Moonspender (4 page)

"Look, love," I told it brokenly, "I'm sorry.
Honest. I honestly didn't think. It's just this silly bloody game."

Some people were laughing. Goldie was beaming confidingly at the
audience, working their amusement, but I could tell heads would roll for letting
me on the panel. That made me feel even worse. "We've never had a panelist
make love to a pot before," she simpered. The panic-stricken comic fanned
the laughter, uncertain applause.

I wasn't having this vase spoken to like that. "Pot? You need
a bloody good hiding, you stuck-up ignorant bitch." I apologized to the
dazzling ornament. The audience quieted. "Do you mind, chuckle?" I
asked it politely, and reached out to touch it, thrilling. And I swear it
almost did move, a swift gracious response of understanding emanated ... I
realized there was almost total quiet. Cameramen, the gecko crawlers, even
Goldie, were stunned into silence.

"Well," I said defensively. "She's worth the lot of
you pillocks. She hasn't come down through all these centuries from ancient
China just for you to have a frigging giggle, you stupid burkes."

"Break time now, viewers," Goldie caroled. "Don't
go away now!"

Everybody froze an instant, then all hell was let loose. They
hoofed me off. Not a chance to say good-bye to that luscious green glass queen.
A burly bloke actually hauled me down corridors, smashing through swing doors
at a breathless run while I tried to explain in gasps. I had a glimpse of the
drunken comic giving me a hilarious grin and a thumbs-up, then I was lobbed out
into the rain. The door slammed and I was alone under an archway near the car
park. Disgruntled, I went round the comer to a nosh bar and counted time,
worrying about Sykes.

Scared? Of course I was scared. How was I to know the show was for
epsilon-minus stupes?

Twenty minutes later the crowd emerged, talking and amused. The
show had obviously taken a turn for the better. Sykie finally appeared.
Mercifully, he was smiling. He gave me a nod, walked by without a word. His
Rolls came and wafted him away in grand style, his nerks following in a saloon.
One gave me Toffee's basket. She was asleep. Some people nudged each other when
they saw me, as if it was all my fault. It was that Goldie. Women always find a
bloke to blame, don't they. I was at a loss, hanging about the pavement
wondering if Sykie'd send word, but at half-past gave up and caught the tube to
Liverpool Street Station.

Thinking about it, sharing a pasty with Toffee as the train
rattled into East Anglia, I was quite pleased. It was over and done with, and
I'd done as I was told, right? It wasn't my fault I'd mucked up their neffie
program. Three little girls got on at Romford and played with Toffee while I
nodded off.

An hour later I entered the Railway Tavern. He was there, as
instructed: rheumy-eyed, in his tatty army greatcoat, resonantly coughing up
phlegm from subterranean depths. Tinker Dill, Esq., my barker. The best
antiques sniffer in East Anglia.

"Wotcher, Tinker. Get the notes?"

"Aye, Lovejoy." He slurped his ale to drought, my cue to
buy another pint. " 'Ere. We in trouble?" It's all he ever says to
me, but for once I didn't snap his head off.

"Trouble? Nar, mate. Just wriggled out from under."

Wrong, Lovejoy, wrong.

3

Too drunk, Tinker doesn't function. Sober, he's hopeless. But
middling sloshed he's a gem. Now he was coughing really well and tipsily
crumpled, all good signs.

"I seed yer on the telly, Lovejoy," he wheezed.
"That Goldie tart's got lovely bristols, eh?"

"Good legs, too. What about the auction?"

"Everybody bought everyfing, Lovejoy." Translation: He'd
guessed right about all the notable items in the sale I'd sent him to. With the
stimulus of a fresh pint, he embellished. "Maggie paid a bleedin' fortune
for that set of mugs. Lennie made a balls-up, bidding too fast for that little
mahogany Canterbury. Liz Sandwell got the Pembroke table . . ."

This is lifeblood. I listened hungrily. Sounds daft, I know, but
every syllable might be worth a mint. It took him six pints to run down the
list

". . . and Jessica got them old shoes cheap, folk said.
That's it, Lovejoy."

"Them old shoes" were about 1895, very pointed patent
leather pumps with big flat bows of grosgrain ribbon. I groaned. They were mint
collectors' items. I hate these delectables going to the undeserving, which
means anybody else.

"Another pint, love," I told Megan at the bar—she was
fawning on Toffee—and asked Tinker, "Jessica bidding separate from
Lennie?"

"Aye."

Interesting news, this. Jessica is Lennie's mother-in-law, and
possesses glamour, wealth, and, rumor hath, Lennie as well. She furthers his
interests with all the effort of which she's capable, which is a great deal.
Sadly, Lennie is a numskull. You never see Lennie's wife. Scandal gets vigorous
local help, one way and another..

". . . you'd be there at ten, Lovejoy."

"Eh?" Tinker had been talking. "Me where at
ten?"

"Dogpits Farm. Some tart." He coughed, a long crescendo
that shook soot down the bar chimney. I paused with the respect due a world
champ.

"What for?" As far as I was concerned Dogpits was a
place famous for being where they'd found a little Roman amphitheater years
ago, and nowt else.

"How the bleedin' hell should I know?" he graveled out,
peeved. His glass was empty. I paid for more lubrication. "And Sykie sent
his lads over. Sez be home tomorrer."

"Two places at once?" It wasn't Tinker's fault. A
barker's job to collect messages, sniff out hearsay about illicit antique
goings-on. I'm the brains of the outfit, God help us. Meanwhile he was eyeing
Toffee speculatively.

"Stuffed moggies is good money, Lovejoy."

"Only before 1910, though." Toffee looked at me, but the
thought honestly hadn't crossed my mind.

"You can age them. Didn't you show Brad some trick with
formalin tablets?"

"You mean stuffed fish and hydrogen peroxide." It had
made me queasy for days. Never again. "That it, then?"

"Yih." He nearly shook himself apart with another
world-beater cough. " 'Cept for George Prentiss."

"George? He still owes me for three Boer War soldiers,
Afrikaans, painted lead; and a book." That's the trouble with me, too
trusting.

"Not now, Lovejoy. Frigging great farm bull
killt
him." He spat into the fire. "A rubbish
animal, big as a barn."

"Dead? Dear God. When?"

"Last night. Boothie found him, Pittsbury Wood way."

Tom Booth is a famed poacher. Seemed an odd business to me. I said
so, and a well-loved voice agreed with me from the taproom doorway. I sighed
wearily. It was one of those days. Maybe I ought to have accepted Mrs. Ryan's
job and be safely baling straw in some orchard or whatever.

"Pint, Megan." Ledger leaned on the bar beside me.
"Evening, Dill."

"Mumble, mumble." Tinker edged away, leaving me all
alone. Friends, I thought bitterly, though Ledger's not really poisonous, as
peelers go. That is to say he has standards, which have even veered towards
righteousness when all else has failed.

"Don't tell me. Ledger," I said. "You watched telly
and have popped in for a friendly gloat."

"What are you on about, Lovejoy?" He sounded quite
affable, a bad omen. "No. I've come to demand an explanation. In," he
twinkled with repellent merriment, "the name of the law."

"Should you be drinking on duty?"

"No. Cheers." He sucked on the rim. The most obnoxious
sight in the world, a copper enjoying an illicit pint, whooping it up on our
taxes. Fuming, I looked away. Megan's mobile mammae were more gorgeous any day
of the week. "George, as you said, is a very odd business."

"Tinker just told me. What was he doing having a run-in with
a bull in candle hours?"

He gave me a warning finger. "Shut it, Lovejoy. I ask. You
answer. Follow?" He nodded to Megan for a refill, my only benefit being an
upsurge in Megan's nubility as she manipulated the lever. The symbolism was
wearing me out. If it hadn't been for this pest I'd offer to give her Toffee
for a—"How come, Lovejoy, that George had in his possession a book
belonging to you?"

"Me?" I went all innocent.

"Don't irritate me, lad. I've checked."

The book was practically new, a 1962 thing called 
Erotic
Love
. I'd faked the pseudonymous author's autograph, Sardi, on the flyleaf,
a common dealer's trick. If he/she can secretly be anybody, the signature can
be in anybody's handwriting. It should have kept me in grub a whole week.
George had seen me in the Ship pub on East Hill trying to sell it to Lily. I'd
come by the Sardi book almost legitimately by nicking it in a church jumble
sale, a temporary loan from the Almighty—one way of improving His poor record
of assisting the disadvantaged.

"Ah, 
that
 book!" I said with theatrical
remembrance. "Yes. Original author's inscription, I believe. Not quite my
kind of subject, you understand ..." I'd strangle Lily for bubbling me
with the Old Bill.

He frowned. "What I want to know is why George Prentiss
should be carrying your book across a field, committing night trespass, and
getting gored to death."

"Beats me."

"What I mean is, did George fall, or was he pushed?"

"Ask the frigging bull." And these goons get paid. I ask
you.

He sat silent for a few seconds, watching me. Some darts players
over by the fire cheered a victory. They practice days at a time, but I've
never seen a darts match end by anything but a
fllike
.
"What's the book, Lovejoy?"

I spoke frankly because Ledger's tone had gone normal. "Truth
is, I got it at a church jumble. It was big erotic stuff for the sixties. Now,
it's old hat."

"Was Prentiss a known collector?"

"George? Hardly. He just helps various dealers with early
electrical gadgets. Nice bloke. Sometimes bought a few models- -soldiery, model
cars, dinkies we call them all in the trade." I told him about the Boer
War riflemen. "That was a month back. Real collectors are maniacs. Sell
their missus for a beer label if it'd make a set."

He left then, to the Railway Tavern's wholesale relief Not a word
of thanks, note, for the invaluable assistance I'd rendered to the forces of
law and order. Tinker shuffled over.

After I'd got him ale-oiled, I asked, "Here, Tinker. What
rank is Ledger now?"

"Him? A boss summert. Why?"

"Odd." I kept my voice down. Megan's form undulated
nearby as she did her thrilling best with the beer handle. "A boss 
growser
, asking around pubs about a farm accident?
He should be watching football on telly with his missus brewing cocoa."

"
Workin
' a free pint,"
Tinker said with venom.

"That's it," I agreed, smiling. "Another?" But
my mind was going: Pittsbury Wood abuts on Dogpits Farm. I decided then to keep
the appointment with Tinker's "some tart" at ten o'clock. You see, I
knew something about George Prentiss that nobody even suspected and it's this:
George wouldn't be found dead in the countryside. No, sorry, I didn't mean
that. What I mean is, George hated the dark. And he hated truly rural
countryside almost as much as I do, which is considerably. Let me explain.

One of my worst disappointments was discovering that life needs
management. Like, sometimes a week will start so badly that you simply want to
stop it and start again. When an especially bad week happens along, I simply
halt it and go about pretending it's last Sunday. I call them my Sunday weeks.
I loll, feed the robin, read, go to a nonexistent evensong and hum my way
through maybe a
Tantum
Ergo, all alone in a surprised
but empty church. The next morning, lo and behold! It's last Monday again, but
second time around, as it were. It confers a kind of spirit-world lebensraum.
And guess what? That week suddenly changes. It becomes easy, friendly, and
trouble-free. Try it.

I'd learned about George's particular weakness three months
before. I was merrily drunk on homemade wine and telling a bored robin how I'd
stupidly missed a Benin bronze in a Suffolk auction by stopping for a quick,
er, chat with the delectable Liz Sandwell in Dragonsdale. That escapade cost
money. Not many people can manage penury, shame, and degradation all at one go,
like me. Instantly recognizing I'd fallen unsuspectingly into a Sunday week, I
zoomed home to pretend it was the previous
sabbath
.
By evening I was happy, and warbling a Thomas
Tallis
madrigal to an indifferent universe from the confines of my workshop—no
thriving mill; it's a crumbling ex-garage set among brambles.

It was then that George stopped by for a drink. I sang him a
difficult second stanza and gave him a jam jar full of my best elderberry.
George is, was, a quietly calm bloke. Anyone not knowing
him'd
call him reserved.