him a good prospect, if only for economic reasons, but no.
“Sorry, Dicko.” I now regretted boasting, even quietly, to Diana. Already dealers were sidling up to listen. The auction prices would fall now, from general suspicion. My Sheraton would have to wait for its deserved adulation until after it was auctioned. I took Diana’s arm.
“Lovejoy. Won’t you introduce me?” Dicko asked, wistful with his unmarried smile, drawing himself up for social niceties.
“I’m sorry,” Diana snapped. “We’re busy.”
“Oh. Perhaps some other…” We were out of the door, which wafted after us: “… time”.
See what I mean? Diana hadn’t given him a glance. Yet Dicko’s polite as well. Strange.
We went, brisk with purpose, to the Tudor Rest across the road. Not far enough, but their coffee’s the only drinkable coffee in East Anglia. Hank the Yank runs it, needless to say. A triumph of caffeine-soaked heredity over environment. She chose a corner place after prolonged inspection.
“Expecting being stabbed, love?”
No levity. My heart sank. Deadly earnest time, and an auction about to start a hundred yards away. I have rotten luck.
“No time for wit, Lovejoy. What did he tell you?”
A pause while Hank T.Y. himself served us. He has three waitresses, but they do sweet nothing—as far as observers can see, that is. But Hank is a very happy proprietor. He admired Diana, tried to extend his delivery with chat, and failed at least as badly as Dicko Chave. He retired hurt to his kitchen, but not too hurt. Giggles arose from there within seconds.
“Troude?” I wondered about the wisdom of this meeting. I mean, why was she asking? “Why’re you asking?”
“I suggested you, Lovejoy.” She did that woman’s head-shake that loosens their hair but makes you feel they’re girding for war. “I have to know if he hired you.”
“Is he your pal, Di?”
She lit a cigarette with aggressive intent, spouted smoke. She was mad all right. I began to regret that bonus. She was here to cash in on the obligation. No need to ask whose obligation, either. It’s always on mine.
“If you call me Di once more, Lovejoy, I’ll throw you under the next bus. Understand?” I nodded, to get the rest of the ballocking. “Monsieur Troude and I are good acquaintances. We have difficulty keeping in touch, under the circumstances.”
“Mmmh.” She’d said about some husband. Maybe a club member? Investor? Or was that Member of Parliament’s wife a regular iron-pumper there? I had to go careful. “Mr Troude just said he’d be in touch.”
“That means he has hired you, Lovejoy,” she translated for her own, not my benefit. “Have you a pen?”
She lent me a gold pencil from her handbag. I wrote the address on a menu. She held out her palm, but I honestly wasn’t trying to pinch her pencil. For God’s sake, everybody forgets to return pencils, don’t they? Anyhow, I’d swap her rotten gold propelling pencil any day for a genuine Borrowdale graphite, the best writing tool ever made since the world began. It was back in the 1560s that gales uprooted an ash tree in Borrowdale, Cumberland. A man happened to see pieces of a strange solid in its up-ended roots. Curious, he felt it, and saw how easily it blackened his fingers. He used it to mark his sheep, and graphite—stone that draws—was born. Sensibly, folk began enclosing slivers of graphite—“English antimony”—in a lathed wooden tube and hey presto! I hadn’t realized I’d been telling her out loud. She clipped her handbag closed. I think I was beginning to like her. She smiled at something achieved, and I was sure.
“I’ll make it worth your while, Lovejoy. Keep me informed. In more ways than you can imagine.”
Her hand touched mine, a promise on account. Promises have the half-life of snowflakes, which makes me wonder why I fall for them. You’d think I’d learn.
“Won’t Troude be narked, if I blab to you?”
“He’ll be glad, Lovejoy. No need to let on, though. Let’s keep it just between ourselves.” She rose to go, leaving that red crescentic reminder of lust on her cup rim. “Oh, Lovejoy.
“No, love.”
“School slanguage, though?”
“
“Oh.” She paid up with a kind of surprised amusement. “You know, Lovejoy, I rather think we’re going to get along. It’s some considerable time since I’ve had a partner I could rely on.”
We said goodbye, me promising I do it too—to let her know the instant Troude showed up. I found Hank beside me watching her walk up the brough into town.
“You’re a lucky swine, Lovejoy,” he said. “She looks a really great lay. How much a trick?”
First Jodie Danglass thinks Diana’s socially unacceptable. And now Hank jumps to the same conclusion. Most be some allergen in the pollen.
“She’s my client, Hank,” I said airily. “Antiques buyer from, er, Michigan. Paid quarter of a million for a collection of Philadelphian teapot lamps last week.”
“An American?” he cried delightedly. “And I thought she was Paris France! Nice trace of accent.”
“Educated there, Hank. Cheers.”
He went back in to resume his onerous labours making waitresses giggle in the kitchen. I went across the road more thoughtful than before. Suddenly there seemed a lot of France about, where France wasn’t.
