The Grace in Older Women Page 13

  'Course,' I prattled on, Tom Chippendale loved these glazing bars. Mahogany'd come in by then. It's tough enough to cut into thin rods, sometimes overhanging the actual glasspointed it out. That was an innovation.'

  Beckoning them close, I lowered my voice. 'See, Tom loved the ladies. He intended his cabinets for their dressing or with-drawing rooms. He went on a bit about japanned softwoods - it shows the oriental influence better - but the softwood's not lasted like mahogany.'

  ‘It looks frail, Lovejoy,' from Nadette's husband, Jerry.

  Thank you, Jerry. 'It'll outlast us all.' Which gave rise to a splurge of gallows humour. I was asked to price everything we saw, from the lovely carpet woven by Lord Rockingham's mum to Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Rockingham - he owned the nag. 'The real find would be . . .' they fell silent '. . . a Chippendale cabinet not mounted on a stand. There's only one such of his known.'

  'What would that be worth?' Vernon, the golf hawk.

  'Don't do it, Vern,' I begged. 'You're thinking: Buy a real Chippendale cabinet on a stand, then cut its legs off and make it priceless.'

  Which set them all off, whooping and laughing.

  'What's wrong with sharing a fortune?' Mahleen demanded.

  'Look, pals.' I had to tell them. 'Some antiques are actually unique. The Last Supper, or the Koh-i-Noor in its present 106-carat form. A unique is too well known to fake, unless you've got a buyer. And your price has to be a mint.'

  'Seems good to me,' Wilmore said.

  Everybody roared, but I was suddenly desperate to convince. I could see their eyes gleaming, avarice in overdrive. They'd be out in the junkshops faking any minute. We're a breed of greed.

  'No. Honest. Listen.' I had to talk them back to sanity, in antiques, rarity is inversely proportional to fallability. See?' They went agog. 'Once upon a time, there was a great ship. Biggest warship of mediaeval days, Henry Vs. Struck by lightning, sank, was lost in the waters. That's an antique worth finding, right?'

  'Sell us a treasure map, Lovejoy!' Wilmore, irrepressible.

  'No need.' My punch line. 'Everybody's known all along where the Grace Dieu is. Since that terrible day, in AD 1439, she's lain in the River Hamble. Everybody knows that 3,906 trees were used to build her. Okay,' I said into their quiet, 'tales varied about the enormous ship that occasionally showed at freak low water. Her supposed identity wavered as centuries passed. Locals pillaged, nails, weapons, iron fixtures. Many cottages have her wooden beams in their roofs. But she's there. Carbon dating, historians, records, everything says so.'

  'What's your point, Lovejoy?'

  'If an antique - any antique - is unique, then even if it's lost like the Grace Dieu, the Holy Grail, Michelangelo's Sleeping Cupid sculpture - then it become virtually unfakable. See?'

  'You mean, forge common antiques, not rare?'

  'That's it, Vernon.' I was relieved. Tension lifted.

  'Like you do?'

  No answer to that except some crack about occasional exceptions, which got us all joking and moving on. I noticed that Vernon was hanging back talking intently to Nadetta's husband Jerry, but put it down to idle chat.

  By the time we'd finished our tea-and-wad we were worn out but exhilarated. We stopped at the Gunners Arms in Whychwe Fleet, a low estuary clogged with river craft, exchanging songs and getting sloshed, the driver with us. We had a kitty, Mahleen standing me my sub, and had pastie, beans, chips, followed by spotted dick - the merry jokes on that- and custard.

  But why was I sick to my soul? What had I done wrong?

  It was about tennish by the time we reached the George - yes, breakfast, I'd be along, half-eight precisely, more ribaldry, that sort of good night - and then spoke from the pavement to the driver.

  'Where's your garage, mate?'

  'Sudbury. You want me to drop you off on the way?'

  'Aye, please.' I climbed in.

  The town was quiet. The main thoroughfares are High Street and Head Street, always brightly lit. It's not remarkable despite its antiquity. Town Hall, banks, shopping centre hanging fire at night time, a car swishing through as tired as its driver, a lone bobby bored by the traffic lights, a couple coming late from the pictures unlocking their parked car.

  'Hang on.'

  Something was nagging. For one thing, I wasn't as kaylied as I ought to have been. The driver was merrier than I was, and he'd been pretty abstemious. In fact, I was cold sober. The incident at Jox's UFO scam kept coming to mind. It was exactly what happened to Tryer's enterprise, what was it, some holy well he's dreamt up with his brother from Breakstone. The parish. Tryer had said something ... I struggled to remember, befuddled.

  'Lovejoy,' the driver prompted, 'when you're ready?'

  'Half a sec.'

  Tryer had said something like, He didn't exactly say it was blasphemous, but he come near ... An outright accusation of blasphemy would have hit the nation's headlines. But an administrative correction wouldn't rate a single breath. I'd mentioned Tryer, when speaking up for Jox and Hugo. And I'd been pretty free talking of Tryer somewhere else - where was it?

  'Can you go down the bypass?'

  'Aye.' He pulled away, changing gears smoothly. 'But that Leisure place will be closed. Except for the nosh bar, burgers.'

  I leant over. 'Get a move on, mate. It's urgent.'

  'Traffic lights, Lovejoy,' he said, pointing as we slowed near the war memorial. 'My gaffer'd skin me if I got booked.'

  'It's late. Who's to see?' I was agitated, frantic now to see Tryer was all right. 'For Christ's sake, I'd bloody get out and run.' One mile, maybe ten furlongs, was all it was.

  'You've been tarting about, Lovejoy! It was you stood gaping, not me. We could've been there.'

  The lights changed. I stood, swaying, holding the passenger pole, staring out of the sightscreen. When I'm useless, I'm infallibly dud. There's this theory, isn't there, that everything that happens in your life is a fluke, that plans and decisions aren't worth a bent groat? It's all chance. Then there's the opposite theory, that your life is the direct result of your decisions, conscious or subconscious. Both theories can't be right, and they're dead opposites. But at that moment, barrelling down East Hill to the bypass, I know which one I believed. I think I'd been up to no good. Secretly, with sinister intent, I'd chucked straws into the wind to test it. And now I was scared it had become a gale, while I'd dawdled. I just hoped to God it hadn't blown anyone away.

  The driver, infected by my anxiety, began hurrying, cutting corners, overtaking on the forbidden inside lane near the river bridge, putting his hazard lights on at the roundabout. He had us swinging left into the Leisure place beyond the fire station faster than I could have run, give him that.

  They were at it when we got there.

  'Here, here!' I squawked. 'Stop there!' I'd glimpsed, in the swish of headlights, a figure lope across the boating pond's reflected sheen. No illumination, just the skyglow, glaring the wrong way of course. I could see the palish blur of Tryer's trailer.

  'What the fuck?' the driver said bemused. He cut his engine. I was out in a rush, shouting him to come and help.

  We were a hundreds yards off. I heard somebody bleat. A man's voice, a woman's? Was it a voice at all? There are ducks about, and you never can tell.

  'Stop that!' I bawled, out of breath when I'd not done anything except rabbit at the driver. 'Stop! In the name of the law!' I yelled, really pathetic. Running like hell I threw my voice deeper, to sound not scared.

  'What's going on there?' somebody shouted, thin and miles away. Always at a distance when you want them.

  'Help! Police!' from me, just as useless. 'Stop!'

  The shout - voice, unvoice - came from the left, a distance from the trailer. For a mad moment I thought of starting Tryer's engine for its headlights. It was facing that way. But what if it was locked? Precious seconds. I sprinted past the trailer, still bawling my head off, police, help, stop thief, heaven knows what, and heard Chemise calling in fright.

  'What is
it? Tryer?'

  Opened her door, blinding me in the bloody bargain.

  'Close that light off, for God's sake!' I hurtled past. She ran out, the door blinding us further.

  'Lovejoy? What's the matter? Where's Tryer?'

  'Arrest that man!' I howled, outstripping her. By then I was beside the boating pool, reeds whipping my knees. I heard a terrible throaty sound in the gloaming and a faint splash. Something floundered, bleated one last time, and went a terrible thunk.

  'Bring a light!' I shrieked, bawled, but my throat caught. I stumbled forward in that daft posture we use when groping forward in the dark for something we don't know, crouched, chin projecting, hands swimming the dark before me. 'Help! Over here!’

  'What's going on?' That imperious thin voice. Authority, demanding attention but doing sod all.

  'Bring the fucking police, you pillock!' I yelled, resumed my ridiculous groping, wading in the reeds.

  'Lovejoy? Where's Tryer?' Chemise, behind me. She splashed, took a breath, squelched to the grass. 'He came to meet somebody.'

  There was a dreadful pungent stink. It wasn't anything rural, nothing human. It wafted after me, after us. I heard a small disturbance, reached out, grabbed nothing. Now, the children's boating pool is only a foot deep.

  'Maybe he fell in, Chem,' I said, trying to stop my voice quavering. I’ll go and see. Stop here.'

  And waded in, to the place I'd guessed that bleat and blow came from. Maybe I was wrong. I used my hands, stepping slowly, trying to look sideways, hoping to catch a glow from somewhere. Then I heard the driver gun the engine, the rotten swine cutting and leaving, the evil pig.

  His headlights cut the night. I heard him shout left or right, Lovejoy, the vehicle chugging nearer. What a nice bloke, I thought.

  Just as I put my hand on a face and screamed, screeched, howled and flailed like a desperate duck out of the reeds and away from it. And stood sodden like the coward I am.

  'Over here!' I shouted, trying to pretend I hadn't been panicked out of my skin. 'This way!'

  Tryer!' Chemise shrieked. 'It's Tryer! Get him, Lovejoy!'

  'I am, for Christ's sake!' I waded back in, hesitating, feeling. I couldn't see the pale blob that had been something's face, kept going, feeling, ghost swimming, crouching . . . Bump.

  He wasn't floating. His arms must have been touching the bottom, so shallow was it. My foot crunched glass, our yobbos' idea of a joke, to chuck broken bottles in.

  'Gotcher, Tryer,' I said, grabbing his collar and pulling, but hopeless, already knowing he was gone. That's me, causing this, then trying to cheer Chemise up by extending her hope that my dramatic non-rescue non-dash, was in time.

  'Here, Lovejoy.' The driver was with me, us tugging Tryer's body, Gullivers with Lilliput's navy.

  We hauled him up the grass, turned him over. Chemise fell on him, stroking and crying. His skull was stove in near the temple. One eye protruded.

  'He's going to be all right, Lovejoy, isn't he?' she wailed. Tryer? Tryer, darling.'

  When the explosion came it almost flattened us all. In slow motion I saw Chemise bend under the blast. I was flung backwards, over and over. The driver's elbow caught me on the face as he was catapulted into the water. I was stunned, came to with the sky lit like on Bonfire Plot, but no fireworks, only a steady roaring whitish fire leaping where Tryer's Sex Museum and his erstwhile fortune had stood. I tried, but couldn't get up. My arm was twisted under me. The driver was near me on the grass, his face black as if scorched in some sooty fire.

  Then people, desperate first-aiders, an ambulance, a doctor, a fire engine - how the hell had they taken years to reach us? The fire station was only three hundred yards away, for God's sake. Playing billiards all frigging night instead of getting to the starting line. And finally, at a headlong stroll, the police, who started work by placing me under arrest. Several witnesses had seen me struggling in the boating pool with the deceased. A good witness, especially to constabulary, was the park keeper, who had seen me force Tryer's head under water and kick him to death. Like I say, luck or design, who knows? Actually, I believe those two theories are identical, one and the same. When it's luck, we reckon we've planned it. When it seems like we've worked it all out, it's us conning ourselves. Everything's luck.

  Or, I realized, coming to in a police cell, lack of it.

  16

  They questioned me in their time-honoured way, namely and to wit, telling me what they wanted me to say and to sign their blank sheets. This is so they could all go back to their subsidized boozer in the crypt until their respective tours of duty ended. I said I hadn't a clue, no idea, what on earth were they talking about. I thought of swinging the lead, forgetting my own name and all that. But I'd done it once before. It hadn't worked then either.

  They brought me before Maudie Laud, a firecracker who is now the region's boss. She is smart and mistrustful of everybody, mostly me. I'll like her in another reincarnation, because she also distrusts her own Plod.

  'Lovejoy,' she began, after telling the tape recorder the date and time, 'you were arrested on reasonable suspicion.'

  'Was I?' I brightened immediately, because it sounded like an excuse. I wasn't forgetting I'd gone partly amnesic. Some suspicions are reasonable. Over nine hundred years ago, our beautiful Princess Margaret, fleeting to a nunnery for reasons best not gone into, was shipwrecked. Who should help her ashore but King Malcolm of Scotland, who proposed on the soggy spot. (Actually, he already had a Queen, but she soon died suddenly - some pious folk claim her death was St Margaret of Scotland's first miracle.) The convent idea got binned. But King Malcolm was suspicious, for his new Queen Margaret secretly slipped away each day. With drawn sword and seething retinue he followed - to find her praying for his soul before a secret altar. History doesn't tell how embarrassed he was: ‘Oh, sorry, love. Er, just out strolling with a column of armed knights in this, er, barren cave, er . . .' Sort of scrape I get into, but not out of. Where was I? Being reasonably guilty.

  'Indeed,' Maudie said crisply. 'Several corroborating witnesses. However it seems you appeared on the scene after the event, and in company with a charabanc driver in whose company you had been all day.’

  ‘Had I?' Her lips thinned in anger. She controlled it, game lass.

  ‘Yes. With Americans presently residing at the George Hotel. You took them to Whychwe Priory on an outing.’

  ‘Did I?' Frail and sagging.

  'Therefore,’ she said, with a visible effort not to have me shot for bad acting, ‘I am dropping charges for the time being. You can leave.’ She told the tape recorder the time and date, and explained to it, seeing it really cared, that the interview was over. For the time being is their threat to us law-abiders.

  Thank you,’ I said, rising with a distinct totter.

  There were three others in the room, two uniformed Plod of serfdom rank, plus some stout silent bloke with malevolent eyes. I hated him and his fancy waistcoat back.

  ‘Lovejoy,' Maudie said. ‘One word. If you don't mind.’

  If I didn't mind? Had the planet spun off course? I waited as they left. The stout plainclothesman hung back.

  Thank you, Wilberforce,' Maudie said. The door closing on his hot steady eyes.

  ‘New chaplain?' I said. Mistake. Jokes always are, I find. Jimmy James, funniest ever comedian, never told a single joke.

  She was still seated and looked up with a calculating expression. She lit a cigarette, which surprised me. I wanted to remind her, no smoking in the nick, but wisely didn't.

  ‘Ideas, Lovejoy’

  Not a question. Tell who killed Tryer, Lovejoy, or else. They'd not said if the driver was recovering, or moribund in hospital. Nor Chemise.

  ‘Dunno, love, I returned her stare. ‘Honest to God, I'd tell you if I'd even an inkling.'

  ‘You see my problem?' Mild of manner, a genuine question this time. She inhaled, took a shred of tobacco off the tip of her tongue, every gesture deliberate. I'd hate to make love with Maudi
e Laud; you'd never know what bits were acting. Mind you, I never do anyway, because I'm too busy entering paradise. ‘I believe you could guess, but will not say.'

  ‘You're wrong. I've just said.'

  'You will seek out and do to death the perpetrator?'

  'Me? I've never done anything like that."

  'Which is the most evil way a police investigation can end, Lovejoy.' She went on as if I hadn't spoken. 'Loose ends make untidy stitching. They fray in my mind, fraying away.’

  ‘Yes.'

  'My suggestion is this: go about your lawful business. But before you do anything, ask even the most innocent question, call, personally, at my home if need be, pass word by your smelly reprobate Dill. Understand?'

  'Yes.’ Christ, they talk like the League of Nations. It comes with an inflation-proof pension. 'Can I ask?'

  She didn't move. ‘I’ll listen.'

  Aha. She really did know zilch. 'I decided to call on Tryer, ask about his eviction notice, the council's watch committee, con another meal out of Chemise. Did Chemise see anybody?'

  'No perpetrator. Nor the driver.’ She added with unconcealed bitterness, 'The fire services did their usual job of obliterating every footprint on the greensward.'

  'Good that they came fast, though,' I said without thinking.

  Her expression changed. 'So you remember we were last on the scene?'

  'Aren't they always?' I said, blithe. She wasn't fooled.

  That was that. I had no injuries to speak of, a few scratches I could live with. I said good morning and left. I reached the car park before my way was impeded.

  'Yes, Mr. Wilberforce?'

  He stood, metabolic rate burning fat, sweating hate.

  'I've heard about you, Lovejoy.' He smelled of garlic. His moustache was brownish at each end. His waistcoat glittered. 'Your record stinks. I know you, Lovejoy. You ponce, filch, thieve, cadge, nick, beg off everybody. You're disgusting. You know it. I know it. So I'm going to get you, hook or crook.'