Biddy's hysterical accusations were the sort that give antique dealers a bad name. She screamed untruths at the media, newspapers, the police, anybody who would listen.
'Oh, dear,' I said sadly when TV people came to interview me in gaol. 'I'm really sorry for Biddy. Usually she's so good-humoured. Why on earth would anyone burgle Blue Barn Mansion? Everything there is modern reproduction, including those fake portraits and silver ...' Which effectively barred her from claiming on the insurance. It was so sad. I mean that most sincerely.
From hardship, she got wed later that year to a rich bloke she hated. The happy couple returned to Blue Barn Mansion. Her husband, a fat old banker, is trying to restock the mansion with antiques. Our local dealers sell him tat, because neither he nor Biddy have a clue and are, of course, too proud to seek advice.
Alicia loved the story. She'd heard it from some pal of Gimbert's, only guesswork gossip but almost true in every respect. Strange how things get around.
'Served the bitch right,' Alicia purred. She relishes such tales. 'You should have ...' And proceeded to embellish, suggesting new ways to do Biddy down.
She did tell me one thing I hadn't heard, though.
'Had you heard? Biddy's shops have gone bust. Some insurance thing. They turned her down and she had to sell for a pittance.' She eyed me after checking that her wolfhound was replete. 'When you said we should leave Blue Barn Mansion alone, Lovejoy, I wondered if you still had feelings for her.'
'Not those feelings, love. She's only got dross.'
She brightened, but I gulped. I supposed it was my crack about her possessions all being fakes and repros that had made the insurers turn her shops down. Well, that's what luck does, changes good to bad. If only we could control things as we go on, wouldn't life be wonderful?
That conversation set me thinking. That night I was especially good value for Alicia. At least I tried to be, except all I can think is yippee. But I did have a go, and even bought her animal a tin of unspeakable grot that it wolfed for its supper, and told her a load of tales she hadn't heard. I had her laughing. Then we slept. I like Alicia, and Peshy is all right too. We were quite an effective team, really.
Next day, though, life bungled things badly.
Alicia and Peshy started the morning off doing a shoulder in Cairhirst and Thremble's, the big auction rooms north of Cambridge. The security there's never been any good, so I felt at ease leaving Alicia to it while I went to the railway station to phone Bernicka.
She answered the phone sounding terrified.
'Hello, Bernicka,' I began. I was so sure of myself, for hadn't I bribed her with a genuine (well, forged) drawing from the hand of her beloved Leonardo da Vinci? 'Did you see that Yank? What did you find out?'
'Lovejoy,' she said, her voice a gnat's whine. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'I'm talking about Leonardo da Vinci!' I croaked, thunderstruck.
'I want nothing to do with him. I posted your drawing back.'
She rang off.
Stunned, I stared at the receiver.
She didn't want Leonardo? Now, this was a woman who once stood in the rain all night gazing at a poster outside a village hall where somebody was going to talk on Leonardo's handwriting. (He wrote backwards, mirror writing.) Get the point? Bernicka risked pneumonia to see a frigging poster slapped on a billboard simply because it had her beloved's name on it. And reneged on a dozen highly paid careers, to make dud copies of Leonardo's nonexistent works.
She didn't want...? Worse, she didn't want?
Badly shaken, I sat on the railway platform. Don't incidentally try this yourself, because Eastern Network Railway's taken away all the seats in the interests of efficiency. You've to sit on the floor and catch your death of cold. Logic told me that Bernicka had been bullied. The persuaders must have been pretty potent, because nothing dissuades a woman in love. Passion simply changes her universe. Her whole life goes overboard. I too had been given the sailor's elbow, that terrible nudge-splash farewell, when Bernicka tumbled head over heels for Il Maestro. The world and everything in it suddenly came second. I shrugged and went on with life. Bernicka didn't, because Leonardo had taken over her soul.
Yet now she blithely tells me that Leonardo can get stuffed, sod off?
Impossible. I didn't know much, but I knew that.
Tough on Alicia and Peshy, leaving them unaided in the auction rooms, but what can you do? I got Alicia's motor and drove off. Well, I reasoned, I was in a panic but Alicia never was. And Peshy, not me, was her expert accomplice, the thieving little swine.
They could get on with it. I'd already told her where to book us in, so she'd come to no harm. I hoped.
Three hours and a nervy nosh in a motorway caff later, I parked a mile or so away from Bernicka's studio and walked footpaths to her place. I didn't want anybody gossiping that she'd at last got herself a live bloke instead of a dead memory. Her house stands near a wood on the outskirts of Hawanthorpe, a titch of a village. Since falling hook line and sinker for L da V she'd had this studio built. It dwarfed the family home, and even had two outhouses, said to be for mixing gunge that sculptors like.
Coming on the place, I heard voices. Any visitor's motor would be parked at the front, so I wasn't forewarned. I stopped in case they'd heard my approach, but they kept talking. Your own name springs out of conversation.
'Lovejoy's in serious trouble,' Olive Makins was saying. 'Worse even than the rest of us.'
My mind went, the rest of who, exactly?
'I'm sorry.' Bernicka was in tears.
'You understand? There's no way out. We must do as we're told, Bernicka. It's civilization or the Dark Ages.'
'I understand.' Sniff, sniff.
'If you don't toe the line, Bernicka, all your precious works of art will go to collectors.
Oafs, dolts, vandals. Can you imagine, Leonardo's greatest creations in some barbarian's brothel?'
A strangled cry of, 'Don't, Olive!'
'Even Lovejoy has come into line. He's just phoned. He'll start divvying for them tomorrow.' There was silence, then the soft command, 'Do it, Bernicka.'
'Yes, honey. Think of it as a simple misfortune, like Hugo.'
Bloody Hugo was getting on my nerves.
The day was gloomy, a steady drizzle coming. I went slowly round the side of the house, saw Olive's motor. Nobody else about. I slid in the side entrance. Bernicka had a cat, one of those grey things that looks a bit bald. It kips in a giant furry shoe thing, didn't even stir as I went to the corridor. I heard Bernicka sobbing. Something smashed, thudded. There started a constant crackling and shuffling. I thought, what on earth?
'No, Bernicka. Harder. Get going. It's survival. Sandy will be furious if you default. What was that? Is somebody out there?'
Maybe I caused a draught, made some noise. Footsteps came smartly across the studio floor. I darted out across the grass to the outhouses, trying to cover distance before Olive reached the door and saw me. I dodged round the first outhouse. The second was a tumbledown, crumbling thing. Its rotting door was marked GONG, the letters crudely daubed in faded gothic script on the door. I had a hard time yanking the door ajar enough to eel inside. Gong is old English for loo, a privvy, of the ancient sort they used before Sir John Harington invented the flush lavatory – with moving working parts!
Short of racing to the shelter of the trees, it was the one refuge.
Breathing hard, I pulled the door to. It was an old earth closet, disused, weeds snaking in, rime on the brickwork, dank as a Candlemas cauldron. A slice of daylight cut across me. I prayed I hadn't been seen. Distantly I heard that thump, crash, thump resume, and Olive's reassuring voice insisting, commanding, accompanied by Bernicka's faint wailing. I thought, what the hell's going on? Me to do whose bidding, to the benefit of everybody, because Sandy says Hugo insists?