The Possessions of a Lady (23 page)

20

Old motors are a nuisance. You never feel in control, like the
damned thing's letting you sit there but don't get too cocky. Also, they're
strong. Touch the throttle, and your neck jerks, clings to some tree you passed
a mile back. The wind howl deafens you. And other motorists salute, applaud,
hoot, expect a wave. Old motors are absurdity on wheels. No wonder they never
caught on. And costly? The thing needed filling up every two yards. I stopped
at one garage and got surrounded by enthusiasts asking about axle ratios and
carburettors. I hid the gleaming hulk behind a tavern's trees when I stopped
for nosh in the early afternoon, but it was no good. Some maniac actually asked
if I'd let him slide underneath for a gander, as if any car's interesting. I'd
sold this old crate to Sleekie five years before. It had acquired a load of
trophies along its front bumper, I noticed, this rally, that procession, like
war medals.

Driving, I pondered. 'She,' Spoolie had let slip, took it to Brum.
'They' wouldn't let him say more. Plural, of foes? And somebody had told him
the maker's name, Maerklin. Poor Spoolie. The nasty thought kept recurring.
Spoolie wouldn't keep our appointment. Despite my promise, I turned at a
roundabout and headed south on the A45. The opposite direction, save you
getting the map out.

The only time in my life I ever gambled for a girl, I lost to
Sleekie. He'd eyed this Alana I was trying to inveigle. She had a collection of
bat-and-ball implements—racquets, battledores, table tennis bats. She had a
couple of old shuttlecocks. They aren't worth a lot, and she wouldn't budge.
I'd decided to slope off when we met this man waiting for an illegal auction
ring to finish in a tavern. He started doing card tricks.

Alana was fascinated. My hopes rose that she might leave me, if
she was fascinated enough.

'It's the eastern shuffle,' I told Alana airily.

'Shush, Lovejoy!' she'd cried. Sleekie produced four aces from the
pack. Then, surprising even me, a fifth.

Sleekie had smiled. 'It sometimes works by chance, sir. That's why
nobody ever gambles on that trick.'

'I'd gamble,' I said recklessly.

He said, 'Play you for your lady, then?'

A joke, but with pretended anger I grabbed the cards. 'Right!'

'Lovejoy!' cried Alana, but thrilled.

'Then I too will stake everything I possess,' Sleek said
gallantly. Maybe that's why he always gets the bird, having more outrageous
lies.

We cut the cards, the highest card in five. He was determined to
lose, of course, after which he'd entice me and gullible boozers into a game.
I'd end up losing, and so would everybody else. These card sharks are ten a
penny. On auction nights they go from tavern to pub, work the football trains.
I played silly, of course nicking the top card. He knew, but couldn't accuse me
outright of wanting to lose Alana. His eyes went glassy. He had no time for
legerdemain. I kept the pack by my elbow, in case a tentacle reached that far.

He won with the ace of spades I'd given him. Tight-lipped, I
bussed Alana. She stared with horror as I offed, obviously to blow my brains
out from grief. In fact I went to a dance at Benignity's, only hiding my
heartfelt sorrow, of course. It was Alana's own tight-fisted fault, her and her
rotten collection.

A twelvemonth later, I met Sleek on his way to Newmarket races. We
had a laugh, old times. He didn't harbour a grudge. Alana had turned up trumps
(sorry), helped him in sussing out marks in taverns, did a few games of her
own.

He'd ditched her in Southampton, a cruise ship. I sold him the
Braithwaite, brokering for Big Frank from Suffolk, our local bigamist,
trigamist, umpteenamist, who still owes me for my cut. It had belonged to an
old colonel with a gammy leg in an old folks' home.

I'd have gone for more legitimate means of transport, but I needed
to blaze a trail. Reason: the old crate thundering away was unique. It was made
by one Braithwaite, inventor of no renown. Very few people knew of its
existence, except me, Sleekie, sundry ex-Sleek women currently recycling, and a
few antique dealers. They alone would know what, and who, they were following.
And one or more of them would know why.

Whoever came a-hunting me had hired the rival divvy, who was
destroying me. It had begun when Tinker's girl called Vyna arrived, instantly
to go missing.

That too was an uneasy thought. I lost concentration, frightening
a motorist into hooting. Then he forgave me with a salute and a grin. I waved,
fixed my eyes on the road, enthusiast of the sport of kings.

There's a village called Birdbeck so small that everybody misses
it. Go through in second gear, you won't even know. It's within striking
distance of my own village. It has two other attributes. The first is it's the
unlikeliest hideout on earth if you want concealment. The second is Lizbet.

The hideout is a sweetpea farm. No kidding. Far as the eye can
see, sweetpeas all colours of the rainbow. People come miles just to be
photographed against the hues, scent the perfume. To me, see one sweetpea, see
all. But Lizbet sends out catalogues by the million every year, sweetpeas this
colour, that shape, this fragrance. You'd think people'd get fed up, but every
year it's onward and upward.

'Wotcher, love. Lizbet about?' I parked beyond the forecourt. A
quiet time. No queues, only women packing shipments.

'Up at the big house.'

'Ta.' I walked the rest, met Lizbet in her estate wagon before I
was halfway.

'Lovejoy.' She cut the engine. 'How long this time? Two minutes?
Ten?'

'Don't, Lizbet.' I hesitated. 'On your own?' She wouldn't have
stopped otherwise.

'Don't pry. What do you want?'

Lizbet can force you into honesty.

'I am in trouble, love, but just passing.'

'Does it involve the police?'

My disclaiming chuckle would have appeased anybody else. It didn't
even change her face. And it is a lovely face, smooth skin, eyes like jewels,
fair hair, lips that tell you more than red wine. I felt myself pulled.

'I asked about police, Lovejoy.' She closed the car window a
little. We talked through the slit. What did Tubb say about talking through
glass?

'Of course not, love. I nicked a motor, without.' She knew without
what. 'Can I leave it here till eventide? How's Jonto?' She has this infant.

'Not so little. Started school now.'

'Oh, er, great.' School? He couldn't have. Wasn't it only two
years? But Lizbet was an obsessional timekeeper, so probably knew Jonto's age.
I felt dispirited. Time would be more likeable if it'd only give it a rest for
a month or two. 'Look, Lizbet. If it'll queer your pitch, I'll move on.'

'I'll let you, Lovejoy.'

'Right, right.' I was relieved, though I'd have still left the
Braithwaite even if she'd said no, in a coppice you can reach from the main
road.

Something caught my eye. A stick bearing my name, near a wide
swathe of the most beautiful blossoms you ever did see. Magenta—no, more a
purply scarlet. Exquisite. Take back what I said about sweetpeas being all the
same. This one was magnificently shaped, wondrous. The throbbing hue stretched
over the main field, deep, perfect, flowers from outer space.

'What's that, love?'

'Lathyms odoratus
,' she snapped. 'The
plants we grow. Forgotten that too?'

My name was on the stick.
L.
odoratus
, var.
Lovejoy
, it said.
I went to look, touched petals. Lovely. I cleared my throat. Me?

'Lovejoy,' I read dully. I'd have looked at Lizbet, but flowers
make your eyes run. 'Rotten name for a species.'

'Variety, not species. Is that it, the extent of your visit?'

'How's the farm?'

'Hard as ever, Lovejoy. Competitors, money for expansion, the
usual. Lucky we're the best.'

‘I heard you won again. Prizes, in the paper.'

'Naturally. You?'

We were fencing like Basil Rathbone in some mediaeval castle, but
I was out of snarls. I kicked the soil, finally met her eye.

'Lovejoy Towers not been repossessed yet?'

'Yes.' I gauged the daylight. 'Look, love. I'd best be off.'

'Get in. I'll drive you, overtake the bus.'

And the whole journey we made what my Gran called spoon-and-saucer
conversation, anything but what mattered. She dropped me off ahead of the Bures
bus, drove off without a word.

Late afternoon, I reached town, lurked in the bus station's grotty
nosh bar until twilight, then marched to battle.

An American gambler once said everybody ought to gamble, in case
they were secretly lucky and never found out. That's like the belief in
antiques. Sooner or later, we're all going to

find the missing Old Master, Robin Hood's famous Last Will and
Testament, or that stupendous Hope Diamond's nonexistent twin. Look at the
numbers who turn up at the 'antiques road shows' that flood the nation every
weekend, carrying bedspreads, old—indeed new—chamber pots, desks made last
week, porcelain figurines churned out in Taiwan. The truth: most is trash, utter
dross. The fiction? Why, we know our thing is
Gainsborough/Hepplewhite/Wedgwood/ Lalique/Ming Dynasty. Anybody who says
different is obviously trying to cheat us.

In other words, the con. But in antiques we con ourselves, as if
we want to save dealers the bother. The hope in folks' eyes breaks my heart.
There's a proverb: Guard against your enemies, but not even Heaven can save you
from friends. There's truth. Our biggest friend is ourself—we think. We're our
own worst enemy. This explains what follows.

The possibilities in any town are endless. But here, Thekla was
gunning for me. Oddly was all right. Tinker should have been my first choice,
but I'd got that strange feeling about him. Basil-the-Donkey, Alf, Gumbo and
his ilk at the Antiques Centre? Well, hardly. I owed Alf that non-existent
Bowie knife. Roger Boxgrove no also, because I'd got that strange feeling about
him too. Carmel? I was hired to do some sand job for her, now lost in my
labyrinthine mind. Tubb, her superstitious helper, I'd avoid, because God knows
who he was phoning every stride. Jessica wasn't really up to this, and anyway'd
sort of got religion, or not.

I crossed the road, keeping to the shop doorways, still working it
out. I could fail on my own without Sadly Sorrowing's help. Lydia had declared
independence. Mavis her mum had it in for me. Brad and Patsy were civilians,
not in the game. Kent the Rammer, the rest, had jobs. Portenta, Tubb's
stargazer, would be casting runes. Faye had had me arrested for not killing her
bloke Viktor Vasho. Big John Sheehan only gives orders, never accepts them.
Cradhead the Bill would gaol me for whatever crimes he suspected the world of.

Unerringly, I picked my one proven enemy. With a dangerous woman
you know where you are, safety rule.

Aureole had left no lights on. I still had her key. She'd still be
out, to see to her chain-dating quota. I just turned the key and went in. It's
strange going into a place you intend not to burgle. It's as if it raises its
eyebrows in astonishment, what are you doing here? I have feelings about
houses, just as they have, if we'd but listen.

The kitchen, bedroom, pantry, where I'd washed the ambers. The
fail-safe computer was in the wall of her bedroom. Her chain-date code word was
AUREOLE, about as original as people get with access codes. She'd not used her
birth date, though oddly I knew it from when we'd made smiles, two days before
mine at the end of September.

The console came on easy, just the one button underneath. I didn't
put any lights on.

I can't work those computer mouse gadgets, being clumsy, and they
never click when you want. I used the keyboard. God, I pity folk who tap away
at those things all day. It took me, I swear, nearly an hour's blundering to
get the simple alphabetic list of chain-date clients. I couldn't find the
actual dates. Aureole, clever lass, had blocked access.

The list seemed endless. It scrolled up and down, me wildly mixing
right, then wrong, instructions, then having to start again at the beginning. I
had to get up and take deep breaths. The computer wearily started firing
instructions at me. I meekly obeyed. Finally it listed the names, sternly
ordered me to go One Page Down At A Time.

Which is how I came on Boxgrove, Roger. I stared at the name. A
number against his name, 007164. After long negotiation I persuaded the console
to sequence the numbers.

Grumpily, the screen rolled them before me at breakneck speed. I
pleaded with it, and found 007164's date.

I sat staring. '007164: Dill, Vyna'. Tinker's missing relative.
There was a 'Catalogue Reference' file, but I couldn't find it. Possibly
details of each client—age, preferences, availability days, where not to go in
case of meeting husband/wife/ neighbours.

One thing narked me. I came across my name—me, for heaven's sake.
Against Faye Burroughs. She had a number, I didn't. Against me were the words
Reserve: Aur. So I was put aside for Aureole? A titbit for afters, when the
great lady could be bothered? I seethed, almost told the damned thing to ablate
its memory. You can do that, except I didn't know how.