PearlHanger 09 (24 page)

paleontologist. Trilobites have received more humane glances.

"He has," Big John said on, thoughtfully, "no hopes on his own. So he could be telling the truth. Check the tart." A goon sprang out, hardly an eddy in the smoke. "And Love- joy needn't have marked the wealth. Right?"

Anxiously I joined in the chorus of agreement to help it along. I was sweating trickles between my shoulder blades. All jewelry is "wealth" to buyer-dealers on Big John's scale.

"So you owe me, John," 1 said. "If you're too dumb to accept a favor ..."

"I've warned you before, Lovejoy," he said, but didn't move, which saved me a walk back from wherever he'd have clouted me. "There's only one thing. The police . . ."

Some people do it by instinct, which is the reason Big John Sheehan's still got the whole Greek antiques market sewn up in his brother's pocket. (Not his own, note. He's not daft.)

"Thought you'd never get there, John." I grinned so much my lip split again and bled merrily. "You're right it's the police. It's Chandler. Ledger warned me off in case I mucked up his own ploy, which was to net Chandler. I reckon Chandler is in with Deamer; wanted to cop me red- handed. It would have cleared them."

We observed the infinite while Big John caught up.

"You did well, Lovejoy. Brave lad."

"Ah, no, John." Regretfully I shook my head. "They've done it. Chandler stays on in the local antiques fraud division. They need him. It's unbeatable, John. You, me, my apprentice in there, we've all lost." I shrugged, sighed to show how much it hurt.

Nobody does Big John down, as we all knew.

He paced, stopped. "One last bit of proof, Lovejoy.

Heads'll bounce for this, m'dear boy." He was warning me that somebody was going to swing, and soon. Therefore he had to be sure.

"Will six bits do?" I offered. "Send this army. Take flashlights. You'll find six trial replicas of Deamer's so-called antique in my workshed."

His eyes slitted. "Six half-dones maybe means one fully completed one, eh, Lovejoy?"

"That was my original plan, John. I admit it. Until Deamer and Chatto did for Owd Maggie. Then it got beyond a joke. And by then Deamer had framed me for another job. The Old Bill were everywhere."

Big John pointed to three goons. "Go. Take that bird to show where."

"Show them where all six are, love," I called as the door opened, meaning not to mention the seventh.

"I shall insist on a receipt, Mr. Sheehan," she called back, a threat.

It felt no safer with fewer goons around. Every one could have diced me single-handed.

While we waited I told Big John the story right from that first seance, the antiques sweep with Donna, Owd Maggie buying it, Vernon's passing, my hopeless raid on Deamer's. I was careful to include Donna's affair with Chatto, and exclude the details about the big baroque pearls to be found in the river. Let him assume they were got from the Tay. It would do no harm, especially to Vanessa.

We chatted old times while we waited. Big John was laughing and asking my opinion about Lucie-Smith's famed advice on collecting (find a group of nutters obsessed with one category of art; trust your own judgment; then
spend)
when they brought Lydia back. "The more I see of that Siren job," I was telling Big John, "the more it looks like the work of that Italian goldsmith near the big bridge in Florence. Know him? Does it all from photos. He has an army of photographers, though he's mostly Etruscan items." They'd been an hour and fetched my six test fakes in a brown paper bag. They left Lydia outside.

"All right, Lovejoy." John passed me the bag. "Not bad. If you ever finish them, let me know. Come with me." He sounded tired as we went to the bar.

I was frightened, because when Big John tires of people it's they who must compensate, and I'd nothing left to compensate with.

"Cheers," I said over my drink, trying to smile my cheery bloodstained smile. "All over now, John, eh?"

"I've spent a fortune on a dud, Lovejoy. You call that all over?" Now we were getting down to it. "Look, Lovejoy. As I see it there's two problems. My money, and my reputation." Nobody else's problems count. "I've been used, to set up Deamer's scam. I don't like it. I can't squash the check I've paid to Tierney's, or my name'd be mud. Dicey credit's bad, Lovejoy."

"True, true, John," I agreed with sincerity.

"So Deamer must pay, in spades. That's straightforward. But he'd still be in the saddle."

"You're right, John." Agreeing with Big John gives a coward a lovely safe feeling.

Sheehan stirred. "I can't be owed, Lovejoy. It'd rankle. Know what I mean?"

He owed me four. "Aye, I know what you mean."

"Deamer has to have an accident..." His voice trailed.

"Wotcher, Ledger," I said to the man suddenly between me and the bright light. "Did your video camera

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movies turn out okay? Sorry there wasn't a car chase, but. . ."

"We got what we wanted, Lovejoy." Ledger didn't move, nodded. "Evening, John."

"Ledger," said Big John, wondering how much the policeman had heard.

"Chandler is under arrest." The admission cost Ledger blood.

Big John wanted them all accessible where they could be manhandled. I too was downcast.

"What evidence?" Big John asked.

"Tapes, photos, conversations, videos, prints." Ledger sat heavily. "All sewn up. Oh, Lovejoy. You've met Sergeant Thomas, I think. Any chance of a pint, John?"

"If you pay, Ledger."

"Good evening." Donna Vernon sat opposite me on a low stool, and all sorts of little things added up: She knew so little about the antiques game; she'd been no ally of Chandler's that time he'd hauled us in . . .

We all thought a bit. I cleared my throat. We all thought some more. She was smiling. Ledger got a pint, and a small cider for Donna.

It came to me as Big John waited. "Vernon who got killed. He was another of yours?"

"Yes, Lovejoy," Donna said. "Not my husband. A fraud squad man. I realized that Chandler also suspected me when he pulled you and me in for questioning."

"Why the sweep then?"

"Deamer's idea to obscure the origin of the pendant. They'd have had everybody turning up and making their own."

Ledger interposed, sensitive as a wall. "They started suspecting agent Vernon. Chatto did it."

"Bastard," I accused Ledger. "You used me to distract attention from her."

Ledger smirked. "Yes. My idea, that. Playing on Chatto's superstition."

"And to collar them?"

He beamed. "You were a big help, Lovejoy. Donna was on the cameras. She's on the antiques squad too. She realized what you'd done."

"You were so slick we missed it first time of viewing," she said.

"You didn't point it out to Chandler, I suppose?"

"Ah, no," Ledger said, pulling a face over his drink. "We lied, told him you'd lodged a complaint that it was a fake. We told Chandler that Deamer had kept his prize piece for himself."

"He rowed with Olivia in his car," Donna said. "We've it all on video."

I said, "Do I get paid?"

"You have the satisfaction of helping justice, Lovejoy." Ledger chuckled. "The proper way. Saves you persuading John here to murder them all for you."

"If you'd hauled Deamer earlier, Ledger," I said, "there'd be two others celebrating here."

"Shut it, Lovejoy," Ledger shot back. "Misjudgment's not your prerogative. We were identifying the whole syndicate, collecting evidence."

Big John was looking thoughtfully at the pendant. It was worth only its materials now, not the fortune he'd paid. He'd still lost.

"Ledger," he said suddenly. "Any chance of seeing Deamer? Not for anything in particular. In return I'll help you to collect evidence. Put your boys with him while I ask it. Ten seconds."

"Deal," Ledger said. "Call off those villains you left sawing shotguns upstairs."

"Deal," said Big John.

"Then there were two." Donna didn't smile at my remark as Big John and Ledger departed, emanating mutual mistrust.

"See you home, Lovejoy?" she asked, smiling. "We were lovers once. In the circumstances a little stroll's the least I can expect."

"In the circumstances, love," I said gently, "it's the most."

22

"Quite like old times," I cracked in Donna's motor.

"What's Big John up to?" Donna mused. She had the woman motorist's habit of ten tennis glances at each intersection while fiddling the gearstick. It always drives me mad. "A charity call on prisoner Deamer's the last thing I'd have thought."

So that was her reason. Once a peeler always a peeler. I knew what John would ask Deamer, but I wasn't telling Donna. She drove toward my village.

"I know you must think me hateful, Lovejoy," she began when I said nothing. "They were suspicious of Sid Vernon. Probably he'd been a plant too long. I was brought in as Vernon's wife to keep the surveillance going."

I didn't say Chatto must have been pleased. By a whisker.

"That night when ..." She actually seemed to color up a little. If she hadn't been in the fraud mob I'd have suspected tenderness. " . . .when Vernon was murdered, was supposed to be the night Ledger closed in. We still don't know how Deamer got wind about Sid. While I was in the bedroom alone, afterward, I was signaled that the planned

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raid on Deamer's was off because Vernon hadn't come. We learned he was dead. So surveillance had to go on."

"With me framed, blamed, maimed ..."

"You were quite safe, Lovejoy," she said earnestly.

"The hangman always says it won't hurt, love. Nobody's ever verified it."

"Now, Lovejoy ..."

"Now, Sergeant. Hadn't you thought of protecting Owd Maggie?"

"That was an unfortunate oversight." Green tears showed in her eyes from the dashboard's glow. She was snuffling one-handed into her hankie as we arrived and halted on my gravel. God, I was glad to be home and done with the lot of them. Bluntly I told her so. Boot a bleating bobby, I always say.

"You're determined to misunderstand, Lovejoy. That night I didn't have to make love. Oh, I know you're unreliable, a villain, unpredictable. But when I saw how you love those old things so, I began to wonder what love itself is."

"And you wanted in." I got out, inhaled my garden's night smog. "You make me laugh, Sergeant. Love needs making, or there isn't any. You can't just suddenly decide to lie back and accept it as a gift from outer space. You must build, slog, labor at it, or you've got none. Create love, or go without."

"I know that now, Lovejoy."

"Sergeant," I said wearily. "Get lost."

She was doing things to her face from a powder compact. "Very well, Lovejoy. Whatever you wish. You've taught me something. Determination's also an essential factor." She clicked the compact shut and doused the car's courtesy light. "You will be called for at oh eight hundred hours tomorrow, and be signed over into my protective custody."

"Me?" I shuffled uneasily. "You can't."

"I'll have the warrant in four hours." Her voice held a tranquil certainty. "You're a valuable witness."

"Not any more."

"But I'll swear blind that you are, Lovejoy. I'm still an officer in an important murder and deception case. I simply haven't time for hearts and flowers, waiting by the phone."

"There's plenty of time. Ledger said so."

"That simpering Medusa bitch of an apprentice doesn't quite see it like that, Lovejoy. She'd crump any woman who swings on your gate. And that tart Michaela French has resurfaced. I tap your phone, and she's phoning on the hour. She has money and all the crudity of her breed. She'll have to go. And your police file records many others; Margaret Dainty with her homely little act, for one. Shall I list them, in case you've forgotten?"

"Look, Donna. Let's discuss . . ."

"Eight, Lovejoy." She reversed quickly and zoomed up the lane.

The phone was ringing. It was Big John. "This phone's tapped, John. Get off the line."

"Doesn't matter now, me boy." He was Ulster jubilant. "I've a proposition."

"The answer's no, John. Your propositions end up with me being thumped, owed . . ."

"You don't know what my proposition is, boyo."

"Aye, I do. You've seen Deamer. In return for selling you the river rights you'll pay him a huge sum to buy him the best lawyers on earth for his coming trial. If Deamer hadn't agreed to sell he'd have been found one morning accidentally hanged in his cell, right?
That's
why I won't manufacture fakes for you, John. For Deamer read Lovejoy."

"Here, Lovejoy. Be fucking careful what you say."

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"Deamer told that loony Chatto to kill Vernon and Owd Maggie. They shouldn't
be
helped. They should be smacked for being naughty." I slammed the receiver down trying to sound decisive, but in reality very worried. Sheehan would be after me now. He'd somehow realized about the river pearls and saw himself as the new owner of Deamer's scam. All he needed was a good forger who knew antique jewelry, and he was on the way to owning the universe. He needed me.

Deciding to run for it's easy. Getting going's the hard part. I was rummaging for a clean shirt when the phone rang. Sandy, asqueal with excitement. There's no peace.

"Not now, Sandy," I said tiredly. I had a long way to go. God knows where.

"Listen I mean it's a fantabulissimo
chance,
Lovejoy!" His voice was a screech. "You make absolutely countless dinkie-sweet antique jewelry with pearls from Big John's river oh he's such a
barbarian
and my Mel and yours truly get a
monopoly
marketing ..."

"Sandy, I've had it up to here. Cheers." I dropped the receiver. Somewhere there must be sanctuary.

Quickly I wolfed some bread and cheese and coffee and plodded out. Where to? I'd a vague notion of heading north, but reflex took over and I found myself trudging down through the darkness toward the distant string of orange lights on the far side of the valley. A lift on the bypass down to the harbor took a whole hour in coming, even with the heavy traffic thickening before midnight.

Beatrice was in, unsteady and anxious and hiccuping. I explained my predicament.

"Just one day, Bea," I pleaded, lying. I meant longer. "Owd Maggie always said I could depend on you."

"Not here, sweetie. Barney's due any minute. He's only seeing a coaster out."

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