—— 1 ——
This story starts with criminal passion in a shed. It descends into sordid corruption. But all along just remember one thing: Love and antiques are the same. Hatred and evil are their opposite. I’m an antique dealer, in bad with the law, and I should know.
There’s nothing antique dealers hate worse than fog and rain. Ellen agreed.
Three o’clock in the morning on a foggy rainy bypass, Ellen was tired—only the same as anybody else daft enough to be awake at this ungodly hour, but women are very self-centered.
“How much longer, Lovejoy?” she moaned.
“Couple of minutes.” I’d been saying this since midnight.
We were in Ben’s hut. He’s the vigilant night watchman hired to watch for thieves who habitually steal the roadmenders’ gear. He’s never caught any because he mostly kips in front of the portable telly his daughter bought him last Easter. Me and Ellen had made love and the old bloke hadn’t even stirred from his glowing stove.
“I’ll get into trouble,” Ellen whimpered.
I quaked. “Er, your bloke isn’t…?”
“Of course not. I’ve got a meeting tomorrow. That old bitch from the vicarage has a filthy mind.”
Ellen’s husband is heap-big medicine, being a Customs officer. Mercifully a kind Chancellor had sent him to patrol the coasts and keep a lookout for dark deeds.
Meanwhile my own particular dark deed was thrombosing in the fog while Ben snored his old head off and me and Ellen swilled his rotten tea. Who’d be an antique dealer? I ask you.
“What are we waiting for, a fake, Lovejoy?”
“A reproduction bureau,” I corrected coldly.
Ellen shivered, a lovely sight even when she’s Indianed in a moth-eaten blanket. “Why couldn’t they send it by train?”
She’d reached the repetitive stage. I sighed wearily. Women get like this. They believe that if they say something often enough it becomes true. “Nobody in their right mind sends antiques by proper transport. The whole bloody kingdom uses a night lorry.” For a few quid on the side, of course.
“But isn’t that illegal?” the poor little innocent asked, turning her beautiful blue eyes on me. Old Ben broke wind, as if in criticism.
“It’s safer, and surer.” Most antique dealers have their barkers down on the bypasses all over the country collecting and loading up. This fraudulent system has the merit of being beyond the reach of taxes.
Huddled over the brazier, we waited dozily for the signal from out in the rain-soaked night. I thought of her and me.
Men are amateurs; women are professionals. And that’s in everything: love, life, greed, hate, all the emotions. And why? Because we blokes have animal souls. Oh, I don’t deny that every so often some bird thinks she’s educated us out of being primitive, but it’s only imagination. Women never seem to realize this. Like now.
“We could be somewhere warm, Lovejoy,” Ellen’s blanket muttered. “You make the best fake antiques. Everybody says so. What’s the point of sending to Caithness?”
“Shhh.” I said. Old Ben’s principal asset is that he’s bent. He often helps with loading, especially when German buyers are scouring soggy East Anglia spending like drunks.
His conscience only costs a pint, but I still didn’t want him learning too much. I whispered, “Nobody local’ll know it’s a fake, see? I’ll sell it as genuine.”
“Matthew will be cross if he finds out, Lovejoy.”
See what I mean? She ignores the fact that she’s literally shacked up with a grubby antique dealer riddled with lust and perishing cold. See how they shift the blame?
“Your husband can get knotted.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to—”
Ben stirred, woke, spat expertly into the stove’s grille. “It’s here, Lovejoy. Far side.”
There are two lay-bys down the road. They’re about a mile apart. I shrugged. The lorry should have been coming from the other direction, but I knew better than argue. These old roadmen have a third ear. “Best get going, then.”
“Can we go, Lovejoy?” Ellen asked hopefully.
“No. I need your car.” It has a roof-rack. Ben’s hut always holds ropes and tools for neffie schemes like this. “Drive into Colchester, then back here and into the lay-by this side. I’ll be waiting.”
“But it’s foggy! Can’t I just—?”
“No. The bloody lorry’s stopped on the wrong side.”
“Stupid man.” She cast off the blanket with a whimper.
“Cheers, Ben,” I said, and opened the hut door.
“Here, Lovejoy.” Ben was listening past me into the blackness. “There’s two engines in the lay-by.”
Silly old sod, I thought, and stepped out as Ellen’s car pulled away up the gravelly path.
God, but the night was opaque. The way down the long slope to the road was familiar.
