The Lies of Fair Ladies (8 page)

"I have Scots ancestors! But I didn't find—"

"—records in London?" I gave Luna the bent eye, rubbing
finger and thumb. She reached for her handbag. Connie was impatient.
"English ancestors from July 1837, General Register Offices, London.
Edinburgh for Scotland, starting 1855. The General Register Office." I
said it slowly. "Don't go to the wrong one, okay?"

"You have the address, Lovejoy?"

"It's in Edinburgh's bloody phone book."

Luna sidled up, slipped me a note. I stuffed it into the old bat's
bag. "Only take pencil. They strip-search you for ink up there. Remember
'Mac' and 'Mc' are separate, or omitted, or just 'M.' And Peter and Patrick
were interchangeable names the further north you go—"

''Lovejoy!"
from Connie. I told
Miss Turner so-long.

Connie's impatience had decided her about letting Luna come. Much
more odderer. She was frantic. I mean, what was the big deal? Miss Turner
warbled a distant good-bye. I waved absently.

Connie drove us out through Polstead towards the old airfield at
Boxtenholt. The
three
of us, note.
When everything was—what's the vital word, begins with C?

"Are you cold, Lovejoy?" I'd shivered, an angel on my
grave. "You should have stopped for your overcoat."

Thank you, Luna. "It's countryside. Nothing but
scenery."

"He's not got one," Gunge boomed after some miles. He's
not quick. Who is?

"I'm sorry. I didn't . . . Wouldn't for the world ..."
Luna apologized for the remainder of the journey.

Connie took me aside as we alighted at the disused airfield.
"Lovejoy. You're sure she's all right?'' I said give over.

Boxtenholt village is in a hollow, a tributary vale. The common
pasture stands higher, a windy exposed stretch of scrub with a couple of
ancient trackways. During the war it was an aerodrome, American bombers.
There's a derelict breeze block building, a tumbled control tower, sheep. A
wooden sign clumped mournfully against the gaping window space—had the damned
thing been doing that since 1945, for God's sake? Enough to give you the
creeps. Kiddies fly kites and lovers snog on Boxtenholt Heath. There's an
ancient tumulus in the center, now rudely marked by an Ordnance Survey stone.

"This way."

Connie's idea of deception was to park at one end of the heath and
march us to a gray guardhouse on what was the aerodrome's perimeter, down a
flight of concrete steps. She had a flashlight. Me and Gunge shifted some
fallen slabs blocking a metal door. Connie had a key.

"Wait, please." I drew Luna to one side as Connie
entered. Gunge close behind. We were alone. I spoke in the gloaming. "Luna.
If you say 'Isn't this wonderful' once more, I'll give you a pasting.
Capeesh?"

"Oh, Lovejoy!
Gangsters
say 'capeesh'!" She scanned my face for signs that I was sharing in
all this excitement.

I gathered her garments in a fist about her throat and lifted her.
I can do it, with the weak. "Do you understand? Silence. Your last
chance."

"Yes, Lovejoy."

We followed Gunge and Connie. They had lit candles.

"Something to sit on, Gungie," I asked. "Pile a few
blocks."

Evidently cells, below the guardroom. Dank, now, with seepage from
rain. It felt lovely, glowing with the beauty that only antiques can give. They
were covered with dust sheets. Somebody had had the wit to roll an old carpet
for the mound of vibrating brilliance. Concrete beams above, concrete walls
around. These cells would be there in a million years. I felt queasy, told
Luna, then Gunge, then Connie, to see the cellar door was propped ajar.

Divvying is a dour, rather sickening business. Idyllic, of course.
It's to do with antiques. The poor old divvy suffers every time. I've known,
over the years, eight or nine of us with this gift. Some have it just for
furniture, paintings, jewelry. Whatever, it's hard on the soul. Sin's
easier—you get something for that. Though aphorisms are always wrong.

For a couple of minutes before starting I have to pace, hum, walk,
not look at anyone. Luna couldn't take it. In fact, Luna was an outright
nuisance, especially when she gazed blankly at each of us in turn while I
ambled. She finally erupted, "Well? Shouldn't we start—?''

"Shhhh!" Gunge and Connie rounded on her.

She was startled into silence. Which interrupted my feelings, so I
had to start again, strolling, jingling nonexistent coins, staring at the wall,
whistling. This is the trouble. Antiques are human. They have feelings, doubts,
hesitations just like us. I mean, you don't rush straight up to perfect
strangers and grab hold, tip them up, prod, dig your fingers into them, scrape
their skin, all to "take a look." You'd soon get your eye blacked.
But nobody thinks twice about doing that to antiques. Think how the poor things
must feel. And feel they do. Believe it. "Taking a look" is being
presented at court. A cat can look at a king. But with grace, please.

"Right," I said. Ready.

I sat on some breeze blocks. Gunge's stack was a yard away. On it
burned two candles, in a pair of dazzling silver candlesticks. Not much to look
at—cast baluster, less than seven inches small, only twenty ounces put
together. Simplicity ruled when refugee silversmiths came scrambling across the
Channel after the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685 and persecutions became
the norm. Pierre Harache was a shrewd nut. He got a head start. This first
immigrant silversmithing genius was already making silverware in London in
1683, his simple fashions instantly all the rage. I grinned all over my face.

"Wotcher, Pierre," I heard my voice say. "Can I,
loves?"

They didn't mind. I touched them, simultaneous so as not to give
offense. You've only to see one, and that milky sheen streaks naked into your
soul. That's the trouble with people who collect antiques: They'll go any
distance to see dross, but won't "waste time" visiting a free museum
to see these breathtaking exquisite wonders.

"Thank you," I told the lovely pair. "Next."

A small bowl, Egyptian Black, meaning that Wedgwood simply fired
it once. Iron oxide type, mere earthenware stained with the stuff and fired at
a low temperature. Made over fifty years, from 1720 on. This bowl was true
unglazed basalt; it could be cut, even polished on a lathe with care. Josiah
Wedgwood's supposed to have introduced the term "black basaltes"
about 1768. People suppose there were no black wares made before that. But
there were. Two brothers called Elers had made them early in the century. This
was Wedgwood.
Plain
bowls are very,
very rare. You can touch the great man himself by touching one of these.

''Next.''

Quartetto tables, Battersea enamels—half a dozen snuffboxes if you
please—one tiny wooden masterpiece shaped like a lady's high-heeled slipper
with a sliding wooden lid. There was a carpet burned (actually no more than
singed) to alter the color and to age the back (rogues do it with a spirit
blow-lamp). This is the only sensible fakery you get in carpets, because if you
order, say, a dozen modern copies of a lovely Turkish Ghiordes prayer rug,
about 1785, well, they're still all clearly handmade, though dirt cheap.

Connie had several classy items of furniture, all small. I like
Victorian furniture, though I'm daunted by the immense grandeur of some
sideboards. Three straight chairs had top rails which stuck out wider than the
back; sure sign of 1840 or later. I explained this didn't mean they weren't
class; they were. But it put paid to their having to fly under false colors.
The chairs were pleased, I think.

Pewter tankards, small metal boxes for miners (they carried their
chewing tobacco in these—they're dated, nineteenth-century, often with colliery
names on). A handful of inro, enough to make your mouth water. Small cases on
cords when wearing traditional Japanese dress; you stuck your favorite medicines
in. The netsuke, a sort of toggle, on one end of the cord, is some of the most
superb creative carving ever executed. Witty, amusing, hilarious, scary,
everything you could wish. My favorite was a grazing horse, carved from a bit
of stag antler, barely three inches tall. Connie had a mass of antiques, with a
leavening of fakes. Good as you'd ever see.

My headaches are famous. I was some time coming to after they'd
put the candles out. I went reluctantly, stumbling up the dusty steps and into
the Suffolk wet. I inhaled the drizzle for size. It didn't feel too bad, so I
breathed more. The pity is that rain wets your head. I went and stood under a
tree, listening to the solid taps of the rain. Drizzle gets steam up by soaking
leaves. Then the leaf gets fed up and sags its drop like a bird plop.

Connie and Gunge were trying to talk. Luna stayed with them,
occasionally glancing across. Wearily I beckoned. She trotted across the grass,
heels sinking. I walked the crumbling runway to Connie's motor, leant against
the bonnet.

"Lovejoy," she said hesitantly at last. She tried the
car doors, tutting like they do as if discovering a malicious plot. "Was
that little cardboard tube really worth two of these cars?"

"Mmmh. Don't call that masterpiece a cardboard tube. It was a
genuine Campani. He made 'perspective glasses’ telescopes. Samuel Pepys used
one for ogling pretty ladies in church, naughty old devil. That coloring and
decoration is tooled leather.''

She went quiet for a bit. "You knocked over that beautiful
square knife box, Lovejoy. Unforgivable. I have a lovely one exactly like it.
Queen Anne."

"Oh, aye. Is its herringbone inlay veneer sunk? Or dead
level, too? If so, it's a fake, like that one." I could see she was aghast
at horrifying possibilities. "You see, love, that veneer rises in a couple
of centuries. It has to, see? Changes in temperature, humidity. Only new fakes
are neat and level."

Her eyes filled with alarm. She drew breath to ask. I saved her
the trouble. "I know, I know. Why didn't I have to examine it. It felt
wrong. The real antiques recognize you, and say hello. They warm me. Fakes
don't. It's like . . . well, like love."

She was still trying to remember, seeing her favorite piece in her
mind's eye, when Gunge and Connie came up. We embarked without a word. I
settled soggily into the back seat.

"Good, Lovejoy." Gunge, activating a neurone.

I said nothing. Connie was driving. We came to Polstead, and she
went left at the crossroads.

"Lovejoy. Do you want in?" she asked along the old Roman
road. They're our only straight bits in East Anglia.

"How big, compared?" I meant how big a sample had I
divvied, of the whole. My mind was going:
Connie's
scam isn't Prammie Joe Godbolt's scam.
Seriously bad news. In fact highly
dangerous.

"Quarter, Lovejoy."

I hadn't a bean, let alone enough to cut in on a scam this size. I
said I'd think about it. She said she'd give me until tomorrow. Lots of
tomorrows lately, too.

She dropped me and Luna at the cottage. My apprentice made the
yuckiest brew I'd ever had. It was horrible. I didn't know if I'd last the full
month on this, and told her so. She was proud of herself, said stop
complaining. We sat drinking it, Luna saying the cottage was so cold. Daylight
faded.

"Lovejoy?" Here it came, sum total of misgiving.
"Why is that Mrs. Hopkins's, er, scam in that disused airfield, and not in
her showroom?"

"Some are stolen, love. A scam is a robber's scheme."

''
Stolen?
Shouldn't we
tell the police?"

My turn to stare. "No, love. The less we have to do with the
police, the better. We're not on the same side."

"Not on the same side as the Law?" More mindboggling.

"Do you know anybody who is?"

It was then that the police came clumping in, Drinkwater wanted me
at the police station to see if I knew anyone called Godbolt. I told Luna to
lock up, please, and count the silver after the constables had departed.

But why wasn't Connie's scam the same as Prammie Joe's? Dozy old
East Anglia doesn't run to two major scams in one week. Tits Alors had already
pre-sold her own load. To somebody forming up a third? Jesus. Luna, full of
unasked questions, hopped from one foot to the other at the cottage door as the
ploddites drove me away.

Eight

Imagine a flattish area of land, pretty big and wide, with only
fields, woods, rivers, farms, villages, and cities here and there (actually
two). East Anglia in a nutshell. The rivers wander into estuaries that are
basically sea marshes. It's truly rural. I mean, the whole kingdom jokes about
it. Like, in show business they say. He's the best comedian in East Anglia—how
is the other feller? All that.

But if you know this creaking old country of ours, you’ll have
sussed our trick. Nothing is what it seems. Peaceful?—take care, something's
going on. Tranquil?—mayhem lurks. Sleepy?—watch out, that's all. Hereward the
Wake is one of our heroes. Not as well-known as Robin Hood, perhaps, but at
least the Normans never caught
him
.
He never slept, drifted unseen through the fens, vanishing during the day to
emerge more powerful than ever when the sun sank. They say he did sleep, but
with one eye open. Maybe two.