'What are the prospects of recovery?'
He reeled off a string of numbers with a load of terms I couldn't comprehend. Finally he asked, 'Who is this, please? Did you say...?'
That should do it. I rang off. They'd know it was me. That system of tapping in a number to find the number of the person who's just rung is a godsend in some circumstances, but highly dangerous in others. This was either, maybe both.
Tinker was in the pub when I got there, happy waiting and almost kaylied from booze. I got a jar and took it across. He'd gone back to smoking his old pipe. Eight empty glasses were on the table. He must have been waiting half an hour at least.
'Wotcher, Tinker. All right?'
'Fine, son. Did that fat old bint nick some good stuff?'
Cruel description of Alicia Domander – plump she might be, but age never comes into it.
'I think so. Had anything to eat?'
'Thought I'd let my thirst go down.'
'You'd best have a bite before we go on.'
I made him eat a couple of pasties, and had one myself for luck. I handed him the yield, wrapped in bubble plastic.
'Buy a couple of postage boxes from the post office and get them to Eleanor's house, in my lane in the village.'
Eleanor is nothing to do with antiques. She just has Henry, a little baby I mind while she's out. She knew to keep unexplained parcels in her garage until I returned. It would be the first of many. I badly needed as many as I could get, and the more famous the thefts we did the better.
'Did you find out who Hugo is?'
He belched. The tavern shuddered. People all about stopped talking, wondering what spaceship had just effected re-entry.
'There's a bloke called Hugo mends old Lancaster engines down Romford. He's nearly ninety, not done a hand's turn for a decade. Nobody else.'
'Keep trying. Be in that tavern where Tandy's knock-out ring meets in Acle, you know the one. Eight o'clock tonight. I'll phone you, tell you what to do.' I gave him another two notes.
'How many more you going to do today, then?'
'Eight or nine, maybe double figures, give or take.' I hoped our thefts would make the Antiques Trade Gazette by the following week. Things were looking better, except for absent friends.
By afternoon I was worn out. Planning ahead always does this. I had a splitting headache, and the Bichon Frise –what a name for a species; sounds like a fried egg –
was getting on my nerves. Alicia Domander's good cheer and pride in her artistry was unfailing. I warmed to her. You can't help admiring a real pro. We really got going.
We did three antique shops in Ipswich and one auctioneer place. Then I said to cut across country to Norwich, while I dozed in the rear seat and Peshy sat upright grandly staring out of the windscreen from the front passenger seat. All he needed was goggles to be Biggies.
In Norwich Alicia knocked off a few items from those posh antique shops near Norwich Cathedral. She even got a painting out of the Black Horse Gallery in Wensum Street, and two small silvers at the adjacent place. All genuine, too, which goes to show that the real stuff isn't only in Sotheby's and Christie's. That thought worried me because it called something to mind, except I was too tired to remember exactly what. I shelved the moment and dozed.
That night we stayed on the outskirts of Norwich. I phoned Tinker in his Acle bar, got another definite negative to my Hugo question, and told him to go to Cambridge, see him in St John's Chapel at noon tomorrow.
'There's somebody come here asking if you're booked in, Lovejoy,' he gravelled out in an attempted whisper. 'Some bird. I said you were in Southwold. That all right?'
'Good, Tinker,' I told him. 'You did well. Keep going, okay?'
'Right. Tara, son.'
That night Alicia came into my room, leaving her midget mongrel asleep in her room.
We made smiles, me with relief and she with joy in her ample heart. It would have been a peaceful start to next morning, except there was an envelope under the door before the girl brought morning tea at seven o'clock.
There was a note:
Dear Lovejoy,
Please confirm soonest to me your next precise location. I regard your default on our contractual arrangements a serious breach of trust, and do hope this transgression is not repeated.
Yours sincerely,
Thomasina Quayle (Mrs)
Alicia stirred and groaned, looked at the bedside alarm clock.
'Christ Almighty, Lovejoy. It can't be day.'
'Up, love. Lots to do.'
She whimpered. 'Lovejoy, I didn't even know there was a seven o'clock in the morning.
