“Me?”
“You, Lovejoy. Pay up, pay up, and play my game. Two years’ flirting is two years too many.”
“Or what?” Gawd, I’d not even had a swig. I tried to sound defiant.
“Or your parcel goes missing.” She smiled, laid her mug aside, beckoned with a crooked finger. “It’s registered, stamped, sealed, insured —”
“Parcel?” I licked my lips. I wasn’t due any parcel. No antiques come through the legit post these days. I wondered about my past scams. Had that bloke in Ribblesdale finally decided to sell me his assortment of children’s rattles? I’d been after them for a twelvemonth. Mainly silver Regency, but with two North American Indian tribal baby rattles the most valuable of all. Sounds daft, but they’d buy a decent house, freehold, with furniture thrown in. Or had that Amsterdam dealer weakened, and sent me his Napoleonic prisoner-of-war bone sailing-ship model on approval? Worth a new car any day, especially with slivers of horn—
“Interfering with the Royal Mail’s illegal.”
“I’m unscrupulous. Yes or no?”
I hesitated. It had to happen, of course. Women always have the final say. It’s really only a question of when. It wasn’t right. I knew that. I mean, Michelle had just got wed. Her new husband is a tough road-mender, all brawn and beef, this week labouring on the village bypass. And women always blab. I sometimes think that’s why they do this. All these arguments totalled a resounding no. But antiques are antiques.
“Okay.” Being cheap costs, I find.
“The door.”
Obediently I went to wedge a stool behind it—the lock’s wonky—and bumped into Jodie Danglass. She was entering briskly.
“Hello, Lovejoy. I knew you’d want to thank me for last night’s…” She saw Michelle and beamed even brighter. “Should I say sorry, or offer congratulations?”
Michelle swept out. Even a post lass can flounce if she’s a mind to.
“Look, Mich,” I tried lamely after her, but got nothing back. She seized her bike and pedalled off in disdain.
Jodie was done up to the nines. I eyed her. “You’re not winning my heart, Jode. You’re down on points.”
“Come, Lovejoy. Wear your very best. You’ve a customer. Sports centre in Ladyham.”
“This gear is it.” The new recreation place she mentioned was for the megamoneyed, not scruffs the likes of me. But a rich antiques customer must be obeyed.
She looked me up and down. “Well, they said come whatever.” She smiled, brilliant with intimacy. “At least
See what I mean? They can’t help bragging they’ve nicked the lolly. It narks me. She had her motor at the gate. I got in, asking who the customer was.
“Not the foggiest, darling. Thought you’d tell me. She phoned me ten minutes since. Offered more than I make in a week to get you to Ladyham.” Jodie squeezed my leg, a cruelty with her shapely pins scissoring seductively as she drove. “Didn’t your persuasive tactics work last night, then?”
Last night? She’d seen me in the inglenook at the Drum and Fife with good old Diana, of bonus fame. Was Diana the customer? I settled back for the journey.
“Not my knee when I’m driving, Lovejoy.”
“Sorry.” She’d started it, then blames me. See what I mean?
The Nouvello Troude Sports and Recreation Centre dwarfs Ladyham, a village of insignificant size and zero fame. More of a hamlet, really. One pub, a stream, a church, a gaggle of houses old as the hills. And, new on the outskirts, a giant complex of tennis courts, buildings filled with desperates pumping iron, swimming pools and diving boards. They’ve even flattened fields into running tracks and steeplechase courses. It’s obscene.
Jodie parked by the slummer’s entrance—the smallest motor in the proper car park was a Bentley—and we entered the perfumed interior. Talk about plush. A log fire—no rotating tinsel glow lights at the Nouvello Troude, thank you. Wilton carpets, a glass display case of genuine Manton flintlock long arms on the wall, chandeliers. The reception hall was baronial, panelled and adorned. Very few of the loungers looked athletic. More of a club atmosphere, really, broken only by the sound of quiet chatter and somewhere the tap of a ball.
A couple of women gazed up, smiling, sipping interesting liquids, waiters hovering to bring more. Conversation resumed, with low laughter at my scruffiness.
“Mr Troude, please,” Jodie told some serf.
The kulak practically genuflected into the carpet’s pile at the name and swayed ahead of us, giving backward glances like a keen collie.
“Who’s Troude?” I asked in a whisper. We passed along corridors with original watercolours every few yards, Doulton decorative moon flasks, oviform vases and figures on small pedestals. This was class.
“Somebody who wouldn’t bring your Diana into a place like this, Lovejoy.” Why
On to a glamorous balcony, plusher than any West End hotel. Beautiful people strolled, in or out of dressing- gowns. Some lounged, drank. Others basked under lovely complexion-gilding glims, and drank. Still others stayed in their designer dresses, and drank. All ogled, looked, drank. I felt uncomfortable. We sensitive plebs do, among the surreal and glorious.
“How d’you do. Lovejoy?” Troude was a slender, sun-crisped Latin, gold bracelets and chains against chestnut tan. His shirt alone could have bought my cottage, its two dud mortgages included. “Welcome to Nouvello Troude.”
“Ta.” I felt I had to say that, though he’d only shaken my hand. Wiry was the word. A bullfighter’s physique.
