didn't want Timothy to waste his energy.
'Lovejoy. I didn't really do anything wrong, did I?'
He sounded pathetic. I shook my head emphatically.
'Course you didn't, mate. Not you.'
There was no reply for so long that the nurse began to tell me to clear off. As she gestured, Timothy spoke almost with his usual clarity, quite as if in the middle of a normal conversation.
'You see, old fruit, it's the promise, isn't it? Like the man said after the earthquake.
Every last cent. Wasn't that his phrase?'
'Yes,' I said, baffled. 'That's it, Timothy.'
Into the silence I said eventually, because he'd gone abnormally still, 'Some bloke, eh?'
Then in the clearest voice he said, 'You'll look after my Florence, Lovejoy.'
A statement, not a question.
'Until you're up and about, mate, course I will.'
Silence. The monitors blipped industriously. I rose, ahemed.
'I'd best be off, Timothy. Florence, er, sends her love. She'll be in to see you about, er, nineish, if that's okay?'
The nurse glared. The monitors bleeped. I left, saying so-long. Hugo?
Downstairs as we headed for the main concourse Petra spoke to one of the doctors.
Mrs Giverill was on life support. They spoke for hell of a time. He looked a frazzled ten-year-old. I saw his name on his white coat and remembered it.
By the time he'd finished and Petra Deighnson looked round for me I was among the parents in the paediatric queue, crouching down and chatting with a titch bent on unscrewing his toys. We mangled two, to the little lad's mother's amused tut-tutting. I heard the doctor's bleep go and he hurried off. Sickened, I eeled out, went down past the mortuary where nobody ever checks the exits, and opened the wooden door into St Mary's Lane. I hurried through the back doubles, thinking straight and fast for the first time. What I'd learned was dire, grievous, horrid.
All previous plans – if I'd had any – had to go. I phoned from a public phone box by the multi-storey car park behind the hospital. I had to dash back into antiques, where I could make / break some rules of my own and let everybody else's go hang. I needed a lot of small, neat thefts of exemplary accuracy. It wouldn't matter whose antiques got nicked, as long as they finished up in my sack. When your own skill runs out, hire the very very best. The greatest thief in the Eastern Hundreds was downing her pink gins in the Welcome Sailor. I got her on the phone.
'Alicia? I need help, love.'
'Who gives a toss, dear?' she purred.
'Money does.'
'Money?' She sharpened her mental claws. I could hear them honing on her stony heart, swish swish.
'Multo bunce, doowerlink. Some of it's for you.'
'For little me, dwahling?' She giggled. 'What do I have to do?'
Pubs have ears, so I said, 'Come out of the side door and walk down to the war memorial. I'll want you to do an antiques sweep, like we said. I know that some of your pals use that new shoulder – whatsername, Confetta from Manchester – but I want proven class like you, Alicia.'
She made a sharp intake of breath. I heard it. Now I knew that she had a rival
'shoulder' (read thief) she'd be less inclined to blow the gaff. That was the best persuasion to secrecy I could manage, over the phone.
'See you in twenty minutes. Take note who's in the pubs you pass, okay?'
'For you, anything!' she cooed, and rang off.
The one thing that proves irresistible to any skilled artisan is asking them to display their expertise to an admiring throng. Even if that throng is only me, it still attracts the skilled thief. Nobody could steal like Alicia.
Like I say, an expert. She was there on time. She was carrying her little dog Peshy. She held it up for me to kiss. I turned aside.
'Oh, pwease say hello to daahling Peshy, Lovejoy!' she trilled. It growled. I gave it a half-hearted pat. It snapped. Normally animals love me, spotting a pushover, but this canine must have thought I was muscling into its ample niche.
'I hope Peshy's on form, love.' I was in enough trouble without a bad-tempered mongrel the size and shape of a cheap brooch.
'Of course!' she warbled, clasping the animal to her bosom. 'He's a pure bred. And he's a Bichon Frise, Lovejoy, not an it. He helps mumsy-wumsy to borrow such lovely shinies from those nasty greedy dealers, doesn't he?'
Keeping a weather eye out for Petra Deighnson and her plod squad, I walked Alicia to her husband's motor and told her the name of a farmhouse near Norwich.
'It's where we're going for a few days, love,' I explained. 'If you can nick as I want, then we're partners. If you get caught, that's your lookout. Agreed?'
'Caught!' She said the word like I'd mentioned some distant asteroid. 'I've not been caught since before you were born, Lovejoy.'
'Then don't start now, eh?'
