The Lies of Fair Ladies Page 6

  Divvying is a dour, rather sickening business. Idyllic, of course. It's to do with antiques. The poor old divvy suffers every time. I've known, over the years, eight or nine of us with this gift. Some have it just for furniture, paintings, jewelry. Whatever, it's hard on the soul. Sin's easier—you get something for that. Though aphorisms are always wrong.

  For a couple of minutes before starting I have to pace, hum, walk, not look at anyone. Luna couldn't take it. In fact, Luna was an outright nuisance, especially when she gazed blankly at each of us in turn while I ambled. She finally erupted, "Well? Shouldn't we start—?''

  "Shhhh!" Gunge and Connie rounded on her.

  She was startled into silence. Which interrupted my feelings, so I had to start again, strolling, jingling nonexistent coins, staring at the wall, whistling. This is the trouble. Antiques are human. They have feelings, doubts, hesitations just like us. I mean, you don't rush straight up to perfect strangers and grab hold, tip them up, prod, dig your fingers into them, scrape their skin, all to "take a look." You'd soon get your eye blacked. But nobody thinks twice about doing that to antiques. Think how the poor things must feel. And feel they do. Believe it. "Taking a look" is being presented at court. A cat can look at a king. But with grace, please.

  "Right," I said. Ready.

  I sat on some breeze blocks. Gunge's stack was a yard away. On it burned two candles, in a pair of dazzling silver candlesticks. Not much to look at—cast baluster, less than seven inches small, only twenty ounces put together. Simplicity ruled when refugee silversmiths came scrambling across the Channel after the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685 and persecutions became the norm. Pierre Harache was a shrewd nut. He got a head start. This first immigrant silversmithing genius was already making silverware in London in 1683, his simple fashions instantly all the rage. I grinned all over my face.

  "Wotcher, Pierre," I heard my voice say. "Can I, loves?"

  They didn't mind. I touched them, simultaneous so as not to give offense. You've only to see one, and that milky sheen streaks naked into your soul. That's the trouble with people who collect antiques: They'll go any distance to see dross, but won't "waste time" visiting a free museum to see these breathtaking exquisite wonders.

  "Thank you," I told the lovely pair. "Next."

  A small bowl, Egyptian Black, meaning that Wedgwood simply fired it once. Iron oxide type, mere earthenware stained with the stuff and fired at a low temperature. Made over fifty years, from 1720 on. This bowl was true unglazed basalt; it could be cut, even polished on a lathe with care. Josiah Wedgwood's supposed to have introduced the term "black basaltes" about 1768. People suppose there were no black wares made before that. But there were. Two brothers called Elers had made them early in the century. This was Wedgwood. Plain bowls are very, very rare. You can touch the great man himself by touching one of these.

  ''Next.''

  Quartetto tables, Battersea enamels—half a dozen snuffboxes if you please—one tiny wooden masterpiece shaped like a lady's high-heeled slipper with a sliding wooden lid. There was a carpet burned (actually no more than singed) to alter the color and to age the back (rogues do it with a spirit blow-lamp). This is the only sensible fakery you get in carpets, because if you order, say, a dozen modern copies of a lovely Turkish Ghiordes prayer rug, about 1785, well, they're still all clearly handmade, though dirt cheap.

  Connie had several classy items of furniture, all small. I like Victorian furniture, though I'm daunted by the immense grandeur of some sideboards. Three straight chairs had top rails which stuck out wider than the back; sure sign of 1840 or later. I explained this didn't mean they weren't class; they were. But it put paid to their having to fly under false colors. The chairs were pleased, I think.

  Pewter tankards, small metal boxes for miners (they carried their chewing tobacco in these—they're dated, nineteenth-century, often with colliery names on). A handful of inro, enough to make your mouth water. Small cases on cords when wearing traditional Japanese dress; you stuck your favorite medicines in. The netsuke, a sort of toggle, on one end of the cord, is some of the most superb creative carving ever executed. Witty, amusing, hilarious, scary, everything you could wish. My favorite was a grazing horse, carved from a bit of stag antler, barely three inches tall. Connie had a mass of antiques, with a leavening of fakes. Good as you'd ever see.

  My headaches are famous. I was some time coming to after they'd put the candles out. I went reluctantly, stumbling up the dusty steps and into the Suffolk wet. I inhaled the drizzle for size. It didn't feel too bad, so I breathed more. The pity is that rain wets your head. I went and stood under a tree, listening to the solid taps of the rain. Drizzle gets steam up by soaking leaves. Then the leaf gets fed up and sags its drop like a bird plop.

  Connie and Gunge were trying to talk. Luna stayed with them, occasionally glancing across. Wearily I beckoned. She trotted across the grass, heels sinking. I walked the crumbling runway to Connie's motor, leant against the bonnet.

  "Lovejoy," she said hesitantly at last. She tried the car doors, tutting like they do as if discovering a malicious plot. "Was that little cardboard tube really worth two of these cars?"

  "Mmmh. Don't call that masterpiece a cardboard tube. It was a genuine Campani. He made 'perspective glasses’ telescopes. Samuel Pepys used one for ogling pretty ladies in church, naughty old devil. That coloring and decoration is tooled leather.''

  She went quiet for a bit. "You knocked over that beautiful square knife box, Lovejoy. Unforgivable. I have a lovely one exactly like it. Queen Anne."

  "Oh, aye. Is its herringbone inlay veneer sunk? Or dead level, too? If so, it's a fake, like that one." I could see she was aghast at horrifying possibilities. "You see, love, that veneer rises in a couple of centuries. It has to, see? Changes in temperature, humidity. Only new fakes are neat and level."

  Her eyes filled with alarm. She drew breath to ask. I saved her the trouble. "I know, I know. Why didn't I have to examine it. It felt wrong. The real antiques recognize you, and say hello. They warm me. Fakes don't. It's like . . . well, like love."

  She was still trying to remember, seeing her favorite piece in her mind's eye, when Gunge and Connie came up. We embarked without a word. I settled soggily into the back seat.

  "Good, Lovejoy." Gunge, activating a neurone.

  I said nothing. Connie was driving. We came to Polstead, and she went left at the crossroads.

  "Lovejoy. Do you want in?" she asked along the old Roman road. They're our only straight bits in East Anglia.

  "How big, compared?" I meant how big a sample had I divvied, of the whole. My mind was going: Connie's scam isn't Prammie Joe Godbolt's scam. Seriously bad news. In fact highly dangerous.

  "Quarter, Lovejoy."

  I hadn't a bean, let alone enough to cut in on a scam this size. I said I'd think about it. She said she'd give me until tomorrow. Lots of tomorrows lately, too.

  She dropped me and Luna at the cottage. My apprentice made the yuckiest brew I'd ever had. It was horrible. I didn't know if I'd last the full month on this, and told her so. She was proud of herself, said stop complaining. We sat drinking it, Luna saying the cottage was so cold. Daylight faded.

  "Lovejoy?" Here it came, sum total of misgiving. "Why is that Mrs. Hopkins's, er, scam in that disused airfield, and not in her showroom?"

  "Some are stolen, love. A scam is a robber's scheme."

  ''Stolen? Shouldn't we tell the police?"

  My turn to stare. "No, love. The less we have to do with the police, the better. We're not on the same side."

  "Not on the same side as the Law?" More mindboggling.

  "Do you know anybody who is?"

  It was then that the police came clumping in, Drinkwater wanted me at the police station to see if I knew anyone called Godbolt. I told Luna to lock up, please, and count the silver after the constables had departed.

  But why wasn't Connie's scam the same as Prammie Joe's? Dozy old East Anglia doesn't run to two major scams in
one week. Tits Alors had already pre-sold her own load. To somebody forming up a third? Jesus. Luna, full of unasked questions, hopped from one foot to the other at the cottage door as the ploddites drove me away.

  Eight

  Imagine a flattish area of land, pretty big and wide, with only fields, woods, rivers, farms, villages, and cities here and there (actually two). East Anglia in a nutshell. The rivers wander into estuaries that are basically sea marshes. It's truly rural. I mean, the whole kingdom jokes about it. Like, in show business they say. He's the best comedian in East Anglia—how is the other feller? All that.

  But if you know this creaking old country of ours, you’ll have sussed our trick. Nothing is what it seems. Peaceful?—take care, something's going on. Tranquil?—mayhem lurks. Sleepy?—watch out, that's all. Hereward the Wake is one of our heroes. Not as well-known as Robin Hood, perhaps, but at least the Normans never caught him. He never slept, drifted unseen through the fens, vanishing during the day to emerge more powerful than ever when the sun sank. They say he did sleep, but with one eye open. Maybe two.

  "Know anybody called Godbolt, Lovejoy?" Drink water's clacking pot teeth asked. Twitch. Ear flick. "No. Live around here, does he?" "Note that, Cradhead."

  The other ploddite said right, almost as if he'd been taught to write. Really lifelike. His name is variously pronounced.

  We drove out to the river Deben. The police motor was full of misgivings, mostly mine. There's a bridge not far from Shottisham, and a small uninhabited island. We alighted and peered at the soggy countryside. I’d had enough of the wretched stuff today. I blame the government. What's wrong with concreting it? Mother Nature's had her chance for a quadrillion years, and failed spectacularly. Look at the damned stuff.

  “Into the dinghy, Lovejoy."

  Cradhead couldn't row to save his life. Lacked coordination. Prerequisite for his job, I suppose. Fearing the goon would drown us all, I took the oars myself. I’m not much good, but can get by.

  "Upstream, Lovejoy." Drinkwater Of The Rolling Main.

  Not easy old downstream, oh no. We went about a hundred yards, Drinkwater saying "Left a bit" and all that. I was puffed out.

  "Stop here," the nerk actually commanded.

  "Reach the brakes, Drinkie, there's a pal."

  He glared. I glared back. We drifted a moment, clumping gently into the islet. That is, we would have, except we banged into something solid. I looked over into the water. Cradhead reached past, almost upsetting the boat, to grab on—to a 1713 brass chandelier, beautiful and genuine. Strapped on a semi-sunken raft.

  "Comments are invited, Lovejoy."

  Here's a definite antiques tip: A brass chandelier is English or Dutch. It'll have an ugly-looking globe with waggly brass radii curving out for the candles. Travel half a day hereabouts, you can see half a dozen churches where they still dangle. I think they're horrible, but antique they are. Oh, and some public buildings have them, too. Minus one, Cornish Place, I guessed.

  "Brass chandelier, Drinkwater. Very collectable. London decorators are always after them from redundant churches." I rested on my oars. "That it?"

  We waited. I scanned the river. Something splashed with evil intent, like all countryside splashes. A little black duck with a yellow beak chugged by. I yawned. It was all happening.

  "I want more comment, Lovejoy."

  "Well, these chandeliers often have a little brass dove for a finial, if it's from a church. I've never seen one with a coat of arms, but here in the Midlands—"

  "You dross. Why is it bobbing in the river?"

  "Why ask me, you prat?" I yelled back, just as if I was really annoyed instead of frightened to death for Prammie Joe. "There's a thousand antique dealers in East Anglia. What the hell's got into you, Drinkwater?"

  "Robbery's got into me, Lovejoy." He sat staring with his eyes just like Geronimo's. His pot teeth clacked, his ear twitched. “This brass thing's from Cornish Place. The raft is described as one possibly belonging to Joseph Godbolt. Who finds and sells antiques.''

  "Can I go home?" Biased police records, mostly false.

  "The mayor's wife'll wait, Lovejoy. I don't suppose she'll behave any different from your other tarts. Godbolt was known to be of this locality, no fixed abode."

  "Why not make the bloke who found this thing take you to this Godbolt, if he can recognize his flotsam?"

  "Angler, Lovejoy. Works in a sawyer's yard near Woolverstone. He sold Godbolt this wood. It's marked."

  I drew breath, but said nothing. Woolverstone isn't even on this river. It's south, opposite bank of the Orwell, above Harwich. Where the ferries leave for the Continent.

  "Clues?" I suggested idly. "Fingerprints? You must have . . . Godbolt's down at the nick." I nearly said Prammie.

  Cradhead spoke. A cultured bloke, fair of hair and plum of voice. You just know he's got friends in Whitehall.

  "Can you, ah, contribute any personal knowledge, Lovejoy? Of any, ah, scam of such, ah, quantity as Cornish Place?"

  Ah, no. Which troubled me too. I found myself being looked at directly by Cradhead, first time. It wasn't pleasing. Maybe he wasn't a nerk at all. I mean, a handful of idiots like him, with exactly this casual offhand manner, had run empires.

  "No. Not heard a thing."

  "Shut it, Cradhead." Drinkwater gestured for me to row us away. "Tell the lads to bring this brass thing in." He caught himself. I grinned. He'd almost said for questioning. "Lovejoy. We know you talk to that poofter on East Hill. And other dealers in that thieves' Arcade. You tell me anything you learn, hear, get hinted. Right?"

  "And if you find Mr. Godbolt, ask him ..." Suddenly I wished to make no merry quips about Prammie, went quiet.

  "Yes, ah, Lovejoy?" from Cradhead.

  "How come you aren't doing this, Cradhead?" I said nastily, getting the oars. "Didn't you row at Oxford?" I was narked. They'd let something terrible happen to Prammie Joe. "That Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race is a fix, anyway. It's always—"

  "—the same two teams reach the final?" he capped, smiling.

  The problem was, careful watermen like Prammie Joe don't let rafts of ill-gotten plunder go drifting downriver towards the cold

  dark sea. Not unless ... I backed oars, put our prow into the bank.

  Cradhead knew I knew something. Nasty bloke. He was new to the district. Maybe he'd not stay long, with any luck.

  They gave me a lift home, a driver who lectured the world on the problems he was having with his bird, a pub dancer in Manningtree.

  That evening, Joan Vervain cornered me, and we had a supper filled with Chinese nourishment brought in by the chauffeur. She was disappointed I had no television, light, electricity, gas, running water.

  "You see, doowerlink,'' I said with heartfelt sorrow but unyielding take-it-on-the-chin pride. “I won't come to you as a pauper.''

  "But darling," she cooed, hands cupped beneath her chin. God, but women's tactics are unfair. And candlelight's treacherous. Everybody knows that. "I already pay for—no. I didn't mean I pay. But I can't see you ..." She licked her lips. Her eyes were huge. ". . . go hungry, can I?"

  We managed to make smiles, though, in spite of her husband's unavoidable radio absence. I found to my horror, as I woke from that terrible moribundity of after-love, that I'd promised to leave with her the following week. We were going to Monte Carlo, to live forever in a state of sexual ecstasy and wealthy wassailing. Our address was to be the Caribbean in midwinter, Geneva in summer, San Francisco and Florida for in-betweens. I roused blearily into panic.

  "What are London and Hong Kong for?" She has ten homes.

  "Shopping, you silly darling!"

  She had brought blankets and some heavy coverlet that heated up when you pulled a strip thing. Breakfast was delivered by a lass in a small white van. No hairs in the bacon.

  It was seeing Joan off that Luna arrived. I won't say caught us, because she didn't. Why is it that women always make you feel as if they've caught you red-handed?

 
"Your jobs are two-fold, Luna," I was giving out as she drove us to the auction. Oliver had let her have the car.

  "Isn't she well known?" Once a woman leeches on to another woman, you can't prise her off. "I've seen her in the paper."

  I scotched this right at the outset. "A lot of people think that. I was asked only yesterday if she was the mayor's wife!" I chuckled merrily at the idiocy of some people.

  "Impossible, Lovejoy. “I’m the mayor's wife.”

  Headaches, like age and lawyers, never come alone. "Go to this address.” I passed her the teacher's card. "Tell him the Sotheby's agent he gave a lift to says there's no market for his coffeepot, but buy it.”

  She was thrilled. "We represent Sotheby's? Oliver will—"

  "No, love. We lie. Otherwise they won't trust us."

  Adjustment took ten minutes of analysis. "I know I said to tell him there's no market, but ..."

  Makes me wonder how folk do it. Where I come from, she'd starve.

  "Second, go to the auction. I'll be there. I'll bid for a beautiful tole tray, I forget the lot number. Make sure you come in late, all casual. When you see me shake my head, there'll be only one bid left. You bid then. Okay? Make sure you get it, but look worried."

  "How will I know how much to bid, Lovejoy?"

  Honestly, women amaze me. I mean, they love spending money, by all accounts. Yet send them along to spend some, and it's Prime Minister's Question Time.

  "I told you. When I drop out, there'll only be one bid to go—"

  "Whose, Lovejoy?" Her eyes were shining with excitement. "Shall I make arrangements with him to—?"

  ''For Christ's sake!" I yelled. "Just do it! Stupid cow!"

  "It's no good getting cross, Lovejoy. What if I pay too much? And what is a tole tray? How much—?"

  "Pull in. The auction's by the market. Park near the lights."

  "It's no trouble, Lovejoy. I'll take you to the door—"

  "No thank you, Luna." I struggled down to her pace. "We pretend we don't know each other."