Spend Game (8 page)

‘Trouble, Wilkie?’

He came over, smoking a fag. His fingers are black from nicotine. ‘Vandals done us over, Lovejoy.’

‘Anybody hurt?’ I couldn’t avoid glancing over at Nodge. I knew what Wilkie was going to say.

‘No. Old George didn’t hear a sound.’

I thought, oh, didn’t he, and crossed the yard to see the broken window, glass crunching underfoot. Whoever it was had split the double doors at the top of the loading ramp as well. All in all a neat crowbar job. Old George was giving his version of the raid to the young red-faced stammering copper, who looked fresh out of the egg. Nodge listened, shaking his head sadly at the deplorable sinfulness of mankind.

‘Can I go in, Wilkie?’

He shrugged and glanced at the copper. By the time he had phrased the request I was inside. The warehouse is one large ground-floor rectangle of plank flooring.
An auctioneer’s stand is positioned against one long wall opposite the doors, and a curtained space shows burglars unerringly where to search for next week’s accumulating stock of dubious antiques. I switched on the lights, because an auctioneer’s natural preference, like Dracula’s, is towards an all-concealing gloom. The light from the two bare bulbs just made it to the far corner, where an Edwardian copy of an escritoire had been split and practically shredded by aggressive but meticulous hands. I crossed over and sorted the bits. A real hatchet job, done in a hurry by people bent on plunder. The only recognizable piece was a Bramah lock still stuck to its wood.

‘They came with the right tools,’ Wilkie grumbled, which was just what I was thinking.

The quack’s bag was a small elongated leather job, very like a bowling bag. Its contents were scattered and the base was slit lengthways.

‘Don’t touch. The Old Bill’s going to look, just as soon as he’s ready.’

I grinned at Wilkie’s sarcasm. One way and another our local antique whizzers like Wilkie and his merry crew have pulled off more illicit deals than the rest of the world put together. They do it naturally, like breathing. I crouched down and began assembling the doctor’s gruesome instruments.

‘Here, Lovejoy –’

‘Shut up.’

I replaced them in the bag. The clip had been broken, so it couldn’t fasten. By the time I straightened up Wilkinson was on tenterhooks, but was wisely keeping watch on the uniformed lad. Nodge was hovering on the ramp and trying to peer in at us while the bobby scrawled away. A book, marked with
a sticker to show the same lot number as the bag, lay underneath the pedals of a decaying piano. I scraped it out with my foot. The binding had been expertly split down the spine, whether from spite or as part of a search I couldn’t be sure. A name was written on the flyleaf,
DOCTOR CHASE OF SIX ELM GREEN
.

‘Wilkie.’ I gave him the bag and book, keeping my back to the daylight in case Nodge’s bleary vision reached this far. ‘Into my crate on the sly.’

‘Here, Lovejoy,’ he croaked, furtive eyes instantly on the doorway. ‘I don’t want no trouble –’

‘Money,’ I interrupted pleasantly, which shut him up. I find that word cairns the most troubled seas. ‘One other thing. Was anything nicked?’

‘That Cruikshank picture.’

‘Big deal.’

Some things you can be absolutely sure of in antiques. One is that minor artists will get copied and faked from now till Doomsday. Virgil’s chief auctioneer Cecil Franklin had been exhibiting the Cruikshank picture for three weeks, boasting of its authenticity. It was allegedly a Georgian print done by Bob and George Cruikshank, showing two elegant blokes playing a prank on a night watchman in a London street. The faker had got their clothes wrong – the commonest mistake a forger ever makes in manufacturing this sort of print. The two characters were Tom and Jerry. Not the cartoon creatures, but the originals, Jerry Hawthorn and his cousin Corinthian Tom, who were pranksters widely publicized in Georgian London. Their favourite trick was creeping up on a dozing watchman ‘Charley’ and up-ending his sentry-box, laying face down so he couldn’t get out, and then running like hell. A lovable pair.

‘And give me the address of the vendor,’ I added. ‘Slip it in the book.’

‘Watch out,’ Wilkie hissed, sensing the policeman’s approach. I broke away and went forward, smiling and full of those questions a perturbed member of the public naturally asks when confronting mayhem. Wilkie would get the stuff undetected into my car boot somehow. The fact that it’s always locked would be a mere detail to an honest whizzer like him.

I didn’t give Wilkie or the warehouse another glance while I asked the bobby and Old George more questions than they asked me. The young peeler finally drew breath and went into the warehouse to defend law and order now the crooks were miles off. Nodge, hands deep in his overcoat pockets, seemed anxious and morose, on the fringes of everything.

‘Cheer up, Nodge,’ I told him happily. ‘You’re in the clear.’

He gave a sickly grin. I had a sudden strange idea. Wherever I’d been lately I’d seen Nodge’s apprehensive face. And he’d seemed so odd yesterday at the antiques fair. I glanced about. We were all alone in the yard. Old George’s quavering lies were still audible from inside the warehouse.

‘Look, Nodge.’ I tried to keep it casual. ‘What the frigging hell’s going on?’

‘Eh?’ He shuffled nervously.

‘And what are you doing here?’

‘Just passing,’ he muttered. ‘No law against looking in, is there?’

‘You look hunted, comrade. Where’s the happy Nodge of yesteryear?’

‘Nothing wrong with me, Lovejoy,’ he said, still shifty.

‘You’ve got my phone number.’ I shrugged and went inside with him to tell the others good morning.

As I pulled out of the yard I saw another familiar face across the road among the early shoppers. Jake Pelman was standing in a butcher’s shop opposite, hesitating between the veal and lamb counters while a couple of women offered advice. He swung away abruptly on seeing my crate, but not before I’d made sure it was him.

Medham village is quite big for East Anglia, three thousand people or so. Maybe it’s even a town. There was a lucky phone box near the Yew Tree pub. I had to sort a few things out or I’d go bananas. To save my ulcer perforating from worry I phoned Margaret first.

‘Lovejoy here, love.’

‘Where’ve you been?’ she sounded as though she’d just got up.

‘Shush. You were talking to Jake Pelman that night in the pub. What about?’

‘Well, honestly

‘
What about?
’

‘Don’t be so rude, Lovejoy.’ She unbent slowly. ‘About Leckie. Jake was asking what sort of things Leckie collects.’ We politely ignored the wrong tense. I thought, most dealers aren’t collectors, otherwise they’d be collectors and not dealers. Right?

‘And you replied . . .’ I prompted, knowing Leckie didn’t collect anything at all.

‘Relics.’ Margaret was all patience.

‘
Eh?
’

‘Relics. Church relics. Saints’ bits and bobs.’

‘Oh. Right then,’ I said lamely. This was all news to me. Later on I was to wish I’d heard it earlier. And clearer.

‘Can I be of any further assistance?’ Margaret asked sweetly into the pause. ‘Take a message to Sue? Tell Helen you’re on your way, perhaps?’

‘Er, no thanks. See you, love.’

‘Well, really –’

Isn’t indignation ridiculous?

I found another coin to ring Helen. She’d be into her second fag of the day. Monday morning’s her nightie-and-coffee dreamtime among last week’s antique-collecting journals. She answered on the third ring. This is the best luck I’ve ever had with a phone box, two successes one after the other.

‘Lovejoy,’ I told her.

‘You all right, Lovejoy?’

‘Look, Helen. The night Leckie got . . .’

‘I remember.’

‘You had this message.’

‘I gave it you.’

‘But you didn’t give it me
then
,’ I pressed. It was one of these details which were beginning to get on my nerves. Outside, I saw Jake Pelman standing on the corner. The blighter must have followed. He was peering uncertainly towards my phone box. All this was making me irritable. What sort of nerk wears a green suit like that, for God’s sake? ‘Why not, Helen?’

‘I gave you the eye,’ she complained. ‘But you didn’t come over.’

‘But Leckie told you it was urgent. Why didn’t you shout you had an urgent message from him for me?’

‘How did I know you’d take off so suddenly with that old bitch?’ She meant Margaret, women being like this about each other. ‘Anyhow,’ she said with finality, ‘I couldn’t. Not with Leckie’s wife there.’

‘
Who?
’

‘Leckie’s wife. With Fergus.’

We read the silence like mad for a minute.

‘Leckie’s ex-wife, then.’ Another pause. ‘Didn’t you know? That showy blonde, wrong shoes and that ghastly handbag.’ She mistook my stunned silence for an invitation to continue her invective. ‘She’s never had a proper hairstyle in the three years she’s lived here. And her make-up’s like a midden. I don’t know why she bothers –’

Jake Pelman was still at the corner as I clattered past in my zoomster. He’d a parcel of some unspeakable meat under his arm, and was ever so casually inspecting an extinct bus timetable. I honked my horn. He started guiltily, but didn’t look round, not even when I shouted, ‘Wotcher, Jake!’

Near Medham there’s one of King Cymbeline’s earthworks, only we call him Cunobelin round here. It’s an oval rampart about seven feet high, swelling from the ground of a small forest and curving for half a mile. Normally I’m not one for countryside and trees and bees and all that jazz. I like towns, where people and antiques are. For once, I relaxed my rule, which is to get the hell out of the beautiful countryside and back into a smelly noisy town as quick as my beat-up asthmatic cylinders can haul me. This particular morning I parked among the roadside trees and struggled knee-deep in filthy leaves until I reached the crest of the overgrown earthworks. My head was splitting. Since when had Leckie a wife? And she was with Black Fergus and Jake Pelman that night in the pub. And . . . and . . .

I sat there in the silent forest in a patch of sunlight while birds and squirrels aped about like they do. Resting is hard work for a bloke like me, but gradually
I calmed down. It was an hour before my headache went. I was no nearer making sense of any of it but at least I was able to drive home. I stopped at the station for a plastic pasty, and this time ate it all.

N
EXT MORNING, THE
cottage looked like a battlefield. Living as I do, occasionally without a woman’s assistance, I can tolerate most shambles with good grace. It’s only when such as Sue are too tired to go home that the fur flies in the dawn. Honestly, I just can’t see the point of moving things to a fixed spot for the sake of mere tidiness. Things only wander about again. I find it more sensible just to stay vigilant, simply keep on the lookout for essentials like towels and the odd pan. In fact, I’d say neatness is a time-waster.

My cottage is a thatched reconstruction, the sort modern architects deplore as inefficient. The place is not very spacious. There’s a little hall, a bathroom, and a living-room with a kitchen alcove the size of a bookcase. I kip on a folding divan. Sue says it looks suggestive, but she’s only joking.

Today was my laundry day. Sheets, pyjamas, towels and shirts. I do socks and underpants in separate bits. They have to come round every day or you get uncontrollable mounds if they’re left. I put some wood under the old copper boiler in the back garden and got it lit third go by a fluke. Luckily the cottage is set back from the country lane on its own, so there’s nobody
nearby to complain about the smoke. Filling it takes ten buckets. I usually feed the birds before breakfast, otherwise they come tapping on the windows and I get no peace. Today, they got some of Sue’s Batten-berg cake. I’d been trying to get rid of it for days. Her marzipan’s a foot thick. She has this thing about wholesome food.

That done, I scrambled two eggs and brewed up. On good days I sit outside, though the birds pester me and hedgehogs are always on the scrounge. Today it looked like rain. Anyway, I had several reasons for noshing indoors. They were laid on the carpet beside the doctor’s bag.

Wilkie had got them into my car as I’d asked. I had some daft idea of leaving them a day or two to collect my thoughts, but I’m not strong on resolution. I’d stayed up half the night looking at this crummy book and the contents of the bag, and I was still no wiser.

The doctor’s instruments turned my stomach over. Even clean and shiny they’d have been gruesome. Patchily rusted as they were now, I could hardly look. Some of the needles were five inches long. And they weren’t your average darning needle for lovely innocent cotton. They were for people, and seemed to be triangular in section, with cutting edges along the length like those frightening short Land Pattern socket bayonets collectors are all after nowadays. Some were curved, others slender and tiny. The old quack also had a mask, rather like a fencer’s, covered with gauze. For dropping ether anaesthetic, I guessed. I’d seen one of those before in the medical museum in Euston. A pair of curved forceps big enough to . . . I hate to think what they fitted round. Lancets, all shapes and sizes. And some scissors that curved and others that didn’t. A
stethoscope like an ear-trumpet. A group of lenses in a leather slot-box, with one spare lens coloured like you see in those children’s kaleidoscopes. I tried fitting it into the slots with the others but there was no room for it, so I chucked it into the bag and forgot about it. With instruments like this bagful I’m glad the old doctor was on the side of health.

As I mopped my plate with some bread I read the card Wilkie had slipped in the bag. The same address as inside the doctor’s bag. I knew the village, having been on the knocker round Six Elm Green during one of my bad spells. Old Dr Chase’s ageing widow, I guessed, had put her late husband’s effects up for sale to eke out the groats during her winter years. I’m naturally full of sympathy of these cunning old geezers but I’m usually poorer than they turn out to be.

The book was only twenty years old, privately printed for the author. It was that well-known world-shattering best-seller
Structural Design of Experimental Carriage-Ways in Nineteenth-Century Suffolk
, by none other than that famous quack, Dr James Friese Chase, MD, whose medical bag I now possessed. I’d flipped through it last night, but decided I’d wait for the film. No hidden messages, no beautiful marginal notes by the author which might have increased its value, and no handwritten letters from Shakespeare skilfully concealed in the end papers.