Spend Game Read online

  ‘Lord love ye, young feller,’ he gasped. (They really talk like this. I’m not putting you on.) ‘Never caught a fish all the time we seed him at it.’

  ‘Aye,’ another chipped in. ‘Forgot the frigging worm, often as not.’

  ‘Never remembered his maggots!’

  They rolled on the aisles while I tried hard to grin.

  ‘Forgetful old bugger,’ the first old cock rasped. ‘Knew no better than to sit among those nettles on the wrong side!’ I had his glass topped up while we laughed at Doc Chase’s hopelessly bad angling technique.

  We chatted some more before leaving. I learned that Chase’s favourite place was on the opposite bank. ‘The same spot,’ Nurse Patmore had told me. I gave Moll the eye. We drank up and were waved off.

  Moll drove. A few hundred yards homeward I told her to stop. We were on the upward slope, where the road turns away from the river to run towards our distant town.

  This river has three bends. The first lies between barley fields, and straightens before the Mount itself is reached. The third is further inland, beyond the actual village, and consists of a gentle curve with woods crowding densely along both banks. It was the second that interested me.

  It is double. The river courses across the small plain where the village houses cluster. There is the inevitable gaggle of thatched roofs, the flintstone church with its impressive spire, and the ornate Early English stone bridge. It all speaks of the wealth of the mediaeval wool trade and commerce channelled by the dour Christian zeal of those days. The Three Tiles pub is at the crossroads near the bridge, lying snugly on the outside bank of the curve. Doc Chase’s favourite fishing spot was almost directly opposite the tavern. I could see birds flashing into the sandy patch.

  ‘Sand martins.’ Moll pointed. ‘Maybe he liked to watch them.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. But you can see them better from the other bank. If you sit on the same side of the river as the sandy mounds you have your back to them all the time.

  The Mount stands on the pub side of the river. It’s tall, as East Anglian hills go, but nobody else would think so, except perhaps a Dutchman. From where we stood, though, it seemed spectacularly large, maybe because there, are no other hills thereabouts. A house or two shows on the inland side of its lower slopes. On this side, however, there is only a dense low scrub of broom and grass with humps of small hillocky bushes here and there. People put the odd sheep out on it sometimes but that’s about all.

  A cloud darkened the sky as we stared at it. The sunshine was slowly caressed from the Mount’s face in a gradual sweep. I couldn’t help thinking what a bloody place to stare at for day after day, month after month, as Chase must have done from his vantage point across the river. Had he fished from the tavern bank he’d have had plenty to look at – the village, the road, the downstream flow of the river and the lovely old church. As it was, he’d only faced the empty hill.

  ‘I hope they didn’t pull his leg too much in the tavern,’ Moll said, smiling. ‘He must have been the world’s worst fisherman.’

  ‘So he must,’ I said. It makes you think. Too bad, in fact. Even a hopeless angler will catch something sooner or later.

  I got her to pull in as soon as we saw a phone box. I pretended my arm was stiff so she came pressing in with me and did the dialling. She was a bit mistrustful, but it was very pleasant.

  ‘Hello, Pat, darling!’

  ‘Get off the line, Lovejoy,’ Nurse Patmore snapped. ‘Medical calls only.’

  ‘About Dr Chase,’ I said. ‘Tell me how many fish he caught on his days off. On average.’

  ‘Well, it was a bit of a joke with us, actually.’ She sounded on the defensive. ‘He wasn’t very lucky.’

  ‘You mean none,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not a very good river.’ She was smiling. Isn’t loyalty wonderful? ‘I think he had rather a soft spot for the fish. He used to say, “Lucky again!” Meaning they’d all got away.’ She paused. ‘Why are you asking all this, Lovejoy?’

  ‘Thank you,’ I told her. ‘Keep taking the tablets.’

  Moll and I drove back to the cottage. She told me my hands were quite cold when we got there and our fingers accidentally touched. I blamed her motor, said it was full of draughts.

  Chapter 12

  MOLL LEFT AT about eight that evening, but I have to tell you about something that happened after she’d gone. It was unexpected. I’d not planned for anything so frank, which only shows how stupid I can be most of the time. The trouble is that when you start finding things out and events finally go your way you start assuming that you’re driving the bus. In fact you might only be a passenger on the wretched thing.

  Moll got ready to go. We were in one of our epidemics of politeness. She kept asking if I’d got her phone number in case I wanted anything and I kept checking it was written down right.

  ‘You’re all alone here,’ she explained. ‘You can’t shout out for help if anything happens.’

  ‘It’s quite safe,’ I assured her, like an idiot.

  ‘Do lock your door, won’t you?’

  That nettled me. ‘I’ll be all right. I’m not scared.’

  ‘I know,’ she said swiftly. ‘Of course you’re not. But I’m worried your crash was deliberate.’

  She thought Jake and Fergus sounded bad people just from their names. That’s just typical of the sort of illogical allies I usually get. Efficiency’s always on the side of the wrong people. I finally waved her off, dishing out profuse thanks for a day’s help.

  The story pieced neatly together. Neat, but disturbing. An old village quack, interested in local history most of his life, stumbles across a valuable rare find. It’s near Mount St Mary. Aware that maybe others would not only become interested but could nick his precious Item before he could get his own clutching hands on it, he starts some evasive tactics. He zooms over to the Scratton tunnel to mislead followers. Then he goes to Mount St Mary where he sits working out where his Item is buried, or maybe just merely keeping an eye on it. Being a kindly old geezer, he hates the idea of hooking fish for nothing so he pretends to be the universe’s most forgetful and useless angler, to everybody’s merriment.

  You couldn’t help but admire him. He remained true to his collector’s instincts and stuck to his act. It worked. He deceived everybody, including Black Fergus and his crew. Nodge had said that whatever was hidden in the auctioned items would explain where in Scratton the precious thing was hidden. Nodge had said Scratton, not Mount St Mary. So they must have followed him ye still been misled by Doc Chase’s feint. The clever old sod. Nothing in the tunnel at all, thank God.

  But I knew something they didn’t. The little disc-shaped railway pass did not refer to the Scratton tunnel at all. Moll had examined it and found nothing. So the disc was a pass for a non-existent line to Mount St Mary. Doc Chase had hidden it to prevent his gem of worthless information falling into the wrong hands. Being wise he’d concealed it behind a Bramah lock in a cheap old piece of crummy furniture, knowing no true collector would miss that. Maybe he’d actually told Leckie about it. Either way, Leckie had successfully bid for the stuff.

  I took out the pass and examined it again. It looked the same, and I was no wiser. Yet there was something making me uneasy. You get these feelings.

  For the next hour I pondered the problem, trying to look up auction catalogues and filing notes away. I stared at maps of the area. It was hopeless. I finished up having a glass of cider and doing nothing. I was on the wall in the garden, ruminating, about nine with dusk coming on. That was how they caught me.

  I heard the car stop in the lane. A door slammed. I never thought it would be Fergus and Jake. I especially never thought they would have two tearaways with them. They came crunching up the gravel. Fergus was beaming. ‘Convalescing, Lovejoy?’

  ‘I’m better.’ I hadn’t the sense to run in and slam the door.

  ‘You don’t look it.’ He puffed up and plonked himself down beside me. ‘Nasty accident, I he
ard.’

  ‘Nasty.’

  ‘Nodge bought it,’ he said sadly. His grin never left him. Jake and the goons stood silently by, listening. Their eyes were on me.

  ‘Shame,’ I said.

  ‘You did it, didn’t you, Lovejoy?’

  I looked about, realizing I was caught. ‘If you say so Fergie.’

  ‘Save yourself, Lovejoy.’ His persistent bloody cheerfulness was sickening. ‘Give me Chase’s thing.’

  ‘Thing?’ I decided to be dim.

  ‘Wilkie told us how you went back for some wood. Give it us.’

  I’d have to have a word with Wilkie. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Fergie.’

  ‘Do him,’ Jake said.

  One of the goons kicked my leg, right against my shin. I yelped and stood up to hop. That brought the end goon between me and the one who kicked me. I cracked my cider glass on the wall and scagged his face open, all in a single sweep of an arm.

  ‘Jesus!’ The goon stepped back; dabbing his face and looking at his bloodstained hands in horror.

  ‘Mind your new suit, Jake,’ I told him. It was maroon, today’s fashionable colour. I held the shattered glass lightly by the handle.

  ‘Lads, lads,’ Fergus reproved, sorrowfully shaking his head. The bastard was still sitting down. ‘This is no way to behave.’

  ‘They the best you can do, Fergie?’ I tried my best to sound scornful but I felt shaky. ‘Where I come from they’d starve.’

  Jake and the healthy goon were separating, watching me. They had knuckledusters on now. Even if I set off running I’d not get far.

  Then, mercifully, Moll’s car pulled in.

  ‘Hello, Moll,’ I yelled, drenched in a sudden sweat of relief.

  ‘Get rid of her, Lovejoy.’ Fergus gave his bleeding nerk the bent eye. He stepped back, hands and hand-kerchiefs to his face.

  ‘No. She’s a copper’s wife.’

  ‘Hello, Lovejoy.’ Moll saw the blood and my broken mug. ‘I came back to . . .’ She glanced at Fergus, me, the two men. Jake was softly giving instructions to the undamaged goon.

  ‘It’s time for tea, love,’ I said brightly.

  ‘Go away, lady.’ Fergus rose and nodded to Jake. ‘Put a match to it, Jake.’

  ‘Eh?’ The goon had a petrol tin. The bastards were going to fire my cottage. He was moving towards my open doorway.

  Jake gave an unlikely yelp of glee. ‘We’ll warm your beer, Lovejoy.’

  I was stepping forward with my puny glass to do the best I could when Moll sorted it all out.

  ‘Stop that!’ Her voice cut through the dusk like a ray. We all stopped where we were, more surprised than anything. ‘I shall phone the constable.’

  ‘Leave off, lady.’ Fergus chuckled. ‘I’ve a dozen witnesses who’ll say we’re miles away.’

  ‘Very well, then. If that’s your attitude.’ Moll rummaged in her handbag. Believe it or not she handed me a small purse and then a powder compact while she searched feverishly. I stood there holding them, feeling a right lemon. We all waited from curiosity, wondering what the hell she was going to bring out.

  ‘Get on with it, Jake,’ Fergus was just saying, when we learned what Moll had brought.

  The goon with the petrol tin was starting forward as Moll finally gave a satisfied murmur. She pulled out a blued Smith and Webley. There was a sharp sound like silk tearing. One of my windows crashed and my eyes were momentarily blinded by the explosion. The nerk howled with fright and Fergus swore.

  ‘There!’ Moll said breathlessly. She was holding this howitzer out as if offering somebody dessert. ‘There now. You must stop,’ she instructed, ‘or take the consequences. I won’t have this kind of behaviour.’

  ‘Christ.’ Jake was stuck. The goon with the petrol put it down and nervously backed away from it. I knew how he felt.

  ‘Now, lady,’ Fergus said. He was less cocky now.

  ‘Please stand still.’ She was hardly the fastest draw in the West, but it’s wise to do as you are told when being pointed at.

  He was moving forward at her, beaming, when she hit him. The ripping sound and the flash set us diving for cover. Moll pulled the trigger three times, swinging wildly. I was screaming for her to stop. I heard this crack and a dull thud but didn’t think at the time. Moll stilled. Jake and the injured goon were lying down. The healthy nerk had scarpered, leaving his petrol tin. I could hear him crashing gears trying to reverse the car in the lane. Fergus was on the ground. It looked like his leg. He was shouting for Moll to stop.

  ‘Give it here, love.’ I took the pistol.

  ‘It’s Tom’s,’ she explained.

  Even police aren’t allowed to keep guns at home. I knew that. I decided to report Tom Maslow when all this was over. He’s no right evading the law.

  ‘Off you go, Fergie,’ I said cheerfully.

  ‘She fucking well shot me.’ He moaned and rolled over to get up. He really was bleeding badly.

  ‘Sue her.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Moll told me penitently. ‘I only meant to make them nervous.’

  ‘You did that all right. You frightened us all to death.’ I waggled the weapon uneasily at the three. I’m as useless with these murderous things as Moll. Now, if it had been a lovely Mortimer dueller of Regency days, or a delectable flintlock holster pistol by Sandwell or James Freeman of London, with that luscious browning and perfect balance . . .

  We stood there while Jake Pelman and his uninjured tearaway carried Fergus to their car.

  ‘Take your petrol, lads,’ I called.

  Jake came back for it, keeping his eyes on us. For some reason he seemed angry with me.

  ‘There’ll be another time, Lovejoy,’ he said.

  ‘Wait a minute, Jake.’ I went over and booted him on the shins, right and left. He yelled and hobbled about. ‘Off home, now.’ I grinned and saw him safely down the path.

  ‘You wait, Lovejoy.’ Fergus was sprawled across the back seat. The others were crammed in the front, one goon holding his face together still. ‘One day your tame tart won’t be here to hide behind, lad.’

  I stuck my head in the open window and we looked eye to eye for a minute.

  ‘What’s the antique, Fergie?’ I asked him straight out.

  ‘Dunno. And neither do you, Lovejoy.’

  ‘True.’

  He gritted his teeth because I tapped his shot leg hard with the pistol barrel. ‘The minute you step outside your gate, Lovejoy, we’ll be here.’ He managed a beam, a rudiment of his usual expression. ‘And we’ll take Chase’s clue off you like toffee off a brat.’

  ‘I’d make it easy for you, Fergus,’ I said. ‘But I can’t forget you killed Leckie.’

  The thought made me clout his leg in earnest. He screamed so loudly I reflexly started back. The combination of that scream and this terrible persistent grin was horrifying. I stood there while the motor rode up the slope. Moll came and stood beside me. We listened to the sound. A pause at the chapel, a rev-up on to the main road. Turn right, then descend a few notes as they set off out of the village into town.

  The sound faded. I looked about. It was quite dusky now. I saw that Moll had happened to park her car inside the garden halfway up the gravel path, almost as if somebody intended to stay. We walked slowly to the cottage.

  ‘Did I do right?’

  ‘More than that, love.’

  ‘Are you pleased I came back?’

  ‘Delighted.’

  We paused in the doorway.

  ‘I just wondered about your being safe,’ she explained.

  ‘Good judgement,’ I said. ‘That’s what it was.’

  ‘I’d leave you Tom’s pistol,’ she said carefully. ‘Except it’s his licence, you see. So I can’t let it out of my possession.’

  ‘I see,’ I said.

  ‘But I suppose . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Have you a spare room? If I were to stay, just over-night perhaps, until you get on your feet properly again
>
  ‘Then we could keep the gun here,’ I concluded brightly.

  ‘Well, yes. It would be . . . legal, then, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Why, so it would.’ I switched the hall light on.

  ‘I’ll just get my things from the car. I usually have a suitcase with me.’ She hesitated. ‘Are you sure this will be all right?’

  ‘Certain,’ I assured her gravely. ‘Anyhow, my granny always said to share.’

  Chapter 13

  NEXT MORNING, MOLL answered the phone twice before I could get to it. Both times the other end rang off before speaking.

  ‘Can’t think what’s got into people,’ Moll announced sweetly.

  ‘Er, I’d better answer.’ I was thinking of Val, Helen, or Elspeth Haverill with some fresh Olympic programme and, last but by no means least, good old Sue.

  Apart from this tiff we adjusted fairly well. I reclined grandly on my unfolding divan because of ‘my condition’, as Moll called it, like I was seven months gone. Naturally we went through a stage of typically English hesitancy, worrying sick about using our knives and forks properly, no elbows on the table and being desperately silent on the loo. In spite of it all we finished up quite well attuned. I was narked at her flashing to the phone first, but what can you do?

  I sent her to the Corporal’s on East Hill about nine.

  ‘I have to pay for services rendered,’ I explained. To you.’

  ‘There’s no need –’

  ‘Do as you’re told. Got some money?’

  ‘Some. I have my chequebook. Will that do?’

  ‘Almost certainly,’ I answered, straight-faced, thinking, the poor innocent.

  ‘What are we going to buy?’

  ‘You,’ I corrected. ‘You are going to buy for yourself a small collection of treen.’

  ‘What’s treen? Is it a kind of antique?’ She got all interested. ‘I do hope so. I’m fascinated.’

  I pushed her into a chair. ‘Sit and listen.’

  ‘I once bought a teapot with a decorated spout. They said it was ever so valuable.’