The Grace in Older Women (19 page)

They brought me before Maudie Laud, a firecracker who is now the
region's boss. She is smart and mistrustful of everybody, mostly me. I'll like
her in another reincarnation, because she also distrusts her own Plod.

'Lovejoy,' she began, after telling the tape recorder the date and
time, 'you were arrested on reasonable suspicion.'

'Was I?' I brightened immediately, because it sounded like an
excuse. I wasn't forgetting I'd gone partly amnesic. Some suspicions are
reasonable. Over nine hundred years ago, our beautiful Princess Margaret,
fleeting to a nunnery for reasons best not gone into, was shipwrecked. Who
should help her ashore but King Malcolm of Scotland, who proposed on the soggy
spot. (Actually, he already had a Queen, but she soon died suddenly - some
pious folk claim her death was St Margaret of Scotland's first miracle.) The
convent idea got binned. But King Malcolm was suspicious, for his new Queen
Margaret secretly slipped away each day. With drawn sword and seething retinue
he followed - to find her praying for his soul before a secret altar. History
doesn't tell how embarrassed he was: ‘Oh, sorry, love. Er, just out strolling
with a column of armed knights in this, er, barren cave, er . . .' Sort of
scrape I get into, but not out of. Where was I? Being reasonably guilty.

'Indeed,' Maudie said crisply. 'Several corroborating witnesses.
However it seems you appeared on the scene after the event, and in company with
a charabanc driver in whose company you had been all day.’

‘Had I?' Her lips thinned in anger. She controlled it, game lass.

‘Yes. With Americans presently residing at the George Hotel. You
took them to Whychwe Priory on an outing.’

‘Did I?' Frail and sagging.

'Therefore,’ she said, with a visible effort not to have me shot
for bad acting, ‘I am dropping charges for the time being. You can leave.’ She
told the tape recorder the time and date, and explained to it, seeing it really
cared, that the interview was over.
For
the time being
is their threat to us law-abiders.

Thank you,’ I said, rising with a distinct totter.

There were three others in the room, two uniformed Plod of serfdom
rank, plus some stout silent bloke with malevolent eyes. I hated him and his
fancy waistcoat back.

‘Lovejoy,' Maudie said. ‘One word. If you don't mind.’

If I didn't
mind
? Had
the planet spun off course? I waited as they left. The stout plainclothesman
hung back.

Thank you, Wilberforce,' Maudie said. The door closing on his hot
steady eyes.

‘New chaplain?' I said. Mistake. Jokes always are, I find. Jimmy
James, funniest ever comedian, never told a single joke.

She was still seated and looked up with a calculating expression.
She lit a cigarette, which surprised me. I wanted to remind her, no smoking in
the nick, but wisely didn't.

‘Ideas, Lovejoy’

Not a question. Tell who killed Tryer, Lovejoy, or else. They'd
not said if the driver was recovering, or moribund in hospital. Nor Chemise.

‘Dunno, love, I returned her stare. ‘Honest to God, I'd tell you
if I'd even an inkling.'

‘You see my problem?' Mild of manner, a genuine question this
time. She inhaled, took a shred of tobacco off the tip of her tongue, every
gesture deliberate. I'd hate to make love with Maudie Laud; you'd never know
what bits were acting. Mind you, I never do anyway, because I'm too busy
entering paradise. ‘I believe you could guess, but will not say.'

‘You're wrong. I've just said.'

'You will seek out and do to death the perpetrator?'

'Me? I've never done anything like that."

'Which is the most evil way a police investigation can end,
Lovejoy.' She went on as if I hadn't spoken. 'Loose ends make untidy stitching.
They fray in my mind, fraying away.’

‘Yes.'

'My suggestion is this: go about your lawful business. But before
you do anything, ask even the most innocent question, call, personally, at my
home if need be, pass word by your smelly reprobate Dill. Understand?'

'Yes.’ Christ, they talk like the League of Nations. It comes with
an inflation-proof pension. 'Can I ask?'

She didn't move. ‘I’ll listen.'

Aha. She really did know zilch. 'I decided to call on Tryer, ask
about his eviction notice, the council's watch committee, con another meal out
of Chemise. Did Chemise see anybody?'

'No perpetrator. Nor the driver.’ She added with unconcealed
bitterness, 'The fire services did their usual job of obliterating every
footprint on the greensward.'

'Good that they came fast, though,' I said without thinking.

Her expression changed. 'So you remember we were last on the
scene?'

'Aren't they always?' I said, blithe. She wasn't fooled.

That was that. I had no injuries to speak of, a few scratches I
could live with. I said good morning and left. I reached the car park before my
way was impeded.

'Yes, Mr. Wilberforce?'

He stood, metabolic rate burning fat, sweating hate.

'I've heard about you, Lovejoy.' He smelled of garlic. His
moustache was brownish at each end. His waistcoat glittered. 'Your record
stinks. I know you, Lovejoy. You ponce, filch, thieve, cadge, nick, beg off
everybody. You're disgusting. You know it. I know it. So I'm going to get you,
hook or crook.'

There's no point in replying to policy statements. They've all got
them, from social workers to the Fraud Squad. All they translate into is: we're
in authority, and do what we frigging well like. Which is why the UN is utterly
useless, the Olympics corrupt, the EU bureaucrats rich beyond the greediest
imagination. I read somewhere that declarations of war simply weren't, and that
most wars just start without any gentlemanly preliminaries like polite
exchanges of notes. Wilberforce was just another psycho in office.

'No answer, Lovejoy?' Flecks of spittle spattered the air. I
wondered if he had a wife somewhere, children.

'What was the question?’

'Willy,' somebody called just as he drew back to take a swing. He
didn't relax, but didn't clout me. A uniformed Plod was standing on the steps
looking down. 'You're wanted.'

We all looked up. Maudie Laud was at a window. Quite a tableau. I
gave her a nod and departed that place. All nicks have steps. Noticed that?
Sometimes, I speculate on the reasons. Nothing architectural, I'll bet.

There's a book called
Spotlight
.
It pictures all actors, gives names, sometimes a little statement of their
perfections. It took me forty long minutes flicking through before I came
across Hugo Hopestone. He looked better than in real life, with more hair, good
teeth. Sneakily I wondered if photographers touch the prints up. I phoned his
agent, a woman sounding a toxic chainsmoker, and lied I had another job for
Hugo. He was miraculously available to meet.

With relief, I went for breakfast with my tourists, but they'd
gone to some cosmic séance with a lady called Beatrice I once made smiles with down
the estuary. Her mate is Barnacle Bill, a nautical salt of enormous stature and
paranoid suspicion. I was really narked, because I'd only had one measly plate
of bacon, egg, fried tomatoes and beans in the nick. I hadn't complained when
they'd shortchanged me on the toast because I'd expected a proper breakfast
with Hilda, Mahleen and Nadette while the others provided a merry backdrop.
Bitterly, I got the old Morris and drove out to Fenstone to see Juliana
Witherspoon. It's coming to something when you have to visit a churchwarden
instead of having a breakfast you've been promised twice. It's not fair.

Looked at in the cold light of drizzle, Fenstone appeared
stuporous. Maybe it once bustled in the Middle Ages, been a thriving centre of
mediaeval commerce. Now it seemed on its last legs. Usually, an East Anglian
village has farm carts, impatient motors, prams, old folk working out how long
before the children must be met, a shop with football notices, cricket matches,
the whole humdrum swirl.

This was like the bomb had dropped. Some farm tractor had gone
through, deposited a stetch of clay on the road. It had remained undisturbed.
The one old lady walking a dog actually turned to look as I drove in, giving me
a quizzical What, a motor car? sort of gander. It had not burgeoned during my
enforced absence. The FOR SALE signs still bristled, posters still bleached,
weather-torn. I managed to find a parking space (joke) in the main street.
There was one other motor, its front tyre flat. A notice stuck on its windscreen
announced POLICE AWARE. It's how the Plod take dynamic action on abandoned cars
The Bull pub was having another lie-in. The church looked as lively as its
churchyard. It was all happening in Fenstone. I had Miss Witherspoon's address
- not that it would have caused me any difficulty if I hadn't.

Juliana's cottage was set back at right angles from the main road
near the tavern, with a once-paved space showing where farm carts had pulled in
before the adjacent barn. A light was on. Some vandal had imposed fanlights in
the lovely old treble tiling. I almost shivered, something I don't often do
because I'm a warm mortal, but the mist was already clinging. Any
self-respecting East Anglian mist should have cleared off by now.

'Wotcher, Juliana. Did it get nicked, then?'

'No.' She didn't even bother to look round.

'Why not? Seemed a pretty good painting.'

She was seated before an easel, working hard on the fine detail of
a small painting. I went in, stood looking. Normally I'd have dithered at the
door and asked. But she'd established different rules for us. I couldn't help
staring at her nape. There's hardly anything more interesting than a woman's
nape, with its wisps of hair trying to get loose, looser. The place was larger
than she needed. Partly completed canvases stood against the walls. Wattle and
daub, I noticed, with ancient beams above, maybe fifteenth century.

'August Macke, love? That original in Berlin, eh?'

'Juliana Witherspoon,' she said with cold ferocity.

Artists feel like this, even excellent forgers. Most, including
Packo Orange, who would die if they thought for one minute that their forged
paintings would for ever be thought legitimate. They need fame, like all
artists, and hope that one day they'll be unmasked and admired. But the art
establishment sees them as fraudsters, and wants them dead - the only state
that guarantees nil productivity plus profit.

August Macke was a German Expressionist. Brave lad, he volunteered
for the Great War, and lasted only a few weeks. His paintings are small,
evocative of that lost era of long frocks and hat boxes. I think them
beautiful. Juliana was doing his tiny oil,
The
Woman in the Green Jacket
. (Tip: Fake Expressionist paintings, currently
almost unknown, will become epidemic in three years' time, so buy soon.)

'You're terrific, love.’

'Thank you, Lovejoy.' Cold. Her hand did not waver as she put her small
sable to the foreground. 'Praise indeed, coming straight from a police cell.'

Rumour still got through to Fenstone then. But I was narked. 'I
was cleared. Which means,' I added, 'that I'm declared innocent, unlike you.'

She dropped her brush, retrieved it. 'What do you mean?' She
reached for the turpentine. I wish I could afford sable brushes. They cost the
earth. She had a dozen, tips under inverted plastic freezer bags. Same trick I
use.

'Meaning you can't criticize Miss Witherspoon.'

'Lovejoy,' she said wearily. 'Why are you here?'

'To ask what other paintings you've done, love.'

'Why should I tell you?' I cleaned her sable, gave it back for her
to thin the point.

'Don't you clean with petrol? I do, unless it's a forgery. Then I
use turpentine or white spirit. Are you okay, love?'

She was suddenly droopy, as if it was as all too much. 'You can
look.'

I wandered about the improvized studio. She sat on her stool
staring at her unfinished Macke. I searched among the ones leaning against the
wall. The light wasn't good. Most artists in East Anglia swear by a 'good
northern light', which is why they knock holes in lovely old buildings. The two
fanlights were the best Juliana could afford. God knows what she'd have done to
this lovely old barn if she'd been rich. Maybe not forged at all?

No doubt about it, Juliana Witherspoon was of exceptionally high
standard. In fact, the one she was doing now I'd have paid for, knowing it a
forgery, at a sale.

'Where did you train?'

'Italy, mostly. I wouldn't have minded Russia.'

'You use good canvases?' I saw she didn't understand the trade
lingo. i mean genuinely old canvases.' I'd seen at least one that still gave
vibes, but it had been drastically cleaned of its original antique painting.

'Some.' That listlessness again. I tried to cheer her up.

'Look, love. This isn't signed yet. It's straight Eliose Harriet
Stannard. Date it 1864, sign it with her name. You're allowed, by law, as long
as you don't sell it as a genuine Stannard. Wasn't she Alfred Stannard's
daughter, Norwich School? Know what I'd do? I'd pencil in - use Borrowdale
graphite, though - Alfred's name, and some sentiment like, 'Excellent, my
dear!' That'll remind buyers she attended her dad's art classes. It'll go like
a bomb.' She looked at me. I faltered. They were not happy eyes. 'That is, if I
was
a forger and wanted money. Put a
saver on it, your name in flake white under a coat of emulsion on the reverse.
Forgers escape prison that way.' Me too, I thought, but did not say.