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

'Growed poppy there these eight generations, Lovejooy. Arthur were signature for it, see?'

  That made me walk back up the bank and take a long look.

  'This land grew poppies?' I already knew people liked flowers.

  'Special folk did the harvest, loik. In olden days. The Ministry took away permission when Arthur died. Aborted the crop by spraying. Didn' arf stink.'

  Now, Papaver sommferum is famed. Opium is its principal yield, cause of our country's notoriously unjust Opium Wars with China. I'd heard fanciful rumours of four official acres in Suffolk where morphine base was got from an opium crop.

  'Who owns the closed field?'

  'The only bit of Saffron Fields Manor that thief didn't manage to get.' Clatter spat into the sluggish river. 'Arthur gived it to the booy separate afoor he died. By then, that Colette had gone orff with the foreigner.'

  'Ta, Clatter.'

  Inland, beyond the closed field, I could see a line of trees along the old canal. Seaward, the river bent into its estuary where the dead airman lay in his plane beneath the sands. So two rich reasons existed for Gluck to snaffle this unprepossessing chunk.

  One, he could make a fortune from developing the waterways leisure industry. Two, he would own one of the few approved opium fields in the whole country. Except that Gluck hadn't thought it out: he'd killed Arthur - driving a man to his death is the same as murder, to me - and grabbed everything he could. Unfortunately for him, the Lord of the Manor tide and these priceless few acres had already been ceded to Mortimer for a farthing. Stupidly Gluck had slain the goose and not got the golden egg. Arthur had seen, guessed, suspected Gluck's intentions. I grieved. Why hadn't he come to me?

  I knew the answer. Arthur knew about me and Colette. I was just as phoney as Gluck, taking advantage of Arthur's benign nature, cuckolding my friend. I'm not even pathetic. I'm worse.

  'All roit, booy?' Clatter said sympathetically. 'It weren't yor fault, son.'

  Thank you, friend. 'I'll manage now, Clatter.'

  Griefs always too late. I set off back, leaving the lonely river to Clatter and his eels. My old Gran said once, 'A funeral's only ham butties and a slow walk, luv. Pretending that your grief is for a loved one, when it's only self-pity.' My trouble is, I think too late.

  My eyes filled. I stumbled over the stile onto the road where I hoped to get a lift to the railway station. Talking time was over, and fighting time was come, as Don John of Austria said at Lepanto. But he'd had a fleet of war galleys, and I had only a few suppositions about a dead airman.

  27

  THAT DAY, EVERYTHING happened, double bad. I finally remembered to phone Mercy Faldrop in her booming hamlet. She came on after a succession of kulaks had told me that The Lady (sic) would be pleased to speak.

  'Lady Mercy? Lovejoy. Got anything?'

  'Your listed folk don't come here, Lovejoy. Except for that engineer man Talleyton. He brings two surveyors, buys them supper and a girl each.'

  My heart sank. 'Not Sir Jesson Tethroe?' I went through my list.

  'No, Lovejoy. Sorry.'

  Typical. Just when I wanted a dishonest MP. Now I'd have to use Gloria Dee to somehow bring him in.

  'I barred that Gluck.'

  'Eh?' Gluck at Mercy's after all?

  'Rotten bastard, he were. Drew blood on a couple-three of my girls, into S and M.

  Finishing school, him. I put the word out.'

  'Dieter Gluck? You sure?' Finishing school is brothel-speak for sadism to the point of killing. Needless to say, madams don't let such a bloke over the threshold.

  'Leave it aht, Lovejoy.' Meaning don't be stupid. 'He goes down Soho now. I don't handle his sort.'

  'Anything else about him?'

  'Rumour is he did for a working girl, Continent somewhere.'

  'Keep trying, Mercy. You're a lady.'

  She purred. 'Thank you, kind sir. If ever the gentleman wishes to partake of ultimate personal solace, please rest assured…' etc, etc.

  Nothing from Doldrum. No news from Lydia, no messages from Mars. Tinker, Trout, Sorbo had gone silent. I felt really narked. I was slogging my heart out, and all my team had gone walkabout. So much for loyalty.

  What had Gaylord Fauntleroy's old auntie said? Something about Chinese antiques being my best bet.

  A street busker called Cleat - careful how you say her name - near Tower Hill always has news. Cleat's an electric chain dancer, draws tourist crowds near the Tower of London. Two bronzed stalwarts fasten her in chains, to exotic drum music. During her writhing prance, bulbs all over her flash on and off. The cliffhanger: she's to leap free of her chains before the record ends, or a great carboy of water suspended above her will uncork and drench her. Electrified as she is with bulbs and wires, she will then frazzle and die and, the stalwarts bellow threateningly, 'The Glamorous Cleat will be no more!'

  When I arrived she'd just escaped, taken the collection, and was sitting having a fag with her blokes. I like Cleat. She has a cousin who can yodel.

  'They were asking after you, Lovejoy,' she told me. 'You didn't turn up.'

  Somebody else now? I sighed. Was I simply a walking crime?

  'Billia and Dang. He's hiding in the churchyard. And Gaylord's up the Lane.'

  I'd quite forgotten them. Billia had told me she needed help when I'd met her at Bermondsey. Some boxing hoods wanted Dang to throw, win, duck, or vice versa, and he'd got confused. What was Billia's tale? Dang had to repay the match fixers' lost debt.

  I should have met them at the Nell of Old Drury, seven o'clock once upon a time. I eyed the huge dangling carboy over her dancing pitch, couldn't help asking.

  'Is that real, love?' Only, the thought of it and electrocuting her was really unpleasant.

  She split her sides. Her stalwarts roared. I reddened, said so-long, and walked off, the only duckegg in London. I put my best foot under me. Londoners don't walk much.

  Tourists are the same, struggle might and main for taxis, when their destination's barely a furlong. I walked up the Minories, made it round St Botolph's church where the buses go mad, and was in Petticoat Lane in minutes.

  Note, however, that Petticoat Lane isn't properly that. But if you tell your taxi driver Middlesex Street he'll say, 'D'you mean Petticoat Lane?' London's full of these hitches.

  Like, Dalston Waste is famous, but isn't labelled in the maps. I got lost once, delivering a vanload of forged Wedgwood jasper cameos. Like a fool I searched the A-Z Guide, got nowhere until I asked a bright little pickpocket in Whitechapel. 'Maps,' he'd said with all the dignity of his ten years, 'is alluz wrong, mate.'

  Petticoat Lane, then. At the Aldgate end, clothes barrows and jellied eel stalls crush together, awnings so dense there seems no way through. Struggle north up the narrow thoroughfare, yet more groaning barrows, with shops looking eager to step off the pavement. It's an exciting turmoil. Cutler Street Silver Market's now a grand emporium, a mini-Crystal Palace stuck out near Aldgate East station. It used to be a small dogleg going nowhere near Houndsditch, but that's evolution. Street markets start off superb grot, then go posh.

  Gaylord couldn't park his caravan in this press, so I shoved my way towards St Mary Axe. There it stood among a handful of dealers. Gaylord was waxing eloquent about some dross he was trying to auction. You can tell when nobody's going to buy. I went closer. The item was a tantalus, a grand brass-and-mahogany carrying device used by butlers for several glass decanters. I reached and touched one. Slightly rough, but not a single chime.

  'I'll have that, mister,' I said. 'How much?'

  'More than you can afford, sir.' Gaylord's quick on the uptake. 'You don't realize its value.'

  The dealers looked from me to Gaylord's antique, wondering. I heard a bloke whisper my name, saw him out of the corner of my eye make a slight chopping gesture to his mate, suggesting they'd split the cost and profits equally.

  'Is it from the Duoro?' I demanded.

  The ill-starred Royal Mail steamship Duoro is famous for colliding with a Spanish li
ner and sinking off Cape Finisterre in 1882, taking with it some seventeen souls and a fortune in diamonds and gold. The date's important for glassware. In 1890 posh decanters were rough to the feel, being wheel-engraved. The acid-polishing process only properly took off about 1890. Try it yourself. Touch a modern acid-polished decanter, it's smooth as silk. (There are fakes, so watch it.) But rough engraving means pre-1890; smooth means later. Antiques that can be dated by some reliable technique are, as dealers say, 'landmarked' and are easier to sell.

  A bloke organized an ocean dive in the 1990s, and in true romantic treasure-hunting fashion pulled off a brilliant salvage. I get bitter telling this, because it wasn't me.

  Spink's did the final auction, a mere twenty-eight thousand gold coins, plus artefacts and gems, bringing millions. I was not involved.

  'This tantalus is unique, sir.' Gaylord pursed his lips. 'Maybe I've underestimated its value.'

  'Thousand two hundred?' I said. I hadn't a groat.

  'Let's have a gander, Gaylord.' One dealer stepped up.

  'Excuse me, mate,' I said, narked. 'I've already offered. I can claim it. Mark owat.'

  Which is our slang way of saying 'market overt'. It's supposed to have been repealed a couple of years back, this ancient law. Trouble is, street dealers never change. If street law was once thus, it is now and so ever shall be. Buy an antique in uncovered daylight in open market, it's yours for always. Never mind whether it was nicked, stolen, or got by thuggery. A sale is a sale is a sale. That was the old law, and still is among us market lovers.

  'It wasn't sold,' the dealer said quickly. He appealed to the crowd. 'Was it, Ven? Was it, Sol? Two thousand five hunnert.'

  'Don't get nasty, gentlemen.' Gaylord acted unhappy, and handed his fake over for a bundle of bunce.

  The crowd dispersed. Gaylord went in, closed the door. I wandered off. Ten minutes later, I nigged round the far side of his caravan and slipped in. Auntie Vi had the kettle on.

  'Thank you, Lovejoy. You're sweet. Are you better?'

  'Not been poorly.'

  Gaylord, in an even glitzier caftan, smiled. 'Grief shines from you like black light, Lovejoy. Don't feel bad about Arthur and Colette.'

  'Shut your teeth, Gaylord,' I snarled. 'They weren't my responsibility.'

  'You're like Grimaldi, Lovejoy,' Auntie Vi said, puffing her foul pipe.

  'Eh?'

  'It happened in Victorian times. Man went to his doctor. Couldn't stop crying from sorrow. His doctor couldn't find a thing wrong, told him to go and see the famous comic clown Grimaldi, toast of Victorian London, have a good laugh. The man said, "But I am Grimaldi." See, Lovejoy?'

  No, I didn't see. 'You said something about duping Dieter Gluck.'

  'Do the old double shift,' Auntie Vi said, rocking in her chair. 'We used it for years, until computers come in. Gaylord agrees, don't you, dear? Think Chinese.'

  Chinese meant Wrinkle, as I've said.

  'I've been thinking of an art gallery. Biggest profit. I'm going to visit Terence O'Shaughnessy.' Tel O'Shaughnessy is a crook at the best of times. I said this.

  'Aren't we all, Lovejoy?'

  'But we're the good ones.'

  'Dismas and Gestas, on Calvary, were both antique dealers, son. It's a fact.' She continued, 'They still got crucified with Christ. The steal of approval!'

  She cackled, rocked. Homilies make me sick. I got up to leave but Gaylord shoved me down and poured me some liqueur he brews from oranges.

  'Saunty sent these folders over.'

  Eagerly I grabbed them from him, riffled through. There were basically four ideas, all of them terrific, almost foolproof. The question was, would any of them do? I wanted the manor back for Mortimer, and Arthur's lands including his mulberry tree.

  'You need a tame Yank, Lovejoy. Gluck'll bite like a pike in a pool.'

  'Where'll I get a Yank?' I said bitterly. 'He'd have to be able to act. And be trustworthy.

  Maybe I simply ought to pay some Leeds tankers two grand to top Gluck. Then Mortimer's friends could club together for lawyers to sort the manor out for the lad.'

  After all, Gluck had the plod on his side. I'd already been warned off by Saintly. I said tarra, swigged the hooch and made to leave.

  'Good luck,' they both called.

  I stepped into rain-soaked London. Outside, the crowd was diminishing. I heard Gaylord say something after me but took no notice. Where now? Well, Billia and Dang hadn't done me any harm. I dithered, but finally started west. Cleat had said 'the churchyard'.

  In London this means St Paul's until specified as somewhere else.

  For some reason I felt odd, looked about but saw nobody I knew. I can't stand those horrible new cobbly underfoots along London Wall, so instead walked along Leadenhall and Cornhill, emerging near the Mansion House. Normally I'd have gone nearer the River Thames - it's only a step -so I could pass the Monument, but today didn't feel like it. Everything's nostalgia in London. The fact you weren't alive when things happened centuries agone doesn't matter. Feelings get your bones. I resisted the little antiques painting shop near Bread Street and went straight ahead towards Ludgate Hill.

  More temptation, because only a little way west you walk into Dr Johnson's very own house, and can sit in his very own triangular chair. Some tourists were still about, the traffic dense as ever. Even in drizzle folk were sitting on the cathedral steps. I looked.

  No sign of Dang - though there wouldn't be, would there, if he was hiding. I went round the great building, thinking of the young Dr Christopher Wren, who turned his hand to architecture because his new idea called blood transfusion was too cranky - oh, sorry, I mentioned that some time since. I wondered whether to go in.

  Ghosts, though. They're here in London. They're also there, and among hurrying crowds. They stand looking at you across the road. I honestly believe that our old places somehow invoke them, call them back. Yet nearby folk were playing a kind of netball. Office people were ambling, noshing butties, drinking tins of fizz. The trouble is, we know the ghosts. Here in St Paul's churchyard she's the notorious She Wolf. Actually not canine but definitely lupine and female to degree. It was the Londoners' nickname for Queen Isabella, French spouse of our Edward II. She was a leading sinner. So bad, indeed, that her Gallic team made sure that she was buried in a grey habit nicked from the Christchurch Greyfriars. A careful lot, their idea was to trick heaven's Recording Angel, whose tired eyes, accustomed only to black or white, would fail to spot the grey.

  Naughty Isabella hoped to slip into paradise, sins and all. Bad luck, though, for the vigilant Angel wasn't tricked and hauled her out. In a temper, he angrily sentenced her to wander for all eternity, grieving and doomed, in St Paul's churchyard and serve her right. Your average Londoner pooh-poohs it. But the grey figure certainly scares the hell out of postmen at the nearby GPO. The way to avoid her, incidentally, is not to look.

  Dart anxious glances hither and yon while visiting St Paul's, you'll see her sure as eggs.

  She still lusts after men, you see, and takes a stare as an invitation, with dire consequences I won't go into if you don't mind. Women she hates, and takes a female's look as a challenge, with double-dire results.

  'Lovejoy,' Dieter Gluck said. I yelped out of my reverie. He looked the business, neat, height of fashion, cool, handsome.

  'Mr Gluck,' I said. No ghost, he.

  'Don't whine, Lovejoy. Time to speak?'

  'I'm meeting a friend,' I said. It's hard to be polite when you're working out how to knock that person off. I've often found that.

  'Here?' He looked about, quite amused. A cool swine, give him that. 'Handful of tramps, busloads of visitors, a mob of office clerks? No, Lovejoy. You're planning deceit. I can smell it. And,' he said reasonably, 'I've learned a great deal. You are a thief, a scoundrel who lives off women, and a forger.'

  'Here, nark it.' I could have clocked him one, except so far I'd not had much luck. He looked calm, like he had a servile bruiser handy.

  'Don
't take offense, Lovejoy. I'm one also. I have a proposition.'

  'You got me done over, arrested, and clobbered by your tame ape.' I still ached from my beating in Soho.

  'Do not speak ill of the dead, please,' said this killer. 'Consecrated ground. It's time we joined forces, Lovejoy.' He lit a cigarette from a silver case. 'What is this famous scam of yours?' He smiled. 'So secret, so uniquely aimed at my destruction?'

  From the corner of my eye I saw Billia start towards me, Dang with her. They were coming down the broad expanse of steps. I passed my hand in front of my forehead to signal them away. Dang hesitated, thank God. I turned.

  'Who said I've got a scam brewing?'

  He said, pleasant, 'All London's street markets. Now, how much will it cost? What's the profit? And what odds on success?'

  I keep a special headache for times like these. It screeched into my temple and exploded, ruining my vision and thought processes. Kindly, Dieter Gluck took me by the elbow and walked me down to the London Hospital Tavern on Ludgate Hill. It stands almost midway between Blackfriars Bridge - where the Vatican these days murders its troublesome bankers and hangs their bodies from the girders over the Thames - and the Old Bailey, where the Vatican's hired assassins are never tried.

  This particular murderer sat opposite me in the tap room and brought me a drink.

  Smiling pleasantly, he toasted me.

  'To partnership,' he said. 28

  FOR A TIME, I sat on the facade facing the buses chugging towards the Bank, motors, office girls darting between deaths shrieking, folk smiling, a bobby telling them off. To my right, tourists noshed their pizza slices, swigging from cans and littering culture. I had an overdue think.

  Sit still a minute, London descends like dew, steeping the soul in feelings you didn't know you had. Things flow in your brain. Like a fool I actually turned to look, but there was no smoke in the sky.

  It happened here, the Great Fire that began in Pudding Lane. The street's still there, a spit downstream of London Bridge. I'd just walked past. From the Monument, you can look down into its narrow thoroughfare. History books don't tell you of the stark terror.