The Possessions of a Lady (12 page)

For a second I wondered whether to scarper, but chucked the idea
as aroma wafted out from the carvery. News columnists and me don't mix. I never
read what they make up.

'When, Lovejoy?' she asked in the foyer.

'When what?' I yelped. 'Er, sorry?'

She did the woman's non-smile, so innocent you could tell she was
laughing.

'When would you like supper?'

'Now, please.' It's not my fault if women never eat. Because she'd
had one chip and a lettuce last Easter, was I expected to starve?

She wanted the table moved, our seats shifted. I swear waiters
like this sort of thing. She had two rushing about demented.

'Look,' I said, uneasy. 'Are you investigating that dig thing?
Maldon?'

'Let's order first, Lovejoy.'

We did the menu mutter, then I got down to it. No good ruining
free nosh by worrying over past sins.

'It wasn't me last October, Faye,' I confessed. 'It wasn't my
fault that land got sold. Maldon authorities allowed builders to erect 450 houses
right on the most valuable historic site in the entire world. Well, in Maldon,'
I ended lamely. 'Can I have your bread?' Women don't like bread, dunno why.

'Please take it.' She sat, chin on her interlaced fingers, and
said with wide-eyed erotic innocence, 'It isn't what folk are saying, is it?'

'No,' I said, swiftly buttering her roll in case she changed her
mind. 'They
would
say that. Look,
Faye. Ask why an ancient town allows a property company to bulldoze a rural
site.' I glanced about, nervous. 'Not far from Heybridge. The council is only
spending public money to help the homeless, so what better reason? Why
not
build in that particular spot?'

'Envelope, please,' she quipped. 'The answer is?'

'Because it's the only untouched Iron Age town we've got left,
love!' Tears filled my eyes. I couldn't help it. 'That Heybridge site was a
pristine mediaeval borough, on an Anglo-Saxon township, on a Roman colony, on
an Iron Age town!'

'Are you all right?'

'Course I am, silly cow. It's the onion.' The soup was stinging my
eyes.

Her eyes were on me. She hadn't started hers.

'Didn't folk realise?'

'It's a question of reverence for life.' I couldn't continue for a
minute. 'Think. Those ancient Iron Age people, living out their little lives.
They must have believed that us folk coming after, their descendants, would
surely
care
. They must have sat by
their fires smiling, thinking how their future children—
us
—would revere their ancestors' relics. They buried small
treasures as gifts, offerings to some tree god perhaps, tokens to us who would
come after. But did we?'

Her face seemed to be swimming. 'Did we, Lovejoy?'

'Did we frigging hell. Incompetent money-grabbing councillors sent
the builders ripping in. Archaeologists—inept criminals to a man—hove up,
started frantic excavations only days ahead of the bulldozers. The
press—you—made a hue and cry:
Race
Against Time
. I framed headlines with my hands.

'I'm sorry.' She sounded surprisingly lifelike for a reporter.
'Shall we talk afterwards?'

'Shut up and listen. In eleven days the archaeologists excavated a
quarter of a million pieces of pottery
alone
,
plus God knows what else.'

'Wasn't there a Maldon spokesman . . . ?'

'There always is.' I scraped my bowl viciously. 'They said,
We'd no idea
.'

'But they knew?'

'The Heybridge site's been known at least two hundred years,
love.' I slurped a bit of the wine. 'It's called administrative efficiency. Or
bribery.'

Her eyes never left me. 'Why does your name keep coming up,
Lovejoy?'

'Look.' I was fed up with accusations. 'When councillors and
magnates combine to exploit land, our Iron Age
ghosts
for Christ's sake, haven't I a right to do something?'

'So you did, Lovejoy?'

'Okay. It
was
me. I
organised the gang that broke those two fellers' legs. And okay, I hired the
moonspenders— enthusiasts with electronic metal-seeking devices.'

'Let's get this straight,' she said. 'It really truly wasn't you
who injured those two men?'

'Honest,' I said most sincerely. 'Hand on my heart. What's
happened to the grub?'

'We have to choose it ourselves, I think,' she said in a faint
voice. 'In a moment.'

She was taking a hell of a time finishing a salad. 'Rules are
rules when you're nicking artefacts, Faye.'

'Of course, Lovejoy. I see that.'

I'd recovered, smiling at a past success. 'We lifted over seven
thousand items in nineteen days. I've not been paid yet.'

'Lifted? Meaning stolen?' She looked horrified.

'No.' I took her salad and finished it. Wait for her, we'd never
make the real food. 'They're left by our own ancestors for us.'

'When did the men's legs get broken?' she asked faintly.

'That pair nicked stuff on the sly. It's against the rules. You
pinch historic artefacts for the team. Everything went to Worcester,' I said
proudly, my heart lifting with emotion. 'Every pot we lifted, every pennyweight
of metal. Beautiful.' I almost filled up.

The two blokes were caught selling Roman coins from the
excavation. One had a Roman doctor's probe, a straight thin instrument with a
terminal midget spoon. I was called to the tavern after closing time and shown
their spoils. I didn't see the miscreants, Dogleg and Chaplin, but I knew them.
Furnace was their ganger, mortified. He's an astonishingly gentle bloke, who
funds two children's hospital beds.

'See, Lovejoy,' he'd said in his kindly Devon. 'My lads get very
hairy.'

'I know, Furnie,' I'd said back. I was frightened, because I'd
once seen Big John's gang simply take a house apart. And I do mean brick by
brick, simply vanish the entire place, when the owner delayed payment. It had
taken fifteen hours one Friday night while the non-payer's family was in
London. He'd returned Saturday morn to find the dwelling gone, his furniture
auctioned off for a children's charity. The house itself was rubble under a
Buckinghamshire housing estate. I was scared witless because Big John hadn't
really been angry on that occasion, merely disappointed. I could remember worse
times when he'd been furious, and wanted three-league boots next time. He had
funded the Maldon rescue.

'The lads want Dogleg and Chaplin limping, Lovejoy,' Furnace had
said, sad.

'They do?' I'd croaked, desperate.

Furnace was relentless. 'Yes or no. If no, what?'

Indeed. Sweat dripped down my face. I still feel it in the candle
hours when memory won't let go. If I'd let Dogleg and Chaplin off with a slap
on the wrist, it'd prove I was in collusion with them, and I wasn't.

'Do I tell my lads to break their legs, Lovejoy?'

'Better be yes, Furnie,' I said, in anguish.

'Good, Lovejoy,' Furnace was pleased the job was still being run
smoothly. He has a smile a saint would kill for. 'Do the right thing, eh?'

He bought me a drink, I remembered. We'd talked of some goalkeeper
being accused of taking bribes to throw a football match. Furnace thought it
scandalous.

'Lovejoy?' Faye said. She was looking worried.

'Oh. You're ready?'

We rose, chose our meal. I'm clumsy spooning vegetables, always
drop some. Faye did it for us. It's lovely to watch a woman; whatever they do's
pretty as a picture. As we returned to our table, I caught her looking at me
with a calculating air. It suddenly occurred that she hadn't wanted to ask
about the Maldon steal at all. Which raised the question, as they say, what the
hell?

'What the hell, Faye?' I said, whaling in.

'You guessed, Lovejoy.' She coloured slightly, but not enough for
guilt. More a cocky pride from hoodwinking me. I want you to bring down a
fashion house.' She smiled at my expression, adding quaintly, 'Please.'

'Oh, right,' I said, cavalier. Any day of the week, Lovejoy's the
man to destroy a million-zlotnik trade emporium. Was she mad?

Humour them when they're off their trolley or when you want to
wreak your wicked way. It's the only tactic.

'You think I'm joking, Lovejoy? Or insane?'

'No! Fashion's serious stuff. I mean, everybody knows it's . . .'
I petered out. What, a con? 'It's, well, famous.'

'It's everything, Lovejoy.' She stared past me, entranced. I
wondered if some film star had hove in. I almost turned to look. 'Clothes,
dress. Fashion is the world.'

By now I was hurling grub down like a stoker coaling up. Time to
cut and run. She was beginning to sound like Thekla. I still hadn't recovered
from that.

She prattled on about reputations, money, materials, imports,
fiscal overloads and amalgamations. I occasionally did a 'Mmmh,' and a
'Really?' or two, to keep her going until the pudding. I didn't understand a
word, didn't listen in fact. I suppose women do the same with us. Tit for
tat—pun not intended. She talked so much, quite carried away, that I had to
scoff her plateful, though I felt she'd too much gravy. You can only take so
much.

The lass cleared our plates. I can't resist trifle. One bird I
used to know said I was still a child because trifle's for children. Faye
didn't want any, but the waitress knew I couldn't stand seeing a woman go
hungry, and brought two.

'I need a fashion house to suffer shame, Lovejoy,' she said,
wistful. ‘It
fully deserves
to.'

'Fine, fine.' Another barmy scheme to ignore through the long
nights ahead. 'Which, er, fashion house, love?' I asked grimly, Bill Sykes of
the Black Hand Gang. I pulled out a card. 'Got a pen, love?' I was saying when
she reached across. The card was Orla's.

Faye went white. 'Orla?' she said in a whisper. 'After he almost
died
?'

I stopped eating. 'Eh?'

Her lips had gone bluish, under the lipstick.
'She all but killed him.'

Who killed who? 'Who killed who?' I asked, glancing nervously
round the carvery.

People stopped dining, to look across. Anas the manager raised his
head like a wary stag.

Her voice rose. 'You and Orla, Lovejoy?'

'Shhh!' I tried to calm her. 'I'll blam her shop. Honest, love!'

'You tricked me, Lovejoy!' She stood, collected her handbag,
glared. 'Deceived me! You, in with her, Lovejoy!'

The place was silent, except for her hooting and hollering. I
tried a smile, nodded, shook my head, whatever this mad woman wanted if only
she'd shut up and pretend everything was all right. Then I could clear out, let
her screech her head off.

'Nearly murdered!' She burst into tears.

'What's going on?' Anas advanced, beckoning waiters.

Quick as a flash I stood, leaving half a trifle.

'Look, Faye. Sorry, but I've an appointment . . .'

And fled up the stairs, across the lounge, through the saloon bar
door. As far as I got.

'Hold it, Lovejoy.' Dinsdale stood there, the George's security
officer.

For a second I was tempted. He's corpulent, fortyish, looks
everybody's pushover, but I've seen him sprint after some baddie like a
greyhound, rugby tackle him, then give him a good hiding.

'Wotcher, Dinsdale. I'm late for . . .'

'I'm taking you in charge, Lovejoy. The police are on their way.
Naughty. Who'd you kill this time?'

'Some barmy bird in there suddenly raised hell. Started blaming
me, somebody nearly getting topped.'

'The lady you came with,' he corrected. 'Come along.'

'Amn't I allowed a phone call?' I tried to joke.

'That's America, Lovejoy. Here, do as I say.'

The police came and arrested me, no time for coffee. In a cell
twenty minutes later, I remembered a friend whose new baby arrived home. Next
morning, this friend dazedly awoke, and asked his missus, 'Jesus. Was all that
Monday?' I knew how he felt. Except it was the days coming that were the
headache.

11

‘Killed who, George?'

The police sat me on a bench. Not a proper cell, where they'd have
to document me with tea, chance to lay my head. Police nicks always smell of
armpit and boiled cabbage.

George is a stout bobby with feet too worn out for a real job.

'Can't say.' He tried to look like he was busy. They often pretend
they can write.

'State secret, is it, saying who I topped?'

'He survived.'

So I was arrested because I
didn't
kill somebody? Then yesterday must have been a near thing, and all last week,
because I'd not slaughtered anybody then either. They'd collared me for
innocence.

'Got anything to read, George?'