The Rich And The Profane

JONATHAN 
GASH

A Lovejoy Novel

PENGUIN BOOKS

To the Chinese God Wei DTo, protector of books from the ungodly, this hook is humbly dedicated. Lovejoy.

For

Jackie and Bill

Thanks

Susan

Seeing a woman get arrested makes you relieved it’s not you. Except this time I’d really relied on Irma for today’s dinner. The antiques game is the pits.

Irma had found me feeding my robin, a creature of psychotic jealousy. It flirted its beak, its tail, stood truculently four-square and made its kick-kick-kick sound. I told it to shut up. It took no notice, which is typical. Women, infants and animals treat me like a serf.

‘Are you Lovejoy?’ She gave me a photo of a necklace. ‘I need your help.’

She looked beautiful and rich. I’d never seen her before. ‘You want me to find an antique necklace like this? Easy. They’re pretty common. Late Edwardian, semi-precious stones. Tourmaline’s bonny, but these small malachite greens are horrible.’ I pointed to them. ‘A lady’s beautiful swan neck can only take so many absolute primary colours.’ But you couldn’t tell the Edwardians that.

A cool lass, dressed for visiting a maiden aunt. Celtic, my old Gran would have said, black hair, radiant blue eyes, pale skin. Twenty, give or take.

‘I don’t want to buy, Lovejoy. I want to steal it.’

‘Why steal something so ordinary?’

‘This necklace is mine.’ She said it with fervour, caught herself and read my tatty sign, lovejoy antiques, inc. ‘I expected you to be quite grand.’

I admit I don’t impress. Crumbling thatched cottage, rickety porch, windows partly boarded from recent bailiff trouble, my old Austin Ruby rusting among weeds, and a workshop with rotting doors agape.

‘It’s in Gimbert’s Auction. My aunt won’t give it back.’ ‘Tomorrow’s sale?’ I tried to judge her. ‘Why not bid for it? It’ll only be a few quid.’

Angrily she erupted, ‘And give her the satisfaction? They said at the Antiques Arcade that you knew how to steal things.’

I sighed. East Anglia’s famed reticence was in action. What with that and this girl’s hate, they’d have the TV news cameras waiting. I felt uncomfortable.

‘Look, love. Once upon a time, a bloke in our next village got left his grandad’s old motorbike. It was a 1954 AJS Porcupine - banned in its day for being too fast. He sold it for quarter of a million. Same day, a vicar in the next county sold a Thackeray chamber pot and went on a Mediterranean holiday from the proceeds. That famed author criticized the city of Cork, whose Victorian citizens put his face in their utensils. See? There’s legit money in antiques, if you only look. But not with necklaces like this.’ ‘Teach - me - to - steal,’ she said, as if to an infant. Three things exist in the world of antiques, and only three. They’re antiques, women and money. The trouble is, everybody knows - they say - everything about all three, when they know nothing. In fact, knowledge is pretty useless. Give you an instance:

Last year, a famous university (Southampton; don’t tell) spent up psychoanalysing dogs. Their project: which dog is man’s best pal? Their conclusion was (1) greyhound, (2) whippet, (3) the basset hound. So let’s all rush to friendly neighbourhood kennels and buy, because now we know. Except there’s one hitch. What if you prefer Buster, your lovable spaniel, instead? See what I mean? All that magnificent research can take a running jump. Knowledge is useful, up to a point. But it’s what you
want
that matters. That dog info, so expensively bought, is on a par with all sorts of other ‘essential facts’. Like, the Indian elephant has a hell of a temper in the morning. So? And, the world’s first recorded tornado occurred, guess when, in ad 1410, in -guess where? - Venice. So? And intrepid polar flyer Commander Richard E. Byrd, first human to fly over the North Pole, er, faked it. Didn’t get within a hundred miles of the Pole. The Norwegian Amundsen
really
did it in an airship less than a week later. I explained all this.

‘Knowledge only goes so far, love.’

‘Get on with it,’ she said, lips tight.

‘It’s nothing to do with me, OK?’ I couldn’t afford another brush with the law. I’d not long squared Dunko for my last bail.

‘Thank you, Lovejoy. I’ll pay.’ She held out a hand. ‘Irma Dominick.’ We shook politely. ‘One thing, please.’ She hesitated. ‘Is it true? And can you tell from a photo?’

They all ask this.

‘Being a diwy? Yes.’ Before she could start I went on, ‘Genuine antiques -
genuine,
mind - make me feel odd. It’s a rare gift.’ That was a laugh. Gift? My ‘gift’ has caused me more trouble than any number of friends, police, fakers and dealers. ‘Forgeries don’t. And no, I can’t tell from photographs.’

The answer seemed to be what she hoped for.

‘How much will the lesson be, please?’

‘I’ll teach you how to steal free of charge.’ I like to spread culture.

In less than an hour I showed her how to confuse whif-flers - auctioneers’ grotty assisants. I explained how to obfuscate, distract, deflect, shuff - i.e. switch - items.

‘Whatever you do, never protest, hit, scratch,’ I warned. ‘Theft is simply nicking something. Robbery is different. Robbery is stealing with force or fear. Law hates both, but robbery most. Got it?’

‘No violence,’ she said.

‘And don’t carry a coat over your arm,’ I told her. ‘Everybody’ll just laugh at that old shoplifter’s trick.’

‘What’s the quickest?’ she demanded.

‘It’s called the plop. Carry a plastic bag with shopping in it.’ I hadn’t got one, so pretended. ‘Hold it down, at arm’s length, but not with your elbow flexed - that’s another giveaway Examine some trinket. Check there’s nobody watching - pretend to tilt it, to scrutinize. Then you
seem
to replace it on the display trestle, but keep hold of it with your forefinger and middle fingers.’

‘And then leave?’

‘No.’ I struggled for patience. ‘You let it slide into your bag. The plop.’

She was slow picking it up, but I drilled her.

‘If anybody challenges you, go all flustered and say it must have fallen in accidentally. Don’t, for God’s sake, try to look cool. Shed tears, apologize until they’re sick to death of you. They’ll let you go. Suspicions don’t count.’ ‘But then I’ll not have the necklace, Lovejoy, so then what’ll I do?’

She had really bonny eyes. ‘Send for me, love, and I’ll do it.’

I saw her into Gimbert’s - auctioneers of no renown - and went to look around the shops bordering the town square. Pleasant, with colourful stalls and barrows, a fountain, children playing, a little band parping away. I’d only been there five minutes when I heard the rumpus, the shouts, and saw a constable extending his stride - bobbies are taught never to run, in case we realize they ought to move about more often. My heart sank. I listened to the hubbub, the excited chatter of shoppers. She’d done it wrong and got caught.

Sad, I sat at a cafe table.

‘No, ta, Ellie,’ I said when the waitress came pestering.

‘It looked like that Irma you were with, Lovejoy.’

You have to put serfs down. ‘I don’t know the woman.’ No cocks crowed.

‘She shouted, “Tell Lovejoy.” She was wrestling to get away.’

So much for my advice. ‘Mine’s a common name. Any tea?’

She glanced about. Porridge, her stout boss, a man of calamitous greed, glared because I wasn’t throwing money at his dingy business.

‘Sorry, Lovejoy,’ she said, and went on her way. Ellie’s nice, but too mean to risk her livelihood for nothing, selfish cow.

Freddy Foxheath found me. He was red-faced and flopped down breathless. The police van was just leaving, watched by gloaters rejoicing it wasn’t them.

‘Near thing, Lovejoy,’ he puffed, like he’d been under shellfire. ‘She’d almost got it in her handbag when that whiffler saw.’

‘Saw?’ I was appalled. She’d done the plop really quite well in my garden. ‘What was she playing at?’

‘Don’t start, Lovejoy. You sent her in, not me.’

This is the thanks you get.

‘For God’s sake, Freddy, it was a tiny necklace, not a Rolls.’

I seethed at my wasted effort. It’s not like shoplifting, when you can be in and out like a fiddler’s elbow. Antiques are different.

‘She shouted to get you to help her.’

Thank you, Irma. ‘Ellie told me.’

See what you get for being kind? Choosing Freddy Foxheath as Irma’s cullet had been no great stroke of genius. A cullet’s a lookout man while you’re thieving. But standards are falling. Once, cullets were ten a penny. Now, you search all morning and get a deadleg like Freddy Foxheath. He’s a horse-jawed dapper little bloke, lazy but with a knack of looking keen.

‘What’ll you do, Lovejoy?’

‘Me?’ I said, offended. ‘For her? Nowt. Why should I?’

‘You two want serving?’ Porridge’s bulbous belly ballooned a yard ahead of his glare.

‘Your coffee improved, has it?’

So I went to see Michaelis Singleton, a lawyer who was nearly struck off for putting sex and greed ahead of legal principles. As if everybody doesn’t do that.

Needles caught me as I crossed near the Arcade. He was agog.

‘Did you see it, Lovejoy? A posh bird got done for nicking a bit of purple pottery! Can you imagine? Rich crumpet.’

We common folk are in awe of the rich. Our fascination makes the rich become even more important than their millions, truth to tell. Clark Gable, driving home, once ran over some pedestrian and killed him stone dead. Studio executives quickly dragged C.G. out of the driving seat and replaced him with some other poor bloke before the cops arrived. The substitute got arrested and did a year in prison. He was
very
well paid, but Clark Gable was in the clear. See? We serfs know our place. We aid and abet the posh and the mighty. It’s the aura of money.

‘Ta, Needles.’ He’s called Needles because knitting is his pastime, not from anything more sinister. He carries messages between antique dealers.

‘It looked like that rich tart who’s been hanging about the Antiques Arcade asking after you.’

‘Aye,’ I growled. ‘She found me.’

Wary, I entered the august chambers of Michaelis Singleton, lawyer. These are the cellars of Vaunce & Playfair, wine merchants, where Michaelis spends hours sampling the wares. When the Law Lords almost disbarred him, he bought this ancient family firm of wine importers. It’s now his niche.

‘Mikko?’ I kept my head low. ‘It’s me, Lovejoy.’

‘What now, Lovejoy?’

‘Charming.’ I’d done him favours in the past, and he speaks like I was nothing but trouble. The musty place was unlit but for one candle on an upturned barrel, amid racks of gleaming bottles.

There he was, scion of a once-great family, swaying. It was a scene from
Kidnapped.

‘You’re a metabolic miracle, Mikko. Do you never eat?’

Chin to my chest, the vault scraping my head, cobwebs on my ears, I kept wafting my hands, scared of spiders. ‘How do I spring a bird? She’s been arrested.’

‘What’s she in for?’

‘She tried to steal from Gimbert’s Auction.’

He darted me a shrewd look. ‘What’s your interest, Lovejoy?’

Michaelis affects straggly hair, wispy beard, tatty long coat almost to the flagstones. What with his gear and the candle, he’d do Scrooge without make-up.

Nothing for it but to come clean.

‘Irma Dominick’s her name. Her folks died, left her this ordinary necklace. She showed me a picture. It’s hardly old at all, barely Edwardian. Her auntie’s an old bitch, took it and wouldn’t give it back.’ I shrugged. ‘A women’s row. I showed her how to nick it, but some whiffler called the Plod.’

‘Who was the whiffler?’

I was surprised I hadn’t thought of that. Michaelis had a point. Whifflers don’t usually scream blue murder. When spotting a thief, whifflers slide up and let on. If the thief has any sense he slips them a few zlotniks, whereupon the whiffler turns Nelson’s eye and lets the robbery go ahead. It’s a very ancient crime in itself, properly called theftboot, but only crooks know these points of law. Whifflers in antiques auctions will always help you steal this way, unless it’s an especially valuable antique, of course, in which case they take the bribe and
then
blow the whistle and call the Old Bill. That way, they convince the auctioneers of loyalty and honesty.

‘Dunno, but I saw Daffo smirking his head off as the Plod loaded Irma in.’

‘Daffo’s a wino,’ said this model of sobriety. He belched, poured a refill, offered me none. He hates friends who interrupt life.

‘Can you spring her, Mikko?’

‘Any flaw in the tale?’

‘No.’ Then I thought, hang on. Needles said it was a pot thing. But Inna had definitely gone in to steal a necklace. Discrepancy, or not? ‘Except Needles said she tried to nick some porcelain - “purple pottery”, is how he described it. She told me she wanted a necklace. Does it matter?’

‘Theft is theft,’ he said, sighing. ‘But I’ll tilt at your windmill, Lovejoy. It’ll cost you.’