A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair l-21 Read online

  'No. He got Saffron Fields, didn't he? Big antiques man. My only brush with anyone from that area was some young lad applying to do my antiques course.' Icky waxed indignant. 'Cheeky young sod asked for credit. He was connected with the Goldhorns.

  Arthur went spare. I got blistered. No, Lovejoy. I steer clear of the trade.'

  'Seeing your courses never happen, Icky, that's fair.'

  My remark narked him. 'Listen here, Lovejoy. Where else can ordinary people get an insider's view of the antiques trade? I'm their only source. Think of it like that.'

  The song of the trickster has always been the same: What marvels I offer! Like all con artists, Icky believed his own myth. Everything Icky runs is fantasy - except for the money you applicants pay in.

  'I'm honest, Lovejoy,' he complained, getting out a bottle of madeira with two paper cups. 'If folk demand why the course hasn't happened and want their money back, I always send it by return of post - less a ten per cent booking fee.'

  'How many do?' I was interested in spite of myself.

  'Half,' he said, grinning. 'The others forget, wonder what's gone on. By then my phoney address has moved to another parish. Sometimes,' he spoke with admiration, 'I wonder if I'm legit.'

  'Tell me what scams are around, Icky. I need one.'

  He grimaced at his stale madeira. 'Get a carder man for that. I'd try Saunty. You know him?'

  'Aye,' I said, reluctant. Saunty, our best carder man, cohabits with a bird Yamta in a perennial state of frolicsome nudity. I didn't have time for an orgy.

  'Don't settle for second best, Lovejoy,' Icky said piously, straight out of his adverts.

  'Give him my regards.'

  'Cheers, Icky. Ta for the hooch.' I left most of the drink.

  Eleanora caught me by leaping out of her shrubbery as I made my way through the jungle. She's buxom when you get close. Her arms are the floppy sort, wobbling under her armpits.

  'Lovejoy! Daraleeng!' She affects a pseudo accent, to show she's a true artiste. 'Coyme!

  I sink yust por yoh!'

  'Er, ta, El. I'm in a hurry.'

  She linked my arm. 'You like my drrress, no?'

  It seemed all metal, centurion-style slabs of tin, her bodice a cylinder of shiny bronze.

  Her helmet was some Britannia thing.

  'Very pretty, El. Is it for your songs?'

  'You'll come, Lovejoy?' She warbled a snatch of falsetto gunge. I nodded, to support the arts. 'Icky told you about Arthur's boy wanting to be apprenticed?'

  That stopped me. Apprenticed? Icky'd only said a course. 'Er, no.'

  'I stopped it straight away! On your behalf.' She beat her breast meaningfully, bending metal. ' "Desist!" I cry. "Lovejoy is Colette's lower!" I tell heem. "Lovejoy kill people!'"

  She stabbed herself with a pretend knife and crooned some scatty song to die with.

  This was a bit much. The plod also jump to conclusions, like that Saintly.

  'Then Arthur die. Colette loses all.' She came to for an instant, gave me a mischievous glance. 'She lost you too, hey, Lovejoy?' We were at the house now. She clasped me.

  'Mek me sweet music, Lovejoy. I did you a favour.'

  She plonked her mouth on mine. It was a struggle, but I wriggled free seconds short of asphyxiation. I got away by promising to see her at the concert, hoping nobody had seen me snogging goodbye to a tin lady. It had to be Saunty the carder man, then. But one thing niggled. Why didn't Icky tell me he'd almost taken Arthur's lad on as an apprentice? Something wrong somewhere, but what can you do?

  20

  GO ALMOST DUE east from St Ldmundsbury, and you hit a hamlet. It's famous for Doldrum and Mercy. Separate reasons, nothing to do with sailing ships or qualities of.

  The former is famed among the silent folk of East Anglia for dangerous motor cars, the latter for a brothel. Until Doldrum and Mercy hove in, the tiny hamlet was typical.

  Absent vicar, congregation down to nine, fences overgrown, post office closed, school desperate. A hamlet on its last legs.

  Then, shazam, or whatever the comics say. Enter Doldrum, master of the dud secondhand motor. He was closely followed by Mercy. In three weeks it was boom city. The genteel old hamlet finally jerked to life and entered the Jet Age.

  Suddenly its one street rumbled to the sound of car merchants' wagons. They brought derelict crash vehicles, winched them into an old barnyard Doldrum had hired for a peppercorn, and departed with 'restored' vehicles pristine as the day they'd rolled down the ramps of august car makers. It was, of course, the notorious 'cut-and-shut'. Highly illegal, but done everywhere. You get a handful of wrecked cars, any night. Hire some welding equipment, a farmyard, and you become a 'classic car restorer'.

  Stalwart mechanics slice the ruined vehicle. When you've enough unruined bits, weld them together jigsaw fashion. A quick respray, and you sell the car as a 'secondhand bargain'. Naturally, you don't let on that it's simply crashed fragments pieced together.

  You also don't state that its chassis is twisted, the doors unsafe, the engine number ground off, the tyres unbalanced, the steering kaput, the floor as porous as a tea strainer. The registration's also duff, taken from an honest lookalike model totalled at some accident black spot.

  Doldrum throve.

  For this tiny rural hamlet, the sequence was inevitable. Its two pubs revitalized. The grocery shop recovered. Retailers returned, hired baffled village girls. Crumbling dwellings were snapped up. Doddering parish councillors thrilled to dreams of maybe building a village hall - an ambition temporarily shelved in AD 1371 but hanging on, hanging on. Weekend folk stopped for lunch, and saw how truly rural the quaint hamlet was. They bought derelict cottages, restored them. A building merchant started a satellite shop - nails, paint, wallpaper, ladders. The post office reopened. Heavenly choirs sang as commerce raised its head. Quaintdom flourishes, where money ebbs and flows.

  Ebbing and flowing better than anybody in East Anglia was Mercy. She heard of this thriving hamlet, and brought her brothel.

  Don't laugh. And especially please don't scorn the like of Mercy Faldrop. She's part of civilization's rich pattern. When ancient armies rested after hacking through the hinterland, along came Mercy's kind to help the rude and licentious soldiery do the resting bit. And where miners dug gold, or fur-trappers trapped, where cathedrals soared and tired masons momentarily laid aside their tools reaching for ale to slake their terrible thirsts, who was it served the foaming jugs? It was Mercy and her ilk. And when, parched throats quenched, the artisans and trail-blazers stretched out to rest, what more natural than that Mercy should help them stretch that little bit more?

  So, one day up drove Mercy, demure and fetching. Her grand Rolls Bentley made the place gawp. Her pretty cousins - Mercy has lots of pretty cousins - followed. Still meek and shy, Mercy purchased the Old Rectory outright in a cash transaction that set the hamlet's dusty old solicitor tutting. The dwelling was opulently restored. Its many visitors often stayed all night because the hamlet's so far from anywhere and you get tired after a long drive, isn't that so? Visitors need feeding, so the hamlet's bakery burgeoned. Cars need fuel, so the garage reopened. Wealth brought light into the dark countryside. Passing artists saw the light was good, and stayed to start weekend courses. The bus service resumed.

  And it came to pass in the little hamlet that life's merry pageant carouselled on and heaven smiled on the righteous and meek lasses like Mercy really do inherit the earth.

  East Anglia has many complex nooks. This had all the right ingredients. Mercy first.

  The Old Rectory is at the end of a longish drive, among tall trees full of the noisiest birds in East Anglia. Several splendid motors were parked in the walled car park. As I walked round, Mercy emerged onto the verandah to take coffee at a white iron table.

  I'd sold her the wrought-iron garden furniture and the Victorian statuary. She looked a picture, flowered hat, long flounced pink dress, lace shawl. I'd sold her that, too.

  'You look gorgeous, Merc
y.'

  'How do you do, Lovejoy? Another cup for the gentleman, Abagail.'

  The middle-aged servant bobbed and withdrew. I looked around. Vines, trellises, lichen-covered walls, a fountain playing, water tumbling gently into a pool where koi carp lazed. It was straight from some Edwardian film set. Mercy the Gainsborough lady. I sat, obedient to her gesture. The cup came. The serf poured, bobbed, vanished.

  'You are thirty-nine days late, Lovejoy.'

  Mercy offered me ratafia. I selected one - take more, you get blistered when Mercy's in a mood.

  'Er, sorry, love. Something, er, happened.'

  She raised her eyebrows. With admiration, I watched them move. She's eminently watchable, is Mercy. She is -no jest - twenty-two years old and a millionairess. A catch for any gay (original English meaning, please) bachelor who fancies his chances.

  Perhaps not, though. The one bloke who, earnest young lad, proposed marriage got coldly told her hourly price for sexual cavorting. He retired, as they politely say at cricket when the fast bowler's shattered your skull and you've been dragged off the field senseless. (He married a Wolverhampton gym mistress, has three kiddies.)

  'A gentleman would have a decent excuse, Lovejoy.'

  'I know,' I admitted humbly. 'I'm pathetic.'

  Well, she burst out laughing, fell out of her poise. I watched gravely. What had I said?

  They once did a survey in some northern university, and discovered that women are attracted to men who (a) amuse, and (b) are interested in them. Sex follows where the magnets point, as it were.

  'You're a bleed'n tonic, Lovejoy, frigging straight up. Nearly wet me knickers.'

  She came to, cleared her throat, blotted her eyes. 'Er, what was I supposed to've come for, Mercy?' What was I doing thirty-nine days ago, for God's sake? Even when I was a little lad I couldn't remember what I'd been doing the day before, let alone yonks agone.

  'Paintings, you stupid prat,' said this paragon of loveliness.

  Had this visit come to mind from thinking of the Holloway University's Old Masters? I vaguely remembered. She'd sent one of her lasses with a hand-written missive asking for 'thurty reely old pikchures'. Mercy's not literary. Doesn't need to be, seeing she gets everything she wants anyway. I can't quite make her out. She reads George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Dickens, Thackeray. I think she acts her fantasies, more ways than smidgen.

  'Were I not a lady of kindly disposition,' said this beauty, back in mode, 'I might harbour the suspicion that you mislaid my request.'

  'That's so, love. Sorry. Will forgeries do?' You can speak so with friends.

  'Duplicity has never been formative to my character,' Mercy reprimanded sweetly.

  She raised a lace-gloved hand - I'd bought that for her too (the lace gloves, not the hand) - and the villein creaked forth with a genuine William IV parasol, to shade Mercy's features. The watery sun was hardly burning with tropical intensity, but she looked even prettier. I'm sure that thought didn't enter her head.

  'However,' she continued, 'realizing, as compassion obliges, the compelling stringencies besetting those who follow more mercantilic vocations than others of my acquaintance, Lovejoy, I am prepared to show condescension towards what you might provide.

  Bespoke or copied, I shall not enquire as to origin.'

  You have to respect class. I listened with admiration. And Mercy was sheer unadulterated class. Well, maybe a little adulterated, but I still liked her. You don't see better on telly.

  'Ta, Mercy.' She meant that forgeries or stolen would do.

  'Now, Lovejoy. What, might I be given to understand, is the purpose of your visit?'

  I took a sip of coffee. God, it was naff, really terrible. Yet she buys from posh London shops, has panniers of pricey victuals delivered by yak drovers each rustic dawn. I'd have liked some instant, but there you go. Mercy never ruins a performance except by accident.

  'A friend died. I'm stuck to help his teenage son.'

  'Ah.'

  She lowered her parasol, brought a fan from a reticule, preparing the decks for action.

  Hastily I shook my head.

  'No, love. Nothing to do with introducing him to sex. It's just he's in a plight. Murder's on the cards. He's been kept safe so far by kindly locals, lives more or less wild.'

  'Such contumely!'

  'He's keeping out of the way of some people. I need to know what folk come here.

  Anything that might help.'

  She was pleased. 'To my establishment? One characteristic constantly delights a lady's heart, Lovejoy. It is emotion.' Her eyes closed in rapture. 'Hate, anger, passion, love, desire.' She swallowed, fanned herself, sipped to calm down.

  'Well, something's got to be done, Mercy.' Even to me I sounded lame.

  'I shall assist, Lovejoy. And you shall deliver me a dozen other works of art. Payment,'

  she said, eyes over the rim of her cup, 'to be arranged.'

  'Right. About these folk, then.'

  'Might I enquire if they include the…' she moaned a little '… the slayer?'

  'Possibly,' I said. 'But possibly means possibly not.'

  'Will you kill them, Lovejoy?' She was breathing hard now, breasts rising and falling, lace handkerchief dabbing her throat. 'You've been involved in such occurrences. I realize that I have never actually been present at such a reprehensible event. It almost precipitates one's inner sentiments into a strange ineluctible craving to witness the perpetration of such a catastrophic calamity.'

  What the hell did she mean? I went all noble. 'I shall simply bring them to justice, if it's any of these.'

  She took the list I passed her, her eyes holding mine. 'Pull the other leg, Lovejoy,' she said coarsely. 'It's got fucking bells on.'

  I'd listed everybody I could think of, from New Caledonian Market on. I'd even included me, to show the extent of my desperation, but kept Mortimer's name off. I arranged to phone her for news. I wanted to leave with some cavalier quip, but what can you say to a vision of purity? I said so-long, and left her on her terrace, sipping from her Royal Doulton, reading my list and moaning softly.

  How different men and women are. My visit to Doldrum's scrapyard took a millisec by comparison.

  Maybe forty or fifty diced vehicles were crammed into the farmyard. I found him under some motor. Doldrum's been in the same overalls ever since I met him. Fortyish, chunky, decisive, he only ever hires from Cockneys because, he says, they are thick as thieves anyway. You daren't laugh.

  'Doldrum? It's me, Lovejoy.'

  'Wotcher, mate.' He rolled out on some skateboardy thing, grinning. He leaves his teeth in a jamjar in his shed. Don't ask me. 'Heh's yer fahver?'

  'Fine, ta, Doldrum. You?'

  'Slogging my guts aht. Wanner motor?'

  'No, ta. Any news of local blokes selling posh motors?'

  He inflated his lungs, bawled a few names, yelled, 'Get lorsst, will yer?'

  Three or four oil-soiled blokes emerged from vehicles and wandered into a wooden shed, shutting the door. Doldrum stood, lit a fag by striking a match on a drum of petrol, flicking the match anywhere. I winced, but we made it. He blew smoke.

  'Local? When?'

  'Eastern Hundreds. Lately.'

  He gazed about, smoked a bit. You've to let blokes like Doldrum think. I knew him from coming across an old motor car in the corner of a neighbouring farmer's field. It turned out to be an Invicta, 4.5 litre S-Type, the ugliest racing tourer you ever did see. I'd dissuaded the farmer's lady from taking it to the auctions, and instead got Doldrum to do a half-and-half with her. Half the proceeds of restoration go to the restorer, half to the owner. He sold it to a crook, but it did Doldrum - and the lady, who still sees Doldrum on the sly - a power of monetary good. I knew I'd get a straight answer.

  He eventually started mentioning names. Mostly blokes, some women. He mixed folk up with cars indiscriminately. E-Type this, S-Type that, numbers and letters, descriptions of sales, the fate of this motor, that axle. He must have been going maybe qu
arter of an hour before he said a name I recognized.

  'Goldhorn?'

  'He's croaked. Five motors, two near mint, nuffin on the clock.'

  'Who came, Doldrum? Where?'

  'Foreign bloke called Gluck brung Goldhorn's motors. Wonnied cash up front,' he grumbled. 'He'd already sold them to a mate down Catford.'

  'When?'

  'Said he were running a posh antiques gaff down Chelsea Reach. Showed me Goldhorn's registrations. I made the lads see him orff. Pushy burke, thought I were born yesterday. It wer wiwin a monff or two.'

  'He sold them, then?'

  'Fortune.' Doldrum gets really glum thinking of deals done without him. 'That it, Lovejoy?'

  As I said so-long he said after me, 'Hear of anybody wrappin' their motor, Lovejoy, let me know.'

  'Promise,' I said. 'Tarra.'

  See how uncomplicated talking with a bloke is? Now I knew Gluck was so desperate for money that he'd tried to sell Arthur Goldhorn's pristine old motor cars to two separate car dealers. Hell of a risk. Gluck was on even thinner ice than I'd assumed. And even more desperate for gelt.

  21

  DAWN RAIN CAME swirling up the estuary on North Sea wind. The instant I'd tottered home I washed, naked as a grape, at my garden well. I still felt polluted. Odd, seeing that not long before I'd been narked because Sorbo wouldn't give me a drop of his hooch. I used rain to do it again, scrubbing like a maniac with soap homemade from ashes and candle fat.

  You mustn't miss breakfast, most important meal of the day. Porridge made like Gran used to, with water alone, fills you longer. Then a biscuit the mice hadn't found, greedy little sods. I went into my cellar hidey hole, moving the divan and lifting the flagstone on its ring. I used a candle, electricity not making it, and descended into bliss. I too keep records. A carder man like Saunty sells to whoever will buy. I would visit him and his merry lass later.

  They're in boxes, no real order. Scraps torn from magazines, photos nicked from dentists' waiting rooms, cyclostyled run-offs stapled in remote Norfolk sheds, it's all here. I crouched to go through what I had, realized with fright that I'd assumed the same hunched position in Sorbo's front garden, so sat instead on the ladder step.