Paid and Loving Eyes

situ.

“Vibration-proof,” Lorela Chevalier said, spinning in a doorway. “Double reinforced glass, triple-access doors, tacky mats against quartz dust.”

“Thermal control a particular reliability?” I asked.

She darted me a hesitant smile, tried to make it genuine. “Of course, Henry. Barometric pressure…” She started a routine prattle, from the Repository catalogue. I could have said most of it with her. Tonto Macllvenny, our specialist blammer—destructive break-in artist who does over antique dealers’ shops throughout East Anglia, but who charges travel expenses from our village —always carries a copy. It’s a joke in the Arcade for the dealers to chorus bits from it when Tonto’s done over some rival the night previous.

“Walls specially constructed to provide an—”

—effective barrier against any attempted intrusion, whether direct or by undermining, my memory trolled along. God, I could even remember where the catalogue’s punctuation went wrong.

“—thus proving the most reliable storage system available.” Lorela got desperately brighter, sensing something amiss. “These are coupled with a special security staff selected after—”

What would con artists do without the word “special”? Not quite so well, that’s what.

We endured the tour. We saw our genuine antiques being marked Shipment! To be Notified!, through milky glass panelling, in a split-level storage compartment, the grimmest half-acre of protection I’d ever seen. I tried to look impressed. We peered through the thickest wobble glass on earth at where our superb fakes were being shrouded, ticketed, arranged, coded.

“Why’s the storage separate from the others?” I asked, innocent. We’d come down a mile of corridors.

“The vehicles, Henry,” Lorela answered, having recovered from that twinge of doubt. “It saves on moving shipment articles twice. Though,” she quickly added,“ the Repository is fully insured at Lloyd’s against any kind of…”

And so to bed. We were offered nosh, which Monique declined, maddening me. It’s all right for them, but no sympathy for a hungry bloke who needs regular stoking.

“No, thank you, Miss Chevalier,” Monique said. “Henry has other duties today.”

A cat can look at a king, they say. Ballocks, I thought morosely, following Monique meekly out to our Rolls. Monique’d vaporize me if I so much as mentioned lust, love, sex, desire, passion… Passion? I watched her, more than the entourage who assembled to wave us off. Passion? Monique must be moved by something akin to it, to go to all this trouble. I made my merci-beaucoups and waved absent goodbyes to Lorela.

“How long’d it take you, Monique, setting it up?”

“Two long years, Lovejoy.” She settled back into the plush upholstery, practically purring. Replete? “Your infantile behaviour in there almost wrecked it.” She turned lazy eyes on me. “For a moment I wondered what you were up to.”

“Eh?” I gaped. “I was helping, for Christ’s sake! You women. I got all sorts of stuff out of her. You’d never have noticed the infra-reds, heat-activateds, periodic blips —”

She smiled, eclipsing the sun’s reflected dazzle from the lake. I swallowed, had to look away. “You did quite well, I suppose.”

But it wouldn’t have mattered if you hadn’t done a damned thing, Lovejoy. That’s what she was saying. Once I’d divided the wheat from the chaff, my usefulness had ended. For good. The security of the entire Repository was somehow irrelevant. But why? Colonel Marimee and his merry men were going to raid it, steal everything I’d just sorted through. As if divining my worry, she asked, “Can you remember the security detail, Lovejoy?”

I erupted. “What the hell d’you think I was winkling them out of her for, silly cow?”

She laughed, and the sun followed its reflection into shade. No wonder poor Philippe Troude was hooked on her for life. But what’s the use of living in an orchard if you can only admire the apples, never taste? Except blokes are funny. They’ll starve in a prison of their own making rather than walk away to freedom. We have a bloke in our village plays a euphonium, the same musical phrase over and over, hour after hour. People say he’s loony, but he’s not. I asked him why didn’t he learn something else, whereon he instantly played me the loveliest solo I’d ever heard. The phrase he keeps playing—still does—is one he wronged in a band concert ten, twelve years ago. Came in half a bar late. His silver band lost the championship. Ever since, he’s played alone in his cottage, sadly getting it perfect, year after punishing year. He explained it all, anxiously bringing out the tattered music, showing me why his calamitous mistake wasn’t really his fault. I said why not forget it, and simply join a new band. He looked at me like I was an idiot. See what I mean? Like Troude, languishing in Monique’s disinterest instead of reaching out for Jodie Danglass who was crazy for him, or Diana, who was crazy for him. Or Almira W.W.C.F.H. Or Cissie, W. et eponymous cetera.

“Here, Monique. Why don’t you let Troude off the hook?”

She stared at me. The Rolls drifted round a bend. “I beg your pardon?” (No, not like that, more I beg your…) Meaning I was insolent. Women manage talk better than us. Maybe that’s why we don’t say as much as they do. Meaning talk as often. The thought lost itself in my labyrinthine mind.

“Jodie’d snap him up any day of the week. I can’t honestly see the point.”

“Who?” She was astonished at what I was asking.

“The antique dealer, Jodie. Brought me to Mentle Marina that time. You tried hoodwinking me over that ancient model boat, the chair.”

“The woman?”

“Didn’t you ever notice her, you selfish bi—?” I cut off, humming and hawing my way out to safety. “She’s a friend. Was. Almost was.” And added lamely, “Once.”

She said nothing, looked. Then clicked an intercom and gave Suit’s pendulous nape directions in, what, sort of French.

We drove to a place overlooking a massive lake. Took us an hour to get there, which I could ill afford. I was