Sorbo. I wished I'd got Lydia. She'd have a flashlight and know what to do. She'd go back and inspect the corpse, make sure. Typical of her, selfish cow, never in the right place. What if it wasn't dead, though? I should be helping it, stopping arteries, doing that respiration stuff I didn't know how to do. Maybe it wasn't even human? Could it have been only a dead dog? A sleeping dog? But dogs instantly bounce awake at the prospect of my company. Except Jasper, who knew a wimp when he saw one.
It'd been a human face. My pathetic mind whimpered, still hoping, do dogs have stubble? I should have sprinted for help, but didn't move. The road went quiet. I crouched, a worm in sheep's clothing. Gradually I became cold. My teeth chattered.
After midnight, when any chance of helping Sorbo had surely gone, I rose, peered for last revellers or snogging car couples, and walked stiffly out. I did a really pathetic thing. I dialled 999 from the phone box near the corner, said to send an ambulance to a man who'd fallen down the steps of his house. Frightened, in the booth's light I saw why my hands were sticky. I cleaned them with spit and newspaper I got from a litter bin.
The 133 bus took me to Liverpool Street. I made the last train out of London into dank East Anglia, where only birds got exterminated. And innocents, like Arthur.
For all Dosh's promise of money, I was strapped. Next morning, I decided to call on Icky, and got a lift from the station. He's one of the few antiques merchants who really knows the business. He lives with this songstress who's one day going to take over the Royal Opera House with her rendition of Tosca, Lucia de Lammermoor, et endless cetera, and win fame and fortune. She's bonny, winsome, sells plants in the Garden Centre, but has a voice like a foghorn. Two furlongs off, I knew they were home.
Eleanora was clearly audible across the shires, trilling up and down scales.
'Wotcher, Icky.'
He was really pleased to see me. 'Lovejoy! Just brewed up.'
Icky's workshop is a little caravan parked in his garden. Mounds of paperwork, a computer, eight phones, wires everywhere. Just finding Icky was a miracle of detection, because Eleanora brings discards from the plant shop. Her artistic soul forbids throwing living herbage out. Consequently the back garden's like a rain forest. It was how I met her, actually, buying a Tan Faah plant for a lady. We'd got talking, then it was, 'Oh, my gentleman's in antiques! You must come round!' and so on.
'I won't say it, Icky.'
'Thank goodness, Lovejoy.'
Everybody who hacks their way through Eleanora's greenery jokes, 'Doctor Livingstone, I presume?' It gets on Icky's nerves. He lives on tenterhooks anyway, because of his con. Every - that's every single - antique dealer has a pet con trick, so watch out.
'Where are you this week, Icky?'
'Westmoreland.' He grinned his wicked grin. 'Called Cumbria now.'
'Got many takers?' I watched admiringly.
'Fourteen, so far.'
He scribbled on, opening envelopes, spiking cheques, entering credit card numbers. In the world of antiques, easiest is best.
Icky advertises in posh magazines: 'Antiques Course! Starting soon!! Correspond or attend!! Apply now!! Antique experts give Personal Tuition!!' He varies the lies, of course, and his address is anywhere in the kingdom. Internet and computer advertising's made his thievery that much simpler. His only risk is dropping some obvious clanger, like using the same phoney address twice. Naturally, his courses never take place.
I winced as Eleanora gave the universe a particularly horrendous arpeggio. He smiled in sympathy.
'Sorry, Lovejoy. She'll be across any sec to sell you tickets for next week's concert.'
Best hurry, then. 'Listen, Icky. You ever been involved with Dosh Callaghan?' He shook his head. 'Arthur Goldhorn? Colette? Bermondsey? Portobello Road? Camden Passage?'
No, no, no.
'My job's private and confidential, Lovejoy.' He spoke with pride.
'I can see that, Icky. Dieter Gluck?'
'No. He got Saffron Fields, didn't he? Big antiques man. My only brush with anyone from that area was some young lad applying to do my antiques course.' Icky waxed indignant. 'Cheeky young sod asked for credit. He was connected with the Goldhorns.
Arthur went spare. I got blistered. No, Lovejoy. I steer clear of the trade.'
'Seeing your courses never happen, Icky, that's fair.'
My remark narked him. 'Listen here, Lovejoy. Where else can ordinary people get an insider's view of the antiques trade? I'm their only source. Think of it like that.'
The song of the trickster has always been the same: What marvels I offer! Like all con artists, Icky believed his own myth. Everything Icky runs is fantasy - except for the money you applicants pay in.
'I'm honest, Lovejoy,' he complained, getting out a bottle of madeira with two paper cups. 'If folk demand why the course hasn't happened and want their money back, I always send it by return of post - less a ten per cent booking fee.'
'How many do?' I was interested in spite of myself.
'Half,' he said, grinning. 'The others forget, wonder what's gone on. By then my phoney address has moved to another parish. Sometimes,' he spoke with admiration, 'I wonder if I'm legit.'
'Tell me what scams are around, Icky. I need one.'
