in a cash transaction that set the hamlet's dusty old solicitor tutting. The dwelling was opulently restored. Its many visitors often stayed all night because the hamlet's so far from anywhere and you get tired after a long drive, isn't that so? Visitors need feeding, so the hamlet's bakery burgeoned. Cars need fuel, so the garage reopened. Wealth brought light into the dark countryside. Passing artists saw the light was good, and stayed to start weekend courses. The bus service resumed.
And it came to pass in the little hamlet that life's merry pageant carouselled on and heaven smiled on the righteous and meek lasses like Mercy really do inherit the earth.
East Anglia has many complex nooks. This had all the right ingredients. Mercy first.
The Old Rectory is at the end of a longish drive, among tall trees full of the noisiest birds in East Anglia. Several splendid motors were parked in the walled car park. As I walked round, Mercy emerged onto the verandah to take coffee at a white iron table.
I'd sold her the wrought-iron garden furniture and the Victorian statuary. She looked a picture, flowered hat, long flounced pink dress, lace shawl. I'd sold her that, too.
'You look gorgeous, Mercy.'
'How do you do, Lovejoy? Another cup for the gentleman, Abagail.'
The middle-aged servant bobbed and withdrew. I looked around. Vines, trellises, lichen-covered walls, a fountain playing, water tumbling gently into a pool where koi carp lazed. It was straight from some Edwardian film set. Mercy the Gainsborough lady. I sat, obedient to her gesture. The cup came. The serf poured, bobbed, vanished.
'You are thirty-nine days late, Lovejoy.'
Mercy offered me ratafia. I selected one - take more, you get blistered when Mercy's in a mood.
'Er, sorry, love. Something, er, happened.'
She raised her eyebrows. With admiration, I watched them move. She's eminently watchable, is Mercy. She is -no jest - twenty-two years old and a millionairess. A catch for any gay (original English meaning, please) bachelor who fancies his chances.
Perhaps not, though. The one bloke who, earnest young lad, proposed marriage got coldly told her hourly price for sexual cavorting. He retired, as they politely say at cricket when the fast bowler's shattered your skull and you've been dragged off the field senseless. (He married a Wolverhampton gym mistress, has three kiddies.)
'A gentleman would have a decent excuse, Lovejoy.'
'I know,' I admitted humbly. 'I'm pathetic.'
Well, she burst out laughing, fell out of her poise. I watched gravely. What had I said?
They once did a survey in some northern university, and discovered that women are attracted to men who (a) amuse, and (b) are interested in them. Sex follows where the magnets point, as it were.
'You're a bleed'n tonic, Lovejoy, frigging straight up. Nearly wet me knickers.'
She came to, cleared her throat, blotted her eyes. 'Er, what was I supposed to've come for, Mercy?' What was I doing thirty-nine days ago, for God's sake? Even when I was a little lad I couldn't remember what I'd been doing the day before, let alone yonks agone.
'Paintings, you stupid prat,' said this paragon of loveliness.
Had this visit come to mind from thinking of the Holloway University's Old Masters? I vaguely remembered. She'd sent one of her lasses with a hand-written missive asking for 'thurty reely old pikchures'. Mercy's not literary. Doesn't need to be, seeing she gets everything she wants anyway. I can't quite make her out. She reads George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Dickens, Thackeray. I think she acts her fantasies, more ways than smidgen.
'Were I not a lady of kindly disposition,' said this beauty, back in mode, 'I might harbour the suspicion that you mislaid my request.'
'That's so, love. Sorry. Will forgeries do?' You can speak so with friends.
'Duplicity has never been formative to my character,' Mercy reprimanded sweetly.
She raised a lace-gloved hand - I'd bought that for her too (the lace gloves, not the hand) - and the villein creaked forth with a genuine William IV parasol, to shade Mercy's features. The watery sun was hardly burning with tropical intensity, but she looked even prettier. I'm sure that thought didn't enter her head.
'However,' she continued, 'realizing, as compassion obliges, the compelling stringencies besetting those who follow more mercantilic vocations than others of my acquaintance, Lovejoy, I am prepared to show condescension towards what you might provide.
Bespoke or copied, I shall not enquire as to origin.'
You have to respect class. I listened with admiration. And Mercy was sheer unadulterated class. Well, maybe a little adulterated, but I still liked her. You don't see better on telly.
'Ta, Mercy.' She meant that forgeries or stolen would do.
'Now, Lovejoy. What, might I be given to understand, is the purpose of your visit?'
I took a sip of coffee. God, it was naff, really terrible. Yet she buys from posh London shops, has panniers of pricey victuals delivered by yak drovers each rustic dawn. I'd have liked some instant, but there you go. Mercy never ruins a performance except by accident.
'A friend died. I'm stuck to help his teenage son.'
'Ah.'
She lowered her parasol, brought a fan from a reticule, preparing the decks for action.
Hastily I shook my head.
'No, love. Nothing to do with introducing him to sex. It's just he's in a plight. Murder's on the cards. He's been
