The Grail Tree (10 page)

‘Get in Lovejoy.’ A woman’s watch-out-you’re-for-it voice.

‘Wotcher, Betty.’ I felt a bit down so I got in and let her drive me to the cottage. She told me her husband had met up with some of his rugby coleagues and chased off on the razzdazz.

She waited in silence as I got out at my gate. I paused, thinking. She’d probably have to hang around a whole hour before her husband came reeling home after the pubs finally turfed him and his pals on to the High Street. I felt sympathetic. We could probably find something to talk about if she waited in the cottage with me. I cleared my throat.

‘Er, want a cup of coffee, love?’ I suggested.

She exhaled and gazed my way. ‘I thought you’d never ask, Lovejoy.’

Well, forgiveness is my strong suit.

I’
D BETTER TELL
you here what the dark secret of Gallery Six is.

When you think of it, it’s odd that the great furniture geniuses don’t get the praise they deserve. Mayhew and Ince, Lock and a score of others are in the Sheraton-Chippendale class, but outside the antiques trade people are hardly interested. They’d rather take an outside chance on an escritoire being Chippendale than buy a genuine beautiful Mayhew cabinet. It honestly beats me. There’s nowt as odd as folk.

Somebody once worked it out that the population in the George III period was about twelve million or so. Assuming there were 140,000 families wealthy enough to furnish their houses by purchasing from the great London makers, why, one might ask, are there so many pieces of this furniture still around in excess of the numbers you’d expect? The answer is, of course, that sinners abound still making ‘old’ furniture. Some are better than others, but all very, very busily plying their sinful trade. We have a saying that the Impressionists painted 1,000 pictures, of which 2,000 are genuine and 3,000 are in America. See what I mean?

Some years ago, I was broke. Again. I made a lovely
little slide-topped Davenport from new mahogany for a bloke who paid me well, in the days before money got funny. He wanted it aged, please, Lovejoy, to match this valuable antique bureau . . . Stained areas are easy to fake old. To do this I normally use copal varnish and a darking stain, repeatedly wiped gently with glasspaper between coats. The unstained areas are more difficult. Take a wet tea towel and stroke the mahogany vigorously till damp. Rush the piece into sunlight. Then take it, after maybe a good half-day’s exposure, indoors and repeat the wet-wiping. Sun. Wet. Sun. If you live where I do and the weather’s its usual crummy self, use a sunray lamp. Other forgers use an oven but risk damaging the wood, especially near the dovetail joints. Result? One dark lovely mahogany Davenport. My buyer sold it as an antique. I didn’t know whether to be proud or to sulk because he didn’t share the profit, but profit only ever belongs to one person in the antiques game.

The reason I’m telling you this is that my Davenport’s now in Gallery Six, Antique Furnishings, where I’d sent Col, Angharad and Lydia. They label it as genuine, which embarrasses me, but I don’t feel heroic enough to own up. Magistrates tend to get ideas.

I decided to have a quiet morning, richly deserved.

Betty stayed until about one o’clock when all good people are fast asleep. She’d put her car at the side of the cottage so that our village’s prowling spinsters couldn’t actually spot it from the lane because the hedge gets in the way. By the time she went home we weren’t mad at each other at all, though we had a bit of an argument.

‘Aren’t you going to get up and see me off?’ she whispered, struggling to dress in the darkness.

‘No.’

‘You selfish –’

‘I want your warm patch,’ I explained. You have to be patient with them. ‘Women always get a warmer part of the bed than me.’ Mistake, but sleep was on me.

‘
What
women, Lovejoy?’ No whispering now.

‘You. I mean you. Honest.’

We compromised. I dashed out once she’d dressed, whisked her into the hall, gave her a quick peck and hurtled back into bed, where I settled into a well-earned doze, thinking that’s the odd thing about being holy. It says Love Thy Neighbour. That bit’s easy. But sending a neighbour on her way rejoicing’s really a very difficult thing to do.

Then the phone rang. At this ridiculous hour.

‘Lovejoy?’

‘I thought I told you to sod off, Sergeant.’

‘Inspector,’ the voice said, but I wasn’t having any.

‘Do you know what the bloody hour is, Sergeant?’

‘That’s the point, Lovejoy.’ We fell silent.

The only event had been Betty, pushing off in a rage. Hey-ho.

‘If,’ he said pleasantly, ‘you’re still refusing to help my enquiries, I shall pay a call on the Marshams and explain –’

‘– how you just happened to be outside in the lane and saw Betty drive off?’ I filled in uneasily.

‘Precisely.’

‘I might complain to the boss of the local CID,’ I threatened, scraping the barrel.

‘Do,’ he said, still content. ‘It’s me.’

Well, I thought, wise trees bend in the gale.

‘How about,’ he suggested mildly, ‘I meet you for a quiet co-operative chat? I’ll stand you a brown ale.’

‘Tomorrow dinner time.’ I gave in. ‘The George.’

‘Great,’ he agreed. ‘Oh, Lovejoy. Sleep well.’

‘Sod off,’ I said, slamming the blower down.

When I climbed in the warm patch had cooled. There are times you can’t rely on anything.

Quiet mornings are marvellous. This particular morning the sun was given to secret gleamings from a half-opaque white sky. A low mist hung between trees cooling their branches. Hedgehogs were stooging about the garden doing a final round on lifted pink feet. Some birds bummed about, mostly sorts of pointed sparrows. Till the dew’s off the grass I go into my cellar to keep up the good work on antiques. I keep records.

Within an hour I’d found three Swans, curiously all collectors and all about Henry Swan’s age. One, a born buccaneer, had written to me offering a miniature of Elizabeth I by the famous Nicholas Hilliard for a lowly price – as it should be, because the original’s still in Berkeley Castle. Incidentally, Hilliard loved to paint these rarities (value: about eight times your annual wage, today’s minimum) on playing cards, sometimes overstretched with skin of chicks or aborted lambs. So forgeries are pretty easy to spot. The second Swan appeared three years back to win a lovely Georgian pole-screen (tip: all things being equal, shield-shaped ones are worth much more than rectangular or circular). The last Swan is well known around here and collects only ‘triggers’, small glass objects and figures made by the glass craftsmen from odd bits of glass left once the day’s official glassworking had ended. Some
friggers are worth a small fortune. But watch out for the cheap Czechoslovakian glass ‘friggers’ Woolworth’s used to sell before the war – they were threepence then, and I think they should still be threepence now.

That accounted for all the Swans in my files. No record of the late Henry Swan, and the only other Cooksons I knew of were two sisters who collect Victorian manuscript diaries.

I telephoned a mate of mine who makes boat models, sea-going craft mainly. He knew a Mersea bloke in the same society who did waterways boats. It cost me the earth in phone calls during the next hour. After that I tidied away and got some bread for the birds. The garden hadn’t changed, but now the morning seemed vaguely sour. The bus was due.

I used the journey to decide what to do.

Sentiment’s a queer thing. It gets everywhere, seeps in and out of places you wouldn’t normally expect. Old Henry had used that odd phrase of his twice or three times while we’d got sloshed on his barge. What was it – ‘sanctification by use’? An interesting idea, but is it the sort that the Lovejoys of this world go to war about? It bloody well is not.

I can’t remember much about our conversation except at one point when he’d said, rheumy old eyes atwinkle, ‘It’s an antique, Lovejoy. Maybe
the
antique.’ Which at the time made me fall about laughing. Some claim. And yet . . .

Maybe old Henry had been telling me that his daft belief about his old pewter cup was exactly the same as mine about all antiques. Thinking, this quiet grey morning, he seemed close. After all, I reasoned uncomfortably, all antiques only start off a piece of wood, stone, marble or a few pigments mixed with oil
and brushed on to rough old canvas, don’t they? Henry was right in a sense. The love you work into a thing gives it life. On the bus I decided I’d help the CID with reluctance, but getting blown up like Henry was not part of my plan.

I was in the George by opening time.

M
ARGARET
D
AINTY HAD
come from kindness. She is one of the slower age-drifters. She might be twenty-five or fifty, but that plump allure’s still there. Hair deceptively casual, always looks a little dressy and overgroomed, but maybe that’s because younger women have this crummy modern fashion of looking shopsoiled.

Margaret comes from an old army family, the sort that thinks drinking before dusk’s unpatriotic, sinful and stirs up the natives. I don’t, so I got some cheap white wine and started on the urgent job of restoring my nerves. We sat overlooking the crowded pavement through the leaded window. Elizabeth I seated herself precisely in the same spot once upon a time, gazing over the selfsame street. And fifteen centuries before that Claudius the God had ridden past in triumph. I love the human connection – was Bess tired, did she put her feet up? Did Claudius have difficulty keeping his laurel wreath on while his war elephants swayed ahead of his legions?

‘Eh?’ – Margaret was saying something. ‘You shouldn’t have risked trouble last night.’

‘There was no trouble,’ I said guardedly. Maybe she’d seen Betty follow me from the White Hart.

‘The Sykes boys. And what did the CID want?’

‘A football result,’ I told her, avoiding her eyes.

‘Be careful, Lovejoy.’

‘You know me,’ I said reassuringly.

We sipped and gazed out. Jimmo walked past carrying a long slender canvas bag and a basket.

‘Jimmo’s come up in the world,’ Margaret smiled. ‘A new two-tone motorcar.’

I stared. He’d been broke a couple of days ago.

Margaret smiled happily, always pleased at the success of others. She’s unique. That’s his new craze.’

‘The car?’ It had been in a salesman’s window yesterday.

‘No. Fishing.’ She was suddenly watching my face. ‘What is it, Lovejoy? You’re all on edge.’

Well, you can’t help wondering, can you? Fishing equals a river, which equals Stour, which yesterday had been disturbed by a savage explosion in which an old dreamer got transmuted. And a couple of drunken bums laughing and getting sloshed in a barge on a quiet river reach tend to converse loudly. An angler who happened to be an eager antiques dealer might have heard . . . No. I shook the thought off. We’d known Jimmo for years.

Maybe it was a mistake but I found myself telling Margaret about old Henry, the explosion. Mel and Sandy giving me a lift and Henry’s daft request. So she wouldn’t assume I’d gone bananas I didn’t admit he thought he’d actually got the Grail. I said nothing about Jimmo. She was commiserating when Tinker showed.

‘How do, Lovejoy, Margaret.’

‘Morning, Tinker. All ready?’

He came belching, still wiping his accumulated egg stains from his stubble with greasy mitten. I waved a pint over. First things first.

‘Sure, Lovejoy.’

‘One thing, Tinker. Just seen Jimmo, off fishing. Where’s he go?’

‘Oh, Stour, Layer Pits, down the estuary sometimes.’ He gave me a theatrical nudge, winking. ‘On the rebound. Broke off with that dollybird called Dolly.’ He chuckled. ‘Get it? Dolly, dollybird?’ That was news. So Dolly and Jimmo . . .

‘A superb play on words, Tinker.’ I waited gravely for his creaks of laughter to subside. There’s nothing you can do about some people. ‘Sudden wealth, eh?’

‘New car,’ Tinker agreed, gazing soulfully into his empty glass. I got him another to prevent a relapse.

‘How come? Jimmo done any buying lately?’

He thought hard – no mean task at this hour – and shook his head. ‘None I know of.’

‘He sold a pair of Satsuma decoratives,’ Margaret put in. ‘A collector, out Ipswich way. I could be wrong.’

‘Lovejoy?’ Nan the barmaid was pointing. Lydia’s interesting silhouette showed against the frosted glass. ‘She won’t come in,’ Nan called.

‘Why the hell not?’ I growled. Margaret and Nan were smiling. Tinker went out. She came sidling in, frightened to touch the furniture and looking at the floor. She only managed to move her lips soundlessly when Nan called a good morning. With true grit she sat down on a pub chair without giving it a quick polish. Nerves of steel. Her fingernails were clean, just like Margaret’s. I closed my hands in case mine weren’t.

‘What’s up, love?’ Tinker crashed in cheerfully. ‘Never been in a pub on your own before?’ He cackeld a burst of foul-stinking noisy breath, splitting his sides at his light banter.

‘No,’ Lydia whispered. That shut Tinker up. He’d assumed that’s where people came from. ‘Good morning, Mrs Lovejoy.’

‘Er, Margaret Dainty, Lydia.’ I got that in swiftly. These misunderstandings give people ideas.

‘Oh dear.’ Lydia half rose in panic but Margaret calmed her with a friendly word and sent Tinker for some more orange juice. He reeled giddily towards the bar, wondering what the world was coming to.

Actually, I’ve been married, if that’s the right word. It wasn’t bad except that the aggro with Cissie got me down. I’d felt like a half-pint Tom pitted against a relentless armourplated Jerry. I scrutinized Lydia during the preliminary skirmishing between her and Margaret. They both seemed pleased. Despite Lydia’s soft and shy appearance, I was on my guard. I reckon women are a very, very tough-minded bunch, being gifted with all the advantages in life.

‘I
was
married, once,’ I chipped in, hoping to clarify matters. A mistake.

‘Oh, do forgive me.’ Lydia’s eyes filled. ‘When did it . . . ?’

‘No, no.’ This was all getting too much. Lydia was obviously one of those birds whose conversation gets queerly deformed halfway through. ‘Divorce. Actually it was my fault . . .’