A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair l-21 Page 22

  It takes a coward like me, scared from an encounter with Dieter Gluck, to feel fright.

  And to see there in front of me the people whose spirits still scream and run. I honestly believe that horror more than any other human emotion lurks all about us, in stones, in the air, in the ground that once bubbled and buckled from the heat. In the Great Fire bells melted, Ludgate Hill to my right running with molten metal as buildings heat-cracked into rubble.

  'You all right, mate?' a passing window cleaner asked. He had squeegees sticking out of his overalls.

  'Aye, ta, mate,' I managed to say. 'Bit dizzy for a sec.'

  That terrible Sunday, second of August in 1666, the real outbreak occurred. A daft preacher - is there any other? -afterwards proved what caused it. 'It couldn't have been caused by London's blasphemy,' he boomed, 'or the Great Fire would have begun in Billingsgate.' Nor lewdness and roistering, for then it would have started in Drury Lane.

  Nor lying and untruth (nice touch, this) or God would have torched the law courts of Westminster Hall. No, gluttony did it - for didn't the Great Fire start in Pudding Lane, and finally end at Pie Corner? Oddly, hardly anybody died. The old London Gazette's death count was exactly nil. Even the stern Bills of Mortality notched only six. God must have had a weak throwing arm that week. Divine calamities usually rock the averages.

  Our behaviour, back then, was like now. We did what we do. Greed, as I keep saying, like murder, will out. Samuel Pepys tells it in all its grue. The only difference is that the avarice of rich politicians was just that bit more obvious. Alderman Starling, of incredible wealth, gave a measly penny to the thirty labourers who saved his priceless possessions from the flames. Sir Richard Brown was just as stingy, when workmen rescued his chest stuffed with enough money to buy several streets.

  Pandemonium reigned as the Great Fire engulfed the city. In all human crucibles, rumour rules. Invasions, political plots, the whole kaleidoscope of mayhem, unloosed panic-stricken mobs. Blackened thousands staggered to Moor Fields and Tower Hill. As the conflagration leapt about with sparks on the wind, the black smoke shadowed riders as far away as Oxford. The phrases are all the same.

  You can't get away from the image of Old St Paul's standing like some huge warship upon a flaming ocean as the terrible sun set.

  Sound advice went begging, and greed rose to make matters hell of a sight worse. The best plan came from 'some stout seamen' who, knowing fire, early on wanted to blow up a few streets and save the entire city. London's wealthy plutocrats refused. So it was that Sunday vanished in an inferno. Then Monday, the fire enveloping dozens of churches and their parishes. 'Avaricious men, aldermen, would not permit,' mourned Evelyn, 'because their own houses must have been of the first…' It's these memories that plague me. Would I have been any better? No.

  Finally, catastrophe shoved selfishness out of the picture. The seamen's pleas were finally accepted. Charles II rowed up in his royal barge and ended all arguments, himself seeing to the demolition of houses rimming the Tower's moats. Meanwhile, London's goldsmiths did themselves a power of good by rushing their goods into the Tower. They didn't lift another finger, of course. Booksellers crammed their combustible stacks of books into St Faith's, which happened to be underneath Old St Paul's, so adding fuel to the bonfire. The world blazed, even the air seeming cleft asunder.

  History doesn't tell much. It never does. Only in odd corners do stories make sense. A schoolboy called Will Taswell painstakingly wrote his horrendous account that very Thursday. He'd trudged east among huge mounds of burning ruins. 'I endeavoured to reach St Paul's,' he quilled into his notebook. 'The ground so hot as almost to scorch my shoes.' The very air was afire. Faint, he had to rest in Fleet Street. Struggling on, the lad reached about where I'd run into Gluck. He saw the melted bells of the cathedral, molten rivulets running down Ludgate. Plodding through the furnace, he saw the fire engines burning, the firemen leaping to escape erratic outbreaks. Childlike, young Taswell picked up a cooling piece of bell metal to take home to show his friends, and gasping for breath made his way home. Of them all, who would I be? The King, struggling to force scatterbrain politicians to act? Or one of the riffraff, dragging my belongings north among the refugees streaming along the City Road? Certainly not one of the brave jolly jack tars straddling roofs in the flames with their kegs of gunpowder.

  Maybe one of the rich aldermen, disdainfully pressing farthings into the hands of stalwarts who saved an ill-gotten fortune?

  'You, Lovejoy?' Billia said. 'You'd be the little lad scribbling it down.'

  How long had she been there? I asked, 'How long've you been there?'

  'Since folk started looking at you talking to yourself.'

  The window cleaner was sitting further along. He looked pretty muscular for a window cleaner. He gave me a worried nod. Dang?

  'Wotcher, Lovejoy,' Dang said.

  'We kept out of your way while Gluck was batting your ear, Lovejoy. Safer.' Billia looks all appetite.

  'You know him?' I was surprised.

  'He's one of the betting syndicate that's after my bloke. He's got backers. They've tried everything from cornering antiques to fixing boxing.'

  Desperater and desperater.

  'He's sussed me, Billia,' I admitted. 'Just told me he knew my darkest plans in detail.'

  'Hell fire, Lovejoy. He's probably watching us now.'

  'Hang on, love.' This was important. If Billia and Dang were running scared from Gluck, then this odd couple might well be my best allies. What proof had I that Sorbo and Trout were honest? When suspicion begins, you're alone. Paranoia becomes forward planning. I could trust Lydia, Tinker too. Gluck might well be taping us. 'See you where we said before, okay?' 'In the—?'

  'That's it, love,' I said quickly. 'Don't be late.' Billia's eyes darted about. She flagged a taxi. I offed on Shank's pony, following little William Taswell's route of centuries before.

  Fleet Street, passing the little court leading to Dr Johnson's house. The Strand, right into Aldwych, breathing the air like nectar. My old stamping ground, Drury Lane.

  Thence into Covent Garden, where Pepys had dallied with loose lasses, where Boswell took his sinful pleasure and afterwards had to wash his hot willy in the Serpentine.

  Gluck had exuded charm in the pub. You have to hand it to killers. They put a smile on your face as they pull the rug from under and slide you to perdition.

  'We must deal, Lovejoy,' he'd said. I was frankly scared. He took my folder, leafed through it. 'Choice of four, I see.'

  'The Louvre is best of them,' I said. One thing, at the first sign of opposition, I chuck the towel in.

  'The Louvre's Jew loot? And the Musee d'Orsay?' he said, approving. 'Hasn't it been done?'

  'Stolen wartime loot always has, Mr Gluck. That's the point.'

  'Thomas Harrington's clocks.' He frowned at that, read carefully, shook his head. 'I'm clock mad, but Greenwich has too many guards, Lovejoy.'

  'Tourists are protective colour, Mr Gluck.'

  He smiled. 'Seriously, Lovejoy. Which were you going for?'

  'The Rotherham porcelain museum.' I filled in when his silence prompted me. 'It's priceless. And the area's politically dicey, so the government would rejoice when I saved it from being robbed. And you'd take the bait, hoping for a knighthood.'

  That gave him a laugh, tanned features setting off his superb white incisors. How come some people have everything?

  'You read me accurately, Lovejoy.' He grew wistful. 'Being a foreigner, my dream is of nobility.'

  'Why?' I was curious. 'Most honours are sham. Invent one for yourself. Nobody cares.'

  His eyes gleamed. 'I came from foreign slums, Lovejoy. This would be my accolade.' He eyed me. I'd not touched the drink. 'Reluctant, are we? Is it because you shagged - is that your slang word - Colette?' He leant forward. I was suddenly relieved. He had terrible breath, at last a drawback. 'Did you hope for her estate yourself? To take over from that buffoon of a husband?'

  He sud
denly emitted an inane cackle that set heads turning all about the taproom.

  'I like this fourth effort best, Lovejoy. The shipment thing. Of what?'

  I did my most convincing shrug. 'Any indigenous antiques. Good ones. Dulwich Picture Gallery's the one I have in mind.'

  'Dulwich?' His eyes narrowed suspiciously, the way I wish I could do. 'Isn't it impregnable now?'

  'Not really,' I lied. 'Plus it has a trump card. The Ace.' I smiled, with humility and cowardice in there. 'It can't afford insurance.'

  He gaped. 'Can't…?'

  'So many priceless Old Masters. Get it, Mr Gluck? A thief—'

  'Could dictate his own terms!' I'd never seen such fervour. He couldn't keep still.

  'To the Minister for Arts, National Heritage. Think of the nation's gratitude when somebody returned them to a grateful country!'

  Well, I swear he almost choked. 'Lovejoy, that's beautiful! I'd be the white knight!

  Adored! Worshipped!' He shook my hand against my will. Uneasily I imagined rumours getting back to friends. 'Then do it, Lovejoy. I am your partner. Tell me when it's set up, not before.' He rose, elegant, in charge.

  'Hang on,' I bleated. 'What's the deal?'

  'You pull the robbery. Then you offer them to me. I buy them back, saving the nation's honour. Of course, no money will change hands, because I have none. But I will pretend I paid a fortune to the robbers.'

  I croaked, 'What robbers? Who? What about me?'

  'You do the best you can to escape the consequences, Lovejoy.' He smiled as Sir Ponsonby and his luscious Moiya came to join him. She looked even more glorious. Sir P. had the grace to look embarrassed. 'Highly placed politicians will recommend me! It's foolproof, and it's not yet even taken place!'

  He left, laughing. Moiya December swung every cell of her anatomy, drawing eyes. Sir P. mouthed a faint regret to me, and stumbled in their wake. They embarked in a waiting Rolls. So much for leading righteousness's charge against evil. I was now my enemy's serf.

  The four best scams - that I'd paid to have planned out for me - were now known to Gluck. He would win. I'd lose, and Mortimer would go down with me.

  Smouldering, I knew that I'd been careless. I needed a last-minute plan Gluck couldn't even guess at. 29

  LONDON HAS EVERYTHING. That doesn't mean it's yours for the taking. But it's there, it's there.

  Terence O'Shaughnessy's claim to being Irish is that he once drank a pint of their black stout. In Germany. Nonetheless, he talks a good nationality, as they say. His workshop's off Drury Lane, a stone's throw from a myriad theatres. I found the building, went over the wall, saw a light in his basement. He's janitor of this night school - creative writing, leaping in leotards to music, self-identity through inner plasms.

  'Tel?' I went into his one room with care, remembering when I'd barged in on Wrinkle and what he'd been up to. Tel didn't even look round. He has this giant St Bernard dog, slavering and droopy, called Plato. 'Wotcher, Plato.'

  'Top o' the morning, Lovejoy.'

  Oirish brogue still. Once, he'd been a big-spending Yemeni oil baron, but came unstuck when the police pointed out that he wasn't anything of the kind. He's the only bloke I know really born in a suitcase. His grandma delivered him. I've met her, heard the story a hundred times. The telly was on, racing at Newmarket.

  'Don't give me your County Galway, Tel.'

  O'Shaughnessy's room is always a shambles. Old clothes strewn everywhere, plastic bin bags, newspapers, half-eaten grub, soiled plates there since I'd seen him a year since.

  He wore a singlet, braces dangling, the same smeared slippers, belly protruberant, stained trousers. He'd improved. Usually he's a mess.

  'Can't offer yer any ale, Lovejoy. I'm thirsty meself.'

  He had a row of brown ale tins ready for action. A heap of empties had accumulated nearby in a kind of metallic snowfall. As he spoke he lobbed a new empty. It landed on the pile, which slid a bit. He popped a replacement with a sigh of repletion.

  'It's okay, Tel.' Plato came and drenched me with saliva. I patted his head, but distantly. Stroke him once or twice, you get enough hairs to knit another dog.

  Terence O'Shaughnessy is a knowledgeable bloke. Living as he does in London's Drury Lane heartland, he makes money selling information indiscriminately. This was my reason.

  'Can I ask, Tel, or are you busy?'

  He phones bookmakers with last-minute losers. Plato snuffled, demanding another pat.

  I responded, finished up covered with hair.

  'Ten minutes before the off, Lovejoy. What is it?'

  'Dulwich Picture Gallery,' I said without preamble.

  His several bellies quivered delight. He opened a tin of ale for Plato, who lapped it down. His tongue's like a sponge mat.

  'Self-service theft, that place used to be, Lovejoy.' Tel guffawed. 'Any day of the week.

  Not now, though.'

  'Sell me the security, Tel, and potholes?'

  'Sure. Cost you half a long, Lovejoy. Half a grand to the blokes.'

  Translation: fifty zlotniks to Tel, five hundred to the security sussers. These are ruffians who don't actually ruff. They just know who'll be on duty, if the electronics surveillance people have flu, where you should arrange a van to break down, a robber's essentials.

  Potholes are flaws in standing security procedures. Some naughty security firms actually incorporate flaws, to be sold to would-be crooks on request. It's modern double-think.

  'That's blinking dear, Tel,' I groused.

  'Art theft's gone up. Dulwich's been done too frigging often. They learned the hard way.

  Now, the place only looks easy. If I was you, I'd try somewhere else.' He gave a booming laugh, sweaty mounds shaking. 'They can't afford the insurance. Said so on telly, last time somebody lifted their recycled Rembrandt.'

  True. I was relieved Tel knew about it. Dealers joke that their Rembrandt was stolen so often in the old days it went in and out like a fiddler's elbow. I wanted him to be sure to remember this conversation.

  'What'll you charge to keep shtum, Tel?' I asked, trying to look threatening. I can't do it, but try. 'I don't want all London coming to watch, if I try to nick Dulwich's Old Masters.'

  'Another.' Meaning fifty zlotniks more.

  We haggled. I stroked Plato. Like Mortimer's dog Jasper, it knew I wasn't up to much, so watched the horses line up on TV. I agreed Tel's fees. Interestingly, they weren't all that exorbitant, proving that Tel knew Dulwich was the hardest place on earth to burgle. I knew that anyway. As long as he told the world that Lovejoy was going to give it a go, it would be money well spent. He would give me details of Dulwich Picture Gallery's security arrangements with supposed potholes.

  I said so-long to Plato. Leaving, I hoped whoever Dieter Gluck had trailing me could take a decent photo, and that my stalker was good enough.

  Two phone calls later, I started my plan.

  Luckily, the day turned out brilliant. It was like a St Thomas's summer down at Henley when I got there. I told the steward on the gate I was a guest of Sir Jesson Tethroe, MP, and Mrs Gloria Dee. With disdain, I was given a blazer and an anonymous tie, and made to wait.

  I honestly wonder if women have some inbuilt radar that tells them how our weather will be. She looked dazzling in green taffeta, hair filling out with sun, complexion marvellous. Sir Jesson harrrumphed, eyed me, gave my attire a reluctant nod. He mellowed when Mrs Dee greeted me kindly.

  'Call me Jesson, Lovejoy,' he said, like awarding me a discount.

  He wrung my hand, clearly chairman of the board. I stared with admiration. He wore a boater, very Henley-on-Thames, and a smart blazer that talked down to scruffy me. If I were him, though, I'd have got a new tie. It had faded to a vague grey. People all around nodded or fawned, according to station. Waiters hung in hopes. Alluring ladies smiled at Sir Jesson.

  We were on a kind of tatty wooden jetty. I suppose class is as class does. I caught Gloria Dee's amused smile.

  'Henley is superb, Lo
vejoy, is it not?' she said. I got the irony.

  'Best place on earth,' Sir Jesson bellowed. 'The royals,' he intoned, stooping to confide in a stentorian boom, 'don't come here much. Obsessed with horses. Ascot people common as dung, what? And Wimbtedon's for ball-fiddlin' poofters, beggin' ya pardon, what?'

  'Er,' I said, lost.

  'Standards, Lovejoy!' he thundered, ordering drinks with nothing more than a finger twiddle. Waiters sprinted. 'Princess Grace of Monte Carlo - y'know her? Second Division crown, o'course, not top notch. Her pa got excluded from Henley, what?'

  'Why, Jesson?' Gloria Dee asked, sweet with innocence. She'd obviously heard the tale a thousand times.

  'General Rules, Rule One brackets e,' he foghorned across the Thames. 'Manual labourer. Blighter was a common bricklayer, some place called Philadelphia. Actually wanted to scull at Henley. Can ya believe it?'

  'Good heavens,' I said politely. The waiter deposited the drinks, glared at my clothing.

  Gentlemen milled and strolled in white flannels, coloured socks. Ladies called loudly for

  'Pimm's, daaahling!' and complained about the shampahs. Striped blazers - you never see so many buttons as on Henley cuffs - and heavy-duty grins, flowered hats and swirly dresses.

  'Leander,' Gloria whispered as Jesson rose to greet a gaudy mob. Salmon pink seemed to be their colour. I'd never heard such brash laughter. 'Very up, Leander.'

  For a second we were on our own. Sir Jesson was saying, 'Like wagering for Dartmouth, what?' and folk were chortling. It was another world.

  'Ta for letting me come, love,' I said quietly. 'Would you do a robbery?'

  She leant away, to look better, her smile draining.

  'I'll accept the danger and suffer the consequences. It could save a young lad's life. And rescue somebody else.'

  'A robbery?' she asked faintly. 'You mean steal?'

  'No, love. Theft is mild, like pickpocketing. Robbery is violent.'

  Fingering her pearls, she repeated the word, her gaze off the scale. 'Violent as in…?'