Paid and Loving Eyes l-16 Read online

  Fame is shame. I suddenly realized I’d recognized her paramour, the mighty Jervis. He’d triggered off that sense of something shameful, so he must be famous. Fame really is shame. Aren’t the most famous football teams simply the ones who’ve kicked everything over the grass, season after season? Aren’t Olympic champions merely the ones on the biggest dose of corticosteroids? The most famous politicians the crookedest? Except in antiques, where fame measures beauty and true human love, fame is shame.

  Now, here’s the really odd thing about that night. She didn’t mention the argument to Gazza Gaunt at all. Not a word. I reached the bypass, pulled in, transferred her to the waiting limo, and saw her off without a single cross look.

  More amazing still, I reached Gazza’s depot and signed off about ten-thirty with no trouble. He was pleased, because cleaning ladies come to repair love’s ravages in his Tryste vehicles, eleven to midnight. And I got a bonus.

  “Bonus?” They’re usually what other folk extort from me. An incoming bonus was a novelty. “For me? You sure?”

  Gazza laughed, slapped my back. He’s a great back-slapper, is Gazza. He has a brother who clubs non-payers and uncooperative workers, so I didn’t mind this sign of approval.

  “Double bunce, Lovejoy. You really created an impression on that lady.”

  Here was the odd thing. Gentleman Jervis had been very definitely miffed at my harbour detour. And the bird Diana had taken the hump when I was rude. So a bonus? Really weird. Gazza’s never given a bonus in his life. Extracted a few, yes.

  Doubtfully I inspected the notes. Strangerer and strangerer. I must have done something right, but what? Like a nerk, I forgot this vital question, pocketed the wodge and went on my way tiredly rejoicing.

  This particular night, rejoicing meant Almira. She has a grand manor house in Birch near the church, and this quiet little cottage by the sea inlet. Mansion for august familial propriety, nook for nooky so to speak. Says her husband runs a chartered bank’s investment company or some such.

  Dinner was planned for seven-thirty, then passion till dawn. Arrangements don’t have the accuracy they used to, I sometimes find. I think it’s mainly because women don’t get their act together. I was starving, could have eaten a horse. I got the bus down the estuary to Burnhanger, and walked into a flak storm. Luckily, Almira accepted my explanation that the taxi I’d got from town had run over a badger, and that I’d insisted on taking the poor injured animal to the vet’s at Lexton. Naturally, I’d had to stay with the creature until I knew it was going to live. I was so moved by my tale I welled up. Finally she forgave me, and said I was just a lovely, sweet thing. Back on the right lines, thank God, I had the grub. In my honour she’d come off her perennial staples—whittled carrot and a lettuce-wrapped nut—and cooked food instead.

  The passion began about one in the morning, and lasted to six-forty-five a.m. That’s when she gets up to feed her bloody horses and bully the serfs.

  She barely had time to make my breakfast before she had to streak off in her Jaguar. And even then she forgot my fried bread. Women really nark me. All night to work out the right breakfast, and still she gets it wrong. Can you believe it? Typical, that. It’s time women learned to get organized. Probably comes from having nothing to do all day. I slept on, the sleep of the just.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  « ^ »

  My cottage is a short distance from town, slumped beneath thatch in its overgrown garden wilderness. Our village isn’t up to much. Historically a recorded failure over two millennia, it’s shown no improvement since King Cymbeline, another local loser, lost all to Rome. I don’t like countryside, but for once was glad to get back to my bare flagged floors even if I did have to pay the extortionate fare on the village bus. Almira would go berserk when she found me gone—I’d promised to wait until eleven, but once you’re awake you can’t just stare at the ceiling, can you? And I’d money in my pocket, my bonus from Gazza.

  The phone was cut off, and electricity. Par for the penniless. This narks me. I mean, what if I’d been an old-age pensioner, shivering, wanting to call Doc Lancaster? Lucky for them I wasn’t, or I’d have pegged out and made them feel really sorry. The post was on time, eleven o’clock delivery. I brewed up as the post lass shovelled bills into the porch. She came in.

  I’d built a fire of beechwood, starting it with yesterday’s unopened letters, and got a kettle on.

  “Burning evidence, Lovejoy?”

  “Some old logs, Mich.” They were beechwood. Two pounds of beech soot to a gallon of water, boiled briefly, then decanted and evaporated to dryness, is the ancients’ recipe for bistre, the pigment Old Masters drew with. A lot of forged antique drawings were due to appear in the next antiques auctions, after which my electricity and water supply might miraculously get switched on—if Fanny delivered the fake antique paper on time. Some local swine was testing my Old Master forgeries for the right antique watermark, using beta-radiography, so I’d had to pay Fanny’s exorbitant prices and she’d never even seduced me, the cow. I ask you. Beta-radiography’s simple: you put a radioactive source under any paper, with a film on top. Leave it a while. Develop the film. And presto! A photo of the paper’s watermark! It’s a cheap and simple foolproof test of antique paper (which is why, of course, antique dealers avoid it like the plague).

  She was telling me off. “Michelle, not Mich. It’s our anniversary, Lovejoy. Don’t I get a card? Flowers?”

  I stared. She laughed, a tiny sprite of a girl with a smile that makes you forget how hopeless the mail is these days. I like her, a red-haired pest.

  “Two years I’ve been teaching you my name.” She disapproves of my habitat’s coarser features. “Never a word of thanks.”

  “Who needs letters?”

  “I’m valuable, Lovejoy.” She perched prettily on the divan, wrinkled her nose at its unmade condition. “You didn’t sleep here last night. Nor the one before.”

  “So what? I was, er, busy,” I said lamely. Women make you feel guilty even when you’ve done nothing.

  “You still with that rich tart, Lovejoy? You didn’t ask me why I’m valuable.”

  “Why’re you valuable, Mich?”

  “Because I’m a winged messenger. Tinker’s at the Treble Tile, very urgent. And a posh lady in a monstermobile is asking Dulcie where is Lovejoy Antiques, Inc.”

  That would have been almost worth another stare, but the kettle boiled just then and I had to dash to find my two mugs. Michelle lay in an Olympia-by-Manet posture. Dulcie’s our village postmistress. Michelle has a phone thing on her pedal bicycle. I groaned inwardly, except Michelle heard me. It’d probably be Diana repenting of her bonus.

  “Tell Dulcie to get rid.” I held up the mug as a bribe.

  “No sugar.” She smiled and waggled provocatively out, doing the trailing-fox-fur mime. I felt worn out. Not even noon, and already hunted. Is it me? Everybody else has such control.

  Tinker’s my barker, a filthy shuffler who lives partly on ale and pickings, but mostly on me. He’s my rumour-ferret for antiques. The best in the business, he assimilates news by osmosis. I mean, he can stand in a remote village pub all day long, gradually getting more and more kaylied, then tell you just before he falls down paralytic at midnight what’s gone on at auctions in Ipswich, Norwich, even the Midlands. My part of the contract is to see his boozing slates are paid, every tavern in the Eastern hundreds. Magee’s Brewery should send me a turkey at Christmas.

  Michelle came back inside, closing the porch door, I noticed. She’s almost a pal, as far as the Royal Mail services go. I gave her the cracked mug because it cuts my lip.

  “Now, Lovejoy,” she said. “Blackmail time.”

  “Who’re we doing over?”

  “Me,” she corrected. “I’m blackmailing someone.”

  That sprawl out of Manet’s famous painting was almost exact, except there was no Nubian slave, no black neck ribbon. And Michelle was clothed. I looked about for blackmailees. Me?

 
“Me?”

  “You, Lovejoy. Pay up, pay up, and play my game. Two years’ flirting is two years too many.”

  “Or what?” Gawd, I’d not even had a swig. I tried to sound defiant.

  “Or your parcel goes missing.” She smiled, laid her mug aside, beckoned with a crooked finger. “It’s registered, stamped, sealed, insured —”

  “Parcel?” I licked my lips. I wasn’t due any parcel. No antiques come through the legit post these days. I wondered about my past scams. Had that bloke in Ribblesdale finally decided to sell me his assortment of children’s rattles? I’d been after them for a twelvemonth. Mainly silver Regency, but with two North American Indian tribal baby rattles the most valuable of all. Sounds daft, but they’d buy a decent house, freehold, with furniture thrown in. Or had that Amsterdam dealer weakened, and sent me his Napoleonic prisoner-of-war bone sailing-ship model on approval? Worth a new car any day, especially with slivers of horn—

  “Interfering with the Royal Mail’s illegal.”

  “I’m unscrupulous. Yes or no?”

  I hesitated. It had to happen, of course. Women always have the final say. It’s really only a question of when. It wasn’t right. I knew that. I mean, Michelle had just got wed. Her new husband is a tough road-mender, all brawn and beef, this week labouring on the village bypass. And women always blab. I sometimes think that’s why they do this. All these arguments totalled a resounding no. But antiques are antiques.

  “Okay.” Being cheap costs, I find.

  “The door.”

  Obediently I went to wedge a stool behind it—the lock’s wonky—and bumped into Jodie Danglass. She was entering briskly.

  “Hello, Lovejoy. I knew you’d want to thank me for last night’s…” She saw Michelle and beamed even brighter. “Should I say sorry, or offer congratulations?”

  Michelle swept out. Even a post lass can flounce if she’s a mind to.

  “Look, Mich,” I tried lamely after her, but got nothing back. She seized her bike and pedalled off in disdain.

  Jodie was done up to the nines. I eyed her. “You’re not winning my heart, Jode. You’re down on points.”

  “Come, Lovejoy. Wear your very best. You’ve a customer. Sports centre in Ladyham.”

  “This gear is it.” The new recreation place she mentioned was for the megamoneyed, not scruffs the likes of me. But a rich antiques customer must be obeyed.

  She looked me up and down. “Well, they said come whatever.” She smiled, brilliant with intimacy. “At least I know you’re spotless underneath.”

  See what I mean? They can’t help bragging they’ve nicked the lolly. It narks me. She had her motor at the gate. I got in, asking who the customer was.

  “Not the foggiest, darling. Thought you’d tell me. She phoned me ten minutes since. Offered more than I make in a week to get you to Ladyham.” Jodie squeezed my leg, a cruelty with her shapely pins scissoring seductively as she drove. “Didn’t your persuasive tactics work last night, then?”

  Last night? She’d seen me in the inglenook at the Drum and Fife with good old Diana, of bonus fame. Was Diana the customer? I settled back for the journey.

  “Not my knee when I’m driving, Lovejoy.”

  “Sorry.” She’d started it, then blames me. See what I mean?

  The Nouvello Troude Sports and Recreation Centre dwarfs Ladyham, a village of insignificant size and zero fame. More of a hamlet, really. One pub, a stream, a church, a gaggle of houses old as the hills. And, new on the outskirts, a giant complex of tennis courts, buildings filled with desperates pumping iron, swimming pools and diving boards. They’ve even flattened fields into running tracks and steeplechase courses. It’s obscene.

  Jodie parked by the slummer’s entrance—the smallest motor in the proper car park was a Bentley—and we entered the perfumed interior. Talk about plush. A log fire—no rotating tinsel glow lights at the Nouvello Troude, thank you. Wilton carpets, a glass display case of genuine Manton flintlock long arms on the wall, chandeliers. The reception hall was baronial, panelled and adorned. Very few of the loungers looked athletic. More of a club atmosphere, really, broken only by the sound of quiet chatter and somewhere the tap of a ball.

  A couple of women gazed up, smiling, sipping interesting liquids, waiters hovering to bring more. Conversation resumed, with low laughter at my scruffiness.

  “Mr Troude, please,” Jodie told some serf.

  The kulak practically genuflected into the carpet’s pile at the name and swayed ahead of us, giving backward glances like a keen collie.

  “Who’s Troude?” I asked in a whisper. We passed along corridors with original watercolours every few yards, Doulton decorative moon flasks, oviform vases and figures on small pedestals. This was class.

  “Somebody who wouldn’t bring your Diana into a place like this, Lovejoy.” Why my Diana? Why were we whispering like spies?

  On to a glamorous balcony, plusher than any West End hotel. Beautiful people strolled, in or out of dressing-gowns. Some lounged, drank. Others basked under lovely complexion-gilding glims, and drank. Still others stayed in their designer dresses, and drank. All ogled, looked, drank. I felt uncomfortable. We sensitive plebs do, among the surreal and glorious.

  “How d’you do. Lovejoy?” Troude was a slender, sun-crisped Latin, gold bracelets and chains against chestnut tan. His shirt alone could have bought my cottage, its two dud mortgages included. “Welcome to Nouvello Troude.”

  “Ta.” I felt I had to say that, though he’d only shaken my hand. Wiry was the word. A bullfighter’s physique. He’d be a natural on a horse. Maybe, I thought hopefully, I should introduce him to Almira, get her off my back, so to speak.

  “Miss Jodie. I thank you for conducting Lovejoy hither.”

  A faint bow, no handshake. Get thee gone, Jodie, was his message. She made a smiling withdrawal. Conducting hither? Christ Almighty.

  “Please sit, Lovejoy. Drink?”

  “Tea, please.” I’d been done out of my home-brew, not to mention Michelle. The world owed me.

  A sudden screech made my blood run cold. I thought, oh, no. Not here, the one time in my life I’d made posh. But it was. Sandy, as always larger than life.

  We were on a balcony above a swimming pool. The plunge was not one of your echoing glass-domed halls filled with floundering Olympic hopefuls. Beautiful: palms, small courtyards with exotic plants, rimmed with natural walks, genuine grass (indoors? How the hell?). And a few dozen glitterati, the men shapely look-I’m-stupendous, the women mouth-wateringly luscious. No more exotic plant, however, than Sandy.

  “Coooeee! It’s me! Lovejoy!”

  In a bikini, for God’s sake, and a floral see-through dressing-gown, off the shoulder, with high-heel sampan shoes in magenta-studded gold. I went red. I honestly can’t see the point of making yourself look a pillock, but it’s how he is. Everybody was tittering.

  “Hiyer, Sandy.”

  He came over, doing a sexy slink. I moved back a bit. His eyelashes raked the air of his advance. God, he looked a mess. Mascara, rouge, lipstick. And… I stared.

  “You love my earrings, Lovejoy!” he crooned. It was a threat. With Sandy, everything’s a threat. “Aquatic motif! I’m a prince—well, princess— between two frogs!”

  A live frog sat dismally in the bowl that dangled from each ear loop.

  “Er, great.” I hesitated. You daren’t offend Sandy’s dress sense. He and Mel—you always offend Mel anyway, no matter how hard you try—are antique household furniture and Georgian-Regency antiquers of mighty opulence. They inhabit a converted school-house and barn not far off, and despite appearances are shrewd, aggressive dealers. “Do they hurt?”

  “My earrings?” He tittered, gushed round to see everybody was paying close attention. “I’d love it if they did!”

  Folk chuckled. Sandy shrilled a laugh.

  “The frogs, I meant.”

  He rounded on me, spitting malice. “More worried about reptiles than about me you hideous ape, Lov
ejoy! You spiteful, inane, inept failure you!”

  To my dismay he burst into tears, teetered off at a lame sprint in his high heels. I called a sorry, Sandy, after him, but knew I was for it. He’d not forget that, or forgive. I sighed an apology to Troude.

  “Sandy’s an old friend, sir. Not,” I added anxiously in case it got back to Sandy and landed me in still deeper trouble, “old as in aged. Old as in good.” Good as in…? I gave up. I’m hopeless explaining at the best of times. With all these sweet-lifers smiling at my discomfiture, I began to wish I’d stayed at home. At least there I’d have got ravished by Michelle, and earned my parcel.

  “You really did mean the frogs, Lovejoy?” Troude was interested.

  “Course. The poor buggers were…” I cleared my throat, rubbed the words from the air with a gesture. “The poor things were trapped. It must be horrible.”

  He paused to allow three uniformed varlets to serve tea. Sterling silver, I saw. Other balcony tables had silver plate. Troude must be a high-flyer. You can’t count new silver, new gold, new anything. Only antiques matter. But society assays worth as wealth.

  A peasant stayed to pour, grovelled in withdrawal. I eyed Troude. A man of multo wealth and much, much more. That explained Troude’s aura. Confidence? Authority? In that instant, Troude became my rival. Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t mean pistols-for-two-coffee-for-one, all that. But this man was the focus of the whole Nouvello Centre. Kicking order having been established, we sipped tea and admired the decor. My one advantage was that I could wait longer than he. Like Prendergast of the Drum and Fife, an antiques perpetrator has to put the screws in. Your screwee’s job is to wait, and hope to get out in one piece.

  “This leisure complex cost a fortune, Lovejoy. You like it?”

  “Sumptuous.”

  “You hate it.” He sighed, not put out in the slightest. “It’s a curious feature of civilization that administrators escape blame. Future archaeologists will clear the rubble, and reconstruct, what you see about you. They will be appalled at its sheer bad taste, find my name on the foundation stone, and blame me for crassness.”