The Judas Pair (8 page)

I sat down at the door to watch the birds fool around while I ate.

I’d learned the pistols were something vital, probably a really good pair, almost certainly Durs, as George said. Shiny, the lovely Muriel had said, and black. No decoration, but a platinum plug for the touch-hole. And she’d indicated about fifteen inches long, not too far out. Shiny might mean not cross- or star-hatched, as Durs did his, but some of his early pieces were known unhatched, so that was still all right. Black, shiny, ugly . . . well, the poor lady was still probably slightly deranged after her shock. Cased. And Brother George had said there were accessories in it. And bought by post from Norfolk, near a coastal bird resort.

All Eric’s stuff had been sold, but George was certain the flinters weren’t there when he discovered his brother. And if they’d been hidden anywhere in the house, presumably Muriel would have come across them by now.

I finished my meal and sat drinking tea. It was afternoon, and the sun threw oblique shadows across the grass. The birds, a fairly ragged lot with not much to do, trotted about the path and milled around after crumbs. My robin, an aggressive little charmer who seemed to dislike the rest, came on my arm and gave its sweet whistle. It was blowing a cool breeze, rising from the east. With the east coast so near, afternoons could take on a chill.

‘Do people go to bird sanctuaries to look at things like you?’ I asked the robin. He looked back, disgusted. ‘Well,’ I explained to him, ‘some people must. Know where it is?’

He dropped off and shooed some brownish things off his patch. You’d think robins were soft and angelic from all the free publicity they get around Christmas, but they’re tough as nails. I’ve seen this one of mine take on rabbits as well as those big black birds that goose-step about after you’ve cut the grass. ‘Tough, but means well. I’m just the opposite, weak and bad-intentioned.

‘Margaret?’

‘Lovejoy!’ She sounded honestly pleased. ‘At last! Where are we to meet?’

‘Cool it, babe,’ I said. ‘I’m after information.’

‘I’d hoped you were lusting Force Five at least.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘I suppose it’s still that tart from London.’

‘Which tart?’ I asked, all innocent.

‘You know. The one you sent walking to the station on her own.’

‘Okay, Hawkeyes-of-the-East,’ I said sardonically.

‘I just happened to notice,’ she said sweetly, ‘seeing as I was dangling out of the pub window when you arrived.’

I hadn’t seen her. The thought crossed my mind that she might have overheard Tinker and George Field, but I hadn’t time to hang about if a real genuine pair of flinters were in all this.

‘She’d just been for a short . . . er . . . visit,’ I explained.

‘How long’s long, if three days is short?’

‘Two,’ I snapped back, and could have bitten my tongue.

‘Oh, two, was it,’ she cooed. ‘You must be tired, sweetie, after all that entertaining.’

See what I mean? They don’t like each other really. I honestly believe that’s what all that dressing up’s all about. It doesn’t matter what the bloke thinks, as long as they outdo any other birds in the vicinity. I often wonder how nuns get on, and whether they vie with each other for God in the convent. All the rest are fencing and machinating and circling warily, all for nothing. Frightening, if you let yourself dwell on it.

I once had this bird – the one I got the cottage from – and she found that I’d visited this other woman in the village. Honestly, it was quite innocent, really, but I’d had to stay away from the cottage for a night or two, only because I’d got pressing business, you see. My resident bird hit the roof – gave me hell, but was more eager to cripple this other woman for life than she was to tell me off.

I think they just like fighting each other, and I’d just given my bird an excuse for a scrap. How she found out I’ll never know. They always assume the worst, don’t they? Trust is not their strong point.

‘I rang up to ask,’ I said with dignity, ‘about birds.’

‘How many do you want, sweetie?’ she said coyly, putting barbs in.

‘Birds that fly about,’ I reprimanded. ‘In the air.’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Lovejoy,’ she said, needling still. ‘I misunderstood. I thought –’

‘Never mind what you thought.’

‘Stuffed?’ she drooled.

‘Now, look, Margaret –’ I snapped, and she relented.

‘Sorry, old thing. What is it?’

‘I have the offer of some glassed animals,’ I improvised. ‘Ten.’

‘Quite a collection.’

‘Well, the thing is, I haven’t an idea.’

‘Want me to look at them for you?’

This was a blow, because Margaret was something of our local expert on such horrid monstrosities. Stuffed animals might be valuable antiques, rare as hens’ teeth, but they still dampen my ardour.

‘Er, well, you see . . .’ I let it wait.

‘All right, Lovejoy, I understand.’ She was smiling from her voice. ‘You don’t trust me.’

‘Of course I do, Margaret,’ I said, fervour oozing down the phone. ‘It’s just that I thought I’d rather learn a bit about suchlike myself . . . anyway, I believe there are some bird sanctuaries further along the coast which are pretty well-known, so I thought –’

‘Look, Lovejoy,’ she said, serious now. ‘I don’t know what you plan to do, but if you’re aiming to cart a load of stuffed birds into a bird sanctuary and ask them to help you identify them, you’re going to be unpopular.’

‘Oh. Well, they might have some literature . . .’ I said weakly.

‘I’ll get the details. My nephew’s in a club that comes out this way. Hang on.’ She left the phone a moment and gave me a list of three bird sanctuaries, of which two were in Norfolk. I didn’t say which one I was interested in, but said I’d probably go to the nearest.

Before she rang off, she asked if I was all right.

‘Of course I am. Why?’ She hesitated.

‘Oh, nothing. It’s just . . . Look, can I come and see you for a second?’

‘Oh, Margaret.’ It was a bit transparent, after all, so I can be forgiven for being exasperated.

‘Suit yourself, Lovejoy,’ she snapped angrily, and slammed the phone down. Women don’t like to give up, you see. Seen them with knitting? Yards, hours and hours, years even. And still they’re there, soldiering on. Something pretty daunting about women sometimes, I often think. Anyway, it’s change I like, and that’s exactly what they resent.

While I went again through my records – locking up carefully as usual – there were two further phone calls. One was Sheila, who complained I hadn’t rung. I said so what else is new, and she rang off telling me I was in a mood. Tinker interrupted me an hour later saying he’d had four possible tickles. Three were the same as I’d got from Dandy Jack and included the Yorkshire auction, plus one further whisper of a man in Fulham who’d brought a load of stuff down from the North and had two cased sets among the items. That could have meant anything including percussion, so I took the address and said I’d speed off there in my speedster some time.

There were numerous antique enthusiasts in Norfolk. Only a hundred lived near the coast. From the bird sanctuaries Margaret had given me I selected some five or six collectors varying the narrow radius.

Cross-checking with the auction records I had, none of the six had bought within two years anything remotely resembling a Durs gun. Indeed, most of them seemed to be either furniture or porcelain people, though one particular chap, a clergyman called Lagrange, had purchased a revolving percussion longarm from a local auction not far from the Blakeney Point sanctuary. Adverts didn’t help, except for a run of them from two Norfolk addresses in the
Exchange and Mart
some two years ago, wanting rather than offering flinters.

I emerged from my priest-hole three hours later fairly satisfied that if Durs duellers had changed hands within the two years before Eric Field’s death, it had been done so quietly nobody had known. Therefore the ones which came so innocently by post from Norfolk were a major find, something newly discovered to
this
century’s cruel gaze.

My hands were shaking again so I had my emergency beer. If it wasn’t women it was antiques, or vice versa. I put the telly on and watched some little rag dolls talking to each other on a children’s programme. That did nothing for my disturbed state of mind.

I was getting close to believing in the Judas Pair.

*

Look about. That’s all I have to say. Look about. Because
antique discoveries happen.
If in doubt read any book on local history. It’ll set you thinking.

I’ve come across Minden
faience jardinières
– posh pots for garden plants – being used as garage toolboxes. I’ve seen a set of Swiss miniature gold dominoes making up an infant’s set of wooden building bricks, in the original gold case. I’ve seen a beautiful octagonal ruby-glass hallmarked silver-ended double scentbottle used as a doll’s rolling pin. I can go on all night.

I’ve seen a Spencer and Perkins striking watch used as a weight on a plumb line. You still don’t believe me? Don’t, then. Go and ask the Colchester labourers who dug out an old bucket a couple of years ago – and found in it the lost Colchester hoard of thousands of medieval silver coins. Or go and ask the farmer who four years ago got so fed up with the old coffin handles he kept ploughing up in his field that he took them to the authorities. They’re the famous solid gold. Celtic torcs that museums the world over now beg to be allowed to
copy.
And while you’re about it you can also ask where the most valuable pot in the world was found – no, not in some sacred tomb. It was in somebody’s porch
being used as an umbrella stand.
Well, a Charles I silver communion cup is my own principal claim to fame. I bought it as an old tin shaving cup years ago.
And
kept the profits. None of this rubbish about ‘fair play’, giving part of the proceeds up as conscience money. A sale is a sale is a sale.

My mind was edging further towards an uneasy belief.

I let the evening come nearer the cottage by having a small cigar. The darkness swung in, inch by inch. I swept the living room and got out some sausages for my supper. Those and chips, with a custard thing from our village shop to follow.

Though the cottage seemed cosy enough, this Judas business had taken the steam out of me for the moment. Perhaps it was just my turn to feel a bit down. I get that way.

As I listlessly tidied up I realized how really isolated the cottage was. Solitude is precious to me, but only when I want it.

I phoned Margaret, intending to say I’d perhaps been rather short with her on the blower. It rang and rang without answer.

While my grub was frying I stood at the darkening window and watched the road lights come on across the valley edge a mile away. The White Hart would be starting up. Harry, possibly Jane Felsham, Adrian, probably Tinker and for absolute certain Dandy Jack – they’d all be there. Later would come the nightlies, the knocker dealers who touted door to door leaving cards or hoping housewives bored to torture would fall for their blue eyes enough to search their attics.

Then the pub dealing would start, cuts, rings, groups, fractional slices of profit, marginal gains, the entire lovely exhilarating game of nudges and nods. I pulled the curtains to.

Suppose I did find the thirteenth pair. What then? I hadn’t asked Field. Whoever had them murdered Eric Field. I was to tell George Field, probably, who would accuse the owner, whoever it was, to the police. So the police would then arrest the owner. QED.

I poked the sausages and chips on to a cold plate and margarined some slices of bread. The tea. I’d forgotten tea. I put the kettle on, but before sitting down tried to phone Margaret again. No luck. By then, the kettle boiled. By the time the tea brewed the food was cold. I sighed and sat down to supper.

Having the telly on helped, but I keep wondering what they really do for a living during the day.

N
EXT MORNING WAS
just my sort, greyish but dry and promising a bit of sun. I had two eggs on bread, lashings of sauce to smother any taste that might linger on after my cooking, and a couple of Weetabix and powdered milk. Two apples and a pear for the journey, and the world was my oyster. My uneasy mood had vanished.

I rang George Field to summarize my progress, not mentioning my clue from Muriel, but saying I was following a couple of leads within the trade. He seemed disappointed, which was only to be expected. He was probably reared on Chandler’s slick heroes.

The Armstrong didn’t share my enthusiasm. Maybe it knew how far we had to go. I fed the robin, waiting for the engine to recover from an attempt to start it before half past nine. It usually functioned best about dinnertime. Oddly enough, it was also seasonal, preferring winters to summers and rain to sun.

I’m not a sentimental person. You can’t be about a mere scrap heap, can you? But I have a liking for the old banger simply because it’s the only time my bell’s been wrong. I took the motor in part exchange for a group of four small animal bronzes from a Carmarthen chap who, poor misguided soul, was interested in bronzes. Some people love them, heaven knows why, as very few are attractive. Incidentally, always look underneath a bronze figure first. If it has a four-figure number, it may well be a ‘liberated’ piece which arrived here after the war.
DEPOSE GESCHUTZT
or some such stamped in front of this number can lend weight to your suppositions. The value of most bronzes has increased eight times in the last couple of years among dealers alone.

I was on about my Armstrong. It is an open tourer with big squarish headlamps sticking out and a hood that you pull over by hand. Nothing’s automatic. The starter’s a handle at the front, and you have to work a fingerpump from the front seat before it will fire. The brake’s outside, and a noisy exhaust runs like a portable tunnel from both sides of the long bonnet which is held down by straps. It looks badly old-fashioned and clumsy, but it’s strong as hell and safe as houses which is the main thing. As I say, the fuel consumption is terrible. All along where the dashboard would be in a new car, there are switches, handles and a couple of mysterious gauges I’ve always been too scared to touch in case it stopped altogether. For such a huge car it is weak as a kitten, but once you get it going it is usually fine. The trouble is it seems to have only one gear because there’s no gear handle. Other motorists often blow their horns as they pass in annoyance at my slow speed. I only have a rubber bulb-type honker I never use.