Paid and Loving Eyes

CHAPTER TWO

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God knows how gamblers do it, but they fill any place with smoke. It’s beyond belief. I can’t see the point of smoking, which only proves I too was once an addict of the stuff. Fear beats craving in the craven, hey?

The barn is ancient, oak beams and wattle and daub. Hereabouts such buildings can’t be altered—unless bribes bend law. Josh Sparrow, the barn’s owner, is a fierce upholder of preservation laws. They’ve given him a rich living. He competed with avaricious builders to buy this bit of the waterfront years ago—then announced it was to be East Anglia’s Folk Epicentre. Conservationists rejoiced. They even gave him some award for Caring Commitment. Since then, the barn’s been used solely for illegal activities, gambling, meetings between factions of villains, general mayhem. Josh gets really narked when Pennine pipers and Lithuanian dancers want to hire it. I keep telling him to change its name, but he likes the classy sound.

“About frigging time, Lovejoy!” said our paragon of epicentric culture.

He’s always got a half-smoked fag dangling from one side of his mouth and goes about half blinded by his own smoke. Josh is forty, twitchy, always smells of fruit gums, plasters his hair down with some oily stuff. It must come free because he’s a stingy sod.

“Been driving for Gazza. They’re outside.”

He tutted through his smokescreen, this devout Episcopalian who deplores sin. He owns twenty-five per cent of Gaunt’s Tryste Service. The holy quarter, I suppose.

Of the half-dozen people here, I saw I could ignore seventeen straight off. They were the brawn, the retinues, recruited duck-eggs with less than one neurone apiece. I hate them. Why do these ham-and-blam brigades line walls everywhere from the UN to the White Hart tavern nowadays? The world’s getting like mediaeval frigging Florence, I’ve-more-assassins-than-you. Two birds, fifteen blokes, the usual ratio since equal rights dripped into the well water with the fluoride. They’ve all seen Ronald Colman films and dress early United Artists. I was cold, chilled, wet, hungry.

Three cheap chairs were arranged in a row in the middle of the barn floor under a cone of yellow light. The gelt sat there, idly contemplating the infinite, certainly not speaking.

Josh didn’t count. The two protagonists standing to one side twitching nervously didn’t count. I went forward into the light and stood before the trio. Grovelling’s served me pretty well on the whole. I quelled my sense of degradation. Shame’s no big spender, so doesn’t count either.

“Evening, John. Sorry I’m late.”

Big John Sheehan’s an Ulsterman. He actually should have counted several, but morphologically notches only uno. That is to say, he sits in a casual attitude of unsmiling threat. He clears his throat, you shut up until you’re sure it’s not the prelude to a sentence. His sentences, however you define the word, compel attention.

“?” his expression asked.

I explained about the Tryste job. He examined my face for perfidy, nodded okay after a heart-stopping moment.

“Josh gets docked half-crown in the pound,” he pronounced in that soft Belfast accent I like. Half-croyn in the poynd. “Sloppy, Josh.”

Sweating slightly—well, muchly— from relief, I said hello to the other two gelties sitting alongside him. Strangers. During politenesses I worked out what forgetting to remind me about tonight’s battle would cost Josh. Big John lives in pre-decimal money because he hates confidence tricks, unless they’re his. Two shillings and sixpence out of every quid was an eighth. Of all Josh Sparrow’s income for the month! Christ. For me, that would have been zilch. But for me it would have been a different punishment.

“Evening. I’m Lovejoy,” I said humbly.

“Good evening,” one said. “Jan. To assess the antiques.”

Elegant, suave, twenty press-ups at dawn, cholesterol-watcher. Tanned and immaculate. Had a gold-headed walking stick. Fake Edwardian, so not all that good an antiques assessor. Cosmetics stained his fizzog. Well, takes all sorts.

“Get on with it,” the other growled.

Rotund, heavy breather, thick features veined with thin purple lines. His teeth would be mostly gold, if ever he laughed. His cigarette slummed beside John’s cigar and Jan the Assessor’s slim panatella. But I bet No-Name could do as many press-ups as anybody else. And weighed heavier. He wore an overcoat that could buy three weeks in Gazza Gaunt’s sexy conveyances, bird included.

“Right, right,” I fawned swiftly. The two contestants came nervously forward. Their big moment.

“Who’s first?” Big John asked. And when nobody spoke decided, “Home team.”

“No,” the bulky geltster gravelled out. “The Yank first.”

I didn’t start to shake, but came close. Six suits leaned away from the wall. Big John’s line did likewise. The two gangs looked at each other with that serenity hoods wear before war starts. We all froze, except for trembles.

Big John nodded. “Right, Corse.”

The world relaxed, thankful it could orbit safely until next time.

Josh Sparrow dragged on a couple of floodlights, falling over wires and needing three goes to get the plugs right while his serfs carried a small japanned table in. I couldn’t help staring at Corse. I was thunderstruck. I’d never seen Big John countermanded before. And he’d backed down. It was like learning that God picks his nose. Feet of clay, or something.

“Lovejoy.” Josh was telling me things, and I wasn’t paying attention.

“Eh? Oh, aye. Ready.” I stepped out of the limelight.

The American advanced. She was dressed casually but clever, if you follow. Frocks can look almost exactly the same, cheap or rich. But some slight difference instantly tells you that one is a shop-bought end-of-sale good-riddancer, and the other classy and extortionate. This was the latter.

“Phoebe Colonna,” she announced, cool as you please.

She faced the three, standing for all the world like a girl about to recite. Small, hands folded. The pool of light made an arena of the flagged floor. No other lights, just the single shaded bulb above. The japanned table gleamed. I could make out the pale shirts and collars of the nerks around the arena. A mini-circus.

“Before I begin,” she preached, “I particularly want to thank you gentlemen for the opportunity of presenting my work here in East Anglia. You will observe that I have paid particular attention to the composition of the glass incorporated—”

“Get on with it,” Corse growled. His catch-phrase.

Phoebe gamely kept up her prattle as she hurriedly beckoned a serf forward. He carried a covered object.

“—questions of design integral to the complexities of rationale, creativity-wise…” Et mind-bending cetera. I bet she’d slogged, postdoctoralwise, to be that slick in balderdash.

I watched her reach out, still lecturing away, and gently lift the cover as floodlights splashed on…

Only on the Portland Vase.

“Lovejoy?” Josh timidly interrupted her to warn me, stay where I was, but by then I was already across and staring down at the object. Lovely, truly bliss. I started smiling. Time hung about for a minute or several.

“Can I?” I asked.

Phoebe checked with the three by a quick glance. Josh tutted, coughed away a smoke spume. I lifted it from its stand. Flat disc base, not the knobbed amphora type. Beautiful work. She made to point, guessing I was some sort of referee.

“See where I effected the cameo relief carving—my own patented blowing process—of the white outer layer?” She was so proud of her work. I could have eaten her.

“Thank you, Phoebe,” I said. My eyes had filled for some reason. Eyes are stupid.

She was moved. “You appreciate beauty, Lovejoy.”

Her vase was covered, I retreated, Phoebe smiled out of the way, and on came Steve Yelbard. He was a real artisan, decisive, no cackle, just put his piece down, lifted the cover and stood aside.

Thin, in overalls, scuffed boots, pencil behind his ear, he looked ready to make another ten soon as somebody got a furnace started. Another Portland Vase. Fake, of course. Which is the truth word for a copy, look-alike, reproduction, simulant.

I didn’t need to go over to it. Excellent work. Interestingly, his was the full amphora type, base dropping to a rounded point in its stand.

Now the Portland Vase is famous. Everybody knows it, and its story. Any Roman cased glass —layers made separately then heat-fused—is beautiful. The most gorgeous of all is the Portland. Cobalt-blue translucency, it looks solid black unless you try to shine a light through. Opaque white glass figures adorn it—Peleus and Thetis, a tree, a cupid, some sort of sea dragon, you know the sort of thing; all those deities whose names you can never get the hang of. That’s about it, really, except that there’s only one. The British Museum has it. And here we were with two. Isn’t life grand?

Corse the charm-school graduate grunted, “Shift. Let’s look.”

I stood aside. Steve Yelbard waited, talking technology with Phoebe. His eyes never left her Portland. She talked attractively and laughed merry laughs. The three rollers stalked round, looking at the two glass pieces. They hadn’t a clue. A roller is a big investor in antiques. Any old, or even new, antique will do as long as it’s worth a lot. They’re nerks on the whole, but usually dangerous. I cleared my throat. Nobody stopped talking. Steve was the only one who looked at me.

“I saw your exhibition in St Edmundsbury, Steve. Not bad.”

He brightened. “My prototype?” He grimaced. Real glass-makers always apologize, knowing nowt is perfect.

“Two prototypes,” I reminded him. “One’s base was disced, like Phoebe’s. You decided against it?”

“I believe the original was in a true Greek amphora shape. The point removed and later replaced with a disc. Lovely, but twelve centimetres —”

“Twelve point one.” I nodded. “And a different blue.”

He took instant offence. “I wasn’t shunning the challenge, Lovejoy. It’s a question of what’s artistically right.”

“No talking!” Corse snarled.

I leapt away and shut up. Jan was chattering, displaying his awesome vocabulary, making an impression on everyone listening, chiefly himself.

“There’s a positive vibrancy of intellectualization, risk for risk’s sake, atavistically speaking…”

And all that jazz. Phoebe was smiling, pointing out features of her superb vase. Lights were being trained while the gelt men peered and squinted at the two Portland Vases. Talk about a bloody pantomime. They got fed up after a few moments and strolled back to their chairs. Josh fetched me, plucking at my elbow as if trying to unravel my shabby jacket.

“Well? Which, Lovejoy?” Time for me to point the finger, and get either Steve or Phoebe a fortune or penury.

The floodlamps were extinguished. The shade cast its golden cone over me. I stood there like on trial. For an ugly second I thought how frigging unfair this all was. I mean, just because I’m me, they shovel this responsibility—

“Yelbard.” I ahemed to clear the squeak, tried again.

Jan swivelled, looked at Sheehan, Corse, then me.

“That’s preposterous!” he exclaimed. “The American piece is fabulous! It’s perfection! Why, the Yelbard replica is…”

Silence is refuge when tyrants differ. I stayed silent.

“Lovejoy?” Big John interrupted.

Corse was darting suspicious glances. His goons came off the wall. So did Big John’s. Jan pranced to the table desperate to prove me wrong.

“What’s the point of asking Lovejoy?” He indicated Phoebe’s piece. “I’ve made a lifetime study of ancient glass. I tell you this divine piece could be the original Philip Pargeter replica! It’s totality is perfection —”

“What’s this pansy mean?” Corse grated. “I came here for a ’ckin’ definite. No maybes! You can’t put money on a frigging maybe!”

“I think you’ll find, gentlemen,” Phoebe interposed smoothly, “that Mr Fotheringay is correct. I based my work on the famous reproductions of the original Portland Vase made by Pargeter and John Northwood, dated 1876. You will find —”

“Lovejoy,” Big John said quietly. “The arts man says you’re wrong. Why?”

I’d rather have stayed in the rain to catch my death of cold among the trees. I swallowed to get my voice going.

“Because he’s right, John. Because the American girl’s right, too.” I nodded at her Portland. “It’s beautiful. But she didn’t make it, did you, Phoebe?”

“What’s this beautiful shit?” Corse spat a stream of saliva in disgust. I moved my foot in time. “We’re here to back the best fake.”

“There’s only one fake here.” I glanced at Steve, who was starting a slow smile. “Steve’s.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, Lovejoy—”

Phoebe’s face suddenly went ugly with fear. Her voice pitched higher. Odd that terror uglifies a bird, when passion beautifies them so. But it was either her or me, with Corse signalling his suits into their ominous lean. I cut in.

“There are several copies of the Portland in glass, Mr Corse. Not counting Josiah Wedgwood’s famous pottery jasperware efforts. It started with Edward Thomason at Birmingham Heath, 1818 —unfinished. Then Pargeter and Northwood had a few goes. Some bloke called Locke in mid-Victorian times…”

I petered to silence, not because I’d run out of things to say, but because Big John had frowned slighdy. Slightly’s enough, to cowards.

“How come the lassie knew his name?” he asked.

“Whose name?” Jan said, face draining. Big John meant him.

Nobody answered, far worse than uproar.

“Look,” Jan said, trying a laugh that convinced nobody. “I’m well known. I write for a dozen periodicals. I—”

“As Tiffy Tiffany,” Sheehan said. “Your newspaper name.” His voice goes softer, the more threat within. “You’re anonymous.” Hurt showed in his brogue. “I paid for that information.”

All the suits were edging closer now, glaring. I looked about but there was nowhere to go.

“Please,” Jan was saying, tone ascending like a prayer. “Please. I had to make sure. Don’t you see, Mr Sheehan? I couldn’t leave an investment this big to mere chance!”

He was squeaking in fright. The girl was trying to get out but the circle of hoods closed. She struggled genteely a second, then tried indignation.

“Well! If you can’t listen to reason…” All that. Useless.

“We been done, John?” Corse scraped a cough, cast his fag end in rage. “The Yank bitch and this poofter?”

“It isn’t like what it seems!” Jan was shrilling, frantic, appealing desperately to Big John. “This is serious money! A fortune —”

“Ronnie,” Big John said.

Three cube-shaped hoods came and hauled Jan away. When I looked, Phoebe was already being bundled out of the rear door. It slammed with echoing finality. I tried drying my clammy hands on my trousers. Steve seemed frightened. It’s the safest way to be. I know.

“Lovejoy?” My cue from Big John.

“Phoebe was showing you a genuine old Pargeter copy. She’d not made it herself. That way, she’d win this contest and get the job.”

“And our money…” Corse choked, his face a vast sweaty plum.

“Josh,” Big John intoned.

Josh Sparrow came at a low creep, quivering and bleating. “John, I swear to God. On my mother’s life. My baby’s head. I never had any notion there was a scam. I honestly don’t know what’s happened —”

“What did?” Corse grunted.

Happen? My turn. In a wobbly yodel I managed to start. “Your competition was to fake the Portland Vase. Phoebe submitted a repro made in the 1870s, by famous old glass-makers. Steve here submitted his own work.”

“You sure?” Corse loomed over me like solid cumulus.

“Positive. Hers felt antique. Steve’s doesn’t.”

Corse’s great puce visage cleared. He rotated, looked at Big John. “Here, Sheehan. Is Lovejoy a divvy?” And got a nod, thank God.

“I am, yes, I am!” I said, desperate to show I was agreeing with everybody, especially BJS. I’m pathetic. I was still cold.

“That’s okay, then,” Corse said, to my vast relief.

“Josh,” Big John said, as everybody relaxed and started shaking hands on unknowable deals. “Six and eightpence in the pound. For four months.”

“Right, John!” Josh croaked brightly, grinning as if he’d just been awarded a knighthood instead of having to cough up thirty-three per cent of his income for the next twelve weeks for letting mistakes happen on his territory. Still cheaper than death, though.

They paid me a groat and let me go, into that slippery old rain. That was the start of it.

Sometimes a vehicle can seem a real pal. A goon gave me the keys as rain chilled my face and motor-car doors slammed and serfs lurked about the loading bay. I stood watching them go, weakly raising a hand—ignored—in salutation to Corse, then Big John. The vehicles splashed past. Other saloons started up, roared after. No sign of Phoebe Colonna, or Jan Fotheringay of great renown. Gulp.

Alone and safely out of it.

I got in the cabin and sat there in the darkness to let my sweat dry. Escape comes in many guises. Across the estuary, lights winked. The harbour’s opalescent sheen toned the night sky. Peace. I started the engine, drove out, heading along the wharf towards our town’s orange sky glow.

Then the customer’s buzzer sounded loudly in my ear, frightening me to death.

“Lovejoy?” a woman’s voice said on the intercom.

Diana? Still here? I thought the goons had run her and her tame shag back to the limousine-riddled lay-by whence they’d come.

“What the hell are you doing still in there, silly cow?” I swerved nastily, yelled into the squawk-box. “You made me jump out of my frigging skin.”

“Thank goodness,” the intercom said with relief. “For one moment I thought you were one of those hulks, Lovejoy. Find a quiet place where we can talk.”

“Get knotted, missus,” I said. I was blazing, really narked. “You’re going back to Gazza Gaunt’s garage—”

“Or I’ll complain that your incompetence exposed the Tryste Service to the police, my influential husband, the Vice Squad…” Women’s voices go sweet when they threaten.

“The Drum and Fife’s got quite a nice secluded lounge,” I said politely, swallowing a bolus of pride.

“Good, Lovejoy. You learn quickly.” It was a purr. She’d never swallowed pride in her life. I could tell, she’d defend her pride with blood. I wish now I’d remembered that, but once pathetic, always.