The Judas Pair (7 page)

‘They’re saying flinters.’

‘Yes.’

‘Difficult.’

I told him part of the tale I’d selected for public consumption.

‘I thought maybe duellers, a flash cased set.’

‘I’ll let you have a few pair he can choose from.’

I grinned at the joke. ‘I’m hardly flush,’ I said. ‘That’s why I was round Dandy’s, on the prod. He said you might have word of a pair. Have to be mint.’

He looked up from replacing the Adams in its case.

‘I’m in the Midlands next Monday. I’m on to five pieces, but they might turn out relics.’

I whistled. Five possible miracles. A relic is any antique defaced and worn beyond virtual recognition, but you never think of that. The desire for the wonderment of a sensational discovery is always your first hope. Some people say it’s ridiculous to hope that way, but doesn’t everyone in one way or another? A man always hopes to meet a luscious, seductive woman; a woman always hopes to meet a handsome, passionate man. They don’t go round hoping for less, do they? We dealers are just more specialized.

‘Keep me in mind,’ I said, swallowing. ‘The cash is there.’

‘Where, exactly?’ he rejoined smoothly, and we laughed.

We chatted a bit more, then I throbbed away in my fiery racer. I made a holiday-maker curse by swinging out into the main’ road without stopping, but my asthmatic old scrap-heap just can’t start on a hill whereas his brand-new Austin can start any time, even after an emergency stop. People ought to learn they have obligations.

Muriel’s house turned out to be my sort of house. Set back from the road, not because it never quite made it like my cottage, but from an obvious snooty choice not to mob with the hoi polloi. I imagined banisters gleaming with dark satin-brown depths, candelabras glittering on mahogany tables long as football pitches and dusty paintings clamouring on the walls. My sort of house, with a frail old widow lady wanting a kindly generous soul like myself to bowl in and help her to sell up. My throat was dry. I eagerly coaxed the banger to a slow turn and it cranked to a standstill, coughing explosively. I knocked with the door’s early nineteenth-century insurance company knocker. (They come expensive now, as emblems of a defunct habit of marking houses with these insignia of private fire insurance companies.) It had shiny new screws holding it firmly on to the door, though the thought honestly never crossed my mind. The door opened. The frail old widow lady appeared.

She was timid, hesitant, and not yet thirty.

‘Good day,’ I said, wishing I was less shabby.

I’ve never quite made it, the way some men do. I always look shabby about the feet, my trousers seem less than sharp, my coats go bulbous as soon as they’re bought. I have a great shock of hair that won’t lie down. I’m really a mess.

‘Yes?’ She stared from round the door. I could hear somebody else clattering cooking things in the background.

‘Look, I’ll be frank,’ I said, feeling out of my depth. ‘My name is Lovejoy. I’ve called about . . . about your late husband, Mr Field.’

‘Oh.’

‘Er, I’m sorry if it seems inopportune, Mrs Field . . .’ I paused for a denial, but no. ‘I’m an antique collector, and . . .’ Never say dealer except to another dealer.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Lovejoy,’ she said, getting a glow of animosity from somewhere. ‘I don’t discuss –’

‘No,’ I said, fishing for some good useful lie. ‘I’m not after buying anything, please.’ The door stayed where it was. I watched it for the first sign of closing. ‘It’s . . . it’s the matter of Mr Field’s purchases.’

‘Purchases?’ She went cautious, the way they do. ‘Did my husband buy things from you?’

‘Well, not exactly.’

‘Then what?’

‘Well,’ I said desperately, ‘I don’t really know how to put it.’

She eyed me doubtfully for a moment, then pulled back the door.

‘Perhaps you should come in.’

In the large hall she stood tall, elegant, the sort of woman who always seems warm. Cissie spent her rime hunting draughts to extinction. This woman would be immune. She looked deeply at you, not simply in your direction the way some of them will, and you could tell she was listening and sensing. In addition she had style.

Now, every woman has some style, as far as I’m concerned. They are fetchingly shaped to start with, pleasant to look at and desirable to, er, encounter, so to speak. And all women have that attraction. Any man that says he can remain celibate for yonks on end is not quite telling the truth. It’s physically impossible. What astonishes me is that very few women seem to see this obvious terrifying fact, that we are completely dependent on their favours. Ah, well.

I had no plan of action, trusting simply to my innate instinct for deception and falsehood. Mrs Field dithered a bit then asked me into a lounge, where we sank into nasty new leather armchairs. There was a rosewood desk, eastern, modern, and one tatty cavalry sabre on the wall. On the desk I could see a chatelaine which looked like Louis XIV from where I was sitting but I couldn’t be sure.

‘You mentioned you and my husband were fellow-collectors, Mr Lovejoy.’

A chatelaine is a small (six to eight inches or so) case, often shaped in outline like a rounded crucifix. It opens to show scissors, tooth pick, manicure set and sometimes small pendants for powders and pills, that sort of thing, for people to carry about. Quite desirable, increasing in value –

‘Mr Lovejoy?’ she said.

‘Eh? Oh, yes. Mr Field.’ I dragged my mind back.

‘You mentioned . . .’

In the better light she was quite striking. Pale hair, pale features, lovely mouth and stylish arms. She fidgeted with her hands. The whole impression was of somebody lost, certainly not in her own territory.

‘Poor Mr Field,’ I hedged. ‘I heard of the . . . accident, but didn’t like to call sooner.’

‘That was kind of you. It was really the most terrible thing.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Did you know my husband?’

‘Er, no. I have . . . other business associates, and I collect antiques in partnership with, er, a friend.’ It was going to be hard.

‘And your friend . . .?’ she filled in for me.

I nodded. ‘We were about to discuss some furniture with Mr Field.’ I was sweating, wondering how long I could keep this up. If she knew anything at all about her husband’s collecting, I was done for.

‘Was it a grandfather clock?’ she asked, suddenly recalling.

I smiled gratefully, forgiving her the use of that dreadful incorrect term.

‘Yes. William Porthouse, Penrith, made it. A lovely, beautiful example of a longcase clock, Mrs Field. It’s dated on the dial, 1738, and even though the –’

‘Well,’ she interrupted firmly, ‘I wouldn’t really know what my husband was about to buy, but in the circumstances . . .’

I was being given the heave-ho. I swallowed my impulse to preach on about longcase clocks, but she was too stony-hearted and unwound her legs. Marvellous how women can twist them round each other.

‘Of course!’ I exclaimed, as if surprised. ‘We certainly wouldn’t wish to raise the matter, quite, quite.’

‘Oh, then . . .?’

‘It’s just –’ I smiled as meekly as I could as I brought out the golden words – ‘er, it’s just the matter of the two pistols.’

‘Pistols?’ She looked quite blank.

‘Mr Field said something about a case with two little pistols in.’ I shrugged, obviously hardly able to bother about this little detail I’d been forced to bring up. ‘It’s not really important, but my friend said he and Mr Field had . . . er . . .’

‘Come to some arrangement?’

I blessed her feminine impulse to fill the gaps.

‘Well, nothing quite changed hands, you understand,’ I said reluctantly. ‘But we were led to believe that Mr Field was anxious for us to buy a small selection of items, including these pistol things.’ I shrugged again as best I could but was losing impetus fast. If any smattering of what Field had told me was remotely true, a pair of Durs flinters had actually resided under this very roof, been in this very room, even. I raised my head, which had bowed reverently at the thought. I felt as if I’d just happened on St Peter’s, Rome.

‘As part exchange, I suppose?’

‘Well, I suppose so. Something like that.’

‘I heard about them,’ she said, gradually fading into memory. Her eyes stared past me. ‘He showed me a couple of pistols, in a box. The police asked me about them, when George –’

‘George?’

‘My brother-in-law. Eric, my husband, phoned him the night before he . . . He was going to go over and show George the next morning. Then this terrible thing happened.’

‘Were you here, when . . .?’

‘No. I was in hospital.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘We’d been abroad, Eric and I, a year ago. I’d been off colour ever since, so I went in to have it cleared up. Eric insisted.’

‘So you knew nothing at all about it?’

‘Until George came. I was convalescent by then. George and Patricia were marvellous. They arranged everything.’

‘Did you say the police asked about the pistols?’

‘Yes. George thought whoever did it . . . used them to . . . to . . .’

‘I suppose the police found them?’ I said innocently. ‘They can trace guns these days.’

‘Hardly.’ Her face was almost wistful. ‘They were so old, only antiques, and they don’t think he was . . . shot.’

‘What were they like?’ I swallowed. The words were like sandpaper grating.

‘Oh, about this long,’ she said absently, measuring about fifteen inches with hands suddenly beautiful with motion. ‘Dark, not at all pretty.’

‘My friend said something about gold decoration,’ I croaked in falsetto.

‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ she said, relieved. ‘They must be different ones. These had nothing like that. Blackish and brown, really nothing special, except that little circle.’

‘Circles?’ I shrilled. At least I wasn’t screaming, but my jacket was drenched with sweat. She smiled at her hands.

‘I remember Eric pulling my leg,’ she said. ‘I thought they were ugly and a shiny circle stuck on them made them look even worse. Eric laughed. Apparently they were pieces of platinum.’

I realized I should be smiling, so I forced my face into a gruesome ha-ha shape as near as I could. She smiled back.

‘You see, Mr Lovejoy, I never really . . . well, took to my husband’s collecting. It seemed such a waste of time and money.’

I gave my famous shrug, smiling understandingly. ‘I suppose one can overdo it,’ I lied. As if one could overdo collecting.

‘Eric certainly did.’

‘Where did he get his items from, Mrs Field? Of course, I know many of the places, but my friend didn’t see very much of him.’

‘Through the post, mostly. I was always having to send down to the village post office. I think the case came from Norfolk.’

‘What?’ I must have stared because she recoiled.

‘The box. Weren’t you asking about them?’

‘Oh,
those
,’ I said, laughing lightly. ‘When you said “case” I thought you meant the
cased
clock I mentioned.’ I forced another light chuckle. Stupid Lovejoy.

‘The shiny pistols. I remember that because they were so heavy and the woman at the post office said she’d been there.’

You have to pay for the pleasure of watching a beautiful woman. In kind, of course. Like struggling to understand her train of thought.

‘Er, been where, Mrs Field?’

To the place in Norfolk. She said, Oh, that’s where the bird sanctuary is, on the coast. She’d been there with her family, you see. I tried to remember the name for the police, but they said it didn’t really matter.’

‘Ah, yes. Well, I never get quite that far, so perhaps . . . er, one thing more.’ I was almost giddy with what she’d told me.

‘Yes?’

‘What, er, happened to them? Only,’ I added hastily, ‘in case my friend asks.’

‘Well, I don’t know.’ Any more questions would make her suspicious. ‘George asked, and the police asked, but that’s the point. When I returned from hospital they were gone.’

‘And the rest of the antiques . . .?’

‘Oh, they were sold. I wasn’t really interested, you see, and Eric had always said to send them off to a respectable auction if anything happened. He was a very meticulous man,’ she informed me primly.

I nodded. He was also a very lucky man, I thought. For a while.

She was waiting for me to go. I racked my exhausted brain. How did the police and these detectives know what questions to ask, I wondered irritably. I knew that as soon as the door closed a hundred points would occur to me. I’m like that.

‘Well, thank you, Mrs Field,’ I said, rising. ‘I shouldn’t really have called, but my friend was on at me about it.’

‘Not at all. I’m glad you did. It’s always best to have these things sorted out, isn’t it?’

‘That’s what my friend said.’

She came with me to the door, and watched me away down the drive. A priest was walking up as I screeched away from the house, probably on some ghoulish errand. They’re never far away from widows, I thought unkindly, but I was feeling somehow let down. I gave him a nod and got a glance back, free of charge. I had an impression of middle age, a keen, thin face and eyes of an interrogator. Interesting, because I’d thought fire-and-brimstone weren’t policy any more, though fashions do change. I didn’t see his cash register.

She gave me a wave in the driving-mirror. I waved back, wondering even as I accelerated out of the landscaped gardens and back among the riff-raff whether I could ask her out on some pretext. But I’d now blotted my copybook with all the pretending I’d done. Women don’t like that sort of thing, being unreasonable from birth. Very few of them have any natural trust.

It’s a terrible way to be.

B
ACK AT THE
cottage I summed things up, getting madder every minute at those slick so-and-so’s on TV that make short work of any crime. I worked out a list in my mind of possible events as I made my tea, two eggs fried in margarine, baked beans with the tin standing in a pan of boiling water, and two of those yoghurt things for afters. I always like a lot of bread and marge and make sandwiches of everything when I’ve not got company. A pint of tea, no sugar on alternate days because the quacks keep scaring the wits out of you about eating things you like, and I was off.