The Possessions of a Lady Read online

  No. People who find treasure—even if they pay only ten-pence in Bermondsey market—think only 'It's mine! All mine!' Hang sharing, unless you're compelled. I should have remembered that, but I was in mid-gloat.

  My system arrived at, making one mistake after another, I searched that jacket, and found a message in the pocket somebody had tried to dip at the show.

  It read,

  'Lovejoy,

  Supper, my guest, the Quayside, seven?

  Please! Reason, money.'

  No signature. Woman's handwriting, more roundish than a man's. The paper was one of those sticky squares that you use to remind yourself to buy mayonnaise today by fixing it on the mound of similar self-messages ignored for months. This had a headline: Orla Maltravers Featherstonehaugh, phone number, Mayfair address. If I had a name like that I'd keep quiet. But a free meal was a free meal. Hunger stirred.

  Search for Tinker's lost girl Vyna, poor thing, or go for gold with this unknown lady? I knocked guilt out cold, first round. As the thunder did its stuff I rang anybody I knew with a motor. Finally, I got Roger, who had a scheme. I pretended interest, said give me a lift to town. His greed agreed for him, said he'd be round in half an hour.

  Roger Boxgrove isn't called that but isn't half a million years old, either. (I'll explain in a sec.) He'd bought a new Jaguar by pure lies. I like travelling with class.

  5

  ‘Come in with me, Lovejoy,' Roger said, shooting his gruesome diamond cufflinks to blind other motorists. His motor is the size of our village hall.

  'Ta, no.'

  'Easy pickings. Two skulls and a pelvis yesterday. Money for jam.'

  Not jam, exactly. Grave robbing is grave robbing. I didn't say so, because we weren't even at Wormingford and I didn't want to have to trudge through the rainstorm.

  'Any genuine, Rodge?'

  'Nar.' He's one of the few people who can do a scornful chuckle. He honked a tardy Rover on the Horkesley slope. 'Genuine's trouble. Fake is simple.'

  You have to admire a real artist. Roger's scam was almost perfect, a true perennial.

  He'd come across it in an old newspaper, and kaboom! The perfect money machine! You can try it yourself, but by the time you read this you'll not be alone.

  It happened back in May 1994, when this flashy modern Roger Boxgrove was born. The original Roger Boxgrove is long dead, but still around—in bits. Half a million years ago, the prototype Roger walked out in southern England questing for food. He was everything a man should be: tall, strong, fit as a flea. He moved with brisk strides, sure of his strength.

  Roger carried flint tools—a stone axe, a skinning knife. He was a highly skilled huntsman; marks on his stone axe prove it. Probably he skinned the dead prey of lions that then abounded, and made off with the meat. England was different then. Giant stags roamed, rhino, packs of small vicious wolves.

  Life was almost as dangerous as now. It was in Boxgrove Quarry chalk pit that Roger met his doom. We don't know exactly how. Maybe from a fall, some predator. Anyway, down went Roger—to be discovered in diggings. They've only got fragments of Roger. They called him Boxgrove, after the quarry.

  He's dated from secondary evidence: 600,000 years ago water voles had different teeth; those giant deer and rhinos went extinct some 480,000 years since, those numbers that scientists talk. Sizing and sexing bones isn't hard.

  These find sites are always pandemonium. Interest drives us, of course, but the main force is avarice. There are fortunes to be made there. Discoveries don't have to be wondrous troves from Troy like that scoundrel Schliemann conned and smuggled, no. Human artefacts are the front runners these days. Why? Because now we're all lost, and want to know who we are. Overnight 'Roger Boxgrove' became as famous as a pop star. Quarries were raided by night. Museum robberies soared. And a new confidence trickster was born. Guess who.

  Enter no-good scrounger Napier Montrose Shelvenham, of no fixed abode. He immediately called himself Roger Boxgrove—there's no copyright in titles—and started selling bits of bone, flint chips, 'Stone Age tools' from Sussex, Surrey, Kent, and anywhere else he could spell.

  So this penniless chiseller in those first few glorious months sold any bone he could get hold of, claiming they were from the world-famous Boxgrove Quarry. It's an antiques fact that fraudsters get help from God-fearing truthsayers like you and me. They also get help from administrators. Proof: some English Heritage geezer actually announced to TV cameras within millisecs of the Great Find that he'd give more details when the skull is found next summer! Gulp! Everybody assumed that somebody was secretly concealing more skeleton bits.

  This modern Roger provided—provides—more and more bits. I've seen him sell hippopotamus teeth, any old zoo bones, suitably aged in the Piltdown Skull manner. Roger uses stains because he hasn't the patience to bury them in Pittsbury Ramparts, which is how us fraudsters age fake weapons. He sells to museums overseas. A thousand zlotniks here, two thousand there, mounts up, if you do seventy-two cash-on-the-nail sales a week. He bribes the Inland Revenue, usual terms.

  'Fakery is always simpler, Lovejoy,' he was saying. 'God help my business if I ever have to go straight. Poverty's murder. Short of women, grub, gelt. Who needs it?'

  'Mmmh,' I went, knowing the feeling. 'What'll you do if the museums rumble you?'

  'They won't.' He dabbed the dashboard. Treacly music flowed. 'Know why, Lovejoy? Because they're only inches from fame. One bone turns out genuine Boxgrove Man, and they're on the TV talk circuit for life.'

  You have to admire class, like I say.

  'A north Suffolk sexton's coming in. Digs the graves, tenth-century church. I'll ship out to every corner of the planet.' He eyed me, conjecture in his gaze. 'We could make a killing, Lovejoy.'

  'What could I do, Rodge?' He fought a slow Ford for the middle lane, the g force dragging my cheeks. We made life by a whisker. 'All I do is detect genuine antiques. I'd bankrupt you because all your relics are fake.'

  He sighed, testy. Con merchants hate reason. 'That's the point. A Lovejoy certificate of authenticity'd bring in fortunes. My business'd quadruple! You heard of venuses?' He guffawed, overtook a brewer's dray. The carthorse shied, its driver hauling and cursing. I shrank in my seat.

  'You mean the artefacts?'

  'What else?'

  It hurts to talk of others' good fortune, always so undeserved. These so-called 'venuses' are figures of antler, ivory, some of stone. Grimaldi, from the Menton caves, bordering Italy and France. Everybody knows the tale, how the French antique dealer Louis Jullien found some little Ice Age carvings. They weren't much to look at, just dumpy females with steatopygous bums, crude faces. But, over 20,000 years old, you can't knock them, and M. Jullien got well over a dozen. Their Museum of National Antiquities collared half as many. That's how things lay for a hundred years, because Jullien emigrated to Canada before 1900. The Peabody, Harvard, bought one delectable venus from Jullien's daughter half a century later, and that was it.

  This next bit's even more painful. A Canadian lately bought a handful of these priceless Ice Age venuses—secret word is for 75 quid—in Montreal, browsing round an antique shop. News spread. Prime Ministers and governments became involved. The common danger? Only 150 such Ice Age artefacts are known for certain, and 'belong to all mankind.' Meaning we're sulking at the luck of others. Jealousy, in a word.

  'Goldbricking every dig,' Roger was enthusing.

  'Ta, Rodge.' I got out a strangled, 'No.'

  'Provisional?' he asked, grinning.

  I didn't manage any reply to that. One thing East Anglia has a permanent supply of is entrepreneurs (dunno what the feminine word is for it, but we've tons of those as well). They all drive sleek customised motors of giddy horsepower, have several addresses. They can buy and/or sell serfs on a whim, especially if the serf in question is broke.

  'Thekla'll exact vengeance, Lovejoy, so watch it.'

  They also hear scandals before the first blood splashes.

  'Think I should
scarper?' I asked uneasily.

  'You're good at evasion, Lovejoy.' He belled us up to ninety on the town road, passing the policeman on point duty with a cheery wave, the bobby, Old George, saluting respectfully. If I'd done forty George would have clinked me up for a week. 'But for Christ's sake run like hell if she does the other thing.'

  'What other thing?' I was mystified.

  'Apologises, you pillock.'

  The car's acceleration lulled me. What was he saying, that an apology is the final insult, evidence of preceding cruelty?

  There were these two women I'd got to know in our village. Maxine was middle-aged, comely, buxom, married with two-point-nine children at university, rich husband commuting like mad. Her neighbour, the older Mrs. Prowell, shared her husband's wary tenant farmer's eyes. Nothing remarkable, except Mrs. Prowell hated Maxine. 'For no reason, Lovejoy,' Maxine told me one day when scouting the terrain before letting me out. Thirty years, no reason? We'd become close when I'd called to sell her a seventeenth-century William and Mary period door lock, solid brass, complete with key and keeper key escutcheon. (I still smart, because Maxine's gleeful welcomes those warm sunny afternoons made me feel I'd be a cad to ask for the money, which I never got.)

  Came one autumn morning, Maxine pruning the daffodils, whatever, when here comes Mr. Prowell. Please, he begs, my wife's grievously ill, the Grim Reaper tiptoeing in Mrs. Prowell's gate. She's not long to live, wants to say sorry, dear Maxine. Won't you forgive and forget? Anguish reigned.

  'Tell her no,' says Maxine sweetly. 'Your wife has hated me for thirty years with such evident enjoyment that I couldn't possibly deprive her of that pleasure in her last hours.' And demurely continues snipping. With her secateurs and trug, Maxine was a picture any tourist would recognise, the charming English garden scene.

  This is true, every word. I was concealed hard by, having dived into the shrubbery when I'd heard Maxine's gate go. Aghast, when the sorrowing man'd left, I asked Maxine how she could be so vicious. She'd smiled with beatific Saint Theresa rapture, and said as we'd gone upstairs, 'Thinks she can twist the knife one last time, after what she's put me through? Bitch, I hope her cancer does it on a cold wet night. Get undressed, Lovejoy.'

  And she'd followed this Christian charity with hours o{ passion wilder than I'd known for days. Until Roger's remark, I'd thought it something exclusively female. I sighed, bucketing along the town road in a downpour on squealing tyres. I always catch up after everybody's moved on.

  'Here, Rodge,' I said, suddenly. 'Do you really know Thekla well?'

  'Everybody knows Thekla, Lovejoy.' He laughed. 'Ambition, she. You want my tip? Never do anything to further your own ambition when it's suggested by others. Women know this by instinct. We blokes never learn. Oh, Carmel's looking for you. An antiques job.'

  'Thanks, Rodge,' I said gratefully.

  'Anything for a pal. Think over my offer.'

  He dropped me at the ironmonger's on North Hill in lessening rain. I cut through the Dutch Quarter—Flemish weavers lived there when fleeing persecution centuries back. A place of refuge.

  Tinker was outside The Ship, by St James the Less. He looked even shabbier than usual. He avoided my eye, which is odd. He was with Roadie, watching the parade to the war memorial. Roadie still looked every inch the yob. I wished he'd close his mouth now and then. He prides himself on his belch, thinks them the soul of wit. He was calling embarrassing sex slogans at the girl drummers prancing by in their shimmery yellows and blues.

  'What's up, Tinker?'

  'Them social services, Lovejoy.' He hawked, spat at a waste bin, didn't make it. The phlegm slid down, sending me green. We're a god-awful species.

  'No help?' I'd sent him.

  'Chucked me out for being grottie.'

  My vision dissolved. In a scarlet cloud I hauled him through the crowd, stormed with him down Head Street to the plush offices of the Department of Social Services—every word of that title a cause for infinite merriment. I marched in, ignoring the uniformed goons who guard affluent bureaucracy against us who finance their upkeep. I disturbed two Social Support And Care Experts—more hilarity—who were filing their untroubled nails. They looked up, yawning. I switched their telly off. They were outraged.

  'You've no right to come in here,' one said.

  'It's that filthy old man back,' said the other.

  'And me.' I shoved Tinker into a chair, gestured Roadie to another while my vision cleared. 'This gentleman's relative is missing. Help him.'

  The girls worked out hate priorities. One whined, 'I've an urgent interview soon, Lovejoy.'

  'No, Dawn.' I spoke loudly as a security man entered. 'You're booked in at Hayre Fayre, tint and rinse.' I gave her a moment not to choke. 'Barbie? You've logged a Child Support Agency visit, so your hubby won't know you're meeting Joggo near the brewery lay-by.' Lay-by is correct.

  They looked at each other in alarm, glum social workers forced to act. Silence fell. I waited. The security man withdrew under my gaze. Joggo's a repossession man known for violence. He'd repossessed my furniture twice. I hadn't argued.

  Tinker wheezed, 'Look, Lovejoy

  He went mute when I raised a warning finger. Barbie, conscious of Joggo's sexy impatience, spoke at last, eyeing the clock, a modern Garant quartz, perfect time for ever, but who'd want to give it a glance?

  'Look, Lovejoy,' she tried. 'We do vital social work. The police do missing persons.'

  'They sent us here,' I lied. More silence.

  'Who is the child?' Dawn glared at her dusty forms, indignant at having to fill one in.

  'Vyna Dill, from Australia.'

  They brightened. 'The Australian High Commission

  'Sent us here.' I could get quite good at lies.

  They sank into misery. 'How did she come here?'

  Tinker stirred when my nudge nearly toppled him. For somebody desperate to find a relative he was singularly reluctant.

  'Er, her parents sent her. To study.'

  They brightened. 'The education authorities . . .'

  'Sent us here,' I capped. But, study?

  'Studying what?' Barbie growled. A growling woman is a frustrated beast to be avoided. But I had my own rage and didn't care.

  'Technical stuff,' Tinker said. 'Dunno.'

  'Where is she enrolled?' growled Dawn and Barbie together, sensing a way back to inertia.

  'Dunno.'

  'Her age?' Dawn chirruped, now blowing her nails.

  'Seventeen,' Tinker said. I looked at Roadie, doing his leer at Barbie's breasts. It was a revolting sight—the leer, I mean.

  Relief lit their countenances, scorn rethroned.

  'Nothing to do with the DSS, Lovejoy,' they said together. 'Get out . . .' etc., etc.

  Out on the pavement I really went for Tinker.

  'How come you don't know what she's studying, or where?'

  Roadie sniggered, seeing the bands wheeling in. After his triumph seducing Barbie, he would apply his snotty leer to our marchers. God, but we're a horrible species, or have I said that?

  'It's children, Lovejoy,' Tinker said, crestfallen. 'Who knows what they're up to?'

  'Roadie.' I made him face me. His leer was nauseating. 'Wipe your nose. Where is Vyna likely to be?'

  He giggled, a high-pitched staccato that actually made me step back. The bands came nearer, lads bugling, girls' drums pounding. Pipes skirled and banners flapped. He tried to turn. I held him, wondering how the hell I'd got into this.

  'Dunno.' The grace of a social worker on the skive.

  'Awreet, Tinker,' I said, unhappy. Tinker was looking at the approaching girls.

  Normally, Tinker would be going on about their scanty attire, saying, 'Their parents should get locked up, they'll catch their death of cold'. It's his litany. The importance of this? He never misses a chance to prattle against modern shirkers or scanties. Yet he was avoiding my eye, not a word when our town's youth were Going To The Dogs and Catching Pneumonia before his very eyes. It was weird.r />
  'Them birds're all right,' Roadie snivelled into his sleeve. I could. . .’

  'Awreet, Tinker,' I decided. 'We'll do what we can to find your lass. Get her picture photocopied. Send word, Big Frank from Suffolk, Little Dorrit, Aureole, Margaret Dainty, Beetroot on the Priory Church corner, Sadie. Paper the rest.'

  'The photo place'll be shut, Lovejoy.'

  'Do it, Tinker.' I'd had enough. There was something wrong here and I really wanted no part of it. I had a fake violin to finish before the week was out, or else. Vyna was probably fine anyway. I'd done what I could. I moved off, saying, 'Roadie, wipe your nose.' He was already calling out coarse offers to the first ranks of girls.

  That old joke: when your memory goes, forget it; that's what I was doing. I hadn't any right to, but things were pressing. Tinker was a pal, but this Roadie was objectionable.

  Other people, I told myself, are as you find them, not as they merely seem. Wasn't it our sensitive gentle poet Shelley who fastened his cat to his kite and flew it in a storm among the thunder and lightning? People are what they do, not what they say. That includes women, acquaintances, people you meet. And friends, even ones as reliable as me. Completely absolved, I headed down the side street for the treacherous world of sex plus antiques. Somebody ought to invent a word mixing the two. Sexanques? Anquex? It's a serious lack, for the two together are the perfect excuse for everything on earth.

  God, but we're a.h.s.

  I knocked at Carmel's tiny terraced dwelling, gazing wistfully at its fourteenth century architecture. These cottages form a cluster, all genuinely old. Course, they've been 'improved' by our town council, a band of overweight spoilers laying all waste before, happily, the atherosclerosis resulting from their gargantuan expense-account meals ends their game. The structure, though, is still original. Carmel was in.

  'Hello, Lovejoy.' She almost wore a silk floral gown. 'Sod off. I'm busy.'