The estate had never seen days like it, not since the laird’s spending sprees. Mrs.
Buchan’s kitchen was going nonstop. Duncan finished his last piece, a pedestal case.
This is the 1820 notion of a filing cabinet, with five hinged leather-covered cardboard boxes in a tier. It sounds rubbish, but with its lockable mahogany frame it looked grand. I explained how to age it with dilute bleach and a warm stove. Duncan’s products, a round dozen by now, would go into the auction as extra lots on the addendum.
It felt like a holiday. Trembler went off south for a well-earned, er, rest after ordering two of his exotic ladies from a Soho number. Tinker was paralytic, but messily filling out in the kitchen. It was there I roused him while Mrs. Buchan’s merry minions were screaming-laughing over laundry in the adjoining wash-house. He came to blearily, hand crooked for a glass.
“Noisy bleeders,” he groused while I poured. Mrs. Buchan’s latest offering was like tar.
He slurped, shook the foundations with a cough, focused. “Yeah, Lovejoy.”
“Dutchie and Dobson.” I waited for his cortex to reassemble in the alcohol fog. “Dutchie back from the Continent?”
“Never.” He hawked, spat into the fire.
“You sure? Our local dealers say you can set your clock by Dutchie’s reappearances.”
“Not this time, Lovejoy.”
“Tinker. I reckon Dobson did that driver, and Tipper Noone. Watch out for Dutchie and Dobson.”
“Fine chance, Lovejoy,” he croaked witheringly. “Them bastards are too lurky.”
They’d both be here. I already knew that. The only question remaining was their attitude towards me. I was pretty confident Dutchie wouldn’t—maybe couldn’t—harm me. But that cunning silent knife-carrier Dobson … I hunched up and sipped Tinker’s ale for warmth. What’s the expression, an angel walking over your grave? I thought, some angel.
View Day’s always a letdown, with added tension, same as any rehearsal. Everybody was keyed up. Trembler returned looking like nothing on earth but steadying as the day wore on. Tinker spent the morning “seein’ the bar’s put proper,” meaning sponging ale.
Michelle checked the numbers, and fought Trembler over sticky labels on the oil paintings. I kept out of it. Robert and Duncan drilled the retainers twice. No hitches.
They came. First a group of three cars, hesitantly following the signs. They’d driven from Eastbourne. Then a minibus from George MacNeish’s tavern with the six overnighters we already knew about. Duncan’s men had erected signs everywhere.
Nobody had an excuse for “accidentally” getting lost. Our people were on station in doorways, corridors, and one on each of the seven staircases. Five hawk-eyed men simply stood on the grass staring at the big house, Hector with Tessie and Joey spelling them in sequence every twenty minutes. One thing was plain to even the casual viewer: Security was Tachnadray’s thing.
Our viewing was timed for eleven a.m. to four in the afternoon. The trickle was a steady flow by noon. By one it was a crowd. Two o’clock and the nosh tent was crammed, the bar tent actually bulging at the seams. A coach arrived. The car park was half full, and filling. But throughout I kept a low profile. From the west wing’s upstairs corridors I could see the main doorway. I had a pile of sandwiches against starvation and a tranny against boredom in case Dutchie and Dobson didn’t show. I sat on the window ledge watching.
There was only one way for them to enter the house, and that was up the balustraded steps. And one way out, the same. As people arrived, I counted with one of those electronic counters. Like watching an ants’ nest in high summer. I recognized many, smiling or scowling as I remembered their individual propensities.
Lonely business. Twice Michelle sent a breathless girl—we had two of these runners, not really enough—with some query, quite mundane. It occurred to me that maybe Michelle was checking on me, rather than proving she was on the ball. Once Tinker came coughing up carrying me a pint of ale. At least, he nearly did. The beer slopped so much on the stairs he didn’t think it worthwhile to finish the ascent, so he drank it and called up that he’d go back and get me another. “Another?” I yelled down. “I haven’t had the bloody first yet.” He clumped off, muttering. That’s friends for you. I mean, I thought from my perch by the leaded window, Michelle was really too attractive, but cuckolding Duncan, whom I liked, hadn’t been my fault. She’d realized how good and sincere I am deep down. That’s what did it. Finer qualities always go over big with women…
Dobson walked from the covered way. He paused to scan the still, kilted figures of Duncan’s five watchers. Undecided, he strolled round the east wing. I smiled. Sure enough, he returned. Hamish’s big cousin Charles, Number 17, was posted there with his shepherd’s crook and his noisy eight-year-old son. Dobson moved more purposefully round the west wing. I waited while the viewers, now a teeming throng, poured about.
And back he came, now surly and fuming. It was Hector’s sister’s lad Andy on that corner with his border collie. Dobson turned, shook his head slowly. No go, he was telling somebody.
My blood chilled. An overcoated man, bulky and still, was standing among the crowd.
He raised his hand to his hat, and five—five, for Christ’s sake; there’s only one of me—
others joined him. They came and ascended the steps, with Dobson’s lanky, morose figure striding behind. I swallowed. Well, I tried to. These were hard nuts, continentals from the Hook. Ferrymen, as Tinker calls them. Pros, the heavies with which our gentle occupation abounds.
They left after two hours, into the nosh tent. At four Duncan’s bell started ringing. At four-thirty the last cars left, carrying the caterers. A lady dealer, one of the Brighton familiars, was winkled out of the loos by a dog. Five o’clock and Duncan’s men raised an arm, Robert’s numbers each holding a plaid flag from the windows. Michelle came out and signaled jubilantly up to me, smiling all over her face. I opened the window and yelled to stand down, everybody. One or two applauded, all delighted. Trembler had one small item missing, a fake Stuart drinking glass. Cheap at the price, but Trembler went mad. Tinker complained the beer tent hadn’t allowed the statutory twelve minutes’ drinking-up period, and went to fill the aching void with Mrs. Buchan’s brew.
Other people haven’t his bad chest. Elaine was thrilled and joined us all in the kitchen for a celebration.
“A perfect View Day!” she exclaimed, congratulating Trembler in the hubbub.
“Absolutely right!”
Nearly, I thought, as the retainers talked, grinning in the flush of success. Almost nearly. But I grinned yes, wasn’t it great, well done. All there was left to do now was leave my promised panic message on Antioch Dodd’s answer phone and wait for the dawn to bring Dobson’s vicious army and the holocaust. When I made my final run from Tachnadray, I desperately wanted Antioch and his merry men waiting and watching for me out there. Loneliness is dangerous. I’ve always found that.
« ^ »
—— 28 ——
Auction Day.
The Great Hall at Tachnadray was crowded. Seats were in rows, three hundred.
Dealers, collectors, and even other auctioneers, plus a few stray human beings were cramming in. The talk was deafening. Michelle was lovely though pale on her podium, with little Mrs. Moncreiffe in place behind her neat blocks of forms. To the auctioneer’s far left, two solemn lasses waited at telephones. Retainers were stationed at the exit and by each window down the length of the hall. Trembler’s two shop-soiled whizzers had arrived overnight. With the eidetic memory of their kind, they hastened once round the entire stock, then went to the beer tent to take on fuel, bored. I entered as Trembler checked the time, made for his podium. He looked great, really presentable, posh.