And take everything.) If it happens to patients admitted to the same hospital then the crooked informant will be somebody in Reception who takes your details down. She tells her criminals the addresses of patients who are in for lengthy treatments . . . The plod are worse than useless. Ask the police to protect your house while you have your hip done, they'll simply go back to their snooker halls which, locals here joke, never get robbed. The box job's another version, when crooks strip your Aunt Agatha's house while you're at her funeral. (That's easier, needs no accessory other than the obituary columns.)
It was glimpsing Paul and his birds – still collecting for the hospice in the shopping precinct – that made me remember somebody he'd mentioned. I crossed over, keeping a weather eye on his latest, an irritable sparrow the size of a sack.
'Wotcher, Paul. Okay to ask?'
He smiled, said hello. He was allowing a little girl to stroke a bird with white feathers. It looked a real gangster.
'That auctioneer you mentioned. Remember? He chandeliered me once, and there was that fuss. He used to stand help you collecting.'
To chandelier is when an auctioneer takes fake bids instead of from some legitimate punter. Auctioneers are always at it. I owed him.
He thought a minute, saying, 'Ta, missus,' every time somebody clanked a coin into his tin. Then, 'Nice bloke. Still lives in Dragonsdale. Lanny Langley-Willes. Big twitcher.'
He told me the address. I had the good manners to ask Paul about his missus. His face clouded.
'She gives her time to Aspirin, Lovejoy.' He glanced about, made sure no children could hear. 'I think it's the end for us, really. Pity.'
What can you say? 'Sorry, mate.'
He smiled bravely on, telling bystanders of his birds' evil predatory habits, letting them stroke their feathers. Some folk are just kindly made, and act holy all their lives. Other people, I've heard, aren't.
Money, like lawyers, absolves the killer. Enough money could beatify Stalin. It's a feature of civilizations. Countries in the throes of revolution do without the middlemen, go straight for the gun or famine. In it all, there stands the squeeze.
Squeeze is the old China Coast word for illicit money. You want a new dress design before the catwalk show? Easy. You pay squeeze to the guards, who let you in after nightfall so you can snap it and your seamstress run it up overnight. You want to leak that secret government report on Walsall's homeless? Slip squeeze to the printers, and behold a copy comes under your door! You want your handsome bachelor boss's private curriculum vitae? Why, a little squeeze paid to Elsie who does his dinners and, surprise surprise, his CV's on your desk! So now you can accidentally bump into him, all glammed up ... and so on.
The hallmark of the squeeze? Nobody knows anything afterwards. When police hunt that somebody who stole those secret dress designs before the London Fashion Show, or filched that White Paper on the homeless, or let slip where your eligible boss went fishing, nobody knows anything. It's the old 'What, moi?' business, with the wide-eyed stare. Innocence rules.
It's everywhere. But mostly in auctions.
Think of the benefits. Suppose you knew the names and addresses of all the people who sent stuff in to an auction. You could casually meet them, then it's, 'Good heavens!
I've just been looking for a piece of pure white-paste brilliant glazed Derby porcelain!
My beloved sister collects post-1770s Derby ware! And you've actually sent it in to be auctioned? You poor thing. Auctioneers rook you, you know.' And quickly move on to,
'Look. Why don't I make you an offer? By the way, isn't your hair lovely! I've always admired women who wear blue / lemon / pink ...' etc, etc.
Not only that, you could steal desirable items before viewing day if you get the catalogue early enough. Theft is always done for a flat fee, currently fifty zlotniks an item, unless there's something special about the antique. Incidentally, your hired thief will expect at least one item's fee as a tip if he does the job well. It's polite. Your thieves will then spread the word that you're a decent wallet to work for. Add one tip extra for every five antiques they steal. So if you want, say, ten antiques stolen from an auctioneer's, pay the thief ten times fifty zlotniks plus fifty times two – total six hundred for the transaction. They pay their own transport. Don't do it for them – you don't want to be implicated in any shocking robbery, do you? You're honest! And don't pay until you receive the stolen goods.
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.