One of Elspeth Haverill’s teams was already lumbering across the countryside. I sat with her on a form waiting for any chance survivors to return. During my unstitching I’d pumped Pat for more information, until she got worried. They both knew I was asking too much, too often, but I wouldn’t say why.
A local historian like Chase would naturally be fascinated by his ancestor Jonathan Chase’s gruesome experience on that terrible day. Maybe tales had
been passed down through the family. But the old doctor’s trick of hiding his little railway pass, and his determinedly hopeless fishing, told me a great deal about the man. He was a thinker, a clever and quiet man. He wasn’t the sort to go babbling to Mrs Leckworth, his clerical assistant. There was some obvious clue here, a clue as big as a barn. And I couldn’t see the bloody thing for looking. I got to work, skilfully nudging Elspeth’s attention off her list of atherosclerotics.
‘Is that somebody?’ I pointed, smiling and eager.
‘Not yet.’ Elspeth had a stopwatch. It was, I noticed with disgust, modern, accurate, and dull as ditchwater. ‘Say five more minutes.’
‘I’m looking forward to joining in,’ I lied cheerfully.
She was pleased. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come round to our way of thinking, Lovejoy. Such a
benefit
.’
‘Were you working with old Chase when Mrs Leckworth was here?’ It was too sudden a switch. Elspeth shot me through with a glance.
‘No.’ She said it primly, with dislike. ‘And I’m quite glad.’
‘Isn’t, er, wasn’t she very nice?’ I was all innocence, peering towards the distant wood for her runners.
‘She didn’t have a very good reputation. Nurse Patmore found her bossy and . . . unprofessional.’ Elspeth’s eyes were on her lists, but her mind wasn’t. ‘Look, Lovejoy. I’m not stupid. Don’t treat me as if I am.’
‘Eh?’
She doodled idly on her paper. ‘I
know
you’re not really interested in our health scheme. I can feel it.’ I tried to start an indignant denial but she got in first. ‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there? To do with Doctor and Mr Leckworth. I sensed it in your cottage.’
I gave in, shrugged. ‘Maybe, love.’
She turned her eyes full on me. ‘Is Moll a policewoman?’
It was a horrible thought. See how devious women’s minds are, deep down? That possibility hadn’t even crossed my mind. I swallowed uneasily. Dear God. Moll a peeler. And in my divan, earlier and earlier every dusk.
‘No. I hope not.’
A tubby runner trundled flabbily into view from the edge of the wood. Another tottered feebly after him. We watched without speaking for a second.
‘You’re in trouble with the police, aren’t you, Lovejoy?’
So many people kept asking me this I was beginning to wonder. I made a face. ‘Dunno.’
She put her hand on my arm. ‘Inspector Maslow came here yesterday. He asked a lot about you. We aren’t supposed to tell you. He said . . . he said criminal charges were pending.’
And Nurse Patmore hadn’t so much as said a word to tip me off. The cow. I felt like asking for my stitches back.
‘That’s Maslow all over, Elspeth. Don’t worry.’
‘Is what you’re doing . . .
good
, Lovejoy?’
The stragglers were all out of the wood now, the leader a few hundred yards off. She would have to start scribbling soon.
‘How the hell do I answer that?’
‘Well, would Dr Chase approve?’
I thought hard. He had gone to a lot of trouble to switch the Bramah lock. But why not simply
tell
Leckie about the principal clue, which was that simple little tin disc? Unless Leckie knew already, and Doc’s
decision to switch the Bramah lock was for somebody else.
‘What happened to the rest of his furniture?’ I asked her this as the sweating runners came reeling up, knackered.
‘Given to the children’s home in town.’
‘And those three things? The old bag, the book, the escritoire?’
‘I sent them to the local auction. He was most particular. Made Nurse Patmore and myself promise.’ She smiled. ‘Said it was part of some game.’
‘Game?’ The six men had flopped on the grass now, legs in the air like dead flies.
‘The divvie game, he called it. I think he meant –’
‘
He said that?
’
‘Why, yes.’
Elspeth got started on the exhausted men. She got the back markers strapped into a transparent set of gear like a frogman’s and set them breathing into a bag full of tubes. I watched nervously while she made the poor bastards pedal like the clappers on fixed bicycles. They looked in a state of collapse. If that’s health, I thought, give me ’flu any time. Within minutes the men were calling over to Elspeth, demanding to be released. I kept out of the way while she checked them off. They went inside the house one by one to change.
Doc Chase had known that some divvie would sooner or later tune in to this Bramah lock, wherever it lay, and wonder what it concealed. It was a fail-safe, in case they got Leckie.
‘Still here, Lovejoy?’ Nurse Patmore, looking ominously at Elspeth and propping her bike against the wall.
‘Er, waiting for Moll.’
‘She’s in her car out front.’
We said cheerios too cautiously for old friends, and I shouted to Elspeth to get a new hourglass for tomorrow’s record-breaking run and I’d show the lot of them.
I got in beside Moll. ‘Town, love,’ I told her. ‘Here, one thing. Are you a bobby?’
‘No.’ She looked a bit puzzled but let it go. She took us off, definitely peaky. ‘I’ve had a message, Lovejoy. Tom’s coming back for the weekend. I think I’d better . . .’
‘Right,’ I said, feeling rotten. ‘Look. Can you lend me enough to get my car mended?’ Sooner or later I’d make a start on our antique furniture and that treen.
‘Send me the bill.’ She added quickly, ‘By post would be best.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Er, I’ll owe it you. All right?’
‘If you insist.’ She only said that after we’d gone another mile. I couldn’t tell if she was mad at me again or not.
I said nothing else till we reached the High Street and she put me down outside the library. She said she would leave a meal ready and a load of groceries indoors, and to look out for Jake and his horrid assistants. I said I would. She already had a key to collect her things. I watched her motor off into the traffic. Funny how you can feel alone in a crowded street. I waited for her to wave, but she reached third gear for her handbag’s sake and simply carried on going.
Because of my brief Elspeth-Nurse-Patmore-stitches-Moll drama at Six Elm Green, I was late for the auction. There was very little to interest me, but you can never
tell. You can’t ever trust a catalogue. You have to see for yourself.
By the time I made it down East Hill the cafés were bulging. Dealers’ vans were neatly blocking the main sea road out of town. Pubs were fuming and slurping, pie shops were roaring. This end of town was humming with life and interest. By the time I clinked open the glass doors and slid into the mob Tinker was mad as hell. Not a face turned from the auctioneer, but they all sensed a new rival had just walked in.
‘Where the bleeding hell you been, Lovejoy?’
‘Why’s it Jive?’
Jive’s the apprentice auctioneer, a pimply mirthless youth who gets all the rotten jobs. He was struggling to make sense of the bids. The lads were mucking him about, waving and pointing to each other to confuse an inexperienced auctioneer. If enough of you do it he’ll knock valuable items down for a song, just from frustrated bewilderment. It’s called ‘flagging’ in the trade, but it’s only worth doing if you’ve a lot of friends in, otherwise you take a fearsome risk.
‘Gaffer’s ill.’
Lemuel was seated on a chaise-longue sucking on a dripping meat pie and picking losers again. It was the most horrible sight I’ve ever seen. Tinker saw me recoil and nudged me.
‘Lemuel’s found out so don’t knock him.’
‘Eh?’
‘Black Fergus and Jake. They’ve got two blokes to nobble you.’
Two?’ I thought I’d got rid of one.
‘Two. They’re Brummie lads.’
I went cold. I should explain there’s a sort of hierarchy of goons. There’s always a lot of aggro where
you get antiques and often goons are hired to see somebody off or to straighten a dealer up. But there are goons and goons. You can talk your way out of trouble with hard lads from Blackpool, and I assure you it is well worth the vocal effort. Brighton shells up a very ragtaggle mob – noisy, thick as planks, lots of wind and water. London’s goons are so direct it’s painful. Their idea of ‘correction’, as it’s often termed, is to arrive like Fred Karno’s army and simply flail about. Mancunians stay at home, so outside Manchester you are quite safe. Same with Newcastle. But Tinker’s mention of two Birmingham nerks made my flesh crawl. They are real aggro men who’ll marmalize anybody for a few quid.
I said, ‘Keep calm, Tinker,’ though my throat constricted. ‘Are they the ones who did Val’s gaff?’
‘People say so.’
‘Mine next, I suppose. How is she?’
‘Val? Gone to her auntie’s.’
‘Thank God for that.’
We stood in the packed hall watching the bidding. Jive was quavering away, hopeless. Some dealers were grinning. The relatively few honest customers were unaware of anything amiss. They are easily spotted, having come to the auction merely for one item, rarely two. Antiques dealers give these innocent genuine bidders a funny nickname: ‘women’. For every wally and barker there’s maybe one ‘woman’, in most auctions.
‘Seen Helen?’
‘No.’ Tinker thought a moment, tuning his mental radar. ‘She’ll be at Patrick’s place in a few minutes.’
Unlikely, but I knew better than to argue. I scanned the items on display. There was a dull mixture of Victorian furniture. One unidentified Norwich School
oil was alluring, though it needed a lot of care. And there was a delectable silver cruet set by the two Fenton brothers of Sheffield. I could see Big Frank from Suffolk ogling it. Jean was in, and Madge. Brad was at the tea bar chatting up the lady. He would be waiting for a small percussion pepperbox pistol, low down in the lot numbers. Alfred’s bowler hat was prominent down by the locked porcelain cabinet. He felt my gaze, looked across between the sea of shoulders, and raised comical eyebrows. He’s a right one for remembering how cheap everything was before the Great War. I grinned and nodded. Sven was drifting about purposelessly. I had mixed feelings about Sven. He seemed cheerful, but I couldn’t quite forget how servile he had looked that day in the White Hart with Fergus and Jake. Margaret was going over some pewter, so I slid through the mob and tackled her about Nodge’s Bustelli.
‘I got it,’ she said, after helloing and quizzing me about my decrepit health. ‘Lucky. Seeing,’ she added quietly, ‘seeing Nodge died so soon after.’
‘Wasn’t it just!’ I shook my head sadly.
‘Your lady friend’s back at the cottage basting the duck, I suppose?’
‘Shut it, love. Have you a buyer?’
‘I think so. If it falls through, can I use Tinker to find one?’
‘Mmmm. Look, love.’ I pulled her away from the pewters. ‘How safe is Bill Hassall?’ She looked uncomfortable. I had to help because women are usually reticent about the other women who run around, especially when it’s a man asking. ‘I mean about his missus and Leckie.’
‘I don’t think he knew.’
‘Is he anything to do with Jake Pelman? Fergus?’
She gave me an immediate headshake, but hesitated after I added, ‘Anything between Julia Leckworth and Bill Hassall, for instance?’
‘No,’ she said finally. ‘But they say Julia’s daft on Fergus. They’re together now.’
‘Thanks.’
I nodded to Tinker and pushed my way to the door. Those few minutes Tinker had predicted were up. Helen would be at Patrick’s.
And she was, having a cigarette and going over some early Bilston enamels. Patrick screamed at me down the Arcade as soon as I came in view.
‘Lovejoy! You perfect poppet!’ He struck a theatrical pose of welcome in his doorway. He was wearing a maroon and orange caftan. ‘Come in, dearie! Home,’ he misquoted grandly in his shrillest voice, ‘home is the sailor, home from the sea!’
‘How do.’ I always go red when he does this act. I could see Helen smiling inside his main display room. These places are only small, one room and an alcove. Helen had managed to find a tall stool again, her favourite pose to show off her shiny curved legs.
Patrick dragged me in. There were four or five customers looking about. He pushed them rudely aside and whispered to-me, ‘Don’t notice Helen’s impossible hairstyle, Lovejoy! Just
bear
it!’ I went redder, because Patrick’s penetrating whispers are made to be heard. Helen only laughed. It’s odd, really, because if anybody else criticizes her she goes mad.
‘Hello, Lovejoy.’
‘Wotcher, love.’
‘The brave young man!’ Patrick swept aside a customer and did a grand gesture. ‘So narrowly plucked
from the jaws of death!’ He meant the car accident.
The customers were as embarrassed as me. Lily came in from the alcove. She seemed pleased to see me and said how marvellous it was I’d managed to buy so many antiques. She said she liked Moll.
‘She’s perfectly sweet, Lovejoy,’ Patrick agreed silkily. ‘And when she
learns
about those off-the-peg pleated skirts with those
crippling
decorated belts from Haythorn’s she’ll be sweeter still. Do tell her.’
‘Er, well.’ I’d only come to see Helen.
‘Helen’s full of the joys of spring, Lovejoy.’ Patrick sat on a chair to do his eyes. ‘She’s talked nonstop about you. Watch out. She’ll go for your ankles.’
I took advantage of Patrick’s preoccupation to pull Helen into the alcove. She guessed I was not so concerned about the lovely Bilston enamels this time.
‘What is it, Lovejoy? You look desperate.’
‘I am. Is there
anything
you haven’t told me?’
‘No, love. Except how much I dislike coppers’ wives. She’s too pretty-pretty sweet-little-Alice by far.’
‘It’s over.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Nothing about Leckie?’ I pressed her. ‘Nothing he might have said?’
She flicked her cigarette. I told her not to smoke, because Patrick had coins, watercolours and a display of copper medallions but Helen never takes much notice of what I say.