A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair

6

ODD HOW RELIEVED I was to catch the Tube away from the street-barrow life I love.

Old enemies, old friends, make me tick. Yet here I was, jostled by commuters and tourists, heading out of my natural grotty world into the sleek wonderland of Chelsea's glamorous King's Road.

The King's Road, Chelsea, starts at Sloane Square and heads south-west, towards Parsons Green. Oddly, road maps number its upper stretch A3217 and its lower the A308, but this is only cartographers having us on. They make changes in case we cotton on that they've no real job. Incidentally, note that definite article - The King's Road, like there's no other. It's deserved, for the King's Road, Chelsea, has its own peculiar message. That message has only one word in it, but is utterly vital: Money.

Nowhere else in the antiques world does money bend behaviour more than in pricey, spicy, decidedly dicey Chelsea, where Cheyne Walk runs from Cremorne Gardens along Old Father Thames to the suave Embankment. If ever you stroll this way, keep your hand on your ha'penny, as folk say, because every single thing is expensive, from the stones beneath your feet to the windows gazing haughtily down onto thronged serfs hoofing glumly below. Money rules.

In spite of all, it's gorgeous in ways that other streets aren't. Chelsea's antiques shops, their facades announce snootily to us hoi polloi, not only have made it but also have it made. Provincials like me snort derision at some signs. I mean, The Original Chelsea Antiques Market (EST. 1967), for God's sake? A grocer in our local East Anglian town says how badly his business fared during the war. 'Yes, sir, 1648 was a bad year,' he'll sigh with regret, 'on account of disturbances concerning the late King…' and so forth.

You are expected to understand that Mr Gunton of course means the Great Civil War, and the late King Charles I. So Chelsea's antiques mart hardly dates from the Dark Ages. But it's a commercial law that touristy venues must claim themselves ancient, even if they're not.

Outside on the pavement, I felt the peals. Because of worries collected in Bermondsey I stoically walked on past 'London's Oldest Antiques Market', as it advertises, Mon-Sat, etc, thinking aye, make that claim among the traders of Camden Passage or Whitechapel and you'd be for it.

One place I'd not visited for a while was The Furniture Cave. The ruinous music that dins you is enough to drive you to drink, but its antiques are reward enough - if you have money. Another of my laws is: Fakes recede in gelt's gleam (meaning the more affluent the antiques shop, the less likely you are to happen on a fake). I honestly mean it. You can lay odds that in the King's Road forgeries are less common than in grotty flea markets.

But I'd a job to do. I had to find Colette, and quickly get some sanity into my troublesome little jaunt. London's antiques venues are droolsome, sure, but the prices I saw coded everywhere were giving me a headache. I even managed to march, eyes averted, past 'Antiquarius', where they cram their stands too densely with antiques.

Life's a pig. I was heartbroken, feeling the bonging of antiques as I forced on past.

And came at last to Lovely Colette Antiques, Ltd. My spirits rose. The sign was now silver on sap green, where it used to be scarlet, but that only made me smile. Colette was a traditionalist. I pinged the door and entered smiling, knowing she'd be delighted to see me. Once a duckegg, always. It's another of my laws, but like a fool I forgot it.

'Hello?' I called, quite at home. 'Colette? Arthur?'

No answer. The place was tastefully done out, fresh flowers, a load of antiques that literally set my teeth watering. I forced myself to ignore them and walked into the office, beaming at the enthusiastic welcome I knew was coming. Things had changed -

a computer, swirling multicoloured coils craving commands. A filing system in red tin drawers made me chuckle. I'd pull Colette's leg over this. She always said she'd never have computers or filing systems in the interests of sanity.

'Hello?' I called blithely. 'Come out wherever you are, or I'll start nicking your forgeries!'

Not a sound. Now, this is odd even for the King's Road, because so much stuff is whipped nowadays that even rich ladies like my - well, Arthur's - elegant Colette Goldhorn have to pay heed to locks and chains.

Still, I felt at home. I settled myself at her desk and pulled out the books. Colette normally keeps one set for the Customs and Excise. Her husband Arthur always has them up to date, Colette being above all this sordid lucre business. She's lust, joy, and antiques, more or less in that order. I used to know her once, in a way I'd best not reveal. I saw that Arthur had taken to smoking cheroots. I was tempted, but smoke has banned even more antiques than looters, so resisted.

A snuffbox on the desk made me wince. Bountyana, they call it now, is a collector's nightmare. This was mounted on a transparent resin plinth and labelled, 'Copper Snuff Box made from HMS sloop-of-war Bounty, Pitcairn Islands, 1789'. I touched it, didn't feel a thing. Modern fake. The faker had got the name and the 'sloop-of-war' right, but seeing the mutineers didn't reach Pitcairn until 15 January, 1790, where they burned HMS Bounty to the waterline on the 23rd, that 1789 date was a sloppy mistake. Also, the museum at Greenwich has several items made from the ship's copper bottom, and this copper snuff box was too thin. The engraved lettering was worn, but I could see the regular miniature nicks along each letter's edge. Somebody had used a modern engraving tool, and hamfistedly at that. Laughing, I decided I'd give Arthur a giggle and wrote a note on a card's reverse:

Dear Arthur and Colette,

This fake snuff box would be worth a mint, but lacks chimes. Check (a) the correct copper thickness of HMS Bounty, and (b) that your engraver Sorbo isn't on the vodka again. This is stagnacious junk.

A. Friend.

Stagnacious means so neffie and horrible you can't get rid of it.

Chuckling, I slipped the card under the snuff box. Then I noticed this stranger standing in the doorway.

Not sparse exactly, more of a slender athlete. Dark hair, bushy eyebrows, a bristly chin, he looked every inch the socialite eager to dash the hopes of rivals. His clothes shouted money. He held a tennis racket, obviously fresh from Wimbledon.

'Got you,' he said, smiling in a punitive way I didn't like.

'Wotcher.' I came round the desk. 'Colette about?'

He swung the racket so the edge hit his other hand, smack.

'Arthur, then?' I asked, uneasy.

'Bern,' he shouted, hard eyes on me. 'Get the police.'

Strange accent, not quite guttural. Somebody moved in the shop behind him.

'No, mate,' I explained. 'You've got it wrong. I'm a pal of Colette's.'

He swung the racket so fast. It thumped me on the temple. I fell heavily against the filing cabinet, almost pulling the flaming thing down on me. I struggled to get up, but he rained blows on me with a kind of metronomic regularity, like how mothers tell children off. 'I - thought -I - told - you—' I tried to shield myself, catch the racket, crawl away, anything, but the swine tripped lightly about swinging at me.

Hopeless to evade. I tried to make a rush past him. He easily kneed me to the carpet. I heard him laugh, a deep bray I thought only hunters used.

'Right,' he said, to somebody's muted remark. 'Now we wait.'

Thank Christ he wasn't carrying a knobkerrie, or I'd have been done for. Where the hell were Colette and Arthur?

Blood stained the carpet near my face, I noticed in a mist. This geezer must be some security nerk. He'd catch it when Colette found out this was how he behaved. I asked could I get up, only to earn more blows, after which even I had the sense to shut up and cringe in the foetal position.

He moved to the desk. I noticed his brogues, the white socks. He lit a cheroot.

'Ya, Dieter, police come.' Dieter, as in Gluck?

Another pair of shoes entered, thick soles and scuffed. Bern the serf, talking foreign.

Bern's heavy heel ground my hand. They laughed, chatted. I swear I almost nodded off, partly ache and partly contusion I suppose.

Then voices, a door slamming, questions, dour mutters. Somebody hauled me up, and I was stared into by a face that could only belong to the plod, straight from Bramshill.

Bramshill's the police staff college in Hampshire where they're supposed to train, haha.

Even the police call it the Palace of Varieties, after the olde tyme music hall. We whose taxes pay for it are expected to praise their humour and efficiency, as now.

'This the thief? What did he steal?'

'A valuable snuff box, Mr Saintly. Made of Bounty copper sheath, cast iron provenance.'

That was Dieter. I saw the liar's hand scoop the copper box off the desk. My card flipped to the floor. A bobby picked it up. Mr Saintly took it.

'He resisted?'

Mr Saintly? In other circumstances a joke about his name would have bubbled to the surface, but I was out of froth. His eyes bored into me. I felt relieved. This was a pro ploddite, cold and cynical. At least I'd escape from the hooligans. Two uniformed ploddites stood about doing sod all, boredom their only art-form.

'He tried to run. Bern caught him.'

'Don't I know you?' Saintly said to me. -

'Me? No, guv.' I lapsed into vernacular. 'I phoned the owner, Arthur Goldhorn. He told me to wait inside.'

'Wrong. Arthur Goldhorn is dead.' Mr Saintly was still looking hard. 'Sure I don't know you?'

'Dead?' I went wobbly. A bobby held me up until the room straightened.

'Mr Gluck has been the new owner for months.'

A terrible suspicion gripped me. Arthur and Colette would never have gone, unless—

'Where's Colette?' I asked. Sudden realization made me grovel into my trusty whine.

'Er, sorry if I come in when I shouldn't, guv'nor. I didn't nick anything, honest.'

'Pressing charges, Mr Gluck?' Saintly asked, reading my card note.

'Not really. We got him before he managed to escape.' Gluck sounded smug.

Saintly turned, paused. 'Name and address?'

'James Churchill,' I said. 'No relation. Of 4, Hyde Park Gate, Sandy, Bedfordshire.' The best I could do, seeing my giddiness was back. I clung on the desk.

'Who really told you to come in here?'

'Bloke I asked for a humping job, shifting furniture. I'm a vannie, guv.'

'All right.' Saintly's eyes were everywhere. For some reason he seemed reluctant to go, but finally gestured me to leave first. On the pavement I reeled a bit. Dieter Gluck's henchman Bern had disappeared. 'Off, lad,' Saintly said. 'Behave yourself.'

'Yes, guv. Ta.'

The pavement went up and down like those trick footways on fairgrounds. I swayed along, shoving my feet out ahead of me with a thump. I wasn't even sure which way I was heading, wanting only to put some distance between me and the shop I'd thought the abode of friends. I glimpsed Bern on the opposite pavement. Scared, I flagged a taxi. The cabbie said, 'What the friggin' 'ell 'appened to you?'

'I lost. Liverpool Street Station, please.'

Nightfall, I was back in my cottage. I washed in well water, cold because the gas and electric were off again. I tried to phone my latest, Camilla, but the phone was off. I lit a candle stump to inspect myself in a piece of mirror I was re-silvering. I looked like nothing on earth, but my face was spared. Clever old Dieter Gluck. My shoulders ached, my spine throbbed. My upper arms, legs, chest were black and blue. Moving made me yelp. I had no aspirin. I would have been hungry as hell if I'd had any food to be hungry for. I creaked into my divan bed. I couldn't even reach the candle to blow it out.

Geologists say you can find the street level of Roman Londinium best by standing three men, average height, atop one another. The top man's hair would touch the Roman streets' paving. Modern London has sunk nearly eighteen feet, six yards.

I thought, thank you, London, fare thee well. The way I felt, London could go on sinking forever.