘I want you in trouble with Jake and Fergie.’

  ‘Please, Lovejoy –’

  I nodded to Tinker and Lemuel and we barged slowly towards the door in a mob. ‘Out, Nodge,’ I told him. We left Tinker and Lemuel in the smoke and babble. I pushed Nodge out on to the pavement but kept hold. We had to be seen together. The smog of the market square seemed fresh as milk.

  Jake Pelman was across the way, coming forward among the stalls. He saw us and stared.

  ‘Jake’s always out shopping these days,’ I said pleasantly to Nodge. He groaned, more from seeing Jake than his finger.

  ‘You bastard, Lovejoy. They’ll do for me.’

  ‘We can but hope, lad. See you.’ I stepped away, still smiling for Jake’s sake and waving casually to Nodge. ‘It’s a deal, Nodge,’ I said loudly, nodding.

  ‘Jake!’ Nodge shouted urgently, beckoning.

  I felt rather than saw them come together among the shoppers. Nodge would have to do some quick explaining or go the way of all flesh. Jake would assume we’d done a private deal. Nodge was for it. I went whistling towards the pub. Happiness makes you peckish.

  I called in at the Three Cups for a drink and a pasty, happy that things had started moving. I’d learned not only who’d killed Leckie, but that they were no nearer finding the valuable item than I was.

  Jean was in the saloon bar. I was glad. When one thing cheers you up lots of other things join in the jollity, don’t they? I’ve often noticed that. Here was Leckie’s mystery practically solving itself, me with a wodge of gelt in my pocket and Jean buying me a drink. She had a rare piece of ‘toy’ porcelain from the Girl-in-a-Swing Factory – look for tiny figurines with streaky brown hair, minuscule mottoes with atrocious spelling, and you’re halfway there.

  I perched on a stool, elbows on the bar and gazed at the lovely piece. Sit down when you meet a genuine antique. I do. Don’t rush. It wants friendship. It needs company. Hang about for a few minutes and listen to its viewpoint, because it’s got civil rights just like you. Take your time and acquaint yourself with its exquisite truth. Just as women are the living instruments of the sacrament of love, so are antiques their counterpart, only a little more inanimate at first sight. I sometimes wonder if antiques are really a vigil between different women. Or maybe vice versa. Anyhow, you get the idea.

  To get the price down I told Jean it wasn’t genuine, but she could see how breathless and quivering I was, and only laughed.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ She doesn’t actually know much, so we had a good chat. I told her how Charlie Gouyn had slammed out of Lawren
ce Street full of Huguenot temper in 1749, leaving his partner Nicholas Sprimont in the lurch, and started up the Girl-in-a-Swing Factory. We don’t know its proper name. We dealers actually call it that nowadays from a little piece in the Victoria and Albert. The funny thing is that Gouyn was a superb silversmith, yet often put gold mounts on his tiny scent-bottles, figurines or chain-seals. My own trick is to see if the lassies’ dresses (usually whitish with a red-rose pattern) are lined with deep rose or yellow, and see if the base has a rose on patterned leaves. You can’t really go wrong because they’re so exquisite. Jean’s delicious piece was three luscious ladies leaning against a tree stump. Charlie Gouyn’s buxom wenches often do that. I wonder about the symbolism sometimes. I bought it off her there and then with the expenses money Moll had given me. Well, I’d tell Moll I used a lot of petrol.

  By the time I left town on the Medham road I was chirpy as a cricket and singing that Tallis madrigal which changes key a million times in the first bar. I was in good voice. When a crisis comes to the crunch I’m full of this alert feeling. I think it’s a sort of realization that honesty’s the best policy.

  Something like that.

  The damaged doors were repaired. New frosted glass glittered in the windows. Old George and Wilkinson were busy supervising the unloading of some stuff in the cobbled yard. A few people milled about, an early viewer and a dealer or two. I put my crate facing down the yard’s slope in case of possible engine non-cooperation and strolled inside.

  ‘Out of it, Lovejoy,’ Wilkie called bossily, arms a-dangle.

  ‘Get stuffed, Wilkie.’

  I was up the ramp and inside as the vannies sniggered. Wilkie came after me. I shook him off. There was only the office girl Brenda there, and she was behind the glass partition near the posh entrance. For once she seemed to be engaged in work.

  ‘I said, out.’

  ‘Wilkie,’ I said in my business voice. He shuffled a bit at that. ‘What did you do with the escritoire?’

  He shrugged. ‘It got smashed up. You saw it.’

  ‘Where are the bits?’

  ‘Chucked out at the back. We’ll burn it.’

  I got him to show me the heap. They’d piled it among other broken bits against the yard wall out of the way of the traders’ cars. There are some old sheds for storing stuff they can’t sell. The escritoire still looked a cheap Edwardian copy smashed up, yet something was niggling me. The wood was honestly fairly new when looked at closely. The Bramah lock was obviously nicked from an old piece and screwed into this feeble reproduction furniture to make it seem older. It had been only recently done judging from the scratches, and inexpertly done at that. This is a common trick to make a relatively modern piece of furniture seem old. It shouldn’t deceive an infant. The lock was hardly worth taking, because lock-and-key collectors are rare and the items are many.

  I let Wilkie go and stayed in the warehouse yard an hour, scrutinizing every splinter and handling it all inch by inch.

  No good. I rose at last, stiff as hell, and wandered out to watch them loading. After a few minutes I gave George the bent eye. He came over after a glance at Wilkie, who nodded at him once. Wilkie must have warned him I was around and being critical. I took him to see the heap.

  ‘Nobody to see us or hear us, George,’ I began. He looked about. I shook my head warningly.

  ‘Look here, Lovejoy . . .’

  ‘You’re an old geezer, George. And you know me, tough and nasty with it. Old geezers fall and break legs, right?’ We both analysed the situation. Charitably, I gave him an extra minute.

  ‘I don’t know –’

  ‘– Nuffink?’ I capped cheerfully for him. ‘But you do, George.’

  ‘Don’t touch me, Lovejoy. I’ll shout out.’ If he hadn’t helped to kill Leckie I’d have felt quite sorry for him, a shaky old sweat scraping a meagre living. The way I felt, though, I wouldn’t piss on him in hell to cool him down. He takes a few quid to tip dealers off when good items are coming in for auction. That’s all he’s good for. And it got Leckie crashed.

  ‘What’s it to be, George?’ I gripped his arm. He winced and finally nodded. ‘Nodge did the place over, right? He told me.’

  ‘Then what’re you asking me for? It’s bleeding killing me –’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Him with the fancy whistle.’ Whistle-and-flute, suit. Only Jake wears fancy bright green gear.

  ‘Jake. And Fergie?’

  ‘No.’

  It had the ring of extorted truth. I let go. Nodge and Jake had known Old George dossed in the warehouse when there was stuff passing through. That meant any day before or after an auction. They’d probably just knocked on the door and barged in past him. A few threats probably shut him up.

  ‘Here, Lovejoy,’ he quavered. ‘Don’t tell them it was me grassed, eh?’

  ‘Cross my heart, George.’ And, I prayed kindly, God help you, because that’s the first thing I would do.

  The funny feeling was there still as I watched him shuffle off down the yard to the corner where the vans were standing. I turned the shattered wood pieces over with my foot. It was simply modernish wood, poor quality with horrible varnish and wrong staining. So what was there to worry about? And why was I dithering like this? I decided to get back to town at the finish. Maybe I should go over to the late Dr Chase’s surgery and suss it out.

  I was actually in my crate fumbling for my keys when the light came on and I froze. Keys. Keys have locks. Locks are in escritoires. But who on earth takes a genuine Bramah lock recently from a genuine piece of antique furniture and plonks it in a piece of trashy reproduction furniture? I dropped my keys and hurtled back up the yard. A dealer called, grinning, ‘What’s the hurry, Lovejoy?’ the burke. The lock was still there, still screwed on its piece of backing wood among the rubbish. I’d been right. It had only recently been put on. You can always tell from the screw lines and the lock edges, especially if it’s been done by somebody who has never done it before. And it looked a botch job, done by somebody with no skill but a lot of determination. Somebody maybe like Dr Chase?

  The crowd by the loading ramp was still watching the new items coming in for auction. I went inside the warehouse. Wilkie was talking to Brenda in her illuminated glass cell. He quickly looked away from me. On my hands and knees I crawled about the floor, feeling along each board as I went. I crisscrossed the site where the escritoire had stood. Every yard I got a new splinter but the weight of the Bramah lock in my pocket goaded me. The key was in a corner, a cylindrical rod on a fixed ring.

  The key probably didn’t matter, though, only the lock. I just had to have both because there were endless possibilities. I slotted the key in. It fitted. Tired now, I went out to my crate the back way.

  Wilkie called, ‘Here, Lovejoy. Did you pinch anything . . .?’ but only when he knew I’d not bother to turn back.

  I ignored his shout, smiling to myself. Aren’t people odd? We work like dogs to trick ourselves. Maybe we all know we don’t admire the real bits of our own personalities. I’ll bet I’m the only person on earth who’s really honest about myself, honest and fair minded.

  It took a real effort to switch the engine on. I knew most of the story now. Who killed Leckie was obvious – Jake, Nodge and/or Blackie. Possibly, Mrs Leckie egged them on. Motive: greed. For what? Well, that would be revealed once I got the lock home and took it to bits.

  My chirpiness had gone. I didn’t sing a note this time as I clattered along the main village street towards the exit road.

  I’d better explain at this stage how I killed him. It’s clear in my mind still, and nothing trains your mind to be retentive like antiques. Of course, some antiques dealers have better memories than others. Patrick, for example. He can even tell you if a single Staffordshire figure had been seen in the district during the past ten years. And Tinker’s like that with auctions. I once asked him about a silver-topped walking-stick, plain as a pikestaff and monogrammed 1881 in Cheltenham. Somebody had auctio
ned it locally six years ago. I only had the vaguest recollection. If it had been an eighteenth-century cane swordstick with a gold-mounted ivory or porcelain figurine handle – worth a year’s wages – well, anybody can remember gems like that. But this particular stick even nowadays would only bring in a week’s wages. They’re still common. Tinker just wrinkled his gnarled face and said, ‘Top-angled, straited, monogram not edged, ebony with horn-based tip? Thirty-quid, Easter auction six years back. Elsie. She sold it to Brad. He’s still got it.’ Margaret’s good too, but keeps careful files and clippings on everything she sees, same as me. It’s good observation. So I remember killing him in some detail.

  I told you I was subdued driving homewards from Virgil’s that day. There was trouble ahead, but Fergie and Jake seemed not too much of a threat, not as threats go these days. Nodge would be no bother. My only worry was if Fergus fetched a couple of London lads up to put the elbow on me. Or if he got the Item before I did and reaped all the benefit.

  You might be wondering why I instinctively believed in the Doc Chase story, discovering a vital and precious ‘find’. On the face of it, an elderly quack isn’t much of a Hawkeyes when blundering round East Anglia’s scenery. But this old island creaks under the weight of its history. Within literally a ten-mile radius of my crummy thatched cottage there are thirty buried temples, over a hundred pre-Christian burial mounds of tributary kings, numerous sunken treasure ships in the estuaries and graveyards of famous Roman legions. And, in the same area, two hundred important ‘finds’ of rare and precious valuable antiques have been made this year alone – none by Lovejoy Antiques, Inc., worse luck.

  As I said, minds are funny things. When you hear of a find, you tend only to think of the great bronze head of Claudius being fished up intact from our riverbed. Your mind lingers on the treasure troves found in the craziest places, like the Ardquin Treasure in that bloody fishpond or the Winterslow Trove in that chalk pit. Like that gravedigger business in that churchyard, now famous as the Hickleton Hoard. But you don’t have to go digging for antiques. After all, that Vlaminck daub ‘by an unknown artist’ was merely hanging on the wall. People saw it every day for ages. Yet once it was identified Sotheby’s sold it for a fortune.