The Lies of Fair Ladies Read online

  ''Don't keep on, Lovejoy." Luna was getting snappier by the minute. "The eighth time."

  The van was stiflingly hot. I was soaked inside the fireman's suit. The helmet alone weighed a ton. Mine was yellow, Gunge's white. Was one of us a pleb, the other a boss? I'd begun to lose heart as I recognized the faint outline of the red-brick gatehouse in the headlights. The tiny van had no space for anyone except Gunge in the front. Me and Luna rattled around like peas in a tin all the way. Now, we were concealed in a lay-by about a mile off. Apart from a couple of disappointed snoggers who'd left when we disturbed their tryst spot, we were unnoticed.

  One in the morning. Sandy had kitted us out. He always knew somebody, this time a theatrical widow who catered for local thespians at mind-boggling prices. He'd enjoyed himself, asking could he be the first to light Gunge's fire, or be the damosel on the burning balcony, all that. He wears you out just listening.

  “I mean," I pleaded, "what if it's a real school. See what I mean?" It had been such a great idea in the Welcome Sailor.

  "It's the right place." Luna had her woman's voice on. "The school Jenny Calamy went to. Cassandra Clark. Connie Hopkins. Credit me with sense, Lovejoy. It's quite bad enough to be a vandal. The excuses I had to make! A trace of scandal is enough to—"

  "Silent, please,” Gunge rumbled.

  Quiet descended. Not even Luna would argue with Gunge. I fidgeted, played I Spy with myself—only you can't cheat when you're your opponent. I tried to remember “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God," but couldn't do the first stanza. I hummed "She went and married a lawyer," until Gunge swiveled to look back, whereon I shut it. It seemed hours before he spoke.

  "Ten past. Phone."

  "You, Lovejoy." Luna passed me a hand phone. Women are skilled shirkers. Nine nine nine, and the nasal twang saying emergency fire ambulance or police.

  The fire office sounded itching to go. I made myself breathless.

  "The school—you know the old Sampney Young Ladies Academy? It's all afire. Come quick. There's . . ."I gasped, cried out, made a crackling noise, getting really worked up until Luna furiously snatched the phone, tapped it to mute.

  "You're simply ridiculous!" she cried. "I've never known . . . Overdoing every single thing."

  "Shush." Gunge wound the van window down.

  We listened. The countryside was silent as only East Anglia's rural quiet can be. You could hear worms crawl. I heard a crinkly leaf skitter along the road. Grass gave faint groans. It would have made me sweat, except I was already pouring with the stuff.

  Then in the distance a thin wahwah, instantly deafened out as Gunge turned the ignition and we roared off. I'd have had a pee from nervousness but for Luna. We careened between the tall hedgerows. Gunge took from his vast paunch a light, reached a hand out. I heard it clunk onto our roof as we zoomed along. An intermittent cobalt-colored glow revealed that he'd nicked a plod light. We were now a copmobile.

  "There!"

  Luna saw them cross the flyover, lights a-flash and sirens wailing. Gunge slowed to let the fire engines go, then accelerated so swiftly my face shifted on its bones. We tore along the lanes after them.

  The school gates were already ajar. Gunge rolled us inside. Two security uniforms were there. The fire vehicles were already at the front door. Lights switched on. Somebody was looking out from a second-floor window, immensely blocking the light, shouting instructions, demands. A security uniform trotted alongside us. Gunge did an expert curve into the foliage.

  "What the hell?" A bloke, young, cool enough to be armed.

  "Keep clear, sir," Gunge said, braking. "Where's the fire?"

  ''What frigging fire?''

  "Fifth-degree blaze, major casualties."

  I alighted, listening with admiration. God, Gunge was a better liar than me. I heard a scrabbling inside the van, saw the security man turn, and yelled, "Do I signal for more help, sir?"

  "Ascertain status first, Schuller," Gunge rumbled.

  "Very good, sir." Schuller? "This the way?" I demanded.

  The security man was distracted by uproar from the house.

  "Inspect residential perimeter, Schuller." Gunge, curt.

  Schuller. "Yes, sir. How many resident?"

  "Fourteen," the man said. Reply by reflex.

  The real firemen were calling, hoses unwinding. Christ, a searchlight. I swore. Who'd think? Like Bonfire Night. I'd no idea. Did every blaze get this? Fantastic.

  "All residents mobile?" I barked. "Lame? Wheelchairs?"

  "No." Instant again, therefore true.

  "Schuller," Gunge boomed. "Keep that drive clear. More vehicles coming. How many entrances?"

  "Schuller," I muttered darkly, hurrying off. I'd give him Schuller. Made me sound like a Transylvanian cobbler from a Disney cartoon. I fiddled with my pathetic little Woolworth hand torch, stumbled off among rosebushes while the guard followed Gunge to the action.

  A couple of minutes among the bushes watching the consternation develop, and I returned, knocked on the van's side, three long, one short.

  "I'm ready, Lovejoy." Luna slid into the driver's seat. She was in a policewoman's uniform, so fetching it made me wonder for a second about fetishes, uniforms, leather buckles.

  "You look terrific, Lune. I'm off, then. Got my bag?"

  She passed it. My ordinary clothes. "Lovejoy. Be careful."

  But I was already eeling through the black night, falling over. Why didn't roots grow down, for God's sake? Roots are supposed to.

  The side of the mansion seemed a mile long. A security bloke came round the far end as I reached there. I talked into a bleeper, like I imagined firemen do, and barked a question about how many entrances. He hesitated, told me five. I told him to open the kitchen door, not let anyone else in.

  "Understand?" I shouted, professional in a hurry.

  "Right." He unlocked the door. "What the hell's going on?"

  "Any signs of the oil fire?" I rasped, wishing I could go octaves down like Gunge. "Straight ahead to the main hallway?"

  "Oil? Er, I think so. Fire? There's no—"

  "No lights. Fire risks, lights. Close it after me."

  I snapped an order, meet the senior officer at the front, and was inside and free. So he'd never even been inside, this security man. I trotted after my torch beam.

  Kitchens revolt me. I mean, they say even a cabbage screams. This one shone, chrome and steel on black. Marble floor. I stepped round the inner door, switched my lamp off, listened. The suspicious sod was hesitating out there. I could hear him, shuffling on the gravel. A torchlight shone in, roamed about a bit. Then he moved off. His sort gets on your nerves. I could feel the blighter thinking he should have demanded my pass.

  Boots are problems. Socks are almost as difficult. Slippy on wood floors, fine on carpets. Outside came the distant hullabaloo of order, counterorder, disorder. Inside, somebody came downstairs, a woman's light tread.

  "What is it?" a woman's voice called. Nobody I knew.

  "The fire station." Another, distant. "Is there a fire?"

  By the kitchen door was a wall cupboard, the sort you keep brooms in. I pulled the door, lifting it for possible squeaks, and stepped inside. But what excuse can a hidden fireman offer? I was soaked, enough sweat to put the bloody fire out without hose pipes.

  Then the stentorian voice I knew. My favorite dollop broker. She must be a vision in curlers. "Who heard a fire alarm?"

  Five or six female voices denied hearing a thing. A man's boots clumped. A fire officer shouting, who was in authority.

  A general search, I was done for. A walk-in freezer at the far end of the kitchen? No, ta. I'd seen too many mafia films to hide there. I could always nip out into the garden. What if the suspicious security man was lurking among the hydrangeas, the swine? I'd have to brazen it out, join the real firemen—except had Sandy's widow got the garb right? One wrong epaulette and I'd be exposed as a fraudster—

  "You check, lady." The fire officer was disappointed the ent
ire place wasn't going up in flames. "I'll run smoke tests."

  "Is that necessary? You can see quite clearly—"

  "Regulations." He wanted tea with a dash of Glenfiddich.

  "I run the test. Chief?" some hopeful bloke asked, concealed lust in his voice. I imagined a bevy of beauties on the staircase in fetching disarray, and swallowed. At least he could see them. I was stuck in a cupboard.

  "I'll do it, Polkinghorn. Outside. Check the roof."

  Mutters of reluctant obedience, the low thunder of boots.

  The voices receded. I risked opening the door slightly. Light fell obliquely in from the corridor. Silence. I wavered, put my boots on. I should have asked Gunge where they did smoke tests. Upstairs? Stairwells? I realized with a shock that I was silhouetted in the doorway, tiptoed out of the kitchen. Three steps up, I was in the hall, where I’d first met the dollop broker, among the stacked lentils and jerseys.

  Dejection set in. Sweating, cursing, quivering, I stood like a lemon. The plan seemed so simple: Get in, wait until quiet night sanded everybody's eyes, then find Connie. But with fourteen birds wafting about could they possibly keep a fifteenth imprisoned?

  The question I hated: Was Connie still alive? Voices returned. I ducked under the stairs, a small cupboard with meters, gas, electricity. Wires everywhere. A couple of metal boxes hummed steadily. I kept well away, scrunged into a ball, switched my torch off, prayed.

  ". . . country vandals ought to be tackled by the government." The grumbling fire officer.

  “I agree,'' graveled Miss R. "Flogging too good for them. None of my girls ever ..."

  "We’ll check again in the morning ..."

  "I blame the parents ..."

  Talk, farewells, doors slamming, men distantly calling, engines starting. I prayed Gunge and Luna had got away, that Luna had done her rehearsed little act with the gateman. I was just congratulating myself when shock struck.

  The women's voices approached. Lights in the hallway clicked on. More voices. Sets of feet slapped by—slippers. The kitchen lights. Somebody filled a kettle, women talking. If I hadn't moved to under the stairs I'd have been caught. I almost fainted. Killed by a dozen birds in their private mansion.

  "Right. Post mortem."

  The dollop broker clapped hands. Somebody said Mary and Eliza weren't here yet. They were shouted for, somebody finally going to fetch them. Cups clinked, saucers rattled. Midnight feast in the dorm.

  "Versions, everybody."

  "I think I heard the sirens first. Miss Reynolds," a voice offered. "I called Maria."

  "I answered the security gateman's phone. Miss Reynolds. Fire engines had already entered the drive, and a police van. They ignored his signals to halt."

  "Norma. You're D site supervisor tonight. Any action?''

  "None." Norma was crisp. I imagined her in jodhpurs, riding crop and waisted tan jacket. Mustn't get on the wrong side of old Norma.

  "Carol." Saying Carol's name was the nearest Miss Reynolds would ever come to cooing. "You checked the electronics?"

  "Nil for person activity. Miss Reynolds."

  The signal for relief all round. Except the mention of electronics was worrying. I didn't want anybody probing my nook. Talk began, a few mild quips about the firemen's expressions, vandals who thought it funny to phone the fire brigade.

  "We'll double Norma's watch. Patricia's next on call."

  Patricia groaned, but accepted her duty. They moved out. Miss Reynolds calling for two to come back this instant and clear away. She scolded them all upstairs—just because they were a business partnership didn't mean the Sampney Ladies Academy encouraged slatternly behavior. . . . Sounds diminished, leaving me solitude.

  D sites. D for dollop sites? Where constant nocturnal supervision was required? Very likely. Electronic surveillance, rotas of vigilants from within the mansion, not mere security hirelings. The gatehouse could be left to men, never part of the dollop broker syndicate.

  It was simple. Headmistress, her school going into liquidation, has a ready-made team. Maybe their adoring daddies brought in the first dollops. Educated, socially elegant. And eminently trainable. Who would suspect a schoolhouse of being involved in international roguery? Playing host to the revenue of great robberies, storage of antiques filched from museums and country houses. Poor old Prammie Joe had died because he realized the Cornish Place stuff wasn't going abroad on the Thames barges, but somewhere inland. Here, in fact. But whose dollop was it? The killer's, that's who.

  Which left the problem of Connie. She'd presumably been to this school. Wasn't that what Luna'd said, back in the van? And so had some other birds who were now into antiques. But some must be nurses, teachers, politicians. So?

  Barefoot time. I got my socks off, edged out of the cubbyhole, bumping my head with a blasphemy as I stood erect too quickly. Gloaming coming from the distant front door's side panels, but not enough to move by. A door slammed upstairs, some bird calling sorry. Silence.

  Houses are queer places. Not only that. This was female, a nest of those unattainables. One on her lone's pretty formidable. But fourteen? Benign, the house seemed to be smiling, we ladies are caring, sweet. You have nothing to fear, Lovejoy. Oh, aye, I thought sardonically. That chestnut. Then why was I trembling, sweat maddening me down every sloping surface I possessed? I stood a second, moved across the spacious cold floor. Stairs curving up, me giving the bottom step a wide berth. I’m clumsy at the best of times. A door at the far side, shown by a single click of my torch. The damned thing blinded me. I got there, turned the handle. My boots were hung round my neck, instinct bringing them the safest way. I halted—what the hell had I done with the bag, my mufti clothes? Christ. I’d left it outside in the bushes somewhere. Or inside the broom closet? I heard a faint sound that scared me witless. It was me moaning in alarm.

  Then I sussed myself. Typical. Four whole minutes I’d been standing in the semi-dark, hand on the doorknob of this mystery room, about to go in and discover . . . what? Connie hanging, dead? Thoughts are only deceits, ways of avoiding doing. I stepped inside quickly. Not a sound. Closed the door after me. Darkness, wholesale. No windows, no light. Not even a wash of nightglow from a curtain edge. I fumbled the torch in my hand, and felt a faint reverberation. The place was vast, paneled. Only spacious cathedrals and banqueting halls do that. I switched it on.

  Vast was right. For a country mansion, that is. Width, distance, length, a roof of lovely rafters. The paneled walls receded. It could have been an assembly hall, a decorated gymnasium. I guessed it once doubled as the dining room as well, in the way of private schools.

  But it felt cold. Parquet flooring, polished. Round the dark oak-paneled walls were photographs. I moved forward, careful not to crash on my bum to bring the bevy down on me. The wall photographs showed schoolgirls by the dozen, the score, the hundred. Colored, then black and white, then sepias. I inspected one—a daguerreotype, I could swear. The place was a mausoleum, the record of the Sampney Young Ladies Academy over the years. I shivered, cold. Nothing to cause a draught in the silent place. But it felt . . . tomblike. A shrine. Nothing living, except a vase of flowers on a central table—by Ince, I felt, smiling. It deserved better. A luscious mahogany dining table like that should have been living with people, not stuck here in this sepulture.

  Now, you can't trust pictures—whether paintings, photos, or engravings. I mean, in 1644 our first-ever illustrated newspaper, the Mercurius Civicus, published engravings of Prince Rupert and his sworn enemy Sir Thomas Fairfax—different issues, same portrait. It turned up later as Prince Maurice, et al. No, pictures aren't trustworthy.

  How old would Connie be? From her deception about that barmy astrophysics, I worked out a possible date, started along the lines of photographs. Maharajahs' daughters were among the fresh faces, African nobility. It was weird, seeing the dress styles evolve through the decades, right from 1840-something. Hockey matches, cumbersome skirts for tennis, punting in impossible but lovely high-neck, long-sleeve
d blouses properly covering every inch of forearm. Straw hats. One sad Indian girl wearing a black armband on Speech Day, bravely trying to smile, learning the Stiff Upper Lip first go, God help the poor little lass. Except she was long passed on.

  The faces came closer. Now war time, a group of girls laughing fit to burst in Women's Land Army uniforms. One rolling up her sleeves, about to blow up a barrage balloon. Girls falling about as a mistress tried to stay sternly in control as shy soldiers manned their antiaircraft gun, crocodiles of Sampney Young Ladies filing past. VE Day, clownish celebrations. Long trestled tables on lawns, this mansion in the background, strolling dignitaries taking tea and cake.

  Years moved nearer. I inched down the panels, flashing and peering. Brighter photographs, hints of variation in dress. A scarf here, a watch there. School plays, tableaux of improbable history. Scenes from Empire eased into Commonwealth. Faster changes as educational theories tumbled, to balls learning up into the current shambles. Lines of girls depressed at computers. Nervy teachers trying to look jocular at Last Day celebrations. Diploma lists.

  My breathing felt funny. I was getting close. I knew it. The girls were modern now, dates recent. Bicycles, a motorcycle even. Sleeker motors parked by this mansion, now captioned "Big School House.'' Foundation ceremonies, blokes in chains of office, improbable gleaming spades and sham trowels, breaking the sod, laying foundation stones.

  Plays, even dances, standards tumbling as the years rattled numbers. One long school photograph. Miss Reynolds the headmistress looking moronic in a mortarboard and gown. Democracy wasn't going to raise its head at her Young Ladies Academy. Then the shortening. The school dwindled, few from overseas. The school uniform looked archaic. Biology laboratory's closure. Miss Reynolds smiling defiance at the camera. The last sixth form physics class. Chemistry no more, as costly subjects bit the dust. One bright spot as the Academy launched a Grand Joint Venture

  with somewhere else—a stiffly segregated arrangement of imitation smiles as two groups of school governors learnt the cruelties of double-entry accounting. Then the end game, desperate Sampney Goes It Alone photographs. One sad spurt of hope as a new boathouse was donated by a new up-and-coming local politician. Good old Oliver Carstairs! Luna not with him—before they were married? Hardly. She'd mentioned some troublesome daughter, wouldn't work or go to college.