Paid and Loving Eyes

familiar. But I made absolutely sure of the last item. Should I have made a drawing of it for the Colonel?”

The motor didn’t move. We’d simply driven round the corner and parked. The night streets were deserted.

“You asked for me, not Mademoiselle Delebarre. Or others who hired you.”

“Oui, mon colonel. My duty. I was assigned to you, sir. Only,” I went on in spite of a distinct lack of encouragement, hammering it home, “it seems to me that if one item was stolen, then all may have been sold the instant they were deposited. I cannot understand how or why this could be. It seemed to me my clear duty to the Colonel—” I’d looked up some words in a pocket dictionary for the purpose of fawning exactly right.

Compressed to silence by my tough book-ends. We stayed there an age. I tried hard not to sweat, tremble, babble, promise not to reveal a thing if only he’d let me go. I kept persuading myself I was a baffled bystander, trying to earn a bob or two, wanting home. Instead, my mind kept wondering how they’d kill me, what it felt like, if they’d use knives, dear God not knives—

“You have done well. You are discharged. Cross La Manche.”

Cross where? What’s a Manche? The Channel! He meant clear off! I almost shrieked in a relieved faint, remembered to say yes, mon colonel and thank you, mon colonel, goodbye and it was an honour to serve under—

My foot hardly touched the ground before the car was off. I tumbled, lay there, letting the blissful sweat come as I stared up at the black sky. I’d done it, done it, done it…

Done what?

“If you think I’m flying in that frigging thing, love, you’re mistook.”

“Lovejoy.” Lilian had an auntie’s exasperation in her voice, though she was no auntie. It’s the woman’s inflexion, a kind of exasperation when a bloke doesn’t obey instantly. It’s the “I know what’s good for you so swallow when I tell you cadence of the nurse with the grueful spoonful, the We’re going to Bognor for our holidays voice. ”You’ve flown in one before.”

“I’d been shot then.” I stood rooted on the airfield.

“You’re not shot now.” She was half laughing, half screaming. “We’ve ten minutes. For heaven’s sake!”

“Helicopters fall down.” Two ground crew waited.

“It’s the safest means of travel, Lovejoy,” Gerald’s brogue put in. Why did he always sound doleful?

“You’re not going,” I spat, narked. He looked offended.

“It’s only an hour, Lovejoy. Lausanne.”

“Might as well be a million miles,” I argued. I’d gone clammy in spite of the wind— wind! Taking off in a frigging egg whisk in a frigging gale! Was the world mad?

“Less than two hundred and forty miles,” Gerald intoned.

“Shut up, you pillock.”

“Don’t talk to Gerald like that, Lovejoy!” from Lilian, real anger this time to show me where I stood. Just because we’d made smiles, she was warning me. “Didier Pascal’s people found Lysette Fotheringay at your hotel. She’s already on her way.”

To Lausanne? To where? I didn’t say. “You did ask for her to be found, Lovejoy,” from Gerald, fidgeting. I keep wondering how folk become what they become. Like, I’d have hired the meticulous, accurate, single-minded Gerald Sweet any day as a dedicated antiques-recovery sleuth, Lilian his travelling companion. Instead, it was the other way round. Why? I’d not had the courage to ask them if they’d picked me up by accident. I desperately wanted the answer to be yes, so chickened out.

“She’ll be there?”

“Yes. They’ve already been gone an hour.”

“Driving, I’ll bet! Why not with us?” So that Pascal could extract news from her in his black Citroen, that’s why. “I get airsick,” I protested feebly.

“She’s gone through a lot for you, Lovejoy,” mourned Gerald.

I gripped his tie. “Listen, you prat. I’m the one who’s gone through a lot. Nobody else. D’you hear?” His bald head glistened. He nodded, puce, his eyes goggling. Even in that position he took orders from Lilian, glancing behind me to see what she gestured.

“Aye, Lovejoy. Sorry, man.”

“Aye, well.” It was a private helicopter. That alone chilled my spine. I mean, air crashes are always chartered, never scheduled flights, ever noticed? Or is it the other way about? “It isn’t Air France, then.”

“Lovejoy.” Lilian, the spoon, the Bognor holiday. The last words of the Old King came to mind: Bugger Bognor!

Nobody had asked me about a crashed motor on the mountain road above the Repository. In fact, there had been very little news given out about the whole thing, except Explosion Partly Demolishes Furniture Storage Facility sort of thing. Lilian had seemed quite proud of the media’s inattention, silly cow. I’d told her my version, some even accurate. I had the feeling she’d believed most. It goes to show how poorly women co-operate.

“It’s okay for you,” I groused, stung. “Why doesn’t a helicopter have a giant parachute…?”

We fly south-east, the pilot started to tell us as his blades screwed the heavens and the engines deafened the world out. Gerald of course corrected him, giving points of the compass in millibars, whatever. Lilian held my hand unseen in the back seat, her cheek colour heightened at her dreadful temerity. I didn’t squeeze her fingers back, having probably fainted with fright. We landed in a trice.