The Gondola Scam (3 page)

Hours later we were still going over the lorry driver's story, the
pansified bloke in the lemon-tinted suit, the events at the auction.

Getting on for seven, we were lying in bed at my cottage.

To feed us, Connie had knocked a soup thing in my little kitchen
alcove, and did something called goulash. It had been good, but I was narked
with her for throwing my last pastie out. She claimed it wasn't fresh, bloody
cheek. Apart from these visits from enthusiasts like Connie, pasties are my
staple fare, and seeing my last pastie get the sailor's elbow was
disheartening. It was a sign that my days of wine and roses were over. Locusts
would soon settle on the land of Lovejoy Antiques, Inc. I was about to be
spring-cleaned.

"You should have taken Mr. Malleson's money." Connie was
propped on one elbow, her lovely skin glowing and her smooth breast cool
against my face. "You earned it."

"Accepting payment means I'd be responsible for him, the
goon."

"You shouldn't speak ill of the . . ." She shivered and
caped the bedclothes round her shoulders. She hadn't understood the mysticism
of the secret auction ring of the antique dealers, so I had to explain.

Auctions have been around a long time but have changed very
little. Oh, we don't any longer do like in ancient Rome—stick a spear, the
famous hasta publica, upright in the market square to show one's about to
begin—but we do more or less the same as in Pliny the Elder's day. But be
careful. There are different kinds.

Everybody knows the common or "English" auction, where
the bidders' prices start off low and simply go up a notch with each bid.
However, there's also a "Dutch" auction, where the auctioneer starts
at a high price, and then calls out ever lower prices, until a bidder stutters
out that he's willing to pay that much. And there's the so-called market
auction, where you bid merrily, English-style, but for one representative
sample of a particular lot, and where you needn't accept more than that one at
the price you've successfully bid. Market-style auctions are pretty rare in
antiques, except where there's a whole batch of stuff which the auctioneer's
willing to split, say a load of old desks, plates, chairs, cutlery, and so on.
Then there's a "time" auction, where you get a length of time to
complete (not start, note) your bidding. The most famous example of this is
that French wine auction business, where anybody can carry on bidding
anything—for as long as the auctioneer's candle stub stays lit. It's a real
cliff-hanger, because the bidding ends the exact instant the guttering candle
snuffs. And there's the famous "paper" auction, where the auctioneer
announces a price below which he won't go, and the bidders have numbered or
named cards. You simply write down your bid, and the slips are collected by
minions. Antique dealers hate this, because it calls for frankness and honesty,
probably why it's going out of fashion.

Yes, it pays to suss out the rules governing the particular
auction you wish to attend. It might prevent you going broke. But auction risks
don't end there. There's the newfangled check trick (bid high, pay the 10
percent deposit immediately by check, try to sell the item for a fast profit
that day—and, if you can't, just stop the check, claiming all sorts of false
catalogue descriptions.) There's the "knockout," where antique
dealers resort to any trick to impede or con the public out of bids. There's
even evil in some auctioneers themselves (Lord save us!), their assistants, vannies,
valuers, clerks, experts, and, last and most, the public. We don't have state-owned
auction rooms like the Dorotheum in Vienna, and I'm quite glad about that.
"At least in our system roguery is predictable and perennial," I told
Connie. "I'd hate it to be legal too."

Connie thought the ring auction a lot of pointless trouble.
"Why auction things among yourselves if you've just already bought
them?"

"The dealers all agree not to bid at the public auction. Only
one dealer bids. So the price is lower, right? Then the dealers gather in a pub
and have their private little auction. The difference in Gimbert's price and
the ring's price is the profit, and is shared out. See?"

Connie was outraged. "But that's not fair!" she cried.

I pulled her down and inevitably her perishing cola feet climbed
inchwise up my legs.

"I know that. But the first ever successful prosecution for
an illicit auction ring was in 1981. It's hopeless."

She forgot the drafts long enough to raise her head off my chest
and peer at me. "But why were you there, darling?"

"I was made to go," I lied, putting on my noble face.
"Wanted to buy you a present."

Her eyes filled with tears. "Darling," she said, all
misty. "And you risked being caught, put in prison for life, just for
me?" Even I felt quite moved by my story, and I'd just made it up.

"Well, love," I said brokenly, "I don't give you
much. And this cottage isn't much of a place to bring you—"

"It's absolutely beautiful!" she cried defiantly.
"I just love the village and your lovely little home!"

If she'd agreed it was crummy I'd have thumped her there and then.
Hastily, I told her how wonderful she was, with inevitable consequences. Also
inevitably, she briefly halted the romance for meteorological reasons.

"Darling, couldn't we make love the other way round, then we
can stay under the bedclothes?"

"For you, anything," I said. She said I was so sweet,
which is true, though when I came to afterwards I was still narked with her about
my last pastie. A single pastie can keep you going a whole day sometimes, which
is more than can be said for almost anything else you can think of.

I saw Connie off about ten to eight. She helped me to fold the bed
away (it's really a divan thing) and lent me some money for tomorrow's grub.
She also sprang a present on me, a pair of shoes obviously nicked from one of
husband Ken's shops.

'They're expensive, darling," she said. "Real handmade
leather."

"Thanks, love."

"They look marvelous." She was thrilled because they
fit. Two days before, she had measured me with a complicated sextant-looking
gadget. I could tell she was worried in case she got the width wrong. "Now
wear them. Don't let me find them in a cupboard weeks from now. Cross your
heart?"

"Let me cross yours instead."

"Oh, you,” she said.

We went to the porch arm in arm. The porch light doesn't work.
I'll mend it when I get a minute, but for the moment it was usefully dark.
Still, nobody could see us, because the people across the lane are always out
sailing or racing motors round Silverstone and that, and our lane leads nowhere
in particular.

"Got your car keys, love?"

"Yes, darling. See you soon. I'll come early."

I groaned inwardly. A morning tryst meant she had designs on my
dust. She usually brings a vacuum cleaner and blizzards through the cottage
till I'm demented.

"'Night, love."

She clung shivering for a minute to show the cold night breeze
that she knew it was out there, then ran with a squeal of hatred into the pitch
dark. She leaves her grand coupe on my gravel path so customers won't spot her
car parked in some leafy layby and go prattling gossip.

"Go in, darling!" she cried back. "You'll catch
your death!"

"Right, love." I didn't move. It was quite mild, really,
but I've noticed women talk themselves into a shiver. Connie's headlights
washed over my garden, shrinking it and fetching the trees comfortably closer.
They struck a gleam off something beyond the hedge. I wondered idly what it
was. Maybe I'd have a look when I could get round to it.

Connie revved, ambitiously stirring the gears and frightening my
garden voles by showering the countryside with flying gravel as she backed and
veered. I counted her turns. Three, four, five, six. The horn pipped a
triumphant pip and she was off, her rear reds flickering as she zoomed past the
hawthorns. That was good, I thought approvingly. She usually takes seven goes
to negotiate the gateway.

Nothing can gleam in our lane except glow-worms and a parked car. I
felt daft just standing there so I walked out. No engines roared, no yobbos
bawled.

"Good evening, Lovejoy. Caterina Norman." The blond bird
showed faintly in the greenish dashboard illumination. "Your phone is
disconnected."

"Er, a slight misunderstanding about the bill."

"You're to come with me," she said, dead cool.
"Tomorrow. My grandfather wants to speak to you."

That's all I wanted, another bird giving me orders. "I'm busy
tomorrow."

"Surely you can stop . . . work for a moment or two."
Her tone was dry. She'd obviously seen more than she wanted when Connie
departed. "It's not far."

"Well, look. Can't we leave it?" I was knackered. What
with the whole day in the auction aggro, the failure with Mr. Malleson, and
Connie, I needed a restful day reading about beautiful antiques.

"He's an antique collector, Lovejoy. And he has a task for you."

That did it. Maybe Granddad was a potential buyer. Never mind that
I hadn't a single antique in the place. Potential money's only heading one way,
right? And that word: "task." Not "job," not "some
work." Task. There's something indelibly medieval about it, isn't there?
Beowulf and the Arthurian knights did tasks. Profitable things, tasks—or so I
thought.

3

Next morning I was up as usual about seven, frying tomatoes. The
robin came ficking along the hedge to the wall where it plays hell till I shut
it up with diced cheese. Blue tits were tapping the side window, and the
sparrows and blackbirds were all in round my feet. A right lorry load of
chiselers. And soon the bloody hedgehog would be awake and come snuffling its
saucer for pobs, greedy little swine. How Snow White kept so bloody cheerful
with this menagerie I'll never know. I tell you I’m the easiest touch in East
Anglia.

It wasn't raining for once, so I took my breakfast—it's only bread
and dip really—out and sat on a low wall I've nearly finished. I set my trannie
to a trillion decibels to frighten off scrounging wildlife, but the robin only
came and nonchalantly cleaned its feet on it with such pointed indifference
that I had to share the brown bread.

The robin cackled angrily and flew off, though I'd been stuffing
it with grub. Somebody must be coming. Sure enough. Tinker came shuffling up
the path, muttering and grumbling.

"Morning, Tinker. Get a ride on Jacko's wagon?"

"Aye, thieving old bleeder. Charged me a quid."

Jacko's a senile villager who runs a van (summer) and a horse
wagon (winter) between our village and the nearby town. The van's an elderly
reject from the town market. The wagon's a superannuated coal cart pulled by
Terence. Jacko sings to entertain his passengers, which is one way of lessening
the load.

'You didn't pay him?" I asked, alarmed.

'Nar. Gave him your IOU."

I sighed in relief. Great. One more debtor. Tinker absently took a
chunk of bread in his filthy mittens and dipped in. Like I said, the easiest
touch in East Anglia. Still, no good postponing the bad news.

"Crampie and Mr. Malleson got done. Tinker."

"Yeah. Rotten, eh?" I wasn't surprised that he knew.
"That's what I come about, Lovejoy. Patrick see'd last night's
rumble."

I knew better than doubt his mental radar. "Patrick? Actually
witnessed it? Anybody else?"

"No. But some of the wallies was askin' at the hospital, like
you."

"Who?"

"Patrick. Helen. Margaret Dainty. Linda who was in the ring.
That Manchester bloke who comes after antique lacework and Queen Anne clothes.
Big Frank from Suffolk."

He knew this was disturbing. Even if my old Ruby can hardly raise
a gallop, I had happened along pretty smartish, and yet Crampie and Mr.
Malleson had died.

"Margaret's out," 1 said.

She's the only one of us who's respectable. Tell you about her if
I get a minute. Helen's beautiful but hardly a gang leader. Linda was my old
flame from the ring. The Manchester bloke was a regular and had his own turf.
Big Frank was only interested in marriage, divorce, and antique silver—in
reverse order. No suspects among that lot, but a witness is a witness. Jacko's
wagon would be starting for town in half an hour.

"Tell Jacko to wait. Tinker. I'll catch you up."

'The Three Cups opens in an hour, Lovejoy." He ambled off—his
idea of speed—cackling with enthusiasm.

We trundled into town just as the pubs opened, with me still
thinking. Something's not quite right, my imbecilic mind guessed. If they gave
a Nobel Prize for indecision, I'd win it hands down.

I gave Jacko another scribbled IOU and told him the fare was
scandalous.

"That why you never pay me, Lovejoy?" he bawled after,
but I pretended not to hear. I'm sick of scroungers.

We stopped at the comer of Lion Walk, the Three Cups obviously
pulling at Tinker's heartstrings. "Okay," I surrendered, giving him
his note. "Where's Patrick?"