Er, I mean I think that's probably how it's fixed.

  James Langley-Willes, nickname Lanny, once did me down. He was on the hammer in a famed Bond Street auction. I'd made a legitimate bid for a late eighteenth-century lady's work table. It was exquisite, slender legs with side drawers and a shelf (tier, dealers call this) low down between the legs. What I liked though was the sliding frame on its back legs. Lift, and a pleated silk screen rose to keep the heat of the lady's coal fire, so keeping her complexion pale and interesting. (This screen always suggests eighteenth century.) I'd raised four loans, two of which I would be compelled to actually pay off, just to buy this beautiful satinwood piece.

  Lanny saw my final bid. And ignored it! Knocked the antique down to a lady friend.

  White-hot with rage, I exacted revenge. It took me a week but was worth it. I hired Shammer – rhymes with hammer, a man of many voices – to contact Lanny and get him to sell a photocopy of the handwritten catalogue, for a high fee. It went like clockwork. Shammer gave me the catalogue that day. I went to see Mr Langley-Willes with a video showing him leaving the photocopy in a taxi for Shammer. And paying the squeeze. Lovely camera work by Yvette. She keeps the Thames toll bridge at Dartford.

  He'd actually blubbered, begged, invoked his children –all at good schools – and his lovely wife who'd just started a costume-hire shop. Then, all but on his knees, he said something that placed his entire fate in my hands.

  'Please, Lovejoy. Honest to God. I'll do anything. Think of the birds.'

  'No go, Lanny.' Birds?

  'Then it's suicide,' he said, broken.

  'Eh?' I was startled. He really did look suddenly resolute, firm of purpose. Suicide, for birds? 'Look, mate ...'

  'No, Lovejoy.' Steadfastly he faced the charging hordes of Omdurman. 'You don't understand. I'm a four hundred.'

  'Four hundred what?'

  'A member of the Four Hundred Club.' Quietly he explained.

  He loved birds. I said so did I. Only, women, migrating wrens, what?

  'No, Lovejoy. Flying birds.'

  Only then did I notice that his walls were covered with photographs of our feathered friends. Hadn't even pictures of his family. A nutter.

  'I'm what irresponsible people call a twitcher, Lovejoy.' He gave a you-rabble-don't-understand smile. 'Only those who record over four hundred different species are true birders.' A sad noble smile played around his lips, say goodbye to the old school, Carruthers. 'I was hoping to reach five hundred.'

  'Different birds?'

  God, that seemed easy. I'd seen thousands, millions. Maybe I'd been a champion birder for years and hadn't known. I sometimes have thirty birds at a time in my overgrown garden.

  I'd heard of these twitchers, people who're daft on bird-watching. I knew one lady who

  – you won't believe this –actually sold a Newcastle Light Baluster drinking glass, stipple engraved with a Dutch ship. It had four knops –bulges in the stem – and the Dutch engraver's initials were actually engraved on the pontil stub underneath the glass's foot.

  Rare, genuine antique. And why did the loon sell it? To buy a camera, so she could skulk in our sea marshes and photo swallows wading in the mud. Is that lunatic, or what?

  'No, Lovejoy. Different species. Any fool can see a thousand birds any day of the week.'

  Which narked me even more, because my birds are high quality. I've got some that sit on my shoulder for cheese, and I'll bet he hadn't. To stop him leaping off his balcony, seeing he looked so adamant, I went helpful.

  'Look, Lanny. I'll bring details of some rare birds. You'll have your five hundred sparrows before Friday.'

  He rose, his expression a pale, aghast mask.

  'Falsify? You scoundrel!' He gave me a tirade of passionate denunciation.

  Well, I gaped. Can you get the logic? Here was the trusted scion of famous London auctions –I won't mention which because Sotheby's and Christie's insist on anonymity –

  who'd ripped everybody off. Who now swoons because I suggest pretending that he's seen a robin. Do you believe some people?

  He ranted on so much his missus came in. She left with the wife's resigned exasperation when she saw he was only on about his hobby.

  The name for those accursed fraudsters who exaggerate the number of species that they falsely claim to have spotted? A stringer.

  'There is no more odious wretch, Lovejoy. Detestable. Beneath contempt. Hanging's too good for them.'

  Well, hardly. It was strange to see Lanny, with degrees all round the envelope, ready to face firing squads merely because his fellow twitchers might believe he'd spun a tale about some fledgling.

  'It took me ten years, Lovejoy. I reached my four hundredth last Martinmas.' His eyes filled. 'The happiest day of my life. I was stuck two months on 399. I wanted to sell the wife's car last year to go to see a black-browed albatross, but she wouldn't give it up.'

  'Selfish cow,' I joked, jollying him along.

  He agreed, to my astonishment. 'Yes, she is. The Orkneys is a hell of a way.'

  This was Lanny, famed auctioneer. To pay for my silence he gave me my expenses and saw that my next bid got preference three auction days running, until some of the lads began to mutter. I'd not seen him since. If anybody would know what big money was washing around, it would be Lanny. I decided it was time I renewed my interest in birdwatching. I might see something unexpected. You never know.

  It was getting dark when I bowled up at Lanny Langley-Willes's house in Dragonsdale.

  Cars filled the drive. I went round to the rear, and walked into a group of enthusiasts.

  They all wore working overalls. Lanny's missus was serving roast something. The wine was out, Lanny the laughing host talking birds. Beyond, the acreage showed a miniature railway line, a small engine, a little carousel with fairy lights. Building a fairground?

  'Here's Lovejoy!' he called, seeing me. 'Trust him to arrive at dinner break!'

  I received nods and hellos. I accepted a glass of red wine that tasted of tannin. I praised it like you have to. Everybody was pleased at my judgement.

  'We're excluding a 400 Club member, Lovejoy,' Lanny explained, his eyes warning me about divulging past secrets.

  Vaguely I remembered that you got shot for reporting the wrong pigeons in Norfolk's Cley-next-the-Sea. 'Er, it's about that, Lanny.'

  'You're not old enough to be a nancy, mate, are you?' some old geezer asked.

  He sounded friendly enough, but I stepped forward to clock him one. Lanny intervened just in time.

  'No, Lovejoy's an antique dealer, not a birder.' He led me aside, chuckling. 'A nancy isn't a deviant, Lovejoy. It's one of the original birders. Nancy's Caff in Cley. It's where modern birdwatching started. We all used the caff's telephone. Now we use websited pagers.'

  'Oh, good.' I made sure we were out of earshot of the others. 'Look, Lanny. Are you into insurance? Lloyd's and all that?'

  'No.' His face clouded. 'I know some who are. Fingers burned lately.'

  'And the auction houses?'

  He sat on a low stone wall that fringed his herb garden, and lit a cigarette from a small sessile lantern.

  'The American Justice Department's been gunning for the Big Two, Sotheby's and Christie's. The journals were full of it. Price fixing. Christie's decided to turn what here would be called Queen's Evidence. Asking immunity for blowing the gaff. Boss execs and chairmen resigned everywhere, to please the Yank Feds.'

  'It's happened before, though?'

  'Resignations? Don't you remember? Christie's chairman took a dive. Claimed those Impressionist paintings were sold when you-know-what.'

  The Impressionist paintings weren't sold at all, so the market price was kept artificially high. Greed is what auctioneers' dreams are made of.

  'And your pals?' I indicated his group, now passing bird photos around in the lantern light while Lanny's missus clucked, wanting them to scoff their grub.

  'Only birders, Lovejoy. Promise.' He sounded offended. 'Heaven's sakes, one of them actually knew Emmett!'

  'A copper?' I'd not heard the name before.

  'He was the original twitcher – shook so much from cold and exhaustion when chasing a rare bird on his moped that he virtually had twitching seizures. Hence the nickname.

  Above suspicion, of course.'

  So they were saints.

  'Right. Tell your mates tara, Lanny. And your missus.' I paused. 'Lanny? If you hear anything about insurance defaults, let me know, eh?'

  'Defaults?' His face clouded. 'I suppose you mean that consular man. Poor chap. He's in for everything. Friend of the brigadier. Has some relative locally. He formed an insurance syndicate of her friends.'

  'Consular chap?'

  'American. Divorced. Sommon was involved in some political scandal. That randy president's political party. Invested over his head. But, Lovejoy,' this epitome of honesty said in all seriousness, 'we shouldn't listen to vile rumour.'

  'True, Lanny.' A thought occurred. 'Where are you getting the money to build this fancy fairground?' It was hell of a size, for a private garden.

  'This?' He became proud. 'Our birders are chipping in. It's for the local infant school.

  When it's finished I'll assign that half of my plot to them in perpetuity. Think they'll like the engine? It's a model of an old Britannia.'

  'Beautiful.'

  'The wife approves,' he added, sighing. 'Pity she's not a birder. Did I ever tell you she wouldn't sell her car so I could go and see a black-browed albatross?'

  'Well, nobody's perfect. Tara, Lanny.'

  I left then, only realizing I still carried his glass when I reached the taxi rank. I swigged it dry, looked at it in the taxi's headlights. Modern. So I lobbed it into a nearby dustbin and went home. Fewer suspects now, thank God. I was down to a few thousand, if Lanny could be trusted.

  36

  ONE THING I'VE always got wrong is getting ready to go out. I once drove to a broadcast in Norwich in battered old slippers and didn't notice I'd no shoes on. Gran used to say I did it for attention. I think it's because I'm secretly worried sick.

  This night I was different. Timothy's Florence had left me a note saying she'd gone to see the lawyer about her bankruptcy, ending it With love. No woman around when you need one, just good wishes.

  Despite this, I spruced up. I found a tie and did my shoes with spit. I don't buy polish because it gets used up. Then I creased my trouser legs with two bricks and a steaming kettle. I tried to trim my frayed shirt cuffs with a razor blade but they finished up horrible so I turned them under with sticking plaster. I can never wash a shirt collar.

  After the first day, a black rim is simply there for life. Belle four years ago was the last one who could do it, get shirts clean I mean. She was lovely. Those ten Belle Days she turned me out like Lord Fauntleroy. It didn't last. She got exasperated, said I drove her mad, and went to Manchester to become a concert cellist. She missed her vocation, could have run a lovely laundry (joke).

  I did my teeth using plant pith, lots of it in my jungle. It's cheaper and cleaner than toothbrushes. Anyway, Paul Blondel the birdman says that waste toothbrushes choke seabirds in the Pacific, so I was doing my bit. Shaving's always a pest, razor blades so expensive. I did the old soldier's razor trick of honing a rusty blade by running it round inside a glass. I washed my one hanky and dried it on the kettle. I inspected my reflection in my plate. Gorgeous. I looked dynamite.

  One worrying thing was Maud. Did she share Brig's dark intentions, that her husband Quaker should get the push and I take his place? She hadn't said anything. These mating games are always beyond me. Whatever happens between men and women is simply a fluke. Love, like family, is a lottery. I knew a bonny lady called Kitty, who married her bloke – a gambler and a thief – convinced she could reform him. Within a month she came a-weeping, asking me 'to set him up in antiques', like it was lending him a book. She went berserk when I said he wouldn't last a millisec. Later, he defaulted on his gambling debts, so the lads tailored him for a motorway robbery he hadn't done. He's currently doing a ten-year stretch. Mysteriously, his missus instantly flowered in his absence. Without a penny to her name, she has acquired a sports and leisure club in Brightlingsea. See? Luck.

  Such thoughts warning me of possible mishaps, I smiled a glittering smile at my reflection, and went to meet Maud, the brigadier, Quaker, and any combination of others. I'd perhaps find out who his syndicate was. If Quaker kept out of the way, at least I'd maybe have Maud's company for a clandestine while. You never know. I caught the bus, shocked that my palms were damp. Shakily I dropped coins everywhere as I paid my fare, making passengers smile and raise who-is-this-oaf eyebrows. I said sorry, sorry, stared at the shadows among the countryside's trees.

  It was frankly dusk when I walked through the park among the Quay Theatre crowd.

  The rain had mercifully held off. The people were colourful – not as well turned out as me, I told myself jauntily. Mrs Thomasina Quayle was there in a smart evening dress contentedly chatting with Susanne Eggers and the mayor on the balcony. It overhung the water, illuminated with candles and flickering lamps. Copacetic, Consul Sommon would probably have said in American slang. He was there. I passed Taylor Eggers parking his motor. He waved. I waved back.

  Music was playing. Coloured lights strung in the water. Boats glided under torches.

  Romance was in the air. A bonfire flickered, making amber fronds of the riverbank trees. One pity was the aroma of hot-dog stalls. First whiff, superbly alluring. When you get close, the stink is charred flesh. Nauseous. Like some auctions and lovers' trysts, entrancing at a distance then frightening close to. Tonight, though, no omens allowed.

  I'd get to the bottom of the whole thing.

  'Evening, Lovejoy.'

  'Hello, Olive.'

  'Who's your lady for this gala evening?'

  'You, if Lady Luck's kind.'

  Very fetching, in slab Art Deco and a floral hat. 'Perhaps we can meet? I must see you.'

  'Ta, love.'

  And on I went, Burlington Bertie. I glimpsed her turning into the path of Taylor Eggers.

  Why did she want to renew acquaintance with him, when he'd bribed her with those duff Light Brown Reject earrings? Or was she going for his ankles? Or had she simply forgotten? Except, what woman ever forgets how she was slighted, or who by?

  'Well, well,' said the Serious Fraud Officer, Petra Deighnson. 'Do I espy Lovejoy?'

  She wore cobalt blue. I never really like trouser suits. Women don't look quite as fetching as they're supposed, though some think severe-cut slacks the height of femininity.

  'You plod, always asking my help. Yes, I'm me.'

  'Know who the original Police Constable Plod was?' She fell in, taking my arm, amiability itself. 'They say he was PC Rone in Studland. Isn't it Dorsetshire? Enid Blyton called him that in her children's stories.'

  'SFO research, eh?'

  She slowed me, smiling. 'Staying for the syndicate meeting afterwards?'

  'Er. . .'

  'I was hoping you'll be doing the antiques, Lovejoy.'

  She indicated the stands that had been erected over the water. Everybody was there.

  Big Frank with his next spouse. Ferd and his Norma, both especially pally with the mayor. Peggy Price and Cromwell – he in full Puritan fig with tall white collar and sombre black – and, surprising me, Ginny without Ox her driver-helper, though he'd be sure to be among the thickening crowds.

  Petra Deighnson whispered confidingly as the crowd ooohed at fireworks hitting the darkening sky, 'I've seen the antiques' bills of sale. All legit, Lovejoy. Repro or genuine, they're honest.'

  For a second I thought I caught sight of Mortimer, but it must have been my imagination.

  'Legit? Honest genuine repro? You've a right porridge of words, missus.'

  Shaking her off I said so-long and pressed through the crowd.

  There's a pool that once was a wide water catchment into which the river flows. On the highest part of the bankside stands the Quay Theatre. It was once a mill. Barges and pleasure boats go by in summer. It looks really bonny with lanterns, streamers, floating lights and tableaux at carnival times. I'd spoken on its stage about antiques, back when I was trustworthy. I don't get asked now. I noticed Tramway Adenath's huge van – the flower gardener who was going to stab me with a dibble just because I'd ruined his garden centre, undermined his life campaign to restore Nature in a poisoned world.

  Selfish sod. He was carrying plants up the wooden staircase. His missus, the worldly Merry, was hauling greenery. Still together, then.

  'He's coming! He's coming!' people exclaimed.

  'No prizes for guessing who, Lovejoy,' Maud said, slipping her arm through mine. I was in vogue tonight. 'Sandy's refrain. Hear it?'

  Through the gloam came the strains of Handel's Water Music. Cameras flashed leaving our retinas unusable. My vision cleared. A golden barge glided upstream, shaped like an enormous swan, with Sandy in flowing golden sheets in the prow. I felt really embarrassed. Even for him this was ridiculous. All around people were applauding.

  'How wonderful! Look!' Maud pulled me so we could see this shambles better. 'Isn't Sandy brilliant?'

  Shimmering sparklers made waterfalls on the surface. Lights rippled along the bulwarks, spotlights playing. Sandy stood in dramatic pose, his features set into an expression he probably thought regal. He looked a right prune. I said so. Maud was irritated and slapped at my arm.

  'Don't be a spoilsport, Lovejoy! He's being Queen Midas!'

  Queen Midas? Wasn't Midas the king of Phrygia? Who finished up wearing donkey's ears?

  The golden swan was rowed by so-say slaves, except even among the crowd I could hear the electric motor that powered the barge. Nymphs in flowing robes hung gracefully in the rigging, showering the spectators with golden petals as the monstrosity floated to the Quay. The applause was deafening. Sandy would have loudspeakers supplementing the clapping. It would be just like him.

  'What's it all in aid of?'