PearlHanger 09

by Jonathan Gash

  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

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  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 Wairt- wright?"

  My poor old memory creaked into action. Where'd I been up to? I'd become so confused with the mythical Lord Eskott's sagas 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 beginnings 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.

  180 .

  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 jewelers 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 bedclothes 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 jewelry firm that 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 people 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 noncriminal 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 smoldering, 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.

  I'm not proud of that Saturday, though everything went superbly. All right, Olivia showed me round Tierney's aft
er the rest of the staff had gone. And all right I was full

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  of good reasons like a con trick and crippling a few people, so morally I was on the firm grounds of justice and whatnot. The trouble is I find there are always unexpected consequences. They're never my fault, but life has a habit of rapping you over the knuckles even for getting things right. It's really unfair.

  In the auction firm's offices Olivia showed me the jewelry trays—metal based, with a locked fenestrated perspex cover; you can look at and touch items but not move them. They were bad news. The safe was easier, an ancient cube no self-respecting burglar would unpack his tool kit for. Then, with the dreaded tyranny of the garrulous, she decided we ought to stop off at a quiet place on the coast road, to make sure we'd forgotten nothing. We did stop off> and did make sure. She was smooth, assured, pleased, and pleasing. I won't go into details. Enough to say a bond was forged between us most of that night. I'm not grumbling. Worse things happen at sea, as they say.

  Sunday dawn before I reached the cottage, done for. I was practically certain that she still didn't suspect: To her I was still James Chester, a bona fide Tierney customer. I think. Anyway, plenty of time before evensong to set my trap and organize the fake. Illegalities are always straightforward. It's the honest bits that always need bending round odd moral corners.

  I'd had an early breakfast with Olivia. Weak but hopeful, I set to work in the shed with my plan at last in place. Later, I'd phone Big John Sheehan, God help me.

  Faking pearls is as old as man's love for pearls themselves, but not by this method I was going to try: epoxy resin mixed with mucoidal goo from fish scales.

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  As I worked on in the slanting sunshine, I pondered other possible ways. From the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, fakers tried wax-covered gypsum or alabaster beads soaked in oil. They sound really gungey but are surprisingly convincing when fresh. Age is the giveaway here; they don't last. Or you can polish mother- of-pearl into beads—nice from a distance, but they look all little layers close to.

  The French fakers' favorite method is glass beads coated with fish-scale scrapings stuck on by parchment glue with a drop of wax. The best fish-scale solution is Canadian, incidentally. It's oily stuff called guamine. Scrape fish scales into water and you see it glowing at the bottom. People ship it in vinegar or ammonia that burns your eyes. The old fakers' formulas: 20,000 bleak fish for a pound of the pearly mucus; 1,000 fake pearls from three ounces. Some use a drop of gum tragacanth. Opal-glass "pearls" never fooled anybody, and apart from the new plastic jobs there's not much else. You see how difficult the faking game is? Life's a real windup.

  Sandy telephoned at an ungodly hour the next morning. He'd ordered the fish. ("Mel's absolutely livid! Just because I was having a little chat-a-tete with a such pretty sailor . . .")

  In the garden I rigged up a plastic funnel over a wine- maker's glass carboy half-filled with water. Me and a Chesterfield bloke had done it once before so I knew it stank the place out. I'd nip along the footpath, tell Kate they were coming, then hide in the workshed till it was all over. I'm not squeamish, but the less I saw of it the better. She had a nephew who'd take the fish corpses off my hands. Meanwhile it was crank the Ruby out of somnolescence and trundle to town.

  25

  Sitting on the floor in Herbie Belcher's garret while he fired a dress ring's mountant, I mentally examined Tierney's safety procedure. It sounds pretty hopeless security, but think a minute. All small precious items locked into viewing trays. A whizzer always stands by. The senior Tierney alone holds the key. Lovely items such as jewels, pendants, necklaces, rings, are only brought out under guard ten minutes before the doors open to the rapacious public.

  "A simple swap's the most difficult."

  "What, Lovejoy?"

  Herbie had finished, switching off his jet burner and raising his protective glasses. I must have spoken aloud.

  "Nothing, Herbie." I grinned innocently.

  "Oh, aye," he said distrustfully. "What you want, Lovejoy?"

  Herbie Belcher has more forgeries masquerading in famous museums than any goldsmith I've ever met. He used to work in a Whitechapel sweatshop as a kid, rising to Hat- ton Garden by talent. He works in this creaking attic down the Dutch Quarter, the part of our town I told you about.

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  Herbie's place is a pleasure to visit: a five-recessed jeweler's bench straight out of the French eighteenth century, covered in goldsmithy minitools. His floor's covered by caies, those wooden Joliot grilles for scraping gold dust off people's boots. You wouldn't laugh if ever you'd see the gold dust Herbie cleans off them every Easter. Lovely to see the old geezer work. I once saw him fake a Roman fertility ring in 22-carat; out of this world. He doesn't have windows for natural daylight, simply does everything under a bare bulb.

  "Seven mounts, one gold, Herbie," I said.

  "Of what?" Note: Fakers never ask what for. They already know.

  "This." I passed him a piece cast like the big baroque pearl from the pendant, and my mock-up of the gold Siren mount.

  He squinted at me, his metal files rippling. "It's like that Canning Siren thing Sotheby's flogged to the Yanks."

  "Good heavens," I said evenly. Silence.

  He frowned. "How soon? I'm up to my . . ."

  "A fortnight, Herbie." I rose, dusted my knees.

  "Gawd Almighty, Lovejoy."

  "A friend's bringing the little scotcher baroques."

  "Lovejoy," Herbie wailed after me as I headed downstairs, "doesn't that pendant have a diamond for a mirror? Where'll I get them?"

  "Heat a few crabby old zirconites from Woolworth's," I bawled up irritably. "Do I have to explain every bloody thing?" People really nark me. No common sense.

  "It'll cost you, Lovejoy."

  His bitter refrain followed me as I opened the street door and let myself out by the ironmonger's. I didn't even bother to answer. Honestly, you try to throw money into people's pockets and what thanks do you get?

  The town's one unvandalized public phone stands in a row of six by the Arcade. I went in with a heap of coins. Thugs don't make me nervous, so I was surprised to see my fingers having a clammy time finding the coin slot.

  "Sheehan's," a voice said tunelessly.

  "Put John S. on," I said, despising myself for a shake in my throat.

  "Get knotted." Click, burr.

  Another trembled dialing, and the same unstructured voice said if that's the same burke calling again he'd personally crawl down the wire and spread me.

  "Listen, creep," I quavered. "Keep John S. away from Montwell."

  Duty done, I slammed the receiver and nervously wiped my hands. Big John Sheehan is a wild Ulsterman who occasionally holidays from his devotions to ply North London's antique trade. He's a "roller," as we call them. Rollers are very wealthy and don't give a damn about antiques—as long as they're genuine. Paul Getty was one. Big John Sheehan is another, and has an army of bad lads who offer to prove it when required. His smoking checkbook causes riots even in hallowed Bond Street. He was sure to have heard of Tierney's forthcoming auction, because he has a dolly-bird just for cataloging catalogs. Nothing now would stop him burning up the A12 on auction day. Nobody warns John S. off.

  Full of pride at a job well done, I took Margaret Dainty to the Three Cups. She was really pleased and, holding my hand, agreed to sell me an intact William Spooner antique jigsaw, "The Sugar Plantation," for less than its value. Of course I had to pay her by an IOU, but that's what IOUs are for, isn't it?

  All I wanted now was to hear word that Deamer would

  be sending his most valuable fake into Tierney's auction, because we have a tame cracksman working locally called Fingers. He can open elderly Chubbs without splitting a fingernail. The night before the auction I'd simply get Fingers to swap Deamer's fake Siren for mine. And why? Because the baroque pearl in mine would be fake, and Donna's mob's piece had a genuine one, of the huge sort denied me. Big-spending Jo
hn Sheehan would be there on auction day and buy my fake Siren—and then go after Deamer, Chatto, and Donna Vernon to express his sincerest disappointment. And I'd be in the clear.

  With, of course, Deamer's very, very pricey fake in my grasp. Nothing could go wrong—once Deamer lodged his item in Tierney's auction.

  *

  No news the first week, but so what? Plenty of time. Five weeks is five weeks, after all. That Tuesday I waited on the bypass, soaked to the skin, at half-three one rainy morning, for a certain long-distance haulage wagon, our nation's best and cheapest antiques delivery service. And collected two tiny leather bags of freshwater baroques from Perth, lovely little things that had cost Lydia an arm and a leg but that delighted Herbie Belcher so much that he actually smiled. She arrived safely that Wednesday, bringing a bag of Birmingham scrap mother-of-pearl, clever girl. The rest of the week was wasted in joyous reunion, so was uneventful.

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  No news the second week. Fine, though. Four weeks is four weeks. Long time, no? By then I had pressed imprints