Paid and Loving Eyes

“We’d be the best pair on the circuit, Lovejoy. You to browse, pinpoint the genuine masterpieces in the galleries, me to organize the thefts. It’s my special gift.” Her eyes went dreamy, a lovely sight. Repletion was in the air between us, and so far today we’d not touched each other.

“Did you design this scam?” The words were out before I could think.

“This?” She almost laughed, but derision was dominant. “This, Lovejoy? Do you know how long it has taken? Two years! Setting up factories in Marseilles, Birmingham and Bradford, Berlin, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Naples. Ptah!” She almost spat. “That’s your precious this, Lovejoy!”

Anywhere with a load of cheap immigrant labour. They’d be terrified out of their wits they’d be hoofed back to their home countries. People galore to work their lives away finishing off fakes with the same terrible effort our craftsmen had used two and three hundred years ago.

“But if it works, love…” I needled, for more. I could have killed her. I wish I’d not thought that now. Honest.

“An ox works, Lovejoy,” she said with that quiet intensity. “A new Jaguar works swifter. I was against this scam from the start. I told them we must rob, instead of creating fakes.”

“Robbery’s good,” I conceded, to goad her angry reminiscences further still. “In East Anglia we finish a deal within forty-eight hours of doing a lift. I did one once—I mean, I knew somebody who did it—where we shipped the Constable painting in two hours flat, money in hand.” Money for Big John Sheehan, not for me, I was too aggrieved to say.

“Of course it’s good! It’s beautiful!” She almost climbed over the table in her vehemence. She poured me more wine. I drank it for the sake of appearances. “And churches, galleries, museums—how often do they take stock, do inventories of what they have? Once every thirty years! That’s survey-proved! Have you ever seen a private gallery with security worth a damn?”

More truths ripped from her tongue. I know because I was watching it closely. Banks go berserk if a penny is missing. Officers are cashiered for losing a regimental penny. The Exchequer burns the midnight oil over farthings. The Stock Exchange works dividends out to nine decimal places. But she was right. Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral once learnt of a priceless sketch missing from its archives only when somebody overheard an American tourist saying he’d seen it in Washington.

“And thieves everywhere are incompetent!” She coursed on while I asked her for some more of that vanishing pudding. Well, you can cook too light, I find. “Look at your London mob, over that Brueghel. Can you imagine?”

Well, yes. The lads had tried selling their stolen Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery to the Courtauld. The trouble was, it actually belonged to the Courtauld Institute in the first place. But the cracks they came out with in court gave everybody a laugh, some less bitter than others. The ramraider had abused me and Gobbie: “I heard of you bastards. Nobody’s softer-hearted than a crook, and that’s a fact. A scam that depended on working immigrants till they drop endears itself to nobody. Except possibly the Moniques and Colonel Marimees of this world. And, dare I say, to the Cissies. And Guys? Veroniques? Almiras? Subject peoples have always been used thus, time immemorial.

It explained why Jan Fotheringay got done. And maybe Baff. And, possibly, the great Leon too. Unwilling to go along with the business once they learned of the cruelty involved? Jan, in on it until he sickened of the whole thing —probably never having known enough of the horrendous manufacturing processes. Baff coming across it by accident when doing one of his breakdowners on Philippe Troude’s country residence. His mica Appearances spy- master’s kit was proof of that. It all fitted. And Leon because he’d sickened of it, seeing the holocaust by attrition first hand…

“… fuck, Lovejoy.”

Brought me back. “Eh?”

“I was saying”, she repeated calmly, signalling to Guy, who started a deliriously jokesy farewell from his newfound life-longers, “that we must celebrate our partnership in the oldest way. In fact I insist, Lovejoy.” Her mouth shaped itself on her lipstick. I stared transfixed as she screwed the red lipstick from its sheath, my throat sphinctering on a spoonful. I hate symbolism. It’s never the real thing.

“What about Guy?” I croaked eventually.

“Yesterday’s news, Lovejoy.” She continued sweetly as Guy arrived breathlessly, “Guy. I was just telling Lovejoy…” She smiled knowingly into me while I frantically tried to shut her up. “… how here in Zurich our newspapers help antiques robbers. No sooner does a theft hit the headlines than adverts appear saying things like Desperately Seeking Gainsborough, or Come Home Spitweg All is Forgiven. It’s the Swiss way of making a blunt offer for the stolen masterwork. In Munich too, of course.”

Looking sideways at Guy, I tried to laugh convincingly for his sake. But it’s still pathetic to visit an ancient church expecting to see the Virgin of the Snows, and instead see a blank frame. The saddest photograph ever published is Time’s, of an Italian pastor with his candle next to a framed photo of that missing masterpiece. She was right. We’d make a formidable partnership, a killing as they say.

We cemented our relationship that night. I allowed a decent interval, four seconds, before deciding to admit her when she tried the door. This is where I should report that I resisted her advances, stood firm against her seductive wiles, but can’t. Shame and guilt were trumped in a trice. I relished every moment, and she seemed delighted at my willingness. Passion’s nothing going for it except its total ecstasy, paradisical joy unbounded. I have a hundred logics that end up with me forgiven for each sexual transgression; they all depend on it being the woman’s fault. Next morning, Veronique was purring, her wig on the pillow beside her. She was a redhead, I saw with shock. Her eyes were dark brown.

“Hello, stranger,” were her first words. “Going to give me breakfast?”

Guy and Veronique, blond and blue-eyed as ever, delivered me—I almost said delivered me up—to Monique’s huge saloon motor at nine-thirty precisely. Veronique seemed chilled, though it was quite mild. She huddled in a swagger jacket, breathing through her teeth the way women do when telling the weather off. Skilled with cosmetics, she’d disguised her neck bruises, thank God. She had kitted me out at an expensive outfitters along Pelikanstrasse. I felt done up like a tuppeny rabbit.

“You know the drill, Lovejoy,” Veronique told me as the limo drew in. “Say nothing. Agree with Monique whatever she says. Pick out the genuine antiques. A list will be given you at the Repository. Allocate our fakes to storage, and our genuine antiques for forward shipment. That’s all you do. Any questions?”