A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair l-21

by Jonathan Gash

  No, not really. Paintings that have survived from those times show Ancient World statuary. I'm always rocked back onto my heels by the immediacy of the faces, the astounding impact of the colours, the clothes, the brightness of the eyes. Look closely.

  The statues are painted flesh colour! Or, if they're made of bronze, they're painted bronze! They're not black, not green. Collectors over the past two centuries only believed they were. So they went about hunting the opposite of what was right.

  In other words, snobbery made them seek, and pay through the nose for, antiques that were the opposite of genuine. The real Ancient World wanted its statues lifelike, the more flesh-coloured and red-nippled the better. And so what, if the ancient artists had to use a little russet copper to pink up the statue's lips? Living women use cosmetics, everybody dyes their favourite shirts and skirts. Nobody today wants a dead statue, a moribund painting, stuporose art. And they didn't Back Then, either.

  Enter the forger, anybody who could do a hand's turn with a crucible of wood ash and a few impure chemicals.

  There's a saying about patina, among antique dealer illiterati, that 'green is great, black is bosh'. Don't trust this motto. It stems from the great collectors of the early 1800s, who believed that ancient bronzes of pretty goddesses, incense burners and the like, were originally black. So when they bought genuine antique bronzes with greenish patina, they thought, oops, wrong colour. By then, of course, emerging industries could offer collectors a range of chemicals. So you can find marvellously convincing ancient bronzes unaccountably black, when they ought to be lovely matt green. The Chinese have made replicates, new 'fakes', over the past aeons, mimicking patina as a kind of testimony to ancestral creativity. Like, a bronze bowl made in the Ming (say Good Queen Bess's time) period and decorated with a phoney patina is highly valuable even though it's a clear copy of an artifact buried in the Shang period one thousand years BC.

  It's customary nowadays to blame Pliny's remark about patination by bitumen for the notorious black-should-be-green fallacy, but I say leave Pliny alone. We can't go on whining that every mistake we make is somebody else's fault, though that's the modern fashion. Some sins - can this be true? - are of our own making, and we deserve the blame. Mea, in fact, culpa.

  There's chemicals you can buy. Suppose you pick up a modern statuette. Maybe you've even seen it cast in some holiday pottery, foundry, or even in some 'resin-and-rubber', as they're known, moulding shop where tourist trinkets are created. You rather like the bronze appearance of the pretty dancing girl, say. You buy it for pennies. On the way home, you realize how very similar the little figurine is to that statuette Uncle George once had, so cruelly stolen by your nasty cousin from Sunderland. How nice, you think, if this little cheapo had the same patina!

  Any antiques workshop will do it for you. Cost? The price of a cup of coffee. Time?

  Come back tomorrow, and collect. (On the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, people give you any patina you like while you drink the coffee.) Everything made in antique days develops a patina with time, from flints to ironwork, coins to statues, exposed stonework, glass even. And every patina is different. Chlorides, carbonates, sulphides and sulphates, all change metals. My own trick was currently deep in an East Anglian fen. I'd made a series of hammered silver coins of Harold II vintage. They're easily done, if you have the correct die. About ten weeks before, I'd buried three score of these little hammered silver pennies in the slimy fens. A spell of wet weather, a dismal winter-tide, and I'd dig them up by spring. The patina - darkish sulphurous black, smooth and shiny once cleaned - would do the selling for me to other dealers, maybe Chris Ollerenshaw in Wormingford. I'd not need to advertise. Grub money for a few weeks, with luck. Where was I?

  With Alessandro Castellani, in nineteenth-century Rome, while great institutions bought his 'antiquities'.

  Look at Sotheby's, Christie's, Philips, Bonham, Agnews, the rest. Reputation is justifiable snobbery. We go with the flow of common approval when in fact there's no sense in it.

  Buyers the world over love to say to friends, 'Ah, I know they're expensive, but dealers allow me a special price.' Or, 'This restaurant always keeps me a table.' Daft, isn't it.

  Snobbery costs. It's as if we love being ripped off, because it proves we can afford to get done.

  The problem is, it's inextricably mixed with trust.

  Signore Castellani, eminent, thoroughly proper, sold antiques. The greater the museums buying his items, the more he was exalted. The costlier, the higher soared Castellani's fame. There was however one cloud on the horizon. His workshops also produced new items of jewellery 'in the style archeologica', as he freely advertised. A few dark suspicions must have lurked unspoken, because his craftsmen slogged to

  'restore' the assumed original appearances of certain antiques.

  A small step to fakery.

  Over two thousand items of ancient jewellery were imported from Castellani's in 1872.

  Modern laboratory tests prove that his beaten gold filigree is actually made from modern drawn wire. The trace-metal analyses don't hold up. His stuff is what dealers call 'tiler fakery' - that is, a bit of so-say genuine antique here, a bit there, joined by forger's hands. Genuine antique beads or miniature figurines mounted as a modern gold necklace is one of Castellani's typical jokes. They were still coming eighty years later, ending only in the 1930s, when skilled rivals entered the market.

  I don't blame the fakers. They were poor, working for peanuts. British dealers being paramount in Georgian days, several of them set up on the spot. Thomas Jenkins was the faker's maestro. This hero even employed English artists to assist local talent. He had a factory making cameos, amber jewellery, rings, intaglios, actually in - that's in -

  Rome's Colosseum. His blokes did no more than sit round whittling, carving, supplying Jenkins with gems, ambers, cameos, whatever. Some of his pals kept notes, and produced laughable tales - like Joe Nollekens the sculptor, who used to help out by assembling the bits of statues dug up in the vicinity. Jenkins paid off Nollekens with dollops of fakes 'to say nothing', he records with blithe honesty for posterity to read.

  The very best forgers in Rome were Pistrucci and Nathaniel Marchant. I'd give a lot to hold some of Marchant's engraved gems. See the problem? Brilliant artisans, wondrous jewelers, using the same skills and gemstones as the Ancient World. Can you call their creations fakes, forgeries, Sexton Blakes, duplicates, replicas?

  Some antique bronzes Castellani stripped of their genuine patina, and 'restored' them, with more fashionable patinas which museums would more readily buy. It is easily chipped off, and the genuine antique beneath seen clearly.

  Great opportunities there. For the murderous Dieter Gluck.

  Time was getting on. I had to meet my team. I finished my cold tea.

  This canal business - where and what? And Colette. Does a woman hang about because she's addicted to a scene? Because that's what she told me. She was a street-market lover, just like me, she'd said.

  Now, I don't know much about women. Being a bloke I go about saying I do, but that's only me pretending I'm Beau Nash or whoever. I do know one thing, though. It's this: A bloke will slog away at something just because it's that something. He'll slave away building a dream because it's his dream - build a tower, change a coastline. A woman won't. She's too practical. Sooner or later she'll think, good heavens, here am I hauling logs to build a path across this swamp, when I'll never even see its completion. And she'll think, stuff it. She'll leave.

  Unless it's for a Somebody. She'll carry on with might and main for somebody else.

  She'll go hungry, be humiliated, shamed before the herd, suffer indignity year on year.

  It's noble. You may only see an old scrubber woman's degradation as you drive past in your Rolls, but get to know her and she's putting her grandson through medical school or guarding her dead man's memory. Nowadays we're not supposed to be sentimental.

  We've left that behind in Charlie Chaplin films. But i
t's still about, if you look.

  Or if you happen to know somebody like Colette. Who must therefore be protecting somebody dear to her. Who else but her son Mortimer? Presumably he was the lone singer at his dad's funeral in the forest by the vineyard.

  Admittedly only half a tale, but there were glimmerings. I'd get Lydia to piece it together, while I thought of patina and what conceivably might lie beneath. For the first time I felt real hope. For me it's usually not a good omen, but despair makes ghosts, so hope's better.

  17

  OPPOSITE THE EARL of Lonsdale tavern (there was this sign, WOMEN something. It made me think of Colette, and the son she was protecting by becoming Gluck's slag. I couldn't work it out, because motive is rubbish. Maybe I was tired, but the five letters kept rearranging themselves. Strange, the words you can make from that one word, women. Own. New. We. Nemo. I even got a weird sentence: Now women own me, owe no new woe. Woe? The daft game set me nodding off.

  Trout was the first to enter. 'Tinker's about, Lovejoy. Just saw him.'

  'Them padpas, Trout?' Every time we met he got smaller. I got him some bar grub. He looked famished.

  'Your pal Sturffie was the one who sold them, handed them to Chev for delivery. Chev's the courier man, from Aldgate East. He's still in Edinburgh.'

  Bad news. Sturffie might have supplied honest padpa gems, and this Chev could have swapped them. Or Sturffie'd gone bad.

  Tinker came a few yards behind his thunderous cough, clearing spaces through the late afternoon drinkers. I'd had the foresight to have three pints on the table waiting with some pasties.

  He engulfed two pints, then said hello.

  'Floggell's the pits, Lovejoy,' he gravelled out. 'I asked him to help. He chucked me out.'

  'Floggell?' I couldn't believe it. 'He's a pal.'

  'Not now, Lovejoy. He said don't come back.'

  We considered this grim news. To ask an antiques burglar to burgle antiques is like asking fish to swim. Old Masters from an undeserving college, priceless Chinese celadon glaze ware from a museum, Hepplewhite furniture in somebody's home, antiques burglars will always agree. If the job's too big, they simply recruit.

  'Why?' Trout asked. I was proud of him. Good question.

  'Because it's you, Lovejoy. Anybody else, he'd say yes.'

  Me? What had I done, except nothing? I'd come to London, seen one or two friends.

  And now I'm shunned by old pals who ought to be leaping at the jobs I was bringing. It didn't make sense.

  A gorgeous shadow showed in the doorway. For a second I thought it was Lydia, but this was too tall.

  'How did you get on, Lovejoy?' Trout asked.

  The shadow stilled, listening. This in broad daylight, dealers in and out having an ale, a truly average scene.

  'Wait till Lydia gets back—'

  'Er,' I interrupted loudly, 'aye, let's do that. I only spoke to Sorbo. Happened on him by chance, but he only grumbled. You know him.'

  The best I could do. I went to the bar, and caught the girl's reflection. It was Sir Ponsonby's elegant lass Moiya December. Last seen in Dieter Gluck's monster Bentley.

  She gave a wave and left. It wasn't odd, nothing that couldn't be explained by chance. I mean, antiques abounding, and she was an antiques gofer. Was it her fault if she overheard some idle pub talk? Her wave hadn't been directed at me. I made a stumble, which let me glance about. A stout balding man, pipe smoker, looked away in good time. He held a bowler comfortably on his knees, your routine pint-and-baccy Londoner.

  After a while I went to scour for Lydia, and found her in the Hovis bakery beyond the Earl of Lonsdale. I rescued her. We all reunited in the beer garden. She'd had a whale of a time, and just adored Dieter Gluck.

  'Lovely Colette Antiques is wonderful!' she trilled. 'I had a marvellous time! Herr Gluck is an absolute linguist! His manservant Bern was somewhat taciturn but—'

  'What did you discover, love?' I asked. Trout gave me that look.

  'Dieter was so kind! He showed me his sales book. And provided me with a list of his interests! He has a share in a restaurant. Simply smashing!'

  'Smashing,' I agreed gravely. From Herr Gluck to Dieter in one.

  'Lovejoy,' Trout said in his throaty bass. 'I don't believe this.'

  Tinker gave Lydia a tomato juice. The world paused while she made absolutely definitely certain it was salt-free.

  'Love, what questions did Gluck ask you?'

  'None!' She simpered a little. 'I had to insist, or he'd have known absolutely nothing about me! I explained I was interested in his background for my newspaper.'

  We breathed collective relief. 'You told him you're a reporter?'

  'Of course!' She laughed merrily. 'Do the three of you assume I am totally devoid of equivocation? I said I was from the St Edmundsbury Tatler and Gazette.' She sobered.

  'Having previously ascertained that there is no such journal, or it would have been highly improper.'

  'Of course.' I felt us all relax.

  She laughed. 'Certainly! My subterfuge had an almost miraculous effect. We had a lovely meal at the Gluck Orpheo, his establishment.'

  'And he learned nothing about you, Lydia?' I was uneasy. Pint-and-baccy had moved closer, to the next bench.

  'No.'

  She was so proud. I didn't have the heart to question her further, just took Gluck's list from her and stuffed it into my pocket.

  'Right, then,' I said quietly, drawing them in close like spies at a bomb plot. Really pathetic, especially as I was probably imagining things about the stout bloke. 'Here's what we do. Lydia, take on Holloway University. Suss out their paintings, get me off the hook. This is my lawyer.' I gave her Shar's address. 'Trout, you'd best steer clear of Gluck from now on. You and Tinker go back to East Anglia. Suss out Dosh Callaghan.

  From what dealers here say, he couldn't possibly have been taken in like he says.

  Nobody's that dim.'

  'What will you be doing, Lovejoy?' Lydia never trusts me.

  'I'm going shooting. Everybody meet up the day after tomorrow in Camden Passage antiques markets. You know it. The Angel, Islington. Don't go to King's Cross. It's hell of a walk up Pentonville Road.'

  'I like Camden Passage,' Tinker said. 'They pull a good pint at The York.'

  So much for culture. I concluded, 'We must find a youth called Goldhorn. Colette's son.'

  'Mortimer?' Trout said. 'I can find him in an hour.'

  For a little bloke, he certainly stopped conversations. 'Eh?'

  Trout grinned. Gnomes have good grins. 'I like the lad. He talks to birds and dogs in their own lingo.'

  'Birds, or birds?' I was startled. Was Mortimer barmy, and that was Colette's dreadful secret?

  'Not women, you randy git,' Trout said patiently. 'Birds that fly. And hares. And bats, owls, foxes.' We all waited while Trout rummaged in his mind for more quaintness. He found a bit. 'He whistles at fish.'

  'Oh, good.' I'd had enough. 'Lydia, please get me Ordnance Survey maps, massive scale and one inchers, of Saffron Fields. The map shop's in Long Acre, Leicester Square end.'

  I beckoned them closer. 'Do we let Sorbo join us?'

  'Yes,' Trout said. 'Gluck ripped him off badly. He'd done Arthur a score of intaglios in white Baltic amber for pendants. Some of the amber belonged to Sorbo's mum. When Sorbo asked Gluck for payment, that Bern duffed him up then windowed them as his own work.'

  Tinker almost exploded. 'He what? That's a 'angin' offense.'

  I shoved a brimming glass his way to keep the silence, but Tinker was right. Fakers who are true craftsmen, like Sorbo, have pride. To have their forgeries passed off as by another faker is criminal.

  'Right, Sorbo's in. He'll do us a good job, when we find out what to do. Anybody know any titled folk, anyone upper crust, carriage trade? Gluck's Achilles heel is he's a supersnob.'

  'Oh, that can't be true, Lovejoy!' Lydia exclaimed. 'He was charming!'

  Trout said from deep in his miniature chest, 'He's made a fan.'


  Lydia coloured. 'Stop it, all of you! You're making a great deal of fuss about nothing!

  Your opinions are wholly misconstrued. You've only to meet Dieter.'

  'I suppose you're right, Lydia,' I said evenly, giving Trout the bent eye to shut up. It was clearly time to sling Lydia. Her credit cards were useful, but she was a liability. We wanted loyal soldiery, not a dreamy-eyed fifth column. High time Lydia vanished into the ivory towers of academe. 'Maybe we're being just melodramatic.'

  'And poor Arthur did die of natural causes,' she reminded us.

  'Leave Sorbo to me. Ta, everybody.'

  The stout bloke drained his pint, folded his newspaper. My tone must have pinged Lydia's antennae because she frowned.

  'With whom are you going hunting, Lovejoy? Not that wretched Caprice Rhodes?'

  'No, love. Her husband Clovis. And I hope to murder not one living thing.'

  Some hopes. I didn't know it then, but I was heading for a really bad day. We parted amiably, Lydia still suspicious. I left her paying Trout and Tinker their expenses, and hit the road. With luck, my cottage wouldn't have been repossessed by the building society. I had enough for the fare.

  All the way home I wondered if really this wasn't a task for Doomsday Walberswick and his enticing missus. But you can have too many cooks for one broth, or so they say.

  Tally ho to the county set. 18

  JACKO GAVE ME a lift in his bone-shaking coal lorry. He sings opera, badly, like all opera singers except two.

  'Join in, Lovejoy!' he kept urging. 'Don't you like music?'

  'Yes.'

  That set him off laughing so much we nearly hit a tree. I've a lot of time for Jacko, though he's got a nerve asking me for payment every time I con him into taking me somewhere. Travelling in the gale of his cabin, shattered by the million-decibel rattle, poisoned by engine fumes, I deserved danger money, yet he charges me penny a mile.