I DIDN’T SLEEP a wink. Long before dawn I was up being brave in daylight. Today was going to be my round of people. Today the old debonair impeccable Lovejoy would hit the road like politicians do to show how young and thrusting they actually are behind that comfortable rotund shape. It’s really something of a confidence trick but I was going through with it anyway. The night had taught me how alone I was.
Further reflection had increased my nervousness. Despite having the phone and living so near other people, there was one major problem. Whereas I didn’t know who’d killed Sheila, the murderer knew who I was. Collecting’s a small world. Sooner or later I would come across him, and whether I recognized him or not was irrelevant. The risk I represented was still there.
I drove to George Field’s house and collected the replies to his advertisement, some twenty replies with one catalogue from an overseas dealer casting bread hopefully on distant waters. The ones Field thought most likely turned out dud. Disappointed, I promised to read them with enthusiasm and left.
Muriel Field was next. I enjoyed the drive, but exactly how many times I caught myself looking carefully into the driving mirror I’ll never know. The one blue scooter I did see turned out to be ridden by a district nurse. She’s probably wondering yet why a complete stranger gave her a glare for nothing when she was in the opposite lane. I didn’t recover for miles.
Muriel was glad to see me. I honestly mean that, really pleased. That whole morning was brilliant, every cloud seemed effervescent and the sky a deeper blue than it had ever been. She was radiant, dressed maybe somewhat younger than her age and looked as though the party was soon to begin. The difference between the anxious, hesitant woman she’d been some weeks before and the scintillating beauty I now saw was remarkable. I was coerced into drinking coffee.
‘If that heron keeps its distance,’ I warned.
She laughed. ‘I promise I’ll protect you.’
We sat on the patio and made small talk while a crone fetched coffee, Sheffield plate of some distinction and Spode. The sugar bowl’s fluted design didn’t quite match but could be passed off as the right thing with luck in a nooky antique shop. My pleasure made me, careless.
‘I’ll remember you above everything else for elegance,’ I said playfully, and saw her face change.
‘Don’t talk like that.’
‘It was a compliment.’
‘It sounded . . . so final.’
‘A joke,’ I said.
She wouldn’t be appeased and set about pouring for us both. ‘Everything needn’t be bad or sad.’ I felt out of my depth and said so. ‘I just don’t like it when people talk about going away or changing things,’ she said. ‘It happens too often without anyone wanting it.’
‘I was only admiring your coffee set. It would have been terrible if you’d spoiled the effect with a spoon made out of Georgian silver coins.’ I took my cup and stirred. ‘Have I put my foot in it?’
‘No.’ She shook her hair, head back and face towards the air like they do.
‘I’ll be careful in future.’ That was better. She raised her cup to toast me.
I asked about her upbringing. As she talked I absorbed security and ease all around. No chance of being spied on here, with the two loyal gardeners busy interrupting plants and keeping an eye on the mistress. Inside the house, stalwart ancient ladies – infinitely more formidable than any gardeners – creaked and bustled vigilantly. So many things came down to money. Wealth is safety. Muriel chatted on about her father, her many aunts, her mother’s concern with spiritualism (‘. . . but then it was all the fashion in her day, wasn’t it?’) and her inherited wealth. Husband Eric had been as wealthy as she, it appeared, when they met.
‘Will you stay on here, Muriel?’ I asked.
She glanced away.
‘It depends.’
‘On . . .?’
‘Oh, just things.’ Her vagueness was deliberate, yet there was a hint of a reflective smile in her expression. Oh-ho. I began to ask about Eric.
Society’s cynicism clouds our minds sometimes. When a younger woman marries or cohabits with a much older man, it’s supposed to be only for money. Conversely, when an old woman takes up with a much younger man, she’s blamed for wanting physical gratification and is condemned on those grounds. This is one of the few occasions women come off worst – society says they’re cheap chisellers or sex-crazed. On the other hand, the old chap’s regarded as a sly old dog and the young chap’s seen simply as having just struck lucky getting steady sex and a steady income together in one parcel, as it were. So as Muriel chatted happily on about her elderly husband, I found my treacherous mind wondering what possible motive she’d dreamed up for marrying Eric Field in the first place. Naturally, under the influence of Muriel’s undoubted attractiveness and charm, I was stern with myself and forced these unbecoming suspicions out as best I could.
‘He had a real sense of fun,’ she was saying, smiling.
‘I suppose it’s a lot quieter now,’ I put in.
‘Oh . . .’ For some reason she was hesitant.
‘I mean, fewer visitors,’ I hurried to explain. She seemed to become upset at the slightest thing. ‘You won’t have dealers and collectors bothering you quite so much, seeing we only go for antiques.’
‘No.’ She saw my cup was empty and rose a little too quickly. ‘You haven’t really seen the house, have you?’
‘Er . . . no, but –’ I was taken a little by surprise.
‘Come on. I’ll show you.’ Mystified by these sudden changes of course, I followed her in from the terrace.
The house wasn’t quite the age I’d expected. Despite that, it was only just beginning to fed lived-in. Muriel had taste. Flowers matched the house colours and weren’t too obtrusive the way some people have them, though you couldn’t help thinking what a terrible fate it was to be scythed off in your prime and stuck in a pot to decay.
‘Could I please –’
‘Yes?’ We were on the stairs, apparently about to tour upstairs.
‘Would you mind very much if I asked to see where Eric was found?’
To my surprise she was unperturbed. ‘Not at all.’ We descended together. ‘I thought you might.’
The room led off the marble-floored hall and was beautifully oak-panelled, done about 1860 or so at a quick guess. Muriel’s unfaltering taste had enabled it to be exposed to more daylight than others could have allowed. She’d used long heavy velvet curtains drawn well back from the tall windows to draw attention to their height.
‘I like it.’
‘Eric used it for a collecting-room and his study. I never came in much when he was alive.’ She wandered about touching things rather absently, a book, the desk, adjusting a reading lamp. The carpet was Afghan but pleasing for all that. A small Wilson oil, the right size for that missing Italian waterfall painting he did, hung facing the desk,’ setting my chest clanging. However, care was needed so I filed the facts and said nothing.
‘I warned you about interlopers,’ I said.
‘I know what you collectors are like. All Eric’s things have gone, as I said, so I’ve no reason to fear.’
‘Do you see any of Eric’s acquaintances still?’
‘No,’ she said firmly.
‘No collectors?’ She paused at that, then again told me no. I shrugged mentally. It was none of my business. ‘If one does turn up,’ I said, chancing my arm, ‘tell him I’d rather like to see him.’
We gazed at the lawns and admired the sweeping landscaped gardens. Muriel was eager to explain her plans for the coming flower show. I let her prattle on and adopting an idiot smile stared towards the flower beds.
In the window was the reflection of a small occasional table, mahogany drop-leaf with a single stem-leg, quite good but Victorian. I couldn’t see the top surface because it was covered with a neat new tablecloth. On it were mats and the essentials for starting the inevitable tea ceremony. ‘I never came in much when Eric was alive’ were her words. Therefore she did use it now, and fairly frequently from the way she had spoken. And whoever the visitor was must be a fairly regular customer. He rated the cosy intimacy of a sophisticated room from which all sour memories had been happily erased. I only rated the terrace. Hey ho.
That would account for her reflective smile when I’d asked if she would keep the house on. It depended on just things, she’d said. Maybe it would also explain her displeasure when my miscued remark had suggested that collectors were hardly interested in people. Was he therefore a collector? I wondered about her holy friend. Older, but age doesn’t really matter. Never mind what people say.
Still, where was the harm? It was quite some time ago since her husband had died. Sooner or later she was going to meet somebody new, as the song says. You couldn’t blame her – or him, come to that. I honestly felt a twinge of jealousy. I couldn’t help starting to work out how much I could buy with Muriel’s wealth. I’d start with a group of Wedgwood jaspers. Then I’d – No good, Lovejoy.
‘Come and see me off,’ I asked.
She agreed. ‘I’ll get my coat and ride with you to the gate.’
I strolled out on to the drive. The gardeners were grumbling with the endurance of their kind. As I approached I heard one saying, ‘That swine never grew those leeks himself. The bastard bought them, I’ll bet,’ and grinned inwardly at the politics of village competitions. At that moment his companion, detecting the presence of an observer, made a cautionary gesture, at which both turned to greet me with rearranged faces. Seeing my slipshod frame they relaxed and grinned. I nodded affably and strolled on. They’d thought perhaps I was Muriel. Or Lagrange?
She was in the car when I returned. I’d get no kiss today. You can tell a woman enraptured by someone else. The delight isn’t delight with you. Her vivacity’s pleasure at what’s to come, and in case you miss the point it’s you that’s departing. The minute it took to drive her to the gate I used to good effect, being as secure and companionable as other characters of the landscape. She blew me a kiss from the gate.
A child, I thought, just a child. Everything must be kind and happy for her. And in her protective shell of opulence she would instinctively make the whole world appear so. Lucky bloke, whoever he was.
The White Hart quietened a bit as I entered, but when a raving nut goes anywhere people behave circumspectly no matter how hard they try to look normal. Tinker bravely came along the bar for a chat, but Jimmo and Harry Bateman were obviously preoccupied and couldn’t manage a nod. I was calm, easily innocent and merely eager to talk about antiques. Jane, cautious on her stool, was relaxed enough to offer me a couple of rare book bindings – though I wouldn’t normally touch them with a bargepole and she knew it – and Adrian gave me a welcome only a little less effusive than usual.
Tinker had a source of antique violins – no, don’t laugh, they’re not the trick they used to be – for me, owned by a costermonger of all things. He had found as well a collector of old bicycles who was in the market for price-adjusted swaps, wanting assorted domestic Victoriana, poor misguided soul, and his third offer was some collector after old barrows, you know, the sort you use in gardens. At a pinch this last character would buy antique shovels if the antique wheelbarrow market was a little weak.
‘An exotic crew, Tinker,’ I commented over my pale ale.
‘It’s the way it’s happening, Lovejoy,’ he said. ‘I don’t know whether I’m coming or going these days, honest. No two alike.’
‘Good.’
‘I wish it was.’ Drummers like Tinker are notorious moaners, worse than farmers.
‘Better for business when tastes vary,’ I said, nodding to Dick, who’d just come in with traces of the boatyard still on him. Dick waved and gave me the thumbs-up sign.
‘I like things tidy,’ said Tinker, except for Dandy Jack the untidiest man I knew.
‘I like collectors,’ I answered just to goad him and get a mouthful of invective for my trouble.
A couple of new dealera were in from the West Country and, unaware of my recent history, latched affably on to me and we did a couple of provisional deals after a while. I earmarked for them a small folio of antiquary data, drawings of excavations in Asia Minor and suchlike, done by an industrious clergyman from York about 1820. It was supported by abstracts from the modern literature, photographs and articles, plus the diary of a late-Victorian lady who’d spent a lengthy sojourn near the excavations and described them in detail. All good desirable script. They in their turn came up with a Forsyth scent-bottle lock, which they showed me there and then, an early set of theodolites they’d bring to the pub next day and what sounded a weird collection of early sports equipment I’d have to travel to see. Knowing nothing about early sports gear, I fell back on my thoughtful introverted expression and said I was definitely interested but I’d have to think about it. They asked after a Pauly airgun, but I said how difficult it was to find such rarities and I’d see what I could do. I might let them have a Durs airgun in part-exchange.
Ted the barman, pleased at my appearance of complete normality, was only too glad to serve me when I asked for pie, pickle and cheese.
‘Nice to see you up and about again, Lovejoy,’ he beamed.
‘Thanks, Ted.’
‘Completely well now, eh?’
‘A bit shaky on my pins now and again,’ I said.
With transparent relief he said it was understandable.
‘The wife had one of these viruses too,’ he said. ‘She was off work a month. Time them researchers got on to things like that and left smoking alone.’
So my collapse had to be down-graded (or up?) to a virus. Ah, well, if that was the party line I’d stick to it.
Back in my old surroundings with Dandy Jack and the rest popping in and out for the odd deal, I passed the time in utter contentment. I honestly admire antiques dealers, like me. They are the last cavaliers, surviving as an extraordinary clone against fantastic odds by a mixture of devotion, philosophy and greed. The enemy, it practically goes without saying, is the succession of malevolent governments who urbanely introduce prohibitive measures aimed at first controlling and then finally exterminating us. We don’t bow to them. We don’t fit neatly into their lunatic schemes for controlling even the air everyone breathes. The inevitable result is hatred, of us and of our freedom. It includes the freedom to starve, and this we do gladly when it’s necessary. But we are still free, to be interested in what we do, to love what we practise and to work as and when we choose. And we work on average a good twelve hours a day every day, our every possession totally at risk every minute we live. And these poor duck eggs in the civil service actually believe they can bring us to heel! It’s pathetic, honestly. Our ingenuity will always be too profound for a gaggle of twerps – I hope.
Listening to the banter going on hour after hour in the bar, my troubles receded and my fears vanished. We ranged over subjects as far apart as Venetian gondoliers’ Renaissance clothing to Kikuyu carvings, from eighteenth-century Esquimaux gaming counters to relics from the early days of the American wild west. It was lovely, warm and comfortable.
Then I noticed it was dark outside.