'You'll be delighted with my performance, Lovejoy.' She fondled her dog, gazing into its eyes. 'Won't he, my little woofie?'
'We're going to assault a number of auctioneers and antique shops, Alicia. We'll raid the whole of Suffolk and Norfolk, et al. I've allocated a fortnight.'
Her eyes closed in rapture. She said huskily, 'And you'll pay? Lovejoy, bless you from the bottom of my heart. You've just promised paradise!'
She chuckled all the way to my village. I like Alicia, always have, but being with her makes me sigh. Times were getting rough when the one person you could trust was an arch thief. Mind you, the Lord found that. Am I right or am I right?
23
ALICIA DROPPED ME at the chapel. I skulked down the lane. I'd told her to pack, tell our destination to nobody, then drive to the nosh van on the Ipswich road.
No bobbies lurked among the hydrangeas, no sudden rustling in the ivy. The door was fastened by the same old twists of wire I always used. La Deighnson hadn't caught up with me yet. Safe! I eeled in, smiling, and halted.
The woman stared at me. Same person, ankles primly crossed, gloved hands on her lap. I thought, I've seen you before.
'Good day, Lovejoy.'
She spoke like teachers used to, fingers drumming. 'I'm waiting...'
'Er, refresh my memory, please.'
Even as I spoke I thought, she's the bird who asked me to guard that painting I'd forged, wanted a report every day, week, whatever.
'Look, missus,' I began, clearing my throat. Making dud excuses always makes me nervy. 'I've had a lot on. I think you'll have to find somebody else. I've to go away a few days.'
'You have entirely forgotten, have you not?'
She actually said it like that, Have (pause) you (pause) not (pause), then a long time afterwards came that ? I was left admiring, but conscious that I'd been soundly told off.
She was the woman who'd given me my forgery of Geof-freye Parlayne's wife, Lady Hypatia Parlayne of that ilk. I plundered my feeble memory through mental murk. This was the woman who believed that her – my – forgery was in fact a Cromwellian masterpiece. I was to protect it against thieves. My headache came like a wolf on the fold, slamming my temple and making my eyes uncertain of gaze.
'Er, certainly not! You're, er. . .' She wore a wedding ring. Hadn't she said she was a neighbour of Darla Vullamy? Something like that.
'I am Mrs Thomasina Quayle. I paid you to protect my rare antique portrait. The contract is legally binding.'
'Er, sure it is!' I said brightly through a mask of pain in half my head. 'You want to see it?'
'If you please, Lovejoy.'
She followed. I led the way to my workshop, asked if she'd wait a sec as I went in. I crossed to the far end and hauled up the old flagstone. It isn't a trapdoor like the one in my cottage. It's just a simple flat paving slab with an iron ring in it so you can lift one end. There's nothing beneath except a level metal tray, for whatever canvas or antique I choose to lay in it.
Nothing.
I stared, my heart banging. I lowered the slab with a thud, retraced my steps, returned, lifted the damned thing a second time, gaped. Zilch. Nil. Empty.
I thought back to when she'd come. What did she actually say, that day? 'It's already in your . .. shed,' when I'd asked her where her portrait was.
After she left, I'd gone to the workshop, seen it leaning against the wall. I'd examined it, still thought it pretty neff, then gingerly laid it down, covering it with a pink bedsheet some bird had left. Now, there was the selfsame sheet neatly folded on the old beech easel I use for landscape forgeries. (Folded neatly? Moi?) The security tricks I normally use –threads on the earthenware floor, dust sprinkled around the easel – were undisturbed. So how in God's name had the thief nicked the portrait, in its frame, from beneath the flagstone? The cobweb I'd layered over the iron ring hadn't been disturbed. You get the cobwebs on dewy morning grass, and it's a good trick – until now, foolproof. It was just gone.
'Yes, Mrs Quayle!' I cried, emerging brightly. 'There it is! Perfectly safe!'
She didn't move, stood there by the door.
I said gaily, 'I didn't even offer you a cup of rosy. Let me make amends!'
Eyes of stone. 'I must see it, Lovejoy.'
'I can assure you . . .'
'I paid. I want to see it. Now.'
The last word was like a pistol shot. The bloody woman wouldn't budge. What is it with these people? Suspicion, suspicion, suspicion. I swallowed. 'Actually, missus, there's been a bit of a problem. I happened to notice that the surface of the painting had bloomed a bit in one corner, so I varnished it – perfectly free! Gratis! I've improved its net worth. I can't move it for a week.'
'Show me my portrait,' she said quietly. That same terrible spaced speaking chilled me, every word a mile from its neighbour.
I noticed the mobile phone in her hand. She hadn't had it before. She was transmitting.
