Ten Word Game Page 15

  So much gelt, not worth the bother? I gaped. And thought I saw Margaret Dainty. A woman was walking slowly towards the waterfront. I could have sworn it was Margaret, limp and all. She always wears flowery dresses, wouldn’t be seen dead without a hat and gloves. And she feels the cold, so is never without a jacket. I can make her shiver just by getting out of bed and peering through the curtains even in a heat wave and saying, “Brrr, looks chilly out there.” She’ll shiver all day after that.

  The lady passed from sight into the leafy lane, a tram obscuring my view. I could have sworn…

  “Not worth the bother?” Which raised more questions.

  “Gun-running is the business, sewn up. Girls is already in hand; you’ve only to think of the state that business is in. Drugs is a mess – look at the simulant drugs pharmacologists turn out these days. Athletics is desperate – those Yank-European wankers have got that bound and gagged. Zurich and Marseilles won’t budge on world athletics. Everybody wants a cut of them. There’s nothing else.”

  “Antiques?” I’m ever helpful.

  His eyes came back. “We read your police Fraud Squad article. The boss said the Lovejoy Factor was among the Big Four corrupting causes undermining civilisation today.”

  I’d written a silly book once on antiques. Not the Lindisfarne Gospels, it had somehow spawned the term and plagued me ever since.

  “Look,” I said, on edge. The floral lady had reappeared at the far end of the park, evidently on her way to the ship. I could see Melissa looming white and serene beyond the first row of buildings. It couldn’t have been Margaret, could it? “God above, Moses, I was only three when I wrote the damned thing. You can’t blame me.”

  He went on, “So when we heard of that inept group of incompetents clubbing together to take on St Petersburg, Lovejoy, we decided to take over.”

  Which group? Who? “And they agreed?”

  For some reason I thought of Holly’s dark eyes and her slick Kevin with his stiletto fingers, rather than Les Renown and Amy, June Milestone and Executive Purser Mangot. I didn’t really like any of them, and that meant I couldn’t trust a single one.

  “Agreed?” He did that upturned palms gesture and smiled properly for the first time. “Ah, not quite agreed. They don’t know they’ve been taken over, you see. You’re not to tell them, or else.”

  The lady in the flowered skirt with the hat and gloves had gone now. I didn’t ask or else what.

  “Who can I trust, of those on board?”

  “Me,” he said. “I’m not exactly on board, but I am with you in spirit.”

  Who was his agent on the Melissa? I guessed maybe Victor Lustig. Or Mangot, seeing he never looked directly at me, shifty sod?

  “I have never fewer than three, ah, friends within call at any moment, Lovejoy.” He glanced at his watch. “I rather think you’d better head back. Don’t want you to be late for your next gargantuan meal, do we? Incidentally.” He leant towards me. I leaned closer anxious to hear. “Tonight’s dinner offers lumpfish caviar with capers and fromage frais for starter. Try it. I recommend the veal osso bucco milanaise on pearl barley for main course. One warning.”

  “What?” I bleated, worried out of my mind. I thought, he’s going to tell me somebody had a gun.

  “Steer clear of their Brandy Alexander. The chefs on the Melissa invariably drown it under Tia Maria sauce. I wouldn’t feed it to my cat.” He stood. “And you should see my hungry cat! I am so pleased we had this conversation, Lovejoy. Bon voyage.”

  He strolled off. I rose to follow, but he just walked round a line of rhododendrons and was somehow gone. Nervously I scanned the park, but saw no one I’d think suspicious. I went slowly out, crossed the road, and found the lane where I’d run from Lady Vee. She was no longer in the coffee place, though Les and Amy were still gazing fondly into each other’s eyes. I went straight past and caught up with Inga shoving Lady Vee’s wheelchair. Without a word the baleful nurse surrendered control.

  “Glad you could make it, Lovejoy,” Lady Vee said, smiling up at me. I was getting sick of smiles. “You decided not to leave us?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, love,” I said grimly, which set her off in peals of laughter all the way to the ship.

  Chapter Thirteen

  That night I fell in through my cabin door, worn out from shoving Lady Vee between shows, casinos, bingo sessions, and watching the stars in the night sky from the Horizon Lounge. I was half undressed before I saw the message light blinking on the phone. I vowed to leave the damned thing but temper got the better of me so I listened.

  “Message from Sir John Fortescue,” a familiar voice said, eerily calm. “Ancient law condemns your position, and the law is inflexible. We regret law cannot help individuals such as you. You will understand. Message ends.”

  I almost dropped the receiver. It went dead. Like a fool I said, “Hello? Hello? Who is this?” then tapped the repeat button. Margaret Dainty’s voice, clear as a bell. Occasional clicks before and after her words warned me, so by a whisker I avoided saying her name. I sat and looked at the thing.

  Definitely her voice. Clues and messages everywhere. I started to smile.

  Once upon a time – six centuries ago, in fact – a bloke called Sir John Fortescue changed the whole world. And I do mean yours and mine. He’s one of my heroes, being the only good honest lawyer Planet Earth has ever had. Trust me. I’ve seen plenty, and I know. This old geezer was born in 1385 in Somerset, and rose to teach law to Edward, the then Prince of Wales. It was Wars of the Roses time. Sir John stuck to the Lancastrian Henry the Sixth (hang on in here; it matters). Even after the Lancastrian defeat, Sir John stayed loyal.

  Naughty historians mutter cruel asides nowadays about noble Sir John and Henry’s Queen, Margaret of Anjou, at whose court he lived in exile. They hint scandalous allegations about Sir John’s affection for Queen Margaret – the two definitely were friends, and maybe even more. Yet even if they did make secret smiles now and again in the lantern hours, so what? If that’s the worst we all got up to, the world wouldn’t be in such a wretched mess. Love is a rare commodity, so I say let them be.

  Time came when the Lancastrians made a last desperate sally at Tewkesbury in Gloucester. The bold Sir John, by then a doddery 86 years old, rode out with the army to total defeat. Feeling that time wasn’t helping much, he chucked in the sponge.

  Fini? Not a bit of it. Our hero wrote a treatise on law, which still helps you, me, and everybody else. It begins De Laudibus something or other. In it, he pronounces the only worthwhile legal maxim. We all know it, and every single day it saves our bacon from oppression. It’s this: You are innocent, until proven guilty. Out with Roman Law, he wrote in stern Latin, and in with the common law of England. Old Fortescue, wobbling out on his warhorse to military disaster, was the first and only lawyer who ever existed with enough nerve to state that immortal and fair principle. And he pronounced it loud and clear against all comers, and paid with his life.

  So let’s hear it for old Sir John F, because he insisted this essential principle: What does it matter if newspapers, gossip mongers, neighbours, the police, the whole world and everybody else shout that you’re guilty as hell? If they can’t prove it, you’re innocent, and you stay pure as the driven snow until they can. It’s in every worthwhile country’s legal system. As long as folk stick to Sir John’s sensible law, innocent duckeggs like me remain safe. It’s all the doing of old Sir John Fortescue, requiescat in pace.

  The significance is this. Me and Margaret Dainty met once in Ebrington, Gloucester, the night before a small town auction. We made smiles there, our first time. She bought me a prezzie, a small pottery bust of Fortescue. I’d never heard of him. She laughed, and said, “That man might be your saviour one day, Lovejoy. Don’t break it!” Course, I broke him one night a year later, but glued him together. He’s still in my kitchen alcove. Sometimes I even say, “Wotcher, Sir John,” to him, like a fool. Margaret smiles when she sees it, and sometimes says, �
�You still have him, I see.” And goes a bit red, remembering.

  Now, her phone message said that ancient law condemned my position, and was inflexible. Fortescue said exactly the opposite, that Roman Law had to be scrapped and Common Law should rule instead, for the sake of truth. Other nations followed, and common sense was still in with a chance. It didn’t last, lawyers being lawyers, but brave old Sir John died still giving it a go.

  Margaret must have believed me. She was somewhere around!

  At last I had a pal. Not much of one, but one’s more than none. Even I knew that.

  For the first time since Southampton, I slept like a babe.

  * * *

  Next morning I was ordered to help Lauren with the evening quiz. It seemed Mr Henry Semper was ill.

  “Why me?” I asked June Milestone, who caught me watching the line dancing.

  “Mr Mangot says so.”

  “I won’t do it.”

  “I’ll tell him you said that, shall I?”

  “Do what you like, love. No skin off my nose.”

  About ten o’clock there was a talk about our next port of call, somewhere in Germany. I decided to escape there, a little more successfully than I had in Amsterdam and Oslo.

  “Oh, Lovejoy.” Les Renown caught up, Amy with him. “Got a sec? We’d like to show you the ropes.”

  “Oh. Ta.”

  They chatted amiably enough, me suspecting nothing, directing me to the Lido Deck. There, an open swimming pool had plenty of folk trying to get a tan and a bar, a combo playing, some entertainers fooling about getting laughs. Coco Chanel, she of Little Black Dress fame, started the craze for a tan. Before Coco, ladies strove for the pale and wan look of the refined aristo.

  Through double doors, the Sidewalk Cafe was open.

  “Anybody can just go and have yet another meal,” Amy laughed. “If you’re still starving!”

  They were pleasant company. We went into a place full of exercise gadgets.

  “This is one of our favourites,” Amy said, squeezing my arm.

  “Empty,” Les said.

  Mirrors on the walls, stacked exercise pallets on sprung floor, machines for weighing you and testing body fat. Graphs of weight against height against pulse rates, it would have trained a regiment. I glanced in without enthusiasm.

  “This way.”

  I followed them across. We were between a tall row of static machines itching to make the most inept weakling superb at cycling, lifting, rowing. Nobody else was in. I could hear faint music of the let’s-jog variety.

  They stood smiling. I looked about. I was between the machines, my back to a wall full of charts. They stood beside each other facing me. Of a sudden I had a bad feeling. I couldn’t get past them, and I wanted to be among friendly people, people who weren’t smiling.

  Les held a device that looked something like a cattle prod. I’d seen those horrible things before, in farms in East Anglia.

  “What?” I said. It came out as a pathetic bleat.

  “You’ve no right to buck us, Lovejoy.”

  “What?” A worse bleat, almost a begging letter.

  Amy took the prod and came forward. I had nowhere to retreat. She touched it on me and the world went thump. I was flung to one side, head striking a cushioned seat and my arms tangled in some lifting thing suspended from chrome handles. I tried to stand, move away, run anywhere but my feet wouldn’t shift. I heard myself groan. Les went to a wall switch and the music deafened me.

  I managed to stand, and this time Les used the prod. I jolted over backwards, my ankles twisting round each other, but that might have been the squint I suddenly seemed to have. Everything was double. Amy laughed, clapping her hands.

  “Let me, Les!” she cried. “Let me!”

  They fought like lovers do over trinkets, affection written all over them. Les let her win and she prodded me so the world shot black and I found myself crawling under a cycling machine, the pedals hitting my head as I tried to scramble away.

  “Mind the chrome,” Les said in a fond voice to Amy. “It’s a conductor of electricity. We daren’t lose the bastard, or she’ll finish us.”

  She who? Amy whimpered with delight as Les dragged me out from under the machines then prodded me. I rolled, slavering like a rabid animal, double vision and a terrible nausea not helping as I flicked and folded, my legs flailing against the chrome piping and the stanchions. I heard a faint moaning and recognised my voice. I’d heard my groans before. I was sick.

  Some time later I felt water on my face. Amy was crouching over me and a man’s voice was asking what was the matter.

  “I was taking a short cut through to the hairdressers,” Amy said. “I heard him fall. Do you think he might be an epileptic?”

  “Has he any chest pain?”

  “He hasn’t said.”

  I gibbered a bit and tried to edge away from the malevolent bitch, heels on the wooden flooring. My jacket was stained with saliva and morsels of food.

  “Poor thing,” Amy said. “Are you all right, sir?”

  No sign of Les or of the cattle prod. A man I presumed was one of the passengers was trying to lift me.

  “Bring one of those blue exercise pallets. I should call the doctor. Is he a friend of yours?”

  “No.” Amy was all concern. “I think he comes to the shows.”

  “Oh, right. You’re one of the dancers?”

  The man was an American, tall and lanky. He moved me about easily enough. Victor?

  “I think I’d better stay,” Amy said. “I’ve had a basic training in first aid.”

  “Good. Shall I go for the doctor?”

  “Please.”

  I lay, trying to push myself up on one elbow, watching Amy. She saw the man hurry away and stood, cold as a frog.

  “You can go now, Lovejoy. Any more disobedience, you’ll have more antics for our amusement. Savvy?”

  Les put his head round the door. “All right in here?”

  “Yes, Les.”

  She walked away. She had a beautiful walk, but then all dancers look stylish. They’re trained, you see.

  “Be gone before the doctor and that man come back,” she warned me from the exit.

  My hands were almost too weak to pull me erect. I tottered out, caught the lift just as I heard three people hurry by into the gymnasium, the Yank explaining about some passenger who looked like he’d had some kind of fit.

  I pressed any button for any deck just to get away. Kind of that Yank to come and help. They’re great, Yanks. Always too late, but kindly.

  * * *

  After cleaning myself up and changing, I called Lauren and we met in the Curzon Lounge. I said I’d help her with the evening antiques quiz, as I’d heard Mr Semper was poorly.

  “Let’s choose the antique now, then!” She was a pest. I still felt odd and creaky, bruises everywhere. Wisely, they’d spared my face.

  “Later, love. I feel bit rough.”

  “Now, Lovejoy. We must make a list.”

  “We? I’m not running this cruise, love. You are.”

  “I’m only an assistant!” Lauren shrilled, then glanced about. Guilt kept her voice down. “The trouble is I’ve nobody to assist now Mr Semper’s unwell.”

  “Assist June Milestone.”

  “She hates me. I’ve tried. And as for that Russian woman, I can’t stand her and she can’t stand me!”

  “Pick out from where?”

  “Mr Semper’s store-room.”

  Weary from failure, I gave in. We went down several floors and emerged in a corridor. I heard voices, stewards, differing languages, a radio or two playing and somebody singing. Crews’ quarters. There was a large store-room. Lauren had the key.

  “These are all the antiques Mr Semper brought on board for his sessions. He took such pains with them, made notes on them all.”

  She stood to one side. I almost walked off in disgust. Not a chime in my chest. If even a single one had been genuine, I would have at least gone a bit clammy.
Not a carrot. The store-room was crammed.

  Ceramics, a couple of supposed Old Masters and several fake Regency watercolours, some temperas in phoney frames. Some silverware, a balloon-backed chair – it looked familiar, probably made in Kelvedon from its seat covering – several fake Roman and Egyptian glass pieces, a teddy bear, some replica mechanical tin toys, and a clock or two (hardest of all antiques to find genuine throughout, because bits are so easy to replace) with tribal artefacts, paperweights, vases, pressed glass ornaments, sugar casters, tobacciana, breweriana (sorry about the word; it’s not made up, just the antiques trade at its usual naff terminology; it means things to do with named distilleries, breweries and alcohol; I suppose someone will invent the word alcoholiania next). And one or two small pieces of furniture, a fake wine cooler and a Victorian workbox…

  “Lauren,” I said, all sad. “I wouldn’t buy this dross for a bent groat.”

  “What?” She rounded on me. “I shall have you know…” I sighed. There was nothing to do but exude pity and walk away. The lass followed me along the corridor hissing rage.

  At the lift, safe in the passenger areas, I stopped and faced her. Nobody was about.

  “It’s all fake, love. Get June Milestone to appraise it. She’ll be taken in by about twenty per cent, but she’ll tell you the rest is dud, fake, sham, replicoid.”

  “You hadn’t even the politeness to examine them! Henry Semper selected them himself!”

  “You’ve been conned, love. Telephone your beloved Henry and demand the truth. If all else fails, go ashore at our next port of call and hire a reputable antiques dealer – assuming there is such a thing. Get him to list the genuine antiques in Henry’s store-room. If he’s honest he’ll run a mile.”

  “You’ve had it in for Mr Semper ever since you came aboard, Lovejoy! You’re jealous because he knows more about antiques than you ever will!”

  “Your precious Henry is charging the cruise line for genuine antiques, and bringing aboard cheap fakes. The oldest scam in the world.”