Moonspender (29 page)

At the farm all was go. I rehired Sid Taft, as an offering to the
gods. Veronica Gold had rung seven excited times on the answer phone. I called
back. She was full of how she'd expect me at a rehearsal. I ask you.
Telly'd
make parrots of us all, given half a chance.

Lize had left a carbon copy, really quaint, of her article in
tomorrow's 
Advertiser
. Pretty dramatic stuff. "Antiques Ferret
to Flush Felon" ran her headline. That worried me less than her incorrect
punctuation of a conditional clause, but she'd laser me if I criticized. I only
hoped Ledger could read.

•
         
•   •

Sir John was in a sour mood. He kept me waiting for five minutes.
I said nothing, just read about Turner's use of
ochres
.
Miss Minter wasn't speaking.

Buzzed in, I fumble-felt the vestibule curtain for lurking
butlers, blank. I went in, declined to sit when his eyelids lowered to point me
where.

"I discovered you own that Roman bronze, Lovejoy." The
hatred was white-hot but the compliment made me pink with pleasure. "You
defaulted on our contract."

He'd found out, as planned. "Wrong, Sir John."

"Wrong?"
 
He wafted round the desk, practically foaming at
the mouth. "You undertook to discover who was deflecting all the locally
discovered antiques. Now you have joined the enemy."

"Wrong twice."

He screamed, "That genuine Roman leopard is proof,
Lovejoy!" His yell was a decibel above a whine.

"Want real proof?" I swiveled, taking in the antiques
everywhere about us. "You can have the leopard Saturday. For a
price."

The silence of bafflement. "Price?" He understood that.

"Your dud. Sir John. The one here. You give it away
publicly."

"Give?" He couldn't understand that at all.

"Don't worry. I'll not tell. People will admire your
generosity."

His eyes roamed the room. "To whom?"

"To absent friends," I said sadly.

He
tortoised
into himself, thinking.
Finally he nodded a curt agreement, to my astonishment. But there'd be a bill.

"Thank you," I said. "Tell your secretary to stay
on duty all Saturday, all night if necessary. When I phone she's to enter this
office, and instantly fetch me the antique that I tell her to,
unquestioned."

"Very well. Which is it?"

"Tell you Saturday," I told him. "Halloween."

The day speeded up, now I'd started it off.

I went to Lize's office and told her to include a photocopy of my
signed statement when she blew the news in tomorrow's 
Advertiser
.
Blankly she asked what signed statement, so I had to type out one and sign it
there and then.

"It says I've sold my story to you," I explained.
"Or other reporters will be
outscooping
you." She was appalled. "But this says I've paid you a fortune . .
." "Nobody ever pays me, love," I said irritably. "People
only say they do."

"Darling," she said, quite brokenly. "A national
scoop, murders, police, an illicit ring. How can I ever repay you?"

I cleared my throat. "Well, actually ..."

I'd need a quiet haven tomorrow night. It would be doing Lize a
kindness to let her put me up.

Three more jobs to set up. First, I showed Tinker the bronze
leopard in the museum. They charged me another quid admission, swine, just for
one measly look at my own thing. I gave him a letter, typed and signed.

"Tomorrow morning. Tinker. Eight o'clock, before the museum
opens, you come here with Clive and reclaim this bronze. Then bring it to my
cottage."

"Eight
o'bleedin
' clock?" he
said, paling.

"Do it. Then you have the Ruby, until church on Saturday at
Big Frank's wedding." Tinker, driving my motor, would then be an exposed
risk, not me, which for once was the right way round.

He eyed the leopard balefully. "This little dog really ours,
Lovejoy, or are we nicking it?"

"It's all legit. Tinker." I gave him some notes. He
brightened. "Now tell me where's Joe Quilp."

"Arcade." Exit muttering.

Joe Quilp proved the accuracy of Tinker's mental radar hadn't
failed. He was in Eve Harris's at the Arcade trying to dissuade Varlene from
ordering a beautiful Victorian ostrich-feather fan, silver-mounted.

"But,
Joesy-Woesy
," Varlene
was cooing as I hurried up. "It'll go with my new evening dress."

"It won't," he was saying in agony, wringing his hands.

"Joe," I thundered, grabbing him. "You swine,
blabbing rumors!"

"Eh?" He was bewildered. I shook him angrily. Varlene
adored herself in the mirror.

"Don't try getting out of it, Joe!" I bawled. Antique
dealers' heads popped out all down the Arcade.

"Out of what, Lovejoy? Honest to God—"

"You revealed it's my Roman bronze in the castle, and you've
let on I'm raffling an item from Sir John's collection at Big Frank's
reception. I'll frigging murder you, Joe."

"Lovejoy . . ."He was starting to gurgle so I relaxed a
bit. He'd need his voice to complain about my mistreatment.

Varlene wasn't taking a blind bit of notice. "I'll need new
shoes, dwalling."

"Well I'm not, see?" I yelled loud as I could. "I'm
not. It's only rumor." I dropped him and marched off. It'd be all over
town in an hour, confirming the rumor I'd begun earlier. There'd be a right
scamper for cars, mid-afternoon on Saturday, as dealers everywhere changed
their plans. I shed my angry sulk as soon as I was round the comer. Good smiles
are rare. I deserved to enjoy this one while it lasted.

That night I persuaded Mrs. Ryan to my cottage. Her estate
manager's house was too much a part of Manor Farm to be
cosy
.
I said it would be more romantic. She said oh darling how sweet.

And we loved and stayed.

I did a thing in a casserole. I'm no cook; the last meal I did was
in Latin. This smelled all right but got a bit runny, chicken and carrots and a
bay leaf. Margaret Dainty had started it for me earlier, got it through the raw
stage. I can do spuds, though they never mash right and make you gag. Then
peas; though I'm always a bit sorry for the little blighters when I split the
pod and surprise them all lying there. The pudding I bought, a blancmangey
thing, with five spares in case Mrs. Ryan got night hunger. Candles. Coffee.
Wine from Ollie's supermarket, price label scraped off. Two paper napkins, and
I was Ivor Novello, suave, elegant. I'd even talcumed my feet.

Mrs. Ryan was bowled over, in a manner of speaking.

"This is all very splendid, Lovejoy," she said, smiling.
A compliment, from the landed gentry!

"I thought you deserved it, love."

"As long as it's not farewell." She spoke lightly, but
her eyes were in the wine.

"Please don't joke about things like that, love."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart." She came beside me, effusive
and apologetic, which always leads to the inevitable. "Forgive me."

"Of course, doowerlink." I forgave her repeatedly until
she left for the farm on her chestnut nag at six next morning.

By eight I'd had my fried bread, fed the birds, and had Toffee
reluctantly swathed in her
trug
. Tinker blearily
arrived at half eight, with the leopard bronze. "He made me sign for
it," he groused. He hates
Popplewell
, the
curator.

"Drive," I said. "Lize's, down the estuary."

He cackled, his beer fetor making me hold my breath to avoid
retching. "I'll take her off your hands for a pint, Lovejoy." He chuckled
and coughed all the way at that quip.

Suzanne York's car was parked by the river bridge, as I'd
arranged. I halted Tinker and walked across. She wound the window down, looking
frightened.

"Morning, Lovejoy. Isn't it cold?"

"Perishing," I agreed, though it was quite mild.

She looked so worried. "Lovejoy. What if it's another
failure?"

"The restaurant? It can't fail."

"Sandy's gone insane. He's on about TV, Victorian
underclothes, weddings."

"Just go with it, Suzanne. I'll be there. It's called the day
of reckon-
ing
.

"Lovejoy. I heard you saw that Dorothy Moran. You're not . .
. meddling in things we shouldn't, are you?"

"That from a woman?" The joke fell flat.

"Whatever happens, Lovejoy, I know you've really tried. Thank
you." She watched me cross to the Ruby, and called, "Lovejoy? God
bless."

The old parting. I didn't reply.

Three big television vans were parked in the High Street. As we
trundled past somebody shouted my name, a woman's voice full of authority. I
told Tinker to keep going. We'd all see plenty of each other before long.

25

To me, rest's disturbing, though everybody's different. Like,
Renoir hated winter. He thought cold was nature's sickness. He lived for
sunshine and warmth. Me, I love autumn but Lize is a Renoir type. Her flat's
torrid temperature steams the sap from your bones. In the first hour I blotted
my copybook by opening a window for air. She crashed it shut with an angry
squeal.

Not only that, but there wasn't far to stroll. Bedroom, kitchen,
living room, tiny hallway, and that was it. No place to kick your heels. She
saw to my breakfast, then zoomed off to war, pale but game as they come. Tinker
had wended his merry way in the Ruby, leaving me with a suspicious budgerigar
and a dozing Toffee. "Good job we don't leave civilization to cats,"
I told Toffee. Not a stir.

The window showed St. Leonard's old church, vehicles distantly
drifting toward the
wharfside
. Beyond the roofs, a
ship's funnel and a few masts. The back window showed a street of old cottages
and wall paint of scandalous colors. I felt encased. Toffee woke, dined, licked
her paws, the dirty devil, decided on kip.

Desultorily I speculated on exactly how Richard II had invented
the hankie—I mean, was he out pillaging one day and suddenly
shazam
, like St. Paul's retinal detachment near Damascus?
Or was it the product of a chaps-we've-got-a-problem think tank?

I brewed up. Instant coffee.
Grue
.

On the other hand, some inventions are the product of compelling
need. The Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich so he could continue gambling
without getting marmalade and grease on a running flush. . . . Should I wash
the dishes? Postpone, postpone. Then again, some world
shatterers
happen quite by accident, like the recipe for
bakewell
tart—though you've got to call it pudding, not tart, in prim old medieval
Bakewell
. Toffee snored. More coffee.

By a fluke I happened to have some stuff on witchcraft. I read it
from boredom, and not from any kind of apprehension. I mean, with Enid the
Loopy as its local harbinger it could hardly be Macbeth time.

Toffee rose, yawned colossally, tramped round her cushion,
collapsed. I played with the budgie, which finally said, "It's my round,
Liza," in a voice oddly Lize's. I put it back in its cage. The windows
showed the same roofs, church, ship's funnel. Ten-thirty. The 
Advertiser'
d
be out now.

Ten to eleven the phone started ringing. I let it. Eleven o'clock
police appeared below, pounded on the door, talked into their squawk box, drove
off. The phone rang and rang. Good old Lize would now be doing battle with
Ledger. He'd be demanding the meaning of the story she'd published. She'd be
stonewalling, private sources are sacrosanct and suchlike lies.

Finally I switched the telly on. A hard time lay ahead, and Mrs.
Ryan'd kept me on my metaphorical toes all night. Toffee sensed potential
warmth and swarmed on me. Luckily it was an afternoon sociology program, so I
slept.

The nastiest moment came
sixish
, with me
having fried some cheese. Lize came tearing in with a yelp, switched the lights
off, and leaned disheveled against the door, panting. In the telly's
flicker-light she looked bleached. Toffee slept on, unconcerned; her tea wasn't
due for an hour, so the universe's tribulations could get stuffed. That's cats
for you. Somebody hammered on the door, shouting.

"You okay, love?" I divided the fried cheese.

She took a restoring breath, yelled furiously at the door,
"Go away!"

"Do a deal, Liza," some bloke bawled. 'The Times. The
Guardian. "

Lize screamed, "You bastards turned down my articles on fowl
pest two years ago. The boot's on the other foot now!"

She came and flung herself all over me. "Oh, Lovejoy, you
hero!" She was triumphant, giggling like a little girl who'd got away.
"What a day! I'm thrilled! You know who's out there?" She was on my
lap. I was trying to eat a forkful. "There's that wino cretin from the
Guardian. That groper stringer for the London Times —"