The Vatican Rip

'Tinker's my barker,“ I said. My chest felt tight. I was in some sort of scrap and losing fast. 'I'm responsible for him.'

'And Margaret?'

How the hell did he know about Margaret Dainty? She and I have been close friends a long time. She's not young, yet despite her limp she has that elusive style some older women carry like blossom. I glanced around. Arcellano's two serfs were now sitting at a table by the door.

I subsided slowly. 'What is this?'

He blew a perfect smoke ring. 'Do the job and no harm comes to any of your friends—

or you. You'll not cry when you hear the fee.'

I swallowed. 'To nick an antique?'

He looked pained. 'Not steal, Lovejoy. I did say I already own it. Think of it as returning it to me, its rightful owner.'

'Who has it?' I said.

'The Pope,' he said.

'The who?' I said.

'You heard.'

'Fucking hell,' I said. 'You're asking me to…?'

'Another drink?' he said. He was still smiling.

CHAPTER 2

I've always found that youth's no deterrent to age. The ultimate proof was the Pinnacle Peak Language Academy, a big, modern but old-looking house on the outskirts of town.

Arcellano had instructed me to report there, making all heads turn by snapping his fingers that snowy January day in the pub and passing me the card one of his goons whisked over. The card read Specialists in Modern European Languages.

'You're going to school, Lovejoy,' he'd said. 'To learn Italian.'

'I'm hell as like.' I'd hated school.

'You register tomorrow.'

This was beginning to look too organized for my liking. 'Can't I just buy a phrase-book?'

'Not for this job.' He rose then, a gentle picture of threatening behaviour but still smiling. 'Your wages will be delivered every Friday.'

'Oh.' I cheered up. These language schools are all the same—a convenience for foreign students to get a visa and for our own students to go on the scive. Simply register, attend the first couple of lessons to show willing, then it's off to the boozer with a part-time job on the side for extras. I thought what a nice simple bloke this bloke was. And a charming nature. 'Right,' I said, keeping the card and carefully not yelping with delight as Arcellano and his grovellers made to depart. Money for jam at last. He paused.

'One thing, Lovejoy. About your wage.'

'Oh, that.' I tried to sound only casually interested, but was pleased he'd remembered the details, like how much.

'It depends on how you do.'

'Eh?'

His blank smile was beginning to get me down. 'Good progress, you get good money.

Little progress, little money.'

I thought, what bloody cheek. 'Then you can stuff your schooling.'

'—And no attendance,' he said quietly, 'no Lovejoy. Arrivederci.'

I watched the unpleasant bastard go. Thoughts of Margaret, Tinker, Jane and the rest rose within me and stayed. Antiques is a rough game. Antiques plus Arcellano was unthinkable. I thought for an hour before leaving the pub.

There was no doubt left in me. Some failures were just not worth having. Back to school for Lovejoy.

* * *

I have to tell you this next bit because it's where I met Maria. And she became more of the rip than ever I wanted, and in a way I hate to remember even yet.

The next morning was bright with that dazzling winter brilliance you get living near the cold North Sea. To the east the sea-marshes glistened, trees standing in spec-tacular white silhouette against the blue. Even the thought of schooling didn't put me down. I'd wangled my Unlearned way through childhood. A day or two more would be peanuts.

And maybe they included dinner.

I got a lift into town on a horse-drawn wagon, since there had again been snow during the night and all the modern mechanical wonder-gadgets were frozen under drifts. At such times East Anglia's one useful vehicle is Jacko's cart. He is a smelly, cheerful old devil, much addicted to light opera, who runs a ramshackle removal van in summer and Terence in winter. Terence is his gigantic shire horse, ancient as a church and about twice as big, and he pulls this wooden farmyard cart which Jacko, a bórn comedian, rigs up with nailed planks he calls passenger seats.

'Is it true you're going to school, Lovejoy?' Jacko called as I climbed up. He was falling about at the notion.

'Shut it, Jacko.' I hate the way word gets round our village.

But he choked with laughter all the way down to the brook and across the water-splash where the town road begins. I had to grin weakly and put up with him because he lets me on for nothing. It was a lot kinder than it sounds—I still owe him for six journeys from last winter when the black ice had blocked us in for three days.

Jacko put us all down at the Albert tavern, from where we could walk up the slushy hill into town. I ploshed my way out to the Pinnacle Peak Language Academy, my chirpiness dwindling with every wet step.

The lowering sky to the south-west was leaden, promising yet more snow. The wind was rising, the air dank and chill. I was hungry as hell, perishing cold and imprisoned in a trap of utter misery by that lunatic Arcellano. My antiques trade would vanish. My life was a wreck.

So I went to school—and met Maria.

From then on things went downhill.

* * *

The so-called Academy was heaving. I'd never seen so many shapes and sizes and ages. Somehow a motley mob of people had battled their way to this emporium of learning and were noisily finding acquaintances among the press. There were kids, geriatrics, housewives, workmen, and elegant ladies obviously bolting from boredom.

The Pinnacle Peak's idea of welcome was a handshake in the form of grievous bodily harm from a bluff language instructor called Hardy ('everybody calls me Jingo'), a sermon full of veiled threats from a geriatric grammarian headmistress, Miss McKim, and a gentle reproof from old Fotheringay. He was heartbroken because I'd never done classics at Balliol. I sympathized, because so was I.

Jingo Hardy enrolled me in a dusty side room. I nearly fainted at the fees printed on the form. One week's worth would have kept me six months.

He boomed a laugh. 'Don't worry, Lovejoy. Yours have been paid. Ten weeks of special instruction.'

He told me to wait in the hall, so I sat on one of the radiator pipes and watched Jingo Hardy, in the thick of things, inform a small disorderly bunch that they were intellectuals about to tackle Russian literature. With poisonous cheerfulness he bullied them off into a side room, leaving only a moderately-sized horde milling blindly to and fro.

What with the warmth and the comfort I must have nodded off or something because the next thing I knew I was being criticized and prodded with a shoe, which proved I was awake again. The hallway was empty. This woman's voice was saying sharply, 'And what do you think you are doing?'

'Waiting.'

I blinked up at her. She was one of the loveliest women I had ever seen. Dark, slender, bright and stylish with a warm tweed-and-cardigan look. Pearl stud earrings. I fell for her. She toed me again. The crowd had vanished. A faint hum arose from the rooms all about, school now in session.

'You're a tramp, aren't you?'

'Not yet.' I said. The irony was lost on her.

'Please leave, or I shall call the police.'

I said, 'Lady. Prod me again with your toe and I'll break it. Off.'

She withdrew a yard. 'Why have you no socks on?'

'Drying.' I got them off the radiator and felt. Still damp, but I started to put them on. All I could do now was tell Arcellano I'd tried and they'd threatened to have me run in.

'And shoes?'

'Give me a sec.' I'd sloped them on the pipe, heels down, in an attempt to dry the cardboard which covered the holes.

She was watching. 'Do you have far to go?'

You can't help staring at some people. There ought to be Oscars or something for hypocrisy. Today's message from this luscious bird: piss off or I'll call the police, and have a pleasant journey strolling through the blizzard. People amaze me.