The Judas Pair (2 page)

Listen to me, giving away my next year’s profit.

‘Look, Tinker,’ I said, not daring to believe him.

‘I know what you’re going to say, Lovejoy,’ he said, desperate now.

‘You do?’

‘Trade’s bad. Profits are bad. Finds are bad. Everything’s bad.’

Like I said, some are psychic.

‘Who’s got ten thousand these days?’ I snapped.

‘It’s right up your street, Lovejoy.’

‘Where’s the mark?’

‘In the saloon bar.’

Yet something was not quite right. It was too good to be true.

‘How did he know you?’

‘Came in looking for barkers and dealers. Somebody in the Lane told him We used this pub. He’s done a few pubs at the Lane and on the Belly.’

Petticoat Lane and Portobello Road, the London street markets. To ask after reliable dealers – and I’m the most reliable of all known dealers, honest – was reasonable and sounded open enough.

‘He spoke to you first?’

‘No.’ Tinker was obviously proud from the way his voice rose eagerly. ‘I was at the bar. I heard him ask Ted.’ Ted is the barman. ‘He asked if any antiques dealers were in the bar. I chipped in.’ He paused. ‘I was in like a flash, Lovejoy,’ he added, pained.

‘Good lad, Tinker,’ I said. ‘Well done.’

‘I told him I was your runner. He wants to see you. He’d got your name in a notebook.’

‘Look, Tinker,’ I said, suddenly uneasy, but he protested.

‘No, no, he’s not Old Bill. Honest. He’s straight.’ Old Bill was the law, police. I had licences to worry about. And taxes, paid and unpaid. And account books. And some account books I hadn’t got at all.’

‘What’s he after?’

‘Locks. Right up your street.’

My heart almost stopped.

‘Locks locks, or just locks?’ I stuttered.

‘Locks,’ Tinker said happily. ‘Flinters.’

‘If you’re kaylied,’ I threatened.

‘Sober as ever was,’ the phone said. That’ll be the day, I thought. I’d never seen Tinker Dill vertical in twenty years. Horizontal or listing, yes.

‘Any particular ones?’

‘See him first, Lovejoy. I’ll keep him here.’

‘All right.’ I suddenly decided. A chance was a chance. And buyers were what it was all about. ‘Hang on to him, Tinker. Can you hear a car?’

He thought for a second.

‘Yes. One just pulling into the car park,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘Why?’

‘It’s me,’ I said, and shut off, grinning.

To my surprise the bath taps were running and the bathroom door was shut. I opened up and there was this blonde, somewhat sodden, sulking in steam.

‘What on earth –’ I began, having forgotten.

‘You pig,’ she said, cutting loose with the language.

‘Oh. I remember.’ She’d been making a racket while I was on the phone. ‘You’re Sheila.’

She retorted, ‘You pig.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I told her, ‘but I have to go out. Can I drop you somewhere?’

‘You already have,’ she snapped, flouncing past and snatching up her things.

‘It’s just that there’s a buyer turned up.’

She took a swing at me. I retreated.

‘Have you seen my car keys?’

‘Have I hell!’ she screamed, rummaging under the divan for her shoes.

‘Keep your hair on.’

I tried to reason with her, but women can be very insensitive to the real problems of existence. She gave me a burst of tears, a few more flashes of temper and finally, the way women will, began an illogical assault on my perfectly logical reasons for making her go.

‘Who is she?’

‘That “she” is a hairy bloke,’ I told her. ‘A buyer.’

‘And you prefer a buyer to me. Is that it?’ she blazed.

‘Yes,’ I said, puzzled at her extraordinary mentality. She went for me, firing handbag, a shoe, and a pillow as she came, claws at the ready. I gave her a backhander to calm the issue somewhat, at which she settled weeping while I found a coat. I’m all for sex equality.

‘Look, help me to find my keys,’ I said. ‘If I don’t find them I’ll be late.’ Women seem to have no sense sometimes.

‘You hit me,’ she sobbed.

‘He’s been recommended to me by London dealers,’ I said proudly, ransacking the bureau where my sales-and-purchases records are kept – occasionally and partly, that is.

‘All you think of is antiques,’ she whimpered.

‘It isn’t!’ I said indignantly. ‘I asked you about your holidays yesterday.’

‘In bed,’ she cut back viciously. ‘When you wanted me.’

‘Look for the keys. They were here the day before, when I brought you back.’

I found them at last under a Thai temple woodcut and rushed her outside the cottage, remembering to leave a light on and the door alarm switched over to our one vigilant hawk-eye at the village constabulary station, in case the British Museum decided to come on a marauding break-in for my latest aquisition, a broken Meissen white I’d have a hard time giving away to a church jumble.

My elderly Armstrong-Siddeley waited, rusting audibly in the Essex night air between the untidy trees. It started first push to my delight and we were off.

‘Antiques are a sickness with you, Lovejoy,’ she sniffed. I turned on the gravel, and the old banger – I mean the car – coughed out on to the dark tree-lined road.

‘Nothing but,’ I replied happily.

‘I think you’re mad. What are antiques for, anyway? What’s the point?’

That’s women for you. Anything except themselves is a waste of time. Very self-centred, women are.

‘Let me explain, honey.’

‘You’re like a child playing games.’

She sat back in the seat, staring poutishly at the nearing village lights. I pushed the accelerator pedal down hard. The speedometer needle crept up to the thirty mark as the engine pulsed into maximum thrust. With a following southwesterly I’d once notched forty on the Cambridge Road.

‘He might be a collector,’ I said. She snorted in an unladylike manner.

‘Collector,’ she said scornfully.

‘The collector’s the world’s greatest and only remaining fanatic,’ I preached fervently. ‘Who else would sell his . wife, wreck his marriage, lose his job, go broke, gamble, rob and cheat, mortgage himself to the hilt a dozen times, throw all security out of the window, for a scattering of objects as diverse as matchboxes, teacups, postcards of music-hall comedians, old bicycles, steam engines, pens, old fans, railway-station lanterns, Japanese sword-decorations, and seventeenth-century corsets? Who else but collectors?’ I looked rapturously into her eyes. ‘It’s greater than sex, Sheila –’

‘Nonsense,’ she snapped, the wind from the car’s speed almost ruffling her hair.

‘It’s greater than religion. Greater love hath no man,’ I said piously, ‘than that he gives up his life for his collection.’

I wish now I hadn’t said that.

‘And
you
make money out of them. You prey on them.’

‘I serve them.’ There were almost tears in my eyes. ‘I need to make the odd copper from them, of course I do. But not for profit’s sake. Only so I can keep going, sort of make money to maintain the service.’

‘Liar,’ she said, and slapped my face. As I was driving I couldn’t clock her one by way of return so I resorted to persuasion.

‘Nobody regrets us having to split more than me,’ was the best I could manage, but she stayed mad.

She kept up a steady flow of recrimination, the way women will, as I drove into the village. It must have been nine o’clock when I reached the White Hart. The Armstrong was wheezing badly by then. Its back wheels were smoking again. I wish I knew what made it do that. I pulled into the forecourt and pushed a couple of quid into her hand.

‘Look, darling,’ I said hastily. ‘See you soon.’

‘What am I to do now?’ she complained, coming after me.

‘Ring for a taxi, there’s a good girl,’ I told her. ‘To the station.’

‘You pig, Lovejoy,’ she wailed.

‘There’s a train soon – probably.’

‘When will I see you?’ she called after me as I trotted towards the pub.

‘I’ll give you a ring,’ I said over my shoulder.

‘Promise?’

‘Honestly.’

I heard her shout something else after me, but by then I was through the door and into the saloon bar. Women have no sense of priorities. Ever noticed that?

T
HE SALOON BAR
was crowded. I labelled everybody in there with one swift glance. A dozen locals, including this bird of about thirty-six, sitting stylishly on a barstool and showing thighs to the assembled multitude. We had been friends once-twice, to be truthful. Now I just lusted across the heads of her admirers and grinned a lazaroid greeting, to which she returned a cool smoke-laden stare. Three dealers were already in: Jimmo, stout, balding, and Staffordshire pottery; Jane Felsham, thirtyish, shapely, would have been desirable if she hadn’t been an antiques dealer, blonde, Georgian silver and early watercolours; and finally, Adrian, sex unknown, elegant, pricey and mainly Regency furniture and household wares. Four strangers, thinly distributed, and a barker or two chatting them up and trying to interest them in antique Scandinavian brass plaques made last April. Well, you can only try. They can always say no.

Tinker Dill was in the far corner by the fireplace with this middle-aged chap. I forged my way over.

‘Oh,’ Tinker said, acting like the ninth-rate Olivier he is. ‘Oh. And here’s my friend Lovejoy I was telling you about.’

‘Evening, Tinker.’ I nodded at the stranger and we shook hands.

He seemed fairly ordinary, neat, nothing new about his clothes but not tatty. He could have saved up ten all right. But a genuine collector . . .? Not really.

‘Mr Field, meet Lovejoy.’ Tinker was really overdoing it, almost wagging like a dog. We said how do and sat.

‘My turn, Tinker, from last time,’ I said, giving him a note to shut him up. He was off to the bar like a rocket.

‘Mr Dill said you are a specialist dealer, Mr Lovejoy.’ Field’s accent was anonymous southern.

‘Yes,’ I admitted.

‘Very specialized, I believe?’

‘Yes. Of course,’ I hedged as casually as I could manage, ‘from the way the trade has progressed in the past few years I maintain a pretty active interest in several other aspects.’

‘Naturally,’ he said, all serious.

‘But I expect Dill’s told you where my principal interest lies.’ ‘Yes.’

This guy was no dealer. In fact, if he knew a Regency snuffbox from a Rolls-Royce it was lucky guesswork.

Barkers like Tinker are creatures of form. They have to be, if you think about it. They find possible buyers who are interested, say, in picking up a William IV dining-set. Now, a barker’s job is to get clients: buyers or sellers but preferably the former. He’s no right to go saying, Oh, sorry, sir, but my particular dealer’s only interested in buying or selling oil paintings of the Flemish School, so you’ve had it from me. If a barker did that he’d get the push smartish. So, whatever the mark – sorry, buyer – wants, a barker will agree his particular dealer’s got it, and not only that, but he will also swear blind that his dealer’s certainly the world’s most expert expert on William IV dining-sets or whatever, and throw in a few choice remarks about how crooked other dealers are, just for good measure.

Now a dealer, coming strolling in at this point only showing interest in penny-farthing bicycles, would ruin all the careful groundwork. The customer will realize he’s been sadly misled, and departs in a huff for the National Gallery or some other inexperienced amateur outfit. Also, and just as bad, the barker (if he’s any good) pushes off to serve another dealer, because clearly the dealer’s going to starve to death, and barkers don’t find loyalty the most indispensable of all virtues. The dealer then starves, goes out of business, and those of us remaining say a brief prayer for the repose of his soul – while racing after the customer as fast as we can go because we all know where we can get a mint William IV dining-set at very short notice.

‘He has a very high opinion of your qualities,’ Field informed me.

‘That’s very kind.’ If Field got the irony it didn’t show.

‘You made a collection for the Victoria and Albert Museum, I understand, Mr Lovejoy.’

‘Oh, well.’ I winced inwardly, trying to seem all modest I determined to throttle Tinker – even innocent customers know how to check this sort of tale.

‘Wasn’t it last year?’

‘You must understand,’ I said hesitantly, putting on as much embarrassment as I dared.

‘Understand?’

‘I’m not saying I have, and I’m not saying I haven’t,’ I went on. ‘It’s a client’s business, not mine. Even if South Kensington
did
ask me to build up their terracotta Roman statuary, it’s not for Dill nor myself to disclose their interests.’ May I be forgiven.

‘Ah. Confidentiality.’ His brow cleared.

‘It’s a matter of proper business, Mr Field,’ I said with innocent seriousness.

‘I do see,’ he said earnestly, lapping it up. ‘A most responsible attitude.’

‘There are standards.’ I shrugged to show I was positively weighed down with conscience. ‘Ordinary fair play,’ I said. Maybe I was overdoing it, because he went all broody. He was coming to the main decision when Tinker came back with a rum for me and a pale ale for Field.

I gave Tinker the bent eye and he instantly pushed off.

‘Are you an . . . individual dealer, Mr Lovejoy?’ he asked, taking the plunge.

‘If you mean do I work alone, yes.’

‘No partners?’

‘None.’ I thought a bit, then decided I should be straight – almost – with this chap. He looked as innocent as a new policeman. I don’t know where they keep them till they’re grown up, honest I don’t. ‘I ought to qualify that, Mr Field.’

‘Yes?’ He came alert over his glass.

‘There are occasions when an outlay, or a risk, is so large, that for a particular antique it becomes necessary to take an . . . extra dealer, pair up so to speak, in order to complete a sale.’ I’d almost said ‘accomplice’. You know what I mean.

‘In what way?’ he said guardedly.

‘Supposing somebody offered me the Elgin Marbles for a million,’ I said, observing his expression ease at the light banter. ‘I’d have to get another dealer to make up the other half million before I could buy them.’