'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.