Gold by Gemini (13 page)

Janie got me a recent biography – Queen Mary. I read it, not to see if they mentioned her fabulous collection of jade snuff bottles, but to see if it mentioned how she acquired it. It didn’t. They never do, which really tickles me. Word is that round the British Museum an impending visit from the great lady acted like a tocsin warning of the Visigoths landing. She’s rumoured to have admired any particular jade piece with such fixed (not to say immovable) admiration that, just to get off the hook, squirming administrators felt compelled to offer her the object. Graciously accepted, of course. I really admire her for that, a collector after my own heart. An example for us all to follow. Of course, it’s taking advantage of one’s position. But do you know anyone who doesn’t? Even God does that.

Janie had the phone reconnected in one day, which must be a record.

‘Did you resort to bribery?’ I demanded suspiciously.

‘They’re above that sort of thing,’ she replied airily, almost as if people ever are. She rang the news round I’d got flu. Our local quack came and did his nut. People phoned with mediocre deals, all out of my reach. Big Frank nearly infarcted because I was late getting his silvers back. Janie, ran them over to the Arcade the first morning to leave them with Margaret.

‘We had a little chat,’ Janie reported back, smug as any woman is after a scrap. I sighed on my sickbed. As if I’d not enough trouble.

Algernon came tiptoeing breathlessly in. The stupid burke brought an enormous bunch of lilies.

‘I’m not dead yet, Algernon,’ I said angrily.

Janie whisked them away diplomatically.

Algernon was cheerfully unabashed. ‘I’ve brought you some grapes,’ he said, ‘for restorative nourishment.’

Janie swiftly bundled him outside. I heard him being full of solace in the porch.

‘How very sad to witness poor Lovejoy’s indefatigable high-spirited pleasantries dampened by such tragic infirmities.’

‘Quite, Algernon,’ Janie said firmly. ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you some coffee, but in the circumstances . . .’

‘Absolutely!’ he prattled. ‘On behalf of all of us antiques experts, Janie, may I express gratitude for your
undying
charity in so devotedly sticking to the task of restoring his poor battered physique!’

‘Oh, er, well.’

One thing. No matter what goes wrong you can always depend on Algernon. I liked the antiques experts bit, may heaven forgive him.

Janie bought food from our village shop, setting tongues wagging. She said nothing to me about there being very little grub in the cottage, but her back had that critical look. I made her write down what she spent and told her I owed it.

Doc Lancaster injected me with some rubbish or other that first day. Janie drove me to the local hospital and they trussed my hands. God, they did hurt.

Janie stayed the first night, jumping a mile at every stray noise. She was terrified and kept asking what sort of maniac would do a thing like that and why.

‘We ought to report it,’ she said more than once.

In the circumstances it was brave of her to stay. The
evening of the second night she reported back home in wifely obedience, to check that none of her servants had pinched any of the nineteen bedrooms in her centrally heated mansion. Her husband was throwing a dinner-party for business friends and Janie had to baste the carrots.

‘Can’t stand the pace, eh?’ I accused.

‘I promised, Lovejoy.’

‘Remember to crook your little finger over sherry, like posh folks.’

She pulled a face and left. Everything I needed was in reach, drinks with straws and all that.

The second day Janie showed me the letter. It had arrived without a stamp. Somebody’d shoved it under the door early.

‘I kept it,’ Janie told me, ‘because you weren’t well enough.’

It was mid-morning. I was listening to the radio. One of those staid ‘experts’ was talking about mother-of-pearl decorations – incidentally coming back fast into fashion – and never said the only important thing about it. Keep it covered. Keep it dark. Never
ever
put mother-of-pearl under a strong light or on a sunny windowsill. If you do it’ll fade, become dull and lifeless. It’s practically the only shine we cunning dealers can’t ever restore, imitate properly, or forge. Once it’s gone it’s gone for good.

This letter.

‘I think it’s something to do with . . . you know.’ She opened it for me.

Dear Lovejoy,

Are you any nearer to handing over the diaries? I sincerely hope that recent events have
persuaded you to a wiser course of action than hitherto.

Do not hesitate to contact me should you see sense and wish to sell. Those scribbles can only bring you trouble.

Yours sincerely,

Edward Rink.

I looked at Janie, marvelling. ‘He’s mad,’ I said. ‘And bloody cool.’

‘Is he the one that . . .?’ She shivered.

I turned the radio off.

‘It’s evidence,’ I said, puzzled. I’ll give it to the police. They’ll pick him up.’ Geoffrey, our local bobby, is rumoured to wake soon after Easter. Time he did something.

We read the letter again. Janie disagreed with me. ‘He could mean practically anything.’

‘He says “recent events”,’ I countered. ‘It’s in his own handwriting.’

‘That could be anything from the weather to a new offer. You once told me there are a thousand auctions a week. He could say he was talking about a commission.’

She was right.

‘I’m going to phone him.’

‘Now, Lovejoy,’ Janie warned, but I got her to dial the number from his card. We got him third go, a telecommunicatioas miracle.

‘Lovejoy? I’m so pleased you rang,’ the swine said urbanely. ‘How sensible.’

I tried to hold the reeeiver lightly but my hand took no notice and hurt itself tightening up.

‘Cut it, Rink,’ I said. ‘Did you do it?’

‘Now, Lovejoy,’ he purred. ‘No silliness. I merely
want you to be aware your movements are being observed. If you suddenly take it into your head to go anywhere, you’ll be spotted. Day or night. More sensible to sell me the diaries and have done.’

‘What if I’ve got this conversation on tape?’ I asked suddenly.

‘You’d be wasting the magistrate’s time, Lovejoy.’ He was laughing, the pig, ‘I hope you’ll see reason. Nichole’s desperate.’

‘No.’

He sighed down his end of the blower. ‘You have one other choice. To become my agent. I would pay you well. And a percentage.’

‘Why me?’ He was off his rocker.

‘Because you have the diaries. And the sketch. And I believe you have a peculiar skill where antiques are concerned.’ He paused. ‘And that other thing. Poverty.’

‘I haven’t got the sketch.’

‘Tut-tut, Lovejoy. Lies.’ There was a pause. He cleared his throat, coming to a decision. ‘Incidentally,’ he said at last, ‘I’m so sorry about your friend.’

‘Friend?’

‘Dandy Jack.’ I’d forgotten about him and his accident. ‘Such a shame. Still, if he lied to Nichole, he deserved –’

I rang off. My hands seemed made of wood. Janie was making coffee. I made my way shakily back to the divan. Curious, but my head seemed cold and the scalp tight. I let her get on with it for a while before I managed to speak.

‘Janie.’ I saw her back stiffen. ‘How’s Dandy?’

‘Mmmm?’ She was ever so busy.

‘That smelly old geezer from the Arcade. Remember?’

We shared the long horrid silence.

‘I couldn’t tell you yesterday,’ she said.

We both watched her assemble my tin coffee gadget. Only Yanks can make coffee properly. They have this knack. I wonder what our women do wrong. I try, but I’m even worse at it than Janie and that’s not far from horrendous. It might come out right, we were both thinking, because you never know your luck. The fuse went in the electric plug. She had a high old time unscrewing it and putting it right. We got mixed up over the wires. Well, morons keep changing the colours of the bloody wires. It’s a wonder we aren’t all electrocuted.

‘He died early yesterday morning, love. I’m so sorry.’

Everything seemed falling to pieces. ‘Police say anything?’

‘Nobody really saw,’ Janie said. ‘No witnesses came forward.’

I thought a lot. Dandy suddenly seemed very close. And Manton and Wilkinson. Then fat Henry, and Eleanor. I looked across at Janie. She smiled up, feeling my eyes. We’d a real fire because I’d asked. It was raining. Outside in darkness my robin was probably nodding off. And Crispin my hedgehog was probably roaming, his snuffly infants behind him on the prowl in the muddy grass, filthy beasts. And Tinker Dill, three sheets sloshed in the White Hart by now. And Helen. And Margaret. And Nichole, If you ever bothered to list your responsibilities you’d go spare. I got a pen. Janie saw what I was up to and started us both on separate sheets, copying the diaries. My slowness almost made me bellow with frustration. She was twice as fast. I couldn’t do the drawing. Janie had to do that.

It was gone midnight when I phoned Edward Rink,
to surrender. I wouldn’t let him call at the cottage. He gave me a different postal address.

‘I give you all I’ve got of Bexon’s,’ I told him, ‘You leave my friends alone. Okay?’

‘With pleasure,’ he replied. I swear he was smiling.

We made the diaries into an envelope ready for posting, though it was a homemade job and looked botched.

Janie took it up the lane to our post office as soon as it opened in the morning. By then we’d copied the lot, word for word.

For the rest of the day I let my mind rest. I suppose Janie had slipped me a Micky on Doc Lancaster’s orders. Or maybe it was her brew, the western world’s most soporific stimulant. Anyway, I dozed a lot.

By evening I was alert enough to feel certain. Edward Rink was a maniac. He’d killed Dandy Jack. He was determined that, if old Bexon had left a clue about a Roman find, nobody else would get it but him. But what the hell did a beauty like Nichole see in a nerk like that? Doesn’t it make you wonder, all those old sayings about women and rich men? Rink must have burgled the Castle to get Bexon’s coins from the display case. To check they were genuine Romans, not crummy electrotypes people are always trying to sell you these days. It was as simple as that. A cool swine. We’re never ashamed of our crimes, not really, but being thought inadequate in some way’s the absolute humiliation. Aren’t people a funny lot?

About eight o’clock our vicar, Reverend Woking, came to ask if I’d sufficiently recovered from my mythical ’flu to sing in the choir for Dandy Jack. The service would be at ten in a couple of days. They would
do the Nelson Mass, though he’s not supposed to have papist leanings. I said okay.

‘I don’t think Lovejoy will be well enough, Reverend,’ Janie said. ‘He’s had an, er, accident in his workshop.’

‘Yes, I will,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Good, good!’ He hesitated, wondering whether to chance his arm and preach to us about Janie’s status, but wisely decided to cut his losses.

‘Before you start,’ I put in as Janie prepared to go for me, ‘you’ve never heard our tenors. Without me the
Satictus
is doomed.’ We bickered this way all evening.

H
ALF THE CHURCH
was crowded. Half was bone-bare. We were all there. Helen holy without a cigarette. Jimmo with his asbestos cough. Ted the barman from the White Hart. Jill Jenkins with her poodle and a bewildered young uniformed navigator she’d somehow got off a coaster new in harbour that day. Harry Bateman and Jenny lighting candles for all they were worth because their new place opened in the morning. Patrick sobbing into a nasturtium hankie, Lily trying to comfort him and weeping worse. Big Frank from Suffolk trying to look as if he wasn’t reading a Sotheby’s catalogue of seventeenth-century German and French jewellery. Tinker Dill giving everybody a nasty turn having no cloth cap on and shaming us all to death by stubbing out his fag in our church’s exquisite thirteenth-century baptismal font (‘Well, what’s the bleeding water in it for, then?’ he whispered in an indignant stage bellow when Lily glared). A miscellany of shuffling barkers unrecognizable with washed heads and clean fingernails – one had even pressed his trousers. Margaret; the only one of us all who knows when to kneel down and which book has the right hymns – we all followed her example. Gimbert’s auctioneers had sent a ghoul
or two by way of unmitigated grief. And Dig Mason in a morning suit for God’s sake, gear so posh we all knew the Rolls outside was waiting for him and not the coffin. And Algernon falling over twice moving along the pew. He’d brought his uncle, Blind Squaddie from the houseboat, who felt the hand-embroidered kneelers a little too long. I’d have to count them after he’d gone. And a few villagers on a day trip from across the road to get a kick out of life.

Oh, and Dandy Jack.

We’d got some flowers in wreaths, one lot shaped like a cross. I’d sold Big Frank my single display Spode plate, cracked and just about in one piece, and bought a lot of flowers. I could tell Janie thought they were the wrong colours but they were bright. Dandy Jack liked bright colours. By then I’d spent up. I got three lengths of wire from a neighbour’s lad and threaded the flower stems in and out with green stuff I’d taken from my hedge. It’s hard to make a circle. Try it. You don’t realize how much skill goes into making things till you do it yourself. It looked just like a real wreath when it was finished. Making it didn’t do my hands any good, but I was proud of it. Janie went off somewhere and came back with one of those cards. We wrote ‘In Remembrance’ and our names on it and tied it on with black cotton.

‘It looks great, doesn’t it?’ I asked Janie.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, which was a relief because Janie can be very critical sometimes. The trouble is I knew she’d have said the same if it hadn’t been right. Still.

The coffin was on a bier. I wasn’t to carry Dandy because of my hands. Patrick nobly volunteered, but broke down. Trust Patrick. A barker stood in at
the last minute. Our church has this small orchestra, five players, counting the organ. Reverend Woking arranging the choir stuck me behind Mary Preston, our plump and attractive cellist. (‘You like being here, Lovejoy, don’t you?’ he said brightly while I avoided Janie’s eyes, large in the congregation.)