'Having previously ascertained that there is no such journal, or it would have been highly improper.'
'Of course.' I felt us all relax.
She laughed. 'Certainly! My subterfuge had an almost miraculous effect. We had a lovely meal at the Gluck Orpheo, his establishment.'
'And he learned nothing about you, Lydia?' I was uneasy. Pint- and-baccy had moved closer, to the next bench.
'No.'
She was so proud. I didn't have the heart to question her further, just took Gluck's list from her and stuffed it into my pocket.
'Right, then,' I said quietly, drawing them in close like spies at a bomb plot. Really pathetic, especially as I was probably imagining things about the stout bloke. 'Here's what we do. Lydia, take on Holloway University. Suss out their paintings, get me off the hook. This is my lawyer.' I gave her Shar's address. 'Trout, you'd best steer clear of Gluck from now on. You and Tinker go back to East Anglia. Suss out Dosh Callaghan.
From what dealers here say, he couldn't possibly have been taken in like he says.
Nobody's that dim.'
'What will you be doing, Lovejoy?' Lydia never trusts me.
'I'm going shooting. Everybody meet up the day after tomorrow in Camden Passage antiques markets. You know it. The Angel, Islington. Don't go to King's Cross. It's hell of a walk up Pentonville Road.'
'I like Camden Passage,' Tinker said. 'They pull a good pint at The York.'
So much for culture. I concluded, 'We must find a youth called Goldhorn. Colette's son.'
'Mortimer?' Trout said. 'I can find him in an hour.'
For a little bloke, he certainly stopped conversations. 'Eh?'
Trout grinned. Gnomes have good grins. 'I like the lad. He talks to birds and dogs in their own lingo.'
'Birds, or birds?' I was startled. Was Mortimer barmy, and that was Colette's dreadful secret?
'Not women, you randy git,' Trout said patiently. 'Birds that fly. And hares. And bats, owls, foxes.' We all waited while Trout rummaged in his mind for more quaintness. He found a bit. 'He whistles at fish.'
'Oh, good.' I'd had enough. 'Lydia, please get me Ordnance Survey maps, massive scale and one inchers, of Saffron Fields. The map shop's in Long Acre, Leicester Square end.'
I beckoned them closer. 'Do we let Sorbo join us?'
'Yes,' Trout said. 'Gluck ripped him off badly. He'd done Arthur a score of intaglios in white Baltic amber for pendants. Some of the amber belonged to Sorbo's mum. When Sorbo asked Gluck for payment, that Bern duffed him up then windowed them as his own work.'
Tinker almost exploded. 'He what? That's a 'angin' offense.'
I shoved a brimming glass his way to keep the silence, but Tinker was right. Fakers who are true craftsmen, like Sorbo, have pride. To have their forgeries passed off as by another faker is criminal.
'Right, Sorbo's in. He'll do us a good job, when we find out what to do. Anybody know any titled folk, anyone upper crust, carriage trade? Gluck's Achilles heel is he's a supersnob.'
'Oh, that can't be true, Lovejoy!' Lydia exclaimed. 'He was charming!'
Trout said from deep in his miniature chest, 'He's made a fan.'
Lydia coloured. 'Stop it, all of you! You're making a great deal of fuss about nothing!
Your opinions are wholly misconstrued. You've only to meet Dieter.'
'I suppose you're right, Lydia,' I said evenly, giving Trout the bent eye to shut up. It was clearly time to sling Lydia. Her credit cards were useful, but she was a liability. We wanted loyal soldiery, not a dreamy-eyed fifth column. High time Lydia vanished into the ivory towers of academe. 'Maybe we're being just melodramatic.'
'And poor Arthur did die of natural causes,' she reminded us.
'Leave Sorbo to me. Ta, everybody.'
The stout bloke drained his pint, folded his newspaper. My tone must have pinged Lydia's antennae because she frowned.
'With whom are you going hunting, Lovejoy? Not that wretched Caprice Rhodes?'
'No, love. Her husband Clovis. And I hope to murder not one living thing.'
Some hopes. I didn't know it then, but I was heading for a really bad day. We parted amiably, Lydia still suspicious. I left her paying Trout and Tinker their expenses, and hit the road. With luck, my cottage wouldn't have been repossessed by the building society. I had enough for the fare.
All the way home I wondered if really this wasn't a task for Doomsday Walberswick and his enticing missus. But you can have too many cooks for one broth, or so they say.
Tally ho to the county set. 18
JACKO GAVE ME a lift in his bone-shaking coal lorry. He sings opera, badly, like all opera singers except two.
'Join in, Lovejoy!' he kept urging. 'Don't you like music?'
'Yes.'
That set him off laughing so much we nearly hit a tree. I've a lot of time for Jacko, though he's got a nerve asking me for payment every time I con him into taking me somewhere. Travelling in the gale of his cabin, shattered by the million-decibel rattle, poisoned by engine fumes, I deserved danger money, yet he charges me
