Pearlhanger

by Jonathan Gash

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, now a little anxious.

  I pressed on quickly. ‘Outside the normal channels. It’s somewhat sensitive.’

  ‘Mr Tierney usually takes, ah, significant visitors into his office.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to meet elsewhere,’ I decided, facing up to duty. ‘After work, possibly?’

  Loyalty and propriety battled for her soul. Neither won, with her being female. Curiosity and the faintest hint of sin carried the day.

  ‘Only to discuss confidentiality for specially valuable items,’ she affirmed carefully. There was to be no funny business.

  I looked her straight in the eye and smiled with utmost sincerity. ‘What else?’

  My apologies to Lord Stanhope Eskott, if there’s a real one, because I told Olivia things about the noble Eskotts that I honestly shouldn’t have mentioned to a living soul. Of course I did the decent thing, made her promise not to breathe a word and all that, but as I warmed to my task over a dainty tea in Montwell’s dainty tea rooms I’m afraid that quite a few scandalous disclosures tripped lightly from my tongue. Lord Eskott’s daughter Felicity was a slut, son Fanshawe a renegade, and as for Her Ladyship and that cowherd . . .

  She was fascinated. Not of course by the happy bits. The tragedies and scandals went over really great.

  ‘You mean Leandra ran away?’ She was out of breath, her cheeks red spots, and spoon absently stirring her empty cup and driving me mad.

  ‘Look, Olivia.’ I was all stern. ‘It isn’t for us to judge.’ The reproof established me as a pillar of rectitude.

  ‘Why, of course not,’ Olivia cried softly. ‘We can’t, shouldn’t . . .’

  But we did. We agonized over young Bertie’s commission in the Household Cavalry now he’d met that actress: was she worth the risk? We were outraged by cousin Maltravers’s behaviour, going off like that. We prayed that Clara wouldn’t turn out as all her mother’s side had done. Those Cornish Penhaligons had bad blood.

  ‘One thing after another,’ I sighed. ‘You can appreciate my difficulty.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ she breathed. ‘The scandal if word got out! But Tierney’s confidentiality . . .’

  I put in anxiously, ‘But are the personnel reliable?’

  ‘Ah.’ Olivia wagged a finger. ‘I can see you don’t understand how trustworthy auctioneers operate.’

  ‘No indeed,’ I said truthfully. Does anyone?

  ‘I’ll go over it right from the beginning . . .’

  That was on Monday of the week after my non-raid on Deamer’s house. Five weeks till the big Montwell auction. I began experimenting the very first night back in my own dowdy cottage.

  Once I get going I’m quite lost in intensity. Creative art is all very well, but successful forgery has to be executed with skill, like all murders.

  Love creates art; precision makes fakes.

  Chapter 23

  WORK’S NOT ALL beer and skittles.

  What I said about art and forgery is true, yet these pinnacles of human endeavour do have common ingredients. The most important is enthusiasm, plus I’m a great believer in impetus.

  One trouble was Tinker. He was really narking me. The surly old berk was living the life of Riley in hospital, chatting up the nurses and grousing whenever I called to see him. He wanted to stay abed, when I now desperately needed his help. After all, I’d almost saved his life – well, nearly almost, because it was Tom’s return that stopped Chatto having another go, but I’d meant well.

  Lydia was another pest, and Sandy and Mel fourteen more each at least. I kept being hauled from my workshop to referee arguments on percentages and pricing the antiques from my sweep. Mel had managed another few items as they’d gone along, the prize being a beautiful Fuller’s measurer. This rarity – think of rolling-pin-sized ivory cylinders covered in ruled lines and numbers – was a unique calculating device in its day, and now costs the earth. And so it should, because nowadays we’ve only got grotty computers.

  Between these rows I did trial after trial until the workshed’s floor was littered with discarded Siren-shaped test pieces, dashed into town to see Tinker, hurtled to our pathetic library to be told there was no demand for the books I demanded, and between times got on with seducing Olivia from her tenacious loyalty at Montwell. I was knackered. Well, even Don Juan had off days.

  Still I ploughed on with instinct my sole guide, desperately worried about time.

  Seven trials was my minimum, seven pieces of jewellery whose central piece was a huge baroque ‘pearl’, Italian Renaissance style. Six could be honestly duff, but one had to be perfect, as near the original pendant as dammit.

  Two vital points about money.

  The law says ‘forgery’ only has to do with coinage and documents. Much it knows. Legally, however, anybody can make a ‘reproduction’, so you can safely copy the Mona Lisa (for purely artistic reasons, of course). But ‘forgery’ and ‘counterfeiting’ and ‘fake’ the world over mean you intend to deceive, you rascal, you. And it’s no good claiming that only King John’s signature is phoney on that beautiful Magna Carta you’ve just made, that the rest of it is genuine parchment, ink, etc. Worse, the judges play hell even when there is no original, like if you forge your uncle Basil’s will and never had an uncle Basil. Some counties in Scotland aren’t quite so bad. For weird historical reasons they let you forge what you like, as long as you don’t actually profit from it. The rest of our scatterbrained Kingdom’s laws cheerfully convict you twice: once for the forgery and again for passing it. See the risk? A harsh old world.

  Luckily, most antiques aren’t documents. So you can make and even wear reproductions of the Crown Jewels, for all the police care. But carrying those same repros in a sack at midnight makes the peelers suspect you’re going to swap the originals. Then you’re for it. Intent to deceive, you see?

  The other vital point is that everything can be copied, faked, forged, reproduced, and counterfeited. Sometimes it’s respectable, like that famous expresidential candidate who recently made a bomb from fakes in the US, legitimately of course. Respectability’s an elastic little word. The trouble is that blokes like me, already under police surveillance, shouldn’t even dream of doing anything risky. So it would have to be the path of righteousness. Worse, it would also have to be very, very legal.

  Now, hand on my heart, I wasn’t going to deceive a single soul and that’s the honest truth. Except Lydia, and Olivia. And maybe Mel and Sandy, Deamer, Chatto, Donna, and a few score antique dealers. But you can’t count any of these, because they’re in the trade, and that’s normal.

  ‘Sandy,’ I said carefully one morning when they arrived to do the bookwork. ‘I want you to go to the harbour and with all possible secrecy bring me ten stone of herring. Soon as you can.’

  He fainted a bit and screeched, then got the giggles. ‘But, Lovejoy! People will stare!’ And him in a feather boa and cavalier hat. Mel would have nothing to do with it. Typically, neither asked what I wanted them for.

  I’d no idea how much a stone of fish actually was, but it sounds a lot. I tried working out the ancient measure: fourteen pounds to a stone, say two herrings to a pound . . . hopeless.

  ‘If our lovely fringes go stinky-poos, Lovejoy . . .’ Sandy threatened, still tittering. ‘Not Brightlingsea?’

  ‘Not necessarily from Brightlingsea, no.’

  Once Sandy’d had a tame beetle called Francisco. On a black day in Brightlingsea an itinerant picture-dealer had accidentally stood on Francisco. Sandy’d made local headlines petitioning the town council for a day of mourning. The council refused. Sandy still raises opposition to the mayor every polling day. I shrugged and went round the side of the cottage to my workshed. It’s only a battered old garage, but it’s where I do all my forgeries – I mean my restoration work.

  The first step to forging a pearl is making the pearl’s shape. Easy for ‘classical’ spherical pearls, but difficult for baroques. Go in two stages. First, make the ‘bead’, as pearl fa
kers call it. Traditionally this was a simple drop of glass. Nowadays clever sinners use epoxy resins and plastics because you can adjust the bead’s weight (and thereby its overall relative density). Then coat your bead with pearl. A mollusc does it for nothing, but has all the time in the world. It would have to be essence d’orient.

  Cultured pearls are often dyed; a cotton strand dipped in hydrochloric acid shows the dye when you touch a cultured pearl with it. The best way to detect artificial pearls, on the other hand, is by pressing them to your sensitive upper lip – cold means real, warmish means imitation. Spain perfected the manufacture, hence the nickname for artificial pearls, majjies, from that island’s old name, Majorica. Two vital don’ts: women’s magazines are forever preaching the pin test – imitation pearls show the pinprick – and (something equally daft) drying pearls with a hot-air hairdryer when you wash them. The best ways of ruining your pearl necklaces anybody could imagine.

  The Siren was easy to shape in plasticine. The surface needed to be flawless. Naturally I’d got photographs of the genuine piece, from the 1971 sale when Sotheby’s sold the original.

  In faking antiques, shapes are simple. For speed, I settled for the faker’s friend. Silicone rubber sets swiftly, doesn’t need heat or separating chemicals, gives terrific detail.

  While it was setting round my Siren-shaped lump of plasticine I strolled across the side lane to Kate and arranged for her to come and help me with all those bloody fish. She’s one of those gnarled old coast women who know how to do things.

  ‘Scrape herring?’ she said. She was washing in a dolly tub with a wood posser that had been used so much it was bleached, skeletal and furry.

  ‘I want their scales. Ten stone, Kate.’

  ‘God save us! You’re a rum un, Lovejoy, no mistake.’ She fell about laughing and making jokes about feeding the five thousand and all that while I waited patiently. She’s really hilarious, silly old crab. ‘All right, son. Give me a call.’

  She sent me off with an eccles cake, still cackling. But I was smiling too. I’d have my own pearl essence within a couple of days. Sometimes I think I’m the only person left not off my trolley. Still, life’s all go when you’re doing good, isn’t it?

  Gold, gold chain, a diamond or two, a ruby or two, a few small freshwater baroque pearls, and I was in business. I’d need help, of course, of a very special kind from very special sources, namely: Vanessa’s dad (little freshwater pearls), Olivia (the Montwell auction), Sandy (fish), Kate (fish), and gold. Better not forget that.

  Olivia’s what folk call plain, but that’s only an admission of their blindness. Her face radiated charm, her eyes an open blue. Her figure wasn’t film star-shaped but even film stars aren’t that. I liked her for her honesty, probably that’s all it was. Yet you have to be careful, because every woman has her own attractiveness and I had a serious job to do. I still wasn’t sure exactly what. It was our third candlelight tryst.

  ‘We’re not supposed to, James,’ she said seriously.

  ‘Good heavens!’ I cried into my complicated risotto thing. I’d asked to inspect Tierney’s security arrangements. ‘You don’t think I meant when your clients’ valuables were actually in Tierney’s, did you? I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.’

  ‘I suppose . . .’ she began doubtfully, then smiled. ‘Perhaps after the Saturday clearing inventory. The offices and auction rooms will be quite empty.’

  ‘Only if you’re sure,’ I said stoutly.

  ‘I can trust you,’ she glowed, and leant across the table eagerly. ‘How is Anastasia, James?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Did anything come of her meeting with Squire Wainwright?’

  My poor old memory creaked into action. Where’d I been up to? I’d become so confused with the mythical Lord Eskott’s saga that I’d taken to buying handfuls of lonely hearts romances and allocating one story to each character. I couldn’t keep track.

  ‘Too much came of it, Olivia,’ I replied sadly, hoping I’d got the right tale. ‘When Felicity called on him . . .’

  So, suss out Tierney’s auction place on Saturday. I was in. My mind laboriously charted the beginning of a plan. Not perfect, but other people have taught me to live with imperfections. It seemed to me I’d need a massacre, and immediately thought of Big John Sheehan. Horses for courses.

  Chapter 24

  ‘THE BEST PEARL river in the whole Kingdom was the White Cart,’ Tom told me wistfully in a crowd of milling holidaymakers. Vanessa was already out in the bay with Billy, helping a sailboat that had got in trouble. Everybody was dispiritingly hearty and nautical, as well as shamingly matter-of-fact. ‘Pollution’s done for it.’

  ‘I’d heard the Tay.’

  ‘Ah, the mighty Tay. The greatest emperors in the world used to send for them scotchers.’ He paused reflectively. ‘It’s their special shine, see?’

  ‘Then how do I get some small baroque pearls?’ Deamer’s men would be trebly vigilant now.

  Tom grinned. ‘Buy them, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Eh?’ I said faintly. He’d gone off his head.

  ‘Smallest are the commonest. Any good pearlie-man’ll sell them for a fiver. It’s all the jewellers pay.’

  ‘I need them soon, Tom. Practically now.’

  He’d said he’d give me a couple of addresses.

  Later I told Lydia to pop up to Perth and buy some small freshwater scotchers, if she’d enough money.

  ‘But Perthshire’s—’ she clutched at the bed-clothes, instantly thinking of blizzards ‘—north of Edinburgh!’

  I drew her close. Why are women’s knees always freezing? ‘There’s nobody else I can trust.’

  ‘Will it be cold, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. Luckily, they’re having an Indian summer. Unprecedented. To do with the Gulf Stream . . .’

  She left that Saturday morning, with the address of that old Perth jewellery firm which still buys cleverly from the few remaining freshpearlers.

  I emerged from the station having seen her off. There was a bulbous old motor on the forecourt looking familiar. The mechanic had a clipboard. ‘You Lovejoy? Sign here.’

  ‘What for?’ I asked guardedly. Bailiffs assume disguises.

  ‘It’s your bleedin’ car, mate.’

  Disbelievingly I walked round it. It was my old Austin Ruby, still battered but on its legs again. I hadn’t even noticed it had gone from the garden. Normally it’s just there, rusting in solitude among the nettles.

  ‘Does it go?’ I asked. It usually didn’t.

  ‘Bloody nerve,’ the mechanic said in annoyance. ‘That bird would have had our balls. She interrupted our frigging tea break to make sure.’ He was very bitter, so I signed. ‘And she only paid half the bill. The other half if it runs for a month.’

  The crank-handle swung like a lamb bringing the old crate clattering to life. I climbed in – the doors don’t work – unleashed the savage power of all its seven horsepower, and rattled grandly off. Things were coming up roses. I started singing a Tallis Gaude.

  Ledger pulled me in, first set of traffic lights.

  Ledger was grandly seated in his posh office, happy as a hustler. Chandler was there too, feet up on the desk. ‘Don’t say anything, Lovejoy. Just listen.’

  My complaints died unspoken. I’m never the type to have a merry quip ready. I only think of cutting remarks on the way home.

  Ledger pointed with a pencil. ‘This is a warning, lad. Just three words. Don’t do it.’

  ‘Don’t do what?’

  Ledger sighed. ‘I told you to shut up, Lovejoy.’

  ‘He’s trouble, Ledgie.’ Chandler slammed his boots to the floor and rose. ‘This bastard’s up to something. It stinks a mile off. Look at him.’

  When the Old Bill hauls you in for nothing you find reassurance in the little things of life: an old lady visible through the glass partition waiting to be seen about her missing poodle; a typist clacking away in the next office; a slit-view of the street door and p
eople on the pavement.

  ‘Lovejoy,’ Ledger continued wearily, ‘you have a grievance. Against Mrs Vernon, Deamer, Chatto. Even,’ he ended, smiling hopefully, ‘against the police.’

  Once, in the Army, I saw a bloke viciously punished for ‘dumb insolence’, that most nebulous of non-criminal crimes. It frightened me badly. Like now. Chandler was taking short irritable strides around the room, breathing in time. Suddenly I didn’t want Ledger to leave. I stayed dumb and still.

  ‘He’s a villain, Ledgie.’ Chandler’s face was blotched.

  Ledger continued, ‘You’re now mobile, Lovejoy, with that old sewing machine parked outside disgracing the street. So I’m warning you. For the next few weeks you’re a pure little choirboy. D’you hear?’

  A nod from me. Chandler was still smouldering, pacing.

  ‘Now go. Report at the desk every morning before ten.’

  I began, ‘You can’t make me do that—’

  Chandler grabbed me. Somehow I was instantly hurtling through the air and across the corridor. I just managed to hit the wall with my shoulder to stop my skull splatting the bricks. I tumbled and crawled a yard, my head reeling. The old lady had nodded off and didn’t even rouse. The typist clacked on. A uniformed bobby strolled indifferently by in barge boots.

  The desk sergeant was a bloke I knew quite well. I’d played against him in a crown-green bowling match once. He did the police trick of pretending to be busy. Crime could flourish unhindered. Wincing, I wobbled upright, holding on to the wall.

  ‘Here, Gerry,’ I said conversationally. ‘What did psychopaths do for a living before the police were formed?’

  He avoided my eye, so I avoided his to show I’d got pride. I was thinking: Well, well. Good old Chandler in with Deamer’s mob, and Ledger too thick to see it. The whole thing one composite pattern at last.

  Even though the police had given me a parking ticket, my heart was singing. The road was doing my driving with a vengeance now. Time to call in the gangsters. No problem there; everybody’s got a lot of those.