Paid and Loving Eyes

“Tell you?” Of all the frigging cheek. Here was this old loon that I’d called out of retirement, accusing me of not sussing an antiques heist? I suppressed my anger, took a breath. I liked the old soldier. He and Lysette got on well. I didn’t want her raging at me because of my temper.

So, strolling to the Fraumunster—clever architecture, I’m sure, but somehow threatening—I summarized the entire scam for his thick idiot brain. I mean, I’d only unmothballed him because he knew the Continent, for God’s sake.

“Look, Gobbie,” I told him, words of half a syllable for his cretinoidal nut. “These French raise a syndicate, see? Anglo-French money. They use it to create a zillion superb fakes, mostly furniture.” Christ, I’d given it to the old dolt clear as day. He’d seen the bloody vans filled with the stuff.

“And?” He’d gone all quiet. You can really go off people, even friends. I hated the bastard.

“And, moron,” I sailed on,“ they lodge them into the biggest antiques repository on earth. Got it so far?”

“And?”

One more “And’ and I’d do him. “Then they nick them, and claim on the insurance—as if they were all genuine!” I chuckled, such gaiety. “See? Now, the Repository’s no innocent about security, so the Commandant will have egg on his face when his robbery team goes in!”

My laughter died away. He’d stopped. We were out into the Fraumunster’s famous square, except it’s got more side’s than even Swiss squares should have. “And?”

“Well,” I said, trying to recapture the moment. His old whiskery face was staring at me in disbelief. “I thought me and thee’d hang about for the last act. See Marimee’s face when…”

“I thought even you’d have spotted the obvious, Lovejoy.” His voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear the old loon.

“Even me?” I tapped his chest, choking on rage. “Listen to me, you silly old sod. I brought you over because you wanted one last go at an all time grandy. What was it you said, at that boot sale? Bring the old times back. And I have! This is the… Gobbie?” I almost stepped back in horror. He was crying.

Tears were streaming down his face. I gaped. Men don’t weep. We’re not allowed. Old soldiers like Gobbie especially don’t. They’ve seen it all. And why don’t these silly old soaks shave proper, for God’s sake?

“Gobbie?” I said dully. “What’s up, pal? I’m not really narked. Honest.”

“Lovejoy,” he managed, in a terrible silent voice I’d never heard him use before. I can hear it yet. Close my eyes, and I see him in that floodlit square under the towering Zurich church. “What about the children?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

« ^ »

Needle Park, as they call it, is as unappetizing as, well, the same in any big city these days. The local gesture at liberalism, of a sort. Gobbie dropped me off. I’d told him I’d be an hour or so.

A few of the huddles looked derelicts, but some were astonishingly affluent. Several decent overcoats, a trilby or two, and one bird smartly dressed in a skirt suit of classic career-woman line. It makes you wonder. One group was actually auctioning drugs, the business ethic at play. I finally found Guy and Veronique round a sort of big candle among so-o-o-o happy friends. Guy shouted, some joke. Everybody laughed at me. If it centred on my stupidity, he’d be right.

“Evening, Guy.”

“Kiye!” several chorused my pronunciation. One added in a shrill roar, “Khow kquaint!”

The laughter died. Somebody coughed, racked and shivering. One drank, offered me a sip. I declined, thanks.

“Chance of a word, please?” I asked. Guy, rolling his eyes, came, Veronique too. She looked in slightly the better shape. I turned after a pace or two and sized them up.

Here stood my two guardians, relaxed, cool. The same custodians, note, who had crumbled in near-terror when I’d gone missing for a few hours among the antique shops of Paris. A decided change, now I’d done my bit. Or now that I was expendable?

“You’re not keeping track of me, Veronique.” I hoped for a reasonable reply. Guy seemed beyond it. “Instead you’re shooting the toot, or whatever you people say.”

She swayed, staring through me. Distant traffic stuttered sedately, the Swiss still methodically switching their engines off at a hint of a red. I wondered, is it to save petrol for the fatherland?

“Time off, Lovejoy.”

“Look. I’ve a problem.” I hesitated, hoping my bad acting wasn’t over the top. “I’ve the chance”, I admitted nobly, “of, er, seeing a girl. But I’ve some money coming in from East Anglia. To the hotel, next couple of hours, I think. I need it signed for.”

“Money?” Guy was on Planet Earth after all.

“As a draft. In my name.” I smiled apologetically at Veronique, who’d also momentarily tethered her mind to reality at the mention of gelt. “I can’t be in two places at once.”

“What girl?” Veronique asked.

“Nobody important, love,” I said. “Not anyone you need worry about. But I can see you’re busy…” That partly mollified her.

“I know!” cried Guy, almost leaping as the notion struck him. “We’ll accept the money for you, Lovejoy!” I thought the penny’d never drop. “Sign an authorization with the concierge, and we’ll do