Moonspender Read online

"You did." Helen was close by, curious. "I heard you."

  "Look, Helen." I pretended anger. "I was joking."

  "Lovejoy. You did a raffle at some restaurant." Good old Jessica, gliding up. "Are you doing another at dear Big Frank's ninth nuptials?"

  "Eighth," I said. "Slip of the tongue, for heaven's sake . . ."

  By the time I left there were desperate shouts going up for Fixer Pete. By teatime there'd be a thriving black market in our wedding invitations. Ledger passed me at the park gates. I smiled a beatific greeting. He frowned. He really hates optimism, especially mine. Well, I hate his.

  At the farm all was go. I rehired Sid Taft, as an offering to the gods. Veronica Gold had rung seven excited times on the answer phone. I called back. She was full of how she'd expect me at a rehearsal. I ask you. Telly'd make parrots of us all, given half a chance.

  Lize had left a carbon copy, really quaint, of her article in tomorrow's Advertiser. Pretty dramatic stuff. "Antiques Ferret to Flush Felon" ran her headline. That worried me less than her incorrect punctuation of a conditional clause, but she'd laser me if I criticized. I only hoped Ledger could read.

  • • •

  Sir John was in a sour mood. He kept me waiting for five minutes. I said nothing, just read about Turner's use of ochres. Miss Minter wasn't speaking.

  Buzzed in, I fumble-felt the vestibule curtain for lurking butlers, blank. I went in, declined to sit when his eyelids lowered to point me where.

  "I discovered you own that Roman bronze, Lovejoy." The hatred was white-hot but the compliment made me pink with pleasure. "You defaulted on our contract."

  He'd found out, as planned. "Wrong, Sir John."

  "Wrong?" He wafted round the desk, practically foaming at the mouth. "You undertook to discover who was deflecting all the locally discovered antiques. Now you have joined the enemy."

  "Wrong twice."

  He screamed, "That genuine Roman leopard is proof, Lovejoy!" His yell was a decibel above a whine.

  "Want real proof?" I swiveled, taking in the antiques everywhere about us. "You can have the leopard Saturday. For a price."

  The silence of bafflement. "Price?" He understood that.

  "Your dud. Sir John. The one here. You give it away publicly."

  "Give?" He couldn't understand that at all.

  "Don't worry. I'll not tell. People will admire your generosity."

  His eyes roamed the room. "To whom?"

  "To absent friends," I said sadly.

  He tortoised into himself, thinking. Finally he nodded a curt agreement, to my astonishment. But there'd be a bill.

  "Thank you," I said. "Tell your secretary to stay on duty all Saturday, all night if necessary. When I phone she's to enter this office, and instantly fetch me the antique that I tell her to, unquestioned."

  "Very well. Which is it?"

  "Tell you Saturday," I told him. "Halloween."

  The day speeded up, now I'd started it off.

  I went to Lize's office and told her to include a photocopy of my signed statement when she blew the news in tomorrow's Advertiser. Blankly she asked what signed statement, so I had to type out one and sign it there and then.

  "It says I've sold my story to you," I explained. "Or other reporters will be outscooping you." She was appalled. "But this says I've paid you a fortune . . ." "Nobody ever pays me, love," I said irritably. "People only say they do."

  "Darling," she said, quite brokenly. "A national scoop, murders, police, an illicit ring. How can I ever repay you?"

  I cleared my throat. "Well, actually ..."

  I'd need a quiet haven tomorrow night. It would be doing Lize a kindness to let her put me up.

  Three more jobs to set up. First, I showed Tinker the bronze leopard in the museum. They charged me another quid admission, swine, just for one measly look at my own thing. I gave him a letter, typed and signed.

  "Tomorrow morning. Tinker. Eight o'clock, before the museum opens, you come here with Clive and reclaim this bronze. Then bring it to my cottage."

  "Eight o'bleedin' clock?" he said, paling.

  "Do it. Then you have the Ruby, until church on Saturday at Big Frank's wedding." Tinker, driving my motor, would then be an exposed risk, not me, which for once was the right way round.

  He eyed the leopard balefully. "This little dog really ours, Lovejoy, or are we nicking it?"

  "It's all legit. Tinker." I gave him some notes. He brightened. "Now tell me where's Joe Quilp."

  "Arcade." Exit muttering.

  Joe Quilp proved the accuracy of Tinker's mental radar hadn't failed. He was in Eve Harris's at the Arcade trying to dissuade Varlene from ordering a beautiful Victorian ostrich-feather fan, silver-mounted.

  "But, Joesy-Woesy," Varlene was cooing as I hurried up. "It'll go with my new evening dress."

  "It won't," he was saying in agony, wringing his hands.

  "Joe," I thundered, grabbing him. "You swine, blabbing rumors!"

  "Eh?" He was bewildered. I shook him angrily. Varlene adored herself in the mirror.

  "Don't try getting out of it, Joe!" I bawled. Antique dealers' heads popped out all down the Arcade.

  "Out of what, Lovejoy? Honest to God—"

  "You revealed it's my Roman bronze in the castle, and you've let on I'm raffling an item from Sir John's collection at Big Frank's reception. I'll frigging murder you, Joe."

  "Lovejoy . . ."He was starting to gurgle so I relaxed a bit. He'd need his voice to complain about my mistreatment.

  Varlene wasn't taking a blind bit of notice. "I'll need new shoes, dwalling."

  "Well I'm not, see?" I yelled loud as I could. "I'm not. It's only rumor." I dropped him and marched off. It'd be all over town in an hour, confirming the rumor I'd begun earlier. There'd be a right scamper for cars, mid-afternoon on Saturday, as dealers everywhere changed their plans. I shed my angry sulk as soon as I was round the comer. Good smiles are rare. I deserved to enjoy this one while it lasted.

  That night I persuaded Mrs. Ryan to my cottage. Her estate manager's house was too much a part of Manor Farm to be cosy. I said it would be more romantic. She said oh darling how sweet.

  And we loved and stayed.

  I did a thing in a casserole. I'm no cook; the last meal I did was in Latin. This smelled all right but got a bit runny, chicken and carrots and a bay leaf. Margaret Dainty had started it for me earlier, got it through the raw stage. I can do spuds, though they never mash right and make you gag. Then peas; though I'm always a bit sorry for the little blighters when I split the pod and surprise them all lying there. The pudding I bought, a blancmangey thing, with five spares in case Mrs. Ryan got night hunger. Candles. Coffee. Wine from Ollie's supermarket, price label scraped off. Two paper napkins, and I was Ivor Novello, suave, elegant. I'd even talcumed my feet.

  Mrs. Ryan was bowled over, in a manner of speaking.

  "This is all very splendid, Lovejoy," she said, smiling. A compliment, from the landed gentry!

  "I thought you deserved it, love."

  "As long as it's not farewell." She spoke lightly, but her eyes were in the wine.

  "Please don't joke about things like that, love."

  "I'm sorry, sweetheart." She came beside me, effusive and apologetic, which always leads to the inevitable. "Forgive me."

  "Of course, doowerlink." I forgave her repeatedly until she left for the farm on her chestnut nag at six next morning.

  By eight I'd had my fried bread, fed the birds, and had Toffee reluctantly swathed in her trug. Tinker blearily arrived at half eight, with the leopard bronze. "He made me sign for it," he groused. He hates Popplewell, the curator.

  "Drive," I said. "Lize's, down the estuary."

  He cackled, his beer fetor making me hold my breath to avoid retching. "I'll take her off your hands for a pint, Lovejoy." He chuckled and coughed all the way at that quip.

  Suzanne York's car was parked by the river bridge, as I'd arranged. I halted Tinker and walked across. She wound the window down, l
ooking frightened.

  "Morning, Lovejoy. Isn't it cold?"

  "Perishing," I agreed, though it was quite mild.

  She looked so worried. "Lovejoy. What if it's another failure?"

  "The restaurant? It can't fail."

  "Sandy's gone insane. He's on about TV, Victorian underclothes, weddings."

  "Just go with it, Suzanne. I'll be there. It's called the day of reckon-ing.

  "Lovejoy. I heard you saw that Dorothy Moran. You're not . . . meddling in things we shouldn't, are you?"

  "That from a woman?" The joke fell flat.

  "Whatever happens, Lovejoy, I know you've really tried. Thank you." She watched me cross to the Ruby, and called, "Lovejoy? God bless."

  The old parting. I didn't reply.

  Three big television vans were parked in the High Street. As we trundled past somebody shouted my name, a woman's voice full of authority. I told Tinker to keep going. We'd all see plenty of each other before long.

  25

  To me, rest's disturbing, though everybody's different. Like, Renoir hated winter. He thought cold was nature's sickness. He lived for sunshine and warmth. Me, I love autumn but Lize is a Renoir type. Her flat's torrid temperature steams the sap from your bones. In the first hour I blotted my copybook by opening a window for air. She crashed it shut with an angry squeal.

  Not only that, but there wasn't far to stroll. Bedroom, kitchen, living room, tiny hallway, and that was it. No place to kick your heels. She saw to my breakfast, then zoomed off to war, pale but game as they come. Tinker had wended his merry way in the Ruby, leaving me with a suspicious budgerigar and a dozing Toffee. "Good job we don't leave civilization to cats," I told Toffee. Not a stir.

  The window showed St. Leonard's old church, vehicles distantly drifting toward the wharfside. Beyond the roofs, a ship's funnel and a few masts. The back window showed a street of old cottages and wall paint of scandalous colors. I felt encased. Toffee woke, dined, licked her paws, the dirty devil, decided on kip.

  Desultorily I speculated on exactly how Richard II had invented the hankie—I mean, was he out pillaging one day and suddenly shazam, like St. Paul's retinal detachment near Damascus? Or was it the product of a chaps-we've-got-a-problem think tank?

  I brewed up. Instant coffee. Grue.

  On the other hand, some inventions are the product of compelling need. The Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich so he could continue gambling without getting marmalade and grease on a running flush. . . . Should I wash the dishes? Postpone, postpone. Then again, some world shatterers happen quite by accident, like the recipe for bakewell tart—though you've got to call it pudding, not tart, in prim old medieval Bakewell. Toffee snored. More coffee.

  By a fluke I happened to have some stuff on witchcraft. I read it from boredom, and not from any kind of apprehension. I mean, with Enid the Loopy as its local harbinger it could hardly be Macbeth time.

  Toffee rose, yawned colossally, tramped round her cushion, collapsed. I played with the budgie, which finally said, "It's my round, Liza," in a voice oddly Lize's. I put it back in its cage. The windows showed the same roofs, church, ship's funnel. Ten-thirty. The Advertiser'd be out now.

  Ten to eleven the phone started ringing. I let it. Eleven o'clock police appeared below, pounded on the door, talked into their squawk box, drove off. The phone rang and rang. Good old Lize would now be doing battle with Ledger. He'd be demanding the meaning of the story she'd published. She'd be stonewalling, private sources are sacrosanct and suchlike lies.

  Finally I switched the telly on. A hard time lay ahead, and Mrs. Ryan'd kept me on my metaphorical toes all night. Toffee sensed potential warmth and swarmed on me. Luckily it was an afternoon sociology program, so I slept.

  The nastiest moment came sixish, with me having fried some cheese. Lize came tearing in with a yelp, switched the lights off, and leaned disheveled against the door, panting. In the telly's flicker-light she looked bleached. Toffee slept on, unconcerned; her tea wasn't due for an hour, so the universe's tribulations could get stuffed. That's cats for you. Somebody hammered on the door, shouting.

  "You okay, love?" I divided the fried cheese.

  She took a restoring breath, yelled furiously at the door, "Go away!"

  "Do a deal, Liza," some bloke bawled. 'The Times. The Guardian. "

  Lize screamed, "You bastards turned down my articles on fowl pest two years ago. The boot's on the other foot now!"

  She came and flung herself all over me. "Oh, Lovejoy, you hero!" She was triumphant, giggling like a little girl who'd got away. "What a day! I'm thrilled! You know who's out there?" She was on my lap. I was trying to eat a forkful. "There's that wino cretin from the Guardian. That groper stringer for the London Times —"

  She gave me a wet rapacious kiss, her tongue everywhere, but I'd already put her cheese on a separate plate for God's sake, so pulled away. We parted like rubber bungs, pop.

  The riot continued, with more cars squealing outside and people calling up at the window. Lize ran angrily and drew the curtains. I put a small table lamp on. She looked radiant, rocketing on a high.

  "This, Lovejoy," she cried, "is ultimate reporting!"

  "How the hell'm I going to get out tonight, Lize?" I had the little leopard to bury, at spot X in New Black Field. I didn't want the paparazzi spoiling my least favorite murderer's surprise.

  "All arranged, Lovejoy." She spread her hair. "When you've finished that revolting concoction, prepare for your reward. You've put me at the pinnacle of my profession. It's rape for you, my lad."

  "Can I have your cheese first?" I said. I'd a lot to get through in the next forty-eight hours.

  At eight-thirty a plum-voiced Hooray Henry knocked, announced he'd prepared the documents, and pushed a couple of envelopes under Lize's door. She and he held an intent whispered conversation through the letterbox. The envelopes contained blank paper. Lize waited a second, then called loudly that he should meet Lovejoy as arranged.

  "Decoy," she whispered to me.

  The cars outside roared, doors slamming and blokes shouting. Like a car-chase serial. Two minutes and they'd all gone.

  "Clever girl," I told her.

  "See?" She showed her watch. "Nine o'clock. You're free as air. Want me to come?"

  "Yes," I said. "But no."

  By eleven I was back, muddy but unbowed, and laughing in the bath about today's success. I even let her show me her Advertiser pen drawing of me, wild and threatening. Midnight on Saturday, Antique Dealer

  Lovejoy would "replace" a priceless bronze antique at the very spot where George Prentiss had met his savage death. "It's what my pal would have wished," A.D.L. told Your Reporter today. "I have every faith our wonderful police will soon solve the tragedies that have so lately beset our fair countryside."

  Lize smirked. I said, awed, "You wrote this? Strewth, Lize." "Great, eh?" She was Toffee, purring with delight. "It's called heightening the dramatic tension." She lodged her chin on my shoulder, her arms round me so she could read on. "It's even better further down. I've got Ledger's Sterling Values."

  The report was full of naught shall avails. I felt ill. "You deserve a good spanking for this gunge, Lize." She hugged, thrilled. "Thought you'd never ask, Lovejoy." I made her feed Toffee first, then awoke early as a daisy into Saturday. Eve of All Hallows, aka Halloween.

  Today, Big Frank's wedding day with Ro. Today Suzanne York's final cast of the dice in Sandy and Mel's epoch-making restaurant at Dogpits Farm. Today the confrontation with Veronica Gold, star of stage, screen and telephone. Plus the showdown with killer swine Ryan. Plus the exposure of his nefarious scheme with the mad major and Candice. Plus the revelation, to let Sir John recover his poise. Then the neutralization of Sykie, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

  Loving calms you. It's the only true antitoxin. I smiled about everything, did my teeth, and got ready. I was tranquility itself. Lize spruced me up like a fourpenny rabbit, with a new shirt and tie.

  At two o'clock I ph
oned Veronica Gold. She was ready, her camera crew merrily clinking bottles in the background. At two-ten I rang the White Hart and told Tinker to drop by and collect me and Lize for the wedding.

  Lize screamed, "Wedding? Am I coming?"

  "Eh? Course."

  She was there aghast in her dressing gown, mopstick in one hand and a sudsy pan in the other. Her hair was everywhere. "You're taking me to a wedding and didn't tell me?”

  I'd always thought women liked weddings. "You look great, love. Anyway, you've twenty minutes—"

  She went berserk. I had to grab Toffee and scarper. I honestly think

  she'd have killed me. See what I mean? You try to please them and never a bit of gratitude do you get. I think that's real thoughtlessness.

  From the Welcome Sailor I called Sir John's secretary. She barked a breathless "Hello?" on the first bell.

  "Good girl." At least one woman wide awake and eager. First taste of sin. Or her umpteenth, seeing she was Winstanley's longtime partner? "Lovejoy. Ready?"

  "Which is the forgery?" she said.

  I drew breath to say the fake ivory tankard, then paused. Telling her the truth would unleash that high-quality fake onto the market. Instead, I could spring a genuine antique to glorious freedom, and leave Sir John gloating over a dud.

  Well, which? I admit I'd promised him honesty, but why change the habit of a lifetime? In my visits I'd noticed a lovely night clock by Edward East, complete with oil reservoir and two wick burners, genuine, rare, and clever. I coughed a bit, and said, "The fake's the East night clock by the left cornish, love. Fetch it to Dogpits at five o'clock." She started asking all sorts, so I rang off and watched the street.

  26

  What's more boring than a wedding? Answers on a postcard. Yet boredom, unlike beauty, really is in the eye of the beholder. I mean, each of us was taking this jaunt differently. As we breezed through town at nigh twenty that afternoon, even my little Ruby was feeling a sense of occasion, what with a white satin rosette on the bonnet and streamers.

  "Like me gaudies?" Tinker too. The old devil had shaved, nearly, and had a white carnation in his filthy beret. "Fixer's lads did that at nine this mornin', silly get."