Every Last Cent

Then headed out.

24

IT WAS NEXT day. The antiques shop in Harwich was set back between a natty tailor's and a fishing place. I didn't know the proprietress, only that she wasn't the expert she thought she was. I'd seen her miss a small occasional table that would have kept her a year, maybe more, but she was too proud to kneel and check underneath.

'It was glass,' I told Alicia as we readied to do the first robbery. She would shoulder, I'd be safely elsewhere.

'A glass topped table?'

'No. The entire table. Osier of Birmingham made glass furniture, right down to the pedestal. Not a splinter of wood in sight. Some loon had painted it a hideous green, wanting it to look like wrought iron. I got it home and stripped the paint off.'

'Christ, that sounds ugly.'

Osier's glass furniture factory kept going from Trafalgar times, but failed in the 1920s.

Oddly, they sold best in Calcutta and Hong Kong, God knows why. Too little sun in England, and the perennial brightness in the Eastern Empire, might explain it. Victorian ladies loved them in their conservatories, where light could pick up the gleams. Folk chuck them out these days, thinking it's a neffie modern fashion. Wrong. It's a stylish art gone from us. If you see one, buy it. Collectors and fashioneers are starting to cotton on.

'Ann Fosstitch, as ever was.'

The woman entered the shop, her great saloon motor illegally parked. Soon after, another woman scurried away, and La Fosstitch appeared in the window arranging her wares.

'What do you want me to uncle, Lovejoy?'

Uncle to mean nick, from Uncle Dick, nick. Hence, steal. Alicia's Cockney rhyming slang shows through when she's keyed up. Peshy woke, yawned, and stretched, ready for action.

'Anything good. I can't decoy for you, so take care, love.'

She left, walking the dog on its string. It bounced along like a ball of fur. I'm told that breeders can change their shapes. If so, they've let the Almighty down. Peshy was a travesty. What on earth could a dog like that do? Hunting was out. Guarding somebody's castle was not on. Pulling some sledge was a ludicrous thought. I think people with fancy dogs are odd.

They vanished into the shop, Alicia carefully picking Peshy up and pausing in the entrance beforehand, presumably asking if the shopkeeper had any objections to a mongrel. A traffic warden knocked on the window. I opened it.

'Will you be parked here long, sir?'

'Only a minute,' I said, affecting boredom, though my heart was racing. 'My wife just wanted to do a bit of shopping in that tailor's.'

He smiled in sympathy. 'Then five minutes, sir.'

He strolled off. I was dreading Tinker's arrival. With his mighty cough and tatty appearance we'd get arrested on sight, hanging about this busy port. The water looked particularly cold today, the ferries hustling, cars streaming past to the Continental terminals. I'd chosen well. I didn't like La Fosstitch. She'd once complained about a children's playground.

Ten minutes, me getting anxious, Alicia emerged and walked. It was only a few yards to the corner. I drove quickly off, parked near a shopping mall. Alicia opened the door and slid in.

'Lovejoy,' she exclaimed as I pulled out into the traffic. 'What an absolute cow! What a mare!'

I was pleased, my judgement confirmed. 'Get anything?' Alicia simply held her hand over the back seat where Peshy was wagging and yapping, noisy little sod. It nuzzled in its frothy fur and dropped a little plastic packet into her hand. I almost shunted a big Ford up ahead in astonishment.

'Who's a clever little Peshy-Weshy!' she cooed, fondling the mutt. It gave a few self-congratulatory yaps. 'Are they any good, Lovejoy?'

There was a lucky parking space near the turn-off to the wharfs. I took the earrings out. Our first theft. They were chalcedony, almost classical William IV in style. This means light-looking, drop-stone earrings, one gem with fancy detailed settings.

Chalcedony's a lovely stone, though people turn their noses up at it nowadays because it's only quartz and not diamond, but so what if it's beautiful? If chalcedony's got a

'typical' colour it's a cloudy bluish white, virtually impossible to shine a narrow light through. 'Lovely. You did well. Brilliant.'

She was pleased. 'You're working with the best here, Lovejoy.'

'Could you put them away, love? The back of my neck's gone funny.'

'Oh, has it!' she suddenly asked, eyes hard. 'Wait.' Her lips set in a thin line. She said quietly, 'Peshy.'

Silence from the back seat. I turned. Peshy was staring out at the cars.

'Peshy?' No response. What was going on? The dog kept its back to us, gazing out. Her voice cracked like a gunshot. 'Peshy!'

'Christ, Alicia. You made me ...'

The Bichon slowly looked round. I wouldn't have believed that a dog could look, well, hangdog, but this managed it. Head down, eyes avoiding Alicia's, it nuzzled into its fur and brought out another sachet. Caught red-muzzled.

It waited, maybe hoping things hadn't quite gone horribly wrong, but Alicia wriggled her fingers, palm cupped. The dog looked at her hand, the plastic jewellery envelope in its mouth.

'Give! Hand it over.'

'You keep making me jump.'

'He's got to learn, Lovejoy.'

The dog surrendered. Alicia slapped its nose and gave it a right telling off, lecturing the miniature hound on obedience, trust, fairness, honesty, and Doing Right By Your Mistress. Much of it was in incomprehensible dog-speak, 'Does he want his toysie-woysies in his beddie-weddie ...' etc, etc, but Peshy looked thrashed.

'Sorry about that, Lovejoy. He keeps some things back. I've to watch him.'

'The dog's a kleppie?' A blowsy shoplifter and a kleptomaniac dog. My antiques sweep round the Eastern Hundreds was looking dodgy. I blotted the plastic. If we got stopped, I didn't want my fingerprints on the stolen goods, only Alicia's. Fair's fair. So far I'd skated inside the law.

'He's mumsy-wumsy's little helper, isn't he?' she crooned, patting him. 'All is forgiven, isn't he, Uncle Lovejoy?'

Uncle Lovejoy could have strangled the bloody animal, because if we got apprehended an animal's collar is the first place the plod would look.

Peshy had stolen well, though. It was a mourning brooch, Victorian, with MEMORIAM in gold gothic lettering, unusually in white enamel, and a white agate cabochon embossing the centre. The reverse was hollowed, the locket containing a wisp of fair hair.

'It's wrong, isn't it, Lovejoy?' she said, leaning heavily across to examine it with me.

'Shouldn't it be black, mourning jewellery?'

'Somebody young, unmarried, happen a babby, sometimes got white stones. They're rarer and more valuable.' Purple and even dark blue brooches became acceptable as the Victorians' obsession with mourning reached its height and craftsmen turned their skill to ever more varied displays of grief.

This robbery mingled two emotions in me. Respect for Peshy's unerring eye was one, but it was submerged in pity for the sorrow at the brooch. For an instant I felt almost choked. Poor Timothy Giverill. Poor Vestry found hanging. Poor who next?

'Where to, Lovejoy?'

'We'll do an auctioneer's. There's Balance and Knorr's place by the open market, isn't there?'

'Their whiffler used to be a plod, Lovejoy,' she warned.

'If he's on duty, come out.'

We agreed. It was getting on for noon, always a good time to do a shoulder in auction rooms because security blokes' fancies lightly turn to the nearest boozer's pies and pints. It was viewing day, saving us the awkward drive to Dovercourt.

She got her midget wolfhound and went in, Peshy all excited at thoughts of more thievery. I stayed out of sight. She emerged after half an hour, some young bloke opening the door for her and handing her a free catalogue. Getting anything free from an auctioneer's the equivalent of a peerage. I admired her. She swept off down the pavement. On a good day, when she's on song, feeling particularly bright and well dressed, Alicia can charm the birds off the trees. Other women don't like her much, because she looks a bit blowzy and showy.