Pearlhanger Read online

  The big old Rover was now adorned with two white metal wings projecting from the mudguards. Not, note, wings as in car, but as in angel. It was bloody daft.

  Mel glanced across. ‘Do you, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Really, Lovejoy?’ Lydia said doubtfully, eyeing the car. ‘White’s such a risk.’

  ‘Well, dearie,’ Sandy trilled venomously at her. ‘We all know where your colour sense goes in the wintertime don’t we I mean can we ever forgive that opal harness you wore over that plastic last Easter oooh!’

  His screech made me leap a mile. Every head turned. He was pointing dramatically at Lydia’s face. ‘You got it! Mel, dear. Come and see! Lydia’s got that new flicker-shade eye lustre oooh!’

  I thought: Honest to God I can’t stand much more. I’d just escaped the scaffold.

  Mel descended. ‘Lovely, dear,’ he said sweetly. ‘Let’s hope you learn how to use it. The fashion might come back. One day.’

  ‘Whose car’s that?’ A traffic warden, all I needed.

  ‘Ours, dear,’ Sandy said. ‘D’you want a ride?’

  ‘What the fuck’s it doing parked at traffic lights?’

  Sandy tittered. ‘Red and amber go with it, sweetiepie. But your green!’

  ‘Right.’ He pulled out his notepad, paused, looked at me. ‘Here. You the bloke as got done for murder?’

  ‘Murder?’ Sandy screamed, faked a dramatic swoon. ‘Whose?’

  ‘Mr Vernon’s,’ Lydia said. ‘But it was a false charge—’

  ‘Oh, him! Is that all?’ Sandy ostentatiously returned his smelling salts to his handbag with a relieved flourish.

  ‘Right. I’m booking the lot of you,’ from the threatening warden.

  ‘You know Vernon, Sandy?’ I asked.

  ‘Oooh, I love macho!’ Sandy squealed. He stepped forward and gazed soulfully into the goon’s eyes. ‘Promise you’ll take my phone number, dear?’

  ‘And Chatto,’ Mel said. ‘He lodges with Deamer. They own that riverside estate down Salcott. His hair’s quite wrong, of course.’

  ‘Fancy that,’ I said faintly, thinking. So Chatto stayed with Deamer. No wonder it had all been so easy for them to plan. The low spit of land on which Deamer’s house stood rose into my mind.

  ‘I love uniforms.’ Sandy’s hand was looped in the goon’s belt. The idiot, scarlet with embarrassment, escaped. Sandy’s voice rose to a penetrating falsetto. ‘Must you go, dear? You can play with the gear stick . . .’ People were smiling. Everybody knows Sandy and Mel. They’ve got out of more scrapes than Pearl White. This was just Sandy’s technique.

  Abruptly I was on my feet, looking at them. My resources. Two oddities, a drunken barker, a specky prim bird hooked on health foods and properly aired underwear, and me. Still, it was the only army I’d got.

  ‘Look, troops,’ I said. ‘Where’ll I get an aeroplane?’

  ‘That cow Vanessa,’ Sandy said absently, doing his eyes. ‘If you like blue.’

  We left Tinker and Lydia. They drove me off, arguing about their new fibre-optic screen wipers (‘But, Mel, how else can we wave at friends?’ from Sandy). I tried explaining that I wanted to land secretly near Deamer’s mansion house and burgle the place to see who’d murdered Donna’s husband and Owd Maggie and bubbled me to be hanged, and find out who was pulling a pearl scam. Surely it wasn’t too much to ask? They didn’t really listen.

  ‘That peroxide bitch is behind it all,’ Mel said.

  Sandy tittered. ‘Dear Donna wears such canopies over those gaswork hips I mean she could be hiding anyone!’

  ‘You know Donna too, Sandy?’ I asked.

  ‘Doesn’t everyone, cherub? I told her the other week at Madame Blavatsky’s you remember Mel and I had fits over her coral-red shoes—’

  ‘Walter has a plane,’ Mel cut in. ‘Let’s try him. He flies really well.’

  ‘Only when he smokes those strange powders, dear,’ Sandy said, giggling.

  My headache was back. ‘Sandy,’ I got out. ‘Donna Vernon.’

  Sandy had his powder compact out. ‘Desperate Donna poor hag calling up all possible supernatural forces!’ I tried to get a word in edgeways because there were a million clues here in full flight.

  ‘Don’t mock the afflicted, Sandy dear,’ from Mel.

  Sandy giggled. ‘Mel’s furious because he took a shine to her fancy man with the curls. Groper Chatto, poor lamb. A mystery, Lovejoy. She’s so plain.’

  This morning with the police Donna had looked quite distracted. No wonder she’d not realized the danger I was in on account of her testimony. She was only in Chatto’s scam because she was coerced. That was transparently plain. If Deamer and Chatto came croppers in the process it’d just be their hard luck. Well, whatever happened I’d still be the same shape in the bath tomorrow.

  ‘Wake me when we’re there,’ I said, and nodded off, bushed.

  Chapter 17

  DOLLY, THAT I knew once, used to say that my lifestyle was an embarrassment. In fact it’s the other way about: embarrassment’s my lifestyle.

  Luckily Boxenford’s remote, one of those flattish areas of East Anglia where squadrons were stationed during the war. Occasionally our local paper carries pictures of American veterans returning to see how far downhill it’s gone since they left.

  Airports don’t bring out the best in me. I dislike them – correction: I hate them. I always get a wheelie that wants to go anticlockwise and the tickets are baffling. Other civilizations left Lindisfarne gospels. We’ll leave a Dan-Air counterfoil. Airports to me mean spewing tots, and blotch-faced sleepless aunties plodding between loos and the duty-free. Airports are anonymous hotels, Levantine staff in brown and maroon talking Peter Lorre English, croissants instead of breakfast, and only the hotel flag logo ever changes. Travel used to mean the joyous experience of places. Once.

  ‘We’re here, Lovejoy.’

  Rousing, I looked out. The harbour. We were outside Beatrice’s cottage. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Time for your seance, Lovejoy,’ Sandy said. ‘Mel will fix your flight with that cow Vanessa while you’re at it.’

  ‘Give Cardew my regards,’ Mel said. ‘He’s nice.’

  It’s women, not men, who go for mystery, not to mention mystique. They’re hooked on meanings and what’s foretold and all that jazz. You can’t blame them, I suppose. Nothing else to do all day. They’ve got to fill their time somehow.

  Once, I knew this bouncy dark-haired bird Angelina who was a zodiacal astrologist, whatever that is. Her bed crawled with embroidered signs. She ran her life to a starry timetable that had no relationship with planet Earth or us inhabitants. Some days were great for this or that. Others were death. Oh, I’m not knocking it. Don’t get me wrong. There’s this London professor (though only psychology, so maybe he’s a nut too) who’s proved all Olympic gold-medallists are Aries or something. And women’s magazines are full of it. I’m simply open-minded, even about rubbish as long as there’s gelt to be made out of it. Anyway, this bird Angelina was a raving, er, friend. We’d met doing battle over a Cromwellian chair – solid square panel back, arms dead horizontal, legs bobbin turned, brass-nailed leather covering the seat and back. (All those romantic movies are wrong, showing people sitting on chairs when they should be on stools; stools were twenty times as common.) Angelina outbid me. ‘It was in my prediction for today,’ she told me afterwards. We were enthusiastic friends for two months, then she discovered that she’d misread our horoscopes and gave me the push. Apparently we’d been erroneously enjoying incompatibility all along. I’ve not forgiven her that chair, though. I never did get it.

  What I mean is that the future’s guesswork, isn’t it? Otherwise it wouldn’t be future. So, while futurists might be really brimful of worthwhile data, the rest of us wait disbelievingly for a translation.

  And don’t think there was any significance in that odd line from the old folk tune, between the salt water and the sea sand. Songs aren’t psychic. You’d go off your head if you
let coincidences worry you. I was only after proof that Chatto’d killed Owd Maggie and Sid Vernon to liberate my lovely Donna. Anybody who knows me will swear I’m not given to vengeance. I was only after justice. Honest truth.

  Keeping calm, I went in. Mel had wanted to come too but Sandy wouldn’t let him. Barney was out piloting the ocean wave. Beatrice was there, Sandy, me, that plump middle-aged bird I’d liked at Owd Maggie’s seance, her dried-prune husband, two nondescript grannies, and a serious old bald geezer who had to contemplate alone for a few minutes before the whistle. Bea told me she’d brought her friend Seth, but I was damned if I could see him. There were eight chairs.

  ‘Does it have to be so hot in here?’

  ‘Shhh, Lovejoy. Don’t be afraid,’ Beatrice said, patting my hand.

  Stupid woman; wrong end of the stick again. Afraid? I ask you. The only thing on my mind was to get the hell out of here and put the finger on Chatto by raiding old Deamer’s house . . .

  ‘Hands,’ the plumpish lady was saying to me. We were supposed to stretch our hands out flat.

  ‘Will it rock about?’ I whispered to her. ‘Only, on the pictures once—’

  ‘Shhh.’

  ‘Seth,’ Beatrice was saying, her eyes closed and breathing rhythmically. We’d all promised to concentrate. Bea’s cleavage drew my eyes, honestly accidental. Eyes have got to look somewhere, haven’t they? That’s their job. The room should have been darkened at least. Or is that for fortune telling? Faith healing? ‘Seth,’ Bea went. ‘Please speak to me.’

  ‘Doesn’t she mean Cardew?’ I whispered.

  ‘Seth is Beatrice’s spirit guide. Shhh.’

  It was all so mundane. I couldn’t imagine anything less spiritual than a sexy friend tuning in among a motley crew like us. A right sham. Everybody else was switched on all right, a picture of concentration. And Bea was doing her stuff, calling for Seth as if he were an overdue boat on some distant pleasure-pond. I looked round. The grannies smelled of lavender mothballs. The plump bird was inflating with awe while the silence brought out the ticking of her prunish husband’s fob watch. I wondered if it was antique. Baldie communicated with the infinite under a frosting of sweat. It was really gripping, like Wimbledon tennis and telly cricket, and other interminable yawns. My mind drifted. Old prints of so-called sports have soared in value. Don’t take any notice of those silly newspaper articles saying half of the oil paintings in club houses are fakes. Since when did newspapers ever say anything right about art?

  ‘Do you mean Lovejoy, Seth?’ Beatrice said. Nobody had said anything, not even Seth.

  ‘Here, love,’ I said nervously. Well, not nervously, really, because I’m a cool customer and don’t get spooked.

  ‘Shhh,’ everybody went, probably Seth as well I shouldn’t wonder.

  ‘Madame Blavatsky, Seth. Is she well?’ Bea spoke conversationally, none of that phoney falsetto voice which Owd Maggie had used.

  ‘Which Madame Blavatsky?’ I whispered, and got a communal ballocking for interrupting. That narked me, because how can you interrupt a non-conversation?

  ‘Madame is happy, friends,’ Beatrice announced, smiling.

  Some of us murmured appreciation and relief. I didn’t, though I’ve nothing really against deception. It’s been pretty useful even to me.

  ‘Seth. Why was Madame struck down?’

  This was the crunch. We all saw Beatrice’s head nod to some inner affirmation. Silence. My hands were damp, but only because it was so damned hot.

  ‘Because of the message,’ Beatrice said, as if repeating. ‘Seth. Please ask Madame what it was.’

  ‘Look, love,’ I whispered to Beatrice while people glared. ‘I’ll wait outside, have a stroll for a minute.’

  I’d risen to leave despite efforts to pull me down. Sweat poured off me. Nothing to do with this farce, of course. Only, the stupid room’s heat was practically boiling me alive. The others were simply too stupid to notice it, that’s all. Sandy was looking at me, ashen.

  ‘To warn against the death in threes,’ Beatrice said in that same unnerving chat-show voice. ‘Is the message complete, Seth?’

  It frigging well wasn’t. ‘There were only two deaths,’ I croaked.

  ‘A third is near. Friend shall strike friend.’

  This was ridiculous. Sweat trickled down my flanks. It stuck in a cold ring round my neck. If I wasn’t scared of Barney I’d have given Bea a clout for fooling about like this, because three minus two leaves one.

  Their daft game was too much. I had a plane to catch and here I was tarting about while Bea played silly sods.

  ‘Which friend?’ I said nastily while the others were being scandalized at my spoiling the show.

  Beatrice suddenly opened her eyes, which happened to be fixed straight on me, only pure chance. Owd Maggie’s gravelly voice said straight from her mouth, ‘Thee, Cockalorum.’

  Chapter 18

  EVEN WHEN I was a virgin – practically before Adam had a lass – I knew that women were born pests. Apart from that brief exhilaration when consummation first equates with life, I’ve remained pretty well immune to them because I’m reliable, and everybody knows that this quality and women are immiscible, like oil and ale. They have this dyed-in-the-wool knack of nuisance, like horsehair. The old dears who taught me, determined grannies, threatening aunties, lovers, friends, the lot. I’m reasonable and tolerant, and they’re not. Simple as that. This incompatibility’s bound to cause problems, and invariably I’m the one who comes off worst because fair-minded people always do.

  Sandy and Mel drove me back from Beatrice’s after I’d developed a bit of a headache at that bloody seance. That’s all it was. Everybody gets a headache now and again.

  ‘It was the heat,’ I told Lydia for the umpteenth time. They’d collected her on the rainy drive to my cottage.

  Sandy was delighted at the rain because his rotating musical wing mirrors had new neon strip lights. ‘It’s your karma, Lovejoy,’ he said.

  ‘I hadn’t realized Bea could even do impersonations,’ I explained. ‘Anybody would be shaken, hearing Bea impersonate an old friend who’d pegged out, right?’

  Lydia was white as a sheet. I felt mentally spread-eagled.

  ‘Thank you for the journey and your pleasant company, Sandy,’ Lydia said formally, hands clasped and feet together. It’s her way of saying you can’t come in.

  ‘We’ll come for you at four, cherubims,’ Sandy trilled. ‘Today’s scoop: watch my rear lights.’

  We watched, numbed, as the vast old Rover bowled into the lane. Inevitably two huge red headlamps beamed back at us, the offside dowsing in a horrid slow wink. Even over the motor’s din we heard his shrill laughter.

  Gone.

  Lydia insisted I lie down on the divan while she brewed up. The stunning silence was gradually whittled by normal household sounds. Outside, a bird recovered from Sandy’s visit and gave an experimental chirp. Lydia tutted because coat hangers wouldn’t behave when she was tidying. The divan creaked as I turned on my side. A cup chinked. Two garden birds squabbled. A spoon tinked in a saucer. Lydia ahemed for the crunch.

  ‘Lovejoy?’

  ‘Mmmmh?’ My eyes were closed against any more shocks.

  ‘How would it be . . . dear,’ she managed the endearment with resolve, ‘if we asked Constable Ledger for assistance?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The police can effect a resolution far more speedily than you alone, Lovejoy.’

  She went on in this vein but you can’t just lie there taking it.

  ‘Police don’t assist. They do what they like.’

  ‘They represent the law, Lovejoy,’ the innocent little thing said gravely. Every truth is daft to somebody. I had to explain this.

  ‘Law’s trouble for us vulnerables, love. Those who moan hard enough become exempt. Silent folk like you and me get crushed or keep out of its way. The majesty of the law is for those who dispense it.’

  Her expression closed into despair, a
nd I knew immediately what she was going to do. Because of Beatrice’s silly ventriloquist’s trick – ridiculous what grown people will get up to – Lydia was going to phone Ledger. Far more logical to accept that, if I got there quickly and secretly enough, there’d be no third death anyway. Clear as day.

  ‘I am entirely confident,’ this endearing little creature said, ‘in Vanessa’s skills as an aviator. I insisted that Mel ascertain that she is in possession of an authorized pilot-instructress’s licence. But your abilities, Lovejoy, cause concern—’

  Time to lull suspicions. ‘You’re probably right, love. Shall I pour?’

  At half-three I decided to have a stroll up to the village shop for some envelopes, and put on a great show of being casual. I asked her for some shredded cheese for the robin and chucked it out. Then ostentatiously I ambled up the lane, darted back along the hedge for my bike, and pedalled off like hell towards Boxenford without a single helper, and therefore in a better state of preparedness for survival than I’d been for many a long day.

  The plane hadn’t arrived when I reached the flying field, two hours later. It looked like no airport I’d ever seen. In a way I was quite glad. Personal service.

  Vanessa turned out to be a pleasant lass in oily overalls. She was mending a tiny outboard engine in a shed. A scruffy leather-clad yokel was at a workbench singing to a noisy trannie. A few other blokes were around, one or two busy on other engines. A big kite was laid on the grass. Somebody nearby was using a buzz saw, judging by the big-wasp sound.

  ‘Wotcher,’ I said.

  ‘You Lovejoy?’ Vanessa offered me some tinned beer but it always tastes flat as printers’ ink. ‘Mel says you want to land near that big house beyond Pearlhanger. Between the sea and the sandy spit. That right?’

  I avoided her eyes. ‘Mmmmh.’

  ‘We’ve the equipment, if you’ve the money.’

  A pause. I usually try for credit. I’ve found it goes further. ‘What’s it cost?’

  She smiled, pretty. ‘A Japanese helmet, miniature. My brother’s an antique dealer in Norwich.’