The Tartan Ringers (23 page)

‘Sad. Very sad.’ The banker’s portly frame swelled, exhaled a sigh of sympathy.

‘Mr McGunn here tried to persuade me to agree for the auction sale to be administered via the Tachnadray account in Dubneath.’ Trembler paused for the manager to shoot me a glance of hatred. I smiled weakly. ‘I insisted on coming here. Tomorrow morning, first thing, a number of small sums will be paid into the new account.’

‘Very praiseworthy,’ the banker smirked.

‘One cheque will then be soon drawn on it. A small credit balance will remain. I will require a late-night teller on auction day to accept much larger sums.’

‘Certainly, sir!’ The man was positively beaming.

‘I will require a special deposit rate of interest.’

The beam faded. ‘Sir?’

‘It will be a relatively vast sum.’ Trembler didn’t so much as get up as ascend, pulling on his gloves. ‘Possibly the largest your . . . branch has ever handled. I would be throwing money away not to demand the interest. Have the chequebook ready within the hour, please.’

We left, Trembler striding and using his walking cane so vigorously I had to trot beside the lanky nerk. You have to hand it to crooks like Trembler; always put on a great show.

‘Here, Trembler,’ I said. ‘Notice that geezer’s name? Only, I heard they were all assassins once.’

‘Ruthven? Garn.’

‘No, honest. Local vicar told me. Incidentally, Trembler. What do you think of openly cataloguing a couple of fakes in the sale? Reinforce confidence in the rest of the stuff . . .’

We went to celebrate. I promised Trembler his advance money and asked if he could manage until tomorrow. He said all right, which only shows how good friends help out. He really can’t do without exotic women and drink. Same as the rest of us; he’s just more honest. He orders the birds from a series of private Soho addresses. They’re very discreet, but not cheap.

As we drank, me a lager, him a bathful of scotch, I stared out over Thurso harbour.

Antique dealers would now be booking the night-rider trains from King’s Cross. The London boyos would have their cars serviced tomorrow for the long run north. Phones would be humming between paired antique businesses. Syndicates would be hunched over pub tables, testing the water. Auction rings would be forming, dissolving, reforming, illegal to a man.

And the convoy this very minute’d be rumbling on the great North Road, coming steady, a long line of weather-stained wagons carrying the beauty and greed of mankind. Soon they would swing left over the Pennines, then haul northwards for the motorway to Carlisle. Then they’d come Glasgow, Inverness . . . My mouth was suddenly dry. ‘Have another,’ I offered. ‘Against the cold.’

N
OTHING AN ANTIQUE
dealer hates worse than fog and rain. Me and Michelle were for once agreed.

At three o’clock in the morning in a foggy rainy lay-by, it seemed to me that the wheel had come full circle. We were in the giant Mawdslay on the main A9 which runs northwards from Bonar Bridge. Forty miles to Tachnadray. Not long since, it’d been Ellen and me in old Tom’s hut, while a man had died bloodily outside. Then the disaster over Three-Wheel Archie, my escape with the travelling fair, my panicked flight from the fight between the rival fairground gangs . . . I’ve spent half my windswept life recently on night roads. I shivered. These old motors sieve the air. Michelle’s breathing had evened. I nudged her awake.

‘Watch for the lights.’

‘Will they come? Only, Mr Tinker doesn’t seem very reliable.’

I wiped the windscreen. Not a light out there. Nothing moved. ‘He’s the best barker in the business. Anyway, Antioch’s running it.’

‘Tell me about Antioch.’

‘Eh?’ I said suspiciously, but she was only trying to make up. ‘Antioch and me’s old mates. He was a Gurkha officer.’

‘You know so many different sorts of people.’

‘Everybody’s into antiques, love.’

‘Can’t be.’ She was smiling in the darkness. ‘I’m not, for instance.’

‘Aren’t you?’ I said evenly, which shut her up.

There came first a faint row of dot lights. Ten minutes later the convoy approached, a slow switching queue of lorries revving on the incline, the ground shaking as they came. Even in the night it was impressive. I heard Michelle gasp. I stood out, collar up against the drizzle, and held up the krypton lamp. Characteristically, the lead wagon merely flashed, slowed to a crawl. I smiled, recognizing Antioch’s trademark. The double blink went down the whole convoy. The last lorry pulled out, overtook at a roar into the lay-by.

‘There are so many!’ Michelle was beside me, shoulder up to ward weather away.

‘Love, if I could have done it by correspondence . . .’ I said, going forward to greet Antioch in the din of the passing lorries. He saw me, waved at the column. It churned on past.

‘Lovejoy.’ We both had our backs against the roar.

‘Wotcher, Antioch. Any trouble?’

He grinned. He enjoys all this, driving about in all weathers. He loves nothing better than a catastrophe, a breakdown, a flash flood washing a road bridge. You feel you want to arrange an avalanche for the frigging lunatic.

‘Police query near Carlisle, but I’d the consignment notes. A caff dust-up with some yobbos. Peaceful.’

‘Antioch. About your drivers.’

‘We’ll unload, then can you feed them? I’ve compo rations but they’ll need more before daylight.’

‘Yes.’ I’d already warned Mrs Buchan, who’d been delighted at my threat of dozens of voracious appetites. ‘Then?’

‘We’ll run to Aberdeen, the oil terminals.’

‘Your destination’s a place called Tachnadray.’ He likes directions military style, eastings and westings and that. I’d forgotten how, so I chucked in my own map with Tachnadray ringed. He shone his light, grinned and shook his head. His lorry’s cabin door was open. Michelle was looking in.

‘There’s a tramp inside,’ she said reprovingly to Antioch.

The ragged figure coughed, a long gravelly howl which silenced the roars of the last lorries passing us. Michelle clutched my arm. Recognition had struck.

It opened one bleary eye. ‘Gawd, Lovejoy. Where the bleedin’ ’ell?’

‘Hiyer, Tinker. Go back to sleep. We’re nearly there.’

Antioch climbed into the cabin, revved and joined the convoy’s tail. I stood, smiling, watching the red lights wind into the fog.

Michelle got her voice back. ‘He’s . . . he’s
horrible
!’

‘Please don’t criticize Tinker.’ We made for the Mawdslay. ‘He’s the only bloke who trusts me. A lot depends on him. Me. Tachnadray. Joseph. And,’ I added, ‘maybe you.’

Ten o’clock on a cold wet morning. At eight we’d waved off the empty convoy, and I was just back from depositing a mixed bag of cheques, money orders and notes into the National Caithness. Me and Trembler had drawn Antioch’s draft. He’d set off following the convoy. There’d been enough to give Antioch’s drivers a bonus. Michelle had opposed this, exclaiming that it left hardly any. I didn’t listen. You have to pay cash on the nail sometimes, and this was one of them. She was still at it when we found Tinker happily trying out Mrs Buchan’s home-brewed hooch in the long kitchen.

‘Giving away all that money!’ Michelle was grumbling.

‘Listen, love,’ I said. Trembler strode past, discarding his gloves ready for his third breakfast. ‘How many men would you say Antioch brought?’

‘Forty-six,’ Mrs Buchan called, in her element. The tubby lady had two crones and no fewer than four youngsters all milling obediently to her orders. ‘Like the old days! You poor English, starving to death.’ She wagged a spoon to threaten me. ‘This poor auldie’s never tasted a drop of home-brew in his life. The crime of it.’

Tinker raised suffering eyes long enough to wink.

‘Forty-six,’ I repeated. ‘Look around.’ The kitchen was like a battlefield. ‘They aren’t choirboys, love. What would have happened if they hadn’t been paid? After loading, driving the convoy the length of the country? They’d have torn the place apart.’

Michelle shivered. ‘It’s all so violent. I mean . . .’ She was bemused at the scale of things. ‘Suddenly it seems, well, out of our hands.’

‘It is, love. We’re half way down the ski slope. No way of strolling back to the start, not now.’ I patted her shoulder kindly. ‘Have some nosh, love. We’ve a lot to do.’

She stared. ‘But we haven’t slept a wink. And everything is here. Isn’t that the end of it?’

Tinker guffawed, his mouth open to show partly-noshed toast and beans. Trembler tutted and asked for more eggs, bacon, and perhaps just six more slices of fried liver, please. The women rushed, pleased.

A lass laid a place and poured tea as I said, ‘It’s the start, love.’

Michelle sank in the chair, pale.

‘ ’Ere, Lovejoy,’ Tinker said. ‘Notice yon Belfast geezer, tenth truck, fetched them frigging Brummy gasoliers?’ The gaslight chandeliers had delighted me, genuine Ratcliffe and Tyler sets of three-lighters, 1874, with sundry wall brackets for the extra singles. They are valuable collectibles now, especially pre-Victorian versions. Tinker was falling about, cackling. ‘He got done at the sessions. Selling tourists
parking tickets!
Magistrate went berserk.’

Trembler joined in the reminiscing. ‘Nice to see Antioch Dodd again,’ he said. ‘We last met when I auctioned that old mill down Stoke way. Antioch owffed it on canal barges. Even pulled a special police guard . . .’

Michelle was shaky, superwhelmed by all this criminology. Mrs Buchan on the other hand was oblivious, keeping her assorted team busy. Aren’t women different? They’re a funny lot. We talked on, preparing for the grind ahead.

By midday Trembler had made up his mind. All fixtures and fittings were to be assembled in the corridors for security, but I was downcast.

‘What’s the matter?’ Michelle had left Mrs Moncreiffe in the office bombing out the checklist.

‘It’s not elegant.’ I’d had visions of using the retainers – four more by now – to maybe redecorate the house. ‘But Trembler’s right. Bidders have sticky fingers.’

Trembler drew an outline plan on an improvised blackboard. He likes to talk to everybody at once. We were called to the Great Hall, crowded in among the furniture. School time.

‘This is where I’ll hold the auction itself.’ He pointed with his cane. ‘There are all sorts of problems: security, money, catering, a bar, parking cars. But the most difficult is people. You’ll all have a number. Anybody who hasn’t memorized everybody’s number by tomorrow must leave Tachnadray until the sale’s over.’

People shuffled, looked askance, nodded. Tinker snored. He was on an early Georgian daybed, cane-backed. I guessed it was from Jake Endacot’s shop in Frinton.

‘Hector, you’ve got dogs. Patrol outside, and check cars in. One of you men will photograph, obviously as possible, every car arriving. One or two people might complain or turn away. Let them. Remember, these people are mostly townies. They don’t know sheepdogs are harmless.’

Two of the girls nudged when Robert glared my way. More knew of Shona’s missing dog than I’d thought. It still hadn’t been mentioned openly.

‘You will be in two groups.’ Trembler notices everything, pretending not to. He’d have spotted those meaningful nudges. He’d ask me about it later. ‘One group will help with the auction itself. The others will be stationed at a doorway, a corridor’s end, wherever.
Stay there
. No matter what – a lady customer fainting, a man having a heart attack, a sudden shout for help, a customer telling you that Miss Elaine, me, or, er, Ian wants you urgently –
stay there.’
We all paused while Tinker coughed a majestic mansion-shaker of a cough. It faded like distant thunder. Trembler resumed. ‘And nothing must be taken away. Suppose a bidder in fine clothes comes up to you with a receipt bearing my signature, saying they’ve got special permission to remove their lot an hour early. What do you do? You stop them. They’ll be thieves, robbers, crooks who make a superb living.’ He smiled his necrotizing smile. ‘My rules never change: stay at your post. No exceptions. Everything, sold or unsold, stays until five o’clock. Then a bell sounds, and it’s all over.’

‘Sir,’ one red-haired girl piped up. I liked her, our coffee lass. ‘What if we need . . . ?’

‘There’ll be a floater. One of you circulates, takes the place of each of you in turn, for ten minutes at a time. Your list will give the order in which you’ll have a break. And when your break time comes, you
must
take it. No deviation.’ He did his wintry smile. I watched it enviously. ‘We have a rehearsal. It’s called Viewing Day, which is Tuesday. Wednesday is Sale Day. Last point: take no bribes, accept no explanations, and
don’t talk
to people. If they insist on talking, simply smile past them.’

Robert had been fidgeting. Now he rumbled. ‘If you’re so clever spotting the thieves, why not bar them? It’s stupid, mon.’

‘Then we’d bar all. They’re all crooks.’ Trembler looked down his nose at Robert, who flushed in fury. ‘Rich Swiss, showy Yanks, suave Parisians, pedantic Germans, cool Londoners. The lot. Remember they work in groups. They’ll lower jewellery, even furniture, out of a window to friends outside. They’ll try all sorts.’

‘But we know this place,’ Duncan protested.

‘Not you. Once, a lady carried an oil painting in. The guard let her pass. A minute later she left with her picture, saying it was the wrong room after all. They discovered she’d arrived with a worthless fake, and swapped it for an Impressionist painting worth a king’s ransom. No. Do as you’re told, and we’ll profit. Do what you think is best, and we’ll be rooked hook, line and sinker.’

Robert was still glowering, so I chipped in. ‘Mr Yale is right. It’s obvious you have no idea of the forces we’re up against.’ I hesitated, but Elaine nodded me to continue. ‘The best experts in the country are on Tachnadray’s side. They’re me, Mr Yale, and Tinker there. Tachnadray’s crammed with valuables. Your job is to contain them until the money’s in. That’s all there is to it.’

Trembler tapped the board. ‘Those who will obey my orders without question, please rise.’

Slowly, in ones and twos, they stood. Elaine spoke once, sharply, when Robert rose. He remained standing determinedly. She nodded to Trembler.