Ten Word Game

by Jonathan Gash

  “I think we get rid of him,” Purser Mangot said. “He’s a sham.”

  “Okay,” I offered helpfully. “I’ll get off at Amsterdam.”

  “No.” Astonishingly it was Les who spoke so decisively. No chuckles and one-liners now. “Lovejoy’s essential. We all know why.”

  Except me. I said out loud, “Except me.” They looked at each other, eyebrows raised in silent question like parents used to when you were an infant hearing things Not For Little Ears. Lady Veronica kindly relented.

  “The robbery, dear. We need you for it.”

  “Why would you need me?” I was asking in a the voice of reason, when her words struck home. I stood up and screeched, “Robbery? A frigging robbery?” Sending a careless postcard would get me cemented under some new motorway, and they were going to involve me in a robbery. The whole world would know immediately where I was.

  “Of course, dear.” She smiled. If I’d been nearer she’d have patted my head, there, there. “Stop shaking.”

  “Lady, I’m in enough trouble.”

  “Sit,” Purser Mangot commanded. I sat. I’m pathetic. “There’s no way out, not for you, not for any of us. This theft is going down, or the game is up and the thieves will get away with everything. It will be the costliest robbery since the Brinx-Matt.” He seemed proud.

  “Lovejoy,” Lady Vee gushed, openly worshipping the odious creep, “we are the good people, not the bad. Don’t you see?”

  “No.”

  “Let me explain. I am what is known as cover.” She tittered shyly. “Who would suspect me? Purser Mangot is our legitimate authority. Amy is our talented stage artiste – as such, she can go anywhere, and serves as a registered courier when passenger tours go ashore. That’s vital. And Les Renown is our charming scamp whom everybody loves.” She leant to me and whispered, “He’s really a policeman. Amy is only sort of police, more Fraud Squad.”

  Amy was enjoying this, secrets unmasked and me thunderstruck.

  “She has degrees from the Courtauld, you see. Fine Art and antiques. The pity is,” Lady Veronica said wistfully, “it isn’t as exciting as I’d hoped. So far it’s been quite mundane, apart from enticing you on board. I loved your kindness over Mr Benjo’s silly garden candles.”

  “That’s the last time I ever show anyone kindness,” I said. “Charity gets you in trouble. You don’t need me.”

  “You’re the crook,” Mangot grunted, irritably swigging the rest of his drink and tilting his glass in mute command. Her ladyship herself rose and brought more hooch for the pig, confirming my suspicions. He bully, she Jane. Whatever turns you on, I suppose, but I couldn’t help feeling envious. I swallowed the insult because I’m not really a crook. I just manage life the best way I can. Amy’s gaze stayed on me, wanting me to react with violence as women do. I stayed cool.

  “Why do you need a crook?”

  “To be the one they watch, stupid.” Mangot swigged, grimaced.

  Now, hang on, I thought, suddenly more alert. Good people don’t need a crook unless they want somebody to blame afterwards. It happens in corporate business, in big-firm scandals on the financial news, and in august antiques auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s. It happens in governments. Classical case: When some duckegg is promoted to Cabinet Minister, they want somebody to blame for things going wrong. It’s the blame game. They simply wanted me there to get arrested while they looked squeaky clean.

  “In Amsterdam?” I asked.

  “No,” a new voice said.

  We all turned. A woman came from the second bedroom of the suite and headed for the drinks cabinet to pour her own. I recognised her, and my heart sank. It all fell into place, my abduction and the planned robbery. I’d known her. She was June Milestone from television, she of the long hair and dicey crook of a husband who was awaiting trial for embezzlement. She’d started the Antique Trackers Hour twenty years since, and it was still going on Channel Tee, highest trunk-junk show in the ratings. Was she staying with Lady Veronica? June was more elegant than I remembered. I usually watched her TV show for old time’s sake. She’d become more slender, shapely, and dressed with style. On telly she looked stouter. Actors always say TV adds ten pounds in the wrong places.

  “No, not in Amsterdam.” She brought her glass, smiling. “Lovejoy, isn’t it? I’m June Milestone.”

  “Where, then?” I would have risen to say hello, but gallantry was having a hard time of it in Suite 1133.

  “St Petersburg,” she said easily.

  “That’s torn it,” Les Renown grumbled. “He’ll have it all over the ship.”

  “I thought we weren’t to tell him until we got there,” Amy said.

  “St Petersburg?” I said, voice on the wobble. “Isn’t that – ?”

  “Where the Hermitage Museum is?” June said affably, seating herself next to Lady Veronica. “Yes, when last I heard.”

  “Rob the Hermitage?” I bleated. It took me three goes to get the words out. “The world’s biggest art gallery? Over three million works of art? In 322 suites of rooms along thirteen miles of corridors? And you want me for that?”

  June tutted. “You’ve gone quite pale. We are not robbing. We are preventing. You will come out of this like a knight in shining armour.”

  “And you lot?” I said.

  “We shall simply be doing our job.”

  “Er, one thing. Who is doing the robbery, exactly? Are they on board the boat?”

  “Boat!” James Mangot said with disgust. “Ship, you ignorant cretin.”

  “Why don’t you arrest them now, then?” I asked doggedly, mind still fixed on Amsterdam, where we were to dock in the morning and I could leap off with a glad cry of farewell. I shivered, not acting. “I’ve heard about Russian gaols. They’re all snow and Gulags. They chuck away the keys and leave you to rot.”

  “We are the good people,” someone repeated.

  I thought, oh, aye, is that right? Then why do I always finish up hunted across our creaking old kingdom while everybody else gets the blondes, Monaco villas and yachts in the Caribbean? My expression must have given these thoughts away because Lady Veronica called the gathering to an end.

  “Well, that has served our purpose!” she trilled. “We’ve all met, and explained our purpose on the Melissa.” She leant confidingly to me. “You’ll love St Petersburg! It captivates the interested traveller!”

  “And no questions,” Mangot growled. “No gambling. No involvements, no stunts.”

  “Don’t make waves,” Les Renown put in. “Don’t get drunk And don’t yak your head off.”

  “We’ve put you with a quiet table,” June pointed out. “They’ll do quizzes and shuffleboard, maybe bingo and go to our antiques talks.”

  “I told them I’m a driver for some town council.”

  Cried Lady Veronica, “How clever!”

  “One’s a retired ploddite, dunno what rank.”

  “Uniformed branch, ex-sergeant,” Les said with a sneer.

  We rose to leave. I ached to escape, feeling stultified. Lady Veronica conjured up Marie to show us out. I got the feeling the stewardess had sussed the corridor, making sure nobody was around to see us leave. I found myself walking with June Milestone and adjusted my pace to her slow stroll. The others went on without a word.

  “This way,” she said.

  “Er, look, Mrs Milestone. I’d better turn in, because – ”

  “Cut it out, Lovejoy,” she said quietly, and drew me into a corner of the Century lounge. She waved a stewardess off and sat in an armchair, me opposite. The place was quiet, just a few groups chatting and laughing, a pianist playing selections from some operetta. “Now, Lovejoy, a few rules to be getting on with.”

  I slumped. “I thought you’d forgotten.”

  “Forget you, you bastard?” She didn’t laugh. “My only chance to possess a genuine Thomas Saint sewing machine, and you tricked me out of it.”

  “It wasn’t like that!” I said indignantly.

&
nbsp; “You were ogling that tart, Lovejoy. I wasn’t taken in for a single minute. You told her the truth, that it wasn’t a Singer but a Saint. I’d have made a fortune…”

  She spat venom while I sat there and took it. The only time she paused was when an elderly couple paused to say how much they were looking forward to her talks. Instantly she was all sweetness and light.

  “Oh, I’m so pleased!” she carolled. “Weren’t you on the Oceana cruise to Venice…?” and similar gunge.

  Our spat truly hadn’t been my fault. An Englishman, Thomas Saint, patented the first sewing machine in 1790, having worked on the design for yonks. Find a genuine one and you’ve a fortune on your hands, though early Singers also cost. I’d been doing a sweep through the Midlands, where June lived with a mad penniless poet who believed he was a reincarnation of Chaucer. I visited an auction. June was in. A bonny woman carrying a babe was listening to the auctioneers. Most items were dross – wardrobes from the Utility period of World War Two, faded books, pock-marked mirrors that would cost the earth to restore, a few derelict chairs, fly-specked etchings. I was on the point of leaving when something bonged within my chest. I could hardly breathe, and homed in on this small gadget that shone into my eyes. It was a little sewing machine, almost mint. A genuine Thomas Saint. Don’t laugh. It would keep the buyer in holidays for a lifetime. I gaped at it. Someone plucked at my arm. It was the lass with the bab.

  “Excuse me,” she whispered. “Would you please do me a favour?”

  “What?” I gasped, strangled.

  “Could you bid for it, please? Just to maybe make people think it was worth something? Only, I heard those dealers over there asking you about the antiques.” She reddened. “People have been laughing at it.”

  “Is it yours?”

  “Yes. Well, my gran’s. It was her grandma’s, and I know it’s not automatic … What’s the matter? You’ve gone white as a sheet.”

  I picked the Saint up and took her arm. The baby goggled. “Take it home, love. It’s worth a new pram and holidays all over the USA.”

  “Here, Lovejoy!” One of the whifflers – blokes who move the gunge about in auction rooms and (sometimes) remain honest while doing so – came and hissed angrily, “What the – ?”

  “Lady’s grandma’s changed her mind,” I whispered back and dragged the woman outside.

  We rang Bondi from the Welcome Sailor pub at East Gates, and he drove over from Frinton. By eight o’clock that evening Bondi had sold the little sewing machine on commission (10% isn’t too bad, when you think what Christie’s and Sotheby’s do you for) to a collector in Leeds. I checked next day to make sure she’d banked the gelt. I honestly got nothing out of it. I just hate the lads doing that. “The circus”, we call the Brighton and Solihull teams of dealers who come trolling round country auctions. They jeer at anything that takes their fancy, just to put genuine bidders off. Now, why the lass with the bab hadn’t gone to the library and looked up old sewing machines, to check whether her gran’s was valuable or not, God only knows, but she hadn’t. If I hadn’t happened along, she’d have thrown away enough money to put down on a new house.

  People say virtue is and has and must be its own reward, but it isn’t and it hasn’t so it can’t. To prove it, here I was getting hate from Mrs June Milestone, the most influential antiques TV personality on earth, just for being virtuous. Holiness isn’t worth it; I’m always holy, and I know.

  Meanwhile the old couple passed on their way, and La Milestone reverted to viperish spite. “Don’t come the innocent with me, Lovejoy. That harlot rewarded you in kind, you sordid reptile…” and so on.

  All because June had been there, laughing with her antiques dealer pals, sure she was going to make a fortune by cheating a poor woman with a babe. I’d noticed her stormy glance at me and the lass as we’d left the auction. Wearily I let June’s rage wash over me. I’ve been detested by experts. One more wouldn’t make me lose any sleep.

  “Five rules, Lovejoy,” she said finally when she stopped seething. “In this enterprise, you do as I say. Obey me, and you’ll escape unscathed. Capeesh?”

  More rules? I’d already had a dozen from Executive Purser James Mangot and our secret ploddite Les Renown, ship’s comedian. “Aye.”

  “Rules two, three, four and five are – ”

  “Same as Rule One?” I guessed. I’d had this before from warders in clink.

  She smiled a wintry smile. It was like sleet. She included me in its chilly radiance. “Agreement at last! Here’s my cabin number. Never ring, never visit. One last caution.”

  “What?”

  “No revelations, or I shall have you packaged home to the Marquis of Gotham and his band of hunters. And …” She hesitated, having difficulty phrasing the last command. “And no mention of how you once tried to … well, be friendly towards me.”

  Which was a load of tat. “As I remember it,” I said, now seriously narked, “we made smiles at that big Midlands Antiques Expo just after you left that lunatic airline pilot. You even wanted me to –”

  “That will do!” she ground out. I quietened as she accepted yet more tributes from passing folk who just loved her TV work. Her smile for them was warm affection. When they’d left she turned with a snarl of pure malice. “You and I are strangers, Lovejoy. D’you hear? You will attend my antiques talks and report to James Mangot every morning, noon and evening. We need you solely because you are a divvy, for no other reason. Obey, and I shall let you escape on conclusion of the scheme. Disobey, and you will be handed over to the authorities.”

  “Right,” I said miserably. It actually meant not being handed over to the authorities, because the hunters would intervene and I would be disappeared in a phoney escape bid. Crooks call it doing an Argentina, from the methods of disappearing undesirables over there. I wondered if a ship this big usually had police on board, legitimate ones I mean.

  “What are we nicking from the Hermitage?”

  “Not a single thing.” She beckoned the stewardess and ordered a drink. None for me. “It’s crooks who’re doing that. I thought I’d explained.”

  “Sorry. I quite forgot.” I meant it really sincerely.

  She let me go. I turned and looked back. She was watching me with calculating eyes. I felt like you do at the doctor’s when he says good morning when he’s wondering where to stick his needles.

  There was a midnight buffet – soups, sandwiches, cakes, drinks, merriment. I went for a fresh load of calories in case we sank in the night, then went to my cabin. They’d folded down the coverlet and put chocolates on the pillow. I watched the TV until twoish, playing my Ten Word Game and trying to describe the mess I was in. I failed.

  When I woke the ship had stopped moving. We were in Amsterdam. I felt better. Time to go.

  Chapter Seven

  Amsterdam.

  Saying the word calls to mind diamonds, drugs, songs about mice in windmills, tulips, painters like Rembrandt and Van Gogh plus a few similar amateurs (joke). I thought these thoughts, leaning on the Promenade Deck rail looking out at Holland. So near, and here was me stuck on board.

  Remarkable city. The world’s first ever lottery was run by a Dutch artist’s widow, Mrs Jan Van Eyck, to help the poor of Bruges in Belgium, kind lass. And now it’s the Dutch, not the Scotch, who claim to have invented golf long before St Andrews got weaving. (Leave me out of the argument. I don’t take sides.) They also say Amsterdam invented modern banks in 1609, so the Dutch have a lot to answer for. I hate golf, and do banks ever help?

  I’d had breakfast. Passengers booked on city tours were disembarking. It’s the sort of thing that can make you sad. For a start, there seemed to be only two avenues off the ship. Each was a narrow gangway leading down from Decks Four and Five to the quayside. One person at a time, every single person showing their maroon plastic I.D. folder. Ghurka ex-soldiers checked everybody with electronic bleeper gadgets, and again when they reached the wharf. I felt bitter. As if anyone could vanish from the
middle of an open gangway in broad daylight. I ask you. How petty can people get?

  Uniformed crew met jaunters at the wharf, and away they went in coaches for canal trips and visits to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Exhibition. Meticulous. They weren’t going to lose some old dear on a foreign wharf, not the Melissa. The coaches were labelled. Passengers wore stickers. Ghurkas tallied passenger. In case you don’t know about Ghurkas, they are the most cheery soldiery in existence. They are also the most bloodthirsty. They hail from the Kingdom of Nepal, and by ancient treaty form regiments in Britain. When they retire, they take up security duties on ships, in banks and august firms in the City. Sounds okay? Sure, if you’re honest. Horrible if you’re a crook, because in action they’re the most loyal and savage warriors in existence. They’re famed for it. Once their killing knife is drawn, it’s never sheathed until … I won’t go on.

  Six Ghurkas on gangway duty. In the eight minutes I watched, they made no fewer than eleven checks, totting up passengers, ticking lists, talking into cell phones and only letting buses leave when their counts matched the requisite numbers. They did a lot of signalling to their compatriots on the shipboard end. Accuracy gets me down.

  Depressed, I wandered to the front of the ship – bows, we nautical types say – and then the rear end, to examine the ropes fastening us to the dockside. No way down. A squirrel would have a hard time jumping ship that way. I walked round the entire ship. The other side faced only water. It seemed hell of a way down. I gave up thoughts of swimming.

  Below, though, was one place the Ghurkas seemed to shun. A doorway in the ship’s side let out directly onto the wharf, where fruit and other victuals seemed to be loading. A fuel pipe, if that’s what it was, was attached to the hull by Dutch workmen wearing harbour logos. Our crew was busy. Water, maybe? Fuel? Sucking out ship’s waste? I suppose all that goes on, and I was simply seeing the business bits of a ship’s operation. Just in case, I got my jacket from my cabin and my I.D. folder. I went downstairs, and met Table 154’s Diamond Lil making her way on Deck Five among a crowd.