Paid and Loving Eyes

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

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Lovejoy!” The last person on earth I wanted to see, Dicko Chave. He was impeccably dressed, tweeds to his eyeballs, handmade leather shoes.

My heart sank. “Dicko! Just in time, mate!”

He stood in the corridor, beaming. “Had difficulty finding you, old chap. Some young lady guided me. Seems like everybody’s talking about you there. Made a killing, what?”

“Er, aye. Look.” I was trying to explain my nakedness, towel wrapped round my middle. I lowered my voice. “The lady—remember my temporary partner, that I want to introduce you to? She’ll arrive in half an hour. I’m trying to get ready. Mind if we meet up in the residents’ lounge?”

He almost fell over with enthusiasm. “Certainly, Lovejoy!” He wrung my hand. “Never forget this, old sport. You’re a brick!”

I went in and shut the door in relief. Katta looked up from the bed. Credit where credit is due, a plump woman is real value. I realized I’d never seen her under the bedclothes. A natural counter-paner.

“Khoo theyet?”

“Eh? Oh, friend.” She flicked the towel from me. She stared. She had a smiley kind of stare, the most erotic I’d ever seen. She reached. She had an erotic kind of reach, the most erotic reach I’d ever felt.

“He naye-iss?”

“Aye. Yes.”

As we started to make smiles, and I groaned in bliss at the ceiling and she grunted with divine relish, a strange possibility came into what was left of my mind. I tried hard to register it for afters, so to speak, but failed.

“Lovejoy, mon ami,”

I’d been summoned before Pascal, the day after the deaths. He had two assistants with him. Lilian Sweet had Gerald and an official of some ministry. Two uniformed police worked transcribers. I’d never heard so much racket before, not even in a cop shop.

“Oui, Monsieur Pascal?”

“Did you know?”

Ponder for a sec. A minefield of a question. If I said no, he’d say, What didn’t you know? And thence et dangerous cetera into some Parisian clink. I could joke: Know? That France intended to demolish the Eiffel Tower in 1909, when it was a mere twenty years old, and build on the site…? but that’d nark him. You counter word tricks with a definition.

“Know? That the explosion was going to happen? No, Monsieur. How could I?”

“Indeed. How could you, Lovejoy?”

More mines, I nodded, grave and sad. “Even delaying so long, I worried lest I missed a couple. That’s why I took your watch, allowed myself only two more minutes. Less, even.”

“Marc was gardener-chauffeur at Mrs. Galloway’s lodge. The place you stayed as her lover when you first came to France, Lovejoy. Had you met him previously?”

Shrug, my own personal ineptly non-Gallic version. “Vaguely saw him about the place.” I straightened, honour bound. “But, I do not make any admission about the relationship between Mrs. Galloway and myself. The lady’s honour forbids me speak —”

“Oui, oui, Lovejoy.” He had a knack of making agreement sound disbelief. “Your firmness does you credit. About the events surrounding the explosions at the Swiss Repository.”

“I was in Zurich when that happened, I believe. But I had nothing to do with it.”

“You observed no similarities between the mansion house of yesterday and the Repository?”

A shrug to dispel surprise. “Similarities? I knew neither place. When I was taken to the garden party, for reasons that even now are unclear, I wasn’t even sure where it was.”

“Lovejoy. There will be criminal charges brought. Their precise nature is yet to be determined. For this week you will remain in Paris. Thank you.”

And I left. They’d booked me into a small hotel near the Pantheon, which pleased me. I was to report three times daily to the bobbies. Each time, Pascal had to be notified in case he wanted me. I realized with a shock that Lilian and Gerald Sweet had an office, a real genuine office, in Pascal’s division. Can you believe it? Their underhandedness took my breath away. What’s happened to fair play?”

Katta was waiting outside Pascal’s office on a bench, a picture of misery. She brightened when she saw me, leapt up and embraced me, cooing. I realized instandy that here was a woman filled with love’s natural warmth. She’d lost Paulie, requiescat in pace, her precious plaything, and wanted another. Just to tide her over, I said I was free and did she have time for a chat. I’m always ready to do friends a good turn. Anybody’ll tell you.

“Listen, Katta, love.” I stopped us just short of the lounge. “One thing. I’m really happy.” Nothing settles a man’s soul like a woman, but how do you tell her? “What I mean is, ta.”

“Oh, kyoo, Lovejoy!” She simpered, in her thick mascara, plastered lipstick, hair greenish, cheeks really rouged. You have to hand it to birds. They have real style.

“There’s one thing.” I hesitated. How to describe Dicko? The truth, when all else fails. Here goes. “Katta, love. Dicko is, er, new to women. You understand? He simply doesn’t know how to, well cope with a genuine female.”

“Ghee is…?” Her purpled eyes widened. She actually licked her lips. “Ghee feerjeenal? Layke chyoo?”

Virginal like me for God’s sake? I swear that sometimes I think she’s putting it all on. “Dunno. He’s certainly a beginner. Okay? But he’s a friend. So, well, go easy, okay?”

She seized me, grabbed me in an envelope hug and forced her lips on to mine. Her tongue rummaged my uvula. Passing hotel staff made approving murmurs. “Senk kyoo, Lovejoy! Setch er geeft!”

Dicko was waiting in the lounge, bouquet of carnations at the slope-arms position. He shot upright. The poor chap was desperate, expecting another failure.

“Katta, may I introduce my friend Dicko Chave.” I was on my best behaviour.

“Chow doo yoh doow?” Katta got out, coy and shy.

Dicko shook her hand. “Flowers for a flower,” he clipped out. The daffodils stood to attention.

“Heavens!” I exclaimed. “That the time?” I left them beaming at each other. A hit!

Exit Lovejoy. I’d keep his loan, my fee for effecting a lonely-hearts intro. Fair’s fair.

The street was abuzz with police. I watched from the corner among a small crowd. The factory was being boarded up. Cloaked folk stood gazing.

“It’s no victory,” somebody said close to my elbow.

“I know,” I said.

“It will simply move on, Lovejoy. More legions of slave children, different guises.”

“I know that, too.”

“Mrs. Sweet tells me there were five in Great Britain.”

“And the rest.” I always sound bitter, wish I knew why. I do try to sound light-hearted and chirpy. I’ve never yet seen me smile in a photo. I wonder what it is.

“They are introducing legislation…”

“Shut it, love.” When law steps in, truth flies out of the window.

I watched as the police loaded up the furniture, much partly completed, some hardly started.

“What will you do, Lovejoy? Now Katta and Mr Chave have got engaged?”

That made me turn and look. She tried to give me a hankie, silly cow. You can always trust a woman to be stupid. “I’ve already got one, ta. Engaged?” I thought she meant hired.

“To be married, Lovejoy.” She was near to a smile. “Katta asked me to give you this.”

Hotel notepaper.

Dear Lovejoy,

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes! My betrothed and I shall expect you at our wedding. Do bring a guest, darling.

Love from your new neighbour,

Katta

What had happened to the accent? That’s women for you. Me and Lysette strolled off. No good checking on the police now they’d finally got weaving.

“Mrs. Sweet wishes to see you, Lovejoy, tonight. She’ll call at your hotel.”

“She does?”

“It will take several sessions, I think, from the way she spoke. She has a massive inventory of antiques she wants you to check, before Miss Chevalier arrives tomorrow.”

“Miss Who?”

“Miss Chevalier. Monsieur Pascal told me there’s a way to reduce the criminal charges against you, if you co-operate with the authorities here, Switzerland, Great Britain.”

“Meaning co-operate with Lorela Chevalier?” I’d saved her firm, her reputation, her antiques, her job… She’d tried to phone me at the hotel a thousand times. I’d finally left the receiver off the hook while Katta, er, swallowed my pride.

“I think so, Lovejoy. And Mercy Mallock will be with you soon. She faxed the hotel.”

“Mercy?” I brightened. “What’d she say?”

“Her letter is too long, too personal, and impertinently presumptuous. You must have nothing more to do with her.”

We turned into the street gales, par for Paris. This was starting to look sour. I mean, Katta’d served, as it were, her purpose in detoxifying my soul with her unique brand of adventurous love. But Lilian Sweet was a different proposition. Back in East Anglia I’d not last an hour if word got about that a SAPAR hunter had decided to cottage up with me. And Lilian had proved her determination more than somewhat. I’d not shake her off in a trice.

Lorela Chevalier on the other hand had definite possibilities. Lovely, attractive, feminine as a flower. But with the giant responsibility of her great Repository? And willing to offer heaven-knows-what for me to replace old Leon? To live with the glorious Lorela, in utter affluence, comfort, warmth, wealth, surrounded by the densest collection of perfect antiques the world could assemble? I’d die of ecstasy in a week.

No Paradise for the likes of me.

“Are you going to the hotel, Lovejoy?” I’d stopped at the square where me and Gobbie’d met. And Lysette.

“Well, aye.” I felt uncomfortable. I’d nearly said I’d nowhere else to go.

“Miss Danglass is waiting there, Lovejoy.” Lysette was standing close. The wind whipped our coats about us.

“Jodie Danglass?”

“Yes. She’s been waiting a while. She said she has urgent offers from a Big John Sheehan, about some glass replicas he wants you to market for him. He’s asking after some Carolean mica playing cards he bought from a young widow. It’s rather complex, Lovejoy.” Sherry Bavington, the bitch. She must have come calling, nicked the micas from my ever-open cottage. I’d strangle the thieving cow, after I got a lock for the door.

“Aye, it would be complex all right.” With Big John Sheehan it was never easy, cheap, or straightforward. Sending Jodie to France was his way of saying to the trade that he had nothing to do with the child labour—not that anybody’d ever believe he had. “She mention which? The Portland Vases?”

Lysette’s eyes were pure, that ultra-blue you get in Greek paintings.

“Lovejoy. I don’t think you should become involved in something new, not just yet. Not with Monsieur Pascal’s team still investigating.” Pause. “Do you?”

“No,” I tried, cleared my throat. “No,” I said, firmer.

“Darling, I have an idea.” She smoothed my lapel. I hardly felt her hand. “Paris can become rather crowded. Would you like to stay somewhere else? Only for a short while, not too long.”

“Stay?”

“Yes. Rest, read, have time to visit interesting museums.” She smiled, quite casual. The wind swooshed her hair across her face. She scraped it aside with a reproving tut. “Some antique shops aren’t quite played out. That sort of thing.”

“What about Pascal and Lilian, the rest?”

“Need we tell them where we are going, darling? I think not.”

“We’d never make it.”

She smiled. “Oh, yes we would, Lovejoy.”

“You’re not an antiques hunter too?” It was a joke, but came out despairing. What had I thought, those epochs ago: that too many people were paid but loving eyes.

“Not yet.” Her reply started out serious, emerged as a joke. I felt her smile.

“Let me think.” I stood there. She slipped her arm into mine, and we sat on the curved bench beneath the tree. “Hang on,” I said. She’d put her arm round my shoulders, pulled my head gently down on to her shoulder. It was the wrong way round. I’m the masterful all-caring protective provider. She was the weaker vessel. “If Jodie Danglass is here from home, and Lorela Chevalier is offering…”

“Shhh,” she went. Her fingertips pressed my cheek, turning me to her. She touched her mouth on mine, very soft.

Applause sounded. The cafe windows were crowded, grinning faces and salutations everywhere. She broke away, scarlet.

“Look,” I said. “How about we try that, then? Might as well, eh?”

Took me less than ten minutes to talk her into it. One thing, I’d not lost the knack of persuasion.

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[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]

[December 9, 2003—v1 html proofed and formatted by AnneH for Shakespeare's Typing Monkeys]