The Sleepers of Erin Page 18

  That’s how I remember Kurak, alias Joe Bassington: calm, mud-covered, strain showing on his face, but always edging on and on ahead of me in the torchlight. A real pro. Never once complained about the light in his eyes, knowing I would have worried about too much darkness. He even stuck his hands out to make sure my chin didn’t risk going below the water-level at the dip. Great bloke, was Joe.

  And when we got out, into the torrential downpour of a day hideously brilliant, bright and grey, Heindrick told us we’d been much faster than he had anticipated.

  Joe only said, “Eeesa Lovejoy. Ee doo far well, m’sieu.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Heindrick said, all smiles. ‘Shall we proceed homewards, Lovejoy? A late breakfast?’

  ‘Right.’ I scrambled from the turf workings and eyed the skyline. Still nobody to be seen, no Gerald, nobody. Great. My trusty helper had been rained off, the nerk.

  ‘Oh, Lovejoy,’ Heindrick called up. ‘Your jacket’s under the plastic. See you at the car. I’ll just give Kurak his instructions. Tie up the loose ends, you understand.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  Without another word I left them there in the turf diggings. I’d burrowed like a frigging earthworm, been scared stiff, practically buried, covered in mud, and left defenceless by my so-called friends. And now I was soaked through, exhausted and hungry. Great. I’d never felt so sorry for myself. We’d done it, though. Now all we had to do was act our way through our casual ‘discovery’ of the gold torcs, and it was done.

  But it still gets to me that I never said thanks to Kurak, alias Joe Bassington.

  Chapter 23

  The last thing I expected was a house party. Two quartets of the Heindricks’ friends were wading into a buffet when I cleaned up and rejoined Heindrick. Lena was in a shirtwaisted thing with bishop sleeves, fawns against white. On other older women it would have been a mile too young, but Lena carried it off. She brilliantly defeated two plump young Galway birds who thought they knew it all until she apologized for the Rumanian caviare and sweetly asked had they tried the metheglin. I liked them, but after Lena’s broadside they only stood apart and muttered.

  There wasn’t an ounce of guile among the guests as far as you could tell. County set, wealthy and ruthlessly exclusive. I was introduced as Lovejoy the famous antiques expert, which is the only lie that ever makes me go red. Then I was treated like a refugee. When a smooth auntie-shaped woman discovered I hadn’t seen the latest London Ayckbourn revival, the whole party realized I was simply contagious and drifted aside. I tried to nosh. Eating posh grub is daunting: posh means microscopic, and everybody notices if you have more than one minuscule blob from a dish. We were given no time to eat properly – this also being diagnostic of a country set – but ample access to the hooch, a cunning move, considering our host’s intentions. Some were already woozy when we lammed out in two big carloads. I drew four hairy blokes talking horses – and Jason as driver.

  ‘Hey, Jase,’ I said as we drove east among the traffic. ‘See that Chelsea porcelain eel tureen Mrs Heindrick served the caviare from? Red anchor, original cover.’ Worth a year’s executive salary in 1967, its current value’s mind-boggling. No response from Jason, and our companions were still on about nags. Bravely, I tried again. ‘Mind you, Red Anchor fakes go big nowadays, eh? I hate animal shapes. Her Chelsea top-decorated strawberry-leaf teapot was definitely Raised Anchor Period. Worth twice the tureen. Don’t you think Lena made a mistake?’

  ‘Shurrup, Lovejoy. I’m driving.’

  ‘Well, Jase, two different styles on one table and all that.’ I shook my head regretfully. ‘I’d have thought Lena might have avoided—’

  ‘Gabby sod. I said I’m driving.’

  Odd, horses having names just like people. These blokes in the back were nattering on as if nags were real individuals. Takes all sorts, I suppose. Jason negotiated a bend, allowing a car to overtake. We were three cars behind the Heindricks. More cars about now, early afternoon. One was a white Ford saloon. No dents, one bloke.

  ‘If I’d been Lena,’ I said, ‘I’d have used that early Meissen Augsburg decorated gold-ground travelling service she has. Notice it in the hall case?’ Ponderously I nudged him. ‘Wouldn’t you, Jase? The Indonesian mahogany table would have ballsed up the colour scheme, but there’s a way round that—’

  ‘I’m driving. Shut up or I’ll—’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I said, peeved.

  He was puce by now, but it wasn’t me that made him edgy in the first place. I’d only made him worse. I thought hard about that. The road forked and bent simultaneously. The white car was turning off on the branch marked ‘Hospital’. Jason’s left hand was on the wheel, but his little finger could have easily reached the flash lever. Anyway, something clicked and it wasn’t Jason’s sudden cough. I wondered if he’d read any good books lately, Paradise Lost, something like that. The bloke in the white car had. I was sure of that.

  It went off exactly as planned.

  The cars put us down by the lough. We were to walk to the top of Kicknadun Hill, from where the level exercise ground belonging to the stud farm could be seen on the western slope. I hung back, for a million reasons depressed and worried by it all. I was staring glumly at the crannog with the two Galway girls when the noise attracted our attention and we went to join in.

  Heindrick’s excited shouts, people yelling my name, and only me noticing that silent horseman standing so still on the skyline.

  Then the plod across, and the whole charade. Spotting the gold torc’s gleam by pencil flashlight shone down a tiny hole where Heindrick’s stick had prodded between two great worn stones. Then Heindrick’s dramatic race to the car to bring the authorities. Fortunately, about then Lena noticed two of her own estate workers riding on the hill. How lucky, we all agreed, and flagged them over to guard the find.

  The classical sleeper scam: find, register, protect. All done.

  It was at that point Jason asked me in a mutter where did I think I was going.

  ‘To have a look at the castle ruins.’

  Jason was standing aside from the main excited mob, talking desultorily with Lena. She looked the part as always, the only woman I ever knew who became slender in Hebridean tweeds. He gave her a checking glance and she nodded imperceptibly. I was to be allowed to walk three hundred yards in open view. Only my chains were invisible.

  ‘Do hurry back, Mr Lovejoy, if Kurt returns, won’t you?’ Lena said loudly, which was by way of announcing to her two men that she’d given permission.

  ‘Not be long.’

  But where was Joe? That’s what was getting to me. I hadn’t seen him since our escapade of today’s rainy morning. Lena herself had driven the first car, Jason the second. No sign anywhere now of that relentlessly familiar Ford always on the outskirts of the action. No sign of Gerald or Shinny. I made a slight detour, taking in the turf diggings for old time’s sake, hearing with bitterness the laughter and thrilled chattering of the Heindricks’ guests gathered round the burial site. Everybody in friendly groups of self-interested grasping layabouts except me. Morosely I stared down into the excavated hollow of the turf diggings, and saw the idle nerk down there.

  ‘Ah, ‘tis a foine day, Lovejoy, sure enough!’

  ‘You lazy bastard. Where the hell have you been?’

  Gerald grinned up at me from his reclining position on an ex-army groundsheet. He even had that long thin canvas bag of fishing tackle with him.

  ‘Ah, here and there.’

  I climbed down. ‘You promised you’d keep me safe. Do you know I was sent in there to . . . to . . . ?’ I looked again. The mouth of the tunnel had gone, only a paler smudge where the drier peat had been replaced. Newly cut peat slabs covered the tunnel’s position. Within hours the location would be practically untraceable. I felt ill. That’s the trouble with being a coward. Courage gives everybody else a head start on you.

  Gerald was quite unabashed. ‘Did they let you go to see those auld castle stones, Love
joy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’d better be off then, unless it’s those three riders over the hill you want chasing down to see what you’re up to.’

  I’d seen nothing new, and I thought I’d been watching the skyline now like a hawk.

  ‘Christ.’ I thought a second. ‘Here, Gerald. Does one have a white car?’

  ‘No.’ The bum was settling down for a kip, shuffling his long, endlessly jointed limbs into a Chinese puzzle. ‘That’ll be auld Fenner the printer. Has a cousin in Connemara who plays a lovely fiddle. I remember one time—’

  ‘What do I do?’ I’d never felt so helpless. Everybody’s plan was working out except mine. The whole thing had got away from me, without a cheep on my part.

  ‘Ah, you go with them and tell your tale to the government people. Do as Heindrick says.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Escape, o’course. Like a thief in the night. Or just walk out. Sinead will have a grand motor outside.’ He grinned drowsily. ‘Then we come back here, break into the grave – from the top like the honest men we are, and . . .’

  Light dawned. ‘Nick the torcs. Everybody assumes its local layabouts. And we have torcs, complete with provenance?’

  ‘You’ve hit it, Lovejoy. A darlin’ idea. But we get the spoils of war. Ah,’ he said lyrically, ‘think of all the grand poetry I’ll be writing with all that wealth!’

  ‘With fifty per cent,’ I corrected.

  Gerald opened one eye. ‘Ah, we all soldier on for poor takings, Lovejoy, for the whilst. Anyway, it’s the coroner’s office you’ll be talkin’ to soon.’

  ‘Here, Gerald. Seen Kurak?’

  Both eyes open now, no smile. ‘Isn’t he back at the grand mansion?’

  ‘No sign of him there when we left.’ Anyway, no use worrying. It was one less rival, but I was no longer certain what the battle was about. If Lena’s offer was genuine – and it was beginning to look like it – I’d soon be in clover. Maybe Joe had got the sack?

  ‘I’ll keep an eye out for him, Lovejoy,’ said my trusty vigilante, his eyes closed in sleep. I shrugged and left him there.

  The castle’s ruins were still interesting me when they shouted for me from the grave mound down by the lake. The officials were arriving with Heindrick, two black cars in the distance. I went to swear the truth over my pack of lies.

  Passing the turf diggings to join the others, there was no sign of Gerald. He’d vanished into thin air. I wished I could do that.

  Official events seemed a lot more direct in the city than they’d be in good old shambolic East Anglia. For a start, the officials knew everybody by name and their baldheaded stout boss – their coroner, but God knows what powers he actually possesses – had to keep prising his way into small groups of spectators who seemed to want to talk about everything else. Horses were big in everybody’s mind. The boring business of a zillion-year-old grave full of bones and trinkets was clearly a blot on the day. The official’s only hope was to get a good natter going, to sabotage the dull proceedings.

  We gave evidence against a fast-running verbal tide of gossip. My own heap of falsehoods was interrupted every second breath. Place names, I discovered quite intrigued, would cause some shorthand lady to butt in (‘Oh, Kilmallock’s a lovely place! My cousin Sian’s there . . .’) which gave everybody else reason to say Croom was nicer still but sure wasn’t it Mallow took the biscuit even if it was nearer Cork than the good Lord intended . . . How the boss geezer kept his rag I’ll never know.

  The Heindricks were in fine form, especially Lena. She killed all doubt about her status by casually mentioning that I’d been fetched over to decide which of her three Rembrandts were genuine. ‘I am currently persuading him to stay longer.’ She smiled, a thousand watts for each of us. ‘His gift will be invaluable with my other Old Masters.’ Everybody got the point. Heindrick was signed up as the actual finder, members of his posh house party excitedly taking turns to sign deposition forms saying exactly what they were doing when positively tons and tons of gold were actually touched by Kurt’s walking stick honestly miles deep in that old burial mound . . .

  I went for a pee, the way all suspects escape from courts these days. The trouble was Jason, standing patiently in the corridor with one of Heindrick’s men.

  ‘Leave the door open, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Rude sod. Can’t I just go to the loo?’

  ‘The window’s barred,’ his assistant said. It was the turf-digging man, quiet and absolutely certain that Heindrick’s will would be obeyed in all things. Jason wasn’t having any and kept his eyes on me.

  ‘Lovejoy’s dangerous,’ he said. ‘You leave the door open or you wait.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Heindrick said from behind me in his sibilant voice. ‘Well done, Jason. We can’t be too careful, especially now.’ He paused and smilingly reassured us that he wouldn’t be much longer, for the sake of the girl clerk walking past carrying taped legal files. She shut the office door behind her. ‘Once the torcs are out we’ll need Lovejoy’s presence even more. You two get him back to the house. He won’t be needed here any more.’

  ‘Here,’ I began, but found myself propelled down the corridor and into the street. According to Gerald I was supposed to escape from here, leap into Shinny’s waiting car, and—

  They didn’t quite put the elbow on me, seeing there were so many people about and the streets fairly active with traffic, but I was in the front passenger seat of Heindrick’s Daimler with ugly speed. The turf man sat behind as Jason took the wheel. His eyes never left me.

  ‘Mind that bus, Jason,’ I yelped nervously.

  ‘Mind your mouth, Lovejoy.’

  The turf man pointed a finger at the windscreen, instructing me to look straight ahead.

  ‘Okay, okay. Just go careful, mate, that’s all.’

  But I had seen what I wanted. Shinny’s pale face, in a modest grey Austin parked across the road.

  We left Sarsfield Bridge and the River Shannon behind and lammed off along the Ennis Road. I tried talking but Jason closed his ears and the turf man merely reached over to lock my door and leaned closer in case.I checked my safety-belt a hundred times or so, pulling it so tight I could hardly breathe. I got one reply from Jason, though, and it was that which made me decide he simply had to go.

  It was while we were on the old north road to Ennis that it dawned on me that Jason was driving. Jason was driving. Not Joe. Relatively new and unproven Jason. Jason, who required to be accompanied by the silent watchful turf man to ensure his undying loyalty to the Heindricks. Not the trusty obedient doglike phoney Slav Joe Bassington. Jason was driving. No longer Kurak, the Sleeper Man, organizer of a thousand sleeper scams. Jason had displaced Kurak, Jason the ex-military officer. Who could be relied upon to organize, distribute, run an organization, now that the sleeper scam had been pulled.

  I thought, Sod it, and asked my question.

  ‘Here, Jase. Did Lena let on that she told me about Joe?’

  He began his last minute on earth by saying nothing. Then he shrugged and said, ‘Well, Joe was useless.’ His last words.

  Which made up my mind for me. Those words took it all out of my hands. ‘Past tense, eh, Jase?’ I said, and pressed the release of his safety-belt. He turned a puzzled expression on me as the belt’s metal insertion flew across him and the belt snicked off. He managed to say, ‘What—?’ but by then I’d grabbed the wheel and turned us, and the car was going over and over.

  Seat-belts are supposed to be great things, comfortable and safe. The trouble is they nearly break your neck saving your life. If you make it through the crash, you come round being strangled by the bloody thing.

  The only way I could get out of the sickening petrol stench and that ominous grinding sound was by sliding from under the shoulder strap. I made it, shakily crawling out through the shattered windscreen and across the ground until I guessed I’d got clear. Funny, but only then did I realize the motor-horn was blaring.

  Tw
enty yards, maybe. Unsteadily I moved another few yards and sat to focus on today’s good deed. Jason was sounding the horn, his chest pressing forwards into the steering-wheel for all the world as if he was rummaging for something under the dashboard. Except his face was a smear of blood and he was so still. That’s the trouble with undying loyalty. It doesn’t last.

  The car was a crumpled write-off. Car designers these days say it’s a good idea making them so they squash on impact, God knows why. Like saying sausages should have a standard dose of salmonella.

  I felt nauseated so I turned to retch a bit and saw the turf man. He was the reason there’d been no wind-screen. A good thirty yards from where the car had slammed into the projecting rock, he lay awkwardly with hunched shoulders.

  ‘Lovejoy? Lovejoy? Oh my God!’

  ‘Aye, love.’ I peered up. Shinny was above us on the roadside. I couldn’t see her car but its thrumming engine was audible under that horrible constant horn. ‘There’s been an accident.’

  She slithered down beside me. ‘Dear God. I’ve no equipment with me. Are you hurt? Tell me, tell me. That dreadful noise. Oh my God . . .’

  ‘See if you can help them, love,’ I said nobly, doing my sinking act. ‘I had my safety-belt on. Jason didn’t. My poor old mate . . .’

  ‘Stay absolutely still, darling. Oh my God!’

  ‘Be careful, Shinny, love,’ I called anxiously after her. ‘There’s petrol escaping. It might explode. The ignition, you see . . .’

  I felt sore all over, but still made her car quite quickly. She gave a scream of alarm when she heard me pull away, but that’s women every time. Always thinking of themselves. It was me in difficulties, not her.