Veronique.
My face couldn’t have given me away, not in the semi-darkness of the street glow. She came in and stood leaning against the wall by the doorjamb. I was broken, thinking it would be my home team, Lysette and Gobbie.
“We off somewhere?” For all I knew we might have to steal into the night. It seemed the sort of military thing Colonel Marimee would get up to.
“In a manner of speaking, Lovejoy.” She closed the door.
Then I noticed she had a swish jewel-blue silk nightdress on, to the floor. She shelled the cardigan she’d tied round her shoulders, letting it fall. “Guy’s asleep, sort of,” she said quietly. “Will an hour do? For somebody so deprived?”
My throat swallowed. My question was answered. Guy’s bright episodes were sixty minutes, between doses.
“For what?”
She sighed, pulled me to the bed, pushed me gently down. “You’re hardly the Don Juan they threatened us about, Lovejoy.” She propped herself up on one elbow, and smiled down at me. She was hard put not to laugh her head off. “I come into your bed in the night stripped, shall we say, for action. Does my presence give you any kind of clue as to why?”
They threatened us about you, Lovejoy,
“Get that off,” I said thickly, clawing her nightdress while she hushed me and tried to do it tidily faster than I could rip.
Pride creeps into mind-spaces it shouldn’t, I always find. Shame does too, but lasts longer. The trouble is, there’s no way to resist, delay. Women have everything, which is why they get the rest. You can’t stop them. Veronique got me, and I’m ashamed to say now that she was scintillating, wondrous. What’s worse, I had a perverse relish, almost a sadistic glee, knowing that her bloke next door, stoned out of his skull, was the one who’d murdered a mate of mine. And maybe helped to do over Jan Fortheringay? I’d have to work that one out. I behaved even worse than usual.
At the last second I felt her hand fumble and cap my mouth in hope of silence. Women, practical as ever. It wasn’t the end, and, shame to say, I was glad. I harvest shame while I’ve got the chance. Pathetic.
She left after the full hour. When she’d gone I think I hardly slept, wondering about bedbugs in this dive, but finding that antiques marched back in.
There would be others Veronique hadn’t mentioned and I hadn’t asked about. Like paper filigree, which the Yanks call “quilling”, the most painstaking antique of all. Ten years ago, you could get a tiny paper-filigree doll’s house for a month’s wage. Now? Oh, say enough to buy a real-life family house, garden, throw in a new standard model Ford, and you’re about right for price. Inflation, the slump of Black Monday, recession—the antiques made of tiny scraps of paper trounced them all. And their prices soar yet, to this very day. Go to see it done, if there’s ever a demonstration in your village hall.
In the 1790s, Georgian ladies invented this pastime. They’d take slivers of paper so small that your breath blows them away if you’re not careful. Me being all clumsy thumbs, I’ve tried faking these objects and they drive you mad. You roll the paper tightly, then colour it (before or after) and stick a minute slice down to a hardwood surface. Make patterns. Surprisingly durable, you can then fashion tea caddies, boxes, even toys, tiny pieces of furniture, whatever.
There are quilling guilds everywhere now, who preach it as one of the most ancient of arts in ancient Crete. Then it was a religious craft, purely decorative, for shrines and churches, only they used vellum. I’ve seen some on alabaster, to hang in a window so the quilling picture showed in silhouette—translucent alabaster was once used in place of glass, like in some Italian churches. The best quilling examples I’ve seen are nursery toys like minuscule kitchens, with every small utensil made of these small rolls, twists, cones, cylinders. And entire dolls’ houses, rooms fully furnished. “Quilling“, I suppose, because North American ladies used quills of birds and porcupines, though there’s a row about the word as always. Inventive ladies used miniature rolls of wax, hair, leather even, and decorated their purses, pouches, even their husband’s tobacciana.
Maybe you don’t think it’s a very manly pursuit, hunting filigree quilling antiques? Let me cure you: take a look in your local museum—they’ll have one or two pieces if they’re any good—just to get the idea. Then try it. Make a square inch of paper filigree. Go on, I dare you. Know what? You’ll give up in ten minutes. If you’re like me, you’ll get so mad you’ll slam the whole load of paper shreds against the wall and storm out sulking to the tavern until you’ve cooled down.
No. Filigree takes application, skill, endlessly detailed work. Or loads of money, boredom, leisuretime. Or something much, much worse. I sweated, with fear.
As I lay there, hands behind my head and staring at the ceiling, I couldn’t help listening to any sounds that might come from the next room. A few mutters, a single shrill scream of dementia from Guy, silence. No chance of sleeping any more tonight. I knew it.
When I next opened my eyes it was breakfast o’clock, the traffic was howling and daylight was pouring in. Shame hadn’t really done with me yet. It pointed out that I’d awakened refreshed, you cad Lovejoy. I decided I was now willing to give my newly planned role a go. My jack-the-lad manner seemed to be working with Veronique, and anything that works with women is a must. What’s a lifetime’s liberal humanism between friends? I’d become the hard-liner, under Veronique’s tender loving care.
So to Zurich, in clean, pristine, sterile, hand-rinsed, orderly Switzerland. To rob the biggest repository of saleable untraceable antiques in the world. The easy bit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
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The meeting was billed, quaintly, as Promotion of Exemplary New Arts. I wanted to walk
