Pearlhanger

by Jonathan Gash

  Sometimes I wonder if women aren’t incapable of having friends. Maybe by nature they can only make lovers and haters. Olivia had been told everything, leading me on to have me caught. The ultimate of a lifetime, sinning to do right.

  I went to the exit door where Constable Perry waited. ‘Another search, or can I go, Constable?’

  ‘Lot 161, lady,’ a goon was saying behind me in that cold voice I remembered from my phone calls. Big John’s nerk had come to pay and collect.

  Perry and the guard searched me outside on the steps, but it wasn’t the breeze which made me shiver. The first thing Sheehan would do would be to get some expert to check the pendant’s authenticity. Any jeweller worth his pay would find the sign scratched on it. It was my very own mark: Ly ft: Lovejoy fecit. Then the heads would roll, including maybe mine. But as long as they included Deamer’s and Donna’s and Chatto’s I wouldn’t mind. Much.

  Chapter 28

  EVER GONE THROUGH a period when stress suddenly ends? I staggered across to the Lamb and Flag.

  ‘I can remember,’ I told the barmaid scathingly as I paid her, ‘when a pint cost a groat.’

  ‘You seen the price of groats lately?’ she said. A know-all. In her job she must know more about the antiques trade than anyone on earth.

  I came over all of a do and sat quivering, overlooking the road until Lydia came over. She’d collected the money we’d got from the Jewish marital ring.

  ‘Not a bad price,’ I praised, except La French would kill me for not having the gelt to pay her for it.

  ‘Is it all done now, Lovejoy?’ Lydia asked.

  ‘Somebody’ll tell us that, soon,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

  We travelled to my cottage in serene safety. No bands of Indians lined the bypass. The old Ruby clattered unmolested into our village.

  Lydia brewed up for us, then got down to repairing my clothes huffing angrily. Of course she was going to report it to the Home Secretary, the Ombudsman, and God-knows-who-else. She actually does this. She’s got a file, ever-growing, of complaints about ignored complaints. I read, rested, went over past auctions.

  She said nothing about the auction, but I could tell she’d been as frightened as I was. As the afternoon wore on she got me to try and make up with Sandy and Mel. I knew it was her way of wanting the world sewn together again. About five o’clock, with the sky leaden and winds rising, I phoned. Sandy screamed, ‘Oh, Mel, dear! It’s him! The one who said those things about our lovely motor,’ and slammed the receiver down. Lydia rang and talked for twenty minutes to no avail. I was in the dogbox right enough. I tried to please her by phoning Margaret Dainty and a few of the others, even asking after Tinker. No use either.

  By six o’clock the Assyrian still hadn’t descended like a wolf on the fold. I was beginning to feel rather chirpy. If Big John didn’t send his militia, I thought in my optimism, then he’d guessed what really happened and gone after the real villains, the gang of four. Every second that passed meant that Deamer, Chatto et al. were probably strapped to a table while Big John’s laser beam crept nearer and nearer.

  By seven o’clock I’d decided on a celebration nosh. There’s a new Italian place not far, just near the castle. Lydia protested about wasting money. She’s got one of those electronic calculators that frightens me to death, but tonight I was having no ethics. There’s a time and place. We drove in grandly and got the frascati going in a corner table where the candlelight hurts your eyes.

  Curiously, it was a celebration even though during the pasta bit Lydia got an attack of anxiety and the calculator appeared on the tablecloth between symbolic mounds of noodles. She reproachfully lectured us about the state of Lovejoy, Inc.’s finances. I didn’t care. I’ve handled better reproaches than that. Electronic gadgets are no experts in the human condition, and I am. Two gentlemen, perhaps lawyers hatching a double fee, were engaged in tranquil debate. One day maybe I’ll look that educated, I wished enviously.

  ‘I think we’ve made it, chuckie,’ I told Lydia by the dregs of the barolo. ‘We’ve won.’ And I was bragging how brilliantly I’d pulled it all off as we left. That was when our two solicitors finished their repast and courteously stepped aside to let us proceed out of the door. You can always tell real gentlemen, I was thinking as they came after through the trellised arch into the dark street and kidnapped us.

  ‘Keep going, Lovejoy,’ one said amiably. ‘Big John Sheehan needs you.’

  ‘How dare you,’ etc., etc., from Lydia.

  They drove us to the Coach End Motel, five miles out of town. ‘Why here?’ I asked. ‘Big John wouldn’t be seen dead in this dump.’

  ‘It is Mr Sheehan’s,’ one of the smoothies announced. Closer to, in the garish lights of the forecourt, he looked cadaverous.

  ‘Nice place,’ I said, swallowing. I hadn’t known. Watching the Rolls recede towards the bypass was the loneliest feeling on earth. Many parked cars, the sound of a band, the hubbub of bars. If Ledger’s police had followed they’d be daft enough to trail the Rolls into London, leaving me in Big John’s hands.

  ‘Does she never stop rabbiting?’ the goons asked me as we climbed stairs. I’d looked about for doorways, crowded saloons, a dance hall, but we went in through a side entrance. The ascent was steep, the walls bare. Lydia was shoved one-handedly on to a corridor chair. I couldn’t help being interested. Maybe if I lived he’d show me how to do that. I was hauled through a door and faced a roomful of violence. The atmosphere was thick with potential assault.

  Five blokes played cards in one corner, four others talked quietly. One played patience. He hadn’t noticed a red nine on a black ten. Big John was in his favourite ochre, a pricey worsted. Prize thoroughbred cattle had gladly laid down their lives to provide skin for his handcrafted tan shoes. Troglodytes had hewed the gemstones that glittered on his cravat, his rings, his facer watch, his wristlet charm. He’d been pacing the floor. You could practically see where the carpet still smouldered. Two of the morose card players showed signs of a recent battering. Their eyes were multiple purples, lips negroidal under brown crusted blood. Big John had expressed displeasure.

  ‘Wotcher, John,’ I said. He stood and stared.

  ‘Shtum, you,’ one of the goons told me, and said to John, ‘Him and her went home to his rubbishy pad in the sticks—’

  I’d have complained, but democracy had closed for the night.

  ‘They did nothing,’ the goon added. He had one of those carrying voices would-be Hamlets pray for. ‘Phoned friends, nothing. Rang them two queers, nosh at the Romagna Mia. She talked about cooking and stuff, though we waited all the meal.’

  ‘Right,’ Big John said. I actually saw his gold-capped teeth gleam as he walked and belted me a backhander across the face. I went over, ruining the card player’s patience and fetching up against a sofa. A bloke snickered, extended a leg and toed me away. Big John stepped across and kicked the bloke’s legs once, twice, again, again, until something cracked, then strolled back to the ornate mantelpiece. He snapped his fingers. The bloke who’d kicked me was bundled out. Somebody gave Big John a thin cigar, lit it. He hadn’t smoked at all, once.

  ‘Funny tart you got, Lovejoy. You dun arf pick ’em.’ He shook his head, mystified.

  ‘They pick me, John.’

  He grinned, blowing smoke. ‘Sure, boyo. I remember. The CO’s wife. I owe you one for that.’

  We were in the same khaki mob once. I’d accidentally come forward for something when he’d been wrongly accused. It hadn’t been my fault, and a woman who chats you up on a lonely railway station can be anybody from anywhere, right? I went with her once or twice – well, all right, continuously – on a forty-eight hour pass. She’d said she was divorced. How could I know?

  ‘You owe me two, John. You hit me for nowt just now.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ He blew a pious halo in smoke, prepared to forgive and forget.

  ‘And a third thing you owe me,’ I said. ‘I tried to save you a fortune, but you were too th
ick to realize.’

  The room stood still. The band crashed and trumpeted on the floor below. The walls vibrated to merrymaking. But up here I was pig-in-the-middle. My stance was supposed to imply that everything had been done on Big John’s behalf.

  ‘Wait.’ Big John gestured his men to immobility, nodded permission for me to explain. That meant I better had.

  ‘You bought it then, eh?’ I said. It was there on a baize-covered table, just as I’d seen it in the auction room. ‘What’s your idea of the scam, John?’

  ‘You’ve used up ten of your nine lives by that, Lovejoy.’ He pointed at me, two fingers with the cigar burning crossways between. ‘You swapped the genuine pendant for this fake. It’s even got your name on it. Lovejoy fecit. You always label your own forgeries, you bastard. I know that much. Too big-headed to sell without bragging, eh? So gimme Deamer’s original piece, Lovejoy.’

  He clouted me, other hand and different direction. This time into a plant-stand that rained leaves. The plantpot stood firm, thank God. It’d have driven me in like a tent peg. I reeled to, dabbing at my mouth and nose. Blood. Still, nobody had kicked me this time. Things were looking up.

  ‘Or . . . ?’ I prompted, crossing dizzily to an armchair, and perched with a hankie at my face. My head was spinning.

  ‘Or what?’ He was puzzled at my composure. I knew him, but he knew me.

  ‘Or you’re wrong, John. To start with, I was searched in and out. Police cameras kept a film record of my every move in that office. Ask Ledger to let you run the videos. And the thing was strapped down with a look-only grid. The only item I touched was a lens my apprentice passed me via a guard.’

  Big John interrogated the galaxy about the word ‘apprentice’ by a raised brow. The cold voice answered, ‘He means that gabby tart.’

  ‘And your people examined it before the sale, John.’

  He nodded, glowering bitterly at the two beaten men. ‘All the time. So what happened?’ They waited anxiously for my reply.

  ‘Nobody replaced it, John. No dummying.’

  ‘See, boss?’ one of the puffy faced goons said with relief.

  ‘But there was no Lovejoy fecit on it until . . .’ Big John paused.

  ‘Until I put it there, pal. I used a marker loupe.’

  ‘You marked – ruined – my frigging antique, Lovejoy?’ Luckily he hesitated a split second. ‘But you’re a divvie. You’d never mark it, unless it was . . .’

  ‘Fake, John.’ We’d got there at last.

  ‘She did pass him an eyeglass, John,’ some idiot said.

  John strolled over and abruptly stunned the speaker with a backhander. ‘Then you should have told me, careless bleeder.’ He paused and addressed the room. ‘ ’Tisn’t in me heart to forgive carelessness. D’you hear me now?’ The room nodded. His Londonderry brogue was showing, an ominous index of exasperation.

  ‘The alternative theory, John,’ I said, ‘is that I went in and put my mark on Deamer’s “original” – for no reason, at great risk and expense, while alienating all the peelers in East Anglia.’

  ‘Or . . . ?’ he said. One thing about Sheehan is that he’s no time for the superfluous. Bloodied as I was, I had to smile at his echo.

  ‘Or the truth, John. You’ll not like it. Anybody got a drink?’

  Another nod. They got me a spätlese, some German stuff which takes the blood taste from your tongue. It gave me a thinking minute. Then I told him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Nearly.

  ‘Deamer worked up a syndicate to exploit scotchers,’ I said. ‘Brought from Fife, good big baroque pearls fresh out of the water. The way into the international antiques market is a variant. Even art forgers like Michelangelo and Adolf Hitler knew that. Different degrees of sureness, of course.’

  He was restless. ‘Go on, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Start off with a biggie. It could have been any famous pearls: the Florence-Marchimisi set, Naples 1871. The Dudley pearls of London. The Orange pearls. The Notch Brook freshwater pearl from New Jersey, 1857, that the Empress Eugenie acquired. Any. Deamer settled for a baroque piece, because scotchers are baroques.’

  ‘Not always.’ Big John actually said those words, but they somehow cast an image of Deamer on a meathook. I almost retched, carried bravely on.

  ‘But usually. A lookalike of a famous baroque. The Canning Siren’s so well documented every collector knows it. He got a syndicate together. Chatto, Vernon, Vernon’s wife Donna. They could produce the goods, actually incorporate a big baroque in a forgery. Pearls are difficult. Gold’s easy, now that every little forger does spectrography.’

  ‘True,’ Big John agreed miserably. ‘It’s a fucking nuisance, all this chemistry. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ the universe chorused gruffly, glaring at the very idea.

  ‘And once Deamer’s fake variant was sold as authentic, they were in. They could do it time after time. Message ends, John.’

  He rose, reasoning. Something of a record, I mused. ‘And every year Deamer’s syndicate produces more brilliant lookalikes,’ he seethed. My bruises screamed for exemption next round, please. ‘Authenticity would be guaranteed – once his first item was sold at a nationally known auction. Like today.’

  ‘Well done,’ I said and got a warning finger. I wouldn’t be allowed any more liberties. ‘I couldn’t stand by, John. I heard of it, and tried phoning you a warning. Twice.’

  His brow furrowed. Icy-Voice went white. ‘And?’ Big John asked.

  I shrugged. This sickened me, but God knows what else I could do. ‘I got told to piss off.’

  Big John sauntered casually past his men, opened the window. We were two floors up. Night air drifted in to music. ‘Out, Harry,’ he said conversationally.

  ‘John,’ Icy-Voice pleaded, voice panic-hot.

  ‘Go on, Lovejoy.’ Big John was actually having his cigar relighted when two of his goons lurched Harry out of the window into the fragrant dark. A crash failed to interrupt Big John’s train of thought, though the rest of us were drenched in sweat.

  ‘I’ll make no bones about it, John,’ I said. ‘I don’t like Deamer. I owe him one, the bastard. When you took no notice I thought: Fine. I’ll bubble Deamer with John. And I’d honestly tried.’

  ‘So you got your apprentice to carry a marker loupe in?’

  ‘Mmmmh. And marked Deamer’s pendant. The loupe’ll still be in her handbag.’ I halted dramatically, close to overplaying. ‘If I’d wanted entirely out, I’d have done nothing. Instead I risked all sorts of hassle from peelers to get in.’

  ‘What’d they done to you, Lovejoy? Some bird?’

  ‘Killed an old lady. She wasn’t much, but that wasn’t her fault.’

  There was a long pause. One of the lawyer types made as if to speak but wisely stifled. Finally Big John cleared his throat, and pronounced.

  ‘The point is, boys, Lovejoy is no muscle.’

  All gazes fixed me with the detached curiosity of the paleontologist. Trilobites have received more humane glances.

  ‘He has,’ Big John said on, thoughtfully, ‘no hopes on his own. So he could be telling the truth. Check the tart.’ A goon sprang out, hardly an eddy in the smoke. ‘And Lovejoy needn’t have marked the wealth. Right?’

  Anxiously I joined in the chorus of agreement to help it along. I was sweating trickles between my shoulder blades. All jewellery is ‘wealth’ to buyer-dealers on Big John’s scale.

  ‘So you owe me, John,’ I said. ‘If you’re too dumb to accept a favour . . .’

  ‘I’ve warned you before, Lovejoy,’ he said, but didn’t move, which saved me a walk back from wherever he’d have clouted me. ‘There’s only one thing. The police . . .’

  Some people do it by instinct, which is the reason Big John Sheehan’s still got the whole Greek antiques market sewn up in his brother’s pocket. (Not his own, note. He’s not daft.)

  ‘Thought you’d never get there, John.’ I grinned so much my lip split again and bled merrily.
‘You’re right it’s the police. It’s Chandler. Ledger warned me off in case I mucked up his own ploy, which was to net Chandler. I reckon Chandler is in with Deamer; wanted to cop me red-handed. It would have cleared them.’

  We observed the infinite while Big John caught up.

  ‘You did well, Lovejoy. Brave lad.’

  ‘Ah no, John.’ Regretfully I shook my head. ‘They’ve done it. Chandler stays on in the local antiques fraud division. They need him. It’s unbeatable, John. You, me, my apprentice in there, we’ve all lost.’ I shrugged, sighed to show how much it hurt.

  Nobody does Big John down, as we all knew.

  He paced, stopped. ‘One last bit of proof, Lovejoy. Heads’ll bounce for this, m’dear boy.’ He was warning me that somebody was going to swing, and soon. Therefore he had to be sure.

  ‘Will six bits do?’ I offered. ‘Send this army. Take flashlights. You’ll find six trial replicas of Deamer’s so-called antique in my workshed.’

  His eyes slitted. ‘Six half-dones maybe means one fully completed one, eh, Lovejoy?’

  ‘That was my original plan, John. I admit it. Until Deamer and Chatto did for Owd Maggie. Then it got beyond a joke. And by then Deamer had framed me for another job. The Old Bill were everywhere.’

  Big John pointed to three goons. ‘Go. Take that bird to show where.’

  ‘Show them where all six are, love,’ I called as the door opened, meaning not to mention the seventh.

  ‘I shall insist on a receipt, Mr Sheehan,’ she called back, a threat.

  It felt no safer with fewer goons around. Every one could have diced me single-handed.

  While we waited I told Big John the story right from the first seance, the antiques sweep with Donna, Owd Maggie buying it, Vernon’s passing, my hopeless raid on Deamer’s. I was careful to include Donna’s affair with Chatto, and exclude the details about the big baroque pearls to be found in the river. Let him assume they were got from the Tay. It would do no harm, especially to Vanessa.

  We chatted old times while we waited. Big John was laughing and asking my opinion about Lucie-Smith’s famed advice on collecting (find a group of nutters obsessed with one category of art; trust your own judgement; then spend) when they brought Lydia back. ‘The more I see of that Siren job,’ I was telling Big John, ‘the more it looks like the work of that Italian goldsmith near the big bridge in Florence. Know him? Does it all from photos. He has an army of photographers, though he’s mostly Etruscan items.’ They’d been an hour and fetched my six test fakes in a brown paper bag. They left Lydia outside.