Paid and Loving Eyes l-16

by Jonathan Gash

  “Jan was hired to advise on antiques. There’s heavy buying in East Anglia, France, all over.” She hesitated. “He made mistakes. You can’t be right all the time, can you?”

  Well, yes. “A divvy can. Antiques are easy, love. It’s people queer the pitch every time.” She was trying not to tell me Jan started defrauding the rollers, Big John included.

  “You’re hateful! I can see what you’re thinking, Lovejoy! My brother could no more cheat —”

  “Who?” My headache belted me across the eyes.

  “My brother. Jan’s the gentlest, kindest, most honest…” Et sisterly cetera.

  Wrong again. How was I to know? I’d honestly seen Lysette as Jan Fotheringay’s bird. My shimmering vision tried to focus on her anew, without listening to her defensive dross. Jan had pulled the old Nelson, as the trade says. You are supposed to approve a multitude of fakes and genuine antiques—that is, decide if they’re good enough to pass most scrutineers, like I’d just done—but he’d then condemned a few beautiful pieces as dross. Secretly, of course, he’d snaffled them, and made a fortune. The problem? It was the rollers’ fortune, not his.

  “Where’s it heading, Lysette? Am I right, Switzerland?”

  “Yes. I don’t know when.”

  That didn’t matter. The square seemed clear of familiars still, but for one. I almost got better with relief.

  “Look, Lysette. Good of you to come and all, but you’re no use. I wanted Jan. He could tell me the backers, whose scam it is. You can’t.”

  “I can, Lovejoy. Some, anyway.” She named the ones I expected: Jervis, Almira Galloway, Monique Delebarre, Corse, Big John (she didn’t call him that) Sheehan, and Paulie of course. And took my breath away by adding, Jan told me Mr Anstruther was frightened, but his wife drove him. She’s Monsieur Troude’s woman, you see, and got her husband’s firm to invest everything.”

  Cissie and Troude? My headache had only been teasing until now. Across the square, Gobbie spat with laconic skill.

  “Got a car, love?”

  “I can easily hire one. You want me to help, Lovejoy?”

  “Please,” I said, nearly broken. “Get one, and follow. We leave tomorrow, if I’ve guessed right. You’ll have a travelling companion. An old bloke I know.”

  Lysette smiled, suddenly bright and beautiful. “I’ll be there ahead of you, Lovejoy. If I’ve guessed right.”

  We made a detailed plan. She left, me watching her edible form move across the cobbles out of the square. I gave her a few minutes, then went to where my real helper sat, thank God.

  “Wotcher, Gobbie.”

  “Hello, son.” He hawked up phlegm, rheumy old eyes watering. “Who’s the bint?”

  “On our side. You’ll be travelling with her.” I launched into money, surreptitiously gave him what I had to cover expenses. He’d told his daughter he was going to a regimental reunion, a laugh. I had to ask him, though. “You sure you want in, Gobbie? It’s okay if you duck out. I’ll manage.”

  “Like hell you will, son,” Gobbie said, grinning. “You’ll squirrel off and hide. I know you. You’re a cowardly sod.” I had to laugh. A gappy geriatric grin and a brilliantly beautiful smile, both within a few minutes. Plus a home truth. And allies! Things were looking up.

  “It’ll be rough, Gobbie.” I paused. What had he said at the boot sale? “Bring old times back—they were dangerous, remember.”

  His smile was as beautiful in its way as Lysette’s. “Them’s the times I wants, Lovejoy. One more, worth anything.”

  “Remember you said that,” I warned him. I’m glad now I said that, too. “Here, Gobbie,” I said on impulse. “Want to brighten your day? Well, night? See a giggle?”

  “A robbery? Here?” He was surprised.

  “It’ll be about two in the morning,” I warned. He fell about at that, guessing what it would be. And he was right.

  Well, he would be right, with his million years of experience. He got a motor car, as I’d asked, and we sat there in the darkness looking out at the street. Gone two o’clock, and so far nothing. Odd how some people, especially older ones like Gobbie, seem at home wherever they are. I would have sworn the motor was his own, so familiar did he seem with—

  “Watch, son.”

  His quiet voice woke me faster than a yell. I’d seen nothing, but then my instinct’s for survival. Gobbie’s seemed entirely outside himself. Maybe it’s because I’ve so much guilt, that unsleeping guardian of morality.

  “Where?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  Nothing wrong with dropping off, but then I was tired. Old folks seem to nap like babies, in and out of sleep any old time.

  “Glad I don’t own a Range Rover, or a big Nissan.” They get nicked for robberies like the one we’d come to see.

  “There goes one.” A Citroen, innocuous and plain, drove sedately down the night road, clearly somebody late back from the theatre. “The scout,” Gobbie explained, sussing my wonder at his certainty, “otherwise he’d have slowed a bit just before the traffic lights. Everybody does, unless he’s trying to look casual.”

  See what I mean? Only a veteran would think of that.

  Mall-mashers, ramraiders, are a particularly English variant of the smash-and-grab. It’s a dark-hour job, though of course you can change the batting order, like the most famous one, the 1990 Asprey ramraid that proved the landmark of its type. (They backed a truck through Asprey’s window with wonderful precision—just off Piccadilly, would you believe—to snatch diamonds from the stove-in window.) It’s a Newcastle-upon-Tyne speciality, averaging one major ramraid a day now, many of them hitting the same retail shops and malls time after time. They’re exciting to watch.

  “Here it comes, son. Wake up.”

  “Which way?” I was asking blearily when it happened.

  Two vehicles drove up, glided to a stop in the centre of the road. One reversed gently into position, then accelerated with a roar and simply drove into the antique-shop front. Glass sprayed everywhere, clattering and tinkling around. One or two shards even rattled musically on our roof. While I was watching, astonished and thrilled, the other was already hurtling into the next window. Neither had lights on. They reversed out, tyres crunching glass. Four hooded blokes dived from the motors and leapt through the openings. Each carried a baseball bat. It was a hell of a mess. I moaned at the thought of the antiques within, but what could I do? I’d warned the one girl I’d fallen for, Claire Whatnot.

  The motors pulled to wait against the kerb, engines running.

  “They got walkie-talkies, son,” Gobbie said quietly. “See?”

  Well, no I didn’t. A couple of small vans came round the corner, dousing their headlights as they settled nearby. Two men to a van, I saw. Admirable organization. They ran the scroll gates up. No lights inside save a red direction node borrowed from some theatre stage.

  “Christ!” I almost shrieked. Somebody opened our car door. A mask peered in, our courtesy bulb lighting to show his red eyes.

  “Just watching, mate,” Gobbie said quickly. “Good luck.”

  “Fuck luck,” the hooded bruiser said. He held a club the size of a tree in his hands. “Who’re you?”

  “I’m Gobbie. Lovejoy. Your tyres okay? Don’t pull a spud.”

  I thought. I don’t believe Gobbie. Why didn’t the stupid old sod simply gun our engine and scarper? Instead he makes introductions, pulls the ramraider’s leg. Spud’s the latest slang for a ballsup, after the catastrophe (or success, whichever way you look at it) of Continental raiders who’d tried to emulate our Geordie rammers in Amsterdam. Hoods nicked twenty Dutch Impressionists worth untold zillions from the Van Gogh—including Vincent’s own The Potato Eaters, hence “spud”. The loot sat meekly in the getaway motor which had a flat tyre. I could hear the blokes shouting, things smashing in the antique shops. God knows what heirlooms they were destroying.

  “I heard of you bastards,” the bruiser said. “Clear off when we do, right?”

 
“Different direction,” Gobbie said amiably.

  The bloke disappeared, putting our car door to quite gently. The pandemonium along the parade of antique shops was increasing. The lads were rushing out small antiques. The first wave would snatch tom —jewellery, precious items such as miniatures, handies that could be scooped up. Then furniture, paintings. But only the ones that had been earmarked.

  “Why’d he cuss us, Gobbie?” I asked, narked.

  “He knows our scam, son. He doesn’t like it.”

  “He what?” A visiting ramraider team knows our scam?

  “There they go.”

  The first van slammed itself shut. The blokes piled in. It roared away, the Range Rover tearing after. The second slammed, the Nissan barreling round to leave the way it had come. The main van raced off, and that was that.

  We drove away, taking the first left. I wondered if they’d battered through into the next-door place, which was Claire’s, or whether they’d had orders not to.

  “Gobbie,” I said, thinking hard as he dropped me off in the night near the square. “He knew? Really knew?”

  “Mmmh. You can always tell.” He paused, I paused, everybody paused. “Son? Is your scam going to finish up with them antiques they just nicked?”

  “Eh?” I’d not thought of that. “You mean, they were pinching them for us?” I’d nearly said Troude and Marimee.

  “A thought, son. They were older blokes than usual, see? Them touring Geordies are all of seventeen, eighteen as a rule.”

  The hooded raider had seemed thickset, maybe forty or so. Gobbie was right. Ramraiding’s a youth’s game. So why was an older bloke pulling a stroke like that?

  “Like”, Gobbie continued, gently nursing me into thinking, “ that lot of gorms last month as raided the Metro Centre. Did the wrong stuff, remember? Too young to know the difference between tom and tat. Did a beautiful rammer, got clean away, and found they’d nicked a display of imitation jewellery.”

  Yes, I’d heard. It was desperately worrying. Too many variables all of a sudden.

  “Any ideas, Gobbie?” I asked. How pathetic. Me supposed to be the leader of this private little side scam, and here I was asking a wrinkly for advice. I disgust me sometimes. I’d have dozed through the whole thing if it hadn’t been for him, too. “Forget it,” I said, and walked away.

  “Night, son. See you there.” I swear the old sod was grinning. I was narked. One day I’ll get the upper hand, then people’d better watch out, that’s all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  « ^ »

  Didn’t the Commandant say something about London?” I asked hopefully in next morning’s flying start.

  Guy tore us through the countryside. I wanted some aspirin, but Veronique fell about when I asked. I was really narked. Just my luck to draw the one bird in the world without a ton of paracetamol in her handbag. “Is this north?”

  “He’s quick on the uptake!” Guy cried, swerving, sounding his horn. I shrank in my seat as the wind ripped through me. Everything he said sounded copied from American films. Mind you, what’s wrong with that? Same as me, really. Birds often tell me so.

  Veronique was smiling. I was exposed in the bucket seat, my regular place now. “He’s a servant,” she said, turning to speak directly at me. “Aren’t you, Lovejoy?”

  “Aren’t we all?” I was worried about my helpers. I meant me.

  “No!” she cried. “You are dull! Like all the servile! Show you a sham clubhouse, a seaside toy, call it a marina, and you grovel like a dog.” Et withering cetera. I’d made a hit.

  “I’m no serf,” I fired back. Staying a buffoon never did me any harm.

  Not a bad description of Mentle, marina and all. So she —meaning Guy too—had been there? I thought about poor Baff.

  From then on, I decided, I’d really try. I shone, talked instead of sulked. I began trying to draw them out, embarked on some funny not-so-funny tales, Actions I Have Known, scams, robberies (no names, no pack drill as people say), and within a few miles had her smiling. No mean feat, with Guy yippeeing, attacking every vehicle on the road. I slyly timed him, supposing he’d shot his lot before we started out. He’d have to pull in somewhere when his jangles got too much.

  “I mean, I really like Alma-Tadema’s paintings,” I was giving out when finally Guy started to become quieter, his driving less flamboyant. What, an hour and a half of belting along the motorway? We’d come out of Paris on the A6. “What’s wrong with detail, if it’s lovely? He painted all the faces in his enormous crowds. But so what? Easier to fake.” I’d been on about the old 1980s forgeries, still around in some galleries.

  “You’re a secret luster, Lovejoy,” Veronique gave back in that encouraging reprimand women use. “We heard.”

  “Not a word to anyone, or I’ll stand no chance.” I grinned apologetically, innocent Lovejoy, hoping but never really expecting. “Where do you find anybody to do detail like Alma-Tad nowadays?” I hummed, trying to remember the melody of that old music-hall song. “Alma-Tad, oh what a cad…” My Gran used to sing it in her naughty moods, dreadfully risky. It worked.

  “Look in the right place, Lovejoy, you’ll find anything.” Veronique’s implacability phase returned for a second.

  “Not nowadays, love. Forgers don’t have the application. And if fakers can’t be bothered, who can? You need time, money, love.” I chanced it as Guy, all a-twitch, began looking for exit roads. Veronique darted him a glance, nodded permission. “Don’t annoy me. I’ve lived like a monk since I arrived. Gelt’s all very well, but I’m short on vital necessities.”

  She burst out laughing, a beautiful sight, the wind, blonde hair flying, all shape and pattern. “I see, Lovejoy! You’re desperate!”

  Even though they’d killed Baff, I was narked at her amusement at my expense. “Look, love. Birds can go years without a bloke. We can’t last more than a couple of days without a bird.” I was still fishing, laying groundwork. “Everybody’s… well, fixed up, except me.”

  She was still rolling in the aisles at my lovelorn state when we halted at a service station. On the way in, I took a gander at the wall map, and realized we were heading east. Reims led to Metz, to Strasbourg. The E35 darted south along the Rhine then, to Zurich. A guess right, for once? No sign of the Sweets, which surprisingly gave me a pang. Lilian had been brilliant, for all that she was the wife of a SAPAR hunter. And none of Gobbie and Lysette.

  “How long’s this going on, Veronique?” I asked while we waited for Guy. “I need to know the plan, when, some detail.”

  “Why?” We’d collared some superb French coffee. She gazed levelly back, chin resting on her linked fingers.

  “Good old Suleiman-Aga.” I made a show of relishing my first swig though it burnt my mouth. Women can drink scalding, with their asbestos throttles.

  “Who?” Very, very guarded.

  “Your Turkish ambassador, brought coffeetime to France. About the time of our Restoration, 1666, give or take a yard.”

  She didn’t say anything. She’d already been to the loo, as had I. I realized I couldn’t quite see the edges of her pupils, however hard I looked. Funny, that. I’d done my most soulful gaze a number of times, hoping. Though what I’d learn from seeing if the pupils were dilated or pinpoint, God knows. It’s supposed to be a clue to drugs, but which size meant what?

  Her eyes rose, held me hard with an intensity I didn’t like. Lucky that Guy was the mad one, or I’d have suspected the worst.

  “We were warned about you, Lovejoy.” She drew a spoony trail in a spillage spot on the table. I was starting to hate surfaces. “I paid no heed. Now I’m wondering if I underestimated you.”

  This is the kind of woman-talk I don’t like. Had I been too obvious? I went into a huff. It’s quite a good tactic, played with enough misunderstanding.

  “Look, love.” I showed how heated I was. “I’d rather finish this job and get home. If you’re narked because I mentioned I’m a bit short of, ah, close company, then
tell Marimee and get me sacked—”

  “Sacked, shacked, packed?” Guy raced to the table, literally grabbing Veronique’s coffee. “Hacked?” He laughed so loud people looked round. He hovered about four feet above the floor, zingy, fully restored. “Hacked, then lacked? Wracked?” Happy days were here again. I didn’t need to look into his pupils.

  “Guy,” Veronique reprimanded quietly as we rose to depart. Guy shrilled merriment, streaked off to the motor. We followed. “You will be told everything, Lovejoy.” She wore a watch that could have afforded me a thousand times over. “In three hours.”

  “Three hours more at Guy’s lunatic speeds’ll have us in Vladivostok. Will we make it back to Paris? Only, I started fancying that hundred-year-old concierge. She’s just my type—breathing.”

  That gave her a crinkly half-smile. I felt we were more allies after that short break than before. I tried telling Guy to take his time. He bawled that we were to make Zurich before midnight, and whiplashed us into the traffic with barely a look. Correct, at last. Mind you, the million pointers had helped. Gobbie and Lysette would now meet me as planned.

  “Daddy wouldn’t buy me a bow-wow,” I sang, explaining to Veronique: “Alma-Tadema used to play that to visitors on his early phonograph. Real class, eh? Was it the onzième?”

  “Eleventh?”

  “Arrondissement. Your warehouse, the cran. God, I’ve never seen so much reconstruction. Don’t Parisians get fed up? Between the Place de la Bastille arid the Boulevard Voltaire, wasn’t it? Lovely, once. I’ll bet, when it was famous for cabinet-makers.”

  Silence. Guy nearly bisected our motor on an oil transporter.

  “Mind you, what can you expect?” I said, blathering on. “The City of Paris’s planning department has no conservation section, has it? Cretins. That lets anybody do anything.”

  More, but certain, silence. Funny, but now I was sure of their terrible scam my nausea had all gone.

  Veronique didn’t chat much more during that pacy journey, and I shut up. But I caught her looking at me in a mirror when she did her lipstick. I cheered up. An ally? Or did her languid look mean she was simply on different shotpot than before?