Faces in the Pool Read online

  ‘Er.’ What now? Here was the killer Laura was hunting so madly, and he simply introduces himself.

  ‘The girl I’m supposed to have slain will join us. I’d forgotten how Blackpool takes a performing genius to its heart.’

  The crowd was starting to thin. I looked about. The mob around the stage entrance alone remained, bulbs flashing and people pushing to see.

  ‘Pity about Tansy,’ Ted Moon said. I searched his expression for deception. None. ‘Broke my heart.’

  I needed no lesson on heartbreak. ‘How much do you know?’

  ‘Everything, Lovejoy,’ he said. Rockets shot up into the night sky, bursting in golden rain as flares descended.

  ‘You’d better tell me.’

  ‘You won’t like it, Lovejoy. It’s not just that weirdo at the cricket.’

  ‘Tell me who did Tansy first.’

  ‘The people paying Erosa. They’re here.’

  I swung round and stared at the building in its multicoloured illuminations. ‘In there?’

  ‘They paid for it.’

  ‘In there,’ I said dully. On me so soon? ‘All of them?’

  He looked his surprise. ‘You really have no idea, have you?’

  ‘Who are they?’ I said, my voice thick. ‘Names, Ted.’

  ‘The rest are just tiddlers, pilot fish before the Great White Sharks. Me and the girl had to take it on the lam. It’s been hard. She kept her business going as a front, with Laura stalking us.’

  ‘Harder for Paltry, old Smethie and Tansy.’

  ‘Rotten cook, Tansy,’ he said sadly. ‘She loved those deadbeats.’

  ‘They were her deadbeats,’ I said, anger beginning. ‘So they were mine too.’

  He held up a placatory hand. ‘Lovejoy, I’m on your side.’

  ‘I don’t even know if that’s true.’

  He smiled with kindness. ‘If you really are as dim as you seem, you’ll be glad to see there’s one who stands out.’

  A huge limo slowly forced its way in. Out stepped Fionuella. She came across, to whistles from the pavement drinkers.

  ‘Ted, darling. And Lovejoy.’

  She shook my hand. Mere acquaintances now? Her eyes warned me to silence. She linked Moon’s arm and handed his crutches to the limo driver.

  ‘Shall we go?’ Moon moved perfectly naturally.

  ‘Three minders should be enough for us.’ She smiled at me. ‘I’m the murdered girl, Lovejoy. Will you give my mum a ring?’

  ‘Er, who is your—?’ They’d gone.

  Humbly I followed, to see Miss Erosa Sexotica.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  bludge (n & v): funding burglary of antiques on commission (trade slang)

  Sex is here to stay. And mesmerise, baffle, madden. And drive us to passion, murder, jealousies and despair. Religions say sex is the root of all evils. Others, as old soldiers say, tell the truth.

  In that crowded hall, maybe 1,500 people were crammed in a high state of expectation. All were laughing, joking. Refined people – with money to burn, I mean – were on a rimmed balcony. A few daring customers tried to light cigarettes but were quickly blanked by friends with, ‘Erosa dun’t like smokes, see?’ Miss Erosa must be dynamite, to persuade even before she’d begun.

  Ba-ba-boom music played, strobes hurting the eyes. Some people were already tanked up and singing. The air was festive, the sort you see in villages where Old English music trills and everybody’s at the cider and cake. This was not sedate folklore.

  The walls showed giant scenes of copulation. As the images flicked and scrolled, aficionados recognised porno girls and studs, roars greeting the more famous. Not the natural frolic-on-the-greensward, more reminiscent of expensive gigs where some rock band – I almost put skiffle group – played to huge audiences. It worried me, because they were all thinking: We’d better get the best or else. Threat was not far away. I hoped to God this Erosa lass was good or the building would be lucky to survive.

  More than that, the great Erosa Sexotica was coming out of retirement. I was scared. If she failed, there’d be hell to pay. It would be tough on Mortimer, but I had survival priorities here, namely me. You’ve got to be truly naff to fail in Blackpool. But if this amiable mob once rounded on you, you were finished. The two artistes I’d seen die in Blackpool’s exalted summer season still try to revive their careers, but booking agents won’t even throw them a crust. I wanted Erosa Sexotica to do a decent (indecent? whatever) show.

  Familiar faces looked down, four from Donna da Silfa’s group. All were avid. One in particular was glaring. If Erosa did her stuff, Hugo would eat her raw. It was that sort of look. I almost shivered. Perhaps this is why collectors of, wait for it, sexiana (I’m not making the word up) pay over the top for antiques portraying sex. I was once asked to paint a sex scene of Joan Crawford with Marilyn Monroe, who were transitory lovers, cruel gossip has it, Joan more than Marilyn. A lady offered me a year’s income. I declined because it made me feel uncomfortable. She said in wonderment, ‘But you paint ghosts, Lovejoy,’ and got mad.

  On the other hand, I was present when two sexiana collectors fought over a fake panel listing the mysterious Latin word muto. It was written on ordinary children’s sketching paper, lovely lettering depicting the word in Lucilius, Horace, Martial and other Latin poets. I’d thought what pillocks collectors were, battling for Latin scribbles of words for male genitalia – until the cost soared beyond the price of a new car. Then I marvelled. That the two buyers were women didn’t concern me. It was the fortune given for a modern scrawl copied from ancient Pompeii graffiti. Yet I’m the softest touch in East Anglia. I once spent my last groat just to let a caged sparrow go, and went hungry for two days, glad it was at liberty. And you know what? The little bastard flew off without a backward glance. It was overseas. Worst of all, a local geezer told me the vendors caught them again to sell to duckeggs like me.

  Two pretty dancers emerged to a roar which quickly turned to groans, as neither was Miss Erosa. Their gyrations got my complete attention. They were only crowd-warmers, fluffers to prepare the crowds for the champ. One was an electric dancer, who shimmied on her silver pole with electric lights all over her body. Neither seemed very good, but of course had beautiful bodies so were great. I’d seen better. I scored these second division.

  As the excitement built the erotic scenes behind the dancers continued to flicker. Idly, I began to recognise bits from old cinema releases. I kept a look out for Erosa. Wouldn’t have been surprised. Antiques dealers now go mad for erotic art, from pipe-smokers’ stubbers to genitalia-shaped spittoons, however badly they’re made. Playing cards of Hollywood stars – most often fakes – get snapped up. Every schoolboy owns a set.

  My attention wandered back to the performers.

  The two pole dancers were ending their routine, the crowd thumping into action and moshing starting, that great leaping up and down en masse. The mob looked like a tin of maggots. It was mayhem. Two other girls replaced the pole artistes, to slow hand-clapping. The new ones depended on fake copulation involving slithering in cream, but the crowd had seen it all before.

  The scenes on the backdrops were the same olds: corny cartoon jokes and dull pseudo-scientific data. So we all learnt, as if we cared, that the most photographed sex-throbette was called Betty (snapped in 55,000 trade exposures), that geneticists claimed red pubic hair would be extinct in fifty years (‘Go it, Ginger!’ shrieked the film clip), and sperm travels at 0.001 miles per hour.

  New black drapes were set up during an interlude. Half a dozen sexthrobs stood posing, muscles and veins bulging, to the boredom of all except a few, with women muscle-husslers showing how they too developed biceps, so there. It was becoming a yawn.

  The audience was now catcalling the girls. Nobbins were thrown, bouncers crossing the stage to collect the dosh. (Tip: the bouncers keep the money, even in boxing.) People emerged to clean the stage. The poles vanished into the ceiling. The muscly blokes and birds faded and the stage sti
lled. Then, strangely, as if by common understanding, the crowd hushed.

  Imperceptibly a stirring began, with the same epicentres of riot and the occasional glass thrown needing bouncers to wade in and forcibly remove some foci of discord. On the whole it was fairly genial and the crowd settled down. The show’s big moment seemed to be on us. I’d come all this way, yet was no nearer to finding who had killed my friends. I hadn’t even a decent clue, except for Gentry’s remark about Paltry.

  Hang on, I thought, stilling my remaining neurones. Something was starting. People in the crowd were calling friends, swarming back from the bars to keep their places near the stage.

  And the music changed. Instead of the thump, thump, thump, a distant fanfare was audible. The music eased, to something subtle, maybe Vivaldi. I tried to distinguish words in the cacophony. Clapping started in a strange rhythm I’d never heard before, out of kilter. People outside began bawling ‘Erosa! Erosa!’ I looked at nearby faces. I even asked the folk next to me, ‘What is it?’ The stage darkened, cones of multicoloured lights swirling around one pole as it slowly descended. A deafening fanfare blared – Copeland’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’. Women looked in a world of their own, blokes refusing offered drinks from pals.

  Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the stage. The pole settled, everybody eyeing it as if it were the Grail. Faces had become mesmeric pale patches lit by the strafing illumination in the eerie lighting. I heard a woman whisper, ‘It’s the same pole from Germany, when she won the…’ And the news spread, ‘She insists on the same…’ God Almighty, a frigging pole?

  The place descended into gloom. I’d only once felt something similar, at a witches’ thing in East Anglia, but I’d never seen a crowd switch off like this, as if we were connected. I glanced up and saw Hugo Hahn gaping down, mouth open, white knuckles on the rail. He was transfixed.

  No sign of Ted Moon or Fionuella. Had he met me to make sure I came? My one consolation was I could easily escape if this Erosa lass disappointed.

  Smoke drifted from the wings, clouds forming a grey layer. A man stepped into a cone of purple light. He was dressed as Dracula, long cape and dark sideburns, fangs and a widow’s peak. He intoned, ‘Ladies and gentlemen. For one night only, the immortal, the supreme world champion pole dancer, the greatest… Miss Erosa Sexotica!’

  He vanished in a puff of smoke. I stared. How do they do that? Unbelievable. Oddest thing, there was no applause, just total silence. Black-garbed figures lined the space and their arms started moving in rhythm like cilia you see in the sea. For one irreverent moment I wondered at the sheer cost of the production. The audience seemed numb. I realised I couldn’t remember how long it was since the announcement. Two minutes maybe? Five? I didn’t care.

  The forty or so dancers stirred mist up from the vapour sea. Really quite beautiful. Then the whole crowd gave a groan. I looked around in astonishment, feeling uneasy, intruding in something I’d no right to. To regain control, I tried making myself think of daft events. A master forger was gaoled because he spelt Scotland with a ‘k’, Skotland. Blackpool exports Blackpool air in bottles. Scientists realised Planet Earth was slowing down, so they invented Leap Seconds. The World Walking-The-Plank Championship takes place in Kent. Keeping control got harder. The World Worm-charming Championship is in Cheshire…

  A girl’s vague form became visible above the dancers. Merely an image projected on some screen?

  The crowd was transfixed. Her features gradually took on solidity. Nothing alluring, but definitely a girl, the eyes luminous. Angrily, I told myself it was only a faded photo on a black rag, for God’s sake, so why were we all behaving as if it was a vision? Then I thought, Don’t I recognise those eyes? My treacherous mind gave in when somebody called, ‘There!’ and others joined in, ‘She’s there!’ and the pointing became a riot, the noise a crescendo. Stupidly I asked somebody, ‘What?’ but nobody answered.

  She came so slowly she could have been a patch of shadow, moving with a sinuous motion down to the stage ocean.

  And the applause began, and a mad baying mixed with a curious wailing. It was as Bedlam must have sounded in ancient days. A woman near me was weeping. I thought, This is lunacy, yet got caught up watching that dark figure slowly slither inchwise with a grace that became hypnotic, a reasonable exchange for free will. I went along, like OK, it’s a bargain.

  The figure dipped herself into the opacity of the mist, withdrew then stirred the fog with a movement that would have raised the dead with its suggestion of the erotic. I heard people actually sigh. I was captured by Erosa.

  Even now I can’t imagine how she did it, with a few slight movements evoking a bealing roar. I found myself saying the silly name in time, ‘Erosa! Erosa!’ like a fool. I swear I almost heard her splash into the sea, even though it was only vapour from a bottle in the wings of a tatty stage. Her hands made slow swimming movements, imperceptibly bringing her to the surface of the undulating sea. She almost turned into a bird. What the hell am I seeing here? I tried to think, wondering if I’d been slipped a Mickey Finn. A tart in a cape waggles a bit, and I actually see her transform into a flying creature trying to fly out of a deep tide?

  What the fuck was going on? My mind tried not to see an egret struggling in a restless sea, but pity took hold. I’ve always been a pillock, so I should have just let the poor thing get on with it. A bird is only a bird, right? I heard myself groaning with the rest then cheering as it rose into the air above the waves. I can see her now, becoming that soaring bird, and the crowd going mad with relief as she flew up.

  Daniella was light years in the past now, she had become sublime in a way I’d never seen. It was impossible not to surrender. I’m ashamed to say we all became obscene and piteous, the lot of us. Sometimes her movements were so minimal she almost seemed in tableau, but that’s only saying the opposite. The lovely creature became sacramental. One part of my consciousness remembered I was merely one of a crowd mesmerised by a simple dancer. Putting it in words sounds daft now. There, though, it was magic, transcendental alchemy practised by the witchcraft of a woman who understood what is divine. Daniella became transfigured.

  I was soaked in sweat as she finally rose from her orgasm and her winged form was freed from the degradation. I felt I had seen martyrdom. She was the most magic person I’d ever seen.

  As the music quietened and the fog sea enveloped her, the weeping began. I’m not ashamed to say I choked a bit. The lovely bird sank into the rising tide. We saw she was going to die. People actually called, ‘Oh, no,’ as the goddess clung to her silver pillar. No good. Exhausted, she looked back at us, but her strength had gone.

  We fell silent as the bird died and the engulfing ocean took her in. She was gone. The silence seemed leaden. Words seem stupid, but everybody who was there wouldn’t think so. In her dance, Daniella had become the goddess every man longs for. Whatever the cost, those moments of dance were cheap at the price.

  The sea fog slowly dispersed, the place quiet as stone. When the lights gradually came back on to show the stage in full, she had evaporated with the mist. The stage was bare. People actually stood on tiptoe to look. The glittering silver pole slowly ascended to the dark tabs above. In total silence we turned away. Throats were cleared, people somnolent and almost creeping from the auditorium as if leaving a sickroom.

  Christ, I thought, seeing the clock in astonishment, nearly two hours? Couldn’t be. Surely it had lasted no more than ten minutes, fifteen at the outside? A faint music began as we left, some pavane. I glanced at the balcony, but the Faces had gone. I neither knew nor cared where to. I had seen her, and now wanted to find her and ask what she knew.

  Maybe I already knew deep down. She was the one excuse that would draw them all here. If she could provide even one answer, as Mortimer had implied, maybe there was some kind of salvation. Daniella seemed good at salvation.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  card(er): record thefts/sales of antiques

  The crowds dri
fted along the pavement. The women left blotting eyes and fumbling for mirrors, the blokes quietly heading for bars along the promenade. The lot of us seemed still to be dreaming.

  OK, I thought. I’d obeyed everybody. I’d gone to Sunderland – all those cars. Lincoln – all those flowers. I’d visited old Smethie, and helped Death’s rich harvest. I’d watched the World Suprema Sex Dancer. Was I any nearer? The only thing I’d learnt after getting three friends murdered was that I was due at Somnell House.

  Reassembling my splintered mind, I stood by the stage door. No Mortimer, no Daniella. The muted press hung about. I couldn’t understand the difference between Daniella and the lustrous dancer who conveyed such sexual passion. Every women has her own beauty, sure. Young or old, loveliness is there.

  Yet I’d only seen Daniella as genuinely off-her-trolley. Hell, I couldn’t even remember what daftness she was hooked on – recovering Isaac Newton’s thoughts from space, was it, or Molly Malone’s Dublin cockles? Beyond sense, anyway. She always sat facing the corner among Tansy’s colony of crazies in Mehala Bay. How on earth could I be expected to know? I felt done out of my pie and my pudding, as we said when I was little. I might have been in ecstasy for months.

  Imagine having Miss Erosa waiting in my cottage ready for… I moaned. Nobody nearby even looked. We were all thinking the same.

  Mortimer seemed to have vanished, like Fionuella and Ted Moon, Laura’s oppo, Ellen, Donna da Silfa. Seeing the sun-dog hadn’t changed my luck. No contacts of any kind. Without Mortimer, I was like an army without its scout.

  Over the next two hours the crowd dispersed. I asked at the stage door, ‘Any chance of seeing Miss Erosa?’ A bloke said sadly, ‘She vanishes once a show is over.’

  He and his mates eventually loped off to the famous Captain’s Cabin, its crowds spilling out onto the pavement. I crossed to a phone box and tried Lydia’s home number. Her mother Mavis – she hates me because we once made smiles – answered. I pretended to be somebody else but she snapped, ‘It’s you, Lovejoy. Stay away from Lydia and from me.’ That’s the thanks you get. It was unfair. I tried others, but Lydia and Tinker were nowhere.