him.
As Sandy did an inept vah-vah-vah-voom, the crowd helpfully calling the drumbeats, Mel said sourly, 'You were supposed to come yesterday, Lovejoy. Money works when all else fails, it seems.'
'I find that.'
In the screaming crowd, I saw Olive Makins, trying to look beside herself with glee.
There was a hullabaloo when Sandy's attire lit up with multicoloured lights. The musicians despairingly tried to keep pace. He was in raptures.
'Has she come, then?' I asked Mel quietly.
'Who?' He gazed at me blankly, then his brow cleared. 'No. Not today.'
Odd, that. If Susanne Eggers wasn't financing the entire scam, then who was? The Yank consul surely couldn't, wouldn't, risk such an obvious scandal. I couldn't think of anybody else. The Countess? I didn't know anybody else so heavy. Except Mel had been momentarily puzzled when I'd assumed it was a bird, not a bloke.
'What's this show in aid of, Mel?'
'Sandy wants to be a chat cat. Y'know? The TV Antiques Trailshow. This will impress TV
producers. He'd give his all for it. Has, in fact.'
Yet more bitterness. They keep leaving each other. Last time, Mel fled to Sark, the little Channel Isle, but returned in a sulk when Sandy threatened to try to buy the island from the Dame of Sark herself. They are the shrewdest, sharpest antiques dealers in the known world. Except for Big John, I suddenly remembered with a snap of my fingers.
Big John is an Ulsterman. The saying is Ulster for soldiers, and John epitomizes it.
Enough nous to start a war and win. I did him a couple of favours time since, but you can't always count on his memory. He believes he's hard done by if something happens and he doesn't get a percentage. Despite this I like him, though he puts the fear of God in me. He had the clout to start a scam this size.
'Are they here?' I asked, meaning TV producers.
Mel definitely paled. 'Leave it out, Lovejoy.'
For the first time since I'd known him his Cockney accent came through. I was surprised. He always cracked on he was Welsh.
The audience was what folk these days call camp. Pink garb, feathers, T- shirted, many crew cuts, alchemic gothic studs and emblems. They didn't look the kind to tempt Antiques Trailshow producers. I said I'd wait outside as Sandy started a striptease to the audience's howls. As I turned I saw somebody else also singularly out of place. He caught my eye and glanced away, reddening.
Timothy Giverill and his wife are your dyed-in-the-wool sober suits. Sunday church, councillors both. To cap it all, Timothy is in insurance. He has the insurance shop next to Bea Willing's Tea Shoppe on North Hill, facing that Antiques Antics that Peter Myer ran for Sandy. The shop little Polly told me the plod had taken over for surveillance. A clue?
The Giverills too were also ectopic, and stood out like sun in a pit.
Outside, two drivers chatted to a couple of TV technicians. Don't know why, but TV
units always bring supernumaries. I have a theory that they need numbers for supportive psychotherapy, seeing they've no real job. The more turn up, the more convincing the charade.
'Wotcher,' I said idly. 'A right do in there, eh?'
'That poof goes on, dunnee?' one said. He smoked, his head clamped between earphones, wires trailing.
'You on that Antiques Trailshow, then?' I asked, gormless. 'He's going to present it, they say.'
One barked a laugh, lit a new fag from old. 'Him? Never. Camp's okay, but idiocy's not.'
They cackled. I drifted, and saw Timothy Giverill following me.
'Lovejoy?' I'd never seen anybody so worried. 'I'm glad to see you here for the meeting.
I don't mind telling you, I'm at my wit's end.' He gazed at me with bottled eyes, his Clarke Gable tash quivering. 'Who'd have thought my world would crash this way?
Insurance seemed so safe. And where will this Sotheby-Christie business end?'
'Who knows, Timothy?' Not me, that's for certain. What meeting?
He looked helpless. 'Four others are coming from the Midlands.'
'Well, as long as something happens.' What the hell were we on about?
He smiled tentatively. 'With you here we've a chance, especially with antiques.'
Me the arbiter of fair play? 'Always look on the bright side, Timothy.'
I felt sickened the way his expression cleared. 'Thank you, Lovejoy. Florence and I always liked you, despite your insurance trick on my company.'
'Here,' I said, narked. 'That wasn't my fault.'
'Say no more,' he said, smiling, and went back inside to Sandy's riot.
The insurance trick was one of my lucky moments. I'd found an old lady weeping at the Norwich bus stop. She'd had her bag stolen, containing hairdressing implements with which she eked out her pension undetected by marauding taxmen. She'd hoped to get her old husband a seventieth birthday present, and look what had happened.
'Two lads simply took it off me,' she'd sobbed.
