Every Last Cent

'Great,' I said bitterly. More gunge to clutter my little cottage.

The documentation seemed finished at last. Thomasina Quayle and her people came slowly towards us. Distantly, a plane took off doing that roar and sudden tilt. I hate flying, always get a terrible cold for days after. Doctors should study the viruses spread in aeroplanes' air conditioning, but the idle sods don't.

'Can I develop some of Timothy's prints for you, Lovejoy? As a present?' She tried a smile. Still, a start is a start. 'I can take your photographs. The antiques you find. I did all Timothy's developing and printing, right from when he began photographing his insured things.'

A tired retort was almost out when I suddenly thought, hang on. What was she on about?

'Photographs? Of all the antiques Timothy insured? Like what?'

'Well, everything. Old Masters, archaeology, furniture, the contents of mansions being sold up . ..'

Although I've always knocked photography as boringly dull, you have to admit that it is hugely profitable. In antiques, believe it or not. Remember two things. First, is this photograph authentic, and preferably a one-off picture of some notable scene, historical event, sports meeting, Queen Victoria, whatever. Secondly, and vital to those crazed photo collectors, did the long-deceased photographer himself take and print the photo?

There's a great modern photography scandal. It's the horror antique dealers call the Hine Shine.

Lewis Hine was a picture snapper. His photos are the most famous in the entire world, you'll have seen prints of those American workmen having their sandwiches on that unbelievably high girder? The building of the Empire State Building in New York? The legend – it might be no more than that – has it that Mr Hine dangled high in the air to take these snaps. The pictures almost make me dizzy just looking. Poster shops sell them. One original – repeat, original – print is worth a year's idle sloth on the Riviera.

One of those much uglier sepia-coloured prints – supposedly enlarged by Hine himself –

can go for the price of three years' cruising on the grandest ocean liner. Why? Because collectors want them.

For the genuine, developed-by-the-photographer-himself prints, that is.

Copies aren't worth a cent.

Okay, there's no real artistry involved – not as far as I'm concerned anyway – but maniacs will pay a king's ransom for a snap. I'd actually seen these photographs go at Sotheby's and Christie's for tens of thousands. Unbelievable, when you can borrow books of the same photos from the town library for nothing.

Well, that was the situation. Then somebody detected a fault. It's the Hine Shine.

Something seemed wrong with the prints being sold of photos taken by Man Ray and Ansel Adams, whoever those worthies might be. Word was whispered round photo specialists, Those prints might actually be modern reprints. Horror!

Take a photograph. Stick it under a fluoroscope. Old photographs don't shine as much as prints made on new paper. There are books – wholly boring – on the chemistry of obrags (optical brightening agents, OBAs) that came in half a century ago. These chemicals stop modern paper from yellowing quite so quickly. The result is, modern photographic paper fluoresces differently. So if you're going to fake some 'old'

photographs, print them on old rag-pulp printing paper. (Get the rags, incidentally, in bundles of old clothes from second-hand charity shops in every high street, and make your own paper. It's simple, takes a week to do, and you're in business. If you're a crook, that is.)

The tests are easy. The Hitler Diaries succumbed to similar tests, as did the drawings of Eric Hebborn, a forger of Old Master drawings who was a friend of mine and who really was a master faker. And the phoney Shroud of Turin.

All you need is a source of good photographs of the right objects, and somebody to do it. Then you can make a mint. I looked at Florence. Wouldn't it be churlish to refuse her kind offer? And didn't she need a kind friend, help her to get on with her life?

'Thank you, love. That's really kind.' I put my arm round her. 'Darling. I'd love some of Timothy's old pictures. Just as a memento.'

'Oh, Lovejoy. Would you really?' She looked at me. 'You're not saying that just to be kind?'

'No,' I replied truthfully. 'No. I'd really like them.'

'I'll pick his real favourites! He used to think they were quite valuable. I'll have them specially mounted.'

'Lovely.' I walked her to meet Mrs Quayle. 'Incidentally, can you do that nice old-fashioned sepia colouring? Only, my old auntie likes those. She's very sick. If I get some old paper, could you . . .?'

'I'd love to!' she cried, recovering fast. Give a woman a job to do.

'Best say nothing to Mrs Quayle,' I improvised carefully. 'She might think you'd held back some of Timothy's possessions from probate.'

'I wouldn't do such a thing, Lovejoy!'

'I know that, darling.' I held her hands and smiled. 'Just between us.'

Mrs Thomasina Quayle approached. 'That's that. Now we can go. Are you all right, Mrs Giverill?'

'Yes, thank you, Mrs Quayle.'

Women spend half their time asking each other how they are. They never ask the bloke. Ever notice that?

42

THOMASINA QUAYLE WALKED with me to my cottage, Florence having been dropped off at the village shop.

'Your place isn't exactly a mansion, is it?'

'Never said it was.' I feel embarrassed when women stand watching me. I become an actor who's forgotten his cue. 'At least it's my own.'

'That's not quite true, is it?' She didn't smile, but inside she was rolling in the aisles.

'Your three false mortgages. Your two additional loans.'

'I'll get by.'

Mostly, I try to forget debts. They're a nuisance. She took a few paces, looked hard at the divan. It had been tidied by a skilled hand. Her eyebrows raised. I shrugged. Well, I'd no spare room, so there you go.

'What now, Lovejoy? You stay here, special friends with Florence?'

'No. I told you. She's off to her sister's in Cumbria.'

'I wouldn't bank on it.' She eyed me. 'When you get rid of your other obligations, Lovejoy, you might consider coming to lodge at my place. I mean if you get into difficulties. No obligations. I have a spare flat for... acquaintances. Rent free. By the water in Wroxham. I'm in the phone book.'

'I'm fine here, ta.'

'Only, I don't want this business to go on and on.' She faced me. 'Do you understand?

No more trouble –Ferdinand, Tex, the brigadier, Horse and FeelFree, that queer Dennis, Jessica and her coven, so many rogues out there. And your Mortimer was helping tourists in the Antiques Arcade again yesterday. Your dealer friends are on the warpath.'

'I understand.' But board with the plod? I'd have to be pretty desperate.

'Let me know where you get to. Every single moment, Lovejoy.'

'Right.'

She sighed as if at some irritating child's foible. I went to see her motor glide off. Alone.

I turned and yelped. Sandy stood there, weeping. Mel stony-faced beside him.

'You stupid burkes!' I yelled. 'You almost scared me to frigging death!'

'We waited in your forgery, Lovejoy.' Mel was furious as usual. It would be about something incomprehensible, as usual. 'Sandy is very upset.'

'Having killed Timothy Giverill?' I said nastily.

Sandy's tears became uncontrollable. Mel was white with rage.

'Lovejoy. Can't you see he's inconsolable?'

'He deserves to be, Mel. And so do you.'

'Lovejoy. I know I've been really careless, stupid.' Sandy plucked at my arm. I shook him off. 'But I've come to try and make it up to you.'

'How? Make up what? I'm still alive. Others aren't.'

'Didn't you know?' he said with sly innocence. 'Alicia Domander was the brigadier's housekeeper. They're off to Spain to live happily ever after. And that wretched mutt.'