Quaker?'
'Of course! He's delighted you're taking me. He's only interested in his old sports, though he'll be at the meeting afterwards.'
'Special dining invitation after the show, Lovejoy,' Brig said pleasantly. He blipped the telly off. 'Sit you down.'
His side-table was a French mahogany serving table, three-tier, one of a pair that me and Alicia Domander and little Peshy had nicked from Eness and Crow's auction yard in Cambridge. We'd had to load up outside St John's College during evensong, a triumph of commerce over theology. I felt truly narked. That table was mine by rights. He'd nicked all my stolen antiques from Eleanor's, then had it here as if it was his own.
Stealing is immoral.
'Show?' This was the second mention of a show.
'The Quay Theatre. Safety regs, y'know. Demonstration first, then the music. Last, our meeting.' He harfed affably, shaking his head. 'You young folk, always wanting rations first, hey?'
'Silly me. Forget my head next.' I accepted a drink from Maud, a celebratory goblet so full of tiny umbrellas and toys I couldn't take a swig for prongs getting up my nose.
Brig's expression clouded as he checked a letter.
'See this? It's what civilization's up against.'
'Now, Dad, don't start. Lovejoy's only called about tomorrow.'
She looked good enough to eat, sitting on the couch with that smooth movement women do. Men sit down like a sack of tools, clumsy. I've only to walk into a room for things to start shuffling towards the edges of shelves ready to leap off, and valued vases to start tilting. Wary of spillage, I looked about for somewhere to place my glass.
And saw a lovely little Victorian fede ring (means faith, trust in a loved one). A real lover's antique. I've a soft spot for them. I knew it instantly. Me and Alicia nicked it from Corridern's Auction, Scunthorpe. I'd checked the opening device myself. Describe it, a fede ring sounds almost impossible –how did craftsman get so much on a single small gold ring? Two hands often linked by pearls, with diamonds or rubies in the setting. They sometimes open, showing two hands clasping inside.
It was on the bottom tier of my mahogany serving table. Brig must be hoping to keep some of my – well, Alicia Domander's and Peshy's – stolen antiques for himself. I brooded on a plan to restore rightful ownership, meaning mine.
'Bad news, Brig?' I asked, swallowing my anger.
His face was grim. 'Purdey's the gunsmith has been taken over by a French firm. Guess what comes next.' When I shook my head, 'They're going to increase production, from sixty to eighty shotguns a year! Bounders, what?'
'As long as they keep it going, who cares?' I hate huntin', shootin', fishin', all those sporting massacres. The implements are sometimes beautiful, but my experience is that carnage reduces merriment. Ancient gunsmiths' artefacts, like Purdey's weapons, are an instance. Lovely in a glass case, horrible in action.
'Standards, Lovejoy!' He was puce. 'Good God, man, they're not tins of beans!'
'What's this show?' I asked for diversion. Maud rolled her eyes in exasperation.
'Sandy's doing it,' Brig told me evenly. I almost spluttered. If he deplored Quaker, what on earth did he think of Sandy and Mel?
'Sandy's such a dear,' Maud said, smiling. 'His show's secret! Isn't he the one for surprises!'
Knowing Sandy, it would be a mad frolic, himself the centre of attention, embarrassment the main ingredient.
'What's it in aid of?' Like fowl pest viruses, charities abound in East Anglia. Like antiques auctions, too. I've never met an honest one of either yet.
Brig said smoothly, 'It's a London thing, Lovejoy. Let's hope it goes well for all our sakes.'
'Wotcher, Lovejoy.'
In wheeled Quaker with that electric hum. I said hello and was me taking Maud out okay.
'As long as you drive carefully!' We all fell about at the drollery, because the Quay Theatre was only a couple of hundred paces along the riverbank. You can walk the towpath to the side entrance. 'Did you hear about Morgan Motors?' His eyes shone. 'I'm driving their Formula One racer at Silverstone!'
'Brilliant, mate! Congratulations!'
This extra lunacy made me wax lyrical, saying how marvellous but those risky hairpin bends and watch out for that Finland geezer who's champion. Quaker answered with axle ratios and drag coefficients. The brigadier kept a stiff upper lip throughout this nonsense but showed his screaming exasperation at his barmy son-in-law by rudely putting the telly back on to watch his bouncing nags.
'Have you been all right, Lovejoy?' Quaker asked. 'I heard you were in that accident, Timothy Giverill on the bypass.'
'Not in. Just nearby.'
'Lucky you.' He beamed. 'You're lodging his missus?'
Maud's attention came on me like a laser. I said, 'She'll be gone as soon as her relatives get organized.'
'And Tinker. Okay, is he?'
'Fine.' I thought, what is this? Blokes don't say such things. Keeping useless conversations going is women's talk, how's Jimmy's leg and did Constance's dance shoes prove right and all that. Quaker had never talked like this before.
'And your Mortimer. He in good health?'
