The Lies of Fair Ladies Read Online Free Page A

Prammie," I said, rising quickly. "Nice
seeing you—" Passion for antiques and women, inevitable. But passion for
pigeons? "Time I was off."
    "Stay, son. Tea's ready." He poured out of an old tin
teapot. He explained, "Notice how I brewed up?"
    Almost worth another sigh. "Kettle," I observed
shrewdly. Living on your own sends you bats.
    "How?" He was amused. "Coal fire? Logs? Primus
stove? Paraffin? Gas?"
    "You plugged it in, Prammie." Humor a loony, I always
say.
    "Electricity, Lovejoy. Pinched from the mains." He
chuckled with flaps of his doggie mustache. "No smoke, see? No National
Insurance card. No tax. No post. No family, save my birds. I'm not even
here!"
    "I know you're here, Prammie."
    "Ah, but you're as barmy as me, Lovejoy. If you hadn't been .
. . admiring Harriet that day, you'd not know either."
    "You got jailed, Prammie."
    "Bad luck, Lovejoy." He was tranquil. He makes good tea,
for all his rustic isolation. "Taken for wrongful possession, a Daniel
Quare clock. Caught in football traffic. Two bobbies helped me across the road.
Saw the label, next day's auction at Gimbert's. I’d no fixed abode . . .”
    "Rotten luck.” My heart bled for him. Remove the label, you
lower an item's value to any decent fair-minded receiver of stolen goods.
"Still, if it was Daniel Quare, it might well have been a fake, eh? Look
on the bright side." The other favorite clockmaker for fakers is Breguet
of Paris. It's joked that clockies—fakers of anything that tells time—can sign
Quare's and Breguet's names better than they can their own.
    "No, Lovejoy." He was serious. "The Lord's work. He
moves in mysterious ways. It was in jail I met the scammer."
    I saw light. He'd met a blackguard. "On commission?"
    "Flat fee, son." He spoke with eyes glowing, doubtless
seeing a million migratories, or whatever, laying eggs and nuzzling mud. A
really great vision. "I'll have enough to buy this stretch. Can't you see
it? A sanctuary!"
    "Lovely, Prammie." I ahemed. "Can I, er,
help?"
    He shook his head, still friendly. "Lovejoy. I took every
fireplace, every speer and pelmet, with my own hands. I know every item is genuine. I hand the last over Monday."
    "Sure? Be careful, eh?"
    His smile was beatific. " You are telling me , Lovejoy? It was me
caught you in the very act of—"
    "Yes, well." I stood with finality. "No harm
asking."
    He saw me away from his hut. At the hedge I turned to look back.
Only eighty feet away, you couldn't see a damned thing. A few cows grazed,
providing yet more cover. It was true. He was the careful one all right.
    And that, said Alice, was that. Good night, Prammie.
    Three
    That afternoon was murderous. Not death. Money. Some people spend,
spend, spend, and gain nowt. Like Big Frank's joke: "If I won a trillion
on the sweepstake, I’d just carry on being an antique dealer until it was all
gone.''
    Think of the price of stamps and melons. I was having a blazing
row about a melon. Savvy Savvy's a supermarket. Their only superlatives are
their blinking prices.
    I'd reached the till girl after only ten years of battling through
hordes. "Four quid? For one measly melon? You're off your frigging
nut!"
    "That's the price, Lovejoy!" The girl was heated. People
behind were murmuring angry agreement. "It's marked!" "It's
still not fair, you silly cow!"
    "Our melons are not measly!" The manageress, steaming up
with more falsehoods. "Lovejoy. You're barred from shopping here!"
this boss hood thundered. "Savvy Savvy's for respectable shoppers! Get
security, Nelly!"
    "Barefaced robbery!" I'd only come in for some cheese
and tomatoes. They don't do pasties. I get those from Barm In The Barn near the
railway, Tuesdays. "Don't come to me when you go broke. Thieving
cow."
    The town was crowded, mostly with people delightedly grinning
through Savvy Savvy's windows at the chiseling within. I dumped their grottie
cheese and tomatoes, yelled, “They used to be four shillings, proper
money." Pre-decimal prices always get to