Paid and Loving Eyes

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

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The pity is you don’t get many chances. Things should be different, but never are. Some folk make their mark. Like Jules Tavernier, a French painter of the 1880s. One of his paintings hung in Claire Fabien’s shop; with any luck I’d call eventually and buy. He was no great shakes, Tavernier. But he made his mark by simply catching the boat to Hawaii. Unremarkable? Not quite—he did for Hawaii what Gaugin did for another exotic place. Now, he’s immortalized, the epic painter of Hawaii’s sublime and awe-inspiring terrain. See? One decision, glory for ever. Wish I was like that.

I got the taxi to drop me off at the factory I’d been taken to by Lysette and somebody else, the night I’d been made to realize. Shaking like a leaf yet bold as brass I went down the steps and banged on the door. I hollered, yelled, kept thumping, and finally somebody came. He looked North African, though how would I know?

“I wish to speak with the Commandant,” I told him. My ponderous French seemed acceptable, but in the darkness his cataract gave him a wall-eyed appearance. It put the fear of God in me. “L’homme,” I added for good measure.

He tried fobbing me off, shook his head. I thought of trying to bribe him. In despair I said the magic word. “Je desire parler avec Colonel Marimee.” His expression cleared, apprehension stalking his mind. He was the bloke who’d whopped the children. I could hear the noise going on, that faint bustle, chants, shouts. “Il faut,” I encouraged him, and had a go at telling him I’d been summoned by Marimee himself.

Ten minutes later I was in a long saloon motor between two gross toughs. That is, they looked and smelled like pimps, but were lean as laths, wiry and ready for anything.

“Mon commandant,” I said to Marimee, who oddly was doing the driving. “I wish to warn the Colonel, with respect.”

“Speak.”

“I… I hate to say this, mon commandant, but today I saw sold, at the Louvre des Antiquaires, a piece of furniture that I deposited in the Repository.”

Silence. I cleared my throat, ready to embellish. His goons compressed me, simply leaning sideways. I said nothing.

“You are certain?”

“Mon colonel!” I said it as if proud with obedience, trying to be the good soldier I’d once failed to be.

“From whom?”

“It was loaded on a van, Monsieur. I tried asking, then became worried in case… in case…” His nod was almost imperceptible. ”I failed to get the vehicle number. I didn’t know if I should ask Monsieur Marc or not, but —”

“Marc.” Flat, impersonal. “He was there?”

“Oui, mon colonel. He received money. I was anxious not to be seen, you see. I blame myself, sir. I passed the emporium a little earlier, and thought then that some pieces being loaded up looked familiar. But I made absolutely sure of the last item. Should I have made a drawing of it for the Colonel?”

The motor didn’t move. We’d simply driven round the corner and parked. The night streets were deserted.

“You asked for me, not Mademoiselle Delebarre. Or others who hired you.”

“Oui, mon colonel. My duty. I was assigned to you, sir. Only,” I went on in spite of a distinct lack of encouragement, hammering it home, “it seems to me that if one item was stolen, then all may have been sold the instant they were deposited. I cannot understand how or why this could be. It seemed to me my clear duty to the Colonel—” I’d looked up some words in a pocket dictionary for the purpose of fawning exactly right.

Compressed to silence by my tough book-ends. We stayed there an age. I tried hard not to sweat, tremble, babble, promise not to reveal a thing if only he’d let me go. I kept persuading myself I was a baffled bystander, trying to earn a bob or two, wanting home. Instead, my mind kept wondering how they’d kill me, what it felt like, if they’d use knives, dear God not knives—

“You have done well. You are discharged. Cross La Manche.”

Cross where? What’s a Manche? The Channel! He meant clear off! I almost shrieked in a relieved faint, remembered to say yes, mon colonel and thank you, mon colonel, goodbye and it was an honour to serve under—

My foot hardly touched the ground before the car was off. I tumbled, lay there, letting the blissful sweat come as I stared up at the black sky. I’d done it, done it, done it…

Done what?

“If you think I’m flying in that frigging thing, love, you’re mistook.”

“Lovejoy.” Lilian had an auntie’s exasperation in her voice, though she was no auntie. It’s the woman’s inflexion, a kind of exasperation when a bloke doesn’t obey instantly. It’s the “I know what’s good for you so swallow when I tell you cadence of the nurse with the grueful spoonful, the We’re going to Bognor for our holidays voice. ”You’ve flown in one before.”

“I’d been shot then.” I stood rooted on the airfield.

“You’re not shot now.” She was half laughing, half screaming. “We’ve ten minutes. For heaven’s sake!”

“Helicopters fall down.” Two ground crew waited.

“It’s the safest means of travel, Lovejoy,” Gerald’s brogue put in. Why did he always sound doleful?

“You’re not going,” I spat, narked. He looked offended.

“It’s only an hour, Lovejoy. Lausanne.”

“Might as well be a million miles,” I argued. I’d gone clammy in spite of the wind—wind! Taking off in a frigging egg whisk in a frigging gale! Was the world mad?

“Less than two hundred and forty miles,” Gerald intoned.

“Shut up, you pillock.”

“Don’t talk to Gerald like that, Lovejoy!” from Lilian, real anger this time to show me where I stood. Just because we’d made smiles, she was warning me. “Didier Pascal’s people found Lysette Fotheringay at your hotel. She’s already on her way.”

To Lausanne? To where? I didn’t say. “You did ask for her to be found, Lovejoy,” from Gerald, fidgeting. I keep wondering how folk become what they become. Like, I’d have hired the meticulous, accurate, single-minded Gerald Sweet any day as a dedicated antiques-recovery sleuth, Lilian his travelling companion. Instead, it was the other way round. Why? I’d not had the courage to ask them if they’d picked me up by accident. I desperately wanted the answer to be yes, so chickened out.

“She’ll be there?”

“Yes. They’ve already been gone an hour.”

“Driving, I’ll bet! Why not with us?” So that Pascal could extract news from her in his black Citroen, that’s why. “I get airsick,” I protested feebly.

“She’s gone through a lot for you, Lovejoy,” mourned Gerald.

I gripped his tie. “Listen, you prat. I’m the one who’s gone through a lot. Nobody else. D’you hear?” His bald head glistened. He nodded, puce, his eyes goggling. Even in that position he took orders from Lilian, glancing behind me to see what she gestured.

“Aye, Lovejoy. Sorry, man.”

“Aye, well.” It was a private helicopter. That alone chilled my spine. I mean, air crashes are always chartered, never scheduled flights, ever noticed? Or is it the other way about? “It isn’t Air France, then.”

“Lovejoy.” Lilian, the spoon, the Bognor holiday. The last words of the Old King came to mind: Bugger Bognor!

Nobody had asked me about a crashed motor on the mountain road above the Repository. In fact, there had been very little news given out about the whole thing, except Explosion Partly Demolishes Furniture Storage Facility sort of thing. Lilian had seemed quite proud of the media’s inattention, silly cow. I’d told her my version, some even accurate. I had the feeling she’d believed most. It goes to show how poorly women co-operate.

“It’s okay for you,” I groused, stung. “Why doesn’t a helicopter have a giant parachute…?”

We fly south-east, the pilot started to tell us as his blades screwed the heavens and the engines deafened the world out. Gerald of course corrected him, giving points of the compass in millibars, whatever. Lilian held my hand unseen in the back seat, her cheek colour heightened at her dreadful temerity. I didn’t squeeze her fingers back, having probably fainted with fright. We landed in a trice.

Lorela Chevalier was smart as ever, really beautiful. She greeted me in the foyer of the theme-park hotel as if we were old friends. I’d made it a condition that everybody else stayed away.

“Welcome,” she said, a beautiful slim volume between two attendants. They weren’t the same blokes, but wore unresponsiveness like every armed squaddie. Why do weapons confer laziness on eyes, droops on hands, sloth on shoes? Somebody ought to research that. “How do I call you?”

“Wotcher, Lorela. Lovejoy.”

Her eyes widened a little, settled into understanding. “I’ve heard the name. That explains… Won’t you come in?”

“No, ta.” Somebody was hang-gliding in the distance beyond the picture windows. You could see a couple of horses trotting, a small whiskey with coloured fringes being driven on a hand rein by a beginner, a liveried groom trotting longside. A lake shone through trees. A moneyed holiday location; this was no Bognor, “Just show me.”

“Lovejoy,” she said ruminatively, leading the way to a lift. The two vigilantes came too. We descended without a starting judder. “East Anglia? Poor. Unattached. No premises.” She turned her lovely eyes to add, “Divvy? Like Leon Cabannes?”

“Like Leon Cabbanes was.”

She looked at me still. The lift door opened. A small train thing on a kind of rail set in the floor. She didn’t move.

“Yes. Very unfortunate, Lovejoy. The old gentleman was coming on to our staff the same week he passed away.” No wonder Troude and Monique ordered old Leon topped.

The train thing had no driver. I stared at it, queasy. I’d already been brave once today. Twice was snapping your fingers at Fate. “We get in that? How far is it?”

“It’s programmed,” she said smoothly. “It can’t go wrong.”

“Like your hiring schemes?”

She stepped in, arranged herself, nodded to three blokes standing about in gold jackets. I sat beside her warily. We started off, just me and her. Smoothest ride ever, down a cement tunnel. She had no controls.

“Tell me, Lovejoy. Was that dead man anyone to do with you? There was a crashed car down a ravine with a body—”

I clouted her, really belted her, grabbed the handrail in front of me to stop my hands throttling. She sat still. The little train was three coaches long, enough room for two bums a coach, six in all. No goons with us. A few moments, then she found some tools and started blotting her face to the accompaniment of that faint rattle their handbags always make.

We glided through two intersections, same speed, slowed, then through a vaulted arch. Steel doors rolled away for us. We alighted in a huge arched place. Hangar? On pallets, furniture in covered and even transparent seals. A fork-lifter whirred across an aisle about eight yards away. Music played softly, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. No external exit that I could see. Colour codes, and a stand plan like you get to explain tourist vantage points, but here to show where antiques dollops were stored.

“No, nothing, Jim,” she assured somebody who’d stepped forward with a grunt to start extermination of the visiting maniac. “It’s fine, really.” She swivelled brightly. “This way, Lovejoy! We arrange things here simply—”

I held up a finger. It was blooded. “Shtum, love.” My knuckle was unfortunately bloodstained, her cheekbone bruised to hell, though luckily I’d missed her eye. I walked away among the stored furniture.

It took three-quarters of an hour to check a good enough sample. Her blokes unwrapped the pieces I chose in the coded area. They hated me every second. Without her restraint they’d have marmalized me. Marimee’s stuff seemed all there, every single fake. Fake, observe.

“The genuines?” I asked finally. Odd that the beautiful fakes didn’t make me feel sick any more.

“I’m unsure,” she said, determinedly bright. “I think they’re here somewhere…”

“Don’t frig me about, love. They’re not.”

She nodded slowly, appraising me, lips pursed. “I knew you were a divvy, Lovejoy, when, ah, when you—”

When I what? Painfully I thought back, an all-time first. The penny eventually dropped. “When I directed the Jamie Sandy antique with the other genuines?”

“We always place one of our own, to mark a large deposit. Banks do the same, I’m told, using gold-bullion markers. Radioisotope labelling has become routine, even for political documents. The other group are… at another of our storage facilities.”

I stood hunched, hands in pockets. It felt cold down here. No snow, no cold winds, no mountainside, no pines plopping snowfalls in earthbound gulps, nothing to melt on your eyes and set your eyes running.

“Get rid,” I muttered to the floor.

Some deep bickering, then her men drifted. You could feel their anger. I waited until I’d heard doors whirr and thump. I looked at her. Her cheekbone was prominent, blueish. I almost exclaimed aloud, asked who’d done that. Me.

“They’ll be at you, love. Unless.”

“Unless?” She was composed, thinking away, lovely eyes on me. She had sense, this one. Ready for an agreement.

“Unless you say nothing at all to the authorities. And you can go on as before.”

“Which is how, Lovejoy?” She smiled because she was making me speak frankly when I didn’t want to. Women have a nerve.

“You accept antiques at the Repository, show customers how secure your Swiss fortress is. Then secretly van them elsewhere, simply transfer the antiques to secret locations. Like this, under a holiday theme park. Good cover, disguised vans, the lot. There really is no Repository, is there?”

“Promise not to tell, Lovejoy?” Ah, good old question time. “Ouch!”

Smiling had hurt her face. Served her right.

Pascal was filled with mistrust. I’ve been mistrusted by supercynics, and can tell. It says a lot for the Gallic character, I whispered to Lysette. She said to shhh, it was impolite to whisper in company. So why was she whispering?

He wanted to make a speech. I’d already said it wasn’t necessary. We were crowded into a caravan trailer. Air conditioning whirred. Too many of us. Pascal had three goons along. There was me, Lysette, the Sweets, and some uniformed bobbies.

“It’ll tip them off if you go in force,” I’d said when Pascal wanted to call his regiments out. “They’ll not come. You must wait until they’re all inside, then bottle them. See?”

They settled for road blocks. On permanent stand-by, to be put in place when I’d given the signal.

“Lovejoy,” Pascal ordered, umpteenth time. God, but I wished the bloke couldn’t speak English. They were all bloody linguists, except me. I mean, some Oxford goon’s worked out that there’s 403 septillion ways of combining letters in English—yet everybody else knows my language better. How come? I was especially narked that Lysette got on really well with Didier Pascal. What sort of a name was Didier, anyway? Sounded like a rocking horse, the bum. He’d already got Lysette to sit next to him, the eyes of a rapist. “You will signal only when all—repeat all— the syndicate has arrived. You do understand?”

“I’ve said yes three times. How many more?”

The seven uniformed officers sat stolidly listening, though I think they’d already got organized. One asked, “Where?”

“I’ll show you,” I promised. “Lend me a motor?”

“No,” Pascal said, exchanging glances with Lilian Sweet. I just caught her minimally shaking her head. “We go together.”

Which was how I finished up sitting in a twitcher’s hide watching the mansion house in the gladey garden below. It wasn’t going round this time. Its garden was absolutely still.

Two days later, they came.