The Lies of Fair Ladies

by Jonathan Gash

  I put my fingers against her cheek. "Drackenford. Then we'll make up, eh?"

  Twenty

  Drackenford's one of those wood-and-plaster hamlets. Nothing much to its name except plenty of black-and-white architecture, leaning cottages, leaded windows, and pavements so narrow you always have to look behind in case some cart's going to run you down. Four shops, a school the size of a kennel. A river, one bridge, a church filled with ancient alabaster saints, tombstones frittering away into yews and copses. And a war memorial, five names. That's your average East Anglian hamlet. You could guess about six hundred souls on a lusty night.

  "Left."

  "There's no road, Lovejoy. It definitely says." "Ignore the signs. Right, at the end."

  She braked, turned, at a rocketing two miles an hour. "It's a farm, Lovejoy." "Straight on."

  One mile an hour. We crawled past the farmhouse, down past ornamental gardens and an oxbow river bend. Two small pools large enough to swing a cat. I smiled, squeezed Luna's hand. "That gravel drive, love."

  "What are you smiling at, Lovejoy? This is private property. I shall get a summons for trespass—"

  "And Oliver will be narked," I finished for her. "Stop saying that. Pull in by the taller of the two barns."

  I was out before she'd got the brake on. I cupped my mouth and yelled to the sky, "Same-Same! It's me! Lovejoy!"

  Rooks rose, cawing and creating at having their idleness disturbed. Well, I was hard at it. Time they did a bit.

  "Lovejoy.'' Good old Lune with yet more reproach, buttoning her coat against the rising wind. I was heartily sick of her. "Couldn't we go over to the small barn and simply knock? This place is . . ." She shuddered, pulling her lapels tight.

  And indeed this place was ... I scanned it. Big, dark, no life. No tire marks. Broken windows stuffed with old rags. Sacks trailing from fractured glass. Sealed and shuttered and barred.

  "Plug your ears, dwoorlink." I cupped my hands and bellowed, "Half a minute, Same-Same. Then I’ll damage your shed."

  Luna was pacing, distraught. "This is positively absurd, Lovejoy. Shouting at a disused barn is ridiculous. There's a farmhouse back there to make enquiries—"

  "Fifteen seconds, Same-Same," I howled. The birds did their annoyance thing.

  Then a faint noise came from inside the great barn.

  "Step aside, Lune." I drew her back a few paces. A part of the old barn's side began to swing in, making a humming sound. Lights, the clink of metal on metal. Somebody whistling. A voice called casually for turpentine. And out stepped Same-Same.

  "Wotcher, Samie." I'd forgotten how tall Same-Same was. Gangly, with that deceptive ease lanky folk possess. "Notice anything?"

  He waited until the panel whirred back into position. He walked round Luna's motor. "Nice job. How much?"

  "Not for sale, Samie. It's Luna's here. My apprentice."

  He'd been kicking the wheels until then, the way buyers do. Now he stopped, looked at Lune, at me, and groaned.

  "'Cking hell, Lovejoy." He was disgusted.

  "Sorry, Samie," I said.

  "Sorry?" he yelled, apoplectic. I'd been trying to let him down lightly, but he gave me stick. “It's all very well saying sorry, mate. But I've worked all 'cking afternoon on bits of 'cking rubbish." He glared at Luna. "If you'd pay for one of those touch-locks, missus, you'd have saved me a 'cking deal of time."

  "Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Same," from Luna. "But they're far too expensive. My friend, Betty, put one on her motor and it went off in the night, and she lives near the hospital and the police—"

  "Lovejoy?" Same-Same gestured to me, and walked off shaking his head. "Do I honestly believe this?"

  Luna came to stand beside me. "I don't understand, Lovejoy."

  "Samie's just gone for your antiques. Unlock your boot.''

  "Mr. Same's got them? My antiques?"

  "Aye. He used your car to nick them from your house while we were away at Del Vervain's."

  It was all too much for her. I explained the "samer" con. You go to the railway station car park. You ignore commuters, who're likely to leave wife, children, grandads at home. You wait for the mid-morning crowd. The man-and-wife off to London for a jaunt, who take luggage out of the boot. That means they're off for the day, at least.

  "Pinch the car. Nobody's surprised to see the car in its own drive. The more expensive the motor, the more likely is the house to be posh, with tall hedges. The milkman and post girls have all done by noon."

  "Same-Same does that?"

  "He's famous for it, among dealers. He never pinches big antiques. Always small, that can fit in . . ."I shrugged apologetically. "Open your car doors, love. Wide."

  Same-Same came carrying her antiques. I nodded approval as she gasped, recognizing each one.

  An Austrian bronze, only Edwardian, that made her glance guiltily in my direction. A desk object, really. A bronze rock on a bronze pool. Luna knew, but did not say, that the rock would open at a touch to reveal a naked nymph in a singularly naughty pose. These items are highly collectible, especially if the nymph looks as brilliantly golden as the first day she performed her erotic perversion hidden in her bronze rock. A painting or two, Victorian sentimental—the sort you couldn't give away twenty years ago but now can't buy for love nor money. Then the two things that made me gasp.

  Globes. One terrestrial, the other celestial. Mounted, so as to stand on the carpet of some master's study. The surfaces are printed, if they're right, done about the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Printed amendations were issued, to be stuck on the surface as more lands were discovered and new seas charted. I glimpsed one patch with 1828 on it, quite like an ordinary printed addendum label in a book. The surround is usually boxwood, like a girdle. Three beech legs stained to pretend they're rosewood. It doesn't mean fake; it means fashion of the times. They would stand about three feet tall. Lovely, lovely. I heard myself moaning. They can be dry-stripped of their old yellowed varnish and made like new. New, in their instance, being 1816 or so.

  “That it. Samie?''

  "Mmmmh.” He was disgruntled. Everything my fault.

  "Going to the Kensington Antiques Fayre this year?"

  "No." He smiled a cold smile. "Sending stuff, though."

  "I'll look out for it," I joked, though I was really far from merriment.

  "See you, Lovejoy."

  We left. I looked at the garden ornaments in the farmhouse's lovely ornate garden. Tudor design. The river was charming, only shallow but with a pair of swans gliding serenely along.

  "D'you know swans mate for life, Lune?"

  "Don't call me . . ." She bit back the rebuke. "Oh, really?" she said, all casual. "That's lovely."

  A mile further on I told her to draw in by the Drum Major, a pub. I told her to wait, in the scree of a low hedge.

  "Parking light off, love."

  We waited for almost thirty minutes, but nothing came past except a tired tractor and a few cows urged on by a cowherd.

  "Home, love."

  Some days I'm really thick. I got Luna to phone from a roadside phone box, to tell Oliver not to call the Plod in when he arrived home and found his belongings thinned.

  "He rather disbelieved me, Lovejoy." She sounded miffed. "He thinks I borrowed the antiques for your purposes."

  Well, that's what the Olivers of this world tend to believe, thinking themselves treble shrewd. Once a prat, and all that.

  We drew up at their substantial house. No palace, but certainly the inhabitants weren't going hungry just yet. It's times like this I wish I had a watch. You can look at it, go tut-tut, and scarper.

  "Look, love," I said uneasily. "Could you give me a lift to the Volunteer? Only, Sandy might have some news—"

  "Us, Lovejoy."

  "Er, us, Lune."

  She was already out. Oliver emerged instantly. He marched down, shot glances into the car, turned on me.

  "What's all this, Lovejoy? Not content with purloining my wife, embroiling her in goings-on, you ha
ve the effrontery—"

  "Sorry, but—"

  "Oliver. Please." It was a humble request.

  Oliver gave way, but only because I was a potential vote. He didn't know it, but I was now of an opposing political persuasion. They withdrew. I waited for the verdict.

  Luna came back, Oliver in self-righteous attendance. "Lovejoy. Could you please tell Oliver how . . . ?"

  "I noticed the place you'd parked, love. There was a crack in the tarmac. My side of the car, just below the door. When we left for London, that is. When we came back the motor was a good foot to one side of the same crack.'' I waited. It was now quite dark. I should be in the White Hart trying to chat Connie up. "While we were on the train, your car had been used, then returned to the station car park." I looked from her to Oliver. "That your question?" "Yes." She turned to her husband. "See, Oliver?" I’d threatened her not to disclose Same-Same's scam. I'd drilled her to say it was some lunatic chancer, and we'd managed to catch sight of him off-loading the antiques from the bridge over the bypass. Best I could invent at such short notice.

  "Well, thanks," I said into silence. "Is there a bus?" The police came just then, and I was borrowed from the mayor's parlor to receive the intentions of one Drinkwater.

  Police stations have a curious pong of dried sweat. I suppose they import it wholesale. Drinkwater didn't let me sit. He paced, ear twitching, pot teeth clacking.

  "Fairclough, Lovejoy."

  "How is the poor chap?"

  "Convalescing. Remembers nil. His son's a fitter on a North Sea oil rig." Clack clack. "Had an antiques business. Went bust in a bad patch. The old man decided to sell. Somebody gave him your name."

  "Who?"

  "A tart on the bypass. Tits Alors."

  "Her recommendation was, ignore Sotheby's and ring me?" Well, an old geezer's entitled to his perks n' jerks, as they say. "Good stuff, is it?"

  "Stolen. All of it. Neighbors saw a van loading up. Very usual at the Faircloughs'."

  Not too convincing, but as it was Drinkwater's tale it'd have to do.

  I looked at a map on the wall, seeing we were both strolling about each other like sparring partners wondering whether to have a go. Same-Same's river was a tributary of the Orwell. And "room to swing" a cat's supposed to be from swinging the cat-o'-nine-tails, naval punishment in confined deck spaces. Except river people hereabouts say it of shallow rivers. Because a cat's a sort of boat. Several different sorts, in fact, from sailing colliers of the mid-nineteenth century to fifty-oared galleys. I’d noticed that Same-Same's little oxbow river had two pools with room enough to swing a cat boat round and start it back down the Orwell for another load.

  And Same-Same now had several workers, all busy in his massive soundproofed barn. People who whistled while they worked and called for the frigging turpentine and look sharp about it. I hadn't seen a thing, but I'd heard enough. Samie used to work alone.

  ". . . be inadvisable, Lovejoy."

  "What would?" I came back.

  "Going it alone. This thing's worth more than the county."

  "I don't understand." This the first recorded case of Plod benevolence?

  He leant close to me. God, his breath stank. "You understand all right, Lovejoy. Give me a share. I'll see you right."

  A bribe? "I wish I could, Drinkwater. But I've heard nothing. Honest."

  He let me go then. It was as clumsy a bribery act as any I've yet come across. He was as bent as a ruler, just trying me out. You can tell a bent ploddite on a foggy Alp. Drinkwater hated me too much to forgo the pleasure of clanging me up. I sighed, taking my leave. And ran into Sandy, yoo-hooing away outside. I tried to duck into the night, but he drove alongside, parping his horn and waving. He had Mel with him. As if I hadn't enough trouble, I'd now got allies and, worse, they'd obviously come to help. Friends plus allies plus help meant utter total immediate disaster.

  Resigned, I went towards their motor, hoping the populace was early abed tonight.

  Twenty-one

  The White Hart was thronged, thick with smoke. Dealers were crammed in, all pretending (a) they'd just pulled off the biggest sale on earth, and (b) a group of Americans were coming tomorrow to buy even more. For human grandeur there's nothing so moving as the sight of antique dealers on the make.

  I wanted to creep in last, after Mel and Sandy had Entered (note that capital). But Sandy insisted I go first.

  "Swell the audience, Lovejoy,'' he trilled, roguish with eyelashes.

  Mel said nothing. He doesn't talk much, just glowers. Sandy's the verb, Mel the pronoun, so to speak. He told me to admire the various aspects of their main motor, an old Rover the size of a tram. It's never the same twice.

  "Admire the silk curtains, Lovejoy."

  "Great, er, great." If you like bamboo, strings of rock crystal and strips of purple sacking twined with orange shot silk. I was worried for non-artistic reasons. Didn't Highway Code rules like car windows you could see through? "Admire the fringes, Lovejoy." "Er, yes, Sandy. Great."

  He went through a litany, once sharply pulling to the curb to admonish my lack of enthusiasm.

  The Rover was probably a good motor underneath the crud. I'm sure it was decoratively brilliant. But it always reminds me of those fashion shows where the clothes look straight off a tat-monger's street barrow. Talk about rags and bone.

  The thing was ribbed on the outside with small windmills, perhaps a hundred or more, flashing the whole color spectrum. The windows were back-lit, Sandy at the wheel. Fluorescent strips ran round the car's outlines, reds, orange, opalescent plum and a creamy green that almost made me puke. Each headlight wore enormous eyelashes, the rear lights' golden. A large red kid-leather tongue trailed panting from the boot. The bonnet's grid was shaped into an enormous chrome pout. The steering wheel wore projecting digits like spokes of a nautical wheel.

  You have to accept a lift from this pair, partly because they never let up and partly because they're clever rich antique dealers. I needed to know who was being cleverest.

  "Great, great." The umpteenth time.

  I went in, to a welcoming chorus of abuse. Sheepishly I gave Ted the shrug that told him to get ready for Sandy's Entrance. This entailed banging a gong and balancing a tall glass of creme de menthe on a kneeling plaster cherub on the bar. The outside lights came on over the pub forecourt. Everybody crowded to the windows for a look. Sandy's Entrances are famous.

  "It's Sandy! How this time, d'you think?"

  "I hope it's the steps," from Liz Sandwell. She's admired Sandy ever since he poisoned a Birmingham bloke who was giving her a hard time. "I love the steps."

  "It'll be the trolley," from Flavor John, a rugby-playing gorilla dealing in porcelain and musical instruments.

  Somebody wouldn't have that. "They did the trolley Entrance last Monday. Bet, four to one against. Flavor?"

  Wagers were struck. Some dealers crowded out to see. I hung back, tried to get served. I think the whole thing's stupid. I can't honestly see the point.

  A military band struck up from the Rover in noisy intro, blaring. God knows what the country ducks thought. The "Entry of the Gladiators" stunned us from the radiator grille's chrome mouth. You can't help watching.

  The roof slowly opened as the music reached its crescendo. Mel was standing beside the car swinging a thurible, the cloying incense wafted on the evening air. To murmurs of appreciation, Sandy slowly rose through the unfolding car roof as the Statue of Liberty without the torch. He was swathed in her robe. A corona of stars circled his head.

  "It's like them pictures!'' somebody cried. "United Artists? I know it's somebody—"

  "Two to one against the steps from now—"

  I wondered vaguely where the motor got the energy.

  "It's the waterfall! The waterfall!"

  Amid a shimmering spray of golden fireworks, Sandy was carried down on a small escalator that protruded from the motor. The music pounded. He held his pose, smiling nobly into the distance. Mel's thurible chinked, incen
se drifting into the taproom. God, but it was a sight. Flavor John came to join me.

  "Lost my week's takings. Bloody poofter."

  "So why bet. Flavor?" He'd bet on the trolley Entrance.

  "I thought I'd win," he said. The inveterate gambler's logic. Sometimes the dark thought comes that maybe they hope they'll actually lose.

  Sandy was gliding forward to applause from the pub crowd. Flavor John gave a hopeful glance, but no trolley. So far I'd wasted almost an hour, including Drinkwater's ham-fisted bribery act. Which only went to show that Drinkwater was worried as me. Cradhead was an unknown. I started asking Flavor if he'd done much at Wittwoode's Auction Temple lately.

  Meanwhile, back in show business, Sandy was being showered with rose petals from a gilded bucket.

  "Take that fire risk out of here, Mel."

  Ted had lately been prosecuted for letting Mel carry in six candelabras, one an exploding variant. The thurible was bundled out. Sandy smiled and waved. I saw his gaze rake the assembled company, and wisely applauded the nerk with the rest.

  Flavor was complaining. "Been shunted off some flavor porcelain this week. Frigging criminal."

  "Tough luck. Flavor." Everything he admires is flavorsome. But I've no sympathy. Rugby four days a week and antiques three— when it could be seven days of antiques? No wonder dealers like Flavor John are never satisfied.

  "Tough luck?" he said scathingly. Sandy opened his mouth. Mel stood on a stool to pour the creme de menthe in his gob. "Where's the frigging luck, Lovejoy? Acker warned me off, the swine."

  My ears tingled. "Look, Flavor," I said, steaming him to further revelations. "There's not a dealer here won't chop a deal."

  "Go shares?" He laughed hollowly. "Think I didn't try? I'd have bought the bugger off if I'd had the gelt."

  Flavor owed me. Recently I’d warned him off a mathematical treatise dated a.d. 1491. The faker, a real pillock, had filled it with the = equal sign. And that was invented by Robert Recorde, much later.

  I said, still steaming, "Maybe the stuff wasn't good— "