The Lies of Fair Ladies (35 page)

The screech
frightened me out of my skin.

"It's beheaded,
you stupid fucking mare!'' she howled at the television screen. "Anne
Boleyn and Catherine Howard were beheaded!"

Roars of dismay from
the TV as the contestant was banished back to Hartlepool. "Just bad
luck," the idiot presenter bawled.

The dolloper was a
rage-filled blimp, "It's fucking ignorance for fuck's fucking sake!"
she screamed.

I covered my ears until
the din subsided. "Missus. I'm a delicate flower."

"Where was she
educated, the unlettered bitch?"

There was more.
Invective's dull, so I won't summarize the next hour. The fat lady blasted the
game show, the news, a fashion parade, a scene with dog handlers.

"Just
watch!" she thundered, immense mass quivering. "Parading like stuffed
cattle! Cruft must be spinning in his grave, the way they're handling those
dogs!"

"Cruft wouldn't
care, love." I was fed up. "Charles Cruft of Cruft's International
Dog Show fame kept cats. Never owned a dog."

The world swiveled,
looked at me. The screen clicked off.

"You're in
difficulties, Lovejoy. You've taken over Connie Hopkins's stuff, brought it to
the right level."

I drew breath, but it
didn't have anything to say.

"My preference
is to broker for females. As you now have female partners and backers, you'll
do. These are my terms—"

"Here. Just a
minute—"

"Silence! I
don't accept people wanting hideouts. Nor immigrants. Drugs are acceptable, but
only those not requiring special storage conditions. I store any type of
criminal deposits, as long as the dollop's owners are clearly identified. I
specialize in caches left for the duration of a prison sentence, and for
statutes of limitations of specified countries. Understand?"

Uttered with the
feeling of a copper's caution.

"Fine."

"Terms: Build up
from three perc, one perc weekly to max of ten to a fifth one year and over,
inflation adjusted. Take or leave."

Queen of precis.
She'd summed up the usual dolloper's arrangement. Three percent of our
antiques' total, rising to ten percent. She'd conceal the antiques forever, but
charge us a tenth when they were finally sold, even if we were imprisoned.

"Final
charge?"

"Two perc after
the second year. Flat removal fee, plus mileage."

I didn't smile.
Flat-fee mileage meant you couldn't guess how far your stuff had traveled. That
implied her storage space was here. Except I didn't know where here was.

"Okay."

She picked up a
control slab. A woman's voice came on.

"Yes for
Lovejoy," said Miss R. "Go now."

"Herod's van is
south of Lavenham," a loudspeaker said. "I'll let it do its drop in
the cran before evacuating. Wilco."

The broker huffed to
her feet. "Settle any arguments between you and Connie before final
audit."

"Right,
right." I felt like in school. You wouldn't want to cross this formidable
lady and her slick team of women.

A bleep sounded. She
listened to earphones, barked, "South American bonds, after that escapade?
The answer is no."

"They offer to
bank through Georgia, U.S.A.," the control panel persuaded.

"Still no.
Unless they bank via Washington, D.C."

I felt slim and
willowy following her bulk out to the front door. No visible telephones with
giveaway numbers. No local scenes. The place was stacked for a siege. Crates of
apples rose in a serene curve, upstairs to the landing. Sacks of lentils and
dried peas filled the hallway. Yet the place was spick and span.

"Pay one percent
today, Lovejoy."

"Who to?"

"Whom, cretin. A
courier."

"How do I know
I'll work one percent out right?"

"Correctly,"
she corrected, in reflex. "I shall judge."

Aye, I thought
sardonically as the door shut firmly on me. I'd better get the money right. She
would have my antiques. I stared about a moment or two, looking for clues. I'd
found the right dollop broker all right, but learned nothing. No chance to
bring up Cornish Place. I was dying to know which dealers had been here. I
couldn't quite see Sandy or Big Frank making much of a mark with this
formidable lady. Calamity Jenny, now, seemed somehow to be right for the place.
Or Cassandra Clark? Not Veil, though. Connie? Maybe. Plum-in-the-mouth country.

The black-glass motor
came. I got in. It drove away. I tried the door and windows. No views, for the
likes of me.

We did the car
switches in reverse, and I learned nothing.

Gunge told me he'd
called at the old aerodrome in Boxtenholt to drop off three Victorian desks and
a case of Edwardian jewelry, final afterthoughts Luna couldn't resist, but the
place was cleaned out. He'd had to bring the afterthoughts back.

"Fine, Gunge.
Just leave them here."

I sent Luna to unload
them, and sat on my unfinished wall to feed the birds and think. Miss R. had
spoken in tones so precise it made me think of school. And a massive mansion
like that. Big rooms—never mind the clothes and grub stacked everywhere.
Obviously she was a nutter. Well, a dollop broker had to be, harboring stolen
antiques until such time as the robbers served their prison sentences and came
back to spend their ill-gotten gains. She was class, despite her appearance.
Worked out foreign bond percentages without conscious thought. Able to hold
together a band of women. {All women?) Forceful, authority unquestioned.
Shrewd, as all dollop brokers. The word "trick" again, though. A
dollop broker doesn't broker anything. Just stores stuff, safe from police,
law, other gangsters, insurance companies.

What did I know about
her? Only the scams she'd catered for. I guessed she was the dollop broker
who'd handled the German medieval treasures until Greek got sprung from jail.
Who'd handled the marijuana from Holland after that Spalding bulb fiasco (the
lorries got caught on the bypass from Felixstowe). Who'd handled the French
paintings, and brokered their return when the museums and galleries bought them
back on the sly. So, a genius. Who could organize a cool lift of three hundred
and eighty antiques from a disused aerodrome, while watching TV and eating a
bucket of nuts. Not bad, seeing I'd not said where the antiques were.

But that place. The
tennis court, traces still visible but now given over to bushes and lawn. A
pitch, now flower beds. Grass always grows thickest by corner flags. I
remembered my cousin Glenice playing hockey when she was a little girl, the
pitch smaller than the football pitches I'm used to.

School? A girls'
school. The big house, gatehouse of red brick. The scrupulous neatness. Her
private cursing, public propriety. Her exasperation at the clueless woman
contestant who'd not known some elementary history about Henry VIII's wives.
Calamity Jenny, she of the august social background, belonged there, and
Cassandra Clark. Connie. But not me, not Big Frank. An ex-girls' school, now
engaged in a different sort of activity.

What was it somebody
had said? I called across for Luna to brew up. It was Veil. She'd said
something about Cassandra Clark, being from a different school. With
bitterness.

Connie Hopkins?
Cassandra Clark? This was the first time I felt something true. Had they been
together at school? Yet I'd never seen them as much as swap a greeting.
Avoiding each other? Or was I jumping to conclusions, as usual?

Luna emerged. Gunge
sat with us on the wall. He could dwarf Miss R. just about.

"Lune," I
said eventually. ''Where did you go to school?"

"Me? Stirling.
Quite nice, really, though games was the thing they . . ."

I didn't listen after
that. Libraries list schools. They were open tonight until eight o'clock,
plenty of time before the Moot Hall gathering. I had Luna try to reach
Cassandra Clark, but she could get no answer. Still ruminating, I told her to
check the phone book. It said E. C. Clark.

"E for
what?" I asked.

"It doesn't
say." Luna sat primly beside me, finally hunting. "Why are you
interested in Cassandra Clark?"

"Dunno." I
asked Gunge where Connie went to school, but he didn't know. "We'll find
Connie soon. Gunge," I said, wondering how.

We sat glumly, three
monkeys, each with our thoughts. I honestly did feel I might be edging close.
Honestly. Gunge sat in silent misery. He saw me as his one hope. Pathetic. She
could be anywhere. I felt she was somewhere not far. Miss R.'s school? That was
the most likely. All I lacked was reason, logic, and a load of troops to storm
the place. If I could find it again. With caches of criminal loot littering the
grounds, there'd be aggressive security. Not just a fat lady with sacks of
beans.

An hour later I came
to, and told Gunge to ask around after Connie. "Miss out nowhere.
Gunge," I ordered. "Everywhere. Strangers, even. But especially the
Arcade. Antique dealers. And call in at the cop shop."

"Peelers,
Lovejoy?" He stopped, already halfway to his van.

"No time to be
proud. Gunge. Find me at six. I'll look round Connie's place."

"Me,
Lovejoy," Luna asked. "What have I to do?"

It was late
afternoon. The day waning, birds having a last scour about the garden. She
usually went home about this time, after Oliver's tantrum.

"I want you
inside, love."

She took my arm.
"Don't sound so sad, Lovejoy. What is it? You're so softhearted. I mean,
so upset because poor Gunge's lady friend has gone away for a few days. She's
having a day or two away. That's all."

"Yes." We
started inside. "Draw the curtains, love."

She already had. And
the window fastenings were locked. She was slipping off her shoes even as I
reached the divan. Like I say, women are miles ahead of us. Still, I don't like
women who are mean. Surely everything's not too much to ask? The cottage felt
coldish without so many antiques around. It warmed.

Thirty-one

Gunge showed me
Connie's miniature shop. Tiny, sparse. Modern chair, trestle table, kettle and
enough to brew tea. Nothing else. I wrestled the town library for facts,
scoring best of three pinfalls. The immortal I. K. Brunei's
Great Eastern
paddle steamer, wonder of
the nineteenth century, 18,915 gross tons, launched in 1858 at Millwall. She
was marked by disaster.

Not her fault. She
was just eerie. During her building, accidents multiplied. Workmen died, were
maimed. Brunei himself had a stroke as she readied for sea trials. An explosion
in September 1859 killed six seamen. Brunei relapsed, died. It was a grim
paddle steamer that finally hit the long wet road.

Long before, even her
launch was doom-laden. She simply stuck for years, the one in twelve hopeless.
Legend says Isambard built a secret model with his own superb hands, tried it
out somewhere. Five funnels, six masts, side paddles. Like the pictures Delia
nicked from Rye. Those features were on the murky photographs. Was it here that
Brunei came? Was his model brooding the river serving Rye's watermill? The part
of the river Rye'd sold his birthright to try to buy from Oliver's Council, as
Luna said? Or was it a con? A photo of a cloudy underwater model would be easy
to fake. Any photographer, blindfold.

The unhappy question
came. Connie seemed keen on Rye—as long as he funded her drive into the big
antiques league. When he'd offered for the mill and its river instead, she'd
turned to me. I was a replacement. Frigging cheek.

Nothing for it. We
had to find her. She'd gone missing some hours. No bird on earth assembles a
wealth of antiques, then strolls away leaving them for others, does she? I made
the Moot Hall in good time.

Every town has an
ancient meeting place. The Moot Hall is typical—meaning the Borough Council has
let it crumble, and now whines for handouts to restore it. You can see it's
been patched by cowboy builders hired for a pittance.

"Oliver's so
proud, Lovejoy," Luna whispered as I walked into the hallway. "This
is the biggest event of his mayoral year!"

Some year. Luna had
to go. She looked smashing—dress midnight-blue velvet, genuine pearls,
four-carat diamond ring. A brooch would have been too much, but her Edwardian
pearl drop earrings were just right. She was thrilled to bits, of course. I
wished her luck.

The hall was once
splendid. Now, it's virtually derelict, faded walls hung about with a few oil
paintings in a sickeningly bad state. They depict our ancient councilors
avariciously welcoming Huguenot refugees—yet more immigrants to exploit—and two
unarmed Royalist knights being gunned down (another form of East Anglian
greeting) and the like. The place of honor's reserved for Queen Boadicea, who
razed the town in Roman days and rewarded local developers by crucifying
everybody. Dealers keep wondering whether to nick these paintings. (Big Frank's
offered them to a Swiss dealer in Rotterdam. I'll keep you posted.)