soldier squaddie and the lag. 'I saw her the day she got her team together. One of them's a big Yank diplomat.'
'She had quite a mob, then?' Remember what I said about antique dealers flocking?
Think vultures, not budgies.
'Not really.' He was watching the tap-room door as if waiting for somebody. 'Ferd and Norma, the Countess, Sandy and Mel. Horse and FeelFree wanted in but got the sailor's elbow, nudge splash. Vestry was going to try but shuffled the coil.'
A strange group. My voice croaked twice before it got going. 'How come you wanted to audition, you having met her before and all?'
Nobody was within earshot. Two middle-aged lovebirds by the door were having one of those terrible whispered arguments, all thin lips and white knuckles. I didn't know them.
He smiled sadly. 'She's never seen me before. I was the Countess's next bloke after you, Lovejoy.' I went a bit red. The Countess has lovers like restaurants do servings. 'I was in her Antiques Emporiana.' In case I'd forgotten, he added helpfully, 'You turn off through Long Melford—'
'I know.' Who didn't?
'We were in her stockroom when they all came to decide the chop. Ferd and Norma, Mrs Eggers, Sandy, a bloke I'd never seen before.' He winced. 'The Countess shoved me behind a curtain. It covers the doorway into—'
'I know, I know.'
Chop is the division of the spoils. I was embarrassed, that curtain. Uneasily I wondered how many of the Countess's former lovers had hidden behind it while she sallied forth to awe customers.
'I heard about you wanted actors so I changed my name. That's it.'
So Susanne Eggers was a would-be international buyer. My pathetic brain felt it was clip-clopping after Derby runners. 'She must have money,' I bleated feebly, as if a Yank lady who could rent a country estate and assemble a team of antique dealers might possibly be destitute.
'She's loaded. The Countess was in raptures.'
'What happened?'
For it had changed. Instead of a respectable mob of well-off dealers, she'd finished up with a penniless dolt, namely Icky Tod, me. I felt risk closing in. Thank you, Mortimer.
He said scornfully, 'Vestry took the drop, didn't he? That's what happened, Lovejoy.'
My imbecilic mind went, trying to trick me with the obvious, hey? It was then that I realized I was simply putting things off. I'd known what to do for some time. It was time I got on.
'Ta, Jules.'
Now I knew that Susanne Eggers was dedicated to something long-term and multo vital. She was a trier and a stayer. All the clues were somewhere there. She wanted to assemble a task force, and failed. She'd tried to nick a successful international festival, and failed. So she was scraping the barrel, namely me, that well-known success story.
Desperate from hunger, I went to find my talented ex-friend Alanna, who now hated me because I once made smiles with her mother. Please hear me out, because it wasn't my fault. I postponed the burglary I was going to do for Bernicka. I'd just got time to reach the rubbish tip.
There stands Marjorie.
Law compels our rural councils to run a rubbish dump. It's called the Regional Council Recycling and Hygienic Refuse Disposal Central Facility. It only means a tip.
Among waste containers loaded with old clothes, tins, bottles, and stacks of sodden paper are vast heaps of smouldering ashes spread over a desolate landscape. There's a hut where workmen play cards and doze, a prefab office where the boss watches cricket on a TV nicked from the chutes, and that's it. Except for Marjorie, she of the biggest customized Aston Martin you ever did see. She is fiftyish. (Her age doesn't matter. I'm only trying to explain how things turned out.) She was, is, always there on weekdays, dressed to the nines. Fox fur (ugh), elegant high heels, lovely figure, a quite splendid hat and kid gloves, she stands and watches the macabre terrain. If the weather turns foul she sits in her motor listening to the radio. Usually she's merely there while folk drive in, ditch their rubbish and exit smiling. And Marjorie leaps into action.
Sometimes, folk throw out things that aren't quite crud. It's then that this serene, charming figure moves with the alacrity of a decathlete and scavenges like a terrier.
I've seen Marjorie actually fight – not merely squabble or rant; I mean fisticuffs and talons – over a broken side-table you wouldn't shake a stick at. It's ugly. Is there anything worse than a drunken woman, or two women brawling over detritus? I was fascinated by her when first we met. We both were trying for a leatherette case that looked hopeful. I was on my uppers from an episode of financial ruin, and had grown desperate. Challenged by this harridan, I made a chivalrous withdrawal. Marjorie turned on me such a lovely smile of triumph that I was quite dazzled. The dress pouch she won held a lovely articulated Regency fan with a perfectly preserved silk leaf painted with Parisian scenes, about 1778 give or take a yard. I fell head over heels for Marjorie on the spot, and wooed her with instant passion, of course hoping to nick the fan.
We made smiles, the lovely scavenger Marjorie and I, for quite three days. Long time, especially as I never did get the cased fan. Our pure love was ruined when her daughter woke us, hollering what the hell was I doing in her mother's bed. The affronted offspring was Alanna, she of the golden hair, who is a broadcaster, meaning she sings those jingles trying to get you to buy face cream and toilet rolls, and fills in when the newsreader's too sloshed or stoned to sit erect. I'd given Alanna the best years of my life for a fortnight once, so knew her temper. The story got around and for a month or two my name was mud. Paradoxically, things move apace in antiques. Apart from a deluge of jokes at my expense the affair was soon forgot, though I still sob over that Regency silk fan. I could have bought my cottage for it, and lived there honestly.
The lovely Marjorie was there, beautifully attired in the lunar landscape. She wore a pastel blue suit, the skirt hem defiantly lower than fashionable, a capellone hat with flowers on its sweeping brim, gloves and a chic veil. A queen amid jetsam. On hot days she carries a frilly parasol. I noticed an old Singer sewing machine in her brilliant Aston Martin. (Who'd lifted it for her? And who would lift it out?) I peered as I approached. It wasn't a Kimball Morton Lion treadler of 1868, thank God, or I'd have been really narked because one would buy a new car. (Tip: the head of this sewing machine
