“He’s right, miss,” Gobbie intruded, thank God. How the hell had he got here? “Lovejoy’s a scrounger, has to travel light or not at all. He’s a weak reed, wet lettuce, broken straw.”
“Here, Gobbie.” Narked, I straightened from my supplication posture. There’s a limit. I’m not that bad. A lady pedestrian spoke sharply to us. We’d been blocking the pavement.
“Lovejoy must be educated, Mr Veriker,” from good old sterling standard Lysette. I could have welted her one. Sociologically minded people once took over ancient Babylon, and we all know what happened then.
“No, Lysette. Educators everywhere ploughed that one.” I reached out and wrung her hand. “This is it. Fare thee well, lass. Cheers, Gobbie.”
He came with me. I was only half surprised. They’d seemed like a going concern, somehow, and him four times her age.
“You were right, son,” he said consolingly. “She’s too wrapped up in do-goodery. Time for a jar?”
“Well, as long as I’d one ally I’d give it a go. I’ve been alone in scams often enough. We settled on the nearest thing we could find to a pub. It was the glossiest dearest pub I’d ever seen. We found a quiet corner, away from some blokes with feathers in their hats talking of some shooting club. The thinnest glass of ale I’ve ever had served. Gobbie tutted, grinned.
“They’d get scragged serving this in my local,” he said. I chuckled obediently, working out how to tell him. “Pity you and her didn’t get on, Lovejoy,” he said. “Now, son. Where do I come in? She won’t give up on you, mark my words.”
“I know, Gobbie. Let’s try survival, eh?”
“If you say, Lovejoy.” He grinned, loving every minute of it when things were going wrong, like now. He must have been the greatest antiques runner on earth when younger. I hoped he was still. He was all I’d got. Maybe I should have gone for Mercy Mallock after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
« ^ »
That evening I had supper with Guy and Veronique. I’d been dreading it. We had incomprehensible but superb grub, a wine that didn’t give you heartburn, and talk that did. Guy was at his most manic, once having to be fetched down from standing on his chair to give the restaurant a song. Veronique was practised in handling him. Twice during the meal he had to dash out to stoke up on some gunja or other. In the latter of his absences Veronique unbent, spoke freer than she ever had.
“You can see how Guy has outlived his usefulness, Lovejoy. Do you blame me?”
My throat cleared for action. I wish I could think fast near women. “Well, no.” He was getting on my nerves too, though you never know what goes on between a bird and her bloke.
“You and I will make a killing, Lovejoy,” she urged softly. “Me: languages, knowing the dealers, the art thefts, the Continent’s customs everywhere. You, a divvy.”
“I’ve not a bean, love.” The waiters fetched some pudding thing that started to dissolve before my eyes. I started on it frantically before its calories vanished altogether. She offered me hers, but only after she’d had the icing surround, selfish bitch. That’s no way to start a love partnership.
“I have beans,” she said, smiling. “Plus, we’ll have a small fortune after the share-out.”
That old thing, I thought sardonically, but tried to look gullible. “To do what?”
“Your job tomorrow’s to go with Monique Delebarre, Lovejoy. To the Repository. It’ll be simple for you. You’ll be told to separately consign the antiques and fakes.”
Now that she’d actually said the word, my heart swelled. Only temporary, but my most reliable symptom of impending terror. It’s not uncommon with me, I find. And it always seems to happen when some woman starts projecting her expectations. I wish I wasn’t a prat, and had resolve, will-power, determination, things to help life on its merry way.
“Maybe in the next reincarnation,” I said, of her offer.
“No, Lovejoy. This.” She held my gaze quite levelly even though I could hear Guy on his way back, working the tables like a demented politician. “You have no choice. I’ve already arranged it with the principal backers.”
A slave? Well, I’d had my careers. “If I say no?”
“You can’t, Lovejoy. And won’t want to.” She made some signal to Guy, quite openly. He saw it, promptly seated himself at a small party and instantly had them in fits, ordering wines and clapping his hands at the waiters. “It’s antiques that I’m offering.” She smiled at her plate, up at me. “And the bliss you need. I’m the one for you, Lovejoy.”
“Antiques?” More grub, this time small dainty sweetmeats laid out round the rim of an oval dish thing.
“Why do you think the syndicate chose furniture, Lovejoy?” I listened with a carefully arranged expression of unenlightenment. “Think what’s happened to paintings, art, and you’ll be able to work it out for yourself.”
Bloody cheek, I thought. I drew breath to tell her so. “Can I have yours?”
She pushed her grub across without breaking step. “Art theft is done to order. Thieves pierce any gallery, museum—and simply select items like catalogue shopping. Think of the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston—Rembrandt’s
True, what she was saying. Even when museums are supposed to be burglar-proof they still get done. And it’s all preselection nowadays, like the ramraiders me and Gobbie’d seen. The robbers know what they’ve come for.
