Marie opened the cabin door, the sturdy nurse Inga glowering in the background. Lady Veronica was clearly there on the sofa, in spite of which Marie went through the formalities.
“An assistant wishes to enter, Lady Veronica.”
Humbly I waited until her ladyship beckoned to any interloping serf. I felt I should be on my knees. Inga left, emanating hatred and slamming the door.
“Wotcher, m’lady.”
“Wotcher, Lovejoy. Did I say it correctly?” She smiled and gestured to an armchair. I crossed the plush carpet and sank into more luxury, looking round. The suite was superb.
The balcony windows were open. Summer night and music wafted in, the curtains stirring gently. We could have been on a garden terrace. Outside, darkness and starlight, with a gibbous moon drifting along, formed a setting for romance. Maybe this astral influence made me notice Lady Vee’s appearance. Every time I saw her she’d lost a few more years. Tonight she looked even younger. Women can do this dramatically: a lighter touch to the hair, more stylish dress, shoes, cosmetics, and suddenly a new woman meets your eye. This one was two decades younger, slimmer, active, certainly not in need of a wheelchair. She wore a long brocaded dress of midnight blue, and an amethyst necklace in gold. A huge zircon ring was her choice this evening. She was no longer the elderly worn-out invalid. Deception was afoot. I was pleased, because deception’s my game. It makes me feel at home.
She caught me staring and smiled, thinking admiration.
“What is it?”
Her face changed from beauty to savagery. “What did you say?”
“I suppose you use sun-ray lamps?” I pointed to her zircon ring. “It was once a lovely blue. You’ve ruined it. It’s gone muddy. I bet you leave it on a window-sill. Poor old zircon always gets shambled by daft mares like you, with more money than sense. UV light, direct sunshine, those glamorous tan-your-skin lamps, they all cause even the best zircons to revert to a horrible soiled brown. Yours is on the turn. See how it fails to pick up the light? You’ve killed it dead, silly bitch.”
She stared at her ring. “Gemstones can’t change, Lovejoy. They are millions of years old.”
“That doesn’t mean you can treat them like dirt.” This kind of ignorance really narks me. “And your amethyst is on its last legs, poor little sod.”
“My necklace?” She fingered it.
“Just because a woman’s gorgeous doesn’t give her the right to ruin an Edwardian necklace a jeweller created a century ago.”
She said faintly, “But I’m always most careful.”
“Balls, m’lady. It’s bleached at one side. I’ll bet you have it in an illuminated display cabinet, so the peasants can ogle it when your estate is thrown open to the paying public on summer weekends. Does some ignoramus clean it in a jeweller’s dip-bath, hoping it’ll sparkle more?”
She coloured slightly. She was the culprit.
“Honest to God, you women nark me.” I went really bitter, because antique gems can’t answer back for themselves and somebody has to do it for them. “You go mad for jewels, then ruin them. Your grandma wouldn’t have made those mistakes, love. Grandmas knew hell of a sight better. You take care of frocks, shoes, jumpers, then insult your antique jewellery. Your pearls must be worthless.”
Involuntarily she glanced at a bureau. I guessed her safe was in there. “You are appallingly rude.”
“I’ll be Beau Brummell if you behave.”
A knock on the door made Marie revert to ceremonial mode. A uniformed man, his breast tag labelled Executive Purser, entered.
For the most part, I’m easy going. I mean, of the two genders women are preferable, and blokes come second, so when meeting someone I try to help. If they say hello and smile, I do the same. Does no harm, costs nothing. I don’t understand people who come in like gunfighters into a Western saloon ready to spill blood. This chap was smart and aggressive, looking destined at least for monarchy status. He was boss. Lady Veronica was instant attention, not quite fawning but willing to go further if he insisted. He wore insignia, black letters on gold, like a campaign medal and didn’t shake hands. Take that, oaf. I withdrew my hand. Take that, pompous nerk.
“You’re the one in trouble,” he announced at me in a precise rasp.
Which was me done with. I watched them go through their hello-again rituals, and guessed they made secret smiles in the lantern hours. Well, so would I if this new, younger Lady Vee gave me half a chance. Brenda, a woman I know who runs a boutique in Sudbury, swears she can always tell when people are lovers. She also claims to be able to say exactly how long they’ve been at it, just by seeing them buy a packet of Maltesers. I’ve found no way of checking her accuracy.
“This is Purser Mangot, Lovejoy.”
“Is she here?” He ignored me, signalling to Marie who leapt to obey. She made him a drink, ice in last, and fetched it at a swift grovel. She’d done it before. She offered me none. He glanced at his watch, gave it a curt nod that spared its life. Somebody could still make it on time, but the world had better watch out.
“They’ll all be here, darling, if the show tidies up.”
His head rose angrily at the conditional. As if on cue another arrival brightened the evening. Marie went through her admission process for a young uniformed lass I vaguely remembered as one of the dancers. She bubbled merrily in, greeted everybody – Mangot with discreet awe – and told me she was Amy the dancer, instantly demanding if I’d seen the show. I said it was the best I’d ever seen. It’s the only way with performers. Less than total adulation sends them suicidal. Mangot sipped, coldly inspected Amy as if he’d have her shot for crooked seams. She seated herself, guardedly thinking seams, but shone at my praise.
“We’re doing a new routine,” she offered. “Rehearsal time is difficult because – ”
“Because of disorganisation.” Mangot quelled her. “The Melissa runs smoothly unless people get sloppy.”
So there. Amy quickly agreed that everything wrong was her fault. Lady Vee smiled to placate us, while Marie let in and announced the comic who’d entertained us in the theatre, the nearly-famed Les Renown. He wore brash plus-fours and yellow tartan jacket and looked ready for a summer season on the pier. He too got a drink, unquestioned. Me, none.
“Thank you, Marie.” The dismissal worked instantly, Marie silently leaving to the kitchen. “Now,” Lady Veronica began amiably. “We all know why we’re here, except Lovejoy. We should start by telling him how we shall proceed.”
“Proceed with what?” I cleared my throat in the silence.
“I think we get rid of him,” Purser Mangot said. “He’s a sham.”
“Okay,” I offered helpfully. “I’ll get off at Amsterdam.”
“No.” Astonishingly it was Les who spoke so decisively. No chuckles and one-liners now. “Lovejoy’s essential. We all know why.”
Except me. I said out loud, “Except me.” They looked at each other, eyebrows raised in silent question like parents used to when you were an infant hearing things Not For Little Ears. Lady Veronica kindly relented.
“The robbery, dear. We need you for it.”
“Why would you need me?” I was asking in a the voice of reason, when her words struck home. I stood up and screeched, “Robbery? A frigging robbery?” Sending a careless postcard would get me cemented under some new motorway, and they were going to involve me in a robbery. The whole world would know immediately where I was.
“Of course, dear.” She smiled. If I’d been nearer she’d have patted my head, there, there. “Stop shaking.”
“Lady, I’m in enough trouble.”
“Sit,” Purser Mangot commanded. I sat. I’m pathetic. “There’s no way out, not for you, not for any of us. This theft is going down, or the game is up and the thieves will get away with everything. It will be the costliest robbery since the Brinx-Matt.” He seemed proud.
“Lovejoy,” Lady Vee gushed, openly worshipping the odious creep, “we are the good people, not the bad. Don’t you see?”
“No.”
“Let me explain. I am what is known as cover.” She tittered shyly. “Who would suspect me? Purser Mangot is our legitimate authority. Amy is our talented stage artiste – as such, she can go anywhere, and serves as a registered courier when passenger tours go ashore. That’s vital. And Les Renown is our charming scamp whom everybody loves.” She leant to me and whispered, “He’s really a policeman. Amy is only sort of police, more Fraud Squad.”
Amy was enjoying this, secrets unmasked and me thunderstruck.
“She has degrees from the Courtauld, you see. Fine Art and antiques. The pity is,” Lady Veronica said wistfully, “it isn’t as exciting as I’d hoped. So far it’s been quite mundane, apart from enticing you on board. I loved your kindness over Mr Benjo’s silly garden candles.”
“That’s the last time I ever show anyone kindness,” I said. “Charity gets you in trouble. You don’t need me.”
“You’re the crook,” Mangot grunted, irritably swigging the rest of his drink and tilting his glass in mute command. Her ladyship herself rose and brought more hooch for the pig, confirming my suspicions. He bully, she Jane. Whatever turns you on, I suppose, but I couldn’t help feeling envious. I swallowed the insult because I’m not really a crook. I just manage life the best way I can. Amy’s gaze stayed on me, wanting me to react with violence as women do. I stayed cool.
“Why do you need a crook?”
“To be the one they watch, stupid.” Mangot swigged, grimaced.
Now, hang on, I thought, suddenly more alert. Good people don’t need a crook unless they want somebody to blame afterwards. It happens in corporate business, in big-firm scandals on the financial news, and in august antiques auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s. It happens in governments. Classical case: When some duckegg is promoted to Cabinet Minister, they want somebody to blame for things going wrong. It’s the blame game. They simply wanted me there to get arrested while they looked squeaky clean.
“In Amsterdam?” I asked.
“No,” a new voice said.
We all turned. A woman came from the second bedroom of the suite and headed for the drinks cabinet to pour her own. I recognised her, and my heart sank. It all fell into place, my abduction and the planned robbery. I’d known her. She was June Milestone from television, she of the long hair and dicey crook of a husband who was awaiting trial for embezzlement. She’d started the Antique Trackers Hour twenty years since, and it was still going on Channel Tee, highest trunk-junk show in the ratings. Was she staying with Lady Veronica? June was more elegant than I remembered. I usually watched her TV show for old time’s sake. She’d become more slender, shapely, and dressed with style. On telly she looked stouter. Actors always say TV adds ten pounds in the wrong places.
“No, not in Amsterdam.” She brought her glass, smiling. “Lovejoy, isn’t it? I’m June Milestone.”
“Where, then?” I would have risen to say hello, but gallantry was having a hard time of it in Suite 1133.
“St Petersburg,” she said easily.
“That’s torn it,” Les Renown grumbled. “He’ll have it all over the ship.”
“I thought we weren’t to tell him until we got there,” Amy said.
“St Petersburg?” I said, voice on the wobble. “Isn’t that – ?”
“Where the Hermitage Museum is?” June said affably, seating herself next to Lady Veronica. “Yes, when last I heard.”
“Rob the Hermitage?” I bleated. It took me three goes to get the words out. “The world’s biggest art gallery? Over three million works of art? In 322 suites of rooms along thirteen miles of corridors? And you want me for that?”
June tutted. “You’ve gone quite pale. We are not robbing. We are preventing. You will come out of this like a knight in shining armour.”
“And you lot?” I said.
“We shall simply be doing our job.”
“Er, one thing. Who is doing the robbery, exactly? Are they on board the boat?”
“Boat!” James Mangot said with disgust. “Ship, you ignorant cretin.”
“Why don’t you arrest them now, then?” I asked doggedly, mind still fixed on Amsterdam, where we were to dock in the morning and I could leap off with a glad cry of farewell. I shivered, not acting. “I’ve heard about Russian gaols. They’re all snow and Gulags. They chuck away the keys and leave you to rot.”
“We are the good people,” someone repeated.
I thought, oh, aye, is that right? Then why do I always finish up hunted across our creaking old kingdom while everybody else gets the blondes, Monaco villas and yachts in the Caribbean? My expression must have given these thoughts away because Lady Veronica called the gathering to an end.
“Well, that has served our purpose!” she trilled. “We’ve all met, and explained our purpose on the Melissa.” She leant confidingly to me. “You’ll love St Petersburg! It captivates the interested traveller!”
“And no questions,” Mangot growled. “No gambling. No involvements, no stunts.”
“Don’t make waves,” Les Renown put in. “Don’t get drunk And don’t yak your head off.”
“We’ve put you with a quiet table,” June pointed out. “They’ll do quizzes and shuffleboard, maybe bingo and go to our antiques talks.”
“I told them I’m a driver for some town council.”
Cried Lady Veronica, “How clever!”
“One’s a retired ploddite, dunno what rank.”
“Uniformed branch, ex-sergeant,” Les said with a sneer.
We rose to leave. I ached to escape, feeling stultified. Lady Veronica conjured up Marie to show us out. I got the feeling the stewardess had sussed the corridor, making sure nobody was around to see us leave. I found myself walking with June Milestone and adjusted my pace to her slow stroll. The others went on without a word.
“This way,” she said.
“Er, look, Mrs Milestone. I’d better turn in, because – ”
“Cut it out, Lovejoy,” she said quietly, and drew me into a corner of the Century lounge. She waved a stewardess off and sat in an armchair, me opposite. The place was quiet, just a few groups chatting and laughing, a pianist playing selections from some operetta. “Now, Lovejoy, a few rules to be getting on with.”
I slumped. “I thought you’d forgotten.”
“Forget you, you bastard?” She didn’t laugh. “My only chance to possess a genuine Thomas Saint sewing machine, and you tricked me out of it.”
“It wasn’t like that!” I said indignantly.
“You were ogling that tart, Lovejoy. I wasn’t taken in for a single minute. You told her the truth, that it wasn’t a Singer but a Saint. I’d have made a fortune…”
She spat venom while I sat there and took it. The only time she paused was when an elderly couple paused to say how much they were looking forward to her talks. Instantly she was all sweetness and light.
“Oh, I’m so pleased!” she carolled. “Weren’t you on the Oceana cruise to Venice…?” and similar gunge.
Our spat truly hadn’t been my fault. An Englishman, Thomas Saint, patented the first sewing machine in 1790, having worked on the design for yonks. Find a genuine one and you’ve a fortune on your hands, though early Singers also cost. I’d been doing a sweep through the Midlands, where June lived with a mad penniless poet who believed he was a reincarnation of Chaucer. I visited an auction. June was in. A bonny woman carrying a babe was listening to the auctioneers. Most items were dross – wardrobes from the Utility period of World War Two, faded books, pock-marked mirrors that would cost the earth to restore, a few derelict chairs, fly-specked etchings. I was on the point of leaving when something bonged within my chest. I could hardly breathe, and homed in on this small gadget that shone into my eyes. It was a little sewing machine, almost mint. A genuine Thomas Saint. Don’t laugh. It would keep the buyer in holidays for a lifetime. I gaped at it. Someone plucked at my arm. It was the lass with the bab.
“Excuse me,” she whispered. “Would you please do me a favour?”
“What?” I gasped, strangled.
“Could you bid for it, please? Just to maybe make people think it was worth something? Only, I heard those dealers over there asking you about the antiques.” She reddened. “People have been laughing at it.”
“Is it yours?”
“Yes. Well, my gran’s. It was her grandma’s, and I know it’s not automatic … What’s the matter? You’ve gone white as a sheet.”
I picked the Saint up and took her arm. The baby goggled. “Take it home, love. It’s worth a new pram and holidays all over the USA.”
“Here, Lovejoy!” One of the whifflers – blokes who move the gunge about in auction rooms and (sometimes) remain honest while doing so – came and hissed angrily, “What the – ?”
“Lady’s grandma’s changed her mind,” I whispered back and dragged the woman outside.
We rang Bondi from the Welcome Sailor pub at East Gates, and he drove over from Frinton. By eight o’clock that evening Bondi had sold the little sewing machine on commission (10% isn’t too bad, when you think what Christie’s and Sotheby’s do you for) to a collector in Leeds. I checked next day to make sure she’d banked the gelt. I honestly got nothing out of it. I just hate the lads doing that. “The circus”, we call the Brighton and Solihull teams of dealers who come trolling round country auctions. They jeer at anything that takes their fancy, just to put genuine bidders off. Now, why the lass with the bab hadn’t gone to the library and looked up old sewing machines, to check whether her gran’s was valuable or not, God only knows, but she hadn’t. If I hadn’t happened along, she’d have thrown away enough money to put down on a new house.
People say virtue is and has and must be its own reward, but it isn’t and it hasn’t so it can’t. To prove it, here I was getting hate from Mrs June Milestone, the most influential antiques TV personality on earth, just for being virtuous. Holiness isn’t worth it; I’m always holy, and I know.
Meanwhile the old couple passed on their way, and La Milestone reverted to viperish spite. “Don’t come the innocent with me, Lovejoy. That harlot rewarded you in kind, you sordid reptile…” and so on.
All because June had been there, laughing with her antiques dealer pals, sure she was going to make a fortune by cheating a poor woman with a babe. I’d noticed her stormy glance at me and the lass as we’d left the auction. Wearily I let June’s rage wash over me. I’ve been detested by experts. One more wouldn’t make me lose any sleep.
“Five rules, Lovejoy,” she said finally when she stopped seething. “In this enterprise, you do as I say. Obey me, and you’ll escape unscathed. Capeesh?”
More rules? I’d already had a dozen from Executive Purser James Mangot and our secret ploddite Les Renown, ship’s comedian. “Aye.”
“Rules two, three, four and five are – ”
“Same as Rule One?” I guessed. I’d had this before from warders in clink.
She smiled a wintry smile. It was like sleet. She included me in its chilly radiance. “Agreement at last! Here’s my cabin number. Never ring, never visit. One last caution.”
“What?”
“No revelations, or I shall have you packaged home to the Marquis of Gotham and his band of hunters. And …” She hesitated, having difficulty phrasing the last command. “And no mention of how you once tried to … well, be friendly towards me.”
Which was a load of tat. “As I remember it,” I said, now seriously narked, “we made smiles at that big Midlands Antiques Expo just after you left that lunatic airline pilot. You even wanted me to –”
“That will do!” she ground out. I quietened as she accepted yet more tributes from passing folk who just loved her TV work. Her smile for them was warm affection. When they’d left she turned with a snarl of pure malice. “You and I are strangers, Lovejoy. D’you hear? You will attend my antiques talks and report to James Mangot every morning, noon and evening. We need you solely because you are a divvy, for no other reason. Obey, and I shall let you escape on conclusion of the scheme. Disobey, and you will be handed over to the authorities.”
“Right,” I said miserably. It actually meant not being handed over to the authorities, because the hunters would intervene and I would be disappeared in a phoney escape bid. Crooks call it doing an Argentina, from the methods of disappearing undesirables over there. I wondered if a ship this big usually had police on board, legitimate ones I mean.
“What are we nicking from the Hermitage?”
“Not a single thing.” She beckoned the stewardess and ordered a drink. None for me. “It’s crooks who’re doing that. I thought I’d explained.”
“Sorry. I quite forgot.” I meant it really sincerely.
She let me go. I turned and looked back. She was watching me with calculating eyes. I felt like you do at the doctor’s when he says good morning when he’s wondering where to stick his needles.
There was a midnight buffet – soups, sandwiches, cakes, drinks, merriment. I went for a fresh load of calories in case we sank in the night, then went to my cabin. They’d folded down the coverlet and put chocolates on the pillow. I watched the TV until twoish, playing my Ten Word Game and trying to describe the mess I was in. I failed.
When I woke the ship had stopped moving. We were in Amsterdam. I felt better. Time to go.