I suddenly didn't like Mrs Quayle. Still stunning, like all women, but I was scared. The thought came that she might serve the antiques raj.
'Right!' I said heartily, for the phone's benefit. 'I'll take you to it. Can I change first?'
Not a flicker. 'Where is it?'
I pointed down the lane. It only leads to the river and Seven Arches where the railway line runs.
'Eleanor's bungalow. I use an old garage. A minute's walk.'
'I shall accompany you, Lovejoy. Don't leave my sight.'
'Very well.' I found myself saying it like she would, syllables slow and spaced. Nobody catches accents quicker than me. I led the way into the cottage, asked to be excused a sec while I went to the loo. I closed the door, humming a catchy tune, stood on the edge of the loo and prised open the loft trapdoor.
Ten heartbeats later, I dropped from the thatched roof – several startled bats flapped a bit, disturbed having their nap – and was off, baring up the footpath to the main road. I wasn't defrauding Thomasina Quayle by escaping. Give me a few days, I'd knock her up half a dozen of the damned portraits. They're all as good as each other. I should know.
God's sakes, who better? I caught the bus at the churchyard and sank down in the rearmost seat until it reached St Peter's on North Hill. I caught Tinker on his trek from the Bugle Horn to the Welcome Sailor. He likes to be precise, law and ale money permitting.
'Here, Lovejoy,' he said, nervous. 'What we in here for?'
The Old Court Coffee House is the best coffee place in the Eastern Hundreds. Quiet, no mayhem, a living antique with a proper fire in the grate and decent chairs. It's a family place. You can get a swig of wine with your nosh, and nobody hassles you.
'We won't be spotted here, Tinker.'
'We in trouble?'
'A bit.' I told him about the accident to Timothy and Florence Giverill. He heard me out.
'I heard. Gawd rest the poor sod, even if he was in insurance.'
'Timothy?' I said, stricken.
'Dead an hour since, poor bleeder. Just heard in the Bull.'
For a while I said nothing. He understood, coughed a sympathetic cough that quivered the old rafters. I looked into the fire. Time I started thinking instead of running away. I told him I was leaving town with Alicia Domander.
He cackled, nodding. 'She'll see you right, Lovejoy. A right randy cow, her, but you already know that.'
'No, Tinker. An antiques run. Me and her'll sweep Suffolk, Norfolk.'
'Then what?'
'Scare everybody, stir the swine up. Unload every single item in Gimbert's Auction Rooms, a special one- off.'
'The lads will hate that, Lovejoy. It'll attract London bidders. Big money.'
'With Alicia and Peshy doing the shoulder, I'll have vanloads.'
'You're wanted, son, so watch out.'
'Who by?' I asked, uneasy.
'That poofter, Sandy. And some tart who talks like the telephone. And that Maud, Quaker's missus – here, you back to shagging her? And that American bird. And that actor geezer, calls hisself Jules now he's out of clink. And Tina, the one with that bloody great well in her house. And—'
'Tinker,' I said wearily. 'Shut it. You've got a job on.'
'Work?' he said. 'I can't, Lovejoy. My wound plays me up.'
'Get me an antiques kit. They'll be watching the craft shops. I can't go home and get my own. You know that tin biscuit box I carry about.'
'Right, son. What you want in it?'
'What I've had in it ever since Adam dressed, you ignorant burke. The essentials for examining antiques.'
'How the hell would I know?' he gravelled out, hawking up phlegm and spitting into the fire. It sizzled. And they say elegance is dead.
You don't need much to suss out antiques. Very few things are any use. My kit is lightweight. Anybody can make one. It saves many a mistake. They're mostly household things, easily got: a tape measure showing inches and centimetres; a x10
loupe (higher magnification is more nuisance than help); a colour chart (I use a Daler-Rowney one because art shops give them free – I pencil in dates the actual colours came in); a midget pocket calculator because I'm thick doing sums; a miniature pencil torch. The only valuable instrument in the entire kit is a McArthur microscope. There are cheap plastic versions, but if you can afford a unique original, get one. It's worth its weight in gold. You simply put it down on anything – wood, stone, metal, material, silks, whatever – and switch on. You look in, and it shows you a magnificent detailed view of the surface, just as if you were in a pathology laboratory. Then, in a tissue, two broken lenses from polarized sunglasses –essential for jewellery.
Lastly, I carry a little packet of carob seeds. That's it.
Doesn't sound much, but that little kit will save you a fortune in avoiding mistakes in antiques. The seeds incidentally are anciently the Ceratoma siliqua, supposedly the
