'Lovejoy. Why d'you think he's in a wheelchair? There's more technology in it than the parson preached about. Everything he says is recorded. He has transmitters to spare.
Get the joke?'
'No.' I didn't get any joke.
'His phoney cups, trophies, all his fake awards. People laugh at him. The joke's on them, because nothing they own is secure. Any instant, he could simply advise the raj, and somebody would lose every penny piece. I mean you, the British Museum, America's Metropolitan, anywhere that owns anything.'
I sank back, laid my tired head on the pillow. She came over me, smiling down, her breast in view.
'Are we being broadcast?' I bleated, frightened.
'No, darling.' Her face clouded slightly, then cleared. 'No. Impossible. Quaker wouldn't do that.'
What man wouldn't keep track of his missus, though, if she kept sneaking out to see a scrounging ape like me? My throat dried. Quaker could say the word and I'd get found in a ditch, victim of some hit-and-run. Nobody would know. I'd be forgotten in an hour, that old Lovejoy, serve him right.
'Come on, darling,' she said, smiling as her confidence returned. 'You're forgiven. I know you're Quaker's friend. The only one he's got, truth to tell.'
Thank God for that, I thought but did not say.
'Course I am,' I said instead. 'I always am. Always will be.'
I said it for a gillion hidden cameras and tape recorders in my fertile and terrified mind.
We joined, Maud and I, and made smiles. My smile was weak, but no less heartfelt.
'Tea, Lovejoy?' Maud asked, teapot poised, as Quaker smiled fondly and decided where his new trophies would go. 'Scone or cake?'
Ten of each was the right answer. 'Please.'
Quaker laughed. I kept my eyes off his electronically loaded wheelchair. Probably emitting signals to Planet Mongo, where menacing minds were judging every syllable. I felt weak so fell on Maud's grub. I love a bird like her.
'Wish I could eat like you, Lovejoy,' Quaker said wistfully. He slapped his protruberant belly. 'In training, see.'
'Ever think of retiring, mate?' I asked, mouth full.
'No.' He looked sad. 'I know what people say about me, Lovejoy.' I hoped I didn't look stricken with terror. Even Maud froze for an instant. 'That it's an addiction, me striving to achieve things when most blokes just have on hobby.' He sighed at his dazzling array of awards.
'Well,' I said heartily, 'they expect it.'
'True,' he agreed eagerly. 'Today, there'll be TV cameras all along the river to watch me scull. Interviews after. That Frenchman has a reputation.'
His opponent had been a Bavarian minutes ago. He'd forgotten. Too much on his mind, cluttered up with antique robberies? I wondered for a second whether there was a way of finding out where all his information was kept.
'Next week I'm boxing.'
'You're fighting again?'
'Lovejoy,' he said gravely, the light of lions in his eyes. 'I couldn't let the Lonsdale Belt go to Czechoslovakia.'
'But you might get clobbered.'
He smiled nobly. 'Then I'll go down fighting.'
We made similar merry chat until it was time to go. I said ta for Maud's grub. He never shakes hands, says that's for Americans and other foreigners. Nor do I, come to think.
'Oh, Quake,' I said, clumsily bringing in my panic as I rose to leave. It was the reason I'd come, after all. 'I hope you don't think less of me.' It was awkward. I shifted from foot to foot. 'Over my, er, lad. They're saying,' I explained for the recording devices Maud had told me about, 'that this lad Mortimer from Saffron Fields is my son. He's causing trouble, telling tourists which antiques are genuine and which aren't.'
'Your what?' he said, playing astonished well enough for the Old Vic.
'Your what?' Maud exclaimed, with hatred.
'It's said,' I amended. 'He's fifteen.'
'Good heavens!' Quaker almost offered his hand in congratulation. Maud did no such thing.
'Who is she, Lovejoy?' she asked in a voice of sleet.
'Only, I have no friends as such.' I almost moved myself to tears. 'Not ones I could trust.'
'It's all right, Lovejoy,' Quaker said. 'We understand.'
'He's not poor or anything. I'd like to think somebody like you might look out for him if... he needed anything. His mother frolics full-time in Sohor. His dad – who brought him up – is dead. He might need somebody.'
'Tell him we will, Lovejoy,' Quaker said. 'You're our friend. If a cripple and a cook from the soup kitchen will do?'
'Ta, wack.' I was really – I mean really really – moved, and retreated as Maud showed me out. They could have said go to hell, but hadn't.
'Lovejoy,' Maud said urgently on her doorstep.
