Every Last Cent

23

ALICIA DROPPED ME at the chapel. I skulked down the lane. I'd told her to pack, tell our destination to nobody, then drive to the nosh van on the Ipswich road.

No bobbies lurked among the hydrangeas, no sudden rustling in the ivy. The door was fastened by the same old twists of wire I always used. La Deighnson hadn't caught up with me yet. Safe! I eeled in, smiling, and halted.

The woman stared at me. Same person, ankles primly crossed, gloved hands on her lap. I thought, I've seen you before.

'Good day, Lovejoy.'

She spoke like teachers used to, fingers drumming. 'I'm waiting...'

'Er, refresh my memory, please.'

Even as I spoke I thought, she's the bird who asked me to guard that painting I'd forged, wanted a report every day, week, whatever.

'Look, missus,' I began, clearing my throat. Making dud excuses always makes me nervy. 'I've had a lot on. I think you'll have to find somebody else. I've to go away a few days.'

'You have entirely forgotten, have you not?'

She actually said it like that, Have (pause) you (pause) not (pause), then a long time afterwards came that ? I was left admiring, but conscious that I'd been soundly told off.

She was the woman who'd given me my forgery of Geof-freye Parlayne's wife, Lady Hypatia Parlayne of that ilk. I plundered my feeble memory through mental murk. This was the woman who believed that her – my – forgery was in fact a Cromwellian masterpiece. I was to protect it against thieves. My headache came like a wolf on the fold, slamming my temple and making my eyes uncertain of gaze.

'Er, certainly not! You're, er. . .' She wore a wedding ring. Hadn't she said she was a neighbour of Darla Vullamy? Something like that.

'I am Mrs Thomasina Quayle. I paid you to protect my rare antique portrait. The contract is legally binding.'

'Er, sure it is!' I said brightly through a mask of pain in half my head. 'You want to see it?'

'If you please, Lovejoy.'

She followed. I led the way to my workshop, asked if she'd wait a sec as I went in. I crossed to the far end and hauled up the old flagstone. It isn't a trapdoor like the one in my cottage. It's just a simple flat paving slab with an iron ring in it so you can lift one end. There's nothing beneath except a level metal tray, for whatever canvas or antique I choose to lay in it.

Nothing.

I stared, my heart banging. I lowered the slab with a thud, retraced my steps, returned, lifted the damned thing a second time, gaped. Zilch. Nil. Empty.

I thought back to when she'd come. What did she actually say, that day? 'It's already in your . .. shed,' when I'd asked her where her portrait was.

After she left, I'd gone to the workshop, seen it leaning against the wall. I'd examined it, still thought it pretty neff, then gingerly laid it down, covering it with a pink bedsheet some bird had left. Now, there was the selfsame sheet neatly folded on the old beech easel I use for landscape forgeries. (Folded neatly? Moi?) The security tricks I normally use –threads on the earthenware floor, dust sprinkled around the easel – were undisturbed. So how in God's name had the thief nicked the portrait, in its frame, from beneath the flagstone? The cobweb I'd layered over the iron ring hadn't been disturbed. You get the cobwebs on dewy morning grass, and it's a good trick – until now, foolproof. It was just gone.

'Yes, Mrs Quayle!' I cried, emerging brightly. 'There it is! Perfectly safe!'

She didn't move, stood there by the door.

I said gaily, 'I didn't even offer you a cup of rosy. Let me make amends!'

Eyes of stone. 'I must see it, Lovejoy.'

'I can assure you . . .'

'I paid. I want to see it. Now.'

The last word was like a pistol shot. The bloody woman wouldn't budge. What is it with these people? Suspicion, suspicion, suspicion. I swallowed. 'Actually, missus, there's been a bit of a problem. I happened to notice that the surface of the painting had bloomed a bit in one corner, so I varnished it – perfectly free! Gratis! I've improved its net worth. I can't move it for a week.'

'Show me my portrait,' she said quietly. That same terrible spaced speaking chilled me, every word a mile from its neighbour.

I noticed the mobile phone in her hand. She hadn't had it before. She was transmitting.

I suddenly didn't like Mrs Quayle. Still stunning, like all women, but I was scared. The thought came that she might serve the antiques raj.

'Right!' I said heartily, for the phone's benefit. 'I'll take you to it. Can I change first?'

Not a flicker. 'Where is it?'

I pointed down the lane. It only leads to the river and Seven Arches where the railway line runs.

'Eleanor's bungalow. I use an old garage. A minute's walk.'

'I shall accompany you, Lovejoy. Don't leave my sight.'

'Very well.' I found myself saying it like she would, syllables slow and spaced. Nobody catches accents quicker than me. I led the way into the cottage, asked to be excused a sec while I went to the loo. I closed the door, humming a catchy tune, stood on the edge of the loo and prised open the loft trapdoor.

Ten heartbeats later, I dropped from the thatched roof – several startled bats flapped a bit, disturbed having their nap – and was off, baring up the footpath to the main road. I wasn't defrauding Thomasina Quayle by escaping. Give me a few days, I'd knock her up half a dozen of the damned portraits. They're all as good as each other. I should know.

God's sakes, who better? I caught the bus at the churchyard and sank down in the rearmost seat until it reached St Peter's on North Hill. I caught Tinker on his trek from the Bugle Horn to the Welcome Sailor. He likes to be precise, law and ale money permitting.

'Here, Lovejoy,' he said, nervous. 'What we in here for?'

The Old Court Coffee House is the best coffee place in the Eastern Hundreds. Quiet, no mayhem, a living antique with a proper fire in the grate and decent chairs. It's a family place. You can get a swig of wine with your nosh, and nobody hassles you.

'We won't be spotted here, Tinker.'

'We in trouble?'

'A bit.' I told him about the accident to Timothy and Florence Giverill. He heard me out.

'I heard. Gawd rest the poor sod, even if he was in insurance.'

'Timothy?' I said, stricken.

'Dead an hour since, poor bleeder. Just heard in the Bull.'

For a while I said nothing. He understood, coughed a sympathetic cough that quivered the old rafters. I looked into the fire. Time I started thinking instead of running away. I told him I was leaving town with Alicia Domander.

He cackled, nodding. 'She'll see you right, Lovejoy. A right randy cow, her, but you already know that.'

'No, Tinker. An antiques run. Me and her'll sweep Suffolk, Norfolk.'

'Then what?'

'Scare everybody, stir the swine up. Unload every single item in Gimbert's Auction Rooms, a special one-off.'

'The lads will hate that, Lovejoy. It'll attract London bidders. Big money.'

'With Alicia and Peshy doing the shoulder, I'll have vanloads.'

'You're wanted, son, so watch out.'

'Who by?' I asked, uneasy.

'That poofter, Sandy. And some tart who talks like the telephone. And that Maud, Quaker's missus – here, you back to shagging her? And that American bird. And that actor geezer, calls hisself Jules now he's out of clink. And Tina, the one with that bloody great well in her house. And—'

'Tinker,' I said wearily. 'Shut it. You've got a job on.'

'Work?' he said. 'I can't, Lovejoy. My wound plays me up.'

'Get me an antiques kit. They'll be watching the craft shops. I can't go home and get my own. You know that tin biscuit box I carry about.'

'Right, son. What you want in it?'

'What I've had in it ever since Adam dressed, you ignorant burke. The essentials for examining antiques.'

'How the hell would I know?' he gravelled out, hawking up phlegm and spitting into the fire. It sizzled. And they say elegance is dead.

You don't need much to suss out antiques. Very few things are any use. My kit is lightweight. Anybody can make one. It saves many a mistake. They're mostly household things, easily got: a tape measure showing inches and centimetres; a x10

loupe (higher magnification is more nuisance than help); a colour chart (I use a Daler-Rowney one because art shops give them free – I pencil in dates the actual colours came in); a midget pocket calculator because I'm thick doing sums; a miniature pencil torch. The only valuable instrument in the entire kit is a McArthur microscope. There are cheap plastic versions, but if you can afford a unique original, get one. It's worth its weight in gold. You simply put it down on anything – wood, stone, metal, material, silks, whatever – and switch on. You look in, and it shows you a magnificent detailed view of the surface, just as if you were in a pathology laboratory. Then, in a tissue, two broken lenses from polarized sunglasses –essential for jewellery.

Lastly, I carry a little packet of carob seeds. That's it.

Doesn't sound much, but that little kit will save you a fortune in avoiding mistakes in antiques. The seeds incidentally are anciently the Ceratoma siliqua, supposedly the

'locusts' eaten by John the Baptist when he was doing his thing. Remarkably, they have hardly any variation in size or weight. For this reason the carob seed became our 'carat'

in measuring precious grades. They serve as a reminder, in case I feel any bidding madness come over me in auctions. 'Leave it, Tinker. I'll gather my own, once I'm on the road.'

Gloom took hold of him.

'I don't want you to leave town, son. What'll I do for a drop or two with you tarting around the Hundreds?' He looked piteous. 'I've got me bad chest back.'

'Excuse me, Lovejoy,' the lady called from behind her counter. 'Is the old gentleman not well? I could always make him a hot toddy, if you like.'

Tinker brightened instantly. 'Ta, lady. That's real—'

'No, thank you, love,' I said quickly. It could become an orgy in seconds. 'He'll be better in the fresh air.'

'Here, son. Nark it.' Tinker was outraged. I hauled him to his feet.

'You're coming too, Tinker.' I said so-long to the lady and got him outside, peering about like a cartoon cat to check the gardens were empty of foes. 'Here's a wadge. I'm heading east. Follow me on. Be there tomorrow noon.'

'East? But everybody says you're going to Stalham, Lovejoy.' He cheered up, feeling the bunce I'd given him.

Did the world know? Anyhow, I had to avoid that route now, or I'd get nabbed in a trice. 'No. East. I'll do Harwich first, them three antique shops near the Hook of Holland ferry. The nearest pub, dinner time, okay? Another thing. Find out who Hugo is.'

'Who the hell is—?'

Give me strength. I left him hawking up phlegm. I slid between the old post office and the theatre, and briskly walked the Roman wall to the railway station where I could get a taxi. It was all go. No sign of Thomasina Quayle. I vaguely knew that she'd said something important, but couldn't for the life of me get it straight. Luckily children were thronging from North Street School as I reached the river bridge, so I wasn't unduly worried about getting caught by my sundry creditors. I still had more money than I was used to. I could keep Alicia and her blinking Bichon Frise in luxury until we'd done the antiques sweep. Not enough money to burn, you understand. Just stealing enough to become temporarily rich.

On the bridge I bought a posy of those little blue flowers, the sort I like that grow wild in my garden. I dropped them into the river, watched them out of sight among the ducks. They were for Timothy. I'd settle the rest of the obligation later.

Then headed out.