Every Last Cent

19

THE LADS WERE having a whale of a time reminiscing when I reached the Welcome Sailor in the teeming rain. Big Frank from Suffolk was especially creased. I went in grinning, hoping it wasn't the usual what-about-Joe-in-prison malarkey, got a pale ale on the slate from Unis, and sat by the fire to let my soaked jacket steam dry. My gran always said that's the way to catch a chill, but never did explain how to keep dry if you'd no raincoat.

'This bloke actually believed the rounder!' Big Frank howled.

Roars of merriment. Big Frank is always moving on to his next wife. Friends run a book on how long his new marriage will last. The longest is nine months (a significant duration). I honestly don't know why he keeps getting married. I tell him to just fall into romance, and so cut out the middleman. He says no, marriage is like flu, you can't stop it happening.

A rounder, incidentally, is a phoney antique that dealers know about and recycle through auctions. Do it often enough, the fake takes on a kind of allure, escalating as it goes from catalogue to catalogue. Everybody starts to think of it as nearly almost practically genuine. Sooner or later somebody buys it, for a high price.

'And he was the frigging auctioneer!' Peggy Price screeched, falling off her bar stool.

Peggy Price 'is to be admired', women say. She poisoned her bloke once (well, you can't do it more than once, can you?) who beat her savagely, put her in hospital. He was a junkie, drunkard, gambler, and idle. None of us liked him. The final straw, though, was when he stole the only genuinely real antique she'd ever had from her tatty little antiques shop down the sea wharf. He tried to sell it in Stepney.

A Minton fruit and nut dish might not sound much –to go and poison a whole bloke for, I mean – but it was true as a saint. I can see it now in my mind's eye: painted, not printed, those gorgeous florid colours of 1805 with Thomas Minton's interlinked stroke marks just like the Sevres device that Minton liked to imitate. Hearing about the dish, well, all the collectors and dealers in the Eastern Hundreds finally took Peggy's side.

'You can only go so far,' the lads sympathized. Our women dealers said things like,

'Well, you can only take so much, can't you?' We all gave evidence at her trial. The judge let her off with two hundred hours of community service. That only meant that when she came to sweep the market she didn't need to lift a broom. The stallholders simply kept their pitches clean.

Justice isn't often so straightforward, though.

Luckily, among the revellers was Cromwell, for where Peggy Price comes can Cromwell be far behind? He sat in his breastplate and gauntlets, smoking a churchwarden pipe.

He sometimes speaks daft Ho There Sir Knave stuff. Dunno why. He was once prevented from tethering his nag outside the pub. I spoke up for him at the town council.

They claimed there was no need to ride to the tavern on a horse these days. Walking and motor cars were good enough.

I claimed in evidence, 'His nag knows the way home, your honour.' I got pretty heated.

'Even when Cromwell is drunk as a lord, your, er, lordship, his horse carries him home safe. Cromwell himself was allowed to ride here.'

'Confine yourself to facts, please,' the judge said wearily.

It was Mrs Finisterre, a distinguished battleaxe with lovely legs. She shouldn't wear purple skirts. She should try tan or beige. I sold her a lovely Wellington chest once, and charged too little because I knew she was a famed lawyer. See what good it did me.

'I am, missus!' I'd bleated.

'Lovejoy. This plaintiff is not Oliver Cromwell. The Lord Protector died in 1658.'

Just like a woman, slipping truth in. They're sly. This particular Cromwell was the Rt Hon St John (say Sinjern or people think you're common) Featheringshay Popperinghe, late of the diplomatic corps. He can speak twenty lingos. Once, he put 'Polyglot' for his occupation on a dole claim form, and got a letter from some thick civil servant, 'Dear Mr Polyglot. . .' And we pay their wages.

I'm in good with Cromwell. I got his fiancée off his back once. Literally, in a dancehall scrap. My intervention escaped him to Lancaster where his sister lives with a clergyman. Also, I didn't tell his lass where he'd gone, so earning Cromwell's undying gratitude. By the time he came back Feya had married a French bargee on the River Rhone.

'Whose rounder are they yakking about, Cromwell?'

'That birdman's wife owned a fake Sisley, one of the Impressionists.'

Paul Blondel, the kindly wild-bird keeper. Cromwell meant his wife Jenny who was shacked up with Aspirin.

'It went for two thousand, right?'

'Tom Keating did it, they're saying. Hence the joviality.'

Tom Keating, RIP, was my old friend. A master faker of paintings, his stuff is actually pretty ropey and wouldn't deceive anybody, though they did mucho deception in their day. Alfred Sisley ('the English Impressionist') is probably the greatest of the Imps. The paintings he dashed off in the open air are the best ever. Faker Tom was always broke.

Running out of expensive oils, Tom used poster colours blended in decorator's white. I often saw him scumble schoolkiddies' powder paint into house-painter's white. In fact I helped Tom more than once. The point is, you can't mistake modern acrylic for antique French oil paint. They shine differently. If you're too idle to look, you deserve to be ripped off.

'Cromwell,' I began with humility, as befitted asking the Lord Protector, 'what diplomat's knocking around East Anglia?'

'That Yank consul,' he said with bitterness. 'Wald Sommon by name.'

Cromwell got drummed out of the diplomatic for being found in a cupboard with an honorary consul's wife one Europe Day. A guard heard whimpers of ecstasy and wouldn't accept a bribe, which only goes to show how far standards have sunk since we gave away the Empire, thank God. Cromwell got drummed out of the Brownies without pension rights. He runs on hate.

I injected a little bitterness there myself. 'He ran over a cat near Stalham.'

'The bastard!' he breathed.

Cromwell judges local cat shows, loves them in fact. I was making it up, but so what?

The bloke had almost knocked me senseless.

'It was a big American motor. Diplomatic plates.'

He actually trembled with fury. 'Did you help the cat?'

'Eh?' I hadn't seen any bloody cat. Now I had to play out this sympathy. Wearily, I made up a cock-and-bull tale of some poor feline dragging itself, broken and bleeding, along a country road. 'I shouted. The swine drove on.'

'What did you do?' he asked, appalled.

'I was seething. I carried the poor thing to a farmhouse. They promised to look after it.

But,' I added brokenly, because I was really welling up, that poor moggie all bloodied and everything, 'they didn't hold out much hope.'

'Give me their address, Lovejoy.'

To my horror he took out a pencil. The dolt wanted to drive to the cat's rescue. I felt like yelling, 'There isn't any bleeding cat, you silly sod.'

'No, Cromwell.' I gripped his arm. 'I was trying to shield you .. .'

'It passed away?' Tears dripped from his chin.

I felt bad, especially after the way I'd struggled to save the poor cat, carrying its broken body to the dimly lit farmhouse. Except there wasn't any frigging moggie. No accident.

No thoughtless diplomat. My imagination will get me in trouble one of these days.

'Yes.' I looked into my empty glass, sighing. 'If only there was some way to get back at him. There never is, is there? You'd need money. I gave my last groat to the farmer's wife. The poor kitty deserved a decent burial.'

Cromwell took my glass. 'What'll you have, Lovejoy? Have you eaten?'

'If you insist,' I said. 'Ta. Ask Unis for a full nosh, please.'

And settled back in the warm to listen to the gossip.

During that pleasant evening – the last quiet spell for some time, though I didn't know it – Peggy Price brought me a glass to divvy. Cromwell had gone to phone somebody. I was drowsy after two meals and wine. Peggy offered me a refill, but I couldn't help thinking how she'd sped her late husband on his way with a fry-up sprinkled with sundry vitriols. I declined. She rummaged in her bag.

'This glass, Lovejoy.'

No wonder I'd gone wonky. She brought out a drinking glass in one of those bubbly plastic cases that protect against breakages. It was a beautiful piece of Anglo-Dutch soda glass, engraved with a coat-of-arms. Seventeenth century, it felt typically lightweight, its cup thin as a wafer. The surface was crizzled, all little cracks that make the glass look frosted. I used Peggy's loupe. Sure enough the engraving was shallow, mere scratches engraved with a diamond point.

'The foot's flat as a fallen arch,' I joked, giving myself time to get my breathing back.

'These Anglo-Dutch drinkers are always flat across. Anglo-Venetians have an inverted cone space underneath.'

'It's genuine, then, Lovejoy?' Peggy breathed.

'Say that the bubbles in the stem "exhibit the freestyle glassblower's art", or some such junk,' I advised. 'Buyers expect it.'

This actually means that if there are any bubbles in the decorative swellings in the stem, they'll be asymmetrical. This isn't a stunning instance of brilliant artistry. It's just that the glass they used in those days cooled at speed, so the glassblower didn't have time to get it even all round. It's off kilter.

She bussed me enthusiastically and asked, pen poised, 'How much, Lovejoy?'

'Hardly anything, love. Sorry.'

It had two chips on its thin rim. The flat wide foot was also chipped. A scale of glass had fallen from the bowl –water can creep into the crizzles, you see. If the glass isn't dried in the warm, the water might actually freeze and lift away a flake of the actual glass. It's heartbreaking, the way people treat their glass. Worse even than women with pearls, and that's saying something. The worst crime of all, though, is to put them through a dishwasher.

'Don't get me started, Peggy,' I said, sadly returning her glass. She was mortified.

'Will you look at some more stuff for me, Lovejoy?' she asked. 'I bought a job lot in Norwich last week, a commission for Mr Eggers. He's American, staying at Saffron Fields.'

'I've heard of him,' I said, wondering what now.

She coaxed, 'I'll stand you supper.'

Supper with our poisoner? 'Er, ta, love. Some other time.'

It was then that Unis called me over and gave me a bulky envelope.

'A street busker brought it for you, Lovejoy. Feels like money.'

'Just some newspaper cuttings,' I said, wondering who was sending me messages at this time of night.

As soon as Peggy had returned to her bar stool I slipped a finger into the envelope and saw more money than I'd ever had in my life. I put it away, casual, but Peggy was watching.

When she went to the loo I ferreted out the message, shielding it from curious dealers.

It read, Dear Lovejoy, Come this instant! Sandy.

As if I wasn't in enough trouble. The gelt was presumably the retainer Consul Sommon had mentioned. And Sandy was confirmed as heavily involved, because he never paid even legitimate debts.

That was my last peaceful evening before the deaths. None of it really was my fault.