The Lies of Fair Ladies (25 page)

"Who?"

"A tart on the bypass. Tits Alors."

"Her recommendation was, ignore Sotheby's and ring me?"
Well, an old geezer's entitled to his perks n' jerks, as they say. "Good
stuff, is it?"

"Stolen. All of it. Neighbors saw a van loading up. Very
usual at the Faircloughs'."

Not too convincing, but as it was Drinkwater's tale it'd have to
do.

I looked at a map on the wall, seeing we were both strolling about
each other like sparring partners wondering whether to have a go. Same-Same's
river was a tributary of the Orwell. And "room to swing" a cat's
supposed to be from swinging the cat-o'-nine-tails, naval punishment in
confined deck spaces. Except river people hereabouts say it of shallow rivers.
Because a cat's a sort of boat. Several different sorts, in fact, from sailing
colliers of the mid-nineteenth century to fifty-oared galleys. I’d noticed that
Same-Same's little oxbow river had two pools with room enough to swing a cat
boat round and start it back down the Orwell for another load.

And Same-Same now had several workers, all busy in his massive
soundproofed barn. People who whistled while they worked and called for the
frigging turpentine and look sharp about it. I hadn't seen a thing, but I'd
heard enough. Samie used to work alone.

". . . be inadvisable, Lovejoy."

"What would?" I came back.

"Going it alone. This thing's worth more than the
county."

"I don't understand." This the first recorded case of
Plod benevolence?

He leant close to me. God, his breath stank. "You understand
all right, Lovejoy. Give me a share. I'll see you right."

A bribe? "I wish I could, Drinkwater. But I've heard nothing.
Honest."

He let me go then. It was as clumsy a bribery act as any I've yet
come across. He was as bent as a ruler, just trying me out. You can tell a bent
ploddite on a foggy Alp. Drinkwater hated me too much to forgo the pleasure of
clanging me up. I sighed, taking my leave. And ran into Sandy, yoo-hooing away
outside. I tried to duck into the night, but he drove alongside, parping his
horn and waving. He had Mel with him. As if I hadn't enough trouble, I'd now
got allies and, worse, they'd obviously come to help. Friends plus allies plus
help meant utter total immediate disaster.

Resigned, I went towards their motor, hoping the populace was
early abed tonight.

Twenty-one

The White Hart was thronged, thick with smoke. Dealers were
crammed in, all pretending (a) they'd just pulled off the biggest sale on
earth, and (b) a group of Americans were coming tomorrow to buy even more. For
human grandeur there's nothing so moving as the sight of antique dealers on the
make.

I wanted to creep in last, after Mel and Sandy had Entered (note
that capital). But Sandy insisted I go first.

"Swell the audience, Lovejoy,'' he trilled, roguish with
eyelashes.

Mel said nothing. He doesn't talk much, just glowers. Sandy's the
verb, Mel the pronoun, so to speak. He told me to admire the various aspects of
their main motor, an old Rover the size of a tram. It's never the same twice.

"Admire the silk curtains, Lovejoy."

"Great, er, great." If you like bamboo, strings of rock
crystal and strips of purple sacking twined with orange shot silk. I was
worried for non-artistic reasons. Didn't Highway Code rules like car windows
you could see through? "Admire the fringes, Lovejoy." "Er, yes,
Sandy. Great."

He went through a litany, once sharply pulling to the curb to
admonish my lack of enthusiasm.

The Rover was probably a good motor underneath the crud. I'm sure
it was decoratively brilliant. But it always reminds me of those fashion shows
where the clothes look straight off a tat-monger's street barrow. Talk about
rags and bone.

The thing was ribbed on the outside with small windmills, perhaps
a hundred or more, flashing the whole color spectrum. The windows were
back-lit, Sandy at the wheel. Fluorescent strips ran round the car's outlines,
reds, orange, opalescent plum and a creamy green that almost made me puke. Each
headlight wore enormous eyelashes, the rear lights' golden. A large red
kid-leather tongue trailed panting from the boot. The bonnet's grid was shaped
into an enormous chrome pout. The steering wheel wore projecting digits like
spokes of a nautical wheel.

You have to accept a lift from this pair, partly because they
never let up and partly because they're clever rich antique dealers. I needed
to know who was being cleverest.

"Great, great." The umpteenth time.

I went in, to a welcoming chorus of abuse. Sheepishly I gave Ted
the shrug that told him to get ready for Sandy's Entrance. This entailed
banging a gong and balancing a tall glass of creme de menthe on a kneeling
plaster cherub on the bar. The outside lights came on over the pub forecourt.
Everybody crowded to the windows for a look. Sandy's Entrances are famous.

"It's Sandy! How this time, d'you think?"

"I hope it's the steps," from Liz Sandwell. She's
admired Sandy ever since he poisoned a Birmingham bloke who was giving her a
hard time. "I love the steps."

"It'll be the trolley," from Flavor John, a
rugby-playing gorilla dealing in porcelain and musical instruments.

Somebody wouldn't have that. "They did the trolley Entrance
last Monday. Bet, four to one against. Flavor?"

Wagers were struck. Some dealers crowded out to see. I hung back,
tried to get served. I think the whole thing's stupid. I can't honestly see the
point.

A military band struck up from the Rover in noisy intro, blaring.
God knows what the country ducks thought. The "Entry of the
Gladiators" stunned us from the radiator grille's chrome mouth. You can't
help watching.

The roof slowly opened as the music reached its crescendo. Mel was
standing beside the car swinging a thurible, the cloying incense wafted on the
evening air. To murmurs of appreciation, Sandy slowly rose through the
unfolding car roof as the Statue of Liberty without the torch. He was swathed
in her robe. A corona of stars circled his head.

"It's like them pictures!'' somebody cried. "United
Artists? I know it's somebody—"

"Two to one against the steps from now—"

I wondered vaguely where the motor got the energy.

"It's the waterfall! The waterfall!"

Amid a shimmering spray of golden fireworks, Sandy was carried
down on a small escalator that protruded from the motor. The music pounded. He
held his pose, smiling nobly into the distance. Mel's thurible chinked, incense
drifting into the taproom. God, but it was a sight. Flavor John came to join
me.

"Lost my week's takings. Bloody poofter."

"So why bet. Flavor?" He'd bet on the trolley Entrance.

"I thought I'd win," he said. The inveterate gambler's
logic. Sometimes the dark thought comes that maybe they hope they'll actually
lose.

Sandy was gliding forward to applause from the pub crowd. Flavor
John gave a hopeful glance, but no trolley. So far I'd wasted almost an hour,
including Drinkwater's ham-fisted bribery act. Which only went to show that
Drinkwater was worried as me. Cradhead was an unknown. I started asking Flavor
if he'd done much at Wittwoode's Auction Temple lately.

Meanwhile, back in show business, Sandy was being showered with
rose petals from a gilded bucket.

"Take that fire risk out of here, Mel."

Ted had lately been prosecuted for letting Mel carry in six
candelabras, one an exploding variant. The thurible was bundled out. Sandy
smiled and waved. I saw his gaze rake the assembled company, and wisely
applauded the nerk with the rest.

Flavor was complaining. "Been shunted off some flavor
porcelain this week. Frigging criminal."

"Tough luck. Flavor." Everything he admires is
flavorsome. But I've no sympathy. Rugby four days a week and antiques three—
when it could be seven days of antiques? No wonder dealers like Flavor John are
never satisfied.

"Tough luck?" he said scathingly. Sandy opened his
mouth. Mel stood on a stool to pour the creme de menthe in his gob.
"Where's the frigging
luck
,
Lovejoy? Acker warned me off, the swine."

My ears tingled. "Look, Flavor," I said, steaming him to
further revelations. "There's not a dealer here won't chop a deal."

"Go shares?" He laughed hollowly. "Think I didn't
try? I'd have bought the bugger off if I'd had the gelt."

Flavor owed me. Recently I’d warned him off a mathematical
treatise dated a.d. 1491. The faker, a real pillock, had filled it with the =
equal sign. And that was invented by Robert Recorde, much later.

I said, still steaming, "Maybe the stuff wasn't good— "

''Good?'' He said it so loud people turned round. "Good,
Lovejoy? Nantgarw porcelain, four plates. No, straight up. So translucent you
could almost read through it. That's
flavor
.”

This sounded the real business. When Bill Billingsley set up the
Nantgarw (rhymes with shoe, sort of) porcelain factory in 1813, his factory
crashed—his plates were warped, full of firing cracks. So clever old Bill and
his son-in-law Sam Walker worked in Swansea for three years. And learned
superior technology. Their new super porcelain became craved by wallet-wielding
tycoons everywhere, because Bill Billingsley in his second go managed to make
porcelain whiter than white, yet somehow so translucent that we say, "Is
it Nantgarw clear?" Meaning so translucent when you hold it up to the
light that you can imagine it's oil-soaked paper. The trade nickname is
sodden-snow translucency, believe it or not. I moaned inwardly. My life was
becoming a saga of antiques missed. The stuff was everywhere, but just gone.

Then I remembered that Nicole Freres musical box. I mentioned it.
Flavor snorted a sardonic snort.

"That should have been mine too, Lovejoy. And them old
cameras—you know Acker Kirwin's a photography nut. Very flavor, them. They've
gone too." He'd have won my sympathy vote, except he was an antique
dealer. "I’m leaving the Eastern Hundreds, Lovejoy, going up Smoke. No
flavor left here."

"London? Where, though?"

"The Belly. You know Wheatstone? Invented the concertina,
made thirty-five thousand of them. They're always around, right? Not now,
Lovejoy. I saw six last month. None, this." He was a broken man.
"Even Salvation Army are scarce."

"The old black bellows issue?" I was frightened.

"Can you credit it, Lovejoy? No, it's the Smoke for me."

Well, rather him. Portobello Road has broken stauncher hearts than
mine. "Well, Sandy'll be giving up his shop now him and Mel are
back."

"Haven't you heard, Lovejoy?" Flavor tried to beckon for
another pint. "He's already sold up. This is the celebration."

"I don't believe it. Flavor." And I didn't, yet I did.

"True. Don't know who to. Mel's sold up too."

What the frig was going on? It was getting beyond me. Just when I
thought I’d sussed out the main buyer of Prammie Joe's turkey stripping of
Cornish Place—Acker—and so learned who'd done for him—ditto—the pattern
crumpled again. I was sick of the whole thing. Vd never known antiques to move
about like this before. Antiques go in dribs and drabs. I mean, when the
Countess in Long Melford does a tin can for the States, it's cork-popping time
in the local taverns. Yet now we were drained of antiques. And in dollop
numbers. Beyond belief.

As Sandy did his parade—Mel goes before, strewing rose petals
while people clap and have a laugh, Sandy waving with queenly magnanimity—and
Flavor John groused in my ear, I started to watch faces. I've told you how much
they matter. And there was something not quite right. People were laughing, oh,
sure. As usual, blokes were mock-whistling and the women admiring. But there
was the occasional glimpse of tautness. Nobody, but nobody, was doing a deal.
Margaret Dainty was talking to the exotic Jessica, who lives down the estuaries
in sordid circumstances. They should have been talking antiques, but instead
seemed to be commiserating. Margaret raised her glass, inviting me to come and
join them. I smilingly declined. She's an older woman, friend for years, with
class in spite of her limp.

There was Dyllis Washburne, sitting alone. She has a friend who
isn't in the trade but helps her out. They go on holidays together, but he's
loyal to his wife, who's got hard religion and wants to bomb Non-Conformists.
Now, Dyllis is very gregarious, mostly dressing furniture and penwork japanned
furniture. Dyllis alone and palely loitering? Impossible.

And Big Frank, talking to Mel, saying right, right, with many
nods. He caught my eye, waved, mouthed "Ta," presumably for my having
visited his red-hot mini-mamma Jenny Calamy. I must do something about that
promise, if I could remember what the hell I'd worked out to do about whatever
promise it was.

"Cooo-eeee!" Sandy, pausing to do his Queen Empress
wave. Fie wore elbow-length white lace gloves with jeweled glove-bands, very
seventeenth century. One thing, Sandy gets it right. "Admiration?"