Every Last Cent

30

CORA is the best female burglar we have. Women are twenty per cent of all burglars, a fifth, save working it out. Most are men, except for shoplifters like Alicia Domander. I don't know the statistics on kleptomaniac mongrels, so I don't count Peshy. Not that women burglars aren't any good, because when they happen along they're superb.

Cora is a quality thief, only you've to choose the right job. To remind you, the ulk –

robber's word meaning the place to be burgled – was Eleanor's garage in my lane, and the stuff already addressed to me c/o baby Henry's mum. If I'd wanted, say, the British Museum done over, maybe I'd choose myself, even, like I did once. Cora, incidentally, doesn't look like a cat padder, just a plain lass about thirty with freckles and long hair and neat feet.

'It's right up your street, Cora,' I told her. We met in a motorway service complex. She watches her bloke give out parking tickets. He's a traffic warden and she loves him.

Could anything be more sickening?

'No, Lovejoy. It's right up yours!' I got the joke; it's my lane.

'Ha ha,' I said gravely. 'No hassle, love. Understand?

The babby's safe, the lady's safe. The husband works the shore watch, so careful, okay?'

'I lift the torn from her garage. Then?'

'There's about thirty postal packages, some quite big, all addressed to me. Take them to Dedham. The publican's wife there keeps a cran for Tex.'

'Tex the wrestler? Oooh, I like him!'

A cran is a place to drop antiques – hole in a wall, derelict shed, an eel-catcher's pool, some old warehouse roof, anywhere nobody would think of.

'How much?'

This is typical. People don't trust anybody nowadays. Aged five, I'd been at school with her third cousin. I tried reminding her of this close family link but Cora has a heart of stone.

We agreed on a price. She said she'd take it 'on the arm', as antique dealers say for something owed. I watched her go. She never carries tools, always does a clean job.

She used to be a convent housekeeper, even went into Holy Orders as a novice nun, but finally decided to forsake piety for a career in theft. I like happy endings. It takes character to realize the error of your ways. I should know.

That job arranged, I drove to the hospital, where to my alarm I learned that Florence Giverill had been discharged. The nurse gave me the address. I looked at it a long while before asking, 'You sure this is right?'

'Certain.' She eyed me. 'Only, she'll need help.'

'Is she still poorly?'

'Her and her husband went bankrupt the day of the accident. Bailiffs took everything, their house, savings. She's gone to her friend's. Take the slip road towards—'

'I know it.'

I ought to. It was my home.

She was asleep when I arrived. It was getting on for dusk, about the time Cora should be filing her jemmy and coiling her ropes, whatever she does. I deliberately didn't look down the lane. There was a candle burning in my window. Welcome home? I made a deal of here-I-come noise, and went in.

'Wotcher, love.'

'Lovejoy?' Florence sounded scared. She was on my one upright chair like waiting for an interview. 'I'm so glad to see you.'

'Brewed up?'

'Nothing works,' she said. 'No water, no electric, no telephone.' She caught herself. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean ...'

'Course you did. It's true.' I always joke at penury. What else can you do? 'Here.'

I pulled out my divan and led her to it. She sank on it. I took off her shoes and gingerly lifted her legs, expecting her to yell but she didn't. Telling her to stay put, I drew water from the well in my frying pan. I filled my battered kettle and boiled it using petrol from Alicia's motor. Make a hole in the ground, drop in some petrol, light it – stand back –

and balance the kettle over the flame. If I hadn't learned these tramp's tricks early on I'd not be here. We had tea.

Sensible of me to bring provisions on the way from the hospital, except I always forget something vital. Like, I'd no butter or margarine though I'd bought nine loaves. The thing about shopping is that I'm easily hoodwinked in supermarkets. Their come-ons con me: 'Special offer! Four for the price of two! Six for the price of three!' So I'd got enough skimmed milk ('Ten pack for the price of five!') to have a bath in. I'd got six fresh mackerel with no freezer to preserve them. And I'd to slog through ten cream cakes or let them go bad. See? I'm taken in.

It must be easy shopping for a family, but it's hard on your own. I keep finding necrotic fruit in nooks about the place, because of some special offers on bananas two months ago. I go all magpie, not having the sense to realize that I only ever need one bunch at a time because I've only one gob. Daft. Women are better at it but grumble more. I should remember what the Greeks used-to say when their eyes got bigger than their bellies: 'Even Apollo can only eat once a day.' But out shopping I believe I'm really sensible. I've come home with enough to feed regiments believing I'd saved a fortune. I don't think I plan well.

Florence, recumbent, roused to cast an eagle eye on my bags of grub and creaked across to sort it through, complaining, 'You must work it out as you go, Lovejoy. Who needs four punnets of nectarines? And all these bottles of sauce?' I got narked and said she'd no right to come moaning and I was frigging tired. She looked at me and said she'd make us something. I showed her the firepit trick. She said it was primitive. What cooking isn't? I once worked as a kitchen scullion in a bad patch, and it was sheer carnage. She fried some eggs, and herself ate barely a mouthful. I'd bought five dozen.

My gran used to say, 'There's only two sorts, luv. There's them as do, and there's them as doesn't.' Meaning workers and drones. Florence was a doer. She swept the cottage, put my clothes in soak, washed up, went and cut bits off bushes until I asked her to leave my plants alone in case she made them ill. We had a spirited disagreement about pruning – I think it's cruel, she thought it necessary.

'I bury Timothy tomorrow, Lovejoy,' she said after a bit. 'I haven't the money.'

'St Mary's? I'll see to the cost, love.'

Her eyes filled in the candlelight. 'Timothy said to come to you if anything ... I don't want to impose.'

'He was right.' I added a white lie, 'That was our arrangement.'

'Timothy was going to retire this year. He said we'd be in clover, until all this began.'

She wept a while as I looked at the candle. 'He was so frightened. I'd never seen him like that. I asked him to go to the authorities. He wouldn't. He said there was no way out. I loved him, Lovejoy. We were like children.'

What can you say? 'Stay here. I'll get the electric on tomorrow, and maybe the water and phone.'

'I'm so sorry. I'm a refugee.' She couldn't look. 'He didn't do anything wrong, Lovejoy.

He wouldn't, not Timothy.'

'You don't need to tell me that, love.' I thought I knew most.

'I never thought we'd – I'd – be homeless. It's like the world has ended.'

For a moment I looked into her eyes. 'The old one has, love.'

In winter I sleep in a nightshirt of my grandad's. Other times I kip in my nip. Though winter hadn't yet arrived, for propriety's sake I donned Gramp's voluminous cowl when she was decently lying there, face averted, and slipped in beside her. They say the word spooning is a Yankism, from the way spoons lie among cutlery. Only lately has it come to mean lust-filled snogging. We spooned, then, meaning just lying there and drifting off. I'd forgotten candles – another winning safari round Bennick's Super-Shop –

so let my lone glim gutter to a faint red glow. Then darkness.

Florence lay there breathing unsteadily, under my arm. She shoved back against me, which was a bit unfair, though it was only for warmth because women are always freezing. Thermophilic, they say of plants, but I don't know a word for women. I can't work out why their knees and feet are always frigid, or why their breasts stay cool even on hot days. Maybe when something's inevitable you don't need a word for it at all?

Like greed, to pick a thought at random.

About fourish – I knew the time from the clipclop of Hawker's shire horse; it has to get up and be got ready to drag those pointless machines about the fields at dawn –

Florence fell into steady breathing. It was only then that I let my mind off its lead to roam wherever it would. My eyes wouldn't shut, which was a pest, but then sleep doesn't get organized. I've always found that.

Timothy's funeral was in the morning, I warned myself sternly, so no vengeful thoughts. No vendettas, thank you very much. No itching to slay murderers. Peace, friends. The most I would allow myself tomorrow, no matter who turned up, would be a sad smile. I meant that most sincerely.

At six I rose, bathed in my tin bath – cold well water in my forgery – turned to grope for my towel and it was handed to me. Cora stood there, me naked. I yelped and clasped the towel.

'Morning, Lovejoy.' She eyed me as I dripped in my nip. 'Dry yourself, silly sod. You'll catch your death of cold. Anyhow, you're safe from rape. I'm angry.'

Standing shivering in the tin bath, I asked why.

'Eleanor's garage is empty. Not a box. The lock was broken.'

'Sure you got the right address?'

'Don't you dare.' She nicked the towel and turned me round to dry my back. Even so I modestly covered myself with my palms. Why on earth, when she was behind me? God didn't give us enough hands.

'Any idea who?' I asked.

'No idea. They knew their stuff, whoever they were.' She draped the towel over my shoulder. 'You pay, understand? One week from now, on the nail.'

'Course.'

'Want me to come in for a minute?'

'I've got a visitor, but ta.'

She left then. I didn't hear her motor, but by the time I emerged there was no sign.

Like I say, Cora's a real pro. Inside. Florence was lying awake.

'Will you come, Lovejoy?' she asked.

'All the way, love,' I said, like it was Timbuctoo instead of a funeral at our village church.