The ship’s berth in Oslo was almost a parking space on the quayside beside a mound topped by gardens. Touristy buildings sold cards, woollens, carvings and various liquors. I was delighted to see how easily you could walk into town, up the slope and soon among buildings and traffic. Clean place, Oslo, but they’re not early starters. It was nine o’clock on a bright Sunday morning when we were freed. Nice, friendly, and a whole capital to vanish in.
Nobody minded when I made my way off the ship, though I was on edge. I was compelled to shove Lady Vee’s wheelchair, the dreaded Inga drifting immensely along with cell phones dangling from her hip. The comedian Les Renown accompanied me, still cracking jokes (“There’s this giraffe goes into a Tel Aviv brothel, and a crocodile says …”) with Amy the dancer. They didn’t look like police, Fraud Squad or not, but some never do. They were chatty and so-o-o friendly. I talked too much, nervy at the idea of lamming off as soon as I found a side street. I tried a few moves, including almost boarding a coach for a city tour, but no go. Les and Amy helpfully stood in the way while I consulted a city map and tried to point out places to Lady Vee.
Disembarking passengers complained darkly of Scandinavia’s inordinate expense and Oslo’s terrible credit-card charges, all above my head because I’m not credit-worthy. I could see it might matter to people who were. My chance came on the waterfront when Les and Amy stopped for a coffee in a small caff with coloured tables and chairs. Lady Vee wanted to go to the shops. I insisted on coffee, and ordered. Les and Amy wanted to sit apart, which was good, and Inga took the opportunity to go shopping in the godowns. Kevin and Billy passed, Kevin yoo-hooing and waggling his fingers. That left me and Lady Vee.
“I suppose this is where you, what’s the word, Lovejoy… scarper? Take it on the lam?”
“Me?” I said, all innocent. I’d been eyeing alleys.
“Your heart isn’t in loyal friendships, is it, dear?”
“Truth is, Lady Vee, antiques invites nutters. Like you daft people. You dream of finding Old Masters on market stalls. Antiques bring greed. I hate it.”
“But you’re greedy, Lovejoy. Everybody is.”
Narked, I gave her my bent eye.
“There’s nothing wrong with finding treasure, you silly old sod. It happens even on Henry Semper’s telly show. Like that Richard Dadd painting scrunged up for years in somebody’s attic, that finally the British Museum collared for a king’s ransom. Like that geezer’s silver hoard in cardboard boxes under his bed. His folks sold it all for a fortune. And that teapot in Liverpool, sold for enough to buy the lady her own house. It’s fair game.”
“Then what isn’t?” Her eyes took on that youthful dazzle. The sun trickled weakly from behind cloud just then, and I realised I’d been had. She only looked old because she wanted to appear so. Previously, I’d actually thought how young she talked, and how women change their appearance with a ton of cosmetics. “What?” she said again, and I realised even more. Her old age voice was put on. And it was more and more like that of the lady with the Norfolk lantern at Gotham’s manor house, the night I’d robbed it of my fake painting with Belle.
“Eh?” My mind didn’t go that fast.
“What isn’t fair game?”
“Robbing somewhere I could get killed,” I managed to say, staring at her face.
Psychiatrists say all kind of things about faces nowadays. Asymmetrical faces imply jealousy, but symmetrical features show you’re naturally trustworthy. This is why publishers always slide a hand mirror across publicity photos; the best photo is the one showing the same honest expression whichever side of the face the mirror conceals. Lady Vee’s was even, trusting, symmetrical. But can women balance their faces up by rouge, lipstick, mascara, eye shadow? St Jerome, vitriolic master of women’s vices, thought they were always up to something along those lines (sorry for the pun).
“Nonsense, Lovejoy! You’ll be home safe and sound in a fortnight. Trust me. Why else do you think the police would let you board the Melissa with us, if it wasn’t to help us catch the perps who’re going to rob the Hermitage?”
Indeed. Why else?
“Honest?” I asked. My throat had gone dry. I badly wanted to know what I’d landed in, but escape called and I’m good on duty.
She looked away, gesturing at the peaceful waterfront. Tourists strolled, people off the ship waving to each other as if they’d not seen one another for weeks when they’d just left the same breakfast table, small ships berthing here and there, cars moving. Safe as houses. She hadn’t answered.
“See, love?” I said sadly, and got up and walked away. She called a sorrowing, “Goodbye, Lovejoy.”
Les and Amy were too engrossed to notice. I moved casually to the alley, then ran to the far end. Nobody was after me. I dodged into a multiple stores, up and down a few escalators and out by different doors, wheezing from the good life on the Melissa. I was in a street of slick shops, only one or two open, and walked towards a garden by the tram stop. I paid a few zlotniks for a cup of liquid, perched behind a fountain to hide and took stock.
“Oslo bad costing, yiss?” a familiar voice said.
“Aye.”
Then I realised. The little swine was stirring spoonfuls of sugar into his cup. I wondered how he’d got there. Amsterdam to Oslo isn’t a million miles. A plane?
“Mr Moses Duploy, Lovejoy. Rememberings?”
Touts follow cruise ships from port to port, doing deals, arranging amnesia in Customs. The gelt game. Some such syndicates dealt only in antiques, I already knew, and the Melissa advertised Antique Treasures of the Baltic as her theme. He looked as dapper as the day he’d handed me over to elegant Mrs Van Rijn in Holland. It seemed weeks since.
“Okay, Moses, “I said, resigned. “Tell.”
“Thirty per cent, Lovejoy?”
“Agreed,” I said. This was his territory. Anyhow, promises are made to be broken, or they’d be facts, right? I keep saying that. We shook on it. “Tell all.”
“I have a circle of friends,” he said, coming to perch on the fountain rim. “We survived many pitfalls in the Balkans. Currency smuggling, drugs, the calamitous advent of the Euro, running guns for pals, fights over girl-slavery franchises in Moravia – still the best place to buy females, incidentally, if you need dozens…”
Suddenly his broken English was eloquent and idiomatic. He spoke it with assurance. I vowed to watch this bloke. The question was whether he was a copper, a hood, or someone between like a nark or paid informer. He might be paid as one while moonlighting as another.
“Who are your friends?”
He spread his hands at such an impossible question, then stood. We walked through the garden.
“What does it matter? In your case we simply follow as your splendid cruise ship sails on. Each landfall brings you closer to St Petersburg in…” he didn’t quite sneer, concluding, “Holy Mother Russia. There are enough of us, I assure you. I am merely eyes and ears. My job is to track you.”
“Me? Look, wack, you’ve got things wrong. I’m just – ”
“The only divvy.” He smiled. “We used that Frog, the old man from Provence who died. Pulled off three fantastic scams. But life has moved on since then. You never met him?”
“No. Didn’t he do the Duke of Wellington portrait rip-off? I heard he was doing some Impressionist scam when he popped off. And there’s been rumours about the Amber Room since last autumn, but news of it dried up after his death.” Moses said nothing. I didn’t like his smile. “Here,” I said uneasily. “You’re not thinking I’m going to take over any of his scams?”
“We need a big one, Lovejoy.” He seemed so sad. “The old Frog’s linguistic ability was superb, a typical Francophone with every language except Hungarian – and who has that horrible garbage except the Finns? You are cast in the lead role.”
I thought of the dinner arrangement, the people I’d gone aboard with, the team of coppers in Lady Vee’s Suite 1133. Friends of his?
“I see you’re finally realising.” He gestured at the city. “Look about, Lovejoy. We have sufficient expertise to try any con trick, large and small. But think of the paltry return on such investment. Money is no longer simply money. Money is now pure expense.”
“I don’t do anything that risks me getting killed.” If I said it often enough people might listen, except hope’s as dud as optimism.
“We still call these places by their old names,” he said, a little wistful. “Did you know Oslo only became Oslo in 1925? We consters still call it Christiania. Think, Lovejoy. What could we do in a place like this, to keep up our vast payments to our shippers, abductors, thieves, greedy Customs people? Do you know we even bribe archbishops to alter religious holidays when need arises? And they’re among the cheapest. The variety of payments!” He cursed elegantly in some lingo.
“Then get organised.”
“Oh, we’re organised all right, Lovejoy. Here in Oslo we could taxi east to Tøyen, rob the Munch Museum – where Munch’s paintings are temporarily available for public view.”
He chuckled at the crack. Munch’s The Scream, since being stolen, had appeared in the form of fakes all over Europe, so somebody was still making money out of that famous theft.
“Did your lot do that?” I was impressed.
“Why bother asking?” I understood his bitterness. “One swallow does not a summer make, isn’t that your English proverb? We could steal the statues of Gustav Vigeland from Frogner Park – have you ever seen anything so ghastly? But then what? Oslo has diamond technology almost equal to your Hatton Garden in London, so we could resort to serving Sloane Rangers, those ladies who want their dead pets to be changed by irradiation and heat into diamonds, to wear as pendants or rings in memoriam. It’s all the rage. That would undercut Chicago’s Life-Gem firm who is big in that trade,” he said, “but how much trade is actually there? Who these days can afford mad money simply to wear their dead wife as a tie-pin, or their deceased Golden Labrador as an evening clasp? Such scams are mere trivia, Lovejoy. We call them tea-time trophies.”
“With so many, er, friends, you can run a hundred scams.”
“We do.” It came out wistful. “You don’t understand, Lovejoy. We go in groups. Haven’t you read the United Nations reports on international fraud? Or some of your famous English tabloid exposes?”
“You have to compete with each other?” I guessed, trying to judge what he was asking.
“That’s it. And we must achieve money targets. We’ve a team in South Africa – can you imagine the expense of that? They’ve been in Johannesburg ever since the UN Conference on World Poverty. It cost more than Jo’burg is worth. The tsotsis – African yakuza to you, Lovejoy – have all but cleaned them out.” His eyes looked suddenly pale as he said bleakly, “What’s their fate when they report back? Go on, guess.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to.
“My team’s been scratching around for a scam good enough to get us promoted, Lovejoy.”
“Your mob is like in a league?” I was really interested.
“Exactly.” His eyes went distant. I followed his gaze. Nothing. “I thought up a scheme to fix the Pan-Pacific Swimming Olympics, but it’d already been done. And the Moscow Formula One motor racing concession. And the Guatemalan Recovery Programme.” He snorted a laugh. “See how desperate my team is?”
He tasted his coffee, grimaced, simply dropped it into the fountain. The gesture said a lot about this innocent-looking nerk. I’m the sort who looks for a waste bin. I’ll carry rubbish for miles even in a country lane before I’ll chuck litter. He didn’t give a damn.
“We’ve tried all sorts, Lovejoy. Fake Mussolini diaries, secret paintings by Saint Bernadette, plagiarised Psychic News editions, even had a go at sunken treasure galleons off those tiresome Florida Keys. Emerald mines under Scafell Pike – ”
“Eh?” I asked, coming awake. “Was that you?”
“Yes,” he said with some pride, shrugging.
“It must have made almost half a million!” I said admiringly.
You have to admire class. The Scafell Emeralds took place about two years back, starting with an Edwardian necklace and suite of pendants, all said to be from a mythical emerald mine under the highest peak in England. Scafell’s at the end of Wastwater in Cumbria. Rich people were sworn to secrecy when invited to invest. They only got a photocopy of a forged map – X marking the time-honoured spot of course. I thought it superb, especially as the dodge had exploited only insurance defaulters. Nobody gained a bawbee, except the conmen.
“That much!” He was a bitter man. “For the syndicates it wasn’t worth the bother.”
So much gelt, not worth the bother? I gaped. And thought I saw Margaret Dainty. A woman was walking slowly towards the waterfront. I could have sworn it was Margaret, limp and all. She always wears flowery dresses, wouldn’t be seen dead without a hat and gloves. And she feels the cold, so is never without a jacket. I can make her shiver just by getting out of bed and peering through the curtains even in a heat wave and saying, “Brrr, looks chilly out there.” She’ll shiver all day after that.
The lady passed from sight into the leafy lane, a tram obscuring my view. I could have sworn…
“Not worth the bother?” Which raised more questions.
“Gun-running is the business, sewn up. Girls is already in hand; you’ve only to think of the state that business is in. Drugs is a mess – look at the simulant drugs pharmacologists turn out these days. Athletics is desperate – those Yank-European wankers have got that bound and gagged. Zurich and Marseilles won’t budge on world athletics. Everybody wants a cut of them. There’s nothing else.”
“Antiques?” I’m ever helpful.
His eyes came back. “We read your police Fraud Squad article. The boss said the Lovejoy Factor was among the Big Four corrupting causes undermining civilisation today.”
I’d written a silly book once on antiques. Not the Lindisfarne Gospels, it had somehow spawned the term and plagued me ever since.
“Look,” I said, on edge. The floral lady had reappeared at the far end of the park, evidently on her way to the ship. I could see Melissa looming white and serene beyond the first row of buildings. It couldn’t have been Margaret, could it? “God above, Moses, I was only three when I wrote the damned thing. You can’t blame me.”
He went on, “So when we heard of that inept group of incompetents clubbing together to take on St Petersburg, Lovejoy, we decided to take over.”
Which group? Who? “And they agreed?”
For some reason I thought of Holly’s dark eyes and her slick Kevin with his stiletto fingers, rather than Les Renown and Amy, June Milestone and Executive Purser Mangot. I didn’t really like any of them, and that meant I couldn’t trust a single one.
“Agreed?” He did that upturned palms gesture and smiled properly for the first time. “Ah, not quite agreed. They don’t know they’ve been taken over, you see. You’re not to tell them, or else.”
The lady in the flowered skirt with the hat and gloves had gone now. I didn’t ask or else what.
“Who can I trust, of those on board?”
“Me,” he said. “I’m not exactly on board, but I am with you in spirit.”
Who was his agent on the Melissa? I guessed maybe Victor Lustig. Or Mangot, seeing he never looked directly at me, shifty sod?
“I have never fewer than three, ah, friends within call at any moment, Lovejoy.” He glanced at his watch. “I rather think you’d better head back. Don’t want you to be late for your next gargantuan meal, do we? Incidentally.” He leant towards me. I leaned closer anxious to hear. “Tonight’s dinner offers lumpfish caviar with capers and fromage frais for starter. Try it. I recommend the veal osso bucco milanaise on pearl barley for main course. One warning.”
“What?” I bleated, worried out of my mind. I thought, he’s going to tell me somebody had a gun.
“Steer clear of their Brandy Alexander. The chefs on the Melissa invariably drown it under Tia Maria sauce. I wouldn’t feed it to my cat.” He stood. “And you should see my hungry cat! I am so pleased we had this conversation, Lovejoy. Bon voyage.”
He strolled off. I rose to follow, but he just walked round a line of rhododendrons and was somehow gone. Nervously I scanned the park, but saw no one I’d think suspicious. I went slowly out, crossed the road, and found the lane where I’d run from Lady Vee. She was no longer in the coffee place, though Les and Amy were still gazing fondly into each other’s eyes. I went straight past and caught up with Inga shoving Lady Vee’s wheelchair. Without a word the baleful nurse surrendered control.
“Glad you could make it, Lovejoy,” Lady Vee said, smiling up at me. I was getting sick of smiles. “You decided not to leave us?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, love,” I said grimly, which set her off in peals of laughter all the way to the ship.