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Authors: Jonathan Gash

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BOOK: Moonspender
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Her face lit up when I creaked that lovely oaken door ajar. She
was dusting the collection of dollhouses in the main parlor.

"Hello, love. Room for one?"

"Hello, Lovejoy." She resumed dusting listlessly.
"Help me upstairs with the Hoover."

I carried the damned thing, pausing to look on the mezzanine
floor. One side, a nursery complete with cots, baby gear, lovely clothes right
back to the 1690s. On the other side was a long gallery, originally the
maidservant's room. Beryl had some thirty or forty wax dummies in clever
tableaux. Ladies out walking, fireside groups, a musical evening, marriages
down the ages, even a witch coven, the lot. She'd got one thing wrong—a
Wingfield tennis racket was in a sporty tableau dated 1865, but Major Walter
Wingfield didn't patent his lawn tennis until February 1874; people nicknamed
it "sticky" at first. I'd given her an early Victorian
coromandel-wood games compendium, beautifully boxed, to start one display off.
I must have been off my bloody head. I stared resolutely away from The Homecoming
Sailor scenario—a matelot arriving to the big welcome. I'd faked his scrimshaw
chest out of an old wardrobe, painted ship pictures and all. The brass handles
I'd aged in a local farm's muck-spreading tank, the best way if you've time.

"It's still here, Lovejoy," she smiled. "Think I'd
sold it?"

"Eh?" I said, all innocent.

"The fan. The one you let me have."

My fan— 
my
 fan—was also there, in a wedding
group. Display Sixteen. A wax maid of honor was behind the wax bride, my 1880
original fan in her undeserving wax hand. It was
watercolored
,
on gilt and mother-of-pearl sticks. I moaned.

"Now, Lovejoy. You 
gave
 it, remember?"

Smiling, she passed me. I followed, not quite gnashing my teeth
but definitely not rolling in the aisles from merriment. Beryl and I had been,
well, close once. What women call generosity I call exploitation. Afterward.

"Here, Beryl!" I said brightly as she started vacuuming.
"I've a couple of wedding knives for sale." Well, I'd come on the
scrounge. First things first.

"Wedding knives?"

"They're always a pair, in one sheath. Brides got them, as a
symbol of marital status. ..."

Beryl stopped, shaking her head. "It's no good, Lovejoy. Just
look at this place. Listen." We listened. "Empty. Not a soul. You
know how many visitors I've had, for thirty-two lovely rooms crammed with
antique householdery? Seven. All week." She looked so tearful I'd have
given her the wretched wedding knives, if I'd had any. "And I've finished
Queen Victoria's copy wedding dress." I'd noticed it, a lovely work with
those double-puff sleeves, the famous eight-paneled bodice, the Honiton lace
that sprang back into fame in 1840 and saved whole villages. Beautiful. Beryl's
three sisters are seamstresses.

"That bad?"

She stood there, sniffing. "The council's given me a final
warning: Improve attendances or we'll be closed." She blotted her face and
switched the suction back on. "I've done everything. My cousin Teddie lent
a van to tour the villages. Last week my dad dressed as the town crier and
stood outside the pubs. Not a flicker of response." Tears started rolling
quite unchecked. "What 
is
 it, Lovejoy?"

"It's people." I held her. "They've forgotten how
to recognize love. Don't worry. It'll change."

Well, all in all a hopeless visit. No money. No advance on antiques
I'd not quite got. And Beryl wouldn't let me borrow back my fan, even though I
swore blind I honestly only wanted to show it to a friend. Typical. I left
thinking nothing of it, a mere failed few minutes in a humdrum day.

But it came of importance, in time. After a death. Or two. Or,
some said, three.

 

Hoping the Sykes lads had hoofed it by now, I collared up and left
the Minories through the walled garden. The town was quieting in the evening
rain, buses draining shoppers from the streets. Luckily it's only a hundred
sprinted yards to the north car park. My luck was in, or so I thought. The Ryan
household's Bentley was there. I'd only to wait a few minutes, crouching
embarrassed among the cars, before the lady herself showed.

The rain had slackened. The town hall lights gave her a sparkling
halo as she approached. She looked—is—wondrous. I kept low down while she
parted from the bloke she was with. A gay Gaelic laugh. The famous Councillor
Ryan himself, dressed in that guineas-and-goblets casualness that costs the
earth and silences opposition. He's our town's main building contractor. This
means the brains of an amoeba and all its survival skills. You've really got to
watch his sort. Certain she was finally alone, I rose.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Ryan," I said humbly. "If I
knuckle my forehead, ma'am, can your ladyship give me a lift? Only, the
bailiffs be
arter
me—"

She undid the door her side, carefully doing that
nonsmile
of the woman who knows everything before you do.
"Don't be a fool, Lovejoy. Get in."

"Thank you, Mrs. Ryan." Something black blurred in.

"What's what?" Mrs. Ryan gave a little yelp.
"You've got a cat, Lovejoy?"

"Well, one of us owns the other. I'm not sure which way
round." Politely I asked after Councillor Ryan's well-being and present
location, in reverse order.

"James? He's back at the council chamber."

"Pleased to hear it." Three's a crowd. James Ryan had
started life as Jimmy O'Ryan. His name had escalated since he'd got pomp, posh,
and plenty.

Mrs. Ryan said quite casually, "I'll use the Harwich road,
Lovejoy." That would take us past very few houses, clever lady. Women are
a shrewd lot. She spoke on even more casually. "Lovejoy. Are you still
interested in my pendant?"

"Er, yes." Cunning Lovejoy, not too eager. The pendant
was an exquisite Roman brooch, its mount a refashioned foliate gold luna. I'd
noticed her wearing it at the village flower show. I cleared my throat,
oh-so-casual. There were serious implications here. We hit the bypass and ran
out of street lights. The Bentley hummed. Toffee snored between my feet. Nobody
spoke. It seemed my cue. "Any chance of another look, Mrs. Ryan?"

"Possibly," she said instantly, but still offhand.
"James will be late home. I'll drop you at the chapel, then return
later."

"Sure that'll be all right?"

"Perfectly," she said. "Incidentally, did I see you
fighting? I happened to be passing a cafe—"

"Me, fight?" I gave a convincing chuckle. "No,
love. I leave that to the professionals."

"It was somebody with a common-looking, ah . . ."

Women always run out of definitive terms, don't they? It happens a
lot when their personal values are at stake. I have this theory that women's
talk is a dot picture; join the blobs and complete the geranium.

". . . common-looking lady?" I said, linking the dots.

"
Mmmmh
." She glanced down.
"I've told you before, Lovejoy; never while I'm driving."

My hand had accidentally alighted on her knee. "Know what I
learned today? You stroke cats but pat dogs, not the other way round."

She laughed. Her face is lightweight, medieval tempera paint on
parchment. She's the sort who can don ultramarine earrings and turn smiling
from the dressing table mirror to show them transmuted into a blanched eau-de-
nile
. Honest. I've seen her do it.

"You're off your head," she told me, still laughing.
"Before you go, Lovejoy, did you think about it?"

"Eh?" Then, oh dear, I remembered she'd offered me her
estate manager's job, would you believe, all guns and yokels. "Can we talk
about it later?" is useful; postponement is my big skill.

She dropped me off, saying to expect her. I walked the lane from
the chapel, thinking about Mrs. Ryan's persistence. She narked me, keeping on
about her rotten job. If only women would stop being so demanding, they could
achieve great things. Sometimes a woman is a character in search of an analogy.
I stopped thinking complicated thoughts then because I could see my porch bulb
shining. Odd, that. Sure enough there were two great dark cars blocking the
drive.

Indoors, Sykie was swigging tea. "Wotcher, Lovejoy. You've
been quick."

Four goons lolled around, one of them with my mug. He was spooning
the last of my sugar, the robber. I shut the door and sat down. "Wotcher,
Sykie. Your lads'll be a little while."

He closed his eyes wearily. "Slipped them, did yer? Gawd,
them
pair." He looked about, indicating the cottage.
"Here, Lovejoy. This the best you can do? It's a right bleedin'
mess."

That narked me. Admittedly the cottage was a little untidy, but I
hadn't been expecting visitors. "Well, things have gone a bit off lately,
Sykie."

"They've improved. You've got a job, Lovejoy. On telly."

"Eh?" Television?

He's a heavy man, forever starting up in mid-sentence as if
hearing an unexpected visitor outside. "Know that antiques game, where
they guess things?"

"That's impossible, Sykie." I cast about anxiously.
"I can't look natty even if I try. For television you need glamour."

He was grinning. Sykie does a lot of grinning. "Next show,
one of the panel will unexpectedly drop out. They'll pick a member of the
audience." He grinned wider, winked. "Guess who."

My voice was a croak. "But what if the expert shows up,
Sykie?"

"He won't, Lovejoy. Will he, Dave?"

The sugar stealer gave a cadaverous smile. "No, Sykie. He
gets flu tomorrer."

"Sykie, please." I felt like a kid in school.

"You join the panel, Lovejoy. And guess all the antiques
right." Sykie looked at his cup and rose. "And for Gawd's sake get a
few tins of beer in." He moved out, oafs holding the door. His shoulders
heaved, him laughing. Serfs laughed along, always a wise policy. "Just do
it, Lovejoy. And you'll preserve all this." He indicated my cottage with a
nod. Here it came. "Lovejoy Towers."

They were still booming with laughter as the big saloons crunched
down my gravel off into the night. I went back in, narked, Toffee the bloody
nuisance between my feet. If Sykie had been a fat geezer trapped at table on
his own I'd have sloshed him one. Or not. Lovejoy the hard man, I thought
bitterly, black belt in
origame
.

Ten minutes later the Sykes lads tore up in a Jaguar, asking had I
seen their dad. I said he'd dropped in for tea.

 

One o'clock in the morning and all hell seemed let loose. Blearily
I went to the door with a towel modestly round my middle. The eldest Sykes son
was there, tough and nasty. He gave me a bundle of money.

"
Me
dad
sez
get some decent shmutter, Lovejoy. A proper suit." He paused. "Here,
Lovejoy, that your horse?"

"Horse?" I was only half awake.

"There's a nag out here." He was thinking how to pull a
racing scam. I can read these nerks like a book.

"Not mine," I said. "Night." And shut the
door.

I've no carpet, only a couple of tatty rugs that I leap to like
stepping-stones because the stone flags are perishing. I dived in to her warmth
with a glad cry.

"Lovejoy." Mrs. Ryan was aghast and whispering.
"Who was it?"

"A message." Cunningly I wriggled for more of her warmth
while she was distracted. "I've to go on television."

Mrs. Ryan relaxed in relief "You live the oddest life,
Lovejoy." My hand found her breast. I can't go back to sleep properly
without one, some infancy hangover, I expect. "You're freezing. Did you
say on television?"

"Shut up," I mumbled. Women never stop rabbiting. Then I
thought a bit. "Here, Mrs. Ryan. Did you leave a horse in my hedge?"

"Of course. I couldn't come in a car at this hour. People
would hear." Women are sly. I've often noticed that.

2

Mrs. Ryan left while it was still pitch black outside. The wind
had fallen, the rain ceased. She blamed me in a steady whimper of recrimination
for (a) the cold weather, (b) having the best of this arrangement, and (c) not
even getting up to make her some tea. She looked lovely. I watched her dress. I
like morning women. They're all floury and plump. It's only later that they
collect those toxins of antagonism that make danger. She wears a proper woman's
riding habit. (I think I mean a woman's proper riding habit, but you know, not
those jodhpurs that spread.)

"I've no tea left." I spoke from her warm patch with
bitterness. "Some gangsters nicked it last night."

She came back and sat on the bed. It's really only a foldaway
divan, and tilts you riskily toward whoever sits on its edge. It has mixed
benefits. I rolled against her.

"Lovejoy."

"Shouldn't you be going? Councillor Ryan will be—"

"This can't go on, can it?" I gave a theatrical snore.
"Don't hide." She pulled the sheets off my face.

BOOK: Moonspender
11.09Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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