'Trade? Engineer, draughtsman and all that. Local firm.'
'Go on digs?' We suffer a lot from epidemics of amateur archaeologists hereabouts. And professional ones who are much, much worse.
'He wasn't one for hunting Camelot at weekends, if that's what you mean, Lovejoy.' He was laughing as he poured, thick and tarry. Lovely. 'Nieces wouldn't let him. Real firebrands, they are.'
I caught myself thinking, Maybe that explains why Bexon found his hoard on the Isle of Man and not locally. Almost as if I was actually coming to believe his little diaries were a perfectly true record. You have to watch yourself in this game. Persuasion's all very well for others.
We chatted then about antiques in general. He asked after friends, Jimmo, the elegant Patrick, Jenny and Harry Bateman, Big Frank. We talked of prices and who were today's rascals (plenty) and who weren't (very few).
'How's Algernon?' he finally asked me, chuckling evilly. Well he might.
'Bloody horrible.'
'He'll improve, Lovejoy.'
I forgot to tell you Algernon is Squaddie's nephew.
'He won't. Green as the proverbial with the brains of a rocking-horse.'
'He's your bread and butter for the moment, Lovejoy.' It was Squaddie who'd foisted him on to me as soon as I went bust, to make him the world's greatest antique dealer for a few quid a month. Your actual Cro-Magnon. I'd never have taken a trainee in a million years if Squaddie hadn't taken the liberty. It's called friendship. I visit Squaddie weekly to report our complete lack of progress.
'What's he on?'
'Glass. Musical instruments. He doesn't know the difference.'
'You cruel devil, Lovejoy. He'll learn.' That's what blood does for you. You can't spot your own duds.
'He's a right lemon. Should be out earning his keep like a growing lad, van-driving.'
'One day he'll surprise you.'
'Only surprise?' I growled. 'He frightens the frigging daylights out of me.'
'Not need the money any more, Lovejoy?' Squaddie cackled slyly.
I swallowed. 'I'll keep on with him,' I conceded at last. He passed my notes over. I earn every farthing.
'He's got the gift,' Squaddie said determinedly. 'He'll be a divvie like you.'
I sighed heavily and thanked him for the nosh. Before I left I arranged to skip tomorrow's visit. 'Unless,' I added cruelly as a parting salvo, 'Algernon's skills mushroom overnight.'
'They will,' he promised. 'Anyway, good luck with the Roman stuff, Lovejoy.'
'Cheers, Squaddie.' I paused on the gangplank, thinking hard. 'Did you say Roman?' I called back. No answer. I called louder. 'Who said anything about Roman stuff?'
'Didn't you?' he quavered from the cabin. He'd already started washing up.
'Not a word.'
'You mentioned digging, archaeology, Lovejoy. That's Roman.'
'So it is,' I said. Well, it is, isn't it?
But I'd said nothing to young Algernon at the cottage. Nothing could have got back to Squaddie through him. Maybe it was an inspired guess. There are such things, aren't there? We said our farewells all over again, ever so polite.
I got my bicycle. My picture of Bexon was building up: a highly skilled painter, known among a select few old friends in the antiques trade. A good quiet family man. Cool under stress. And honest with it, to boot. Still, I thought, pedalling down the marshes to the strood again in the cutting east wind, nobody's perfect. I started ringing my bicycle bell to warn the fish those two anglers were still bent on murder. The artist waved, grinning. The anglers didn't. Perhaps they thought me unsporting.
I pedalled off the strood on to the mainland. The only difference between cycling and being in Janie's Lagonda is that she's not there to keep saying take your hand off my knee.
Now I had money. Not much, but any at all is more than twice nothing. The trouble is people have to see money, or they start jumping to all sorts of conclusions. This trade's very funny. Reputations matter.
The White Hart was fairly full, everybody talking all at once as usual. I paused for a second, rapturously inhaling the boozeladen smoke and gazing round. Jenny and Harry were huddled close, uptight. I'd heard Jenny was seeing some wealthy bloke on the sly.
Maybe Harry had tumbled, or maybe they'd bounced a deal wrong. Well, antiques occasionally caused difficulties, I snickered to myself. Tinker Dill was there, holding forth against the bar to a cluster of other grubby barkers. I still wonder who'd bought that round. Helen was resting, long of leg and full of curves, on a stool like women with good legs do and gave me a half-smile and a nod. She's always exhaling smoke. She even smokes in bed. (Er, I mean, I suppose she probably does.) Margaret was in, too. I waved. Big Frank wasn't in yet. Patrick was showing off to anyone who cared. Lily gave me a wave. She'd been to a silver sale in Lavenham that day.
'What'll you have, Lily?'
Only Ted the barman didn't eye the money in my hand. He assimilates feelings about solvency by osmosis.
'No. My turn.'
'I insist.' I had a pint, Lily a mysterious rum thing. I asked if she'd visited Dandy in hospital.
'I went,' she said. 'Patrick would have, but he's not very… strong.'
