Every Last Cent

25

THE FIFTH EVENING me and Alicia noshed in a tatty restaurant near Cambridge. It had to be neff, because Peshy had to come too. It swilled Earl Grey tea and steak, all in one bowl. I could tell that Alicia was working up to a question.

'Lovejoy.' She twiddled her earring, like they do when they're trying to get away with something. 'Will you answer a question?'

'No.'

'Pwetty please, diddumsy-widdumsy?'

I honestly think that pet people aren't right in the head. I told Alicia that. She answered cryptically, 'That from a tart-exploiting rough who chats to antique furniture, Lovejoy?'

Which I thought unfair, but that's women.

'What?'

'That cow Biddy, from Blue Barn Mansion, Suffolk.'

'Don't know the woman,' I lied.

'Come on, Lovejoy. Tell me.' She leaned over the table, candlelight into contours. 'When we drove past there the other day I suggested we pay a quick visit. It was open to the public. We could have lifted a few nice things. You got shirty and made me drive on.

Why?' She smiled, licking her lips. 'Was that scam you?'

'I was in clink when that was burgled,' I said, cold. 'How could I?'

She leaned further. The boggle-eyed waiter poured us wine practically into her cleavage. His hand shook.

'Okay, I'll tell you.' Otherwise she'd go on about it.

The story was simple enough.

Once, I stayed at a posh lady's house. County set, daddy in parliament. Biddy was dynamite, went skiing in those resorts where avalanches kill you. She seemed to own most of everywhere we went. When, scared, I stammered something about money to pay for the hotels and things, she hooted with laughter. She owned a string of shops.

They sold – wait for it – lipsticks and bras. Can you imagine making a living out of that?

Anyhow, Biddy had a dozen guests to dinner – which is your evening nosh to the rich, instead of midday grub like to us plebs. During it, she said out of the blue, 'Lovejoy, be a daaahling and bring some Barolo from the cellar. The best year. Gavain is busy.'

Gavain the butler. At the time I thought it a bit odd but obligingly went. Blue Barn Mansion was terribly grand, stuffed with antiques that the public paid to see. As I left I heard her giggle.

In the corridor I paused to look at a small oak side-table that stood against the wall.

Maybe I have a burglar's silent walk or something, dunno, but I have the hearing of a bat. This table was lovely, with typical non-circular pegs that stood proud of the surface, the way old ones really should. No drawers, but so what? Genuine seventeenth century.

I smiled my thanks to it in case it thought I was being cheeky mauling it like I had.

Suddenly I heard Biddy – nicknames are go, in the county set – say, 'Honestly, isn't he an utter boor?' to trills of laughter. I froze. Was he me?

'Honestly, Biddy, dwaaahling,' somebody drawled. 'I don't know why you pick these tramps up. Aren't we rough enough?'

More laughs.

'Did you see him when I asked him his opinion of the new champers?' Biddy tittered.

'He went red as fire! What an ignoramo!'

Yet more merry hoots as they fell about. In the cellar I seized the first bottle that came to hand. I took it up. Their faces were composed when I re-entered, but you can tell when everybody's laughing. I realized then that, coming to stay with Biddy at Blue Barn, I'd made a bigger fool of myself even than the Almighty, and he'd had a good go.

I'd been blind from wanting her so badly. I'd been on show, the clown everybody laughs at. I'm pathetic.

'Sorry, Biddy,' I said. 'I couldn't see in the gloaming. Is it right?'

'Absolutely, daaahling!' she crooned. 'Except we rayther expected Barolo to be red.'

Everybody hid smiles. Talk began of tomorrow's riding party. I'd already learned that I didn't know how to ride anything except a pushbike.

That night Biddy and me made the usual smiles. I rose silently in the early dawn and left before she or anyone else was awake. I felt ashamed.

A week later I drew detailed plans of her residence for Pogger, a Manchester burglar. I chose him because of his photographic memory. It took him an unbelievable eight minutes to scan the drawings, then I burned them. On an agreed day I got myself arrested by deliberately causing an affray in Gimbert's Auction Rooms. I was in clink awaiting trial when somebody – nobody knows who –burgled Biddy's famed Blue Barn Mansion. It was such a tragedy. Burglars stole the furniture, paintings, cutlery, silver, glassware, antique flintlocks, wall tapestries, even the carpets. One odd thing, though.

Standing all alone in the centre of the emptied dining room – the scene of Biddy's giggling dinner party – Pogger had left a charming gift for the lady of the house.

It was a bottle of expensive red Barofo wine.

Naturally, I was accused. It was very unfair because you see I was in pokey, unable to raise my bail. I waxed indignant behind my bars, saying it was obviously somebody trying to fit me up. See how wicked some people are? Always ready to believe the worst of folk. There's no honesty these days.

Biddy's hysterical accusations were the sort that give antique dealers a bad name. She screamed untruths at the media, newspapers, the police, anybody who would listen.

'Oh, dear,' I said sadly when TV people came to interview me in gaol. 'I'm really sorry for Biddy. Usually she's so good-humoured. Why on earth would anyone burgle Blue Barn Mansion? Everything there is modern reproduction, including those fake portraits and silver ...' Which effectively barred her from claiming on the insurance. It was so sad. I mean that most sincerely.

From hardship, she got wed later that year to a rich bloke she hated. The happy couple returned to Blue Barn Mansion. Her husband, a fat old banker, is trying to restock the mansion with antiques. Our local dealers sell him tat, because neither he nor Biddy have a clue and are, of course, too proud to seek advice.

Alicia loved the story. She'd heard it from some pal of Gimbert's, only guesswork gossip but almost true in every respect. Strange how things get around.

'Served the bitch right,' Alicia purred. She relishes such tales. 'You should have ...' And proceeded to embellish, suggesting new ways to do Biddy down.

She did tell me one thing I hadn't heard, though.

'Had you heard? Biddy's shops have gone bust. Some insurance thing. They turned her down and she had to sell for a pittance.' She eyed me after checking that her wolfhound was replete. 'When you said we should leave Blue Barn Mansion alone, Lovejoy, I wondered if you still had feelings for her.'

'Not those feelings, love. She's only got dross.'

She brightened, but I gulped. I supposed it was my crack about her possessions all being fakes and repros that had made the insurers turn her shops down. Well, that's what luck does, changes good to bad. If only we could control things as we go on, wouldn't life be wonderful?

That conversation set me thinking. That night I was especially good value for Alicia. At least I tried to be, except all I can think is yippee. But I did have a go, and even bought her animal a tin of unspeakable grot that it wolfed for its supper, and told her a load of tales she hadn't heard. I had her laughing. Then we slept. I like Alicia, and Peshy is all right too. We were quite an effective team, really.

Next day, though, life bungled things badly.

Alicia and Peshy started the morning off doing a shoulder in Cairhirst and Thremble's, the big auction rooms north of Cambridge. The security there's never been any good, so I felt at ease leaving Alicia to it while I went to the railway station to phone Bernicka.

She answered the phone sounding terrified.

'Hello, Bernicka,' I began. I was so sure of myself, for hadn't I bribed her with a genuine (well, forged) drawing from the hand of her beloved Leonardo da Vinci? 'Did you see that Yank? What did you find out?'

'Lovejoy,' she said, her voice a gnat's whine. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'I'm talking about Leonardo da Vinci!' I croaked, thunderstruck.

'I want nothing to do with him. I posted your drawing back.'

She rang off.

Stunned, I stared at the receiver.

She didn't want Leonardo? Now, this was a woman who once stood in the rain all night gazing at a poster outside a village hall where somebody was going to talk on Leonardo's handwriting. (He wrote backwards, mirror writing.) Get the point? Bernicka risked pneumonia to see a frigging poster slapped on a billboard simply because it had her beloved's name on it. And reneged on a dozen highly paid careers, to make dud copies of Leonardo's nonexistent works.

She didn't want...? Worse, she didn't want?

Badly shaken, I sat on the railway platform. Don't incidentally try this yourself, because Eastern Network Railway's taken away all the seats in the interests of efficiency. You've to sit on the floor and catch your death of cold. Logic told me that Bernicka had been bullied. The persuaders must have been pretty potent, because nothing dissuades a woman in love. Passion simply changes her universe. Her whole life goes overboard. I too had been given the sailor's elbow, that terrible nudge-splash farewell, when Bernicka tumbled head over heels for Il Maestro. The world and everything in it suddenly came second. I shrugged and went on with life. Bernicka didn't, because Leonardo had taken over her soul.

Yet now she blithely tells me that Leonardo can get stuffed, sod off?

Impossible. I didn't know much, but I knew that.

Tough on Alicia and Peshy, leaving them unaided in the auction rooms, but what can you do? I got Alicia's motor and drove off. Well, I reasoned, I was in a panic but Alicia never was. And Peshy, not me, was her expert accomplice, the thieving little swine.

They could get on with it. I'd already told her where to book us in, so she'd come to no harm. I hoped.

Three hours and a nervy nosh in a motorway caff later, I parked a mile or so away from Bernicka's studio and walked footpaths to her place. I didn't want anybody gossiping that she'd at last got herself a live bloke instead of a dead memory. Her house stands near a wood on the outskirts of Hawanthorpe, a titch of a village. Since falling hook line and sinker for L da V she'd had this studio built. It dwarfed the family home, and even had two outhouses, said to be for mixing gunge that sculptors like.

Coming on the place, I heard voices. Any visitor's motor would be parked at the front, so I wasn't forewarned. I stopped in case they'd heard my approach, but they kept talking. Your own name springs out of conversation.

'Lovejoy's in serious trouble,' Olive Makins was saying. 'Worse even than the rest of us.'

My mind went, the rest of who, exactly?

'I'm sorry.' Bernicka was in tears.

'You understand? There's no way out. We must do as we're told, Bernicka. It's civilization or the Dark Ages.'

'I understand.' Sniff, sniff.

'If you don't toe the line, Bernicka, all your precious works of art will go to collectors.

Oafs, dolts, vandals. Can you imagine, Leonardo's greatest creations in some barbarian's brothel?'

A strangled cry of, 'Don't, Olive!'

'Even Lovejoy has come into line. He's just phoned. He'll start divvying for them tomorrow.' There was silence, then the soft command, 'Do it, Bernicka.'

'Yes, honey. Think of it as a simple misfortune, like Hugo.'

Bloody Hugo was getting on my nerves.

The day was gloomy, a steady drizzle coming. I went slowly round the side of the house, saw Olive's motor. Nobody else about. I slid in the side entrance. Bernicka had a cat, one of those grey things that looks a bit bald. It kips in a giant furry shoe thing, didn't even stir as I went to the corridor. I heard Bernicka sobbing. Something smashed, thudded. There started a constant crackling and shuffling. I thought, what on earth?

'No, Bernicka. Harder. Get going. It's survival. Sandy will be furious if you default. What was that? Is somebody out there?'

Maybe I caused a draught, made some noise. Footsteps came smartly across the studio floor. I darted out across the grass to the outhouses, trying to cover distance before Olive reached the door and saw me. I dodged round the first outhouse. The second was a tumbledown, crumbling thing. Its rotting door was marked GONG, the letters crudely daubed in faded gothic script on the door. I had a hard time yanking the door ajar enough to eel inside. Gong is old English for loo, a privvy, of the ancient sort they used before Sir John Harington invented the flush lavatory – with moving working parts!

Short of racing to the shelter of the trees, it was the one refuge.

Breathing hard, I pulled the door to. It was an old earth closet, disused, weeds snaking in, rime on the brickwork, dank as a Candlemas cauldron. A slice of daylight cut across me. I prayed I hadn't been seen. Distantly I heard that thump, crash, thump resume, and Olive's reassuring voice insisting, commanding, accompanied by Bernicka's faint wailing. I thought, what the hell's going on? Me to do whose bidding, to the benefit of everybody, because Sandy says Hugo insists?

No place to sit. Don't laugh. Rickety old boards were placed over the loo. Sir John had written a whole treatise on his flush gadget in 1596, calling it The Metamorphosis of Ajax, bragging that it required merely 'a cisterne, not a whole Terns [Thames] full... to keep all sweete ...' It's a document that collectors go mad for nowadays. He made one of his loos for his godmother – she happened to be Queen Elizabeth I – and installed it in Richmond Palace, love his heart. Did more good for mankind than all the doctors and politicians before or since. He forgot to take out a patent, incidentally, but a clockmaker called Mr Cummings patented it nearly two centuries later and made a fortune out of that unique S-bend. A lesson for us all. The brilliant Joseph Bramah perfected it in 1797

– hence our slang word 'braumer' for anything superb.

Where was I? No place to sit in a gong.

No place to sit because of file boxes resting on a stack of papers. I looked. They weren't old at all. How very odd. A hiding place for modern documents? The last place anybody would think of looking, right enough. The instant I heard the activity resume convincingly in the studio I had a shufti. I mean, who wouldn't? I'm a great believer in privacy, but Bernicka had put me in this mess by heartlessly breaking her promises.

Okay, so I'd betrayed her trust, but whose fault was that? Well, mine actually... I paused and thought, hello, what's this? I caught sight of a name I loathed. Good old Hugo? I pulled it out. A summary of a creditors' meeting in London.

The boxes and the stacks of papers moved to the grassy floor, in grand style I sat to read.

Later, the daylight starting to fade, I slowly emerged from the outhouse. I'd heard a motor start up some time before, but thought it best to read on. I replaced the files and papers very much as I'd found them. You can't do much about a trodden grassy floor.

No sign of Bernicka. No light on upstairs, though it was fading day. I crossed to the house. If she caught me, I'd lie that I had shouted and knocked. The cat was gone. I did my burglar's tread and peered into the studio.

The horse statue was smashed to smithereens. Nothing left except a heap of plaster.

The structure was a mass of twisted wire. Tools lay all about. Wire cutters, hammers, mallets and a crowbar. My respect for Bernicka rose. Don't cross a sculptress. Bernicka could have fought a war with that tackle.

Then I remembered her weeping, that terrible wail and gulping sound she'd made as she'd destroyed her beloved Leonardo's sculpture while Olive had cajoled her. Uneasily I tried to shout upstairs but had no voice. The house was eerily quiet. I toured the ground floor, kitchen to front door, hall to living room. She wasn't there. Bernicka would never leave without locking up.

Finally I cleared my throat at the bottom of the stairs and called up, 'Bernicka? It's me, Lovejoy.' Then another effort, almost louder this time.

'Hello, love? You up there?' I tried humour. 'It's me. I thought I'd see how your, er, horse was getting on. You okay?'

In case she was in the bath or anything, 'Can I come up? It isn't anything, just something I'd like to ask. About,' I improvised stupidly, 'er, Il Maestro. Shall I come up?

Only, I think your cat's poorly. It looks a bit off colour.'

Nothing. There was no cat.

Then I got frightened. I started on the stairs, one at a time, calling.

'Did you say to come up?' I bleated. I could see daylight seeping from an open door onto the landing, a towel on a handrail. 'I'm coming.'

Another step. 'Is it okay?' Step. 'Me coming up, I mean?'

Finally two steps, bravely one more. 'Right?'

A sandalled foot hung over the edge of a bed. No movement. Was this bad? Or was she in a fuming temper at Lovejoy who'd betrayed her with a forged drawing?

Did it look pale? I was unable to recall whether she had pale feet. Where I come from you never go to bed with shod feet, like you don't dare put shoes on a bed. It heralds death, so watch it. I once got thumped for nearly doing that when I wasn't even three.

Not knowing superstitions was no excuse.

'Er, Bernicka?'

A leg. I craned to see. The other leg came into view. Sandalled. She wore a working brat, no gloves. Her cat lay on her. It looked stiff. I'd run out of stairs, stood there in her bedroom doorway.

'Bernicka, love. It's me.'

Nothing. I think you can tell. The cat didn't move either.

Bernicka didn't breathe. Her features, usually so vehement and coloured – she's really into emotion – looked drained and still. So utterly still. 'A mirror,' I said aloud to her, like she'd helpfully hand me a mirror to see if she was still breathing or dead.

In fright I raced downstairs and dialled 999, managing to drop the phone twice. I got a snatch of the Cuckoo Waltz played on some bloody cinema organ and an automated voice telling me I was in a queue, hold on please, the world of emergency services was champing at the bit to help but would respond as soon as they could be bothered.

Translation: they were still at that snooker match.

After a full year hanging on, couldn't have been less, somebody bored said, what? I told her to send an ambulance fast because a young woman looked dead. I ran back upstairs, budged the cat aside and tried shoving Bernicka's chest like they do on films. I think I got some air puffing in and out but wasn't sure. I tried counting like I'd seen in those American hospital serials on TV, but what was I counting and how fast? I stuck at it.

An aeon later ambulance folk rushed in. They wore thick uniforms, very macho, yelled a lot and undid cables. I left them to their game. I don't honestly know if their tardiness made a difference. The real delay had been mine, waiting in the decrepit outhouse, reading those hidden files, giving myself priority instead of coming out and taking a risk that Olive Makins might see me.

Instead I'd dawdled while Bernicka went upstairs and took whatever drugs she'd had to hand and dosed her cat so it came with her too.

While the ambulance lot did their thumping rituals I went to look in the studio. It was a ruin. Sketches of Il Cavallo were tacked to the walls, with the portrait of Leonardo looking down. A candle, thick and stubby, burned before it. How long since it had been lit? Two hours, three? Drawings of mock-ups were pasted to the door. A bunch of flowers, suspiciously new, stood in a vase amid the crushed plaster. Bernicka must have gone into her garden and picked a bouquet for her bloke's picture. She may even have walked past the outhouse.

She'd known what she was about to do.

Had Olive Makins known that would have been the consequence, Bernicka's suicide?

Her life's work for da Vinci had fallen apart because of what Olive said. I pondered this, while the goons upstairs rushed in and out.

Now, whatever else she'd been, Bernicka was that troublesome thing known as a woman in love. Okay, forget that she'd had the odd bloke now and then – she wasn't going to go short of physical love while she was a slave to Leonardo. Fine.

That being so, why take that terrible final step? The logical thing would be to sweep up and begin anew, right? To look, as I was doing that instant, at the heaped chunks of her statue and then start again. The Bernicka I knew simply wouldn't give in. Just like any woman who, deterred because her embroidery colour suddenly looks wrong, undoes the whole thing and simply restarts. It's what birds do. It's also what blokes do.

They curse that blinking wrong gadget, strip the engine down, and set about making new cogs for that steam engine they've set their heart on. It's human. Annoying, maddening, but human.

So there was something else. Something lethal. And Olive Makins, instrument of Bernicka's death as she was for Timothy Giverill's, knew what.

And now, after my slothful reading in the outhouse, so did I.

Time to see Sandy, to get my ghost paintings back, and find Mrs Thomasina Quayle.

A policeman strolled in, wanting to take a statement. I pointed into the house and said,

'The bloke who phoned the ambulance? He's waiting in there, mate. I'm with the ambulance.'

And walked away from my dead friend. I'm good at that.