The Judas Pair by Jonathan Gash Page A

I must have looked exasperated because she asked me what was wrong.
    ‘Beats me why they do it,’ I said in an undertone.
    ‘Do you mean the gardener?’ she whispered back.
    ‘Yes,’ I muttered. ‘Why can’t they leave the blinking plants alone?’ I was glad I’d said it because it gave her a laugh.
    The pond was a small lake, complete with steps and a boat. A heron, grey and contemplative, stood in the distance. I shivered.
    ‘Cold?’she asked.
    ‘No. Those things.’ I nodded to where the heron waited. ‘It’s fishing, isn’t it?’
    ‘Why, yes.’ She seemed surprised.
    ‘Can’t you give it some bread instead?’ I suggested, which made her laugh again and pull me round to see my face.
    ‘Aren’t you . . . soft!’ she exclaimed.
    ‘I’d like the countryside, but it’s so bloody . . .
vicious
.’
    ‘Don’t you like my garden, Lovejoy?’
    I stared around accusingly. ‘It’s a county, not a garden.’ I flapped my hand but the heron wouldn’t go. ‘Does it all belong to the house?’
    ‘Of course. Eighty acres.’
    ‘It’s lovely,’ I agreed. ‘But everything in it’s hunting everything else. Either that or trying to escape.’
    She shivered this time and raised her headscarf. ‘You mustn’t talk like that.’
    ‘It’s true.’
    I watched her hands tidy her hair beneath the scarfs edge. They have a natural grace to set off their own gestures, doing hair, pulling on stockings or smoking a cigarette. She saw me gaping at her. I looked back at the water.
    ‘Lovejoy, what do you really do?’
    ‘Oh, very little. I’m an antiques dealer, really.’ I paused to let her load. Where the hell was all this kindness coming from? I wondered irritably. She said nothing. ‘I’m your actual scavenger. Nobody’s sacred. I even winkled out your priestly collector friend, and he lives miles away.’
    ‘Reverend Lagrange?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘He’s been a good friend. He and Eric met years ago. I don’t think he collects the same things Eric did.’
    Nobody else does, either, I thought enviously. We moved along a flowered walk with those trellises against a wall.
    ‘I wasn’t telling the truth the other day.’ Own up, Lovejoy. Never be only half stupid. Go broke. ‘You probably guessed.’
    ‘Yes.’
    I eyed her carefully. ‘Aren’t you mad at me?’
    ‘No.’ She pulled a leaf from some thorny plant that hadn’t done her any harm. ‘You’re not the first to have tried the same . . . thing.’
    ‘Trick,’ I said. ‘Be honest. We call it the box gambit in the trade.’
    ‘Box gambit?’
    ‘I wish I hadn’t started this,’ I said.
    She put the leaf idly between her teeth and saw me wince.
    ‘What’s the matter?’
    ‘You wouldn’t like it if you were that leaf.’ She looked at it, and dropped it on the path. ‘It’s not dead.’
    ‘But how on earth do you eat, Lovejoy?’ she asked me.
    ‘Like us all, but that’s an essential.’
    ‘What’s the box gambit?’
    I told her, feeling rotten. Box as in coffin. Anybody dying leaves a house and antiques, if he’s wealthy enough to get his name reported in the papers. Those who are missed by our ever-vigilant press are listed in the deceased column by sorrowing relatives anxious to do the local antiques dealers a favour. We read up the facts of the case. Within seconds, usually, and before the poor deceased is cold in his grave, we kindly dealers are round visiting the bereaved, claiming whatever we think we can get away with. And you’d be surprised how much that is.
    ‘And do . . . widows fall for it?’ She stopped, fascinated.
    ‘More often than not’
    ‘Do you really mean that?’
    ‘Of course,’ I snapped harshly. ‘Over ninety per cent of the time you come away with a snip, nothing less than useful information.’
    She seemed intrigued by the idea, part-horrified and partly drawn to it.
    ‘But that’s like . . . being . . .’ she hesitated and looked back. The heron was still there. I said it for