The Lies of Fair Ladies (31 page)

"Why are we here? Do you think Mr. Benedict left a
clue?"

"How the hell should I know?" And why were we
whispering?

I cleared my throat noisily and clumped with giant footfalls down
the length of the room. Skylights, walls red brick, patches rimed to white.
Only a single sack. One, by the hoist. I'd seen Rye reach out, swing it in. The
selfsame sack? Or had Drinkwater taken it away in his extensive investigations
of the tragedy? They'd lasted all of ten minutes. Really thorough.

"Luna," I asked her. "What happened? You were
watching."

"You saw, Lovejoy." She gestured helplessly at the hoist
window. "Poor Mr. Benedict leaned out. And fell. It was awful."

"We saw him do it before. Why didn't he fall then?"

She thought, trying. "Because he was hold of something?"

"What?'' I nodded, go and show.

“That line of sticks, perhaps. There's nothing else. This
hand." She spun, aligning her hands. A pretty sight. I'd have reached for
her, except this was where Rye was murdered.

Into a long oaken beam, fixed to the wall, was a line of wooden
rods. Belaying-pin fashion, the sort you get on old sailing ships. Basically a
simple wooden rod, tapered, thick at the top so it won't fall through. Purpose?
To tie a rope on. Several pins. Simple.

Except?

Except, take hold of a pin at the top, and move about vigorously,
as when pulling in a heavy sack through a hoist window, you might just waggle
the stick enough to pull the damn thing out. And down you go. But Rye had no belaying
pin in his hand when he fell. Even Drinkwater might have seen one.

"Hold the bottom of the belaying pin, love. And lean away
from the wall."

She took it carefully. "Like this?"

"Keep your feet together, close to the wall. Now lean
away."

Suddenly I pulled the pin up and out, and she fell away, just
regaining her balance.

"Lovejoy! That was a perfectly silly thing to do! I could
have got splinters in my hand!"

"No, love. You couldn't." The pin was worn smooth as
silk.

Rye always used that first pin to hold on to. By its projecting
base. Waggle it as you may, it couldn't come out. Unless somebody unseen in the
mill, exactly where we were standing, perhaps chatting amiably as Rye had
conducted his demonstration for the children below, had quickly lifted the
belaying pin from its hole, leaving Rye's hand grasping nothing.

Acker Kirwin, alias Cooley, whose motor was waiting in the market
garden across the river footbridge for him to escape. In the confusion, we'd
all been too busy being shocked, running about phoning ambulances, controlling
children. A good time to slip away. And it was clearly an accident, no? We'd
all seen him miss his footing.

But a man starting to fall to his death might well scrabble with
his feet when the world is taken away from under for the first time. And last.

"Lovejoy?"

Her voice seemed miles away. I was sitting on the floor.

"Lovejoy?" Her arms were round me. She was scented
peach, some blossomy thing. "Don't take on, darling. He went quickly. I'm
so sorry. Please don't."

Roughly I got up and shoved her away. "Don't what, you silly
cow?'' I rounded on her, narked, pointing a finger into her face. "You
stop giving me orders. I won't have it, y'hear?"

"Yes, darling."

"Just get that straight, all right?"

"Certainly, darling."

Which having been decided, we descended and locked up, and she
drove back to the Wittwoode Auction Temple to do her—read my—bidding. And I
went to prepare my workshop for the labor that lay ahead. Serious, from now on.
I was working for Prammie and Rye Benedict. And, who knows, some old bloke
called Fair-clough.

On the way, I caught a bus. More on a whim than with anything
serious in mind. An advert had caught my eye. The sailing barges were
gathering. Fifteen minutes later, in the estuary, I stood among a scatter of
old salts, children, and the odd housewife, to watch the boats.

"They loaded up, all ready for the race?" I asked one
elderly nautical. A spherical whiskered gnome, smoking a foul pipe. I stood to
windward.

He snorted. "Loaded? You'm thick, booy. Don't load for a
race. She'm travelin' loight."

These Thames barges, few left now, are massive great things. Two
masts, with a heavy spritsail. They stain the sails with red ocher and oil. A
real mess.

"Why're they so low in the water then?"

He spat past his pipe stem, the grottle donging a well-spattered
bollard quite ten yards away. I admired that. I knew I'd be trying it myself,
soon as I got home. I'd fail.

"Thames barge is flat-bottomed, son." He scathed me with
a look. "These coasts, see? Leeboards instead of keels. Let her move to
leeward in shoal water, stay upright if a-grounded. Her mast's lutchet-stepped,
so she can go under bridges."

He told me a lot, the way of coastal folk yapping about boats. I
stared at the three great sailing barges. So they sail up even shallow rivers,
these things? And race the Blackwater Race cargo empty? So the use of one as a
depot for tons of stolen antiques would be purely temporary, while it was
moored. Decoys are temporary. So Prammie's heavy stuff from Cornish Place was
still ashore.

"Ta, Dad," I said to the old seaman. And went to work.

It isn't much of a place. A converted garage with a homemade
furnace and bellows. Tool racks. A window for north light, when painting fakes.
A folding bench hinged to the brickwork. Saws, planes, nails in screwtop
marmalade jars—they keep moisture out. Paints in a cyclist's plastic expanding
box (buy Italian-made boxes; they're cheapest and best). Brushes in earthenware
pots (cover them with plastic freezer bags, with a rubber band). Containers of
turpentine, various painting oils. Linseed oil I try hardening in sunshine,
like the old sixteenth-century painters did. But rushing out with the jar the
instant our watery sunshine creeps over the garden has seriously weakened me
over the years. Canvas, wood stretchers, glues, ancient nails nicked from
various things. It's a mess. Perfect.

It took me a good two hours to get going. I carried out some
precious pieces I’d been harboring.

Clearing up is one of those postponable jobs that, when they're
done, make you feel surprisingly holy. I'd been saying I'd get the workshop
ready for two months, but I hadn't. Now there it all was, pristine. Ready for
action. Pleased, I went inside and brewed up.

Plan: With a massive number of antiques, fuffed out by fakes, I
would be in a good position to demand from Connie Hopkins, my partner, access
to the dollop broker. Maybe even meet her. Ex-teacher, Miss R. Find out from
her who owned the Cornish Place dollop she was guarding, and good night, nurse.
Proof for all my suspicions.

"Two lumps, Lovejoy."

Joan Vervain, in the porch, smiling.

"Still not reached Monte Carlo?" Gorgeous as ever.

She strolled in, spread herself on the divan.

"You're quite tidy." She gave me a firm stare I didn't
like. The new sort. "Had any assistance in that line?"

"Women find it difficult here, love."

"The lady mayoress been busying her little self in your
service, Lovejoy?"

I wish I could do that, give words twice their meaning. I made
tea, gave her some. She tasted it, grimaced.

"She hasn't taught you any domestic skills, Lovejoy."

"Don't drink it then."

She smiled, lay back, kicked off her shoes. "Discontent,
darling? You always were impatient." She was doing the woman's laugh that
isn't a laugh at all. I was the butt.

Something amiss in that smile. Still lovey-dovey, but with a
secret joy. Del Vervain had shared it, when last seen.

"I'm delighted, love." I came and embraced her, to get
her over with. She embraced me back. We were so pally.

"Did you hear him last night?'' She traced my features with a
finger. "Del announced your coming . . . appearance."

"Soon at this theater?" I quipped, but unhappy. I’ve no
illusions about broadcasters. They march to a distant drum, out of sync. Del
and she were planning something. To my detriment, if not destruction. Were the
other producers, who came and read sheafs of documents at the Vervains' party,
in on the giggle? "One of those producers asked me to give her a
call—"

"No, darling. Don't do that." Too quick. “I’ve been
asked to take care of you. Those stinking girls bother one so."

Answer: The producers weren't in on the giggle. And in Joan's
phrases lurked a concealed joke. I felt it.

"I'm a bit unhappy, love. I mean, me and microphones
..."

"Darling." Her gentle hands were everywhere, urgent and
moving. I felt my shirt come undone. When Luna might come thrilling in with
wagonloads of antiques? "Darling. Trust me. This setback with Del is only
temporary. We'll be away soon. I promise."

"If you say so." There isn't anything a man can do when
a woman comes on like this. Her breasts, her shape, physiology, take command
and it's yippee and waves on the seashore and passion blinding you to the
entire galaxy.

So it happened. Mercifully, Luna was elsewhere, and occupied.

As I came round and Joan's cigarette smoke curled to the ceiling,
her satisfied smile revealed she'd ditched me. No Monte Carlo. No escape to
happiness to violins. No stealth to wealth for Lovejoy. I was to be sacrificed
in some noble cause, namely and to wit, Joan and Del Vervain. Lovejoy would be
down in their lion-infested arena with a chocolate sword. I used to watch the
faces of women at cockfights when a tiny lad. As the poor feathered creatures
slaughtered each other, the women's faces wore identical uglinesses that I
could not then name.

Now I know it well. It's passion. There are other words. Rut.
Ecstasy. Orgasm. But none does half as well as that word from the darkness of
Man's uncharted past. Joan had been bought back by Del, by the promise of a
passion she had never yet experienced. What woman could resist? I was glad. I'd
started all this when deciding to ditch her.

She went after an hour. We promised to meet tomorrow somewhere I
forgot instantly. I spent a few troubled minutes on the telephone, and got
through to an agency, pretending I was the
Bolton
Journal and Guardian
. I was the arts and entertainment correspondent. I
wanted the ratings for Del Vervain's talk show.

"You've heard, eh?" the chap said, laughing.
"Jesus! The north got pigeons listening to the wire services? It's down
the chute, mate. Word is they're going to pull the plug. I mean, four million's
good-bye country. Two months'll see it off."

"Ta," I said gutturally, and Luna arrived.

Babbling, she hurried in, showing me notes, chits from Wittwoode's,
catalogue photographs, ticks on lists. Her face was almost delirious with
delight.

But not ugly. I put my arm round her. She stopped talking,
possibly an all-time first, and asked what was the matter.

"Nothing," I said. I bussed her. She pulled away,
breathless.

"Lovejoy. This is no time for that. The vans are coming. The
. . . whiffler said so."

She noticed the divan. I hadn't straightened it.

"Did you have a doze?" She rounded on me. "Lovejoy.
You distinctly promised you'd tidy the workshop. Now we'll be hours behind. Get
started this instant!”

"I love you, Lune." I'd said it before, differently.

She drew back. The words seemed outside her experience.

"You . . . ?"

No good asking me. I was as astonished as she. Hesitatingly she
made to come towards me. But three whizzers from Wittwoode's were suddenly
bawling and clattering in the garden, and the waves on the seashore would have
to wait. Luna must have power beyond Man's knowing. They'd never been on time
before.

Twenty-seven

“You didn't do so badly, Lune.” I scanned the stuff.

She blushed with pleasure. "I had to pay highly for the
carafe, but it helps your old soldier friend.''

"My who?"

"The elderly gentleman, moving to his daughter's in Bognor.
The German enameled bottle—"

"Ah.
That
old
friend." I'd forgotten. "Bidding rough?"

"No. That Acker Kirwin tried, but I outwitted him. I
pretended to give up, then re-entered. He became discouraged."

Well, well. I warmed to her. "Acted like a veteran."

She was primly disapproving. "Some of the dealers' practices
I find reprehensible." She swung on me because I wasn't taking notice.
"Especially your friends, Lovejoy."

"No!" I said, aghast. "Acting dishonestly?"

"It's true, Lovejoy." She shook her lovely hair,
deploring all crime. Here was me eager to turn this junk into priceless
antiques, and she was giving me bleeding-heart morality. "I saw Sandy swop
lot numbers' tickets."