A week later I drew detailed plans of her residence for Pogger, a Manchester burglar. I chose him because of his photographic memory. It took him an unbelievable eight minutes to scan the drawings, then I burned them. On an agreed day I got myself arrested by deliberately causing an affray in Gimbert's Auction Rooms. I was in clink awaiting trial when somebody – nobody knows who –burgled Biddy's famed Blue Barn Mansion. It was such a tragedy. Burglars stole the furniture, paintings, cutlery, silver, glassware, antique flintlocks, wall tapestries, even the carpets. One odd thing, though.
Standing all alone in the centre of the emptied dining room – the scene of Biddy's giggling dinner party – Pogger had left a charming gift for the lady of the house.
It was a bottle of expensive red Barofo wine.
Naturally, I was accused. It was very unfair because you see I was in pokey, unable to raise my bail. I waxed indignant behind my bars, saying it was obviously somebody trying to fit me up. See how wicked some people are? Always ready to believe the worst of folk. There's no honesty these days.
Biddy's hysterical accusations were the sort that give antique dealers a bad name. She screamed untruths at the media, newspapers, the police, anybody who would listen.
'Oh, dear,' I said sadly when TV people came to interview me in gaol. 'I'm really sorry for Biddy. Usually she's so good-humoured. Why on earth would anyone burgle Blue Barn Mansion? Everything there is modern reproduction, including those fake portraits and silver ...' Which effectively barred her from claiming on the insurance. It was so sad. I mean that most sincerely.
From hardship, she got wed later that year to a rich bloke she hated. The happy couple returned to Blue Barn Mansion. Her husband, a fat old banker, is trying to restock the mansion with antiques. Our local dealers sell him tat, because neither he nor Biddy have a clue and are, of course, too proud to seek advice.
Alicia loved the story. She'd heard it from some pal of Gimbert's, only guesswork gossip but almost true in every respect. Strange how things get around.
'Served the bitch right,' Alicia purred. She relishes such tales. 'You should have ...' And proceeded to embellish, suggesting new ways to do Biddy down.
She did tell me one thing I hadn't heard, though.
'Had you heard? Biddy's shops have gone bust. Some insurance thing. They turned her down and she had to sell for a pittance.' She eyed me after checking that her wolfhound was replete. 'When you said we should leave Blue Barn Mansion alone, Lovejoy, I wondered if you still had feelings for her.'
'Not those feelings, love. She's only got dross.'
She brightened, but I gulped. I supposed it was my crack about her possessions all being fakes and repros that had made the insurers turn her shops down. Well, that's what luck does, changes good to bad. If only we could control things as we go on, wouldn't life be wonderful?
That conversation set me thinking. That night I was especially good value for Alicia. At least I tried to be, except all I can think is yippee. But I did have a go, and even bought her animal a tin of unspeakable grot that it wolfed for its supper, and told her a load of tales she hadn't heard. I had her laughing. Then we slept. I like Alicia, and Peshy is all right too. We were quite an effective team, really.
Next day, though, life bungled things badly.
Alicia and Peshy started the morning off doing a shoulder in Cairhirst and Thremble's, the big auction rooms north of Cambridge. The security there's never been any good, so I felt at ease leaving Alicia to it while I went to the railway station to phone Bernicka.
She answered the phone sounding terrified.
'Hello, Bernicka,' I began. I was so sure of myself, for hadn't I bribed her with a genuine (well, forged) drawing from the hand of her beloved Leonardo da Vinci? 'Did you see that Yank? What did you find out?'
'Lovejoy,' she said, her voice a gnat's whine. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'I'm talking about Leonardo da Vinci!' I croaked, thunderstruck.
'I want nothing to do with him. I posted your drawing back.'
She rang off.
Stunned, I stared at the receiver.
She didn't want Leonardo? Now, this was a woman who once stood in the rain all night gazing at a poster outside a village hall where somebody was going to talk on Leonardo's handwriting. (He wrote backwards, mirror writing.) Get the point? Bernicka risked pneumonia to see a frigging poster slapped on a billboard simply because it had her beloved's name on it. And reneged on a dozen highly paid careers, to make dud copies of Leonardo's nonexistent works.
She didn't want...? Worse, she didn't want?
Badly shaken, I sat on the railway platform. Don't incidentally try this yourself, because Eastern Network Railway's taken away all the seats in the interests of efficiency. You've to sit on the floor and catch your death of cold. Logic told me that Bernicka had been bullied. The persuaders must have been pretty potent, because nothing dissuades a woman in love. Passion simply changes her universe. Her whole life goes overboard. I too had been given the sailor's elbow, that terrible nudge-splash farewell, when Bernicka tumbled head over heels for Il Maestro. The world and everything in it suddenly came second. I shrugged and went on with life. Bernicka didn't, because Leonardo had taken over her soul.
Yet now she blithely tells me that Leonardo can get stuffed, sod off?
Impossible. I didn't know much, but I knew that.
Tough on Alicia and Peshy, leaving them unaided in the auction rooms, but what can you do? I got Alicia's motor and drove off. Well, I reasoned, I was in a panic but Alicia never was. And Peshy, not me, was her expert accomplice, the thieving little swine.
They could get on with it. I'd already told her where to book us in, so she'd come to no harm. I hoped.
Three hours and a nervy nosh in a motorway caff later, I parked a mile or so away from Bernicka's studio and walked footpaths to her place. I didn't want anybody gossiping that she'd at last got herself a live bloke instead of a
