The Grace in Older Women (24 page)

21

Swanning downstairs, I felt as if I could run over houses. Lovejoy
of the three-league boots. Ashley, shaking with rage (did the blighter ever do
anything else? He was getting tiresome), was glaring in the hall. But he was
the one who'd sent me up to, er, rest in his wife's bedroom. I could smell
breakfast.

'In,' he ordered me.

The drawing room was aired, light, clean. Roberta was leaning
against a flower stand. She looked radiant in a camelia house dress,
fortuitously in a shaft of early morning sun. I advanced smiling, but halted
stricken when she raised her eyes. Hate? So soon again again?

'Lovejoy,' she said, voice shaking. 'How
dare
you!'

Eh?
She'd
raped
me
, for God's sake. I'd had no chance of
escape. 'Eh?' I was confused. 'Ashley sent me to, er, you. And you encouraged .
. .'But you mustn't tell how sex is, or women get mad. Euphemism rules. 'Didn't
you, er . . . ?' Beg me to beat you, use crude foul language? 'Invite me?' I
ended lamely.

'That is not in question, Lovejoy! What is, is that you are a
thief!' She was shaking like an aspen leaf, though I wouldn't know an aspen
from a daffodil. Some poem I'd learnt as a little lad, willows whiten, aspens
quiver, little breezes. Quite good, for a poem. Whoever wrote it should stick
at it, maybe make a living.

'Eh? I've nicked nothing, missus.' What was worrying me was that
I'd seen the great equestrian painting carried in, yet so far I'd felt not a
single chime. Forgery, rearing its head in Dragonsdale? I brightened a bit. All
was not lost.

'Ashley? Summon Lily.'

We waited. Lily entered, stood mute with clasped hands. They could
search me until the cows came home. I had the perfect witness in Roberta
herself, right? She'd all but reamed me. I'd been naked, in no position to hide
anything stolen or otherwise.

'Lily,' Ashley demanded. 'Did you remove the food from the blue
suite bedside table?'

'No, Mr. Battishall. The plates were empty when I cleared away,
sir.’

'Thank you, Lily. You may go.'

Food?
Food
? I listened.
They
were
off their frigging heads.

Click, the door went. Silence. Roberta's furious stare was now
triumphant. I felt lasered. She was livid because I'd eaten the remnants of her
gargantuan midnight nosh in this madhouse?

‘There, Lovejoy! How dare you
steal
my sustenance!
’

Ashley wore a smug gotcha smile. The sanest person in this bedlam
was drunken old Jim Andrews, and he was completely off his trolley.

‘I’m sorry, Mr. Battishall.’ When in doubt, grovel. When in
serious trouble in a loony bin, grovel more. 'I hadn't eaten all day. I was
afraid it would go bad . . .' Et lying cetera. Christ, Roberta had scoffed
enough to fuel a regiment. Why couldn't I have a mouthful while she slept? Yet
I'd been shagging Ashley's wife. He'd planned it all, condoned everything. I
wanted to go back to my cold empty cottage.

'Lovejoy, you will be severely punished for your treachery.'

Roberta swayed. Ashley leapt forward with a cry of alarm, helped
her to the couch. She reclined. He dashed for cushions.

'I will see to him, dearest.' Ashley rounded on me, flushed with
all this excitement. 'Lovejoy. You will begin work immediately without
breakfast
. Inspect the Stubbs painting,
estimate its value. Advise on its sale-
now
.'

'Why?'

Roberta wailed faintly. Ashley looked fit to marmalize me, but I
stood my ground. The aroma of breakfast out there was driving me insane. I was
starving. I honestly felt I'd earned a crust, a cup of tea. Time I escaped from
this frigging zoo, get to the Misses Dewhurst Lorelei nosh house . . .

Ashley controlled himself with visible effort. 'The Cause,' he
said, reverence in his voice. He almost knelt.

'Money,' I said. 'Is that what you mean?'

'But the Cause must be financed -

'You're going about it wrong, Ashley.’ I walked to the portrait of
Charlie, moved the burning votive light further from the precious Garthwaite
silk.' You’ll get nabbed. So will Roberta and all your daft supporters. Serve
you right, too. I hate a poor-quality fraud.'

Mrs. Battishall’s shriek was so loud it fetched Lily. She retreated
under my bent eye.

'Ashley, dear,' whimpered Roberta, 'shall I be arrested?'

'Within seconds, love,' I answered for him. 'This place will be
sold to pay lawyers,' I added. 'I'm only being kind.'

'Don't trick us, Lovejoy.' Ashley still wanted an execution.

'No, Ashley,' I said, sorrow coming over me. 'That Stubbs painting
is a fake. If it was genuine, a mighty antique that size, I'd be staggering,
being sick on your sham Isfahan carpets. As it is, I could eat a horse.' Mental
apology to Whistlejack.

'Don't be stupid, Lovejoy. You are simply trying to deceive us.'
He was calm in ignorance. I was frantic with fear in my cold certainty. 'We
paid highly to Mr. Sheehan for the privilege of having our own true retainers
take the Stubbs. It can't have gone wrong.'

'Don't say I didn't warn you, Ashley.'

Ashley was so sure, every second of his life just so. Must be an
unnerving feeling. 'You've already decided on some betrayal scheme. Try it, and
you will have to take the consequences.'

'No betrayal intended,' I lied, with a sad countenance. 'But I'm a
peaceful bloke. All I want is my usual life. It may not seem much, but I live
down among the bread men. It's what I'm for. Okay, I'll raise money for your
daft cause. You have the whip hand. I give you my word. Honest.' That took some
saying. I was quite sincere, as far as I could tell.

'In return?'

'You just leave me alone afterwards.'

'But?' he said, warily.

The best rule when lying, I find, is to make a condition. I pursed
my lips, eyed Roberta's languid form.

'Two conditions,' I said, chancing my arm. 'You let me arrange
your scam, the money-raiser. I alone do it. It will bring in a huge sum. I keep
penny in the pound. I promise you'll control every groat, start to finish.'

'Very well. You will market our Stubbs?' Their? See what I mean?
Possession is fluid stuff, ownership a myth.

'Promise. Hand on my heart.' He ahemed. He knew what was coming.

'You mentioned two conditions, Lovejoy.' Frosty.

'Yes.’ I looked at Roberta, went a bit red, not acting. Did I say
euphemism rules? I stammer when embarrassed. 'The main condition,’ I gave a
rueful grimace by way of apology, ‘I want to . . . visit Mrs. Battishall. Er,
spend the night in conversation with the lady, just once more.' 'Conversation'
meant physical intimate contact. Translate the word in old novels by sexual
intercourse, heavy petting at least, and you're there.

'Dearest?' Unbelievably, Ashley passed the query on.

She sighed. I noticed she had a mark on her neck, and looked away
in guilt. Somebody had been gnawing Mrs. Battishall in orgiastic detumescence.
And her milk-white cheek was also darkened by a faint bruise, skillfully
cosmeticked not to show. I had some too. Only she knew where.

'Very well, dear.'

For the Cause, I thought, but did not say. She'd been more
explicit than any soft-porn video.

'We agree, Lovejoy,' Ashley explained, as if they'd been talking
in some secret lingo. Maybe they were. Chinese women in the olden days
developed a special language, for writing to one another so nobody outside
their circles could follow. I wonder how often the code was cracked. Linear B
had been, and Samuel Pepys's mirror diaries. Maybe Ashley's docile agreement
and the plump luscious lady's compliance meant what had happened to Tryer?

Breakfast now? But they were looking at me in expectation. Up to
me. I needed a scam that gave me freedom.

'Here's what we do. We arrange an exhibition of frauds, forgeries,
fakes. Sexton Blakes, shams, lookalikes, duds. Scores, hundreds, maybe.' They
were quite blank. I paced a bit, energy starting to flow. 'We claim nothing,
just tell the whole wide world that we've got a variety of forgeries. It's
quite legal. The British Museum's done it, earned itself a fortune. Every
antique . . .' I panned with outspread palms, being a huge advertising sign '.
. . is a genuine forgery! At knock-down prices! Get your Monet, your Rembrandt,
here! For peanuts!'

Still silent.

Don't you see?' I cried, marching to and fro in enthusiasm. 'We'll
pull the selling ploy when we open!'

'The selling ploy?'

'Yes!' I beamed, laughing with excitement now I was motoring. 'We
announce that somebody has actually found a genuine X, Y, or Z in the sale,
bought a
real
Rembrandt, Tompion
clock, Turner, whatever, for a song! Don't you see? They'll come in droves!
We'll seed the exhibition with a dead obvious
genuine
antique, ask a colossal admission fee!'

'Where do we get a genuine antique, Love joy? We only have the
Stubbs painting, and daren't advertise that'

'You two aren't in the real world. We sell any antique to some
delighted customer for a bob, aye. And tell the world, do a broadcast on the
evening news. But it doesn't mean we have one, see?'

'No,' Roberta said. She looked good enough to eat.

My patience gave. 'See it as we go. Leave it to me.’

'But we'll get very little from selling mere forgeries, Lovejoy,'
she said doubtfully. 'They are surely cheap?' She was recovering before my very
eyes, her vapid ailment vanishing under the glow of imagined money.

I sighed. 'Just trust me. Fraud's as routine as drawing breath.'

'But fraud is so rare, Lovejoy.'

Well, I had to laugh. 'Look, love.' I cast about for an example.
'Ashley here uses a mobile phone, right? Well, that instrument is the
fastest-growing source of fraud in the universe. Let's say you're travelling
abroad, Bangkok, Malaysia, London, wherever. You want to phone home. But it
will cost the earth, right? So you simply go downtown to the public phone banks
anywhere on earth
and stand there,
looking willing. Within five minutes, honest to God, somebody'll whisper, Want
to phone home, cheap? They charge one US dollar per illegal minute. They're
called phreakers.' I spelled it for them. 'You can even
buy
a number for three hundred US dollars.'

'Buy a number?' Ashley scoffed, but he was worried.

'Then you simply dial, on any phone. The phone company bills the
registered owner of the mobile's number. You merrily phone Alaska, Australia,
Jamaica. Talk all you want. Why not? Somebody else gets the bill.'

'Lovejoy,' Roberta said in a small voice. 'You are a crook.'

'I didn't nick the Stubb painting, love,' I shot back.

'Ashley . . .' Her lip trembled. She began to wilt.

'Sorry, love. It just came out.’ I made to advance, possibly to
offer consolation.

Two problems, Lovejoy.' Ashley interposed himself. This show of
forgeries. Will it be open to the public? We don't know how to organize such an
exhibition, or make money from it."

'It's all the antiques trade does, most of the time.'

He blinked, but his wife took it in her totter.

'I take it these fakes would have to be excellent quality,’ she
said. 'Where will we get them?'

'Love,' I said, with more sincerity than I'd felt for days, 'the
world'll provide any number, any time."

'Honestly?' Her eyes went round.

'Well, no,' I admitted. 'Not honestly. But,' I added with fervour,
'genuine forgeries by the train load. Deal?'

'Deal,' she said, modestly lowering her eyes.

She didn't need to refer to Ashley. I was pleased. As long as she
stayed boss, I stood a chance of getting out of this unscathed, not least by
Big John Sheehan, Ashley's minions, and Maudie Laud and her constables.

'Done, then.' We smiled at each other. Ashley didn't smile at all.
I decided to push my luck. 'Is it breakfast?'

A reasonable nosh in the communal dining room, with Jim Andrews
asking me what my platoon thought of the new batch of Lee-Enfields, and a
gaggle of elderly twitchers itching to trudge the fields looking for birds. And
Lily, sardonic with her non-smile when I wanted more toast. Then to the
cellars, to see the great Stubbs painting.

Nick and goons rigged lights up to show it off.

Well, it was bonny, right enough. The huge horse, colours just
right, rearing on that genuinely ancient canvas. And the frame had the right
marks. I looked, sniffed, felt. All in all, a really good forgery. Well done,
Juliana, I thought. Gold star for effort. But fake. Not a chime of the genuine
about it. She'd probably used the phenol-formaldehyde trick - this chemical
ages an oil painting in a fortnight. Everybody does it. The oil plus pigment
swiftly hurries to the necessary hardness. I was disappointed, though. She'd
used French
vernis craqueleur
,
varnish that imparts a realistic fine surface cracking. Only takes thirty
minutes, and a new oil painting looks 150 years old, but it's still the mark of
an amateur forger. Very sad she'd used Lefranc's ageing varnish. If she'd used
frame gilder's
assiette a dorer
,
extra-fine grade, she wouldn't have needed to. It's upsetting to come across a
good job spoilt. Ha' p'orth of tar, and all that.