'We were broadcasting,' the gallery supersnob complained, wafting this hoi polloi away like a bad smell. I then noticed the array of microphones, technicians swigging the cheap white wine and noshing the free grub.

  'Excuse me, Sir Rollaston,' I said, going up to Tex. 'For being late.'

  'Eh?' he asked. The action froze.

  'I'm sorry, sir. The traffic here has worsened considerably since you were a Fellow at Corpus Christi. Is it the Klein?'

  There was a Klein painting on the far-wall. Kleins always do cause argument. It was simply a large canvas with huge swishes of blue across it.

  'Er, yes.' Tex shook himself free. The gallery owner went into fawning mode and waved the security police off. 'The, er, Clean.'

  'Klein,' I amended and led the way to stand in front of it. 'Yves Klein, Sir Rollaston, had a peculiar affinity for blue. He patented his own shade, called International Klein Blue.'

  Tex gazed at the picture. It looked like nothing on earth. 'He dipped women in it, then used them to smudge the canvases.'

  Tex gaped. The gallery owner started a sales pitch of the 'Klein's imagery challenges modernity...' balderdash that shouldn't fool a whelk. I interrupted.

  'I can see why you think it's not a patch on the two you already possess, Sir Rollaston.

  You're not seriously thinking of buying another? I wouldn't advise it, sir. Think of your Picasso ...'

  We escaped, the gallery boss trying desperately to woo Tex back to see the rest of his gunge. We had a drink round the corner. I told Tex I'd seen him fight once. Tex had to sniff some white crud using a straw while I had tea. He then had a gin and tonic. He was amazed that the gallery folk had taken my made-up prattle seriously.

  'It's true, Tex. It's what Klein did. Died in Paris a famous man. Are those drugs?'

  'They help, mate. Lost me wife.' He eyed me. 'Why didn't they bounce you? You look a right tramp.'

  I flushed. 'That's because I've no gelt. You're a junkie because you've chucked the sponge in.'

  He grabbed me by the throat and I flew across the caff, blamming tables and chairs as I went, finishing up slumped against the window. I rose, tottered out into the rain. Try to help folk, that's what you get.

  There's a massive antiques fair near Newark, happens every so often. It starts early mornings among the queueing motors, and continues in fields. Hundreds of antique dealers go. It's a celebration of greed. I love it. You meet the world and his wife.

  Tex was there. He pretended not to be watching as I divvied a few antiques for a rich American – there's no other kind – who'd hired me for the day plus com. This meant I'd get a percentage of the commission. His purchases, bought on my recommendation, would be valued by the average of three certified London dealers. The American finished buying about noon. Tex was there as I waited with the bags of handles, small portable antiques, for the Yank to fetch his motor. He shuffled a bit.

  'Sorry, Lovejoy,' he said gruffly.

  'Okay.'

  'Were you hurt?'

  'Aye.'

  I'd had a bad shoulder for weeks. Doc Lancaster said I was a danger to my own health.

  I said not as much as he was. He got some physiotherapist, psychotically bent on breaking what Tex hadn't, to give me exercises. Doctors are sadistic swine. Their helpers are no better.

  'I gave them up,' Tex said. 'I owe you. You done me a kindness in that gallery. You made me look at myself.' He glanced away. 'I'd lost my missus. Hard, when somebody dies.'

  Well, it wasn't my fault, I thought, still narked.

  'Want a job?' he asked as the American approached. 'I'm on an antiques club. We need somebody to divvy.'

  'Maybe.' I was on my uppers, having just been given the sailor's elbow by Lydia, my ertswhile — and periodic –apprentice. She has the morals of a beatitude, can't accept that mankind is riddled with sinners. We'd parted over my forgeries of Colette the ghost lady. I wasn't sure if I loved Colette yet, still, now, or ever had, but it felt like flu whenever I thought of her. Is that the real thing? I've no way of knowing.

  'I'll send word.'

  And he did. I got invited to suss out the antiques they bought. Once a week I'd go to a publican's wife in East Bergholt, who was the panel's paymaster. She stored the antiques in a warehouse by the river.

  Lots of people do combined investments nowadays. And some, like Tex's mob, chip in to buy antiques. Not all are honest. I've already mentioned that some people (think Horse and FeelFree) make a fine living from defrauding such societies.

  The trick among some groups, though, is to add an extra thrill. They think, hey, isn't it dull just buying antiques? Why not add a little spice? Let's gamble! So they challenge other antiques panels to see whose profits are greatest by the end of the year.

  Excitement! And then it's, 'Hey! Let's introduce a special prize – like, say, the panel that gains the most profit next year wins everybody else's antiques?

  You see the risk? It's not only that you might buy, say, a Chippendale chair that turns out to be worthless. The real risk is that you might buy with consistent brilliance, store up a magnificent stock of lovely antiques, and then lose out on the New Year's Eve valuation. You can fiddle a bit, but that's difficult because usually these panels can inspect each other's purchases as they go through the year. Tex's panel won two years running, with my help. I resigned because I got fed up. He tried bribing me, but I wanted a change. I hadn't seen him for a full year.

  By the time he'd finished his grunting and hurling in the ring, I was outside reading in the caff. He joined me.

  'Still a creature of habit, eh?' I said. He always has a bite after a bout.

  'Let me, Lovejoy.' He paid for my nosh. I nodded ta. Never refuse a free calorie. 'Glad you came, actually. We've had an offer from two experts.'

  'To help your panel?'

  'Yes. A couple, Horse and FeelFree. They brought us some convincing testimonials.'

  'Don't, Tex.' I looked for the tomato sauce but two all-in wrestlers on a neighbouring table had snaffled it so I smiled weakly and did without. 'They'll default. I've just saved you a fortune. Stick with Albina.' The publican's wife I told you about.

  'We need expertise, Lovejoy.' He frowned. 'I think we're going to miss out this year.

  I've heard our opposition are doing superb buying. Got massive funds from somewhere, more than we could ever match.'

  Tex's panel is a miscellaneous lot. There's a teacher, a road builder, two botanists trying to reforest Wiltshire, a doctor, a lady who breeds cats and is in love with a zookeeper. Antiques makes friends of all.

  'Maybe I could help, Tex.' I went for gold. 'How about robbery?'

  He looked his astonishment. 'I've never done anything like that.'

  'No, Tex.' Sometimes I feel like I'm banging my head on a brick wall. 'You needn't do it, see? I'll do it. You just add the antiques to your stash in the pub cellar, okay?'

  'Will anybody know?'

  'No,' I said brokenly to Dan Dare. 'That's the idea of robbery.'

  'Are they all genuine?'

  Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. I sighed. 'They're mixed. Like,' I said sharply, 'the assortment you usually buy.'

  'Okay,' he said doubtfully, this great hulk of a bloke who routinely lobbed opponents hither and yon. 'If you're sure it'll be all right.'

  'Just let Albina know they're coming.'

  That was that. I left Reckless Ralph to his plate of egg and chips and drove to meet Alicia and Peshy. I'm sick of rescuing people. Except sometimes I don't manage to rescue some people at all.

  The hospital told me Florence Giverill was up and able to walk haltingly with some sort of frame. I said fine.

  Almost in a state of exaltation, we ran the sweep day after day. It became a marathon.

  We switched from Ross-on-Wye (where Alicia did magnificently, stealing Victorian jewellery) to Stourbridge (cameos, Chelsea enamels), then Stratford-upon-Avon (miniature paintings, antique gloves) to Birmingham (gems, mother-of-pearl) and back across the country to Sheffield and up to Leeds. Me and Alicia became quite a staid couple. Even the wolfhound didn't seem to mind my calling him Wolfhound any more.

  We started to run out of money because of the hotels, so I had to sell one or two antiques that Alicia and Peshy nicked (sorry, shouldered).

  The trouble was, we were not alone. Every morning, under the door there was that cream envelope with the round sloping handwriting of Mrs Thomasina Quayle. And the tone of her brief messages became at first tart ('Lovejoy, this will have to stop ...'), then finally resigned ('Very well, Lovejoy. However, you must take the consequences

  ...').

  The news from the hospital about Florence became even better, though more difficult to obtain. I ran out of relatives to pretend to be – quavery father, sad uncle, boozy brother – and finished up relying on Alicia to do the daily phone calls. Florence had made it to Rehabilitation by the time I reckoned we'd got enough antiques. I told Alicia we were done.

  'Done?' She looked stricken, then composed herself. 'As in ended?'

  'That's right, love. We send off the loot, then it's home time. We've made the Wanted pages, in the Antiques Trade Gazette!.

  She looked truly downcast. Even Peshy seemed a mite saddened. I could see why, because after every theft I used to give him a special treat. They were little bone-shaped things that made him pong like a stoat. He loved them.

  Actually, I got queasy when Alicia tried showing me in the pet shop where to buy them, so she had to bring the treats in for me. I always made a fuss of the little sod even, in fact, when he hadn't nicked anything special at all. Once, he only fetched a shoelace, a particularly lean day, but I called him a hero and gave him two of the little stinking bone-things. He went into raptures.

  Next morning, after a particularly hectic night of farewells, I lifted the envelope from the mat and pocketed it as usual without letting Alicia see. After breakfast, I told her to meet Tex at his wrestling show in Lincoln.

  'Introduce yourself, love,' I said. 'Stick with him all evening, even after he leaves the tournament. He'll need an alibi until midnight, okay?'

  She was in tears. 'What about us, Lovejoy?'

  'You and me, doowerlink, are just beginning,' I said mistily. 'And I do mean that most sincerely. Can I borrow your motor? I'll bring it back at two.'

  Well, I needed it more. I think that deep down people like to share. She could always hire one. She had magic plastic, and I had none.

  30

  CORA is the best female burglar we have. Women are twenty per cent of all burglars, a fifth, save working it out. Most are men, except for shoplifters like Alicia Domander. I don't know the statistics on kleptomaniac mongrels, so I don't count Peshy. Not that women burglars aren't any good, because when they happen along they're superb.

  Cora is a quality thief, only you've to choose the right job. To remind you, the ulk –

  robber's word meaning the place to be burgled – was Eleanor's garage in my lane, and the stuff already addressed to me c/o baby Henry's mum. If I'd wanted, say, the British Museum done over, maybe I'd choose myself, even, like I did once. Cora, incidentally, doesn't look like a cat padder, just a plain lass about thirty with freckles and long hair and neat feet.

  'It's right up your street, Cora,' I told her. We met in a motorway service complex. She watches her bloke give out parking tickets. He's a traffic warden and she loves him.

  Could anything be more sickening?

  'No, Lovejoy. It's right up yours!' I got the joke; it's my lane.

  'Ha ha,' I said gravely. 'No hassle, love. Understand?

  The babby's safe, the lady's safe. The husband works the shore watch, so careful, okay?'

  'I lift the torn from her garage. Then?'

  'There's about thirty postal packages, some quite big, all addressed to me. Take them to Dedham. The publican's wife there keeps a cran for Tex.'

  'Tex the wrestler? Oooh, I like him!'

  A cran is a place to drop antiques – hole in a wall, derelict shed, an eel-catcher's pool, some old warehouse roof, anywhere nobody would think of.

  'How much?'

  This is typical. People don't trust anybody nowadays. Aged five, I'd been at school with her third cousin. I tried reminding her of this close family link but Cora has a heart of stone.

  We agreed on a price. She said she'd take it 'on the arm', as antique dealers say for something owed. I watched her go. She never carries tools, always does a clean job.

  She used to be a convent housekeeper, even went into Holy Orders as a novice nun, but finally decided to forsake piety for a career in theft. I like happy endings. It takes character to realize the error of your ways. I should know.

  That job arranged, I drove to the hospital, where to my alarm I learned that Florence Giverill had been discharged. The nurse gave me the address. I looked at it a long while before asking, 'You sure this is right?'

  'Certain.' She eyed me. 'Only, she'll need help.'

  'Is she still poorly?'

  'Her and her husband went bankrupt the day of the accident. Bailiffs took everything, their house, savings. She's gone to her friend's. Take the slip road towards—'

  'I know it.'

  I ought to. It was my home.

  She was asleep when I arrived. It was getting on for dusk, about the time Cora should be filing her jemmy and coiling her ropes, whatever she does. I deliberately didn't look down the lane. There was a candle burning in my window. Welcome home? I made a deal of here-I-come noise, and went in.

  'Wotcher, love.'

  'Lovejoy?' Florence sounded scared. She was on my one upright chair like waiting for an interview. 'I'm so glad to see you.'

  'Brewed up?'

  'Nothing works,' she said. 'No water, no electric, no telephone.' She caught herself. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean ...'

  'Course you did. It's true.' I always joke at penury. What else can you do? 'Here.'

  I pulled out my divan and led her to it. She sank on it. I took off her shoes and gingerly lifted her legs, expecting her to yell but she didn't. Telling her to stay put, I drew water from the well in my frying pan. I filled my battered kettle and boiled it using petrol from Alicia's motor. Make a hole in the ground, drop in some petrol, light it – stand back –

  and balance the kettle over the flame. If I hadn't learned these tramp's tricks early on I'd not be here. We had tea.

  Sensible of me to bring provisions on the way from the hospital, except I always forget something vital. Like, I'd no butter or margarine though I'd bought nine loaves. The thing about shopping is that I'm easily hoodwinked in supermarkets. Their come-ons con me: 'Special offer! Four for the price of two! Six for the price of three!' So I'd got enough skimmed milk ('Ten pack for the price of five!') to have a bath in. I'd got six fresh mackerel with no freezer to preserve them. And I'd to slog through ten cream cakes or let them go bad. See? I'm taken in.

  It must be easy shopping for a family, but it's hard on your own. I keep finding necrotic fruit in nooks about the place, because of some special offers on bananas two months ago. I go all magpie, not having the sense to realize that I only ever need one bunch at a time because I've only one gob. Daft. Women are better at it but grumble more. I should remember what the Greeks used-to say when their eyes got bigger than their bellies: 'Even Apollo can only eat once a day.' But out shopping I believe I'm really sensible. I've come home with enough to feed regiments believing I'd saved a fortune. I don't think I plan well.

  Florence, recumbent, roused to cast an eagle eye on my bags of grub and creaked across to sort it through, complaining, 'You must work it out as you go, Lovejoy. Who needs four punnets of nectarines? And all these bottles of sauce?' I got narked and said she'd no right to come moaning and I was frigging tired. She looked at me and said she'd make us something. I showed her the firepit trick. She said it was primitive. What cooking isn't? I once worked as a kitchen scullion in a bad patch, and it was sheer carnage. She fried some eggs, and herself ate barely a mouthful. I'd bought five dozen.

  My gran used to say, 'There's only two sorts, luv. There's them as do, and there's them as doesn't.' Meaning workers and drones. Florence was a doer. She swept the cottage, put my clothes in soak, washed up, went and cut bits off bushes until I asked her to leave my plants alone in case she made them ill. We had a spirited disagreement about pruning – I think it's cruel, she thought it necessary.

  'I bury Timothy tomorrow, Lovejoy,' she said after a bit. 'I haven't the money.'

  'St Mary's? I'll see to the cost, love.'

  Her eyes filled in the candlelight. 'Timothy said to come to you if anything ... I don't want to impose.'

  'He was right.' I added a white lie, 'That was our arrangement.'

  'Timothy was going to retire this year. He said we'd be in clover, until all this began.'

  She wept a while as I looked at the candle. 'He was so frightened. I'd never seen him like that. I asked him to go to the authorities. He wouldn't. He said there was no way out. I loved him, Lovejoy. We were like children.'

  What can you say? 'Stay here. I'll get the electric on tomorrow, and maybe the water and phone.'

  'I'm so sorry. I'm a refugee.' She couldn't look. 'He didn't do anything wrong, Lovejoy.

  He wouldn't, not Timothy.'

  'You don't need to tell me that, love.' I thought I knew most.

  'I never thought we'd – I'd – be homeless. It's like the world has ended.'

  For a moment I looked into her eyes. 'The old one has, love.'

  In winter I sleep in a nightshirt of my grandad's. Other times I kip in my nip. Though winter hadn't yet arrived, for propriety's sake I donned Gramp's voluminous cowl when she was decently lying there, face averted, and slipped in beside her. They say the word spooning is a Yankism, from the way spoons lie among cutlery. Only lately has it come to mean lust-filled snogging. We spooned, then, meaning just lying there and drifting off. I'd forgotten candles – another winning safari round Bennick's Super-Shop –

  so let my lone glim gutter to a faint red glow. Then darkness.

  Florence lay there breathing unsteadily, under my arm. She shoved back against me, which was a bit unfair, though it was only for warmth because women are always freezing. Thermophilic, they say of plants, but I don't know a word for women. I can't work out why their knees and feet are always frigid, or why their breasts stay cool even on hot days. Maybe when something's inevitable you don't need a word for it at all?