curtained alcove as a kitchen, and a bathroom with a loo. They'd left the lantern burning, and the embers still glowed. I took off my shoes and extracted the soggy cardboard. The soles were both holed. My wet socks peeled off. I'd mend their toes when I could afford some wool. My feet looked like albino prunes, the toes wrinkled and wet.
Then I noticed my forgery had been moved.
Normally I keep my fakes in one place. You shouldn't move a painting to catch a good north light, especially a portrait of an exquisite woman who'd died centuries agone.
Artists call it 'chasing light'. I never do it, because it leads to terrible mistakes that show your forgery up for the miserable travesty that it is. Paint exactly as the Old Master did, and you might, just might, get away with it.
For a long time I stood staring at my forgery.
Definitely out of true. Somebody, and I knew exactly who, had moved it about the cottage to see it in different kinds of light. I could even see the scratch marks on the slab floor. They'd thought I wouldn't notice.
The bedclothes were tumbled. I was dropping from weariness, but stripped off the sheets. Eleanor would collect them in the morning. I'd borrowed them from her the previous afternoon, having to endure her suspicious questions and irritating jibes.
My belly rumbled as I scented food. I scavenged. The wine was all gone. I shoved the empty bottles into the hamper. I found a roll, some cheese, and some cakey stuff with virtually no substance. I can't see the point of baking cakes that vanish when you take a bite. I fell on the grub.
Some meat on a plate looked red raw, so I left that. I also ditched some smoked salmon strips because I never know if that means it's been cooked. They'd swigged all the coffee, but I put the dregs aside in my mug, hoping maybe they'd make a decent cuppa in the morning if I got some hot water. Six miniature spirit bottles rolled about the place, empty of course, testifying to the caring compassion with which my guests had frolicked with complete indifference to my welfare. I laid my wet socks and shoes on the flagstones near the warm grate.
My blanket was unsullied. I haven't got proper pillows, so I stripped, shoved my cushion into place, scenting the perfume of the woman whose body had voluptuously reclined there, promised myself a good long spell of hatred of the American consul in the morning, and slept.
2
ONCE, ANTIQUES AND women were the only two aspects of life.
Then one day I learned there was a third problem just as brilliant and difficult. And now, I wouldn't be without any of them for the world. I need all three.
I was under the overhang of that chemist's shop in Pelhams Lane next morning selling stolen Christmas trees.
'Come with me, Lovejoy,' Sandra said. 'I've found some old panels. Vice's wood yard.'
'No, ta,' I said. 'I'm doing fine.'
I knew straight away it was a trick. Her smile always tells you she's up to no good.
'They'll be worth a fortune to a forger like you, Lovejoy.'
They always say this, antique dealers. A bonny woman doubles the beauty and doubles the risk. It's one of my laws of antiques. Remember it.
'I'm making a fortune.' The shoppers surged past.
'Sold many, dear?' She looked me up and down. Frayed edges, shabby cuffs, patched jacket. I'd not eaten.
'Ninety,' I lied. 'Only three left.'
'It's summer, silly. And I've got what you want.' Truth there. Sandra waited, her smile promising me untold wealth. What can you do? I left my bedraggled trees, ignoring the angry shouts of the other hawkers to clear up my rubbish.
Vice's wood yard stands back from the Ladies' Golf Course at Lettenham, a rural estuary six leagues away from my village. This is how local East Anglian folk still speak, 'Six leagues and a furlong, booy.' It took us thirty minutes in her enormous Jaguar. 'You're sure they're worth it, Sandra?' I kept asking.
'Two lovely old cupboards and a bench.'
'How old?'
She couldn't say, which should have alerted me. Everyone knew I'd been searching for old, aged wood to forge Old Master paintings. I'd combed the three counties and found nothing. I looked at Sandra. All antique dealers have a quirk.
Sandra Gainer is a compulsive gambler. Her marriage ended when she gambled her husband into bankruptcy. Frederick was a pillar of society, churchgoer, an eight-to-six commuter. She had him arrested for credit card fraud, on account of her (not his, note) gaming losses. The last honest bloke on earth, he's currently doing four years, out next autumn. Sandra looks well on Frederick's suffering. She'll sell anything – hers, yours, mine – to fund her gambling addiction. She once sold my cottage to a Bavarian tourist and lost the money before teatime on another infallible system. Three different banks each believed they were my sole mortgagers. I had a hell of a time evicting the Munich bloke. That's Sandra.
'Sand? Why can't people gamble on wrestling?'
'I tried. They won't take the bets.'
My trouble is an uncontrollable mind. It darts about, asking the unanswerable. Like, why do all the big peninsulas on earth point south, never north? Africa, India, South America, Malaysia, Baja California. And why did God, who loves us, invent malaria?
'You can keep your hand on my knee, Lovejoy, if you stump up for the three o'clock winner at Haydock.'
