Pearlhanger Page 19

  ‘All right, Lovejoy.’ John passed me the bag. ‘Not bad. If you ever finish them, let me know. Come with me.’ He sounded tired as we went to the bar.

  I was frightened, because when Big John tires of people it’s they who must compensate, and I’d nothing left to compensate with.

  ‘Cheers,’ I said over my drink, trying to smile my cheery bloodstained smile. ‘All over now, John, eh?’

  ‘I’ve spent a fortune on a dud, Lovejoy. You call that all over?’ Now we were getting down to it. ‘Look, Lovejoy. As I see it there’s two problems. My money, and my reputation.’ Nobody else’s problems count. ‘I’ve been used, to set up Deamer’s scam. I don’t like it. I can’t squash the cheque I’ve paid to Tierney’s, or my name’d be mud. Dicey credit’s bad, Lovejoy.’

  ‘True, true, John,’ I agreed with sincerity.

  ‘So Deamer must pay, in spades. That’s straightforward. But he’d still be in the saddle.’

  ‘You’re right, John.’ Agreeing with Big John gives a coward a lovely safe feeling.

  Sheehan stirred. ‘I can’t be owed, Lovejoy. It’d rankle. Know what I mean?’

  He owed me four. ‘Aye, I know what you mean.’

  ‘Deamer has to have an accident . . .’ His voice trailed.

  ‘Wotcher, Ledger,’ I said to the man suddenly between me and the bright light. ‘Did your video-camera movies turn out okay? Sorry there wasn’t a car chase, but—’

  ‘We got what we wanted, Lovejoy.’ Ledger didn’t move, nodded. ‘ ’Evening, John.’

  ‘Ledger,’ said Big John, wondering how much the policeman had heard.

  ‘Chandler is under arrest.’ The admission cost Ledger blood. ‘All four, in fact.’

  Did he say only four? Big John wanted them accessible where they could be manhandled. I too was downcast.

  ‘What evidence?’ Big John asked.

  ‘Tapes, photos, conversations, videos, prints.’ Ledger sat heavily. ‘All sewn up. Oh, Lovejoy. You’ve met Sergeant Thomas, I think. Any chance of a pint, John?’

  ‘If you pay, Ledger.’

  ‘Good evening.’ Donna Vernon sat opposite me on a low stool, and all sorts of little things added up: she knew so little about the antiques game; she’d been no ally of Chandler’s that time he’d hauled us in . . .

  We all thought a bit. I cleared my throat. We all thought some more. She was smiling. Ledger got a pint, and a small cider for Donna.

  It came to me as Big John waited. ‘Vernon who got killed. He was another of yours?’

  ‘Yes, Lovejoy,’ Donna said. ‘Not my husband. A fraud squad man. I realized that Chandler also suspected me when he pulled you and me in for questioning.’

  ‘Why the sweep, then?’

  ‘Deamer’s idea to obscure the origin of the pendant. They’d have had everybody turning up and making their own.’

  Ledger interposed, sensitive as a wall. ‘They started suspecting Agent Vernon. Chatto did it.’

  ‘Bastard,’ I accused Ledger. ‘You used me to distract attention from her.’

  Ledger smirked. ‘Yes. My idea, that. Playing on Chatto’s superstition.’

  ‘And to collar them?’

  He beamed. ‘You were a big help, Lovejoy. Donna was on the cameras. She’s on the antiques squad too. She realized what you’d done.’

  ‘You were so slick we missed it first time of viewing,’ she said.

  ‘You didn’t point it out to Chandler, I suppose?’

  ‘Ah no,’ Ledger said, pulling a face over his drink. ‘We lied, told him you’d lodged a complaint that it was a fake. We told Chandler that Deamer had kept his prize piece for himself.’

  ‘He rowed with Olivia in his car,’ Donna said. ‘We’ve it all on video.’

  I said, ‘Do I get paid?’

  ‘You have the satisfaction of helping justice, Lovejoy,’ Ledger chuckled. ‘The proper way. Saves you persuading John here to murder them all for you.’

  ‘If you’d hauled Deamer earlier, Ledger,’ I said, ‘there’d be two others celebrating here.’

  ‘Shut it, Lovejoy,’ Ledger shot back. ‘Misjudgement’s not your prerogative. We were identifying the whole syndicate, collecting evidence.’

  Big John was looking thoughtfully at the pendant. It was worth only its materials now, not the fortune he’d paid. He’d still lost.

  ‘Ledger,’ he said suddenly. ‘Any chance of seeing Deamer? Not for anything in particular. In return I’ll help you to collect evidence. Put your boys with him while I ask it. Ten seconds.’

  ‘Deal,’ Ledger said. ‘Call off those villains you left sawing shotguns upstairs.’

  ‘Deal,’ said Big John.

  ‘Then there were two.’ Donna didn’t smile at my remark as Big John and Ledger departed, emanating mutual mistrust.

  ‘See you home, Lovejoy?’ she asked, smiling. ‘We were lovers once. In the circumstances a little stroll’s the least I can expect.’

  ‘In the circumstances, love,’ I said gently, ‘it’s the most.’

  Chapter 29

  ‘QUITE LIKE OLD times,’ I cracked in Donna’s motor.

  ‘What’s Big John up to?’ Donna mused. She had the woman motorist’s habit of ten tennis glances at each intersection while fiddling the gearstick. It always drives me mad. ‘A charity call on prisoner Deamer’s the last thing I’d have thought.’

  So that was her reason. Once a peeler always a peeler. I knew what John would ask Deamer, but I wasn’t telling Donna. She drove towards my village.

  ‘I know you must think me hateful, Lovejoy,’ she began when I said nothing. ‘They were suspicious of Sid Vernon. Probably he’d been a plant too long. I was brought in as Vernon’s wife to keep the surveillance going.’

  I didn’t say Chatto must have been pleased. By a whisker.

  ‘That night when—’ she actually seemed to colour up a little; if she hadn’t been in the fraud mob I’d have suspected tenderness – ‘when Vernon was murdered, was supposed to be the night Ledger closed in. We still don’t know how Deamer got wind about Sid. While I was in the bedroom alone, afterwards, I was signalled that the planned raid on Deamer’s was off because Vernon hadn’t come. We learned he was dead. So surveillance had to go on.’

  ‘With me framed, blamed, maimed . . .’

  ‘You were quite safe, Lovejoy,’ she said earnestly.

  ‘The hangman always says it won’t hurt, love. Nobody’s ever verified it.’

  ‘Now, Lovejoy—’

  ‘Now, Sergeant. Hadn’t you thought of protecting Owd Maggie?’

  ‘That was an unfortunate oversight.’ Green tears showed in her eyes from the dashboard’s glow. She was snuffling one-handed into her hankie as we arrived and halted on my gravel. God, I was glad to be home and done with the lot of them. Bluntly I told her so. Boot a bleating bobby, I always say.

  ‘You’re determined to misunderstand, Lovejoy. That night I didn’t have to make love. Oh, I know you’re unreliable, a villain, unpredictable. But when I saw how you love those old things so, I began to wonder what love itself is.’

  ‘And you wanted in.’ I got out, inhaled my garden’s night smog. ‘You make me laugh, Sergeant. Love needs making, or there isn’t any. You can’t just suddenly decide to lie back and accept it as a gift from outer space. You must build, slog, labour at it, or you’ve got none. Create love, or go without.’

  ‘I know that now, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ I said wearily. ‘Get lost.’

  She was doing things to her face from a powder compact. ‘Very well, Lovejoy. Whatever you wish. You’ve taught me something. Determination’s also an essential factor.’ She clicked the compact shut and dowsed the car’s courtesy light. ‘You will be called for at oh eight hundred hours tomorrow, and be signed over into my protective custody.’

  ‘Me?’ I shuffled uneasily. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I’ll have the warrant in four hours.’ Her voice held a tranquil certainty. ‘You’re a valuable witness.’
>
  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘But I’ll swear blind that you are, Lovejoy. I’m still an officer in an important murder-and-deception case. I simply haven’t time for hearts-and-flowers, waiting by the phone.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time. Ledger said so.’

  ‘That simpering Medusa bitch of an apprentice doesn’t quite see it like that, Lovejoy. She’d crump any woman who swings on your gate. And that tart Michaela French has resurfaced. I tap your phone, and she’s phoning on the hour. She has money and all the crudity of her breed. She’ll have to go. And your police file records many others; Margaret Dainty with her homely little act, for one. Shall I list them, in case you’ve forgotten?’

  ‘Look, Donna. Let’s discuss . . .’

  ‘Eight, Lovejoy.’ She reversed quickly and zoomed up the lane.

  The phone was ringing. It was Big John. ‘This phone’s tapped, John. Get off the line.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter now, me boy,’ He was Ulster jubilant. ‘I’ve a proposition.’

  ‘The answer’s no, John. Your propositions end up with me being thumped, owed—’

  ‘You don’t know what my proposition is, boyo.’

  ‘Aye, I do. You’ve seen Deamer. In return for selling you the river rights you’ll pay him a huge sum to buy him the best lawyers on earth for his coming trial. If Deamer hadn’t agreed to sell he’d have been found one morning accidentally hanged in his cell, right? That’s why I won’t manufacture fakes for you, John. For Deamer read Lovejoy.’

  ‘Here, Lovejoy. Be fucking careful what you say.’

  ‘Deamer told that loony Chatto to kill Vernon and Owd Maggie. They shouldn’t be helped. They should be smacked for being naughty.’ I slammed the receiver down trying to sound decisive, but in reality very worried. Sheehan would be after me now. He’d somehow realized about the river pearls and saw himself as the new owner of Deamer’s scam. All he needed was a good forger who knew antique jewellery, and he was on the way to owning the universe. He needed me.

  Deciding to run for it’s easy. Getting going’s the hard part. I was rummaging for a clean shirt when the phone rang. Sandy, a-squeal with excitement. There’s no peace.

  ‘Not now, Sandy,’ I said tiredly. I had a long way to go. God knows where.

  ‘Listen, I mean it’s a fantabulissimo chance, Lovejoy!’ His voice was a screech. ‘You make absolutely countless dinkie-sweet antique jewellery with pearls from Big John’s river oh he’s such a barbarian and my Mel and yours truly get a monopoly marketing—’

  ‘Sandy, I’ve had it up to here. Cheers.’ I dropped the receiver. Somewhere there must be sanctuary.

  Quickly I wolfed some bread and cheese and coffee and plodded out. Where to? I’d a vague notion of heading north, but reflex took over and I found myself trudging down through the darkness towards the distant string of orange lights on the far side of the valley. A lift on the bypass down to the harbour took a whole hour in coming, even with the heavy traffic thickening before midnight.

  Beatrice was in, unsteady and anxious and hiccoughing. I explained my predicament.

  ‘Just one day, Bea,’ I pleaded, lying. I meant longer. ‘Owd Maggie always said I could depend on you.’

  ‘Not here, sweetie. Barney’s due any minute. He’s only seeing a coaster out.’

  ‘Is there nowhere?’

  ‘Let me think.’ She stood on the stairs, swaying. I didn’t know if it was booze or a trance. ‘My friend has a caravan out on the point.’

  ‘By the Martello tower?’

  ‘Yes. It’s empty for a week. She told me yesterday that the people renting it can’t come. Will that do?’

  She was in no fit state to drive me down, so after a few innuendos about settling the rent in kind I walked the cobbled wharf following the curved line of shore lamps towards the old tower’s red marker beacon. They light them for foolish aircraft. I reached it in an hour.

  The caravan smelled musty and sounded hollow, but it had a gas stove, a shoebox-sized fridge containing essential grub, and electric light. I made the bed, smiling at Bea’s alcoholic suggestiveness, promising to ‘bring your milk as soon as the harbour starts moving, darling’. I went to the door and stood looking out into the dark freshness. I’d made it. Refuge. Bea wouldn’t tell. Cardew and Seth were the only two others in the know, and they needed a spiritualist to broadcast even a burp. I was safe, on my own at last.

  The night was tranquil. That was the word. Tranquil. You wouldn’t think that an innocent scene could be anything but serene, could you? Yet it had all happened within a few miles. I walked round, stared out some more. Walked round again. I whistled a tune. Scarborough Fayre, by some mischance.

  The sea shushed to and fro less than twenty yards off. The old tower had been erected on the end of a spit of reinforced sand projecting from . . . Uneasily I strolled out and prodded with my toe. Sand. Projecting from the shore. There’s quite a lot of hazy illumination along the coast. By it I could see where I was. My lonely caravan refuge, its cheerful electric light shining, was quite definitely situated between the salt water and the sea sand. I stopped whistling.

  Now, I’m honestly not superstitious. That’s ridiculous. And I’m the last bloke in the world to get spooked. So I wasn’t at all worried. Of course not. I don’t lose my cool. Oh, I admit I sat on the sand and looked at the damned place more closely. Nothing wrong with that, is there? I’d got to live here, after all.

  ‘Are you the refuge I really want, Cockalorum?’ I asked it aloud, and sat throwing pebbles at the sea.

  Out there, a sound grew. It was centred on a light. One, then two lights. A red. A green. Then a third, whitish yellow. A small boat. The lights aligned, separated. The sound was louder. A boat engine, coming closer. I threw a pebble. Another. Plop.

  Well, it was either scarper or wait. And I was too tired to do any more running. If it was Donna, just too bad. Michaela was unlikely. Big John was probable. Barney, irate at yet another nocturnal visit from me to Bea, was a possibility. Lydia was six-to-four against, say. Margaret no chance. Helen . . .

  I used up a handful of pebbles. Plop. Plop. Nowhere to go, and bats of memory haunting my mind.

  The boat grated on the shingle, its engine coughing. ‘Hello, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Wotcher, Vanessa.’

  She leaped and splashed expertly, standing there holding the rope. ‘I’d an idea it was you. Everybody’s talking of the auction at the pub. Billy saw the caravan lights. Nobody’s supposed to use it this week.’

  ‘Word travels fast.’

  ‘We all know Beatrice’s friend owns it.’ She scuffed shingle with one shoe. ‘You sound all in, Lovejoy.’

  ‘I’m okay.’ A pause.

  ‘Are you sure you really want to stay here?’

  ‘It’s the last place on earth.’ I tried to sound carefree. It came out as a kind of whine. I’m pathetic.

  ‘Well, then. My place isn’t palatial, but you’re more than welcome, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Ta, love.’ I got up, brushed the sand off and climbed into her boat. The caravan looked lonely and vulnerable there on the sloping shingle. Vanessa went to dowse the lights and pushed us off.

  We puttered slowly away from the tower’s red light. Looking at Vanessa’s hair, blowing red and green in the boat’s lamps, I couldn’t help thinking. Tom her dad still longed for his gamekeeper’s job along the riverside estate. Now Big John owned it; he needed an experienced keeper. If I went in with Big John’s scam – only if, mind – then I could swing jobs for the two of them. Sheehan wouldn’t have a clue about freshwater pearling . . .

  Moon showed from behind a cloud. Vanessa’s hair silvered.

  . . . And supervision was minimal. I could control the output of forgeries. Plus a percentage cut from Tom and Herbie. Tinker would be especially keen. Risky, of course, because you didn’t cross Big John without incurring considerable displeasure. But the bastard owed me, didn’t he?

  I’d have to stay on the right side of my rescuer
, though, until I’d got it all organized. I smiled at Vanessa in the iridescent moonlight, hoping I’d done my teeth so they showed clean and that my lip didn’t bleed again.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts, Lovejoy,’ she said quietly.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Just thinking how lovely you look,’ I said. ‘Isn’t moonlight romantic?’