Faces in the Pool Read online

  ‘So you’ve a load of gelt, right, Droz?’

  ‘Here!’ he exclaimed, outraged. ‘How much d’you think I make?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Another sorry? ‘Why did this Ted bloke leave Laura?’

  ‘Fell for some tart. Laura’s hunting him.’

  Nothing new there, just human affairs. Social scientists calculate that two-thirds of married men, and one-fifth of married women, ‘cheat’ on their respective spouses with only one other married lover. Don’t these figures simply mean that one-third is lying? I gave Droz the bent eye.

  ‘Who’s Ted Moon’s new woman?’

  ‘Laura Moon never said, and Ted’s gone.’

  At last a clue even I could understand. ‘So it’s simply vengeance? Why all this marrying stuff?’

  ‘Dunno, Lovejoy. Ted’s a dealer, and a ladies’ man.’

  ‘Where are you these days, Droz?’

  ‘I’m janitor at the Red Lion.’

  Few would find him there. Nobody ever goes, stays, dines or kips in the Red Lion, though once Good Queen Bess did. It’s haunted, of course.

  ‘That Laura’s phoney. I want to know what her scam is, Droz.’

  He rose to go, thankful. I let him get to the door then called his name. ‘Droz, there’s more at stake here than just me. Or even you.’

  ‘Honest, Lovejoy.’ He said it in a tremble. The door wobbled to.

  The herb tea had gone cold. I found some Gunton’s sandwiches in waxed paper with a pencilled note:

  Lovejoy,

  I should be greatly obliged were you not to reveal to Miss Lydia that I left this food. It is vegetarian. Please remember that Mrs Ellen Jaynor was once kind to Dad, and may possibly deserve your assistance.

  Yours sincerely,

  Mortimer.

  Post scriptum: A lady called Mrs Penelope Castell of Saxmundham seeks your assistance on the recommendation of Mr Gentry. Her motor will call for you tomorrow at three-fifteen post meridiem.

  Only Mortimer and Lydia write abbreviations in full. Mortimer asked me to help Ellen Jaynor, but not Laura? Rum, that. I felt better.

  He’d left me two candles, matches, a razor, soap and a towel. Hint. I must pong like a drain. I sighed at Mortimer’s sombre style. Everybody now talks like the United Nations. Mortimer called Arthur ‘Dad’, me being a superfluous prat. I dined in elegance, and slept like a babe.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  sexton: fake, forgery (Cockney rh. slang, Sexton Blake)

  Sometimes misfortune is disguised as luck. I boarded the car that came and was whisked to Saxmundham. Daft as ever, I forgot the trillion fashionable antiques dealers Mrs Penelope Castell could have hired instead. Pride makes you think you matter.

  She met me at the door, smiling and attractive.

  ‘Dr Castell was a Cambridge University academic,’ she explained. ‘I’ll make tea. You two get acquainted.’

  The big deal looked a dusty fifty-year-old bookworm. All he needed was a Squire John Aubrey pillbox hat. He wittered a while about archæology, drinking stiff whiskies and making me fidgety.

  ‘Come on, Doc,’ I said at last. ‘Where’s the antique?’

  The mansion was luxurious, but disappointingly modern. I couldn’t feel any antique tremors.

  Mrs Castell bit the bullet. ‘Giles is to be elevated, Lovejoy.’ I looked from one to the other. Levitation? ‘To the peerage.’

  ‘Made a lord? Congrats.’

  Maybe they wanted me to buy an antique for a crooked politician? Buying antiques on commission is easy because you can’t be blamed for guesswork. Money for jam.

  ‘In my youth I was a scamp, Lovejoy. Endless japes.’

  His dated slang was like listening to an Edwardian schoolboy read the Boy’s Own.

  ‘A bounder!’ His missus trilled a merry laugh, the visit going with a swing.

  ‘And the relevance of your scamphood?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Could you steal something, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Look. Everybody on earth dreams of the perfect antiques theft, scam, con, forgery. Stay out of it. There are crooks out there who leave the police standing. You want to make money? Then hunt down Commodore EJ Smith’s last letter – he captained the Titanic. It’d be worth a million. Scrotch in Walberswick will knock you up a gold fake Roman brooch of the Second Legion from Vindolanda in Northumberland, AD 125. He stores the centurions’ names.’

  Mrs Castell smiled. ‘Our robbery is perfectly above board, Lovejoy.’

  ‘An honest theft?’

  Dr Castell said quietly. ‘Yes. The object is already mine, you see.’ Their warm, comfortable drawing room, views of a river with ducks, suddenly seemed colder. ‘One of my youthful pranks involved faking an antique. It’s in Eastwold College, where I met Penny.’

  ‘And you want me to borrow it back?’

  Penny was quietly determined. ‘British Museum experts are due soon. Giles’s spiffing larks are problematic now.’

  ‘Look. I honestly don’t think—’

  Penny patted Giles. She would handle it from now on. ‘We shall pay whatever it takes, Lovejoy.’

  She was all curves. Women have no such thing as age, only what they do or don’t do. I dragged my gaze away. Giles ignored his wife’s vamping of a visiting scruff. I recognised the power of snobbery.

  ‘The theft will save my reputation.’ He looked at Penny with worship, and I understood how hard, how very hard, she had worked to advance his career.

  He began to tell me about the Xipe Totec masks.

  Archæological finds from the ancient world are ultra-famous. Ask any museum curator about the Xipe Totec masks, he’ll take a fortnight to explain. Simply, think Aztec gods.

  Xipe Totec was a deity. To celebrate him, priests flayed some humans, then wore the poor victims’ skin for the ceremonies. Skin includes the face, so they made stone masks, always with a gaping mouth and eyes tight shut. They are seriously sickening. What religion isn’t? The British Museum has Xipe Totec stone masks. Controversy rages. Are they genuine Meso-American, or fake? Nobody knows. Ignorance makes us all experts.

  ‘I was very skilful, Lovejoy.’ And as Penny smiled with fond pride, ‘Researchers are re-opening the issue, and want Eastwold’s relic.’

  ‘Can’t you say you’ve just forgotten?’

  ‘Hardly, Lovejoy. Remember Piltdown Man? Imagine if that fraudulent priest Teilhard de Chardin attempted that deception nowadays. With modern technology they’d not last a week.’

  Penny showed where her values lay by moaning softly. ‘Think of me, laughed out of society. The mask is in the college museum, labelled On loan from Giles Castell, Cambridge University. There is little security.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I visited lately. A child could take it.’

  She was cool, but I was taking the risk and she wasn’t. If anything, she was amused by the obvious effect she was having on me. It was an odd do. Still, money is money, and I was skint.

  ‘I’ll need a motor, please, and a college plan.’

  ‘Thank you, Lovejoy.’ Giles was so grateful.

  ‘I’ll drive you, Lovejoy.’ She handed him another whisky. ‘Tonight will be fine, don’t you think?’

  The remark of a woman about to betray, of course.

  ‘I’ll phone a bloke who knows security systems, missus.’

  ‘You won’t reveal the…heist, Lovejoy?’ She sounded excited. ‘It will be quite a dashing escapade.’ We were starting to sound like Dan Dare plus Bulldog Drummond.

  Hours later I entered the Dog & Duck near Long Melford and collected a thick envelope from Quemoy in the vestibule while Penny waited. Ready, steady.

  After driving for yonks in the darkness, Penny gave me instructions.

  ‘Nine inches across. That’s two hundred millimetres. Not heavy.’

  ‘Right.’ Quemoy had given me all the facts about Eastwold.

  ‘It’s in a glass case, first on the right from the main hall.’

  ‘Left,’ I corrected
, fed up with her.

  She was surprised. ‘Is it? How do you know?’

  ‘Go down this cart track. There’s a lay-by two furlongs along. Stop there.’ My certainty worried her. Quemoy costs the earth, but he is never, never ever, wrong. The lay-by abutted on a pea-field, its peas just about to burgeon.

  ‘Have you been here before, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Never.’

  She switched the engine off. ‘The school is across that field. The display case has one lock.’

  I’d had enough.

  ‘There are two locks,’ I said. ‘One’s a reinforced Chubb, the second a modified Bramah. The display case is restored Indonesian mahogany. The glass is reinforced fibre-mesh Pilkington from St Helens. Three cameras, one presently inactive from spiders. The Xipe Totec mask is actually third along, if you count the Roman silver display. The green baize hasn’t been cleaned since the Great Civil War ended in 1648. The security guard is seventy-two years old, and will be watching Manchester United re-runs on BSkyB TV at eleven o’clock.’

  ‘How do you know all that?’ She was visibly shaken.

  ‘I do my homework. Saves getting nicked.’

  Her tongue touched her lips, retreated slowly. ‘What will you do if you get caught?’ She took a breath. ‘Fight?’

  ‘Run, missus.’

  ‘Penny.’ Her voice went husky. ‘I’ve heard about you, Lovejoy. You’re not innocent, are you? Somebody said—’

  ‘Gossipy Mrs Somebody again? Rumour is a tumour feeding on itself. Be here, please.’

  ‘Nobody’s about.’ She looked mischievous in the dashboard glow. ‘I thought you might want to—’

  ‘Two hours.’

  She giggled. ‘I used to sneak out through the chapel gate and meet the village boys. Now the little bitches simply invite them in. Stealing like this is far more exciting.’

  For a blank moment I sat back wondering. ‘You silly cow.’

  She gaped. ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve no idea, have you? Listen. Once upon a time, thieves nicked a Leonardo da Vinci painting. Worth about 50 million zlotniks. Owners wrung their hands, then they offered a 165,000 zlotniks reward. Mathematics aren’t my thing, but is the reward less than 0.0033 of the painting’s value?’

  ‘But this is nothing to do—’

  ‘You don’t think so? Back in 1989, a small oil-painting was valued at 6000 zlotniks. Then rumour hinted it was by Raphael. November 2002, the Duke of Northumberland sold this The Madonna of the Pinks, quite legal, to the Getty outfit in LA. The baby Christ holds some pink flowers. Price: $US 57.4 million, plus change. London’s National Gallery came unglued, then offered $34 million. Work it out, Penny. The difference was the Duke’s tax bill. We would pay to cover the Duke’s tax bill. Get the trick?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Inland Revenue came out smelling of roses, saving the Raphael for the nation, hip-hip-hooray, by screwing us all out of their Value Added Tax, at 17.5 per cent of every groat. Penny, love, if the Inland Revenue got proper jobs they’d starve. They make the rules. That’s the trade you’re frigging about with here.’

  ‘Is hatred why you do it?’ Her eyes were hard.

  ‘You’re not thinking, silly cow. The Madonna of the Pinks never was by Raphael, being only one of forty or so replicates of a fake of a copy of a sham…So didn’t the Inland Revenue do a good deal for His Grace the Duke? I want to know who paid what for what and to whom for a fake, but the Government won’t tell me.’

  ‘So everyone is unfair to you, Lovejoy,’ she taunted. Narked, I got out, and she said something that made me look back.

  ‘I’m wearing stockings, Lovejoy,’ she said, smiling. ‘And I’ve brought enough hankies. Hurry back.’

  I thought, Did I hear right? I followed the badger path across the pea field. There was just enough sky-gloaming to see by.

  Quemoy is a Taiwanese bloke, and had done his usual sound job. You get enough details to invade Cambridgeshire. He’s one of these computer blokes who can’t stop himself. In that instant, I suppressed my unease, but I’m thick where women are concerned.

  I’m useless in countryside. I sound like a bag of popcorn however quiet I try to be.

  Eastwold College was a black shadow, with a few lights showing. Dormitories? I did the fifth window from the end, as Quemoy advised. It took me half an hour. Some blokes I know would have gone through without breaking step.

  Using Quemoy’s pencil torch, batteries provided, I found the museum next to the library. I did both locks on the case and took out the fake mask. No strange quivering in my chest. I paused for a serious think.

  Penny Castell all but promised to ravish me. I’m no Handsome Jack. OK, she was desperate for Giles to get lorded, but her lust didn’t quite ring true. I can understand a married woman getting bored, but posh Penny actually sought me out – me, a gaolbird without a bean. Why? To set me up.

  Risking my pencil flashlight, I checked the label: On Loan from Giles Castell, Cambridge University, and pondered these new worries. I took a discus from a sports collage, and slipped it in the cloth bag Penny had given me. Going through to the library, I paused in Reference, and used the library steps to slip Giles’s mask, the crowbar and washing-up gloves, behind the dustiest tomes on the highest shelf I could reach, before eeling into the night.

  She was in the motor, breathless with expectation. ‘Did you get it?’

  ‘Yes.’ I showed her the heavy bag. ‘Click open the boot. I’ll put it in.’

  ‘No need. I’ll—’

  Quickly I went round to the boot. In the darkness, I removed the discus and flung it into the pea field, slammed the boot shut and joined her.

  She gave a whimper of delight. ‘All done? Payment time.’ She spoke in a thick voice. ‘I want your hands first, lover, then…’

  Some things don’t make me proud. I don’t have to be. Pride is OK if you’re rich, but it’s grubby stuff down among us bottom feeders (sorry for the pun). Of seven hundred East Anglian antiques dealers, only three can afford a holiday. The rest fiddle expenses and hope for the Big Break.

  Penny fell on me like a mad thing. I was relieved I’d misjudged her. We made tumultuous smiles, the windows steaming up. A new car park is planned in Vinci, Tuscany – where else? – for snoggers. In that new love zone, police are not to arrest lovers who are hard at it. Essentials, if you follow, are on hand in slot machines. The only concession Penny made to propriety was to gasp, ‘Don’t mark me!’ If I’m on Planet Mongo how could I control events in her car?

  Afterwards, she dozed, a novelty, because after making smiles women always want to talk. They’d be loved for ever if they let their bloke’s soul marinate for a minute afterwards. She got me to hook her brassiere. She got mad when her blouse tore, but whose fault was that?

  The crunch came just outside St Edmundsbury. She stopped for petrol and went to pay in the well-lit garage shop. Dopey from galactic pleasure, I nodded off. A bobby tapped the window and arrested me, while she watched smiling from the window among other customers. The motor was searched, and thirty minutes later I was back in the pokey.

  Ten o’clock next morning, Penny came in dazzling yellow and sat with glittering knees to vamp the beaks. She testified I’d simply appeared while she stopped to adjust her driving mirror. Cruel, vicious, animal Lovejoy ravished her (‘with an angry snarl,’ she perjured sweetly), and took her hostage.

  She outwitted me, she testified, by phoning the police. Put not your trust in…or have I already said that, Titus Oates on the scaffold? I conducted my own defence, as lawyers can’t be trusted, law being so fragile. She said I’d told her that I’d just done a robbery nearby and stowed the loot in her car boot. She couldn’t mention the truth without giving her game away.

  The court remanded me in custody, to decide random guilt later.

  In the nick I grumbled as usual about police starvation, and slept the peace of innocence while East Anglia’s finest watched football re-runs. Manchester United, I can report,
won 2-0, but the referee was clearly bribed. I guessed he was also a lawyer.

  CHAPTER SIX

  butty: an inexperienced lawyer (crim. slang)

  They fed me a runny egg, truly vile. I could have made furniture out of the bread.

  ‘I’m starving, Mr Kine,’ I told the plod.

  ‘Then don’t keep coming back, Lovejoy.’

  Kine is skeletal and affects a bowler hat and pinstripes. All ploddites pretend to be respectable.

  ‘Spoken to anyone?’ My hopes lay in Laura Moon. And Lydia, always assuming she wasn’t livid. ‘Who’s that lady?’

  A super-elegant lady was seated on a chair. Fiftyish, dark complexion, guinea-an-inch, as East Enders say down Brick Lane. A huge driver waited with two besuited butties.

  ‘Do you know her, Lovejoy?’

  ‘No.’ He frowned. ‘Honest. Whose are the butties?’

  A butty is an inexpert lawyer named from living on sandwiches.

  ‘Yours, Lovejoy.’ I cheered up. Sad ploddites are good. ‘First see the Castells.’

  ‘No, ta, Mr Kine. I’ve done insanity this week.’

  Kine has this cadaverous smile. Everything is recorded in the cop shop, even in the loos, so never say anything. In came Dr Giles and Penny, looking less than their usual exalted selves.

  Kine doffed his bowler. ‘Lovejoy, vital evidence is missing.’ A plod fiddled with a tape deck, yet more pretence. ‘Namely, the mask you stole.’

  ‘Good gracious,’ I said mildly. ‘What mask?’

  ‘We have no evidence. We searched your cottage,’ he added casually. ‘Your henchman, Tinker Dill, allowed us.’

  ‘Tinker’s out of remand, then?’ More jubilation.

  ‘A college window had been forced.’

  ‘Tut tut. Maybe those girls slip out to meet village lads in the lantern hours, eh?’ I looked at Penny.