The Rich And The Profane

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘Here, mate. You all right?’ the driver was saying.

  ‘Fine, ta. I get giddy in cars. Sorry.’

  ‘Just as well we’re here, then. Put your head down,’ he said helpfully. He was a nice bloke. ‘Have a pint. It’s Magee’s Ale, which is a bit grim, but—’

  ‘No, ta. I feel grand. Saumarez House is three furlongs off, you say? Cheers, mate.’ I grinned and strode off into the dusk. I was still trembling at the thought of the hedgerow creatures that would finish up in sacks later tonight, then have to run in terror for their little lives.

  Saumarez House lay along the curved drive. I knocked. A policeman I knew opened the door, smiling.

  ‘Do come in, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Mr Summer.’ I hesitated. ‘Have I got the right place?’

  He beckoned me into the light. ‘You pretend you haven’t, Lovejoy, but that’s your way, isn’t it? Always doing wrong, but accidentally, so it’s never your fault?’

  ‘Now then, Mr Summer.’ My attempt at humour didn’t work.

  ‘Mr Crucifex is to join us in the living room. Go through.’

  The Old Bill always like to follow you - their training, I suppose. I crossed the hall. The modem room was sumptuous. A huge painting occupied the wall beside the fireplace. A hero was dying, red-coated soldiery under fire, crowded streets.

  ‘I thought that was in the Tate, Mr Summer. What’ve you been up to?’

  ‘A copy.’ He smiled. ‘Or a fraud. Like so many things, Lovejoy.’

  ‘If you say. Is this a posh do?’

  ‘You mean tonight?’ asked a man, entering and advancing with outstretched hand. ‘No. Just a glass of something, while we iron out the details.’

  ‘How do. I’m Lovejoy.’

  ‘I’m Martin Crucifex. Welcome to our mainland abode. Yes. The Death of Major Pierson. Very graphic.’ He said with heartfelt candour, ‘I would give anything to possess the original.’

  Summer smiled. I looked from one man to the other. I might not have been there.

  ‘Now, Martin,’ Summer said evenly. ‘That’s totally out of the question.’

  ‘If you say so, Tony.’

  Loudly I cleared my throat. If these two were squaring off for a scrap, I didn’t want to get between.

  ‘Iron out what details, exacdy, Mr Crucifex?’

  ‘Martin, please. We’ll soon be on the very best of terms.’

  How come? I said I’d dropped in on the off chance of seeing Mrs Crucifex about some antique she and Prior George wanted me to look at.

  ‘Prior Metivier asked me to the priory, to look at something, then changed his mind.’ Nobody answered me. ‘If I’ve come at the wrong time—’

  ‘Not at all. We expected you.’ Martin poured me a drink. ‘White wine?’

  ‘Ta,’ I said politely. ‘You like the Major Pierson painting, then.’

  He gave drinks round. Summer took his like a poisoned chalice. I thought, for Christ’s sake, calm down, the pair of you. Or go outside and scrap it out. Frigging kids in a schoolyard.

  ‘Like it, Lovejoy?’ Crucifex turned to stare. ‘You know the story? It was 1781. The all-conquering French invaded Jersey by night. Our lieutenant-governor surrendered in his bed. Can you imagine anything more contemptible?’

  Aye, hare coursing. I said nothing. I know how surrendering feels.

  ‘Surrender?’ Martin laughed harshly. ‘Not our brave Major Pierson. Barely twenty-four years old, he disobeyed the order to surrender. Gathering what men he could, he attacked with such courage that he won a signal victory, dying in triumph. He is buried in St Helier Parish Church.’

  His lip curled. I watched it, fascinated. You don’t often see that. I knew I’d try to do it - failing - in front of a mirror as soon as I got home.

  ‘His foe - the Baron de Rullecourt - lies outside, in the churchyard.’

  ‘God rest both,’ I said. I only meant hard luck, but Crucifex angrily rounded on me. ‘That’s typical, Lovejoy! Our islands have a portentous history, just like the mainland!’

  ‘Sure, right, OK,’ I stammered, retreating before his venom. ‘Jesus. I’d not meant anything bad. It’s just a shame when people get dead.’

  Summer rescued me. ‘Evening, Jocina,’ he said smoothly as Mrs Crucifex entered. ‘Lovejoy, you’ve met our hostess?’

  A maid followed, trundling a trolley of edibles. My belly rumbled audibly. I smiled a weak apology, trying to guess where the girl might leave the grub so I could get there first.

  ‘Yes. Good evening, missus.’

  ‘I didn’t hear your car, Lovejoy.’

  ‘It’s laid up.’ I avoided Summer’s sardonic eye. He had booked me the last three times I’d driven it, hence its sessile atrophy.

  ‘You might need it, once we get under way.’

  ‘Once we’ve ironed out the details?’ I can give as good as I get.

  She was quick. ‘One of Martin’s phrases! Have you been filled in, Lovejoy? Our group’s re-forming, to fund the priory. You figure in it.’

  Swiftly I shuffled sideways. ‘Sorry, love, but I’m meeting an, er, impressario!’ I almost shouted the word, delightedly remembering it at last.

  ‘A percentage, Lovejoy,’ she said. I stopped inching towards the door. ‘Prior George leaves the money angle to us.’ She dismissed the maid with imperial indifference. I wondered if she knew the lass’s name.

  ‘He does?’

  ‘Our funds will have three destinies: the priory, the organizers and expenses. You, Lovejoy, come under me.’

  A cat leapt on to her lap. We all sat. The cat sneered, clearly taunting: I’m sprawled on this exquisite woman, so get stuffed the lot of you. A cat is living proof that God was a rank beginner, all thumbs and no skill. He should have made cats without that inbuilt smirk.

  We all ignored Mrs Crucifex’s double meaning. Except me. Us cowards want definitions up front.

  ‘Under you how, exactly?’ I asked.

  Summer coughed on his wine. Martin shot me an impaling glance. Mrs Crucifex crossed her legs carefully, but her long dress parted on a mile of delectable leg. I wondered if women do it deliberately. I suppose I’m wrong. ‘For distribution of emoluments, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Am I an expense?’

  ‘Charity is a simple process, Lovejoy.’ She stroked the cat. ‘We organizers receive the appeal funds. Expenses come out. The residue goes directly to Prior Metivier.’

  ‘I don’t like charities, missus. They’re frauds.’

  ‘Not this, Lovejoy. Prior Metivier is chairman. I am secretary.’ She indicated Summer. ‘We have senior police. The charity will be registered.’

  ‘We rattle tins in supermarkets, sell flags or what?’ ‘Nothing so exhausting,’ she said, loving this. ‘We advertise for antiques - however small - from parishioners,

  friends, churchgoers. We have already published in the religious press. You evaluate the antiques.’

  ‘And who sells them?’

  She sighed. I was being tiresome. The cat raised its head and stared with malice at unthinking peasants who had the nerve to intrude at food-and-lap time.

  ‘You, Lovejoy. Or you arrange an auction.’

  ‘I’m sick of arranging auctions.’

  This is trouble. Because of BBC TV’s Antiques Road Show, and a million Road Show lookalikes that tour every village and drill hall, there’s a growing conviction that you’ve only to tack up a notice announcing one, and up bowl waggonloads of Rembrandts and Wedgwoods and Chippendales. It’s greed. You want proof? Watch the TV show. You’ll hear an expert waffle on about some porcelain piece. Nobody pays much attention, for who cares? Then he says, ‘You want to know how much it’s worth!’ All conversation stops. You can hear a pin drop. See? Greed, more greed and nothing but greed, swelp me.

  ‘Of course it must be you, Lovejoy. Ably assisted,’ she said evenly, ‘by Mr Summer. You are said - forgive me, Lovejoy - to need somebody beyond reproach to be close by.’

  ‘Meaning I’m a crook, and Mr Summer’s n
ot?’

  She smiled. ‘I did entrust myself to your care.’

  Well, if she put it like that. She meant driving me home. ‘I found that thing at the priory,’ I said, eyeing the grub. I was starving. ‘That should keep Prior George in holy water for a week.’

  ‘What thing?’ Summer and Crucifex asked simultaneously, then quickly looked away to dissociate.

  I told them about the Chinese handle. ‘Pity there wasn’t a pair. See, one is always less than half the value of a pair.’

  There was silence. Martin looked at his wife. She started an immediate chatter about which friends might help, volunteer committees she’d written to.

  ‘Er, any chance of... ?’ I asked the trolley.

  ‘Good heavens!’ Mrs Crucifex trilled, relieved at the diversion.

  She beckoned. I leapt an Olympic leap. It’s very hard not to grab grub when you’re hungry. Summer only picked, which is unusual, because the Old Bill are famous cadgers of grub and booze. We talked of this and that. I said a boot fair was hopeless and that asking antique dealers for gifts would provoke derision.

  ‘It’s the fancy,’ I concluded. ‘Meaning your level of society. You’ll have enough money to advertise once you sell that Warring Period bronze.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate the problem, Lovejoy.’ Crucifex spoke sombrely. ‘Albansham Priory has fallen on hard times. We fear closure.’

  ‘I heard about the holy pool.’

  ‘Yes.’ He heaved a sigh. I collared a plate of fishy circular things, only cavity fillers. I pretended to listen and got on with devouring. ‘It’s a long-term project, Lovejoy. Pilgrims mostly go to Walsingham, Lourdes.’

  ‘Why not try something phoney, like Knock, in Eire?’ ‘Don’t blaspheme, Lovejoy. Such places might be specially chosen.’

  Well, OK, Martin sounded vaguely holy, but his wife? About Mr Summer I harboured not the slightest doubt, and me I knew all about. We were a mixed bunch all right. The priory had had it. I finished the chocolate things, so small your fingers met in the middle. They had crinkly paper round each morsel. If they hadn’t been tasty they’d have been a nuisance.

  ‘Oh, aye.’ I wasn’t convinced. ‘How much debt are we trying to blot up?’

  ‘The debt is confidential, Lovejoy,’ Martin said, frosty. ‘How soon do I scan the antiques, then?’ The trolley had run out of grub. Time to go.

  ‘We’ll let you know. Two days or so, probably.’ ‘Lovejoy,’ Mrs Crucifex said. Her foot was gently oscillating, up and down, up and down. I tried not to look, but women make politeness hard to come by, so to speak. ‘You are committed to us, aren’t you?’

  ‘Er, yes, missus.’ I did a gruff throat clearance. ‘Just send word.’

  No sign of her niece Irma. No feeling of genuine antique Rockingham pieces littering the house, no vibes of bliss-giving antiques clamouring away.

  ‘I’ll be off. It’s quite a way back,’ I hinted, helpfully giving them all the chance to hurtle forward with an offer of a lift home.

  ‘Sorry we can’t drive you back, Lovejoy.’ Martin came to show me out. ‘Our major fund-raising supper starts soon. You understand?’

  All my life I’ve been told that I understand folk who’re anxious to show me out, so I said sure, fine, ta, and went into the night.

  No rain. I went down the drive, cut back and found a niche in the hedge. I stood waiting. ‘Soon’, he’d said. What time was it, half-eight?

  Why hawthorns and blackthorn trees drip on you when they’re not even wet is life’s greatest mystery. It narks me. Twenty minutes passed before a large saloon arrived. Outside lights went on. I could see the house’s facade, auto floods, I supposed. Prior Metivier alighted, with him his sister Marie. I watched them go in, wondering if they really were sister and brother. You can’t always tell.

  Then Irma, in a ratty little car so near the floor it seemed to snarl at the gravel. She flounced, her coat half off even before she vanished inside. Irma would be a ball tonight. I was glad I wouldn’t be sitting next to her.

  Two sedate couples came, dressed to kill, one pair parking their grand old Rolls, the next letting their car go. I tried to see who they were, but got spooked by another, a modem saloon. The bloke who strolled up the steps wore uniform, but not military. Airline pilot, perhaps? I was too far off to see the insignia.

  No more came. Could there be a better time to do a burglary?

  10

  here the hell have you been?’ I groused at Gesso when he arrived at the tavern. I was scared Prior Metivier would finish his nosh, zoom back to the priory and spoil everything. I don’t know what priors do at night.

  ‘Keep your hair on,’ he grumbled back. ‘Ready?’

  ‘You look dishevelled.’ I eyed him. They were making a real din in the taproom, darts reaching crescendo. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Fine. Let’s go.’

  He looked nervy, more on edge than I’d ever seen him, as we left the Fox and Hounds. Like I say, our paths had diverged when he took up burglary full time and I didn’t. He’d get the job done, I was certain.

  ‘We leave the motor at the crossroads, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Won’t people notice?’

  ‘Not where I put it.’

  Good enough. We drove through the night. He cut the lights once, scaring me. Then we’d emerge on some narrow side lane, with distant orange lights strung over trunk roads. I didn’t know where I was when finally we coasted to a stop.

  ‘Shhh,’ he said when I made to speak. He listened for an age.

  He got out, whispering to leave the car door ajar. He’d aborted the interior light. I heard a faint clink of metal as he hefted a bag.

  ‘Follow me,’ he whispered, and set off.

  I couldn’t see a thing. To the right the sky was less than pitch dark. I guessed it was the lights of a town, but which?

  Characters like Gesso are really pretty naff people you don’t think much of in cities among the milling millions. Yet put them out here in the dark, among strange night creatures, the ground turning suddenly into quagmires or flint, and they become the man. They’re the ones you have to rely on, or go blundering, night blind, into some river. I bumped into Gesso.

  ‘Shhhh, Lovejoy.’

  I really wished he’d stop saying that. I was being as quiet as could be. We kept coming up against brambles. Twigs plucked at my face, leaves down my neck, and that daft non-rain kept dripping on me. I was fed up. I started off after Gesso, only to crash against him.

  ‘What?’ I whispered, scared we’d been rumbled.

  ‘We’re here. Shhhh.’

  Where, exactly? All was darkness, no buildings anywhere.

  ‘Where?’ I whispered.

  He made a susurrus reaching back. Slowly he took my hand, pulled it to my left. It touched stone. Brick? I felt further. Another, then another. A wall. I groped upwards. And down, to lovely solid paving. We’d reached civilization.

  Then I heard it. Off to my right, a thick plopping sound, very irregular. Plop, suck, pitter pitter. Loud pause, then plop again. It was the hot pond, the pungent sickly fumes detectable as the breeze shifted. The priory wall.

  Gesso tapped me twice, the burglar’s universal signal that it’s safe. We advanced, me having kittens. We were moving slowly, ten paces a minute. He stopped. I stopped ‘I’m going in, Lovejoy,’ he whispered, drinker’s breath into my earhole.

  ‘Here, Gesso. I need to come in too.’

  ‘Shhhh, you burk.’

  I heard a faint muffled clink, as metal wrapped in rag makes on stone. Two scrapes, then down over me gushed warmish air, not the hot pool’s acridity but indoor air, faintly scented with incense. Gesso guided my hand down to his bag of tools, telling me silently not to fall over the damned thing.

  Then he was gone. I felt him ascend somehow, with an almost imperceptible grunt of effort. His boot brushed against my shoulder. I felt all around, ahead, to the side, but I was on my tod. He’d climbed in.

  For old time’s sake, I started c
ounting slowly, like you measure the distance of thunder after lightning. I reached a hundred, then wondered if I’d missed any out, which usually happens to me about sixty. My old Gran used to say my head was full of jolly robins. I tried a second time but gave up. What’s the point?

  A pencil torch blinded me for a second, from on high. I almost leapt out of my skin. The dark rushed back, pitch black.

  ‘Shhh, Lovejoy.’

  ‘I am, you pillock.’ I leant against the wall until my heart stopped hammering.

  A hand descended, felt my shoulder. I grabbed it, hauled myself up, found the edge of the sill and clambered in. He hissed at me to stay still. I crouched down, felt gingerly about. Parquet flooring, that scent of polish. No carpet. I’d once almost got caught by falling over a coal'scuttle in a house in the Midlands.

  Curtains did their muted screech along rails. Then, impossibly, Gesso’s pencil torch light came on. There he was, falling about laughing.

  ‘Your face, Lovejoy!’

  ‘Nark it, Gesso.’ He shone it round the hallway. I could see the upward curve of bannisters. ‘Is it all right to talk like this?’ But I was mee-mawing like I’d seen mill workers do when a child, lip reading across crowded streets.

  ‘Yes.’ He whispered that the nuns were in the far wing. ‘Where do we look, Lovejoy? And for what?’

  ‘How the hell do I know?’ I wasn’t scared, not in the least. And I reckoned I could scarper faster than the monks, if push came to shove. But being in somebody else’s house puts the wind up me. Even when arriving somewhere I’ve been invited, I hum and ha before ringing the bell. ‘Look, Gesso. You said a painting.’

  ‘I didn’t hear where they’d locked the bloody thing away, did I? I’m depending on you to feel the antiques, like you did when we was partners. You’re the divvy, not me.’ He capped his torch with a hand, letting only the thinnest glim from between red-glow fingers. ‘Honestly, Lovejoy. You’re all ideas and no frigging do. You make me effing sick.’

  ‘Where’s his study?’ I was a bit disoriented. ‘It’ll be there, won’t it?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’