Paid and Loving Eyes l-16 Read online

  “You own it, eh? I’d rather have had the fields.” Which is saying something because I hate countryside. It’s superfluous. I can’t honestly see what’s wrong with concrete. The Nouvello was still a good argument for environmentalists, though, even to me.

  He smiled, made that open-palmed gesture that isn’t quite apology. Italian?

  “To the salotto buono, appearances are everything.”

  The business oligarchy, the ancient blood line of the gentry. No, not Italian. That hint of sarcasm revealed more than it hid. It sailed close to contempt, but what for?

  “Look, er, Mr Troude. I’m sorry I spoiled that scene. I didn’t mean to annoy Sandy. And I am sort of busy—”

  He allowed a fawner to hurtle forward and light his cigarette. His glance swiftly backed the girl out of earshot. “Lovejoy. The reason I invited you is that I hear you have a precious gift. I wish to use it. Would you be agreeable?”

  “Use how?”

  His expression was nearly amused. “Your gift only works in one way. I know, you see. It is not a skill that can be passed or taught.” His cigarette hand paused, but only for an instant. Two waitresses clobbered furniture aside racing to supply the missing ashtray. I felt the waft of vitriol in the air. They left, to tremble somewhere else, guilty of omission. Jobs would roll.

  “You know a divvy?” I was interested.

  There’s not many of us. You can always tell people who’ve see it before. Folk who don’t believe are the majority, and simply don’t want to believe.

  “Yes, one. He suffered an unfortunate accident.” He shrugged without visible expenditure of energy. I wish I could do that. As soon as I got home I knew I’d be trying to do it in the mirror, quirky smile and meaningful eyebrows. I’d fail. Comes from living near the Mediterranean, I think. “I miss him.”

  “For what?”

  “His divvying gift worked for most antiques, Lovejoy. Not all types, but enough.” He exhaled smoke. Studious, but it wasn’t scholastic learning. Monetary reflections hung in that smoke, not classicism. He was a roller, not a caring antiquarian.

  “Will he get better, your divvy?”

  Troude hadn’t called divvying a skill, or an aptitude. Gift. He’d said gift. A believer, all right. Suddenly I wanted him to be a cynic, and me far away from here.

  “Alas and alack, regrettably no.” Hither, and alack? Maybe he liked Errol Flynn remakes. Play is life, for the rich. “Our divvy was old, and his gift sadly fading. I immediately started looking for a, forgive me, Lovejoy, a substitute. A full year ago. Even before he… became unavailable.”

  “I don’t know if I’m up to doing a lot,” I told him frankly. My hands were sweating. I managed not to shake. That was pretty good, seeing I now wanted to know if he’d killed old Leon in Marseilles. “And I’ve some deals on.”

  “Cancel them, Lovejoy.” He was so pleasant, smiling with teeth off a dentist’s advert. “You will be splendidly recompensed. Unless, of course, your display with the Portland was a deception, and you yourself a fraud.”

  How did he know about the Portland Vase fakery contest? I smiled. I quite like caution. “I’d have to think about it.”

  “I shall arrange to appraise your gift Lovejoy, if you don’t mind. You will be given a generous retainer.”

  “Doing what?”

  “A small task. Judge a few antiques, maybe move a little antique silver.”

  Sounded easy. I often did such jobs, vannies we call them. “Get my old Ruby out of hock, I’ll shift anything anywhere.”

  He smiled at my quip and gave his non-shrug shrug. “Ruby? An auto? Very well. There is one small question.”

  There always is. I stilled. “Yes?”

  A crowd of elegants strolled on to the balcony. They chattered less noisily when they saw Troude, but just as happily.

  “You are a northerner, yes?” He was French. Definitely. He’d nearly said oui like they do, the yes a reflex terminal. When I nodded, he said, “Your parents? Grandparents?” He was very intent about it. Still, whatever turns folk on.

  “One granddad a wild Irishman from Kilfinnan. One grannie Scotch, from Kinghorn in Fife. A granddad and grannie darkest Lancashire back to the year dot. Mixture, really.”

  He relaxed with disproportionate relief. Funny, because grampa talk bores people for miles around.

  “That accounts for your gift. A Celtic element. But no French?”

  “Sorry.” I did the only sort of shrug I know, a feeble imitation of the real thing. I was thinking what gunge. He declined my offer to write down my address, inferring he already knew it by heart or that his minions would.

  Sandy carolled a farewell from the upper balcony as I took my leave. His shriek of laughter made all heads turn. He’d replaced his frog earrings with on-off neon fishes.

  “Naughtily nautical, Lovejoy!” he trilled. “You admire?”

  I just hoped the electric fishes were not alive. I left, muttering an apology to Troude. He came with me to the entrance to see me off. I swear even the squash balls muted as he passed.

  “Sandy is not our most serious Nouvello member,” he said. “Everybody is fond of him though.”

  We parted amicably enough. His giant limo took me to town, dropped me off at the Antiques Arcade by the war memorial.

  Safe now among crowds of shoppers, I watched the motor recede. I felt vaguely tainted, as if my skin was about to erupt. Troude had come unnervingly close to saying something else instead of Nouvello member. I desperately needed Tinker and a phone. I’d kill Jodie for landing me in all this, silly cow. I saw Almira’s car approaching, and ducked into the Arcade. It’s safer among antique dealers. At least you know they’re sharks and out to get you. Friends and lovers are infinitely worse.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  « ^ »

  There’s a main trouble with anything good. Like with women my question is, why can’t they see how much we crave them, for heaven’s sake? (The answer’s that maybe they do…)

  The trouble with antiques is fakes. The trouble with fakes is antiques. Just as in any war, greed is the instigator, and dithering uncertainty the determinant, of success. Thus antique dealers become a happy band of mourners at the funeral feast for casualties in an unending conflict.

  Our local merry mob of antique dealers occupies a few crevices of dereliction. They’ve installed a small bar since the boozing law changed, to sell liver-corroding liquids at extortionate prices. The whole Arcade is nothing more than an alcove of many alcoves. You’d walk past it with hardly a glance. Wise folk do just that.

  The usual chorus of jeers and imprecations rose to greet me. They were all in, bemoaning (a) the cheapskate public, (b) being broke, and (c) having this priceless Rembrandt/Wedgwood/Michaelangelo genuine antique that they’re willing to let go for a few quid as a special personal favour to you/him/her/anybody… The siren song of the dealer.

  Frederico grabbed me first, looking more like Valentino than Valentino. He’s from Wigan, but cracks on he’s never been to gaol. He wore a green suit by mistake, because he’s only Irish on Fridays. Mondays he’s from Tuscany.

  “I’ve got a couple of things, Lovejoy!” He hisses this terse sentence, looking furtively round shoulders, trying for Fagin in the next amateur Oliver.

  “Over here when you’ve a minute, Lovejoy,” Liz Sandwell called. I waved, brightening. Her tough boyfriend wasn’t with her. “Got what, Fred?”

  Fool for asking. You need never ask, not with Frederico. His act’s something to do with the ferries from the Hook of Holland. They dock at Harwich bringing loads of tourists. He gets caught out sometimes, finds he’s claimed to speak a tourist’s own lingo. Also, he only talks gibberish, a handicap for so determined a communicator. It’s not my fault if I get confused. He dragged me to his alcove—a plank, a chair, a battery light, two boxes.

  “Lovejoy,” Donk interposed, breathing fury. “You owe me. That message—”

  “Sod off, Donk. I’m busy —”

  But he wouldn�
��t be put off with IOUs, promises, tales of misery. Only when Frederico shelled out the dosh did Donk leave. I think civilization’s got a lot to answer for, now trust’s gone. Which raised the interesting question why Frederico paid up for me. He’s never done that in his life.

  “It’s genuine old glass, Lovejoy. Honest. Every sign!”

  “Oh, aye.”

  One of his two boxes yielded a lovely little sweetmeat glass, its stem faceted and its foot scalloped. The dealers all around went quiet and started drifting over. Frederico made insulting gestures to repel them. It worked. They retreated muttering, narked and envious. Old glass is valuable beyond common sense these days. If you find one, order your blonde and two-litre Morgan and spit in your general manager’s eye.

  “See? Genuine 1780.” He sounded as if he was offering me surface-to-air missiles, peering about.

  “Sorry, Frederico.” His paddy green kept getting me on the wrong track. “It’s duff.”

  “No!” A cry from the heart. The other dealers chuckled, resumed chatter, pleased their friend would lose a fortune.

  This is always the hard part. The glass simply didn’t reverberate in me. Therefore it was dud. How to find explanations other people would understand…?

  “Look, Frederico.” I held it up against the bulb, though daylight facing north’s best. “Glass isn’t a solid. It’s a supercooled liquid. Think that, and you’re halfway there.” Pointing, I showed him. “Old glass—anything before 1800—must have tiny air bubbles. Modern glass has virtually none.”

  “But the iridescence, Lovejoy!” He was almost in tears.

  You feel like knocking their heads together sometimes. Can’t the blighters read? Being basically fluid, glass interacts with air and whatever crud’s around. So over the years, wetness—in air, ground—causes its surface to iridesce, due to laminations. Think of microscopic scaling, and you’ve almost got it. Light gets bounced about wrongly in the glass, causing the effect. Sadly, dealers and the thieving old public jump to conclusions, the daftest but most constant folly.

  “Somebody’s dunked this in a cesspool.” It can take two cesspool years to get the right quality of iridescence. I’ve had three good fakes—Laurela at Dovercourt makes them for, er, friendship’s sake—steeping in a marsh near here since last Kissing Friday. I sluch them out to check, every fortnight. It’s grim, because one of those yellow-beaked black ducks has nested on the very spot, interfering little blighter.

  “I’ve a certificate, Lovejoy! The industrial chemists—”

  Now he was really agitated. I looked at him with real surprise. He’s a con artist, so should know that every antique fake doing the rounds has more certificates than an Oxford don. The trick is to slice a piece of genuine ancient iridescent glass surface from some antique, and have it analysed—then sell the certificate to a dealer, who’ll pass the testimonial off as belonging to some fake drinking goblet he happens to have.

  The other box made me hesitate. He was so miserable. I waited. He waited. Liz Sandwell called. I looked expectantly at Frederico. He said nothing, forlorn with his dud glass.

  “Look, mate,” I said, with sympathy. The poor bloke had pinned his faith—his greed, really—on scooping the pool. “Get a few fakes from some old genuine piece, and cement them to your fake. The old trick. Then it’ll sell at any provincial auction. And you can use your certificate to authenticate it.”

  Hope filled his eyes. Avarice works wonders. “Cement how?”

  Narked, I walked off. Dealers are useless. I mean, Theophilus wrote how in his De Diversis Artibus in the eleventh century. The world hasn’t read it yet.

  Liz Sandwell was better value. I kept looking back at Frederico’s other box. It pealed chimes in me, reverberating.

  “Eh?”

  “I said go halves, Lovejoy.” She smiled, a lovely offer. But you have to be sure what a woman’s offer actually is. I keep making this mistake.

  My throat cleared. “Halves of what?”

  “Not me, Lovejoy. This illuminated panel.”

  “It’s rubbish.” I turned on my heel.

  She caught me. “Why, Lovejoy?”

  Because it didn’t utter a single boing. Except Liz wanted a reason reason. So I looked at her neffie panel. A parchment egg tempera painting, St Sebastian dying heroically for something or other. Lovely, the right style and everything. If I’d been a buyer I’d have said Early English, worth a small house. Then I looked across at the dejected Frederico.

  “I’ll tell you why, Liz, if you persuade Vasco Da Gama there to show me the antique in his other box.”

  She went and wheedled, returning in a trice with the box. The closer it came the more certain the chime. I swallowed to wet my throat for speech. Talk is problems.

  “Can I look?”

  Frederico, offhand, nodded. I reached inside the humble cardboard and felt a warm loving living thing slip smiling into my palm. I lifted it out, my soul singing.

  It was beautiful. Besides glass, the one class of antiques that has stormed ahead of the world price spirals is that of scientific instruments. This was superb. For sheer price it could have bought the whole Arcade, and the street too I shouldn’t wonder.

  A travelling sundial. Octagonal base, incised with lines and numbers, with a recessed compass. Its gnomon —the little raised bit that casts the shadow—was shaped like a bird. Four hour scales, and latitude marks for 43 and 52 degrees North. You would adjust the bird gnomon for whatever latitude you were sailing in.

  “Michael?” I heard my voice ask. “Is it really you?” I rubbed the grime, licked a thumb, tried again. And it was.

  Michael Butterfield—spelt right, thank God; contemporary fakers got his name wrong, like Smith the great porcelain faker did with Wedgwood—was an Englishman in Paris. For over fifty years he turned out superb works of genius. Naturally, from 1670 on his brilliant creations have been forged, stolen, faked, copied, like all things bright and beautiful. A true hero of talent. Can you imagine him, striving for perfection by candlelight when all around was filth and degradation, with—?

  “Sit down, Lovejoy.” Liz was holding me.

  “No.” I pulled away from the silly cow. They treat you like a cripple, women. “How much, Frederico?”

  He looked amazed, me to the sundial. “It’s only brass, Lovejoy,”

  “Butterfield made in silver and brass, nerk. How much?”

  A distant cough sounded, coming nearer with a pronounced Doppler. The vibration shuddered through the Arcade. A flake of paint gave up clinging to the wall under the force. Tinker was approaching along the High Street.

  “You sure, Lovejoy?”

  He was asking me? Gawd above. “How much?”

  He licked his lips, tried to take his dial back. I kept it. Just because an instrument’s made of brass doesn’t mean lunatics can’t damage it.

  He glanced at his duff glass. “I thought it was the other…”

  The other way round? I might have known. A put-up job. Who’d given him the two boxes? No wonder he’d got the wrong suit on today. With tears in my eyes I replaced the Butterfield dial in its box and handed it over. Neither the fake glass nor genuine instrument was his to sell. Life is a pig.

  “Sod off, Fred.” Where was I? “Your parchment, Liz.”

  “Ere, Lovejoy.” Tinker came in, shuffling behind his thundering cough like infantry following a creeping barrage. “There’s a tart wants you over at—”

  “A sec, Tinker.” I gave the filthy old devil the bent eye, to restrict my trade secrets to a few square miles. His idea of tact is to pluck my sleeve in a theatrical mimicry of stealth, while booming out anything confidential as if yelling from a distant shore. I’d promised Liz a reason reason. I scanned her illuminated parchment.

  “Blue, love. They should have used lapis lazuli instead of Prussian blue. Diesbach discovered Prussian blue in 1704, centuries too late for your mythical mediaeval monk.”

  Actually, I’d have given modern French ultramarine a go, mad
e up in egg yolk. Better still, I’d have re-re-remortgaged my cottage, and bought quarter of an ounce of genuine lapis lazuli. I hate fakers who’re too flaming idle. So what that genuine lapis lazuli’s the costliest pigment on earth? Ha’p’orth of tar and all that. Tip: get round the experts on this vital point by mixing a proportion of Guimet’s synthetic ultramarine, available since 1824 for heaven’s sake, with twenty per cent ground-up lapis. You finish up with an almost perfect faker’s blue

  “That posh tart with the big knockers, Lovejoy,” Tinker interrupted. “Her’s a frigging pest. Wants you outside.”

  “Thank you, Lovejoy,” Liz Sandwell said sweetly, retrieving her parchment. “You may go, seeing duty calls.”

  I leaned away from Tinker. His breath emerges very, very used. Must have been drinking solidly since dawn. His old army greatcoat was stained, his mittens filthy, rheumy eyes bloodshot, his stubble encrusted with food residues. I was pleased to see him in such good shape.

  “Same one looking for me round the village early on?”

  “Nar. That was just some whore, Lovejoy.”

  “Can I listen?” Liz was enthralled. “Or are you inaudible?”

  Tinker got annoyed. “Ere, miss. You keep yourself to yourself. We’ve work to do, if you haven’t!” His attention returned to me. “Young folk. They’re all on tablets. I blames this free education.” He has theories like hedgehogs have fleas.

  “Come on.” I got him out of the rear entrance, and we made the Three Tuns by diving among the alleys.

  “That posh tart, with them frigging nags.” He inhaled half a pint at one go, settled back with a sigh. “The one you’ve been shagging since Wittwoode’s auctioned them funny frocks.”

  Which being translated meant Almira. Tinker was reminding me that she and I met at a local auction of funny frocks—Tinker’s phrase for the most beautiful collection of Continental eighteenth-century dresses ever seen in the Eastern Hundreds. Tip: embroidery’s still the cheapest way to buy into the antiques game, but not for long, not for long. I thought deeply.