Paid and Loving Eyes

What the hell was he on about? I was here to shift some antique silver, and the nutter earaches me over reggae and steel bands? Troude caught my despair, shot Monique an appealing glance. She intervened. Her luscious mouth moved.

“Lovejoy. You will receive daily orders from the assistants of whom Monsieur Marimee spoke. Depart for Paris immediately.”

“Very well.” Assistants who rule? If her mouth said so. I’d do anything for it.

Marimee controlled himself. His outburst done, he sat with fixed calm. I didn’t like this. Serenity’s not that sudden. It comes like a slow glow from a candle. His tranquillity burned up like an epidemic. Wrong, wrong. The bugger was barmy. “Immediately now or eventually now?”

She almost smiled, but didn’t. “Maintenant, Lovejoy.”

“Very well. Good day, Commandant.”

As I reached the door Marimee spoke with clipped precision. “I regret to inform you that Madame Anstruther died at twenty-three hours precisely.”

“Eh?” I halted. I didn’t know any Anstruthers. Except I did. Paul Anstruther. And of course Mrs. Cissie Anstruther. I looked back at them, hand on the knob. Waiting stupidly for some sort of qualification, perhaps. Like, well, Lovejoy, not quite as in dead dead.

Troude was looking at the threadbare carpet. Marimee’s eyes were opaque, done this a thousand times before along established lines, no need for any kind of display. Monique was looking at me curiously. Every time she stared it was as if I was seeing her for the very first time, a kaleidoscopic woman. This time’s look was quizzical: how will you react?

“Very well, mon commandant,” I said, and left. Useful old phrase, very well. Stands for a million different things. I’ve often found that.

When I got to the car park, Almira’s motor had gone, of course. And Troude, Marimee, Monique Delebarre, were already motoring away from the cafe into the thin traffic. I’d lost an ex-wife, my wealthy mistress, any means of transport, finance, and I was alone in a strange land. I felt a desperate need of two assistants, with orders. They were to be here immediatement, for Phase One had begun, according to Colonel Marimee.

They arrived about ten minutes later. Life went downhill, with variations.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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You never know with new people. You meet them, and form instantaneous judgements. Mine are always wrong. I’m truly gormless. If I met Rasputin I’d think him St Cuthbert and only clue in when the body count increased. Like my assistants, when finally they arrived. Nobody can be as wrong as me. They proved it.

Standing idly by the traffic lights, I wondered if Colonel Marimee was as militarily superefficient as all that. I mean, I was here, poised like a greyhound in the slips, ready for this phoney antiques scam, and where were my two assistants? Luckily, French drivers don’t let you cross, so I didn’t feel out of place waiting. I reasoned that ice- cold Marimee had planned this little interlude as a kind of initiative test. These military minds think straight lines. The last time I’d done one of these what-nexters they’d put me down in the Yorkshire moors in the deep midwinter so I’d die. I’d saved myself by kipping with some cows in a byre until daylight. The sergeant put me on jankers a fortnight for cheating. See what I mean? But here, lacking cows and initiative, I loitered, hoping my assistants would finally get fed up and come for me.

Their motor was a mundane thing. It passed, dithered, pulled in. Two roaring forties, him balding and specky; she smiley and talkative. They had a dozen maps out. I barely gave them a look, then a faint chime bonged deep in me. I bent down to peer inside their car. On the back seat was a very, very interesting chair, tall, thin, with six cross-struts for back support. Genuine Astley Cooper! I knocked on the window. I must say, they put on a good act.

“Yes?” the driver asked. His wife nudged him. “Owz?”

Scotch, thank God. Out of the declension jungle! “Hello,” I said. “Lovejoy.”

He glanced at his wife, probably checking that I was the right bloke. They probably had photographs of me in the glove compartment. Sensible to make sure, really. I could be anybody. “Could you please guide me to the Paris road?”

“We never get the maps right,” his missus said, smiling.

Good cover! Shrewd. I beamed. “I could show you,” I said loudly, to show the world this wasn’t prearranged. A really accidental encounter, tout le monde! “If you’d give me a lift.”

“I’m not sure…” he said, doubtful. I thought that was overdoing it, but the bird shoved him affectionately.

“Och, away, Gerald! Simplest thing to do!” He undid the rear door and I climbed in. “Mind that crofter’s chair, Lovejoy. It’s very valuable.”

“Lilian,” Gerald reproved as we pulled away. Why did he want her to be so circumspect? The antique was his signal, after all. Well, we all were treble secret I supposed.

“Och, he’s all right!” Lilian said of me, warm.

“Astley Cooper,” I said, smiling my thanks. She was bonny, as well as a superb judge of character. “Not a crofter’s chair. Not a farthingale chair.”

“It’s a Regency spinning chair,” Lilian said. She adjusted her vanity mirror to see my face.

“Nor that, love. Sir Astley Cooper was a surgeon, knighted for operating on the Prince Regent. He designed this chair to teach little children to sit upright.” They went silent. An odd pair, these, seeing we were on the same side.