The Lies of Fair Ladies (34 page)

Luna arrived, bright of eye and bushy-tailed. Within seconds she
was contributing stupidity.

"You should have put an advert in the newspaper, Mr.
Gunge!" she said cheerfully. Then wrinkled her nose. "Is that
perfume?"

Another of those days. I took her outside by the elbow.

"Luna, love. Just for today, stay mum unless I say.
Understand?"

"It's a perfectly sensible suggestion, Lovejoy. Newspapers
are a sound medium— "

"Gunge can't frigging well read, you silly cow." I
waited until it sank in, saw her face discard thrill for horror. "Haven't
you noticed that I mutter the catalogue descriptions out loud when he's close
by?"

Her eyes filled. "Oh, Lovejoy. I never dreamt—"

"It's all right. He's used to stupidity." I tried to
look thrilled, Luna style. "I'm quite looking forward to the, eh. Moot
Hall."

Twenty-nine

The antiques, Lovejoy. Do we keep adding?"

''You've our lists. Gunge?" He keeps my handwritten tally
somewhere in his massive bearish presence. Doesn't need any, of course.
Illiterates have a fantastically accurate visual memory. I've seen him spot a
dud Wellington chest from a reflection in a window across the road, because its
veneer had changed since it was auctioned a year before. Hawkeyes.

"Aye, Lovejoy." To my dismay great tears began to roll
down into his beard. I looked at the floor. "I don't want anything to
happen to Connie, Lovejoy. She's scared. Even before Rye died." I'm really
useless at times like this. "Look, Gunge. Who else did Connie confide
in?"

"Nobody. Not even you. She wondered, but said you're
unreliable about women."

Bloody nerve. Typical womentalk. What do they know? "What was
she frightened of. Gunge?" Luna, ears wafting in the breeze. I glared at
her coldly. This was supposed to be a private conversation.

"Of being killed. She talked a lot about spells."
Spells? Was Connie going off her trolley? I'd met her that day off the train.
She'd been edgy, definitely spooked about something.

"By whom? Why didn't she go to the police? Was it an antique
dealer? I think we should—"

My bent eye made Luna peter out, sulking.

"Right, Gunge." Leaving the antiques in the old
Boxtenholt aerodrome would be asking for trouble. "What help've you
got?"

"Just me. Connie didn't want it any other way."

"Then we're in business," I said. I felt as near to a
smile as I'd been for many a day. Or night. "Find Sandy, Luna. Tell him
and Mel I want to contact the dollop broker. Today."

She inhaled a gale, only said, "Will he know how?"

"Not himself, no." But telling Radio Sandy is our
equivalent of BBC One. "Gunge. You and me will gather everything I've got,
ordered, can find, before nightfall. Okay?"

"Will it help us to find Connie?"

"I don't know. Gunge. But we'll try, eh?"

"Thanks, Lovejoy." He heaved his enormous mass upright
and shambled off to start the loading. This morning he had a pale blue
three-tonner. You never see him twice in the same vehicle. I wondered if he
simply nicked them.

He'd been gone an hour, with me and Luna finishing frantically in
the workshop, when Drinkwater visited to say that one Miss Connie Hopkins had
gone missing, and did I know anything about her. I said no, how terrible, and
had he checked her parents. He issued warnings, and left with his teeth
clacking and ear all a-twitch.

Cradhead appeared in the workshop doorway about eleven, stood
watching a while, wandered in, careful not to waft off slices of walnut veneer,
and pausing to observe Luna putting the finishing touches to a prunt. These are
small glass medallions, very rare alone. They were incorporated into antique
roemers, actually only stuck onto the wide hollow stem. I honestly don't know
why the German Rhineland liked these great spherical-bowled drinking glasses
with the trailing-decorated foot (think of a thread of glass wound round and
round), but they did. You have to admire style. These prunts, especially
knobbly-surface ones dealers call "raspberries," are highly sought
after in their own right now. God knows why.

"Only ordinary soda glass, Craddy," I admitted before he
asked. “I borrowed glass tubing from Therla Brewer's school. Lower temperature,
see?"

"The lady mayoress is very adept, Lovejoy."

Cradhead shouldn't have such a quiet posh voice. Makes you think
he's thinking. Only disguise, him being a peeler.

"Thank you. Inspector!" from Luna, so pleased at yet
more praise that she paused to discuss her prowess. "I'm—"

"Get on with it!'' I yelled. Then smiled weakly at Cradhead's
raised eyebrows. "Er, Luna, my dear. Please don't let it get cold."

"Deadline to meet, Lovejoy?" He wandered. My back
prickled. I wished he'd sod off so I could get on.

"No. Only, the Employment want a report on Mrs. Carstairs's
progress."

"Connie Hopkins, Lovejoy." Cradhead bent to sniff at the
surface of a medieval apothecary's measure. Nice, simply two pewter cones
joined at the apex. One cone was a half-ounce measure, the other one-ounce.
Very pricey. I'd made it myself today. I didn't like Cradhead sniffing it—you
can tell a new fake; the lead smells for quite five days after it has been
made. Was this fascist swine cleverer than he seemed? "Absent," he
went on. "She was collecting antiques fast as . . . well, as Big Frank's
new wife. And her studying astrophysics at university!" So he'd checked
there too.

"Maybe she's gone off with a boyfriend."

"Gunge Herod's her boyfriend, Lovejoy. You see him about. Six
feet eight, giant, runs a dealer's barrow without a street license. Can't
read—"

"At least he admits it, Craphead! Unlike you frigging peelers
. . ."I petered out, swallowed, resumed my varnishing.

Cradhead's eyes lit up at my response. The nerk had goaded me and
I'd fallen for it.

"You're worried too, eh? Like us frigging peelers. Apologies,
Mrs. Carstairs." He drifted to the door. "What's on tonight, Lovejoy?
Council meeting in the Moot Hall. Schoolchildren. Women's institutes. Local
history societies. Del Vervain. And ..." He smiled a sleet-shaped smile.
"And you, Lovejoy."

"Some promotion thing. Charity." I was offhand.

"Seven o'clock, Mr. Cradhead." Luna interrupted her
glassmaking. I'd throttle her. "Would you like a ticket? I could speak to
Mayor Carstairs."

"Unnecessary, Mrs. Carstairs." Cradhead found his
trilby. "I'll be there. Duty calls, you see."

"Good-bye," my silly bitch trilled. "Good luck
finding Miss Hopkins!"

Chintzy chintzy cheeriness. I snarled at her. She bent quickly to
her labors. A woman's job is never done, because they can't be bothered. From
then on we really moved.

We did seven places, bought some paintings of the oil-and-slush
Victorian sentimental schools. Tip: Dealers are consters, the lot of them. They
still preach there's no demand for sentimental paintings of the Pax Britannica
heyday. So they offer you about one fiftieth of the going price for that lovely
stag painting on your parlor wall. And I do mean one fiftieth. Not even a
twentieth. Two percent. Well, thirty years ago that was true. But now? The
pendulum's swung. Heartrending paintings of little girls waving doggies goodbye
from nursery windows, children building sand castles while Fond Father Dotes,
are pure gold. Tear-jerking's in. Just learn your fifty-times table, that's
all.

Speed was the essence. I’d bought wisely and fast with Laura's
extra gelt. Luna was hard put to keep track, thank God. Payment on the nail for
instant delivery. I'd had five bike couriers tearing up the tarmac for days.
Every five hours we returned to the cottage. Gunge loaded up like a stoker
raising steam. I rejected some fake furniture and a few porcelains, but mostly
the dealers, braying after instant coin, played fair—as always, when all else
fails. Luna wanted a serious chat about where the extra money had come from,
simply quelled.

The answer phone went odd. Its numbers promised several messages,
but only gave bleeps, to Luna's annoyance.

We discovered the reason about three o'clock. The phone rang. I
answered, from the strangest of premonitions. I knew it was the dollop broker
before the gruff voice spoke.

"Lovejoy? Who d'you know?"

"Sandy. Mel, Nuala. A load of locals collecting
antiques."

"Who for?"

"Some dollop broker." I waited. "Who do you know,
then?"

"Everybody. Except your sister, Lovejoy." The voice
waited for me to fill in. I said nothing. She'd heard about Hawkshead.
"Your problem's not lessening with time, is it?"

"No." This was the one all right. "What's the
arrangement? I’ve never dealt this big before."

"Be outside your cottage in ten minutes."

I was going to protest, but old gravel-throat had gone. I felt
scared. Who climbs highest does so by a winding stair. Gulp. I told Luna I had
to go out.

"Get Gunge to collect what we've got. Now."

She was worried, referring to lists, ticking things off.
"I've run out of wrapping paper, Lovejoy. And those Royal Doultons are . .
. What's the matter?"

"No more, love. It's all done. Anything you can box, parcel,
shove into Gunge's next vanload, do so."

"Done, Lovejoy! But some are still to be faked up."

Faked up, if you please. I had to smile. Two weeks ago she'd have
fainted at the thought. I embraced her. She tried to pull away, looking through
the window in case some arriving vanny jumped to conclusions.

"It's come, love.''

"What's come?"

"Gawd knows. But it's here."

Thirty

Luna went up the lane to wait for Gunge. I was nervous as a
kitten, now I’d actually made it to the big league. I’d never dreamt I’d
actually do it—me, meet a dollop broker! Mega trade.

The car sent for me was a common station taxi. It dropped me at
the local hospital. I was collected again by a hire car. The driver knew
nothing, took me to Toll Gate shopping mall. Among scores of people loading
their wheelies I was collected by a third car, driven miles to a countryside
crossroads. By a lonely bus stop, I was met by a saloon car with heavily tinted
windows.

The last two drivers were women. Neither spoke. I was in the rear
seat. The penultimate motor was replaced after a couple of miles by another. My
head was spinning. Why not a chat in Woody's instead of all this motor mix? I
thought I saw a blonde driving a car following, but couldn't be sure. In a pub
yard I was swapped one last time. One with black windows, no vision at all.
Coward to the last, I tried the handles. Locked. The driver was a thin
lank-haired girl wearing reflector sun specs, the sort that puts mirrors where
eyes should be. I’d only seen her when embarking. For thirty minutes I sat
looking at the car's interior.

Ten miles, twenty? I was dropped in some estate. The motor cruised
away. I was alone.

From where I stood, at a mansion house door, I could see ornamental
gardens. Tallish chimneys, Tudor in style. But fake. A smallish red-brick
dwelling stood visible through the trees. An old tennis court, now overgrown. A
hockey-size field was newly planted into rose beds. Trees everywhere. No
rivers. It wore an institutional air. A phony coat of arms, modernish stained
glass, adorned the main door. I was left to knock.

Silence. I turned slowly on the top step. Balustrade, lawns neatly
cut. Tidy flower beds. No wheelbarrows, rakes or mowers left lying about. I
could see a greenhouse roof. It felt weird, almost quite alien. Home for
retired gentlewomen? Too many steps, no wheelchairs. No car park. Ancient
family seat. Lord Lieutenant of the County? No serfs.

And the door opened.

Thin women I can take. Medium to plump, fine. Old, young, superb.
But voluminous? So obese you can't see the edges? Every step a waddle, a
susurrus of rasping clothes? Each breath was an orchestra of squeaks. Chin to
knees formed one long convexity. Contours were definitely not this lady's
thing. I found her eyes, fixed on them like a pointer dog in case I lost them.

"Lovejoy," I told her.

“I suppose you’ll have to come in.''

Spoken with disgust. I followed. Her incredible jeans moved ahead
like heaving strato-cumulus. The corridor passed between rooms stacked high
with food, crates of tuna fish, sacks of beans, cereal packs, bottles of sauce.
Other rooms we passed were rimmed with hanging dresses. Folded jumpers and
woolens filled shelves to the ceilings.

"Expecting war,
missus?"

"Exploiters
don't dun me, Lovejoy. I stock up."

"Antiques
too?"

"Be funny and
I'll bin you."

Funny? Antiques?
"Love isn't funny, missus."

"Phony
philosophy's what I don't stock, Lovejoy."

She reached the end
room and sat, back to me, on an old garden bench before a television set, some
game show with constant applause. She overflowed the seat, lapping in pendulous
sags nearly to the floor. A plastic bucket half-filled with salted peanuts was
handy, to suppress lurking anorexia. She slumped into the viewer's sprawl,
feeding her face handfuls. A crate of cola tins gave fluid support. I was left
standing. Was this the famous Miss R., Super Planner herself? Scam Superba? Or
merely another intermediary lackey?