“Wotcher, Lovejoy.” He jerked his chin. Ted the barman nodded and drew two pints. I paid. It’s Tinker’s principal method of claiming his salary from me. I’ve gone hungry before now to get him sloshed, because a barker’s vital. He can winkle and cheat with abandon. Antique dealers must be circumspect.
“Wotcher, Tinker.” I forked out. I bought us a bar pasty in the euphoria of freedom.
“News of the bureau? Dutchie?”
“Nar. I got you Dobson.” He indicated with his eyes the tall lone figure at the bar’s end.
Even in a crowd the thin silent barker somehow stood apart.
Dobson’s a somber one-off. For a start, he’s the only bloke I know in the trade who doesn’t have a nickname. And he never says much, just hangs around listening, vigilant. Folk say he carries a knife and once did time. He looks fresh from an alley war.
On the other hand I like Dutchie, a genial bloke with a word for the cat. He appears out of nowhere once every Preston Guild. He comes like a comet, handles the deals Dobson’s lined up for him, then vanishes for a fortnight or so. But Dobson unsettles me.
A few minutes later I was asking Dobson where his wally Dutchie was.
He never answers immediately, in case there’s another way out. “Gone on the ferry.
Dunno where.”
Fair enough. “See anything of a bureau, the night that wagon driver got done?”
“No. Sorry.” Nothing here for an inquisitive dealer fresh out of dink.
“Was Dutchie around that night?”
He shrugged after a long lag phase. Nothing. I rejoined Tinker, back to hungry reality.
So I’d lost a fortune. I couldn’t afford to lose still more by inactivity. “The lithophanes, Tinker.”
“Them little pot flaps?” Tinker’s way of describing artistic genius. “Three-Wheel.”
“Three-Wheel Archie? Great. Come on, Tinker.”
He wailed, “But I haven’t had me dinner, Lovejoy.”
Fuming, I gave him two of my three remaining notes, which left me just enough to breathe. “See me tonight, then. The Three Cups.” The sly old burke was cackling with glee as I left.
From the call box outside, I phoned Ellen to beg a lift. The glass was shattered, so I had to stand in the rain and shout over the whistling gale. Unbelievably, she put down the receiver the instant she recognized my voice. Bloody nerve. Next week she’d prove to me, by complex female reasoning, that her refusal to speak was a precaution to help me in some way.
A call to the Infant School earned another rebuff, this time from Jo. A bad day for loyalty. A stranger gave me a lift in his car to within a mile of Archie’s place, and told me all about astronomy.
Three-Wheel Archie gets his nickname from a tricycle he rides. He grew up in an orphanage somewhere near Whitechapel. When I say grew up, I mean his head and features did, but the rest of him sort of lagged behind. Mind you, with most of us others it’s the opposite, isn’t it; relatively big over all but very little brain. Archie ended up a thickset titch who walks with a low swagger. He deals in engines, mechanicals, and watches, and lives alone down the estuary. I like him.
He was cleaning his dazzling new motorcar when I arrived. It lives grandly in a brick-built garage—cavity insulation, dehumidifier, air conditioner, the lot. He’d run it out on polished lino. He lives in the near-derelict cottage adjoining.
“Sprung, eh, Lovejoy?” he panted, sprawled on the bonnet polishing like mad. “No way a soft bugger like you could clobber a big Brummie to death. The Old Bill are stupid.”
“I’ve come about the lithophanes.” I walked round his car admiring. “Posher than ever.
How old now?”
“Ten next September thirtieth. She’s Libra.”
“Er, great. Still going okay?” It has one mile on the clock, in and out of the garage once a fortnight. Five yards a month mounts up.
“Brilliant, Lovejoy,” he said proudly, sliding chutewise down to the ground carrying his sponges. “Glass?”
“Ta, Archie.” When I said new, I used the term loosely. Archie’s one ambition from birth was owning a saloon car. He bought it a decade gone, and built for it that luxurious garage. Of course he’s so dwarf he can’t reach the pedals to drive the damned thing, but he loves it. He runs the engine every week, has engineers in to service it. Once, a local dealer laughed at Archie for having a new /old car he couldn’t drive. Archie’s never spoken to him since. Nor have I.
“Here, Lovejoy.” He gave me some homemade wine. “Last autumn’s blackberry.”
“Mrnrnmh.” I smacked my lips. Dreadful.
“The lithophanes’ll cost you, Lovejoy.” We sat on packing cases beside the glittering vehicle.
“Archie. If you wanted an antique bureau twinned up, who’d you get to do it?”
“You, Lovejoy, on that rare occasion you’re not dicking some bint. Otherwise Tipper Noone at Melford. He’s done lovely stuff lately.”
“I mean a rush job.”
“So do I.” Archie drained his glass. He knew what I was asking, the crafty devil.
“Somebody said Tipper did one a few days back, for shipping to the Continent.”
I sighed. That’s the trouble with East Anglia. Most is coast, inlets with busy little ships steaming to and fro. And continentals spend like lunatics when they’ve a mind.
“I’m the one who told Tinker, Lovejoy.”
Useless. That was as far as we’d got before a car pulled in and Jo descended. I introduced Archie to her. He rose, shook hands gravely. I knew she’d behave properly, thank God.
“Good of you to come, Jo.” I was mystified.
She stood in the mucky yard, hands plunged into the pockets of her floppy coat. Her collar was up, framing her face. Women stand with elegance, don’t they, one foot slightly averted so they’re all one lovely composite shape.
“Won’t you sit down?” Archie offered her a crate. She sat without a trace of hesitancy. I really like Miss Josephine Ross. More, she gravely accepted a glass of Archie’s wine and said reflectively that it was possibly a little too dry, like her father’s recipe. Archie adored her.
“Don’t let me interrupt, Lovejoy,” she said, smiling. “I only wanted to say sorry, cutting you off on the phone just because you’d been … seeing the police. It was mean of me.”
Her color was high. “We shouldn’t be swayed by public stigma.”
“Don’t mix metaphors,” I said, to get us off ethics. “Give me a lift and I’ll forgive you.”
Me and Archie settled the deal over the lithophanes while Jo admired the car, wisely not touching it. She had quickly registered the difference between Archie’s grotty residence and the opulent garage, but said nothing. Archie came to see us off. The swine wouldn’t let me have the lithos on approval.
“Four wheels on your motor,” Jo said. “Why Three-Wheel?”
“Come on, Jo.” I got in her car irritably.
“Tell her, Lovejoy.” Archie was grinning, saw I wouldn’t budge, and walked over to a shed. He pulled the door open to reveal a beautiful tricycle with an elegant canopy.
“How lovely, Archie!” Jo exclaimed. “Do you ride it?”
“Makes me mobile, Miss Ross. Courtesy of Lovejoy, five years ago now.”
She looked at me. “Really.”
“Can we go?” I called wearily. “Bloody time-wasters.”
Archie waved to us. By the time we left the yard he was already buffing the car’s hubs.
We drove a couple of miles before she said anything. “Lovejoy?”
She wanted to prattle about Archie, but I wasn’t having any. “You only gave me the box number for that bureau, Jo,” I said. “Is there more?”
She took a while to answer. “Very well,” she said finally. “Grammar apart, Lovejoy, you’ll have to sing for your supper.”
It was Jo’s free afternoon. She stayed and I made tea for her. Ellen had washed up, so I had clean cups. I made some sandwiches and cut their crusts off to make natty triangles. A bit thick, but all the more nourishing. The tomatoes had gone pappy so I blotted them on newspaper first. I felt posh serving up, like the Savoy chef. I had to use a towel for a tablecloth because I can never find anything when Ellen’s tidied.