Moonspender (24 page)

"Oh, Christopher!" Suzanne said crossly. "Don't
spoil it! Lovejoy has everything in hand."

"I'm sure." He smiled after an inward wrestle.
"Could he explain it?" He tapped a riding crop against his calf.
Nerks like him are born
Sturmbahnfuhrers
.

"Okay," I said. "The brickwork's free. The
rebuilding's financed by Mrs. York plus Sandy and Mel. Repayment to Suzanne's
on the drip-feed from takings and tax on the restaurant takings. Sandy and Mel
get exclusive commission rights on antiques sales here."

Another desperate smile. Candice had appeared at his shoulder, in
a simple knitted dress,
waistcoated
to show fetching
innocence. A simple diamond clasp emphasized differences in local poverty
levels.

"Doesn't that assume the restaurant will actually have a
clientele?" Bentham asked with that dangerous smile.

"I'll get it a clientele."

"Like you did before?" dearest Candice quipped.

"Stop it, Candice," Suzanne commanded. "I won't
have all this bad feeling. Lovejoy's trustworthy."

Obviously a genius as well as bonny. I smiled a trustworthy smile
as Mel came to the rescue with a complaint about food. Suzanne was all instant
concern.

"That whipped half-cream again?" She uttered a soft cry,
gave me a quick peck in farewell and together she and Mel rushed away. Between
Candice and Bentham I felt in a plastic wallet. Togetherness time.

"Lovejoy." Candice had her hands together, as if about
to treat us to a soprano solo. "What exactly is it you want?"

"Me?" I stared blankly. They waited with the hard faces
of dealers. "Nowt."

"Come, Lovejoy." Bentham even took my arm, friendly.
"This place of Suzanne's isn't much, really. A few acres, ponds, a river.
Land that's no longer arable. Grazing leased for a herd or two. I could make it
a

viable proposition—if Suzanne could be persuaded to stop this
ridiculous restaurant scheme. Naturally there'd be a financial . . . shall we
say, consideration, for whoever gives Suzanne the right advice."

I shrugged my arm free. "She's worth ten of you two," I
heard myself say, and thought oh
hell
, that's torn
it. "You're right, of course. Major. Dogpits Farm's none of my business.
And God knows I could do without the hassle. I'm helping because she's a woman
struggling to do something lovely. Whereas you two are like everybody nowadays—
you'd do anything to change the numbers in some bank. It's a sickness."

"Is that why 
you 're
 East Anglia's greatest
failure, Lovejoy?" Candice, sweet as ever.

For almost a full minute I pondered while they seethed hate. Only
one answer. "Aye, love." And walked off.

Into a shoal of messages and orders, the most interesting of which
was that Goldie was at the Red Lion, wanting to see me "without
delay." I thought, about bloody time. Women always take an age to come,
when you're in a hurry yourself Ever noticed that?

19

"Mister Munting?" I was at the comer in the dark. The
thickset man stopped. Blokes were leaving the pub, shouting goodnights.
"I'm Lovejoy. Chance of a word?"

"Walk with me. Where's your scruff?"

So he'd spotted us that time. "Tinker's gone." We fell
in step. "Any tips, like, how to make a farm solvent?"

We crossed the road by the flour mill. It was coming on to
drizzle, the night breeze stiffening. "You're in antiques, Lovejoy, so you
know. Everything's income."

"Manor Farm's not got enough, eh?" I gave us a few paces
before adding, "Unlike others locally."

He paused us on the river bridge to light his pipe. Cars passed
with nocturnal sluggishness. We put elbows on the parapet staring upriver into
the darkness.

"Land's beautiful," the elderly man reflected. "
Its
simplicity's God-given. Take a farm, lad. An acre of
good-hearted ground costs so little, yet she'll repay care for
generations."

I yawned. He chuckled.

"But money men don't think so, Lovejoy. They see land—cared
for over three thousand years, like Manor Farm—as a commodity. A money man
isn't interested in its spirit. He only wants a license to cover that precious
land with offices."

"But the council ..."

He punctured the night with a match puffed at his bowl.
"You've guessed, Lovejoy. The council gives building licenses. Councillor
Ryan would have no difficulty."

"They daren't give building permission for a farm."

"No," he agreed. "Only if it's losing money."

I thought, he thought, we thought. "Could it be
solvent?" I asked finally.

"Easily. It was solvent before Ryan came. We had an unholy
row, so he slung me out."

"So Ryan's doing it deliberately? I hate asking."

"What would you do, Lovejoy?" I didn't know how to
answer. He snorted and replied for me. "You'd sack your manager, and
instead hire a dud: you. You'd buy a local building firm and keep it handy.
You'd get elected to the council. Ryan's done all that."

"That's still not proof." I had to be sure because lives
hinged on it, mostly mine.

Sad now. "There's two proofs, Lovejoy. One is to put forward
an efficient plan. You'll be fired."

That wouldn't do; I had to stay in situ. "The other?"

Even more sad. "Let Ryan get on with it."

There wasn't anything else. Much. "These lassies who come to
the wood. You let them?"

He shrugged. A motorbike swept past, a roaring searchlight.
"They're Like Tom Booth. They're part of the land. Always were."

"Witches? Part of the land?"

A chuckle. "Come, son. Nobody believes that. Ritual's in
church, in play, in politics. So a few girls, women, sing funny flower songs in
the dark of the day. Where's the harm 's long as they don't set the wood
afire?"

If he said so. "But you 
did
 mind the
treasure-hunters?"

"Aye. I always gave orders to run them buggers off."

We talked more, just this and that. I felt quite rested now I'd
found the enemy. I trusted Munting, and believed his interpretation. As we
separated, he said something on that curved bridge.

"You'll not stop him, son." He sounded so defeated.
"Folk like Ryan allus win because they don't care about things, the way
you and me do. But good luck with your try anyway."

For a long hour I sat alone in the Ruby while the town's activity
charred lights into black and silence crept out of the stonework.

Munting was right, but hadn't gone far enough. The moonspenders
were the problem. Ryan's plan actually was complete.

In the Eastern Hundreds, every builder lives in terror—of
archeology. When a bulldozer breaks ground, the sight of a Roman tile or
mosaic, or an ancient earthenware beaker, strikes fear into the builder.
Reason? The dreaded restraint order. All site construction stops while
wandering tribes of archeologists inspect the unearthed treasures. The builders
sob and complain to Parliament, but they always lose. Culture comes first and
wins hands down. Good, eh?

No. In fact, bad.

Builders don't like paying men to stand idle while waiting for
archeologists—not famed for speed—to excavate one tiny Romano-Celtic amphora.
So they slip a few quid to their workmen to say nothing about a find. If the
discovery is a mound of ancient silver coins, then extra bribes are called for.
Plus, the builder sells the treasure on the sly and splits the proceeds with
the finder.

Hereabouts, builders' men call it silence money.

You may think this is hyping up the ultimate long shot. It isn't.
In one unexceptional year over 300 finds were made in our ten square miles.
Most are minor—Roman coins, buckles from the Great Civil War. But two were
tombs, and one was a temple, plus, unbelievably, a Roman oyster bar. The great
bronze head of Claudius the god came from a local river bed. And gold circlets
of Celtic kings whose lineages were old before Rome was born. You get the idea.
It's even worse than I've made it sound, because law's involved, and law's
always wrong. The law of treasure trove only applies to precious metal. It
therefore covers one debased hammered silver coin, but not that exquisite
Anglo-Saxon bronze horse-furniture found in Buckinghamshire, which London
auctioneers sold to a German collector for a fortune. Worse still is that the
poor coroner 
has to guess why the object's in the ground
! God's
truth. The law, you see, only covers gold or silver 
accidentally
 lost,
not burials, or hidden caches. Ever heard of anything so daft? You couldn't
invent a loonier law if you tried. Hence, the chances of treasure entering the
record books is slight to say the least. Moonspenders, remember, are hunters.
And to a hunter all killings must be fast. Courts take a year to make up their
cumbersome minds. Okay, so concealment's illegal, but moonspenders say finders
keepers.

Which is where Ryan was one step ahead of Mr. Munting. Simple for
Ryan to tell his dedicated estate manager to wage war on all moon-spenders—then
only give him two gamekeepers to combat them. And each night slip out word
where the gamekeepers would patrol. . . .

Easy when you own the land. Ryan's clandestine arrangement with
the moonspenders was immediate cash for any item found. Naturally, they'd swarm
to the estate like wasps to honey. Manor Farm would become Aladdin's cave,
Eldorado. Do it systematically enough, and the whole estate would be cleaned
out, making a fortune. Ryan, Mister Methodical, would have the moonspenders
hunting section by section, like sappers with mine detectors, the swine.

No impediment to building permits then, eh? And clever old Ryan
would net Fortune No. 2. Who'd winked an eye at his wife's indiscretions—all in
a good cause. Anything to keep the farm in a state of financial ruin while the
moonspenders searched and dug and stole and pillaged. I felt sickened.

"Your try," Munting had called my involvement. Stuff
that for a lark. I got out, cranked the old Ruby awake, and clattered off. Try,
indeed. I'd frigging succeed. And one reason was that Veronica Gold was waiting
at the Red Lion.

20

Veronica Gold was wearing sun specs—this in autumnal East Anglia.
Two men paced irritably about her, smoking fags and refilling glasses. An
anxious girl in trendy dishevelment scribbled utterances for posterity. I'd
been admitted to the room like it was Hernando's Hideaway, three knocks and ask
for Millie.

"If you want me to beg, the answer's no." I'd refused to
sit. I was hoping they couldn't really afford a lawsuit. I'd only lose money
I'd not got.

She looked drained. "Drink, Lovejoy?" Her voice said cut
the cackle. "Tea, please, if you've got any. What's the incognito
bit?" "There'd be hundreds here, ogling. The public's a mob. You just
don't know." This to an antique dealer? "I always travel in
secrecy." "Why travel?" I was very reasonable. "I'm here to
resolve this ridiculous situation." Her and her rotten situations.
"You mean lawsuits." She was already on the gin and tonic. "You
caused them." I could afford magnanimity. "Then I forgive you,
Goldie." "No, Lovejoy." She didn't hope for too much from her
story, but did her best. "You misunderstand. I'm here to ask what's in it
for me, to get you off the hook."

A short apparent think. "Nothing, love."

"What?" they all yelped together, outraged.

"It's not worth my while." I took the tea from the girl
scribbler. "Ta, love."

Goldie silenced her aides with a gesture. "Why not?"

"BBC Sues Penniless Pauper." I was thinking of Lize. Her
headlines would reach an all-time grammatical low. "Media Mammoth
Marmalizes
Minion."

"Daydreams, Lovejoy."

"Come on, Veronica," I said. "Since when does a
cosmic superstar have time to come zooming round the
sealands
?"

"Listen, lout," a nerk interposed angrily, but Goldie
closed her eyes and shook her head.

"I'm calling the lawsuits off, Lovejoy," she said.

"Ta," I said, elated. "What's your
proposition?"

A nerk began, "Who the hell
d'you
—?"

"Shut up,
Boysie
! Can't you see he
suspects?" Veronica's voice was a rasp. We all jumped. My cup slopped. I
said sorry, because women go berserk if you spill things. She lit a cigarette
and puffed a plume with a head-jerk. I gazed admiringly. Women's actions.
"If we educate you, Lovejoy, we might be able to use you."

"That game thing? No, ta." The nerks shuffled agitatedly.
The
scribess
hesitated.

"We've had a certain amount of rather weird interest,"
Veronica explained, testy. "It could be worth exploiting." So people
had written in about that lunatic antique dealer she'd had on last week's
program, boosting her ratings. I felt a surge of cheer.

"No thanks."

"There's a fee," Goldie said in her metallic monotone.
Relief. Five more minutes and I'd be shaky, hands cold and voice wobbling.