Spend Game Read Free Page A

place. I now remembered that holiday she had taken last year with an unnamed friend to the Scillies. Leckie had been away too, by an odd coincidence. After that he’d had more money to buy with. His trade had looked up. Twice he hinted at a silent partner. Christ Almighty, I thought, suddenly weary as hell. It never rains but what it pours crap. Sometimes I’m just stupid. Val and Leckie, for gawd’s sake.
    ‘Tell me, Lovejoy.’
    ‘It might have not been him, love,’ I said desperately. She drew back and looked at me, up and down and up and down. She shone the flashlight.
    ‘That’s mud.’
    ‘There was an accident . . .’
    ‘Leckie?’
    ‘It . . . it looked like him, love, but –’
    She walked away towards the wall and stood there a minute.
    ‘It was a car, Val. He got . . . got . . .’
    ‘Killed,’ she said, turning. She fumbled for the key and held the door. ‘And the first thing you could think of was what antiques he’d left here, in case there was a chance of making a few pounds.’ Her eyes were streaming.
    ‘Not really, Val,’ I began, but she wasn’t having any and gestured me up the steps.
    ‘Take your stuff out of here first thing tomorrow, Lovejoy,’ she said in a monotone. ‘You’re not nice any more. Don’t come here again.’
    ‘Look, love,’ I tried desperately. Val and Leckie. How was I to know?
    She dropped the key on its string and went into her house, just let the key fall there on to the steps and walked off, leaving the cellar door open and me standing there like a goon. I had to feel around before I could find it, and even then it took a while to lock up. I put the key on the lintel. I knocked a couple of times, half-hearted. She must have heard but didn’t come to the door.
    The rain had eased off. I cranked my zoomster into feeble bronchiectatic life and rattled back through town towards my own village. It’s three miles off to the north-west. Three-quarters of an hour before closing time, the town hall clock said as I trundled past. It would be touch and go, because two miles are uphill. My old crate sounded worn out. It feels these sudden strains, same as me.

Chapter 2
    T HERE’S NOTHING so welcoming as a good pub and nothing so forbidding as a bad one. We’ve some repellent ones, but the White Hart’s as kindly as they come. I stood in the porchway pretending to be preoccupied with my coat, but really sussing out who’d got back from the auction. Tinker Dill was there looking like a derelict straight off the kerb in his tattered mittens and rubbishly old greatcoat. He was standing among a group of other thirsty barkers, all runners for us dealers. Tinker might be the shabbiest barker in the known universe, but he’s the best by a street. He’s also the booziest. He saw me and came weaving through the crowds, not spilling a single drop. A barker only lets go of his glass under anaesthetic.
    ‘Hiyer, Tinker.’ I spoke quietly. ‘Get my stuff from Val’s.’
    ‘Eh?’ He goggled.
    ‘You heard.’ My eyes were everywhere. ‘First thing tomorrow.’
    ‘Sunday:
Bleeding hell.’
    ‘That’s what she said.’ We fought to the bar. I chipped out for a refill and snatched at the barman’s eye for my usual. Tinker grumbled, but that’s nothingnew. He hates merely shifting stuff. His job’s sniffing out antiques wherever they lurk.
    ‘Where do they go?’
    ‘Tell you later when I’ve arranged something.’ The four people crammed nearest us were dedicated anglers talking about massacring the next bream run on the Ouse. Ted was a mile down the bar and his wife Jenny sprinting between the two bars. It looked safe enough, but I kept my voice down. ‘Don’t gape about, Tinker,’ I said casually, ‘but tell me who was here when you arrived.’
    Tinker measured the clock and turned round to lean his elbows on the bar. There’s never any problem about space round Tinker, not with his pong.
    ‘Helen?’ I began, smiling and nodding at the familiar faces in