A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair l-21

by Jonathan Gash

  'Christ!' I was bathed in sweat, feeling like a rag.

  'What's up?' Sturffie stared at me in the gloaming. 'Gawd, Lovejoy, you're in a frigging state. You should see a doctor.'

  'I'm fine, Sturffie. Just thinking.'

  Theft by breaking and entering is one of the only two enterprises you should do in silence. I simply walked to the rear of Hymie's premises and gave Sturffie the nod. A hall light showed in the workshop corridor, a giveaway. Who stays in with only a hall light on? Nobody.

  'My van's round the corner, Lovejoy.' He gave me the keys. 'It's cleaned and empty. No windows.' He meant no clues.

  In less than ten minutes, he had the alarms sussed and the locks fiddled. I told him ta, to come back in an hour to set it all to rights again. He shrugged and left. I went inside, checked for the absence of Jack the Ripper, closed the back door and drove Sturffie's van through Commercial Street to Aldgate. I made absolutely certain that I didn't think of Martha Turner, dreadfully murdered and mangled by J the R - thirty slashes - as I drove past the site of George Yard Buildings. Nor did I gulp as I doglegged past Mitre Square (Catherine Beddowes, one of Saucy Jack's bloodiest, on a terrible Sunday).

  It went like clockwork. I saw Gluck and two - two? -others in a saloon car waiting by the great glass emporium of the Cutler Street Silver building. I parked close, flashed my beam. Gluck and a portly gent stepped out with Moiya December, setting some lads heading down Whitechapel whistling. She looked glorious in the night lamps. 'In the back, gents,' I said. 'Not you, miss. Sorry.' Gluck tried it on, but I wasn't having him seeing where we were going. I insisted. They boarded, nervously sitting on the van floor. I locked the rear doors, and waited to see Moiya go back to the posh saloon and sit glowering. I drove off, twisting down unnecessary detours for quite twenty minutes.

  Accidentally I found myself in Hanbury Street (Annie Chapman, whom J the R bizarrely laid out with brass rings and copper coins) and accelerated so quickly that Gluck and his stout gent shouted in anger. Lovejoy stayed cool, I'm pleased to report. I revved into Hymie's narrow yard, checked the gate was closed, and let them out. Gluck was furious. 'Is that your best driving?' 'Is this behaviour essential?' the gent asked. No names, no pack drill, they say. I'd already had a good look. No street names were visible from here. Okay, they'd find Hymie's place in a couple of days if they really tried, and could then talk to Hymie and Honor all they wished. Wrinkle too. By then I'd be over the hills and far away. 'Any ferreting, all deals are off, okay? Inside.' They went in.

  I wouldn't let them switch on the lights. Sturffie had thoughtfully dowsed the hall lamp.

  I shone a pencil torch ahead. Nothing like compulsory darkness to enforce dependence.

  'Those three pieces,' I told them. 'You can lift the sheets.'

  Wrinkle screened his genuine pieces from the work area, but there was no disguising the blissfilled aromas and sights of the dust, shavings. Wrinkle was a craftsman of superb tidiness, much neater than I am. All his pieces were either crated or covered.

  The pudgy bloke was a real pro. His sharp intake of breath told me all. He knew Chinese antique furniture, touched the wood with reverence, glanced at Gluck as if to ask him how on earth such superb genuine pieces had got here. I wouldn't let him invert any.

  'Crawl under if you have to. Don't lift.'

  I wouldn't give an inch on this. Antiques is always a seller's market. Please don't tell me it isn't, that your friend Elsie's had terrible trouble trying to sell her reproduction mascot from her dad's old motor car. I did say 'antiques', so tough luck on Elsie and all modern junk. If Elsie's antique turned out to be, say, a Continental silver christening set - tiny knife, fork, spoon, feeding spoon, three little cups and a silver and ivory rattle, William IV vintage - then she'd have dealers clamouring at her garden gate and worshipping her hair, etc., because dealers will do anything for genuine antiques. They'll even - I've heard - offer the going market price.

  'Can I ask for provenance?' the gent wheezed, straightening.

  'No,' I said bluntly. 'If you want provenance for these, you're useless.'

  He almost smiled. He had a goatee beard, waxed moustache grey as a brock badger.

  Like he was trying to seem Edwardian. I thought, Sotheby's, moonlighting? Or did gentry still only come from Christie's?

  'Any others?'

  'Out,' I replied.

  I did the journey in reverse, the boxed-in pair of them clinging on. I did my best among the streets, but still unnerved myself by blundering about the site of Buck's Row in Whitechapel (Mary Ann Nicholls, J the R's second prostitute victim, dead on the cobbles after trolling in Limehouse). Mercifully the lovely Moiya was still alive and sulking in her grand saloon. I let the two men out. Gluck was furious. He tried to see the van's registration. I let him try. It was covered in mud, Sturffie's attention to detail.

  Whether Gluck told the old expert who I was didn't matter. Tinker would have my alibi chiselled in granite. I waved them off. Ten minutes later, I gave Sturffie back his van, waited until he'd set Wrinkle's alarms to rights, and let him drop me off in the Strand.

  Finding a phone these days is an ordeal, but I got one after hunting Charing Cross for a century, and rang Gluck.

  'On or off?' I asked him, knowing the answer.

  'On,' he said. 'Details of the other event?'

  'Going like a dream,' I lied. He meant the Dulwich robbery. 'It'll be in the papers day after tomorrow. About payment.'

  'Any default,' he said, 'you know who'll suffer. Any trick will mean permanent exit for both of them, followed by somebody else. That is three.'

  'I know. Payment?'

  He chuckled. 'I like your directness. Tomorrow noon, when dining with influence.'

  'Deal,' I said, and rang off.

  So if I didn't deliver the Dulwich Picture Gallery's masterpieces for Dieter Gluck to rescue for the nation, and if I failed to provide him with a selection of genuine antique Chinese furniture pieces so he could make a fortune, then Mortimer, Colette, and me would go to the wall. I went, whistling, wondering if Tinker had got hold of Lydia yet.

  34

  I DON'T KNOW if people these days are familiar with doss houses. Different from days of yore, of course. The old phrase 'I'm so tired I could sleep on a clothesline' started there. You tied a rope between walls, draped your arms on the line, and slept like that because the floor was crammed with too many other lucky derelicts. Now, you pay a tithe for a 'semi-special' nook of partitioned sanctuary, and get breakfast for a pittance, then it's out into London's bright day. I mean raining.

  Optimism's not my strong suit. I'm good at getting by, but frankly I'm scared of aggro.

  Like, Gluck had won Colette's antiques firm, Saffron Fields, the land, canal. And he was a killer. If I knew all that, so must the police. Proof was a different matter. And a contract's a contract. Colette and Arthur had signed almost everything over to Gluck, nothing anybody could do.

  But Gluck needed that one bit of land to dig the link canal. Which meant he needed money. Mortimer stood in the way. Give Gluck those two fields, plus Mortimer's lordship tide, Gluck would be taipan, big in the land.

  I explained this to Gloria Dee at the Royal Academy in Piccadilly. No sense in holding back the cruel details. We sat on a bench.

  'You, frightened?' She seemed astonished.

  'Scared stiff.' I reminded her that Gluck's bloke Bern had been bludgeoned to death.

  'But the police said the poor man simply fell, or surprised a robber.'

  'Oh, aye. You know what to do?'

  A crocodile of children came under the arch, chattering away. How come teachers look so cool? I'm frantic just babysitting Henry - my other job - and he can hardly crawl.

  'You've told me what I'm to say, Lovejoy.' She didn't look scared, but then women have no need to be. 'Sir Jesson and I meet Mr Gluck. Public-spirited, Mr Gluck will tell Jesson that a major theft will soon happen, from an unnamed but important public art gallery.'

  'Good. And?'<
br />
  'And that Gluck has ways of rescuing the stolen art works for the nation.'

  'That's when you ask your all-important question, love.' I watched her lovely mouth move as she got ready. Politicians like Sir Jesson have everything - wealth, sinecures, and lovely women like Mrs Dee.

  'I ask Mr Gluck, "Why don't you simply tell the police?" And he replies—'

  'That the robbers will then know he's an informer. They will exact retribution.' I was proud of the phrase, having rehearsed Gluck through it on the phone. Gloria sounded better. I couldn't help asking. 'You and Sir Jesson. Are you…?'

  Her eyes widened. 'Lovejoy, I'm a married woman!'

  Two ladies entering the Academy heard and turned to stare.

  'You mean, er, you and he aren't—?'

  'It's time this conversation ended, Lovejoy,' she said primly, gathering her handbag.

  'Can I help you about art?' I asked desperately. Hardly Romeo wooing, but the best I could think of. 'Teach you how to forge an Old Master?' I threw in my last lie. 'No obligation.'

  Her eyes were a lovely blue, steady as a hunter's. 'Why, Lovejoy?'

  'It's all I have to offer.'

  'Why would you want to help me?'

  No answer to that, because women already know. She was smiling as we parted, she to Fortnum & Mason's posh restaurant, me to wait out the performance. From across the road I saw the lanky form of Sir Jesson arrive in his Rolls. The stage was set. I couldn't work out what felt wrong.

  When you feel lost, antiques are the antidote. I went to Alfie's, a famed antiques place, and wandered among the stalls. I overheard dealers arguing about Chelsea porcelain.

  They were on about Triangle Period pieces - the Chelsea mark was a simple triangle cut into the soft paste. Shine a strong light through the piece, you see tiny translucent spots we call 'pinholes', though they're not holes at all. Try it right now on any oldish porcelain you have in the house. You might get lucky.

  Nervy as I was, I had to smile. One dealer was trying to tell the other it was a definite proof of 1745 to 1749 Chelsea. I hung about, listening. They were wrong, because modern fakers mix shredded glass into modern clay. Adjust the temperature, you can get a pretty good imitation. And you don't have to be an expert potter, because the first Chelsea wares which Nicholas Sprimont started when he sailed in from Flanders were really rotten efforts, dead clumsy. For four years, 1749 on, the mark was a raised anchor. The translucent pinholes became translucent patches, the famous 'Chelsea moons'. You can easily fake these—

  'Coffee, Lovejoy?' Saintly said. 'Having a good day?'

  'No. It's gruesome. Ta.' We sat at a table. When the plod offer you something, watch out. He actually forked out for biscuits, so he'd want blood.

  'Who is your current lady these days? I haven't seen your apprentice lately - Lydia, is it?'

  'Got none, and yes to Lydia.' I wished I'd walked out.

  'Hear about that little bloke, did you?'

  My hand didn't manage to lift the mug. 'What little bloke?'

  'Trout, they call him.' He made great play of wanting more sugar. Cops are all overweight. 'Got himself arrested. Flew at Mr Gluck in a rage. Noticed any mental instability in Trout, have you?'

  It was so innocent it was creepy. The ghost feeling came back.

  'No. He's Tinker's pal, if you've got the right one.'

  Saintly chuckled. 'Not many antique-dealing dwarf Tarzan-O-Grams around, Lovejoy.'

  'Tinker there, was he?' I asked, casual.

  'Tried to pull him off, but the little bloke was berserk. Mr Gluck stated Trout tried to stab him. Luckily Mr Gluck's cousin was in town, a bruiser. Trout rather suffered, I'm afraid.'

  I swallowed. I'd warned Trout to steer clear of Gluck, stupid little sod. I didn't need this, with Gloria and Sir Jesson's set-up nosh taking place with Gluck across the road in Fortnum's, and my head spinning. Maybe Shar could spring him from clink? 'Where've you taken him?'

  'Hospital, naturally.' He flashed a watch. 'They're operating.'

  'Tinker too?' I croaked. No wonder Saintly had paid for coffee.

  'St Thomas's Hospital,' Saintly called after me. 'You know it? On the Thames. There's a bus—'

  Saintly and his bloody buses. One day somebody'd shove him under one. Now I wish I'd not thought that evil thought. Thinking's always trouble.

  Hospitals scare me. It's a different world. Everybody except me seems to know where they're going. Everybody else also looks twice as fit. Doctors always glare like they're working out what illnesses I have. Nurses weigh me up, like what tubes do they have to pass and into what orifice. Not only that, I've only to walk down any hospital corridor to start to feel my right leg dragging, a rare lethal fever, double vision. And all the time those accusing stares from passing housemen, stethoscopes at the ready to diagnose my multiple fatal ailments. So I tend to shuffle along avoiding eye contact, hoping somebody will give me directions without amputating some vital bit. Hospitals are the pits.

  Tinker was in a surgical ward. I found him by homing in on his cough. I halted, aghast.

  One plastered leg was raised at an absurd angle up into a maze of pulleys. He was bandaged, forehead and one eye. An arm was plastered. He looked like he'd rolled under a war.

  'Wotcher, Lovejoy,' he said. Thank God he was conscious.

  'Gluck did it?'

  'And a bruiser called Kenelley. Last night.'

  'Why were you in Chelsea, Tinker?' I couldn't really get mad.

  His one eye grew reproachful. 'We wus doing nuffink. I wouldn't have gone down Chelsea if you'd said not to. You know that.'

  'Sorry, Tinker. I'm out of kilter.' I looked about the ward. God, it looked a killing field.

  'Anything you want?'

  'Fags. A bleedin' drink. Bloody nurses are stingy cows.'

  The ward sister came clacking along. 'I heard that, Mr Dill. The surgeon says nothing by mouth for two more hours. And I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head…' et caring cetera.

  'I'll send Lydia in.' I had to go. I was behind time. 'Saintly told me Trout went for Gluck with a knife.'

  'It's balls, Lovejoy. They set out to do us over. I know the difference, wack. Here, why's Trout in a different ward?'

  The sister must have had hearing like a bat.

  'Your friend is still in theatre,' she said briskly. 'I'll let you know as soon as we get news.' She avoided my eyes, clipped off along the polished floor.

  'I'll be back. Cheers, mate.'

  'Tarra, son. Care, now. And watch the lad, eh?'

  After this warning, I didn't need telling. It was Gluck's reminder, after I'd treated him with disdain last night in front of his girl and his expert with the goatee beard. Gluck would have to win now, whatever happened. But so would I. 35

  THE THAMES LOOKED unchanged. I couldn't stop my hands trembling. I've no illusions.

  We're a rotten species, do anything for gain. Like blam Tinker, a harmless old soak, just to threaten me. And hire some bruiser to wellnigh kill a titch like Trout.

  The reason? I'd shown Gluck and his expert the true value of the antiques. Okay, they belonged to Wrinkle. Gluck didn't yet know that. But he wasn't thick. If I could stroll into a tatty workshop, show him genuine Chinese furniture worth a fortune, I could just as easily nick them. Gluck's warning spoke louder than words. The 'third person' Gluck threatened was Mortimer, or Lydia, or me. So one of us would have to be risked. As long as it wasn't me. I slipped down off the wall, still feeling sick, and walked to the South Bank. Ugliest theatres on earth.

  Eat before a scrap, is the Royal Navy's dictum. The Duke of Wellington's advice was to pee whenever you could. I did both. Time to scrap.

  'How did it go?' I asked Billia at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square. I was astonished to see her. Why hadn't Dulwich's perfect security systems arrested her? Now I'd have to go through with the charade.

  'It went well, Lovejoy.' She handed me a sheaf of notes. 'You got one name wrong. It was by Pinxit.'

&
nbsp; A headache came on. 'Gent in a brown velvet frock coat, brilliant white satin undercoat?'

  'That's it.'

  'You ignorant cow. Thomas Hudson wrote Pinxit after his signature. It means painted it.

  Latin.'

  'Oh. You missed a Reynolds, Lovejoy. In the foyer. Margaret Morris.'

  'That's a modern copy.' Now my headache was crippling me lopsided. 'The eyes are out of line, different sizes, like from two different women. Reynolds didn't make those mistakes. What's this?'

  'You said do sketches of the exits and alarms.'

  'Oh, aye. Great.' I'd forgotten. I scanned them looking as furtive as possible. 'Well done.' And they were remarkably good, a professional job. 'You could go into the suss business, love.'

  'Thank you, Lovejoy.' She asked about money.

  'Eh?' To buy off Bang's betting syndicate. 'Tomorrow morning,' I said with deep honesty. 'I mean that most sincerely.'

  Her eyes filled. 'Thank you, sweetheart.' We were into emotion. 'I promise, Lovejoy, I'll do anything for you, when Dang's out of this scrape. And I do mean anything.'

  My throat constricted. All me paid attention.

  'The robbery's tonight. You and Dang walk up to the main entrance of Dulwich Picture Gallery.' I found it on the sketch, beautifully to scale. 'Just like it's still daylight. Dress like two workmen, overalls and that.' As long as they were conspicuous.

  She was doubtful. 'Have we to hide?'

  'No.' I invented my way through a folder. The words came out. 'That would be a giveaway. Carry a bag of tools. Wear overalls with an electricity logo. Midnight.'

  'Midnight.' Carefully she repeated the details. 'From which direction do we approach, Lovejoy?'

  'From the pond.'

  'That side's awfully well lit, Lovejoy.'

  'That's allowed for,' I told her. Her painstaking attention to detail was getting me narked. There wasn't going to be any Dulwich robbery, for heaven's sake. 'Once you're in the shadows, my insiders will lower the paintings to you.'