I was pleased to see him in such good shape.
“Same one looking for me round the village early on?”
“Nar. That was just some whore, Lovejoy.”
“Can I listen?” Liz was enthralled. “Or are you inaudible?”
Tinker got annoyed. “Ere, miss. You keep yourself to yourself. We’ve work to do, if you haven’t!” His attention returned to me. “Young folk. They’re all on tablets. I blames this free education.” He has theories like hedgehogs have fleas.
“Come on.” I got him out of the rear entrance, and we made the Three Tuns by diving among the alleys.
“That posh tart, with them frigging nags.” He inhaled half a pint at one go, settled back with a sigh. “The one you’ve been shagging since Wittwoode’s auctioned them funny frocks.”
Which being translated meant Almira. Tinker was reminding me that she and I met at a local auction of funny frocks—Tinker’s phrase for the most beautiful collection of Continental eighteenth-century dresses ever seen in the Eastern Hundreds. Tip: embroidery’s still the cheapest way to buy into the antiques game, but not for long, not for long. I thought deeply.
“Who was the woman asking at the post office?”
“Told you, Lovejoy. That whore.”
It wasn’t right. Tinker’s very strait-laced. He didn’t call people whores, unless… What was it Jodie’d said? About Diana being not quite the sort of woman a gentleman like Troude would allow in the Nouvello? To me, Diana’d come over as a bonny bird simply having sly sex with some magnate who couldn’t risk scandal. What more natural than to use Gazza’s lovemobile, driven by that pillar of virtue Lovejoy? Surveys say seventy-two per cent of us are hard at illicit love affairs, surveys say. I wonder how they missed the remaining twenty-eight per cent. To work.
“Something’s niggling, Tinker.” I fetched him another three pints, lined them up on the table. “Sandy showed up yesterday in Ladyham—”
“He would, bleeding queer,” Tinker snorted. “Never out of that frigging Frog centre since it opened. Put up a tithe of the gelt, he did. Like your tart.”
My headaches usually come on pretty gradually, unless they get help. I pressed my temple to slow things down. Tinker was rabbiting on.
“Wait, Tinker.” Tart and bint are simply females in his vocabulary, but a whore was a whore was a… “You mean Almira?”
“Aye. Know how they got the land? Did the old dole shuffle from that poxy club, Mentle Marina.” He growled. I raised a finger just in time. He spat phlegm noisily into a drained glass, gave a pub-shaking cough, and recovered, wiping his eyes on his shredding sleeve. “It only worked because that poofter’s pal’s some rich Continental git.”
Too much. Both temples were pulsing now. I was a nerk between two throbs… My mind finally clicked into gear. Sandy’s earrings. Princess, between two frogs. I tried to recall Troude’s comment. He was observing that I hadn’t got Sandy’s joke. One, Troude. Number Two… Who was Number Two?
“Almira? She financed the place?”
“Her and that frigging pansy. They got a kitty up for some Frog. Has his bleedin’ nails done at the barber’s, just like a poxy tart. Don’t know what the frigging world’s coming to, Lovejoy.” He spat expertly on to the carpet before I could restrain him. “Her lawjaw’s got four houses. Did you know?”
“Who?” Now quite lost.
“Always at frigging Ladyham, him. Says he once rode for England.” He snorted in derision, which from Tinker is a pubclearing operation that nearly blew me off my stool.
“Rowed, like boat?”
“No.
It would take more than a casual chat to disentangle Tinker’s rumours. I gave up. Almira’s husband an MP, and a banking company lawyer to boot?
“Antiques, Tinker.” I tried to get back on the rails.
“Oh, aye.” He grimaced. “Sorry, Lovejoy. Baff’s dead.”
Silence for the departed, mostly to absorb shock. It was like a blow on the temple. I honestly couldn’t see for a second. My vision slowly cleared.
Baff’s a talkative, friendly sort of bloke. No more than twenty-‘ five. A refugee from the army—some regiment giving up its colours after half a millennium. Baff settled locally with a bird called Sherry down the estuaries. Nice bloke. I like, liked, him a lot. He hadn’t a clue about the porcelain and jewellery he tried to sell, of course. An average antique dealer, mostly by theft. Tell you how he stole in a minute.
“What happened?”
“Got done over last evening. Some yobbos. He was working a seaside ice-cream stall. They did him for the takings.”
Dully, the facts clunked in. Baff died on the way to hospital. The spoilers vanished in the crowds. The Plod were questioning some youths, but nobody was charged yet. Fat chance, in a thirty-acre seashore all caravans and holiday-makers.
“Watch it. Your tart, Lovejoy.”
Almira was alighting from her motor. She’s so splendid-looking that folk slow down to watch—blokes to lust,
