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

by Jonathan Gash

  Teatime. I changed back, getting a mouthful of astonishment at my fashion style from Fleury La Ney. I liked her, though. She wore a ton of makeup, thick mascara, rouge, dense eye-liner, plastered lipstick, blusher inches thick, so she was class even for a Sloanie. I noticed Gloria Dee sitting with Sir Jesson Tethroe. They looked a pair - item, do they say now? I caught her glance when Sir Jesson asked about me. Fine. They'd see me soon enough. They didn't know it yet but they were on my team.

  I spoke a bit with Clovis and Maeve Patterson. She was lively, fifties, stridey, endlessly on about horses. I sensed a looming invitation to come riding, and quickly told her I was allergic. She had fishing rights along the river almost all the way to the estuary. I thought, hey, any canals? I spoke sadly of some bloke I used to know nearby called Arthur Goldhorn. It turned out she'd known him.

  'Poor man,' she said. 'Born loser, Arthur. He tried riding point-to-point at Marks Tey, fell off. That cow Colette's gone to the dogs. Lost everything except the tide, over some loony investment in London.'

  'Haven't they a son?' I asked, thinking, title?

  'A token yokel, hardly literate, lives wild. Does odd jobs. Shouldn't be allowed, I say.

  You'd think the social services'd do something, instead of bugger all.'

  It's always a shock to hear a lady swear, but I agreed on principle.

  'Heart attack,' my other cultivar, Talleyton, cut in. 'Arthur get any further with that canal thing, Maeve?'

  'No. He invented that magnet. I couldn't see what the canal hold-up was. Mind you,'

  Maeve added, lowering her voice so we drew in close not to miss a whiff of scandal,

  'Colette went mental over some local antique dealer. Queer fish with an odd name. I always think the woman should control sex, don't you?'

  My throat thickened. How long had it been since me and Colette made smiles? Years. I put in quickly, 'What canal thing?'

  'Goldhorn owned Saffron Fields. Has an extinct canal. The inland length is all right, but it's a mess further down. Arthur had the idea of linking it with the estuary. It would join the North Sea to the Lake District.'

  'Good idea,' I said, smiling, still working out how long it had been since I'd known Colette. But the canal story seemed reliable enough.

  Before leaving, I thanked Clovis for his hospitality. He said he was glad I'd enjoyed it.

  'You were popular, Lovejoy,' he said, accompanying me to the hall. 'I noticed Gloria Dee and Sir Jesson giving you their cards. And Maeve and Bert Talleyton. So you're interested in canal engineering! It's his speciality. He does the Leicester Loop, you know. Pity you shot a zero. I'll tell Caprice you bagged a dozen, shall I?'

  'Clovis,' I said with feeling, 'you're a gent.'

  Outside I walked off, ready to start thumbing a lift. Mort suddenly fell in with me, coming from nowhere. The watery sun was slanting across the huge ornamental gates.

  I didn't know what to say, kept looking at the lad.

  'This way.' He led me down a gully. No time at all, we were among trees, then undergrowth. I finally halted, tired. The dog Jasper was with us.

  'Look, Mort,' I said lamely. 'I'd better get home.'

  'We're here.'

  A ramshackle hut was somehow there. You could stand within yards and not notice it. I heard a brook's gurgle nearby. He pulled branches aside. I recalled Maeve's remark about Colette's boy who lived wild. Yet Mr Hartson the head gamekeeper trusted Mort completely, left him alone with all those priceless guns. I stepped in after him.

  'I collected these for you,' Mort said, shy.

  'For me?' I was stunned.

  'I knew you'd come.'

  Garden implements, maybe a score, and all different. It sounds stupid, but nothing's more elegant than Edwin Budding's lawn mower. The world's first, patented in 1830.

  Looked at from the side, it has a lovely Hogarthish curve. His pal John Ferrabee manufactured them, in Stroud.

  Budding actually invented the idea from watching machines cut cloth in a textile mill.

  Check that it has that delectable curve, its five blades arranged as a sort of empty cylinder, with a strange toothed roller to adjust cutting height, and you've found a fortune. It's worth a look in your old garden shed, I promise. By the following year, 1831, Budding's lawn mowers were being used in Regent's Park - one man pulling, one pushing, doing the work of 'six men with scythes and brooms', Loudon the great gardener wrote.

  Snobbery persisted, though. Traditionalists grumbled that all 'effective' grass cutting must be done 'by the scythe'.

  'You haven't raided any gardening museums, have you?' I croaked.

  He shook his head. 'Mr Hartson lets me have old implements the nearby estates throw out.'

  'Does he now.' I sat on a stool, weak. On rough shelves stood arrays of watering pots and cans. Every single one was a genuine antique. 'Watering pots' were from 1706 on.

  Somehow, Mort had acquired examples of all the important variants. He had a bulbous Dutch mid-eighteenth-century thing, fifteen inches tall, black-painted copper with a vast rose on its spout and a hooped top handle. Shining bright was a Victorian teapot can, its copper polished to a gleam, with a dainty drooping spout and no rose, hardly a hand's span tall. Desirable enough to make my mouth water was an English clay watering pot, seventeenth-century, jug-shaped and hardly a foot tall, with a fixed half-cover and a stubby spout ending in a flattish rose. I'd only ever seen one of these before in my whole life, even in East Anglia. I gaped at the lad.

  'You're rich,' I told him. 'How did you know what to save?'

  Mr Hartson stepped into the hut. 'He says they tell him.'

  I jumped. 'I wish you'd stop bloody creeping about,' I said, narked. 'You lot scare me to frigging death.' I waited. 'They tell him?'

  'Like speaking.' The gamekeeper shrugged. 'He feels odd. Sometimes he has to sit down.'

  Quickly I stood up. 'Well, between you, you've amassed a fortune. The great gardener J. C. Loudon advocated all of these.' I pointed. 'That one is Money's "inverted" watering can. Date 1830, give or take a day. Loudon was a strict old codger, especially about watering seedlings. Said water should never fall with "more than its own weight". Very stern on what he called "carelessness on the part of the operator" washing soil from seedlings. Have you got one of Loudon's French thumbers? The flow's controlled by your thumb on a hole. It had been invented in England a decade earlier, but…' I petered out. 'What?'

  'Mortimer needs your help, Lovejoy,' Mr Hartson said.

  'To sell this lot? It's serious money.' So the lad had the divvy gift, same as me. Two rare birds in one shed. What are the chances of that?

  'Not these, Lovejoy,' the old gamekeeper said. 'We believe Saffron Fields is in the wrong hands, and rightly should be returned to Mortimer.'

  'Aye,' sez me, thick as a plank. 'But rightly doesn't work.' I looked at Mortimer's fantastic array. 'I mean, if I wanted a pricey collection of gardening implements, I'd get two serfs and steal the greatest assembly in the world, Queen Victoria's children's handmades at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, all tools labelled and no security to shake a stick at. See what I mean? Rights are only what you can hang on to.'

  'Wrong, Lovejoy,' Mr Hartson said directly to me with those gamekeeper's eyes. 'Rights must be preserved.'

  And then the most astonishing thing happened,

  'That will do,' Mortimer said quietly.

  That was it. No more. Yet Mr Hartson, head gamekeeper and Mortimer's boss, with wellnigh absolute power over several large estates and scores of underlings, simply nodded and said, 'I'll be getting on, then. I bid you good day, Lovejoy.' And left. That will do, from a sprog young enough to be… My thoughts ran out of steam.

  Minutes later, me and Mort stood by the roadside. Evening was falling.

  'How long will it take?' I asked after a bit.

  'The bird numbers? They'll be up this time next year. To die again.'

  What to say to his quiet voice, these haunting words? He gave a little click and Jaspe
r materialized at his side.

  'Don't do that,' I said, narked. 'Can't you shout his bloody name like ordinary people?'

  He almost smiled, didn't make it. 'You live in a cottage,' he said. 'I walk past it. Can I visit?'

  'Aye. Any time.' I cleared my throat. 'Er, knock first, eh? Only, sometimes a lady might stay.'

  He held out his hand. A robin immediately flew on it, sticking like they do. Mort had a tiny white thing in his fingers. The robin took it, eyed me with a cock-of-the-walk sneer, and flirted away.

  'They eat cheese instead of grubs,' I said, narked.

  'They need living things,' he said. 'Cheese alone won't do. This bus is Mount Bures.'

  This bus? I looked about. Nothing. We stood by the gate, spoke for a bit. I asked if he'd been in the wood the day I visited Arthur's grave. He nodded. I didn't mention Colette, but asked about Arthur's canal plans. He told me. Then a bus really did chug into sight.

  'You kept the tide? Lord of the Manor, Saffron Fields?' He nodded. 'Primogeniture. Dad kept it back when he signed the guarantees.'

  'See you soon, then, Mort. Come any time.'

  'Thanks again for missing the birds. Write to me care of Mr Hartson.'

  Did you shake hands with somebody you ought to have known all his life? I dithered, finally didn't, caught the bus.

  I watched him until the bus rocked round the bend.

  That was the good bit of the day, slaughtering all that wildlife and encountering Mort.

  Now read on.

  19

  FOR THE LIFE of me I couldn't remember what Sorbo had told me about his dealings with Gluck. Was it how Sorbo had been done out of his mother's ambers and intaglios, that had set me off thinking about Thomas Jenkins and the Great Castellani? Something about Sorbo not being paid for 'the half he'd delivered, slaved for nigh on a year'.

  Tired as I was, shoulder hurting from not killing birds, I got the connecting train from Sudbury. I was worried about Sorbo. Something I should have said, done, thought of, rankled. So I fled the darkening countryside and hours later I arrived in London's bright lights, caught the 133 bus. I was sweating, nauseous, not hungry. Bad signs.

  The trouble with London is it can look stuporous yet be in a ferment. Tranquil surface, seething below. Streatham Hill in the lamp hours is streets with trees, closed shops, a few restaurants still at it, the train station kiosk just closing. I hurried. Sorbo doesn't believe in phones.

  As I puffed up the quiet avenue, I tried to talk myself out of fear. I get into these horrors, telling myself I should have done this or that. Usually it's silly imagination. My Gran used to tell me, 'Always have clean on underneath, in case you get run over.' As if it would prevent accidents, placate some God of the Unclean. Imagination is dafter than motive.

  The house looked the same in the gloaming. I halted, wheezing. Steps, a faint light through the vestibule. I almost fell over the dustbin, knocked. Silence.

  And felt for the bell. I tried the handle, shouted 'Sorbo!' through the letterbox flap.

  More silence. I could see the light in his room.

  Til try the back, Sorbo!' I shouted, then stumbled my way round the side. A group of people went laughing up the road. I was unseen, the tall London plane trees dappling the street lighting.

  These houses were built for manufacturers drawn into late Victorian London. They always seem taller than they need be. It's because they have cellars, a basement where housemaids lived. I proved this by falling down the cellar steps and hurting my good shoulder. Lovejoy, cat burglar to the gentry.

  The cellar door was barred. Wearily I climbed up into the indefinable garden, couldn't see a damned thing. Brambles caught my face. I hunched against them, felt along the house wall. Duck down, you can see silhouettes against sky glow. I made the back steps. That door was also locked. Maddening to see the faint light inside. I did my knock, shouted who I was. Nil.

  It's then that my anxiety began to fade. I'm weak as water. I sat on the steps and talked myself out of worrying. I'd dashed to London to make sure Sorbo was safe, enroll him into my anti-Gluck platoon, and found the house quiet. Sorbo was probably boozing in some local pub. I'd wasted all that anxiety. Why wasn't he on the phone like everybody else except me? Sorbo'd thoughtlessly got me frantic for nothing.

  Nothing for it, but to resume where I'd left off, visit the carder man. A carder is a land of private clerk who keeps records of antiques sales, thefts, transactions, rumours, anything and everything to do with antiques. For instance, you'd go to the carder man to buy from him details of major mother-of-pearl Edwardian brooches recently sold, stolen, in museums, plus the addresses and charges of the best fakers and forgers of mother-of-pearl antiques. You pay for his 'card' on the subject, hence the name.

  Nowadays it's computers, but he's still called a carder man.

  Sighing, I rose. Maybe with luck I could get Saunty to put me up. It was getting late. I felt my way down the steps, and fell over something bulky. I went headlong. I swore, scuffed my hand on the ground, damned near broke a bone. Just what I needed.

  Getting upright, I touched it, this obstacle. I put my hand on a face.

  For a second I actually felt about. Stubble, a nose, an eyeball half covered. I withdrew, the penny still not dropping. Then I screamed, didn't scream, stifled my noise, recoiled falling over some chance thing, a brick maybe, hands to my face in horror gasping and going 'Oooh, oooh,' and holding my hands away in the black night because they'd actually felt somebody's dead face and it was horror and my hands were sticky.

  I ran. It didn't have the decency to rain so I could get clean. I dashed blindly out, making a hell of a clatter as I ran slap into the dustbin and brought myself down, slamming my cheek bone against the wall, reeling towards the avenue. I heard my throat moaning but couldn't stop. I was violently sick near Sorbo's front wall. It saved me. I had the sense to stay huddled down shivering and retching while a crowd of late-nighters walked by yelling football threats to another group across the road. A trannie blared pop music from a passing car. A bus trundled past twisting shadows. I wanted to throw my hands away.

  Sorbo. I wished I'd got Lydia. She'd have a flashlight and know what to do. She'd go back and inspect the corpse, make sure. Typical of her, selfish cow, never in the right place. What if it wasn't dead, though? I should be helping it, stopping arteries, doing that respiration stuff I didn't know how to do. Maybe it wasn't even human? Could it have been only a dead dog? A sleeping dog? But dogs instantly bounce awake at the prospect of my company. Except Jasper, who knew a wimp when he saw one.

  It'd been a human face. My pathetic mind whimpered, still hoping, do dogs have stubble? I should have sprinted for help, but didn't move. The road went quiet. I crouched, a worm in sheep's clothing. Gradually I became cold. My teeth chattered.

  After midnight, when any chance of helping Sorbo had surely gone, I rose, peered for last revellers or snogging car couples, and walked stiffly out. I did a really pathetic thing. I dialled 999 from the phone box near the corner, said to send an ambulance to a man who'd fallen down the steps of his house. Frightened, in the booth's light I saw why my hands were sticky. I cleaned them with spit and newspaper I got from a litter bin.

  The 133 bus took me to Liverpool Street. I made the last train out of London into dank East Anglia, where only birds got exterminated. And innocents, like Arthur.

  For all Dosh's promise of money, I was strapped. Next morning, I decided to call on Icky, and got a lift from the station. He's one of the few antiques merchants who really knows the business. He lives with this songstress who's one day going to take over the Royal Opera House with her rendition of Tosca, Lucia de Lammermoor, et endless cetera, and win fame and fortune. She's bonny, winsome, sells plants in the Garden Centre, but has a voice like a foghorn. Two furlongs off, I knew they were home.

  Eleanora was clearly audible across the shires, trilling up and down scales.

  'Wotcher, Icky.'

  He was really pleased to see me. 'Lovejoy
! Just brewed up.'

  Icky's workshop is a little caravan parked in his garden. Mounds of paperwork, a computer, eight phones, wires everywhere. Just finding Icky was a miracle of detection, because Eleanora brings discards from the plant shop. Her artistic soul forbids throwing living herbage out. Consequently the back garden's like a rain forest. It was how I met her, actually, buying a Tan Faah plant for a lady. We'd got talking, then it was, 'Oh, my gentleman's in antiques! You must come round!' and so on.

  'I won't say it, Icky.'

  'Thank goodness, Lovejoy.'

  Everybody who hacks their way through Eleanora's greenery jokes, 'Doctor Livingstone, I presume?' It gets on Icky's nerves. He lives on tenterhooks anyway, because of his con. Every - that's every single - antique dealer has a pet con trick, so watch out.

  'Where are you this week, Icky?'

  'Westmoreland.' He grinned his wicked grin. 'Called Cumbria now.'

  'Got many takers?' I watched admiringly.

  'Fourteen, so far.'

  He scribbled on, opening envelopes, spiking cheques, entering credit card numbers. In the world of antiques, easiest is best.

  Icky advertises in posh magazines: 'Antiques Course! Starting soon!! Correspond or attend!! Apply now!! Antique experts give Personal Tuition!!' He varies the lies, of course, and his address is anywhere in the kingdom. Internet and computer advertising's made his thievery that much simpler. His only risk is dropping some obvious clanger, like using the same phoney address twice. Naturally, his courses never take place.

  I winced as Eleanora gave the universe a particularly horrendous arpeggio. He smiled in sympathy.

  'Sorry, Lovejoy. She'll be across any sec to sell you tickets for next week's concert.'

  Best hurry, then. 'Listen, Icky. You ever been involved with Dosh Callaghan?' He shook his head. 'Arthur Goldhorn? Colette? Bermondsey? Portobello Road? Camden Passage?'

  No, no, no.

  'My job's private and confidential, Lovejoy.' He spoke with pride.

  'I can see that, Icky. Dieter Gluck?'