You can't get away from the image of Old St Paul's standing like some huge warship upon a flaming ocean as the terrible sun set.
Sound advice went begging, and greed rose to make matters hell of a sight worse. The best plan came from 'some stout seamen' who, knowing fire, early on wanted to blow up a few streets and save the entire city. London's wealthy plutocrats refused. So it was that Sunday vanished in an inferno. Then Monday, the fire enveloping dozens of churches and their parishes. 'Avaricious men, aldermen, would not permit,' mourned Evelyn, 'because their own houses must have been of the first…' It's these memories that plague me. Would I have been any better? No.
Finally, catastrophe shoved selfishness out of the picture. The seamen's pleas were finally accepted. Charles II rowed up in his royal barge and ended all arguments, himself seeing to the demolition of houses rimming the Tower's moats. Meanwhile, London's goldsmiths did themselves a power of good by rushing their goods into the Tower. They didn't lift another finger, of course. Booksellers crammed their combustible stacks of books into St Faith's, which happened to be underneath Old St Paul's, so adding fuel to the bonfire. The world blazed, even the air seeming cleft asunder.
History doesn't tell much. It never does. Only in odd corners do stories make sense. A schoolboy called Will Taswell painstakingly wrote his horrendous account that very Thursday. He'd trudged east among huge mounds of burning ruins. 'I endeavoured to reach St Paul's,' he quilled into his notebook. 'The ground so hot as almost to scorch my shoes.' The very air was afire. Faint, he had to rest in Fleet Street. Struggling on, the lad reached about where I'd run into Gluck. He saw the melted bells of the cathedral, molten rivulets running down Ludgate. Plodding through the furnace, he saw the fire engines burning, the firemen leaping to escape erratic outbreaks. Childlike, young Taswell picked up a cooling piece of bell metal to take home to show his friends, and gasping for breath made his way home. Of them all, who would I be? The King, struggling to force scatterbrain politicians to act? Or one of the riffraff, dragging my belongings north among the refugees streaming along the City Road? Certainly not one of the brave jolly jack tars straddling roofs in the flames with their kegs of gunpowder.
Maybe one of the rich aldermen, disdainfully pressing farthings into the hands of stalwarts who saved an ill- gotten fortune?
'You, Lovejoy?' Billia said. 'You'd be the little lad scribbling it down.'
How long had she been there? I asked, 'How long've you been there?'
'Since folk started looking at you talking to yourself.'
The window cleaner was sitting further along. He looked pretty muscular for a window cleaner. He gave me a worried nod. Dang?
'Wotcher, Lovejoy,' Dang said.
'We kept out of your way while Gluck was batting your ear, Lovejoy. Safer.' Billia looks all appetite.
'You know him?' I was surprised.
'He's one of the betting syndicate that's after my bloke. He's got backers. They've tried everything from cornering antiques to fixing boxing.'
Desperater and desperater.
'He's sussed me, Billia,' I admitted. 'Just told me he knew my darkest plans in detail.'
'Hell fire, Lovejoy. He's probably watching us now.'
'Hang on, love.' This was important. If Billia and Dang were running scared from Gluck, then this odd couple might well be my best allies. What proof had I that Sorbo and Trout were honest? When suspicion begins, you're alone. Paranoia becomes forward planning. I could trust Lydia, Tinker too. Gluck might well be taping us. 'See you where we said before, okay?' 'In the—?'
'That's it, love,' I said quickly. 'Don't be late.' Billia's eyes darted about. She flagged a taxi. I offed on Shank's pony, following little William Taswell's route of centuries before.
Fleet Street, passing the little court leading to Dr Johnson's house. The Strand, right into Aldwych, breathing the air like nectar. My old stamping ground, Drury Lane.
Thence into Covent Garden, where Pepys had dallied with loose lasses, where Boswell took his sinful pleasure and afterwards had to wash his hot willy in the Serpentine.
Gluck had exuded charm in the pub. You have to hand it to killers. They put a smile on your face as they pull the rug from under and slide you to perdition.
'We must deal, Lovejoy,' he'd said. I was frankly scared. He took my folder, leafed through it. 'Choice of four, I see.'
'The Louvre is best of them,' I said. One thing, at the first sign of opposition, I chuck the towel in.
'The Louvre's Jew loot? And the Musee d'Orsay?' he said, approving. 'Hasn't it been done?'
'Stolen wartime loot always has, Mr Gluck. That's the point.'
'Thomas Harrington's clocks.' He frowned at that, read carefully, shook his head. 'I'm clock mad, but Greenwich has too many guards, Lovejoy.'
'Tourists are protective colour, Mr Gluck.'
He smiled. 'Seriously, Lovejoy. Which were you going for?'
'The Rotherham porcelain museum.' I filled in when his silence prompted me. 'It's priceless. And the area's politically dicey, so the government would rejoice when I saved it from being robbed. And you'd take the bait, hoping for a knighthood.'
That gave him a laugh, tanned features setting off his superb white incisors. How come some people have everything?
'You read me accurately, Lovejoy.' He grew wistful. 'Being a foreigner, my dream is of nobility.'
'Why?' I was curious. 'Most honours are sham. Invent one for yourself. Nobody cares.'
His eyes gleamed. 'I came from foreign slums, Lovejoy. This would be my accolade.' He eyed me. I'd not touched the drink. 'Reluctant, are we? Is it because you shagged - is that your slang word - Colette?' He leant forward. I was suddenly relieved. He had terrible breath, at last a drawback. 'Did you hope for her estate yourself?
