The Lies of Fair Ladies (24 page)

"Glad to hear it," I said. "Any more flan,
please?"

"I'm afraid it's finished, ma'am," the maid told Joan,
but smiling properly at me. "We have several quiches, sir. And salmon. The
fish pie is—"

"Ta very much, love." I accepted with elegance, in spite
of Lune signaling me to refuse. It's all right for women. They can go for days
on the smell of a grape. But the maid was pleased, and we settled down to a
supply and demand.

The three thin birds gawped, Lune smoldered, knees together but
smiling tightly. Joan circulated. Del and the producers guffawed mirthlessly.
And me? I noshed and agreed with everything. I was to go on Del Vervain's show.
He was to milk laughs by pretending to drop a priceless Ming vase. I would
"react." The script would make the best impression—as if broadcasters
could do such a thing.

The grub was great. We left about four o'clock. I'd quite taken to
the maid. The
Del Vervain Show
script
would be ready the following Tuesday. He waved us off with "All er-rightee
too-nightee!" Lune reeled in ecstasy.

Quite honestly, I was glad to get on the train. Lune wasn't
speaking. I wasn't sorry. I thought about telling her why Bristol delftware's
properly before 1800, that the name applies now to seven or so factories as far
apart as Wincanton and Bristol itself. Of the master painters' different designs—who'd
slyly nicked their styles from China and Japan. But one look at her face and I
sat thinking about Rye Benedict's underwater photographs of the great Brunei's
nonexistent paddle steamer. And Joan's eyes.

Then things started to look down, because Lune's gorgeous Jaguar
XKX whatnot motor had been stolen. I sighed. I’d had a lot of days lately. We
got into the car, Lune fuming. She turned the ignition key, and started to pull
out of the station car park.

“Turn right, love,'' I said. "Head for Drackenford.''

"I’m sorry, Lovejoy, but no.'' She said it coldly. “I for one
need to know where you and I actually stand. Your conduct—"

Enough. I reached across, switched off the ignition, and took the
key. She screeched and struggled with the locked wheel. The motor glided to a
stop, nudging the curb.

"Lovejoy! If that isn't the most irresponsible thing—"

I'm sorry to say that I clocked her. I let her come to. She
started to get out. I restrained her. She might be madder than me, but I was
tireder.

"For fuck's sake listen. You've had a robbery."

She gaped. "I've . . . ?" She tried to speak, looked at
a housewife who was pushing a pram on the pavement. 'I've . . . ?"

"You've," I confirmed gravely. "Your home has been
entered, broken into by thieves five hours ago. Your very own antiques have
been stolen. By a master thief. Taken away. To Drackenford."

"My home?" Tears welled up in her eyes. I honestly felt
sorry for her. Well, I would have, if she hadn't made me so mad. "My
home
, Lovejoy? How do you know?"

I put my fingers against her cheek. "Drackenford. Then we'll
make up, eh?"

Twenty

Drackenford's one of those wood-and-plaster hamlets. Nothing much
to its name except plenty of black-and-white architecture, leaning cottages,
leaded windows, and pavements so narrow you always have to look behind in case
some cart's going to run you down. Four shops, a school the size of a kennel. A
river, one bridge, a church filled with ancient alabaster saints, tombstones
frittering away into yews and copses. And a war memorial, five names. That's
your average East Anglian hamlet. You could guess about six hundred souls on a
lusty night.

"Left."

"There's no road, Lovejoy. It definitely says."
"Ignore the signs. Right, at the end."

She braked, turned, at a rocketing two miles an hour. "It's a
farm, Lovejoy." "Straight on."

One mile an hour. We crawled past the farmhouse, down past
ornamental gardens and an oxbow river bend. Two small pools large enough to
swing a cat. I smiled, squeezed Luna's hand. "That gravel drive,
love."

"What are you smiling at, Lovejoy? This is private property.
I shall get a summons for trespass—"

"And Oliver will be narked," I finished for her.
"Stop saying that. Pull in by the taller of the two barns."

I was out before she'd got the brake on. I cupped my mouth and
yelled to the sky, "Same-Same! It's me! Lovejoy!"

Rooks rose, cawing and creating at having their idleness
disturbed. Well, I was hard at it. Time they did a bit.

"Lovejoy.'' Good old Lune with yet more reproach, buttoning
her coat against the rising wind. I was heartily sick of her. "Couldn't we
go over to the small barn and simply knock? This place is . . ." She
shuddered, pulling her lapels tight.

And indeed this place was ... I scanned it. Big, dark, no life. No
tire marks. Broken windows stuffed with old rags. Sacks trailing from fractured
glass. Sealed and shuttered and barred.

"Plug your ears, dwoorlink." I cupped my hands and
bellowed, "Half a minute, Same-Same. Then I’ll damage your shed."

Luna was pacing, distraught. "This is positively absurd,
Lovejoy. Shouting at a disused barn is ridiculous. There's a farmhouse back
there to make enquiries—"

"Fifteen seconds, Same-Same," I howled. The birds did
their annoyance thing.

Then a faint noise came from inside the great barn.

"Step aside, Lune." I drew her back a few paces. A part
of the old barn's side began to swing in, making a humming sound. Lights, the
clink of metal on metal. Somebody whistling. A voice called casually for
turpentine. And out stepped Same-Same.

"Wotcher, Samie." I'd forgotten how tall Same-Same was.
Gangly, with that deceptive ease lanky folk possess. "Notice
anything?"

He waited until the panel whirred back into position. He walked
round Luna's motor. "Nice job. How much?"

"Not for sale, Samie. It's Luna's here. My apprentice."

He'd been kicking the wheels until then, the way buyers do. Now he
stopped, looked at Lune, at me, and groaned.

"'Cking hell, Lovejoy." He was disgusted.

"Sorry, Samie," I said.

"Sorry?" he yelled, apoplectic. I'd been trying to let
him down lightly, but he gave me stick. “It's all very well saying sorry, mate.
But I've worked all 'cking afternoon on bits of 'cking rubbish." He glared
at Luna. "If you'd pay for one of those touch-locks, missus, you'd have
saved me a 'cking deal of time."

"Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Same," from Luna. "But
they're far too expensive. My friend, Betty, put one on her motor and it went
off in the night, and she lives near the hospital and the police—"

"Lovejoy?" Same-Same gestured to me, and walked off
shaking his head. "Do I honestly believe this?"

Luna came to stand beside me. "I don't understand,
Lovejoy."

"Samie's just gone for your antiques. Unlock your boot.''

"Mr. Same's
got
them?
My
antiques?"

"Aye. He used your car to nick them from your house while we
were away at Del Vervain's."

It was all too much for her. I explained the "samer"
con. You go to the railway station car park. You ignore commuters, who're
likely to leave wife, children, grandads at home. You wait for the mid-morning
crowd. The man-and-wife off to London for a jaunt, who take luggage out of the
boot. That means they're off for the day, at least.

"Pinch the car. Nobody's surprised to see the car in its own
drive. The more expensive the motor, the more likely is the house to be posh,
with tall hedges. The milkman and post girls have all done by noon."

"Same-Same does that?"

"He's famous for it, among dealers. He never pinches big
antiques. Always small, that can fit in . . ."I shrugged apologetically.
"Open your car doors, love. Wide."

Same-Same came carrying her antiques. I nodded approval as she
gasped, recognizing each one.

An Austrian bronze, only Edwardian, that made her glance guiltily
in my direction. A desk object, really. A bronze rock on a bronze pool. Luna
knew, but did not say, that the rock would open at a touch to reveal a naked
nymph in a singularly naughty pose. These items are highly collectible,
especially if the nymph looks as brilliantly golden as the first day she
performed her erotic perversion hidden in her bronze rock. A painting or two,
Victorian sentimental—the sort you couldn't give away twenty years ago but now
can't buy for love nor money. Then the two things that made me gasp.

Globes. One terrestrial, the other celestial. Mounted, so as to
stand on the carpet of some master's study. The surfaces are printed, if
they're right, done about the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Printed amendations
were issued, to be stuck on the surface as more lands were discovered and new
seas charted. I glimpsed one patch with 1828 on it, quite like an ordinary
printed addendum label in a book. The surround is usually boxwood, like a
girdle. Three beech legs stained to pretend they're rosewood. It doesn't mean
fake; it means fashion of the times. They would stand about three feet tall.
Lovely, lovely. I heard myself moaning. They can be dry-stripped of their old
yellowed varnish and made like new. New, in their instance, being 1816 or so.

“That it. Samie?''

"Mmmmh.” He was disgruntled. Everything my fault.

"Going to the Kensington Antiques Fayre this year?"

"No." He smiled a cold smile. "Sending stuff,
though."

"I'll look out for it," I joked, though I was really far
from merriment.

"See you, Lovejoy."

We left. I looked at the garden ornaments in the farmhouse's
lovely ornate garden. Tudor design. The river was charming, only shallow but
with a pair of swans gliding serenely along.

"D'you know swans mate for life, Lune?"

"Don't call me . . ." She bit back the rebuke. "Oh,
really?" she said, all casual. "That's lovely."

A mile further on I told her to draw in by the Drum Major, a pub.
I told her to wait, in the scree of a low hedge.

"Parking light off, love."

We waited for almost thirty minutes, but nothing came past except
a tired tractor and a few cows urged on by a cowherd.

"Home, love."

Some days I'm really thick. I got Luna to phone from a roadside
phone box, to tell Oliver not to call the Plod in when he arrived home and
found his belongings thinned.

"He rather disbelieved me, Lovejoy." She sounded miffed.
"He thinks I borrowed the antiques for your purposes."

Well, that's what the Olivers of this world tend to believe,
thinking themselves treble shrewd. Once a prat, and all that.

We drew up at their substantial house. No palace, but certainly
the inhabitants weren't going hungry just yet. It's times like this I wish I
had a watch. You can look at it, go tut-tut, and scarper.

"Look, love," I said uneasily. "Could you give me a
lift to the Volunteer? Only, Sandy might have some news—"

"Us, Lovejoy."

"Er, us, Lune."

She was already out. Oliver emerged instantly. He marched down,
shot glances into the car, turned on me.

"What's all this, Lovejoy? Not content with purloining my
wife, embroiling her in goings-on, you have the effrontery—"

"Sorry, but—"

"Oliver. Please." It was a humble request.

Oliver gave way, but only because I was a potential vote. He
didn't know it, but I was now of an opposing political persuasion. They
withdrew. I waited for the verdict.

Luna came back, Oliver in self-righteous attendance.
"Lovejoy. Could you please tell Oliver how . . . ?"

"I noticed the place you'd parked, love. There was a crack in
the tarmac. My side of the car, just below the door. When we left for London,
that is. When we came back the motor was a good foot to one side of the same
crack.'' I waited. It was now quite dark. I should be in the White Hart trying
to chat Connie up. "While we were on the train, your car had been used,
then returned to the station car park." I looked from her to Oliver.
"That your question?" "Yes." She turned to her husband.
"See, Oliver?" I’d threatened her not to disclose Same-Same's scam.
I'd drilled her to say it was some lunatic chancer, and we'd managed to catch
sight of him off-loading the antiques from the bridge over the bypass. Best I
could invent at such short notice.

"Well, thanks," I said into silence. "Is there a
bus?" The police came just then, and I was borrowed from the mayor's
parlor to receive the intentions of one Drinkwater.

Police stations have a curious pong of dried sweat. I suppose they
import it wholesale. Drinkwater didn't let me sit. He paced, ear twitching, pot
teeth clacking.

"Fairclough, Lovejoy."

"How is the poor chap?"

"Convalescing. Remembers nil. His son's a fitter on a North
Sea oil rig." Clack clack. "Had an antiques business. Went bust in a
bad patch. The old man decided to sell. Somebody gave him your name."