The Tartan Ringers (3 page)

He never answers immediately, in case there’s another way out. ‘Gone on the ferry. Dunno where.’

Fair enough. ‘See anything of a bureau, the night that wagon driver got done?’

‘No. Sorry.’ Nothing here for an inquisitive dealer fresh out of clink.

‘Was Dutchie around that night?’

He shrugged after a long lag phase. Nothing. I rejoined Tinker, back to hungry reality. So I’d lost a fortune. I couldn’t afford to lose still more by inactivity. ‘The lithophanes, Tinker.’

‘Them little pot flaps?’ Tinker’s way of describing artistic genius. ‘Three-Wheel.’

‘Three-Wheel Archie? Great. Come on, Tinker.’

He wailed, ‘But I haven’t had me dinner, Lovejoy.’

Fuming, I gave him two of my three remaining notes, which left me just enough to breathe. ‘See me tonight, then. The Three Cups.’ The sly old berk was cackling with glee as I left.

From the call box outside I phoned Ellen to beg a lift. The glass was shattered so I had to stand in the rain and shout over the whistling gale. Unbelievably, she put down the receiver the instant she recognized my voice. Bloody nerve. Next week she’d prove to me, by complex female reasoning, that her refusal to speak was a precaution to help me in some way.

A call to the Infant School earned another rebuff, this time from Jo. A bad day for loyalty. A stranger gave me a lift in his car to within a mile of Archie’s place, and told me all about astronomy.

Three-Wheel Archie gets his nickname from a tricycle he rides. He grew up in an orphanage somewhere near Whitechapel. When I say grew up, I mean his head and features did, but the rest of him sort of lagged behind. Mind you, with most of us others it’s the opposite, isn’t it; relatively big over all but very little brain. Archie ended up a thickset titch who walks with a low swagger. He deals in engines, mechanicals, and watches, and lives alone down the estuary. I like him.

He was cleaning his dazzling new motor car when I arrived. It lives grandly in a brick-built garage, cavity insulation, dehumidifier, air conditioner, the lot. He’d run it out on polished lino. He lives in the near-derelict cottage adjoining.

‘Sprung, eh, Lovejoy?’ he panted, sprawled on the bonnet polishing like mad. ‘No way a soft bugger like you could clobber a big Brummie to death. The Old Bill are stupid.’

‘I’ve come about the lithophanes.’ I walked round his car, admiring. ‘Posher than ever. How old now?’

‘Ten next September thirtieth. She’s Libra.’

‘Er, great. Still going okay?’ It has one mile on the clock, in and out of the garage once a fortnight. Five yards a month mounts up.

‘Brilliant, Lovejoy,’ he said proudly, sliding chutewise down to the ground carrying his sponges. ‘Glass?’

‘Ta, Archie.’ When I said new, I used the term loosely. Archie’s one ambition from birth was owning a saloon car. He bought it a decade gone, and built for it that luxurious garage. Of course he’s so dwarf he can’t reach the pedals to drive the damned thing, but he loves it. He runs the engine every week, has engineers in to service it. Once, a local dealer laughed at Archie for having a new/old car he couldn’t drive. Archie’s never spoken to him since. Nor have I.

‘Here, Lovejoy.’ He gave me some homemade wine. ‘Last autumn’s blackberry.’

‘Mmmmh.’ I smacked my lips. Dreadful.

‘The lithophanes’ll cost you, Lovejoy.’ We sat on packing cases beside the glittering vehicle.

‘Archie. If you wanted an antique bureau twinned up, who’d you get to do it?’

‘You, Lovejoy, on that rare occasion you’re not dicking some bint. Otherwise Tipper Noone at Melford. He’s done lovely stuff lately.’

‘I mean a rush job.’

‘So do I.’ Archie drained his glass. He knew what I was asking, the crafty devil. ‘Somebody said Tipper did one a few days back, for shipping to the Continent.’

I sighed. That’s the trouble with East Anglia. Most is coast, inlets with busy little ships steaming to and fro. And continentals spend like lunatics when they’ve a mind.

‘I’m the one who told Tinker, Lovejoy.’

Useless. That was as far as we’d got before a car pulled in and Jo descended. I introduced Archie to her. He rose, shook hands gravely. I knew she’d behave properly, thank God.

‘Good of you to come, Jo.’ I was mystified.

She stood in the mucky yard, hands plunged into the pockets of her floppy coat. Her collar was up, framing her face. Women stand with elegance, don’t they, one foot slightly averted so they’re all one lovely composite shape.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ Archie offered her a crate. She sat without a trace of hesitancy. I really like Miss Josephine Ross. More, she gravely accepted a glass of Archie’s wine and said reflectively that it was possibly a little too dry, like her father’s recipe. Archie adored her.

‘Don’t let me interrupt, Lovejoy,’ she said, smiling. ‘I only wanted to say sorry, cutting you off on the phone just because you’d been . . . seeing the police. It was mean of me.’ Her colour was high. ‘We shouldn’t be swayed by public stigma.’

‘Don’t mix metaphors,’ I said, to get us off ethics. ‘Give me a lift and I’ll forgive you.’

Me and Archie settled the deal over the lithophanes while Jo admired the car, wisely not touching it. She had quickly registered the difference between Archie’s grotty residence and the opulent garage, but said nothing. Archie came to see us off. The swine wouldn’t let me have the lithos on approval.

‘Four wheels on your motor,’ Jo said. ‘Why Three-Wheel?’

‘Come on, Jo.’ I got in her car irritably.

‘Tell her, Lovejoy.’ Archie was grinning, saw I wouldn’t budge, and walked over to a shed. He pulled the door open to reveal a beautiful tricycle with an elegant canopy.

‘How lovely, Archie!’ Jo exclaimed. ‘Do you ride it?’

‘Makes me mobile, Miss Ross. Courtesy of Lovejoy, five years ago now.’

She looked at me. ‘Really.’

‘Can we go?’ I called wearily. ‘Bloody time-wasters.’

Archie waved to us. By the time we left the yard he was already buffing the car’s hubs. We drove a couple of miles before she said anything. ‘Lovejoy?’

She wanted to prattle about Archie, but I wasn’t having any. ‘You only gave me the box number for that bureau, Jo,’ I said. ‘Is there more?’

She took a while to answer. ‘Very well,’ she said finally. ‘Grammar apart, Lovejoy, you’ll have to sing for your supper.’

* * *

It was Jo’s free afternoon. She stayed and I made tea for her. Ellen had washed up, so I had clean cups. I made some sandwiches and cut their crusts off to make natty triangles. A bit thick, but all the more nourishing. The tomatoes had gone pappy so I blotted them on newspaper first. I felt posh serving up, like the Savoy chef. I had to use a towel for a tablecloth because I can never find anything when Ellen’s tidied.

‘I’m impressed, Lovejoy,’ Jo said, smiling.

‘Ta,’ I said modestly. I knew she would be. I can really lay on the elegance when I want. I’d even found the teapot lid.

She wore a beige twin set, tweed skirt, but mainly a black opal ring, Edwardian setting, heavy and gold. Beautiful.

‘It was my friend I was at school with, Shona. We’ve kept up correspondence.’ She coloured, proving rumour right: a farm manager, a passionate holiday affair, and her coming to a teaching job in East Anglia to be near his fertile acres.

Shona was a teacher in Caithness, which is almost as far north as you can go. In a recent letter Shona had mentioned selling some furniture. By pure chance, Jo said, carefully avoiding my gaze, my name entered the correspondence.

‘It was soon after I’d met you at the Castle show,’ she explained. Farmer Bob had been away. Jo and I had met on that local gala day – everybody goes to our Castle’s flower displays. We saw quite a bit of each other for a fortnight until her favourite yokel homewards plodded his weary way.

‘You told Shona I was a divvie?’

‘I may have mentioned it. In passing.’ She spoke offhandedly. ‘Maybe. I can’t remember. Shona insisted on selling through a box number. I passed it on to you. You wrote, and . . . and now that poor driver . . .’

My mind wouldn’t stop nudging me, but I’d have scared her off if I’d started a serious interrogation.

‘Wasn’t it lucky, you meeting that woman in the fog?’ Jo said, too casual. She’d reached the suspicion bit, about Ellen.

‘A fluke,’ I agreed.

‘You deserved it, Lovejoy,’ she said, smiling. ‘For giving Archie that grand tricycle.’

‘It isn’t his fault his legs can’t reach the car throttle.’

‘Of course not.’ Still smiling, she put her fingers to my face. We were suddenly close.

My hopes of examining the true worth of Farmer Bob’s black opal engagement ring were dashed when Jo found her hand on a pair of Ellen’s stockings. They’d treacherously crept out from behind a cushion. She was up and vehement in a flash.

‘Lovejoy! And to think that I was about to . . . oh!’

‘Honestly, Jo. They’re my sister’s . . .’ Trala trala. Good night, nurse, with Jo storming out in a ferocious temper and me shouting invented explanations after her.

Women really get me down sometimes. They’re so unreasonable. You’d think they’d learn sense, having nothing else to do all day. I watched her car burn off up the lane, then went in disconsolately.

The sight of her unfinished grub cheered me up and I sat down to finish it. My spirits began soaring. Where one valuable antique came from there was bound to be more, right? And if the sender was dim enough to send a pricey article thinking it a mock-up, I was in for a windfall.

Give Jo a day to come round, wheedle Shona’s address off her, then hit the high road. Or the low road. I’m not proud.

Between mouthfuls I burst into song.

J
ILL WAS AT
Gimbert’s infamous auction rooms. This emporium of wonderment and infamy is lodged between a row of ancient cottages, a ruined priory, two pubs and a church. She was inspecting the assorted junk in her time-honoured way, which is carrying a microscopic poodle and trailing a knackered seaman. Jill’s tastes are catholic, as they say. She wears furs, grotesque hats, rings, brooches, pearls, the lot. I like her. She saw me pushing through the dross and screamed.

‘Lovejoy
darling!’
She drenched my face with a kiss. Quickly I pulled away. Her embrace is a dead risk. Either the poodle gnaws your earhole or you stink like a boutique. ‘How clever to escape from jail! Meet . . . the name, lover?’

‘Dave,’ the young sailor said.

‘Dave,’ Jill repeated, trying to lock the name in. She always forgets. ‘Dave’s just into port, aren’t you, honey?’ In or out is her only criterion.

‘Yes.’ Dave was bemused, like all Jill’s Jolly Jacks. Coastal ships docking at our town’s minuscule port take turns lending Jill nautical manpower. The names change, to protect the innocents. I’ve never met the same one twice. Tinker says they don’t dare land again.

‘Hello, er, Dave,’ I said heartily. ‘Jill. You sometimes commission Tipper Noone?’

‘Not lately, Lovejoy. I’ve been absolutely
rushed
off my feet!’ Big Frank from Suffolk, silver dealer among the Regency ware, snickered at the unfortunate turn of phrase. A couple of other dealers up-ending furniture politely disguised their guffaws as coughs. ‘Dobson gave him a twinner, Patrick said.’

Tinker’s tale was beginning to sound true, despite Dobson’s reticence.

‘Ta, Jill. Tell him to bell me, eh?’

I evaded another soak, gnaw, and scenting by eeling among heavy suites of 1910 furniture to where Patrick stood. He always looks crazy to me – crocodile handbag, silken bishop sleeves and enough mascara to black your boots – but he’s a hard-line dealer. I was swiftly getting narked. This bloody drudgery’s Tinker’s job.

‘Hiyer, Pat. Where’s Lily?’ Lily’s a married woman who loves Patrick while her husband’s away and sometimes when he isn’t. I’d say more but it’s too complicated and I’d get it wrong.

‘Patrick,’ he corrected. ‘That stupid bitch brought the wrong chequebook, Lovejoy! Can you
imagine?’
He swore extravagantly in falsetto. ‘I made her go right home!’

‘That’s the spirit, Pat. Look. Where’s Tipper Noone?’

‘To each his own, dear heart. You won’t find him in my boudoir.’ He boomed – well, trilled – a gay laugh.

‘Don’t help, then,’ I said evenly. ‘See if I care.’

Other dealers sieving through the gunge on display paused at the implied threat. Even Patrick abated somewhat.

I may not be much to look at, but among antique dealers I’m special. Very few dealers know anything about antiques. In fact most are simply Oscar-minus actors highly skilled at concealing their monumental ignorance. Try one out, if you don’t believe me. Offer an antique dealer a Rembrandt – he’ll hum and ha and won’t offer you more than eighty quid. It isn’t because he’s miserly. It’s because he can’t tell an Old Master from an oil slick, which is why you can still pick up fortunes hidden among loads of old tat.

Ignorance being endemic, it follows that antique dealers need somebody to help them, not only with reading and writing, but also with
knowing
antiques. I don’t mean somebody who’s simply read the right books. I mean somebody whose inner sense tells if that fifteenth-century
Book of Hours
is a brilliant sequence of illumination from the unsullied monks of Lindisfarne, or a newspaper and starch. Easy? Yes, for somebody like me, who quivers and trembles when that Roman oil lamp radiates its honest ancient little soul’s vibes out into the universe, or when that antique Chinese jewelled fingernail cover emanates gleams under the auctioneer’s naked bulb.

The people distributed in Gimbert’s showrooms had paused with alert interest because I’m the only divvie for many long leagues. I’m gormless with money and women, which is why I’m always broke, but I’m the only one of us who isn’t gormless with antiques.

Patrick’s venom is legendary. But if I called his antiques fakes he too would be broke. Mostly I’m honest because special gifts aren’t for monkeying about with. So, wisely, he turned sulky and pulled his mauve silk lace gloves on.

‘Don’t be
nasty
, Lovejoy. I positively sweated
blood
arranging for Tipper to give me an estimate for mending a Chippendale fret. He didn’t turn up, did he, Lily?’ Patrick’s admirer had just breathlessly returned proudly bearing her chequebook.