The Possessions of a Lady (37 page)

'In here, Lovejoy.'

There are grades of caravans. Amy's was extra huge and coloured a
quivering purple, a temple on wheels. It seemed to expand as I climbed in, into
three half-partitioned rooms. The floor was disturbingly on a cant. Girls were
frantically sewing, rushing in the confined space. Dresses were everywhere. I
could hardly see or think for the noise. I swayed, covered my ears.

'What's the matter, Lovejoy?' Amy pulled at my hands.

'It's the . . .' Noise? There was no noise. Only the girls'
muttering. The commotion outside was hardly deafening. 'Sorry,' I said. The
noise, the deafening non-existent din, was in me.

'Sit down for heaven's sake.' Amy had the woman's innate anger at
somebody having the effrontery to be taken poorly. She sent her children
scurrying for cold tea and biscuits. She always was into traditional remedies.
I was lucky she didn't have a jar of leeches and a phlebotomy handy.

Within minutes I'd recovered, came to sitting among old dresses,
coats, berthas, lace, hats, veils, in every material the nineteenth century
could create. Florsston should have come after all. Handbags, gloves, ladies'
boots, chatelaines, reticules. Racks of boxes had labels bragging of breast and
wrist watches, jewellery, brooches, rings. I really like those laburnum-wood
ring trees, that you occasionally still find on bedroom tables. Fruit wood,
pear or apple, have the best feel. You can still buy them for mere pence.

'Nice frocks, love,' I said eventually. Amy was watching me
curiously.

‘I know you, Lovejoy. Is it like that time?'

'What time?' I challenged. She looked away.

'I thought something here gave you a funny turn.'

At the far end of the caravan two girls were kneeling between rows
of Victorian dresses. Each long dress was covered in plastic. The
jewellery—brooches, pendants, earrings, lockets, necklaces—was in labelled bags
looped over the mannequins and hangers. My brain was like a clanging
lighthouse. I made myself look away. I remembered the old commissionaire at the
textile museum, what he'd said. I saw the brooches, the pendants, all cheap
metal alloys, pinchbeck, copper, tin. And knew it all. No wonder they killed.
They'd have thought it cheap at the price.

'It's Aureole,' I invented. Blame a woman to a woman, you can get
away with murder. 'She upset me. I'm sorry.'

'What's the matter?' Rodney said, swishing in. Then screamed, 'Oh,
no
! It's
him
! That vandal!'

Rodney now? My least favorite carpet slayer.

'Look, Amy.' I was all apology. 'I'll be outside.'

'At a distance of miles!' Rodney cried.

'If you're sure, Lovejoy.' Amy was still doubtful. 'We can't have
you keeling over on my stage.'

Charming, I thought, narked. Never mind me, think of scrawny birds
tripping down planks. As long as your priorities are right. I left, bumped into
Nicola. She had this dog. Labrador? I don't know enough about them.

'Lovejoy! You're here! A man called Maurice simply gave me this
dog for you!' She was so relieved. 'Jodie? Go to Lovejoy.'

'Ta.' I took the lead. Jodie must be my rot hound. 'I'm, er, good
with dogs. Hello, Jodie. Okay?' I walked with Nicola.

The dog kept looking up at me, tongue lolling. Why do they lick
air all the time?

'Let me show you round, Nicola,' I said loudly, blithe. 'That old
house over there—see it?—was the chapel manse, then a mill-owner's mansion

Stroll pace, we went through the mob. The caravans thinned. We
passed people having fry-ups, dealers talking prices. Wanda's auction catalogue
was on sale, stacks in bright yellow covers. One dealer called, 'Hello,
Lovejoy. Interested in ikons?' I called back, 'Wotcher, Trallee. Nar. There's
no market . . .' An in joke. Dealers laughed, expressions woebegone. There's
always a market for genuine Russian ikons. Italy and Turkey are the fake
masters, Moscow itself nowadays. Cost, less than a paperback. Profit—if you
find somebody daft enough to trust your 'genuine 1750' ikon of St
Nicholas—enough to buy a good corner shop.

'These old mansions were in stark contrast,' I told Nicola loudly,
for others' benefit, 'with mill workers' hovels.' Jodie, sensing a serious job,
tugged at her lead.

'Can we go back, Lovejoy?' Nicola asked, doubtful. She looked at
her shoes, the overgrown yard, the wonky gate.

'It's interesting.' In case of listeners, Terence Entwistle in
particular, now we were close to the ruin, I said loudly, 'Yes, we can go in.
Nobody here.'

The house looked even worse close to. A fire had gutted much. The
sounds of the mob faded. The bands' clamour receded. We could have been miles
away.

The house seemed reproachful; why have you let me get like this? I
felt heartbroken for the poor thing. Once so grand, now with its rafters
showing, patches of wall fallen into the weed-choked gardens. Clumsily I
released Jodie's lead, whispered 'Find, mate'. Wood rot doesn't survive a fire.

Prattling folklorish nonsense to Nicola about the locality, I strolled
casually after, whistling. Jodie vanished. Nicola asked doubtfully if Jodie
would be all right.

'Eh? Oh, fine. She, er, likes a stroll.'

At maximum decibels, I told Nicola that Florsston was on his way.

'Oh, Lovejoy! How sweet!'

'He's keen to help, love.' A lie can postpone truth, and Florsston
by now had reached Italy. I heard a frantic barking from the wonky landing.
Jodie had gone up its charred struts like, well, a whippet. It was from up
there that the hullabaloo came. I had to call her a number of times before she
returned, disgruntled. I got her lead on, patted her head. She shrugged me off.
I was really pleased with her, but she'd gone off me.

We went towards the first swaggers of the fashion models. Nicola
stayed to admire them, while I cadged some tea from Amy's children in exchange
for letting them pat the dog. A thin balding bloke was there. Jodie seemed to
know him.

'You Maurice?' I asked. He nodded.

'Just give her her head, Lovejoy. She'll find dry rot the size of
a penny in a palace.'

'Ta, Maurice. She's already done her trick. Pay you tonight, at
Brannan Hey.'

Maurice took some snuff, waggling his pinched thumb and forefinger
up his conk. God, but we're a rum species. 'Already?' He looked at Jodie.
'She's pissed owff, Lovejoy.' He shook his head. 'Dogs are workers. Give them a
job, they're happy as pigs in muck. You didn't work her.'

'She performed brilliantly, Maurice. Honest.'

'Sure?' He looked as sorry as Jodie. 'If you say.'

Jodie went with him, giving me a glance of utter disdain. I didn't
know dogs could sneer. Her lope after Maurice was an indignant lope. I was
narked, bollocked by a frigging mongrel. I'd patted her, hadn't I?

'Ta, Jodie,' I called weakly. 'You were superb.'

And she was, finding the rot-laden antique of Mayor Tom. I
couldn't shout that, though.

35

The auction,' wailed the tannoy, 'begins with the grand quiz. Get
those answers in, everone!'

Tinker had placed Florsston's blue lac fake on a makeshift stand.
You paid a zlotnik, guessed its value. I never understand why this is such a
stunning attraction. The money was in brimming buckets, which only goes to
show. (I'm not sure what, but it does.) Nicola was being enthusiastic,
applauding the bands, helping children to get ready. She even danced a reel
with the uillean pipers. Pretty lass, Nicola, going to waste.

Wanda was there, smiling hard. And Bertie, calculators poised. I
couldn't walk far from Amy's purple caravan. By now it was a centre of activity.
The canvas-cloistered catwalk leading to the chapel was a busy thoroughfare.
Each model who did her test trot was greeted with ecstatic oohs and aahs. I
leaned toward the purple trailer as if sucked.

'Fair old mob, eh, Lovejoy?' Roger said.

'Roger?' Roger Boxgrove, as ever suave, debonair. 'This far
north?' Nothing here for him. I could only think of Pete Marsh, the Bog Man
sacrificed thousands of years ago in a Cheshire peat marsh, but now reposing in
a glass Roger-proof exhibition case in the British Museum.

'Just seeing a friend.' When I looked disbelieving, he leant
conspiratorially close. 'Still hoping for Faye.'

That was a relief. What with Rodney, Vyna, Roadie's sudden
vanishment, the distraught Aureole—still being deflected by Wanda's Praetorian
Guard—I was too worn out to take on more suspects. Carmel I could trust, Tinker
said. Faye? She was there, avoiding me, talking fashion into a dictaphone for
her newspaper.

'I sold Thekla's fashion friends some palaeolithic artefacts once,
to dress up a display. Costly, but brilliant!'

'I can imagine.'

'How much, Lovejoy?' Roger nodded at the blue lac. In the cold
light of day it looked lack-lustre.

This is people for you. I sighed. A new millionaire, yet still
corrupting away for pennies. 'That's it, Roger. You have to guess.'

'You here, Roger?' Wanda, steaming up. She demanded, 'What's he
been saying, Lovejoy?'

'Nothing. Just do one thing, Wanda, eh?'

'What?'

'Buy a guess for the cabinet.' She made to snap, but I gave her my
foulest eye.

She glanced doubtfully at Roger, and did as she was told. I headed
for the beer tent where the whifflers were having a final pint before the
auction. On the way, I got accosted by Nicola.

'Lovejoy,' Nicola said. 'Florsston isn't coming, is he?'

'Eh? Course he is, love!' I did my best optimism. 'I've had a
message! He's on the M6.'

Tears streamed down her face. 'No, Lovejoy.' That loon was still
announcing the quiz, rasping it out. 'Florsston's in Italy, isn't he? You
knew
he was lying.'

Typical. Florsston lies, so I get the blame.

'Listen, love.' I get desperate. ‘I only wanted . . .'

‘I suppose I knew, Lovejoy, deep down. He wouldn't even sit beside
me, let alone

So why become obsessed by a misogynist in the first place? Things
were getting too much.

'Excuse me, love. The charity.' I hurried to the beer tent where I
assembled some whifflers by the simple act of rubbing my thumb and forefinger
together. If I'd actually had any money, I could have started a new religion.
Free range whifflers go in sixes. I stood apart.

'Any of you locals?' I asked. Heads shook, no. 'Or work for Wanda?
Amy? Stella Entwistle? The mayor?' No, no. 'Then you're hired. I'm Lovejoy.
Who's boss?'

'You are, wack. You're paymaster,' a beery bearded sloven said.
The whifflers made a faint huffing. They never laugh outright. 'They call me
Total.'

'Right, Total. You get the ganger's bonus, depending.' He nodded,
knowing what the money depended on. The ganger's bonus is a third. I walked
off. They followed, gelt apostles. I didn't point. 'Total? See that old burnt
manor? Top floor—Christ's sake be careful; it's nigh gutted—you'll find a few
antiques. Mirrors, paintings, not much. Bring them all down. Load them into a
lorry my mate Tinker'll have by the carousel. Covered, please. I don't want
anybody to see them. Okay?' For me to drive away, as personal fee for my
trouble. I didn't say this.

'Right, mate.'

'One thing, Total,' I added. 'You might bump into Mad Terence.
Ignore him. He's crazy. Your pay's double standard rates, plus half, if you
don't damage any. One mirror's badly dry-rotted.'

'Sooner we get started . . .' They made noises of approval, walked
off with the whiffler's hunched amble. Solemn, grasping, do the job, amble to
the next. They're a rough lot. Not one asked whose antiques they actually were.
A whiffler's job is to shift antiques from A to B, then preferably to C at a
higher hourly rate. I watched fondly. Isn't dedication grand? I got an ice
cream, sat to watch the morrismen dance, tapping my foot to the ancient music,
and thought of what was in the purple caravan.

A diamond is a diamond is a diamond. Ice-colourless, harder than
granite, rare. 'Pinko' diamonds are something else. They are rarer even than
'pure'—meaning colourless 'white' diamonds. Years ago you could hardly give
them away. The only reason people ever bought a pink diamond was that it might
be mistaken, in bad light, for a ruby. Rarest of the rare, the pink diamond was
the poor relation nobody wanted to know about.

Recently, there came a revolution, the quiet kind. An important
statistic happened in good old Oz, Australia the Beautiful. In 1985, Oz
overtook the then USSR in diamond production. Why didn't this news send the
world shrieking into the streets? Because Oz was a relative newcomer, its
diamonds being mostly titchy small, industrial grades, peanut diamonds. The gem
world sniggered behind its hand. If you want to make grinding wheels, go ahead,
use diamonds from Kimberley in Western Australia, see if we care. These
workaday fragments are mundane. What did it matter if Kimberley grubbed up
another seven or eight tons of them a year? Plenty to go round. Dirt-cheap dirt
is cheap, the great diamond centres quipped, chuckling at that 1985 statistic.
Since time immemorial—well, 300 bc —everybody's been daft over the 'white'
bobby-dazzler. Coloured diamonds were third-class gems. Then the penny dropped.
Oz realised that it was virtually the world's
only
source of pinkos.