Every Last Cent

More orders? I sighed. 'The brigadier sent you to tell me this?'

'No. The brigadier will be exonerated from the death of Mr Sep Verner, but is a declared bankrupt. He and Mrs Alicia Domander now live together at the Garrison Riding Stables.'

'Do they now.' So much for love's loyalty. Sourly, I guessed that Alicia had been trying to warn me before that mad show.

'And Maud is well. Quaker is waiting outside, Lovejoy. I came to warn you.'

'Warn? Frighten me to death more like, stupid little sod.'

'Consul Sommon will escape all penalties of the law, Lovejoy.' Mortimer sometimes sounds seventy years old. 'He caused your friend Bernicka's demise. And poor Mr Vestry, using Vestry's sister Susanne Eggers as his contact.'

'And Timothy Giverill? Sandy caused that. I was listening in the car.'

'You didn't listen closely enough.' Mortimer spoke like to a child. I was narked. I mean, who was the father here, him or me? I caught myself guiltily. Nobody suspected that, except everybody.

'Wotcher mean?'

'Accidentally, I overheard Mrs Thomasina Quayle discussing the issues with her staff,'

Mortimer said with disarming candour. Accidentally? He'd probably hung from the eaves like a bloody bat, I'd bet.

'Which are?'

'The antiques the consul claimed from the imported consignment are already bonded for shipment to New York. He already has dealers bidding for them on the Internet. He will make a fortune.'

'Where are my portraits?'

Mortimer looked at Tinker, at the floor.

'Tell him, lad,' Tinker said.

'Lady Hypatia's portraits all have my mother's face, Lovejoy. It's she you keep painting.'

I said, 'I guessed. But—'

'Consul Sommon used to ... see her on visits. He never came to the manor. He wanted them because he thought he could find her again. She's the reason Susanne Eggers divorced him. And why Mrs Eggers insisted on leasing Saffron Fields, and wanted the portraits herself, to destroy.'

Poor Susanne Eggers, loving a twerp like him. Poor Sommon, still loving Colette Goldhorn. Poor all of us, always wanting something we haven't got.

'And he'll make a fortune, Lovejoy,' Tinker said, reproachful.

I thought a bit. 'Will he?'

'Mortimer's right, son. The bastard did for Vestry, Bernicka. Don't seem right, Lovejoy.'

'And Timothy Giverill,' Mortimer added quietly. 'Who was going to expose the illegal arrangement the Lloyd's syndicate had made with London auctioneers via Mr Langley-Willes. Sandy didn't know it would mean Mr Giverill's death. He thought Sep Verner would cause a minor traffic infringement, a warning. Instead . . .' I already knew instead.

'See, Lovejoy,' Quaker said, entering slowly. I stared. He wasn't in his wheelchair.

'Somebody has to make sure that Consul Sommon catches it. Like,' he continued, looking round for somewhere to sit, finally opting to stand, 'like his schemes to sell fast to any dealer, crooked or otherwise. They're bidding high sums. I checked.'

'After murdering your friend Bernicka,' Tinker said. More reproach. He felt such deep sorrow that he had to open another two tins of ale.

'And Vestry,' Quaker reminded me. Everybody was reminding me, telling me I had to do something. Always me.

We all thought a bit, some more deeply than others. I couldn't help gaping at Quaker.

I'd never seen him stand.

'Why aren't you dead in the bulrushes, Quake?'

'Sep Verner came ostensibly to wheel me to the Quay. He shoved me into the river.

Thought I'd drown. Then went to blame my death on you. I kept quiet, gurgled and splashed a bit.' Quaker smiled sheepishly. 'I'm no athlete. I was climbing out when Tinker happened by. Sep was crazy for Maud, always was.'

'Good old brigadier. He came armed. Ready to kill.' I can't manage reproach as well as other folk. Maybe they have the best target, in me.

'He says that. The plod thought his actions completely justified, protecting his daughter from attack by a deranged police officer.'

'The plod saw sense?' The world spun.

'That'll be the party line, Lovejoy. Right.' Quaker rubbed his hands, paused before leaving. 'Will you do it, then?'

'Do what?' As if I didn't know.

'One last job. Divvy the consul's antiques shipment.'

We all paused. I thought hard. The one thing that would make Consul Sommon pay any penalty at all would be ...

'Are they at Ferd's? I've no motor.'

'I'll send my new driver.' Quaker smiled. 'My assistant can be trusted. He turned Queen's Evidence. Go now, Lovejoy.'

'Then I'll be in the clear?'

He grinned. 'I wouldn't go quite that far, Lovejoy.'

And he walked, as in one foot before the other, out of my overgrown garden. I'd always known he was fit, if loony, yet it was truly weird to see this normal man in full possession.

'Ready?'

Taylor Eggers poked his head into the workshop. His eyes met mine. Sardonic again. I'd been right. A cuckolded husband always smarts, even at the point of vengeance.

So I drove with Tinker, very grand in Taylor's big black limo, to Ferdinand and Norma's splendid antiques farm.

My barker thought he'd gone to heaven because the motor had a minibar. He finished the spirits as we arrived. The ale he stuffed into his greatcoat pockets. Even then he was worried.

'Here, Lovejoy,' he said as Norma advanced smiling and Ferd dithered on his veranda.

'Don't get narked, son, but what if we get thirsty on the way back?'

The goods were bads. Most of the truly genuine antiques seemed to have gone.

Doubtless Lanny Langley-Willes and his friends, or maybe Consul Sommon, had taken some in personal diplomatic baggage. Civil servants are always above the laws they make for the rest of us.

'Lovejoy!' Norma was more welcoming now. 'How lovely to see you!'

'Good to see old friends!' Ferd exclaimed, clapping his hands for his maids-of-all to bring victuals for his lifelong pals here. It was all so false.

'I've not long, Ferd. Aren't you due to ship the antiques?'

'Stansted,' he said, nodding. 'A godsend, that airport. So near.'

And yet so far, I silently finished for him.

'Let's get on, then.' I declined the frosted glass with the white wine, and went into the main stores.

A few dealers were drifting among the items. Some of the furniture felt good, and the cabinets of jewellery and small porcelains emitted really convincing chimes. I hardened my heart and went through into the cool, darkened room. Norma ushered me in, placing a stool. I asked for the air conditioning to be turned off. It always gets on my nerves. I also told Ferd to keep out, just let somebody bring each antique then clear off.

Norma wanted to do it. Ferd and Tinker went to talk over old times, Tinker ready to help the girls by imbibing whatever alcohol they might supply.

'Now,' I told Norma. I was already whacked, or does that mean killed in Americese? I mean tired.

She started with a box of tribal crowns. These look absolutely home-made, almost from some infant school's dressing-up day. Gaudily coloured, supposedly a bird surmounting a tribal Yoruba crown on stalky legs. There were eleven. Genuine, looking like odd toys.

Yet archaeologists would bite the consul's hand off to get them.

And bite the consul's head off, if they paid for genuine antiques and got fakes.

'Genuine,' I said. 'Yes, genuine. Genuine,' the chimes making me shudder so much I almost slumped from the chair.

Then tribal carvings. Three stools, unbelievable, for they were thrones.

'Genuine, genuine.'

It was so consistent I began to wonder if Consul Sommon was having me on. Or was the entire shipment authentic? One or two had museum stamps on, Lagos, Accra and others. One or two came from. Kenya, Uganda, ancient Benin.

'Keep those faces and busts back, Florence.'

'Right, Lovejoy.'

She spoke with reverence, knowing she was in the presence of mysticism. On I went.