Every Last Cent

She clasped the smug little wart to her cleavage. I watched with envy.

'Okay,' I said, broken. I come second to a dog the size of a hamster. 'It's a deal. I'll say when, and where, right?'

'Travel expenses as we go, Lovejoy?'

I was so dejected I even agreed to that.

Rio Dauntless can lie his way into history books. He's famous. He's a bloke with squid eyes, hunched from stooping as he collects money for good causes. He adopts shabby gentility.

'Dress up, or too grubby,' he once warned me in all seriousness, 'they'll give you snot all. They think you're either rich or Fagin, see? Get it just right, and you'll have to open a bank account.'

He was a composer once, trained at Oxford's famed school of music. Except he wasn't, because he's been everywhere, done everything, and done none. Rio Dauntless was born a liar.

'Don't say liar, Lovejoy,' he rebuked me once. 'Say fibber. The difference is criminality.

A fib's innocent, like you, like me. A liar is a criminal.'

'Like you, like me?' I'd asked. He only shrugged.

I found him collecting in the station caff. It's self-service. There he was, going from table to table, holding an official-looking collecting tin. He has a plastic identity-tag on a blue ribbon. He's quite small, looks dour yet quite spruce. I listened to his spiel.

'Good day. Please forgive the intrusion. I'm collecting for flowers, to mark the road accident last year on the northbound carriageway of the trunk road intersection. I want to lay a wreath. Poor girl. I'm only asking for your smallest coin. Just one. It was at the flyover, a foreign pantechnicon. If you do not wish to contribute, God bless you.'

It's at this point that Rio smiles and sadly moves away – only to be called back. People force coins into his tin. He demurs, then graciously gives way. Women usually take him at his word, one coin, but blokes are extra generous, because all small-car family men hate lorries. Astonishingly, they remember the tragic accident, even though it never happened. There simply is no trunk road intersection. Nor a flyover, no northbound carriageway. Rio says people like a fable.

'Excuse me, sir,' he asked me, grovelling up. 'Please forgive the intrusion. I'm collecting

... Oh, Christ. It's you, Lovejoy.'

'I heard about the tragedy,' I said loudly, not to let him down. 'Here you are, my man.'

I dropped a non-existent farthing in his tin. One good myth deserves another. I left then, to sit by the gaming machines. He emerged and joined me.

'Odd how many remember non-existent accidents. They get worked up. The women ask what flowers I'll get. It's hard keeping track. I told one old dear Altsromeria. She said get carnations, symbol of peace. Whatcher want, Lovejoy?'

'Who's these Yanks at Saffron Fields, then?'

'Her?' He gave a laugh, except his laughs only sound, never show. That's because he's in character. 'She's a psychic. Does tarot cards, the future.'

'What's she up to? Wants me to—'

'Get some actors? I heard. She was wed to that American consul Sommon from Anchor Key in Norwich. Her current husband is—'

'Got all that, Rio. She's after some portrait.'

'Dunno.' He searched his mind for scraps. 'The consul's a big London investor. They divorced three years back.'

Could that be? 'Yanks make their millions in New York and Los Angeles. That's why they're all millionaires.'

'He insures antiques. She recruits investors for him.'

'An antiques club?'

They were common enough. I'd not heard of a local one starting up, not at this level.

Usually they're small fry, everybody chipping in a shilling a week and hoping to get a cheap Rembrandt.

'Last I heard, Bernicka was seeing her. Trying to communicate with Leonardo da Vinci.'

Bernicka is enough to make a saint groan. I groaned.

'Nobody else?'

He looked askance. Like I said, squid eyes, trying to find a rock. He was an enemy to me once, hoping for neutrality. Finally, out it came.

'Remember Vestry?'

'Aye. Topped himself.' One of our local tragedies.

He came to a decision. 'Suicide. I'd look into his death, if I were you.'

'Sep Verner. Wasn't he Soco?'

'Scene of the Crime Officer? Yep. Don't say I said, eh?'

'Now, would I?' I said evenly.

'Is that it?'

I said ta, and thumbed a lift to town. Consistent rumours, then, but not much else. I'd been tempted to tap Rio for a few zlotniks, except it didn't seem proper, him collecting for flowers for that terrible accident... I caught myself. It's hard not to be dragged in when the lie – sorry, fib – is that good. I ought to have remembered that, too.

7

NOBODY HAS WORRIES like me. Mine drift behind like a vapour you're never free of.

In the early hours of the following night I was in a motor car with Olive Makins, parked on the edge of Riverside Park by the boating pond. After making smiles we nodded off.

Olive's a buxom lass on her fifteenth fiancé (she never weds), and says this time she'll stick by him until death do them part, or at least until Easter Sunday. More importantly, she's secretary of the local auctioneers' group. She knows her worth, does Olive. Her betrothed Victor is a hard-working antiques valuer. Incidentally, never, never ever, trust valuers. The law won't protect you if they guess wrong about your house or anything else.

My leg had gone gangrenous. Olive was no lightweight. She'd crushed my thigh between her shoulder and the handbrake – don't ask for details. I groaned at the pins and needles. She burst out laughing.

'Honestly, Lovejoy! You're as bad as that Yank.' She snuggled closer, heavier still. The windows were misted. My leg thrombosed.

'What Yank?'

'He almost went comatose on me! You men!'

'What Yank?' I pretended to be offended. Women love jealousy.

'Now, now, Lovejoy.' She fluttered her false eyelashes. I could feel the gale. Like being in a wind tunnel. 'He'll go back to the US when he's done the scam. You've no need to worry.'

'Who is he?' I put on my feeble I'm-all-envy.

'He's very big – I mean powerful.' She tittered. The motor shook but managed to stay upright. 'He's an insurance syndicate.'

'Now, Olive!' I chided, as gangrene crept upwards. My waist, I swear, went numb. 'You know everything about dealers in the Eastern Hundreds!'

'No, honest, Lovejoy. His investors keep themselves to themselves. You get kneecapped just for asking their telephone numbers.'

Mercifully the stress of thinking made her budge. She reached for her handbag, switched on the courtesy light and started trowelling on lipstick, mascara, moisturizer, powder. The air thickened. I wheezed. She munched her lips like they do. It always fascinates me. I keep wondering if makeup hurts. They say it doesn't.

'There was that prior, wasn't there? He was one. You knew him.'

'Look, daaarling. That bitch from Leeds who topped her husband was one. I met that ponce from Norway who inherited half their bleeding country. There's that Belgian royal who always has his hand in the till. And his ex-wife lodging at Saffron Fields. Them's the lot.'

'Shhh, Olive.' This time I was serious. Nobody stirred out in the dark, but you can never tell. 'They say her husband Taylor is decent.'

'Him? Weak as water. Doesn't even have the nerve to make his bitch do her bed work.

You can always tell. He's another who came sniffing round.'

'He fell for you, Olive. Like me.'

'Him? Cold as a fish, lovey.' She clicked her handbag, turned smiling at me in the gloaming. 'Still, he dined me, gave me a diamond pendant. See it? Not bad for two photocopies and a list of addresses!'

'Of what?' I heard her snort of derision. I'd been too blunt. 'You could charm any man with a bus ticket, dwoorlink.'

'Do you really mean that, Lovejoy?' she purred.

'Course. Hang on, love.'

I hauled the pendant jewel from her cleavage, no mean feat. I squinted at it against the glim. I sensed something, only by guess in the bad light, but I wasn't wrong. If the American bloke at Saffron Fields had used Olive, then he was a cheapskate. And here I was doing exactly the same thing.