The Lies of Fair Ladies (20 page)

A bus came. I drew her out of earshot.

"Luna. Take this folder. I had it stolen. Don't lose it, or
we're sunk. I need a load of money. Now, to pay him."

"You . . . ?" She gaped, except her sort doesn't really
gape. They raise eyebrows, look round vaguely then back to stare some more. But
it does pretty well, as gapes go.

"There's no lecture, love. We're going to produce a load of
antiques. Very speedily."

"We are?" She did the gape. "No lecture? We
are?"

"Once you get the money to pay Delia, yes. To save somebody
from being murdered."

"Like that poor old—?"

"Very similar, love. Ouch." She'd put her hand on my
arm. "Watch it, Lune. I, er, fell."

She stepped back to appraise me, slowly nodded. "Are you
being blackmailed, Lovejoy?"

"No," I said impatiently. "Silly cow. You need a
reputation to be blackmailed." I would have glanced at the post office
clock but there's only this red-glow digital kidding that the world is
permanently fixed at 09:37 a.m. and 68 Celsius. "The bank, love."

"Have you had anything to eat, Lovejoy?"

"We had such a big supper last night."

She went and got the gelt. She drove us down East Hill and I
shoved it through Sandy's letter box in good time, so relieved I almost stopped
groaning. Sitting in a motor when you've been kicked silly's even more painful
than a bus ride.

"Are you all right, Lovejoy?"

"Fine, ta. Take us somewhere we can read Delia's loot, eh?
Then the swimming baths. Then Calamity Jenny's."

"Should you be going swimming if you're so stiff? Only—"

"Lune," I said wearily. "Just drive."

She was frightened, or she'd have told me off. She hated being
called Lune, but that was her fault, not mine.

We'd almost started to pull away from the curb when a police car
slowed, blocking us in. Cradhead got out and approached at funereal pace.

I smiled and waved. He leant down, quite affable.

"Sorry I can't stop. Chief Superintendent. But I've a
valuation for our Lady Mayoress. Perhaps some other time, eh?"

"Now, Lovejoy. You know I’m only a corporal." He opened
the door. "Forgive me, Mrs. Carstairs."

He stayed there, holding the door wide. Cars crawled past, faces
peering, the swine. I could be being kidnapped for all the action they took. They
wear the same expression when having a nice drive out to ogle some shambles of
a motorway accident.

"Very well. Commissioner.'' I got out, unable to suppress a
groan. 'Please don't think this happens every day, Mrs. Carstairs. I do assure
you. I am the most respected antiques expert in the Eastern Hundreds, for
valuations, estimates, repairs—"

He coaxed me away, which is being dragged with your heels
trailing. I saw Luna's stricken face, mutely urging her to get the hell out of
it, seeing we'd just paid off Delia for stolen materials now on her back seat.

She called, "Shall I follow, Lovejoy? Your folder—"

God Almighty.
Wave it
around, you silly bitch
, I tried to radar, but she dithered on the
pavement.

"We'll go over your list later, Mrs. Carstairs."

"My list?" she asked, baffled.

My grin felt it weighed a ton. "Of your antiques. And thank
Oliver. I'll call him soon as I've done with Superintendent Cradhead."

That did it. Her expression wiped clean.

"Oh. I see, Lovejoy!" she said brightly. "I'm to
take the folder until you come for it!"

Put it in neon lights, love, I raged. I'd throttle her. We went to
the police car and got in, grunting.

"Gardening aches," I said quickly. My ribs must be
busted.

"Sitting comfortably, Lovejoy? Then read on."

"A telephone number?" I looked on the reverse. Blank.

"It's yours."

The other bloke in the motor chuckled, shaking his head.
"He's a one-off, right enough."

"Mine? Fancy that." I gave it back, waited. My heart was
sneaking down nervously to my boots.

"Written in the shaky old hand of one Godfrey S. Fairclough.
He'd not long phoned you, Lovejoy. Left you a message."

The other nerk snickered. All ears and nicotine teeth.

"Here," I said, narked. "You had no right to break
in and listen to my messages. It's against the law."

Cradhead said, "Lovejoy. One Godfrey S. Fairclough was
injured by intruders. Fortunately, the assailants were disturbed by a
door-to-door charity collector."

"Why didn't you catch them?"

"How do you know we didn't?"

"You wouldn't be working up to your daft question." He opened
a palm, inviting it. ''Where was I on the night of the fifty-first? And did I
do him?"

"And?"

"Daft, like I said." I stared back at the other
ploddite, who was trying to give me the bent eye. A laugh, really. Witnesses
all around. A couple of kids were staring in, noses pressed to the windows.
Drinkwater might be a nerk, but this Cradhead seemed to possess a rudimentary
cortex.

"The collector almost caught a glimpse, but the foliage . .
."He hesitated. "You know this Fairclough?"

He must be seriously injured, poor old bloke, or they'd be asking
him instead of having to take my word for it. I shrugged.

"Parker. Go for a walk, will you?"

"You what?" Parker said, amazed. But he went.

"One of your brightest?" I said.

Cradhead sighed. "It's these frigging courses, Lovejoy.
They're never on the job. Sociology."

I warmed to him. Somebody who hates sociologists can't be all bad.

"I don't know much, Craddie." I thought I'd better get
in first. "Except that old bloke Godbolt who got topped was involved in
some antiques thing. I've not heard for sure, but word is some shipment out to
the U.S. is on, through the Midlands. It seems a bigger shipment of antiques
than we're used to."

"Is it out, Lovejoy? Or in?"

In? This startled me, because it hadn't occurred to me. I decided
I was wrong to warm to Cradhead. In fact, I wanted him on the next sociology
course, preferably in Aberdeen.

"In?" I would have shrugged if I could have done it
without a screech. "We don't import antiques much, Craddie. Don't you know
the local scene? We export them, for coin of the realm."

"Just a thought." He patted my shoulder, harder than he
needed. "That was some gardening you did, Lovejoy. No hard climbing, no
clobbering old gentlemen?"

"Del Vervain." I had to admit it, or he'd turn as nasty
as his gaffer. "He got some thugs to do me over last night."

He took the news calmly. "Not going to Monte Carlo
then?" He let me go, smiling and shaking his head. "Time you settled
down, Lovejoy. Oh, Drinkwater wants to see you. About a whole series of
burglaries."

"Series?" I said like a fool, startled.

"Sorry. Only two, weren't there? Ta-ta, Lovejoy."

Delia's break-ins had been sussed, which was fine by me. Good old
Delia, in the clear. I wished I was.

By the time I found Luna again, I’d almost worked out how much I
owed her. It made me pale around the gills. No wonder hubby Oliver was having
doubts about his wife's behavior. But could I help it if she liked antiques?
One thing: If Drinkwater wanted to see me, why did Cradhead let me go?

Poor old Fairclough.

Eighteen

The swimming bath was heaving like a tin of maggots. Children of
all ages screamed, plunged, had water fights. The echoing racket was deafening.
Plasher was vigilant, never taking his eyes off the turmoil. He's the
lifeguard, always in swimming trunks, never looks at you. He has a voice like
thunder.

"Wotcher, Plasher."

"Wotcher, Lovejoy."

A score of children ran past, leapt howling onto the seething mass
in the water.

Flasher bellowed, "Less of that!'' And unbelievably for a
second the pandemonium faltered slightly before redoubling. I wish I could do
that.

Luna was all admiring, thrilled at the spectacle of a zillion
infants wriggling in water.

"Flasher, I want your brother to suss out some shipments.
Big. Anywhere. Recent, within say a month. Back or front."

"Okay." And in his foghorn voice, a yell,
"Smithson—
out!
”

"Ta, Flasher." I gave him the note with my phone number
on and we left, almost deaf.

"What a marvelous man!" Luna said through a cotton-wool
tunnel, thrilled. "Controlling all those children! What did Mr. Cradhead
want?"

We drove out of town to Calamity Jenny's antique shop. I explained
the way antiques were distributed by night lorrymen. “They accept illicit loads,
from lay-bys. You pay on mileage, plus extra for each switch, one lorry to
another.''

"And that back or front business?"

"We want to know what big shipments were made last month, or
are booked by night lorries next month."

"Aren't they ever caught, Lovejoy?"

"The drivers? Their bosses know. If they stopped it, the
drivers would walk out. So they condone."

She drove without speaking until we were parked outside Jenny's.
Here it comes, I thought. The big morality blip.

"Lovejoy." She switched off. "Why should I
continue? Your apprentice, everything."

"Eh?" It wasn't at all what I'd expected. But then
nothing ever is. Even retrospect usually lets me down.

"It costs me a fortune. You don't pay me the money the
National Employment pays for me. You don't tell me what we're doing. You are
bad tempered. Then you do
that
."

"Do what?" Women can't be stopped when they're gabbing
like this. It's like verbal sweat, has to come out. Then you can get on.

"You tell that hulk Plasher to do something, he agrees
without question. You look so murderous sometimes. Then you picked up that
little girl when she'd grazed her knee and was crying."

See what I mean? There'd been this titchie girl with a leg that
needed blotting. She'd shaken my trouser leg, so I'd sucked her knee pale to
stop it blooding. Because I was nearest, you silly cow, I thought in
exasperation. So?

A girl—no more than nineteen—was peering out of the shop and
beckoning. Jenny? Big Frank's wives were getting younger every single marriage.

"There's Jenny!" I exclaimed, and escaped out.

The welcomes over, I had a quick look about Calamity Jenny's
place. Very affluent, very splendid buying. Not all true stuff, of course, but
it surpassed Luna's feeble description of "Really quite nice,
Lovejoy." And Jenny herself? "R.q.n., Lovejoy." That had been
the sum of Luna's earlier exploration.

She was beautiful. Pretty with that wicked winsomeness any man'd
go for. I could see why Big Frank had placed her top of his next electoral
roll, so to speak. Luna overdid the merry prattle, until I told her to nark it
and come and look. She tried telling me she'd already seen most of Jenny's
antiques. A laugh. She might have been in their presence, but hadn't seen one.

Big Frank had succumbed to Jenny's beauty, yes. Another reason was
that she had a ton of silver, some fake, some Belgian and north French and not
hallmarked. And (watch out for this) plenty of the new silver they've been
turning out like Ford cars in Lebanon and Egypt. The trick is to take a genuine
piece of antique silver abroad on your holidays, complete with Customs and
Excise stamps, all that "snow,'' as necessary documentation is called.
Then in Alexandria, Cairo, Calcutta, you have the piece copied by their
silversmiths of prodigious skills. Reimport them into Great Britain's frantic
antiques silver markets, and sell them as genuine antiques. If you're going to
try this, go only for "clean-line" styles. That means the earlier the
better. In fact, I'd even say fake all silver before 1730.

"Any of these Indian, love?"

Luna smiled, clapped her hands. "I've checked the hallmarks
of those sugar tongs, Lovejoy! They're Paul de Lamerie's marks, 1728." She
was being all thrilled again. "You see, Lovejoy? I did what you said.
I looked them up!"

"The marks are fake, love." I explained as Jenny blushed
fetchingly. "They're not sharp. If a silver mark looks sort of soft,
blurred a bit, it's probably fake."

"Fake?" Luna rummaged for a little paperback which
listed silversmith marks. I'd come across her reading it. "But—"

"Fakers are greedy, love. They think in shillings, pennies.
And they're slovens, usually. They know they're duff workers. They make fake
dies out of soft metal, see? Brass, copper, even tin. Not the hard metal
required."

"You mean . . . ?" Luna colored up, looked at Jenny, who
was still being winsome. "Shouldn't we tell the . . . ?"

God Almighty. Still thinking like a member of the public, and her
an apprentice antique dealer.