The Grace in Older Women (20 page)

'I can't make you out, Lovejoy.'

Hard to smile under the circumstances. 'I'm transparent, love.'

'Now you've seen my art, what will you do?'

'Keep a weather eye on auctions, love.' I crossed to look at the
Macke - well, the Witherspoon. 'Not going to give me a list of your forgeries?'

'I've only done these, Lovejoy. And the one - '

‘In the vestry?' I nodded. Motive, never much use, was clear here.
She wanted to help her priest. I could understand that; she was head over
heels. Means? Well, she was a talented artist. 'You wanted me to say it was a
genuine, then you'd have nicked it, claimed on the insurance?'

Her shoulders drooped further, it seemed so sensible. He's paid
out a fortune to insurers, Lovejoy. Surely he is entitled to some return?'

She didn't mean the Deity. I felt sympathy.

'You've not done another lately, for somebody local?'

'Here, Love joy?' She gave a laugh worse than any groan. 'If you know
a customer, let me know. You're the first caller I've had in a fortnight.'
'Isn't there some farm lady interested in antiques?' It was a shot at hazard.
'A farm labourer told me she raised wool, some new animals . . .' 'Dame
Millicent. Quite barmy, all weird speculations.' Brightening, I knew I'd done
right to come. Time to visit Cockcroft

Manor, chat up the loony old crone. I thanked Juliana, said if
there was ever anything I could ever do . . . Then I remembered I was nutritionally
compromised, and hesitated. 'Juliana. Have you anything to eat? I was up early
in the nick.' An hour later I made Cockcroft Manor, but not until I'd had a worrying
chat with Hugo.

17

‘I felt a right prat,' Hugo said.

He didn't look very well, or even very bright. Shabby, resigned, like
he mustn't be late for some impending defeat. We'd met in China Miles's yard
near the Welcome Sailor. It's a new nosh bar, founded on everybody else's
credit. I was running up a slate there because I'd once done China a favour by
spotting that he'd bought a twiffler - a flatware piece, basically a pudding
plate. (They were handmade before the 1870s, when machinery took over and
killed passion. Because people don't look properly, they're missed times it of
number. I've seen four this year in car boot sales, going for a warble.) ‘You
did well, Hugo.'

'Pretending I'd been groped by some UFO alien?'

Well, I thought, dedicated actor and all that.

He waxed. 'See, Lovejoy, the stage is famine or feast.' He stooped
to his plate and scooped the pie and mash I'd bought him. I watched with
fascination, knowing I'd try it at home. He put his mouth on the plate's rim
and shovelled the grub horizontally into his open gob. Horrible, but you have
to admire dexterity.

He spoke with a full mouth, much more horriblerer still. Queasy, I
resolved not to try it after all.

'Jox told me to flannel the tourists. Lent me a book on UFOs.'

‘If I had a job, Hugo,' I spoke with care, not wanting to prevent public
demand dragging him off to Stratford, 'private, country house stuff, family
situation, nothing illegal. . . ?'

His eager grin was one of baked beans, sausage, dangles of bacon. Jesus,
but we're an ugly species.

'Like, Agatha Christie? That murder-in-a-vicarage game? I'd do it like
a shot!' He babbled on, me dodging the shards as he spoke. 'My friend did one!
Earned plenty!'

'Yes, but with special rules.' I hadn't anything planned, but
wasn't going to ditch a possible ally. 'China?'

China emerged. His caffs literally a converted scrap-metal
dealer's yard. China isn't Chinese or anything, just runs a credit scam with
his wife's cousin, who is and lives in the Far East sitting by her facsimile
machine. The seam's easy, a product of the Age of Communication, and is the
very best argument against owning a credit card on earth.

'How're you going to pay, Love joy? Credit card?'

Which gave me a laugh. China earned the yard and kitchen from
credit-card frauds. He was a waiter in an Aldgate restaurant. When diners paid
by plastic, he would photocopy the credit card, facsimile it to the Hong Kong
cousin, who would instantly 'swipe' - the term - the details onto a blank.
China would return the card to the customer in seconds, with a grovelling
coat-at-the-door farewell. Before the diners had reached home, their replicated
credit card would have been used to buy jewellery, gold, withdraw money. Nobody
is any the wiser - until the monthly statement comes through. But by then China
was in the clear. A humble waiter, busy restaurant, what was a dispute between
some bank and some diner to him? It works well. The 'plazzie', as it's known, has
become a contender, from pennies to quarter of a billion in three years. I'm
glad I'm not credit-worthy.

'Lady asked, Lovejoy. Said don't forget the biggin.' China made
prominences of his cupped hands. 'Lovely eyes on her.'

Sabrina wanting action for her auction scam. 'Ta, China.' We
parted amicably. Outside, I asked Hugo, 'One thing. That stout bloke,
whatsisname. Put the spoke in.'

Hugo looked edgy. 'Don't ask me, Lovejoy.' He looked definitely
deal's off. 'I want no stick trade, nothing heavy.'

Heavy? I looked blankly at him. What the hell was he on about? 'I
was only wondering if he was some neighbour of Jox's.'

His brow cleared. 'Thank Christ, Lovejoy. Didn't think you were
GBH. William Geake. He was round earlier when Jox was rehearsing us, browbeating.
He's got it in for Jox. Big peeler. Retired. Jox told me he'd top the bastard
if he could.'

With Jox's record, he'd be daft trying. Thoughtfully I watched
Hugo plod off. Was Jox capable of doing somebody like Tryer in, though? Forget
why, just think possibilities. And anybody can do anything. For a second I
dithered whether to call in on the Misses

Dewhurst and demand explanations, but finally decided to drive out
to Dame Millicent, that crone of increasing significance.

Tryer came to mind. I'd tried not to think, wonder how Chemise was
doing. That's not because I'm a hard-hearted swine. It was because, once you
start dwelling on some terrible event, you give in, go to pieces. During the
hours that had passed since I'd splashed into the boating pool, I'd concentrated
on being angry at the police, I'd composed bitter letters to my Member of
Parliament about unlaw, made imaginary speeches on telly crime programmes and
roused the nation to indignation. Childhood gunge, but it stops you breaking
down. With luck, I could keep myself from ever remembering. I was busy, and
memory's a luxury anyway.

Cockcroft Manor Farm was a tenth the grandeur of its name. You'd
take it for an ordinary farmhouse, as you whizzed by on the A45. It seemed
uncertain what to be in the modern world. Probably was a useful farm in its
heyday, churning out produce, keeping folk in employ, a rural epicentre. Now it
seemed prepared to sell its soul. A trestle table stood at the gate with boxes
of apples, cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes, and a notice: 'Please serve
yourself!!! Money in the tin!!! Thank you!!!' Commerce had arrived at
Cockcroft.

Except the three beehives on the uncut grass were empty. The
pastures held a couple of tired horses. The stables looked nigh derelict, door
reaching slantwise for the ground. A tractor rusted patiently. Some other
implement petrified awry, corroding on the skyline. The manor house itself
could have done with paint, some tiles, yards of cladding, panes of glass, a
skilled chimney straightener, and a pargeter to restore the lovely old
pargeting flaking in chunks off the gable ends. The farm covered forty acres,
give or take, which isn't much. Forest extended across the rising distance. A
river worked abstractedly to form an oxbow lake; a millennium should see it
through. As I stood daring the drive, a red-coated horseman emerged from the
woods with a scatter of hounds like wafted oats in front. He stared, rode
across my field of view and vanished into the stand of young deciduous trees.
Neither of us waved. Geake again.

'You there!' an imperious lady shouted from the farmhouse. I
cupped a hand. Tut - money - in - tin!'

'No,' I bawled.

'Bounder!' she called.

'Snotface!' I bawled.

She froze, then laughed, wagged her stick, rocked her way inside.
I drove in, parked.

'Dame Millicent Hallsworthy,' I said into the gloom.

'In here, you vulgar brute.'

Advancing gingerly, I bumped against something huge. It growled
and moved aside, came padding along. I swallowed and wondered if I should be
here. Trying to be pleasant to a dog the size of a lioness is impossible. I had
a bird who was addicted to dogs. She had three pinschers I hated. I lasted one
day. Feeding time was carnage incarnate, so to speak. This hound was a mournful
thing with trailing ears. A door was open.

'Lovejoy.' The words just reached into the room. I followed.

Long, practically bare, a log fire keeping the stone-flagged
flooring free of ice. I'm not often cold, and when I am it's mainly emotional,
but this place was ridiculous. Damp walls, fungus the size of tumorose saucers
on the pelmets, cardboard and plywood plugging several windows. One sprung
sofa. The dog had followed, growing larger meanwhile, staring in sorrow.

'You're the antiques man with the gift,' she said. 'Late!'

Her face was lined, not pale, her smile full of blackened teeth.
She wore a beret. A moth-eaten (literally) fox fur dangled round her neck,
glassy of eye, limbs pendulating. It looked warm, but chilled me further.
Nowhere to sit except on the metal springs leaping in still life from her sofa,
so I stood with the dog, at least as dejected.

Gift? It was her dog, so I agreed. 'Yes, Dame Millicent.'

She eyed me perkily. 'You're wondering why a titled lady lives in
squalor, Lovejoy.'

'No.' The dog sighed in threat. 'Yes,' I amended.

'Don't be afraid of Malapert. He's harmless. Come closer. Let me
look at you.' I stepped cautiously. Malapert came, too. The word means saucy,
blunt of manner. She eyed me. 'I'd have eaten you, Lovejoy, a few years ago.
Now . . .' She shrugged, winced. She was bent with arthritis. Her hands were
gnarled, looked crushed from some accident, except the accident was only
accumulated life. She clutched a metal ball. Her knees were bulbs, calves mere
spindles down to deformed ankles. 'I can't get up in the morning without my
electric blanket.’ She sighed. Malapert sighed. So I sighed. Crawler.

'Anything I can do for you, Dame Millicent?'

She smiled. It was beautiful, the gaunt room instantly warmer. 'I
do so love you people,' she said. 'You will have noticed my accent? Balkan, of
course. I shall leave you guessing. Foreigners call me Dame Hallsworthy. They
called Sir Ralph - wrongly - Sir Keeler, Mister Sir, any combination! This
island never falters, though!'

Politely I laughed, remembering the scandal. It had wobbled a
government donkey's years before. Somebody's suicide and a cluster of
resignations had faded. It was resurrected by desperate newspapers every few
years. Sir Ralph was an august MP of peculiar bent.

'You like my antique pome?' she asked slyly. The metal ball.
Hollow, plugged with a shapely stopper. The dog glanced at me.

'Great,' I lied heartily. 'Er, a beautiful pome!'

She grimaced. 'Well, it
might
deceive somebody, Lovejoy. I've been trying new polish, coats it silver.'

'Aye. Sorry.' I honestly felt it for the old fraud.

A pome is a metal ball, usually silver. You fill it with hot water
in some vestry, and the priest carries it through his stone-cold church
service. It's simply a handwarmer. So there are no embarrassing gasps as his
frozen fingers drop the chalice. Exquisite ones were made by brilliant London
silversmiths. Some are nothing more than silver cases holding a glass bottle.
Few dealers recognize them, thinking them portable travelling flasks.

'The blacksmith makes me things. This, those pilliwinks.'

'Finger crushers?' It's a mediaeval instrument of torture for
cramping digits, lever action. Very collectable. You can torture one finger at
a time or several together, depending on your need for truth, as it were. I
would have had a closer look but for the hound. 'He seems to've been pretty
deft.' Maybe I should sell for her. Ironwork's easy to pass as genuine.

'Yes. I was sad to lose him. He wanted to stay.'

'But he was made to leave?' I asked, innocent.

'His lady spurned him, Lovejoy. She loves . . . another.'

Aha! Juliana Witherspoon, hopelessly smitten by the priest,
ignores Jolly Joe the Blacksmith, who departs forlorn?

'So Fenstone shrank further still, eh?'

Her deflected fingers reminded me of old gardening implements. She
gestured with them.

‘I’ve tried everything, Lovejoy, from farming imported exotic
animals to tourism. I’ve even tried pretending there's ancient treasures in my
fields.'

'No!' I gasped. She got the joke and laughed herself into
arthritic agony.