PearlHanger 09 by Jonathan Gash Read Free Book Online

reminiscing about antique auctions and swilling ale, and me divvying through a glorious collection of old hearts-and- flowers.
    I'd won thirty-odd Valentines, a few World War I postcards, and several early Christmas cards. Tip: Never pass a box of rubbishy old tat. There's one outside every old junkshop. Remember that Queen Victoria sent over 2,500 Valentines with her very own lilywhites. On the law of averages alone any one dusty old heap of dog-eared cards will conceal a small fortune. The card-sending habit's fairly new, but Valentine wishes in the form of letters or poems go back much further—naturally, since Henry VIII established Valentine's Day by royal charter in the 1530s, naughty old devil.
    Nottingham's taverns did us proud that night for hot grub. Going on for ten o'clock I carelessly put the motor in the central car park and gave Tinker my last notes for a dosshouse somewhere. By then I'd found a pub whose landlord had a brother who was an antique dealer. We did a "provo"—a firm deal with prices agreed but provisional on condition of the items sold. I kept ten mixed cards enveloped up for myself. The landlord's brother, one Josh Thompson, would join me at breakfast to close the deal.
    There was no way I could contact Lydia but I rang Margaret to pass a message on to say I was okay. Dangerous
    territory, using women as go-betweens, so I was carefully noncommittal about what I was doing and where I was.
    That night I settled down determined to sleep the sleep of the just, but Vernon's weird term kept coming to mind: "the best brooch." Who on earth uses words like that, for heaven's sake? As if Vernon was making up some description, not really looking for anything in particular. Yet there was the precise address in what was presumably Donna Vernon's own handwriting, and Reverend Joe's name, J. Cunliffe, Rev. The sort of curt abbreviation you often see in local newspaper ads. Aha. Another clue.
    Mystery: Antique Dealer Sidney Vernon launches a sweep looking for antiques, respectably enough. He zooms off with a list of contacts, yet doesn't get heartburn when missing a luscious antique by a whisker, and doesn't even
    bother to suss out the rest of the stuff on sale. Really weird.
    »
    Despite all I eventually slept like a log and was downstairs whistling for breakfast by seven-thirty. Seeing Donna Vernon drinking coffee in the pub lounge, while motherly women vacuumed the carpets and shook dusters from leaded windows, brought me down to earth.
    6
    "Morning, Lovejoy," La Vernon said, simultaneously calm and furious. Women have the knack of being both, which is why we live in a woman's world.
    "Morning, Mrs. Vernon."
    She held out her hand. I dropped her car keys into the palm and sat. I'd been stupid to assume that she'd not follow. Evading police is easy. Escaping a woman isn't. Now why, I wondered as a bright lady came to serve, did she need me along? Hiring me made less and less sense. Nobody in his right mind would believe she was guided to me by Bea's tea-leaf gazing and that seance rubbish.
    "Good morning, sir. What would you like for breakfast?"
    I stared at the lady. Sometimes I honestly don't believe what I'm hearing. "I'd like breakfast for breakfast, please."
    The woman laughed, pinking. She was chained to a notepad. Cold buzzie and cold feet but warm heart, I knew instantly, because this sort always has. "No. Do you want continental breakfast, or . . .?"
    "Forgotten what your granny taught you, love? Break-
    ... 45
    fast is eggs and bacon and toast and marmalade, and porridge if mice haven't dumped in the oats."
    "We've no time," Mrs. Vernon rasped.
    "See you around then, Donna," I said politely. "Get a move on, missus. I'm bloody starving."
    The cleaning women were having a good laugh but keeping a weather eye on my unexpected visitor.
    "Don't tell me, boss," I guessed resignedly. "You got the train to Nottingham, taxied round, spotted your crate, then asked at the nearest pub for somebody answering my