I remember Nell, a bird from Bristol. I used her for repairing Art Deco ceramics, until she went ape with a Mauritian singer. Nell went for Alicia because she wore colours that clashed, as women say. Nell's tiny shape was dwarfed by Alicia's ample figure. She said caustically, 'Alicia, dear, don't you know the old saying about colours? Orange and yellow make folk bellow. And blue and green must never be seenl' Alicia swept past Nell like a ship in full sail saying loudly, 'What crap dwarfs talk!' They never spoke again.
Personally, I think Nell was wrong, because Alicia always wears tons of makeup, like a woman should, and dresses really colourfully. Sometimes she wears every colour you can imagine, all together. That's real style. I can't for the life of me think why women hate her. My only worry was that people tended to remember her more than most.
We met up by the shopping mall and I drove to a tavern on the north road. She did her lipstick from a handbag that I could have dossed in. The car's interior filled with scent and powder clouds. She asked how she looked.
'Stupendous, love.' How else? I could tell she'd struck oil because I felt giddy like a cold was coming on.
'I hope you like it, Lovejoy.'
'Silver.'
Three little silvers were hauled from Alicia's cleavage while Peshy looked on, possibly working out how on earth he could compete with that. One was a disappointment, being a modern silver pepperpot, but two were lovely.
When tea – best drink in the world – became cheaper as imports flooded in, it became unnecessary to lock tea caddies, as they used to until later Victorian times (ungrateful servants nicked the precious commodity, you see). This was an important step, because ladies used the caddy's silver lid for measuring out the tea leaves. Getting it exactly right was an indication of a lady's skill. Still is. So tea-caddy spoons came in. There are leagues of caddy-spoon collectors all over the world. Rare examples are almost fought over.
Sadly, here's one of my grievous laws: where collectors thrive, forgers follow. The most evil trick is when a forger (sometimes a skilled silversmith, so watch out) nicks the silver case from some genuine old watch. By beating it out into a bowl shape, it can simulate a caddy spoon complete with a genuine silver hallmark! Add a crescent of silver to its edge, and there you have an antique jockey-cap caddy spoon. Impress a contour, and you have a vine-leaf or a commemorative map of some island just added to the Empire.
The giveaway is that the hallmarks are all clustered in the reshaped bowl, whereas they aren't on the really genuine antique. One of Alicia's pieces was like that.
'Still, never mind.' I showed her. 'People'll be taken in.'
The other was a winner. It was a pair of grape scissors, the most useless implement ever made since Neanderthal man dressed. They never quite cut, which for scissors is a bit of a handicap. You'll never find any equally useless antique so costly, though. They often have rings for the lady's finger and thumb at the end of elaborately chased handles, its useless blinking blades pivoting on a fancy screw. Victorians tried inserting a sliver of steel into the hopeless blades, but even those never work, not even on a grape. Like I say, they're stupid. I can't imagine why ancient craftsmen went to the trouble of making the damned things. Until you ask the price, when all of a sudden your admiration for these exquisite antiques leaps a-bounding from the breast, because the cost of a genuine pair – silver plate, parcel gilt, silver – stuns you.
These were hallmarked for Birmingham in the 1840s. They were 'clean' as dealers say, meaning nearly mint. They were still warm from being inside Alicia's blouse.
'Love, you deserve plus for these. Well done.'
It was a superb beginning to the sweep. Okay, I knew Alicia was trying to impress, but she'd excelled.
'Thank you, Lovejoy.' Even Peshy looked smug.
We went to the restaurant.
'One thing, Lovejoy.' She gave me a look. 'You stayed in your own room last night.'
'Er ...' I reddened.
'I expected you to come in. A nightcap, possibly explain why we're roaming the Hundreds like this. And why you picked me.'
I said lamely, 'I got a bit weary, thinking things.'
'You lying swine. You're never weary.'
'Look, love.' I decided to come clean. 'Don't get mad. It's just... It's your wolfhound.'
From politeness I didn't mention Peshy's name.
'Peshy?' she said, astonished. 'What's wrong with Peshy?'
'Nothing, nowt, course not!' I shrugged apology. 'Only, you don't, well, sleep with him in bed, do you?'
She laughed, her whole form shaking with merriment.
'Lovejoy, you're ridiculous! You mean you lay awake next door because you thought—?
You stupid man. Of course not! Peshy has his own bed. It's my big leather case. It unfolds into a splendid snuggly-wuggly .. .' She turned to include the mongrel in the conversation, which thereon became meaningless.
I sighed with relief, got out of the motor and walked inside. She could make her own arrangements for the dog. She followed, insisting on a special steak cooked just so for Peshy. He dined in a children's high chair. I asked not to face him. Alicia said I was being stupid. I finished before she did and went to collect Tinker, agreeing to return in about two hours to carry on westward. I phoned Norma and Ferd in the meantime, to ask if they had heard anything about Timothy.
Norma was in tears telling me the bad news. I said how sad, and rang off. I phoned the hospital, asking for the doctor by name, pretending to be a doctor from Suffolk.
Florence was still in intensive care, the doctor said.
'What are the prospects of recovery?'
He reeled off a string of numbers with a load of terms I couldn't comprehend. Finally he asked, 'Who is this, please? Did you say...?'
That should do it. I rang off. They'd know it was me. That system of tapping in a number to find the number of the person who's just rung is a godsend in some circumstances, but highly dangerous in others. This was either, maybe both.
Tinker was in the pub when I got there, happy waiting and almost kaylied from booze. I got a jar and took it across. He'd gone back to smoking his old pipe. Eight empty glasses were on the table. He must have been waiting half an hour at least.
'Wotcher, Tinker. All right?'
'Fine, son. Did that fat old bint nick some good stuff?'
Cruel description of Alicia Domander – plump she might be, but age never comes into it.
'I think so. Had anything to eat?'
'Thought I'd let my thirst go down.'
'You'd best have a bite before we go on.'
I made him eat a couple of pasties, and had one myself for luck. I handed him the yield, wrapped in bubble plastic.
'Buy a couple of postage boxes from the post office and get them to Eleanor's house, in my lane in the village.'
Eleanor is nothing to do with antiques. She just has Henry, a little baby I mind while she's out. She knew to keep unexplained parcels in her garage until I returned. It would be the first of many. I badly needed as many as I could get, and the more famous the thefts we did the better.
'Did you find out who Hugo is?'
He belched. The tavern shuddered. People all about stopped talking, wondering what spaceship had just effected re-entry.
'There's a bloke called Hugo mends old Lancaster engines down Romford. He's nearly ninety, not done a hand's turn for a decade. Nobody else.'
'Keep trying. Be in that tavern where Tandy's knock-out ring meets in Acle, you know the one. Eight o'clock tonight. I'll phone you, tell you what to do.' I gave him another two notes.
'How many more you going to do today, then?'
'Eight or nine, maybe double figures, give or take.' I hoped our thefts would make the Antiques Trade Gazette by the following week. Things were looking better, except for absent friends.