I said, 'We do Gluck's robbery for him. Or a better one.'
'Robberies that good can't be done, Lovejoy.'
'Then,' I said evenly, 'somebody'll get caught, won't they?'
That night I kipped in Waterloo Station, light of heart, thinking what a wonderful place London was. Dick Whittington had found that, and he'd made Lord Mayor, boss of the City of London itself, of all the ancient prerogatives and immense wealth. London truly is a magical place, for somebody with ambition.
Breakfast in the station buffet cost me the earth. London's a lousy rotten dump.
15
THE GUN SHOOT. I managed to reach Caprice by telephonic sorcery and demanded why I wasn't being wined and dined around about the county, dwaahling. She swore inelegantly at having had to make her own toast this cruel dawn.
'I've got you in tomorrow's shoot, Lovejoy,' she told me between bursts of invective.
She went to a posh finishing school, so can swear like a longshoreman. 'Clovis will kit you out. Don't you dare be freaking late or I'll see you never breathe East Anglian air again. Clovis is mad on punctuality. Eight o'clock for pre-shoot breakfast. The awards night's a full fig affair, remember.'
The rest of her prattle didn't matter, relating as it did to celebrities, Who Would Be On Our Table, and last night's terrible deeds backstage. I'd no intention of going to her crummy do. Dieter Gluck had found some murder- worthy link among London's street markets, antiques, and the dark brooding countryside of East Anglia. I was tracking him.
On to Portobello Road, every hunter's favourite.
The Portobello runs so close and parallel to its next street that you wonder why they bothered to make two. Kensington Park Road, the B415, does a decent job of zooming from Notting Hill Gate, where there's a Tube, nearly to Ladbroke Grove, where there's another Tube if you're worn out. You can't possibly get exhausted, because the length of Portobello Road is bliss, aka antiques. Some are rum, and the folk are rummer still.
Westbourne Park Road completes the T. What with three Tube stations, one at every extremity, and the buses plying through, it's a wonder that you meet people who've never been there. I looked at the grandly named Westway - the weary old A40 trying to pretend it's a real motorway. The place was all on the go. Incidentally, be prepared for a plod of several hours. Stalls extend all the way to the flyover, usurping practically every nook to Golborne Road and beyond. By the time this ink's dry the market might well have spread to Birmingham (joke) or vanished (j).
It wasn't easy deciding who to chat up first. I chose Deeloriss - her spelling; she started out Dolores. She did prison time once for stalking a Dieppe dealer who'd sold her a fake 1795 cabinet. She got arrested at Dover for stabbing him. Deeloriss would understand hatred, if anybody would.
The market's usually thronged at weekends. Once, it was only Saturdays, under the Westway flyover. Now, though, there's so much money screaming for an antique to protect its cold soul from nasty old inflation that antiques stretch through the week.
Deeloriss looks so charitable, not at all like a knifer. Wears only black and white, with hair to match. I've even seen her with her cheeks done in chequerboard harlequin squares, putting the fear of God in me. Today she was demure, regretfully shaking her head winsomely at a foreign robed gent. I saw her wrap something. He paid, pressed her hand meaningfully, and went.
'Wotcher, Deel. Good girl, pull it off?'
'Wotcher, Lovejoy.' She gazed after the man laconically. 'I'd have had to pull more than a deal off with some of these customers. It's getting more like a slave auction every day.'
'How's Pierre?' Pierre was her Dieppe knifee, so to speak. They married when she got out of clink and he got out of hospital.
'Swine took off with some Scotch bitch.' She smiled beatifically at customers who paused, interested in her corner cupboards. They moved on. Her smile vanished.
'What happened to the fake cabinet, Deel?' I ahemed, casual. 'It was pretty well made, I heard.'
'You made it, you bastard,' she said. I gulped, backed away a step. 'Those feet were swept out lovely. You must have used tons of heartwood.'
'Er, aye, love.' The so-called French foot, on furniture made in the fifteen years astride 1800, is bonny to carve. It's best faked with the outward swoop brought straight from the bottom corner of the cabinet. Okay, so housewives won't thank you when they keep tripping up over each elegant projection, but is that too big a price for loveliness? Until now, I'd assumed Deeloriss hadn't known it was one of my creations. 'I'll buy it back, eh?'
'The swine took it with him.' She patted a passing child on the head. Its parents smiled, I smiled, Deeloriss smiled. We were nauseating.
'Pity.' I wanted something to defraud Gluck with. 'Seen Colette?'
'Poor mare.'
Deeloriss lit a cigarette in an Edwardian amber-and-ivory fagholder. It's a recurring thought of mine that women might - only might, note - feel a little frisson of delight when some calamity overtakes a lady friend. Deel seemed less than heartbroken at Colette's misfortune.
'I thought I glimpsed her in Bermondsey. It was only some bag lady.'
'Don't tart about, Lovejoy. You know what's happened.'
'Sorry.' I pretended to be shamefaced, her shrewdness catching me out. 'I just don't know who to ask.'
She flicked ash with a woman's sharp grace. 'Serves the snooty bitch right. Stuck-up mare, her and her ancient tide. Well, she got her come-uppance with that Gluck. Out on her ear, not two coppers to rub together.'
