Spend Game

by Jonathan Gash

  He grinned, all brown crags and gaps. ‘I didn’t because it’s not there.’ He cackled away, nodding at this fresh evidence of my dependence on his ferreting skills. ‘It’s still at Medham.’

  ‘Eh?’ But Val said it was at this cousin’s. What the hell?

  ‘Medham.’ He wiped his stubbly chin on his sleeve and belched. ‘He never took it. Left at the sally. Virgil’s.’

  ‘But . . .’

  Tinker eyed me pityingly. ‘You’re losing your touch, Lovejoy. Leckie got an old three-ply post-war piece. Gave that whizzer Wilkinson a quid for it, all of a sudden, and dashed off with it on his car. But the stuff he’d bid for in the auction’s still there.’

  I gaped. A decoy. Leckie knew they were waiting outside for him to leave. So he’d done the best his gentlemanly soul would allow – message to me via Helen, a decoy piece of grotty furniture strapped to his car to his cousin Moll’s, and then coming to find me. Me. The one pal Leckie had who would keep faith and help a friend in need. Who had watched him get done.

  ‘Thanks, Tinker,’ I said as normally as I could. ‘You did well.’

  ‘Keep your hair on, Lovejoy.’

  He watched me go in silence. The trouble with people who are on your side is they always know what’s best. They give me heartburn sometimes.

  I slammed the door and took no notice when Woody bawled after me. He’s always wanting to be paid.

  I left town then, and drove to Moll’s like a bat out of hell. Well, nearly twenty. But there was bile in my mouth and I’ve never had indigestion in my life.

  Chapter 5

  I DIDN’T KNOW it then, but my peaceful days had ended. Looking for Leckie’s stuff was, until I drove out of town on the coast road that Sunday, a sort of innocent instinct.

  From then on it was war.

  Moll turned out to be thirtyish, fair-haired, squeaky and excitable. Plump, as any man in his right mind likes them. The odd thing was that she wanted to draw me, draw as in sketch. She was a water-colour artist, amateur without aspirations. I realized I’d vaguely heard of her but never considered her real. It’s like that with people you never expect to meet.

  ‘And you’re Lovejoy! I simply must take a sitting.’

  ‘Er –’ I’d only said hello so far.

  ‘Sit!’ she commanded, pushing me on a chair and rushing about with a lamp standard.

  ‘The cupboard . . .’

  ‘You’re exactly as I imagined! So positively . . . lived in!’

  ‘Look, Moll –’

  She shut me up and trotted about the room looking for shadows. It was definitely her room, flowery wallpaper and dazzling curtains, prettily decorative. In other circumstances I’d have reached for her. Paintings hung everywhere, crummy modern stuff. Sitting there like a nerk, I felt how modern her bungalow was. Not an antique in the whole place. Disgusting.

  ‘Stay absolutely motionless!’ she cried, tilting her head to see me sideways. ‘How atrociously sensual! How excruciatingly, totally sensitively . . . malign!’ I can never understand words artists use.

  ‘I’ve come about Leckie’s cupboard,’ I said doggedly.

  Her eyes instantly filled with tears. She flopped down on a sofa and wept, lamp flex trailing.

  ‘Poor, poor Leckie. And he’d called only minutes before!’ She pointed at the door. ‘He put a cupboard in the garage –’

  I was out of the back door and in the garage before the next breath. It stood there, ashamed and 1948 utility. Pathetic repro door handle, rusting screws. The inside was horrible and cheap.

  ‘You’re not even furniture,’ I told it critically. ‘Never mind antique.’

  A voice said, ‘No clues there, Lovejoy.’

  I turned. What the hell was Maslow doing in Moll’s garage? He’d wormed in behind me.

  ‘Get lost, Maslow. You’ve no business here.’

  ‘Oh, but he has,’ this other geezer said. A taller version of Maslow, but smiley and brisk. He looked a good footballer.

  I looked from him to Maslow, then back again. Hellfire. Different faces, but very very similar. That’s all I needed, Leckie’s trail of clues obstructed by a family full of coppers.

  ‘Are you Tom? Moll’s husband?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘How do. I’m Lovejoy. I . . . I knew Leckie. I came to see his stuff.’

  ‘Come inside.’

  And Maslow even followed us in, greeting Moll casually and sitting down without being asked. Tom and him had a stronger resemblance indoors. Moll recovered fast with a flurry of greetings. She called Maslow Jim. My heart sank. Brothers.

  ‘I’ve been on duty,’ Tom explained to me. ‘You’re the friend I heard about.’

  ‘He’s the friend everybody’s heard about.’ Maslow grinned without humour. ‘What you here for, Lovejoy?’

  ‘I’m going to outline his face,’ Moll put in eagerly.

  ‘Leckie’s cupboard,’ I said. Coppers speak of being on duty. So Tom was not only Maslow’s brother. He was in the peelers with him. Two coppers and a sketching wife. What a bloody family.

  ‘Typical.’ Maslow went colder still. ‘Trying to make a bob or two, and Leckie not even stiff.’

  I kept my temper. One day I’ll rupture Maslow. He knows it, too. Still, it does no harm to mislead the Old Bill. On principle I let it go.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, cool. Moll’s eyes filled.

  ‘And I thought you were Leckie’s friend. How could you?’

  ‘His sort’s always the same, Moll.’

  ‘If that’s all Leckie brought . . .’ I said, rising. It’s times like this I wish I’d a hat to fumble with.

  Nobody saw me off. I now knew why Maslow had gone to the loop road in person. Leckie was vaguely related through his brother’s wife. Not that it made any difference to me, or to Leckie any more.

  I took the south road into town. It was time I went home and did a few things. The Medham auction warehouse would be shut on Sundays, or I’d have gone straight over there and searched for the escritoire. It’s a miracle I didn’t run anybody over, weaving my preoccupied way through the strolling families on the riverside that links with the village road. All I could think of was Leckie, suddenly aware he was being watched in an emptying warehouse by the bad lads, and with no friends around save Helen, desperately passing her a note and then trying to reach me for help. He’d even tried leaving a dud cupboard at his cousin’s as a decoy, probably hoping against hope that her stolid husband Tom the copper was home.

  I slammed the gears up and down on the Bercolta road, making some afternoon drivers honk at me, but I didn’t care. Leckie was too much of a gentleman to protect himself with women, say by cadging a lift with Helen or staying at Moll’s. I’d have sheltered screaming behind the nearest woman quick as a flash. That was typical. Leckie couldn’t be a mean bastard if he’d tried.

  ‘But Lovejoy’s one already,’ I said aloud, full of resolve.

  The shadows were already lengthening when my crate gasped clanking into my garden. Sue was in the cottage porch, posting me a message by the looks of things. I cut the engine and shrugged. My crusade would have to wait till tomorrow. I waved to Sue. We went towards one another, smiling. Anyway, I excused myself, Sunday’s a day of rest for everybody, even the two killers.

  Sometimes I just make one mistake after another.

  I knew there was something wrong the minute I clattered into the warehouse yard the next day. Virgil’s is one of these ancient auctioneers which litter East Anglia. As the rest of the world evolves, they stay immutable. They may behave all modern and efficient, even to the extent of having computers around the place, but in reality they are Queen Anne, and no nonsense about change.

  For a start they have their own night guard. He hadn’t done much good last night, judging from the sober faces of the four people standing near the double doors. Nodge was there, funnily enough. My crate fitted neatly between a furniture van and a police car. For the only time in recorded history the bobby wasn’t
Maslow. Wilkinson, the auctioneer’s chief whizzer, gave me a wave. He’s one of these long, loping men who can’t stop their arms from dangling about. Tinker says whizzers have telescopic arms for taking bribes faster.

  ‘Trouble, Wilkie?’

  He came over, smoking a fag. His fingers are black from nicotine. ‘Vandals done us over, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Anybody hurt?’ I couldn’t avoid glancing over at Nodge. I knew what Wilkie was going to say.

  ‘No. Old George didn’t hear a sound.’

  I thought, oh, didn’t he, and crossed the yard to see the broken window, glass crunching underfoot. Whoever it was had split the double doors at the top of the loading ramp as well. All in all a neat crowbar job. Old George was giving his version of the raid to the young red-faced stammering copper, who looked fresh out of the egg. Nodge listened, shaking his head sadly at the deplorable sinfulness of mankind.

  ‘Can I go in, Wilkie?’

  He shrugged and glanced at the copper. By the time he had phrased the request I was inside. The warehouse is one large ground-floor rectangle of plank flooring. An auctioneer’s stand is positioned against one long wall opposite the doors, and a curtained space shows burglars unerringly where to search for next week’s accumulating stock of dubious antiques. I switched on the lights, because an auctioneer’s natural preference, like Dracula’s, is towards an all-concealing gloom. The light from the two bare bulbs just made it to the far corner, where an Edwardian copy of an escritoire had been split and practically shredded by aggressive but meticulous hands. I crossed over and sorted the bits. A real hatchet job, done in a hurry by people bent on plunder. The only recognizable piece was a Bramah lock still stuck to its wood.

  ‘They came with the right tools,’ Wilkie grumbled, which was just what I was thinking.

  The quack’s bag was a small elongated leather job, very like a bowling bag. Its contents were scattered and the base was slit lengthways.

  ‘Don’t touch. The Old Bill’s going to look, just as soon as he’s ready.’

  I grinned at Wilkie’s sarcasm. One way and another our local antique whizzers like Wilkie and his merry crew have pulled off more illicit deals than the rest of the world put together. They do it naturally, like breathing. I crouched down and began assembling the doctor’s gruesome instruments.

  ‘Here, Lovejoy –’

  ‘Shut up.’

  I replaced them in the bag. The clip had been broken, so it couldn’t fasten. By the time I straightened up Wilkinson was on tenterhooks, but was wisely keeping watch on the uniformed lad. Nodge was hovering on the ramp and trying to peer in at us while the bobby scrawled away. A book, marked with a sticker to show the same lot number as the bag, lay underneath the pedals of a decaying piano. I scraped it out with my foot. The binding had been expertly split down the spine, whether from spite or as part of a search I couldn’t be sure. A name was written on the flyleaf, DOCTOR CHASE OF SIX ELM GREEN.

  ‘Wilkie.’ I gave him the bag and book, keeping my back to the daylight in case Nodge’s bleary vision reached this far. ‘Into my crate on the sly.’

  ‘Here, Lovejoy,’ he croaked, furtive eyes instantly on the doorway. ‘I don’t want no trouble –’

  ‘Money,’ I interrupted pleasantly, which shut him up. I find that word cairns the most troubled seas. ‘One other thing. Was anything nicked?’

  ‘That Cruikshank picture.’

  ‘Big deal.’

  Some things you can be absolutely sure of in antiques. One is that minor artists will get copied and faked from now till Doomsday. Virgil’s chief auctioneer Cecil Franklin had been exhibiting the Cruikshank picture for three weeks, boasting of its authenticity. It was allegedly a Georgian print done by Bob and George Cruikshank, showing two elegant blokes playing a prank on a night watchman in a London street. The faker had got their clothes wrong – the commonest mistake a forger ever makes in manufacturing this sort of print. The two characters were Tom and Jerry. Not the cartoon creatures, but the originals, Jerry Hawthorn and his cousin Corinthian Tom, who were pranksters widely publicized in Georgian London. Their favourite trick was creeping up on a dozing watchman ‘Charley’ and up-ending his sentry-box, laying face down so he couldn’t get out, and then running like hell. A lovable pair.

  ‘And give me the address of the vendor,’ I added. ‘Slip it in the book.’

  ‘Watch out,’ Wilkie hissed, sensing the policeman’s approach. I broke away and went forward, smiling and full of those questions a perturbed member of the public naturally asks when confronting mayhem. Wilkie would get the stuff undetected into my car boot somehow. The fact that it’s always locked would be a mere detail to an honest whizzer like him.

  I didn’t give Wilkie or the warehouse another glance while I asked the bobby and Old George more questions than they asked me. The young peeler finally drew breath and went into the warehouse to defend law and order now the crooks were miles off. Nodge, hands deep in his overcoat pockets, seemed anxious and morose, on the fringes of everything.

  ‘Cheer up, Nodge,’ I told him happily. ‘You’re in the clear.’

  He gave a sickly grin. I had a sudden strange idea. Wherever I’d been lately I’d seen Nodge’s apprehensive face. And he’d seemed so odd yesterday at the antiques fair. I glanced about. We were all alone in the yard. Old George’s quavering lies were still audible from inside the warehouse.

  ‘Look, Nodge.’ I tried to keep it casual. ‘What the frigging hell’s going on?’

  ‘Eh?’ He shuffled nervously.

  ‘And what are you doing here?’

  ‘Just passing,’ he muttered. ‘No law against looking in, is there?’

  ‘You look hunted, comrade. Where’s the happy Nodge of yesteryear?’

  ‘Nothing wrong with me, Lovejoy,’ he said, still shifty.

  ‘You’ve got my phone number.’ I shrugged and went inside with him to tell the others good morning.

  As I pulled out of the yard I saw another familiar face across the road among the early shoppers. Jake Pelman was standing in a butcher’s shop opposite, hesitating between the veal and lamb counters while a couple of women offered advice. He swung away abruptly on seeing my crate, but not before I’d made sure it was him.

  Medham village is quite big for East Anglia, three thousand people or so. Maybe it’s even a town. There was a lucky phone box near the Yew Tree pub. I had to sort a few things out or I’d go bananas. To save my ulcer perforating from worry I phoned Margaret first.

  ‘Lovejoy here, love.’

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ she sounded as though she’d just got up.

  ‘Shush. You were talking to Jake Pelman that night in the pub. What about?’

  ‘Well, honestly

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Don’t be so rude, Lovejoy.’ She unbent slowly. ‘About Leckie. Jake was asking what sort of things Leckie collects.’ We politely ignored the wrong tense. I thought, most dealers aren’t collectors, otherwise they’d be collectors and not dealers. Right?

  ‘And you replied . . .’ I prompted, knowing Leckie didn’t collect anything at all.

  ‘Relics.’ Margaret was all patience.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Relics. Church relics. Saints’ bits and bobs.’

  ‘Oh. Right then,’ I said lamely. This was all news to me. Later on I was to wish I’d heard it earlier. And clearer.

  ‘Can I be of any further assistance?’ Margaret asked sweetly into the pause. ‘Take a message to Sue? Tell Helen you’re on your way, perhaps?’

  ‘Er, no thanks. See you, love.’

  ‘Well, really –’

  Isn’t indignation ridiculous?

  I found another coin to ring Helen. She’d be into her second fag of the day. Monday morning’s her nightie-and-coffee dreamtime among last week’s antique-collecting journals. She answered on the third ring. This is the best luck I’ve ever had with a phone box, two successes one after the other.

  ‘Lovejoy,’ I told her.

&nbs
p; ‘You all right, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Look, Helen. The night Leckie got . . .’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘You had this message.’

  ‘I gave it you.’

  ‘But you didn’t give it me then,’ I pressed. It was one of these details which were beginning to get on my nerves. Outside, I saw Jake Pelman standing on the corner. The blighter must have followed. He was peering uncertainly towards my phone box. All this was making me irritable. What sort of nerk wears a green suit like that, for God’s sake? ‘Why not, Helen?’

  ‘I gave you the eye,’ she complained. ‘But you didn’t come over.’

  ‘But Leckie told you it was urgent. Why didn’t you shout you had an urgent message from him for me?’

  ‘How did I know you’d take off so suddenly with that old bitch?’ She meant Margaret, women being like this about each other. ‘Anyhow,’ she said with finality, ‘I couldn’t. Not with Leckie’s wife there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Leckie’s wife. With Fergus.’

  We read the silence like mad for a minute.

  ‘Leckie’s ex-wife, then.’ Another pause. ‘Didn’t you know? That showy blonde, wrong shoes and that ghastly handbag.’ She mistook my stunned silence for an invitation to continue her invective. ‘She’s never had a proper hairstyle in the three years she’s lived here. And her make-up’s like a midden. I don’t know why she bothers –’

  Jake Pelman was still at the corner as I clattered past in my zoomster. He’d a parcel of some unspeakable meat under his arm, and was ever so casually inspecting an extinct bus timetable. I honked my horn. He started guiltily, but didn’t look round, not even when I shouted, ‘Wotcher, Jake!’

  Near Medham there’s one of King Cymbeline’s earthworks, only we call him Cunobelin round here. It’s an oval rampart about seven feet high, swelling from the ground of a small forest and curving for half a mile. Normally I’m not one for countryside and trees and bees and all that jazz. I like towns, where people and antiques are. For once, I relaxed my rule, which is to get the hell out of the beautiful countryside and back into a smelly noisy town as quick as my beat-up asthmatic cylinders can haul me. This particular morning I parked among the roadside trees and struggled knee-deep in filthy leaves until I reached the crest of the overgrown earthworks. My head was splitting. Since when had Leckie a wife? And she was with Black Fergus and Jake Pelman that night in the pub. And . . . and . . .