The Grail Tree (8 page)

We settled faster than I should have done. Unease was settling on me. The air seemed thicker. For some inexplicable reason the Irish glass seemed suddenly of secondary importance. Everybody gets these feelings, don’t they? By the end of our deal I was almost hurrying and trying not to. Eventually, it was half-past and the pair not back yet.

‘I’ve suddenly remembered something, Liz.’

‘Lovejoy.’ She was looking at me. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Sure, sure.’ I found myself at the door. ‘I’ll ring you about collecting the stuff, right?’

‘Any time.’ She followed me anxiously on to the step. A cold wet wind was blowing. ‘See you at the White Hart tomorrow?’

‘Sure.’

We waited, talking in brittle sentences, neither knowing quite what to say. Liz asked if it was something she’d said. I told her of course not.

They came at midnight, talking simultaneously, neither listening to the other’s inane prattle. Beats me how they communicate. They had full glasses of wine.

‘Goodness!’ Sandy squeaked, pointing, as I rushed
in and slammed the door. ‘What
did
she do to you, dear boy? You’re so
pale
.’

‘Er, could we go now, please?’ I felt choked. ‘Buresford,’ I said.

‘At
this
time?’ Mel decided to sulk again. ‘Sodding
hell
.’ He gave me his glass to hold while he took the wheel.

Despite some bickering they did as I said. I was in an ugly sweat by now. Maybe I was sickening for something but I didn’t think so.

‘This is like going to London via Cape Horn, Lovejoy.’ Even the tolerant Sandy was narked at me now. Great.

I began to wish I’d never heard of old Reverend Henry Swan and Martha and their faked bloody sword. I didn’t even wave to Liz.

Approaching Buresford, a police car overtook us, flashing and wailing. I watched it, my heart heavy with foreboding. Mel drove one-handed, gave it a silent toast, his glass of port raised.

‘They took no notice of us!’ Sandy complained.

‘It’s their loss, dear,’ from Mel.

We braked suddenly.

‘Mel! You’ve spilled my drink!’ Sandy squealed. ‘Oh, it was
doomed
from the start.’

Ahead the road curved to enter Buresford near the church, the black-and-white cottages in headlights by the river bend. A constable flagged us slowly on. Two police cars at rest flashed impatient lights in Martha Cookson’s gateway. An ambulance whirred out of the drive and tore past.

I racked the window down. My hand was shaking.

‘Can we go in, Constable?’

‘There’s been an explosion. I’ve orders to admit no one.’

‘Anybody hurt?’ The feeling was gone now, only a certainty of tragedy remaining.

‘Yes. One member of the family and two anglers.’ He seemed worried and somewhat lost.

I told Mel to drive through the gateway. The policeman was relieved somebody else had made a decision and waved us in. I honestly don’t know what the police are playing at these days, sending bobbies out the way they do. They all seem worried sick and green as grass. No wonder there are criminals about.

We couldn’t reach the house because of two motorcycles propped across the drive. It looked like a film set with lights and cables. Three policemen were talking and scribbling by the ornamental fountain. I made myself observe the lunatic scene yard by yard. A small cluster of people were down by the river. A few others were gathered around the ambulance parked incongruously in the centre of the lawn’s edge. The ground everywhere was scored by tyre marks.

For some seconds the essentials failed to register in my mind. Then I began picking them up more sensibly, one by one. It was as if my mind was checking off items accepted for recognition. The two white-coated figures. A nurse running the few steps in to the ambulance for something shiny. Tubes. An inverted bottle of yellow fluid. One doctor with shiny shoes, one doctor in white slipper things. Another constable being told to hold on to this for a moment, please, just like that thank you, and kneeling his creased trousers into the muddy ground carefully doing as he was asked. Sweat trickling from under his helmet. Smoke pouring up from the river and two fire vehicles blinking redly
across the other side of the water. Hoses snaked down and pulsing in time with the throbs from the engine. One fireman in a yellow helmet shouting orders from among the bulrushes. Another ambulance over there, with doors flung wide and two white coats huddled down.

‘My
God
!’ I heard Sandy say faintly. ‘Lovejoy . . .’

A policeman was holding me back on the drive. Somehow I was pushing past and saying get out of the bloody way. Then running to the little riverside terrace and the people there.

A long bundle on the ground. Anglers on the opposite bank in twos and threes talking and looking, one with his small son carefully folding a keepnet as black oily smoke rolled among the weeds. Everything was in half shadow, macabre.

Then the longboat. I never realized their hulls were so flat underneath, flat as a pavement. Rust showed and some weeds stuck along the sides. Smoke billowed. I mean that it
billowed
like smoke in famous poems and children’s pirate stories, roll after roll from the barge. You only need to see a devastated boat for all the sea sagas ever written to become instantly understandable. Oh, I know a ruined house or a wrecked plane that can never fly again is utterly pathetic. But a crumpled boat is somehow so tragic that even to look is almost unbearable. The crackled windows, the ruptured cabin. The crumpled metal sides, sort of owning up that the gaunt sea-creature is actually a thing put together and made of iron plates and logs. The paint already blistering from an unseen fire at one end. Piteous.

It had been creased downwards, broken as if smashed from above. Both ends were sticking out of the water, and as I stared a fireman clambered on to the
front bit and ran nimbly through the smoke unwinding some trailing hose along its length. He managed it without falling into the river, jumping over the ruined sunken middle fold and hauling himself up into the smoke. Fishes floated white-bellied in the water.

I crossed to the ambulance, stepping over the steel hawser cut clean through on the grass and pathetically still warped to the angled bow. The weird medical ritual always looks the same, doesn’t it? Whether it does any good or not nobody seems to know. I hope somebody is adding it up somewhere.

The long bundle was being stretchered into the slots. A nurse gave me the elbow to reach past. The constable was helped up, still holding the inverted bottle. One white coat was bloodstained to the sleeve elbow now, the other still spotless. Car tyres spun mud against my legs. A voice spoke from an intercom, horribly distorted. I realized I was coughing because the smoke was blowing over the lawn now. Whatever the firemen were doing was making the smoke worse.

A police sergeant was ordering the grounds cleared. Somebody else was taking names and addresses. Somebody spoke to me. I said sod off. The man put his hand on my arm and said, ‘Cool down, friend. I’m Maslow, CID. We have to take a few details, that’s all.’

Doors slammed and the ambulance rolled away towards the drive. A motorcycle kicked into deep sound. A voice called to clear the gateway.

‘He’s a family friend,’ Sandy said to somebody. He was ashen. ‘We’re with him.’

‘The old chap,’ I managed to get out.

‘That was him in the blood wagon.’ Maslow nodded at the drive.

I turned to see the ambulance leaving the garden.
Mel was in difficulties. A constable was making him do a bad-tempered three-point turn. More sulks were on the way.

My mind registered again. The long blood-soaked bundle under the tattered old car blanket was therefore the Reverend Henry Swan. The person of, the expiring person of, or remains of?

‘What are his chances?’

‘None, I’m afraid.’ The CID man was a benign elderly square-shaped man, neat and tidily arranged in a crisp suit. He had a clean handkerchief in his top pocket. I’d thought the nonuniformed branch were all fashionably sloppy and soiled. ‘You know him, then?’

‘A bit.’ I walked back to the river. The smoke was as bad as ever. They’d got a punt from somewhere and two firemen were poling along the shattered boat. River water was shooting into the fire from three hoses. Why did the engines have to make that piercing whine? Probably something to do with pumping. How pathetic to bring such massive ladders for nothing. Then I apologized mentally when I saw the far tender’s ladder was stretched sideways over the river, with a fireman stuck on the end of it spraying his jet into the split barge.

There was an explosion.’ Maslow had followed me. Sandy went back to rescue Mel.

I thought a bit. ‘How can a boat burn when it’s made of tin?’

‘Steel,’ Maslow pointed out. ‘And wood. There’s all its fuel.’

‘It hadn’t any.’

‘Oil generator.’

‘It had electricity from the house.’ I nodded to
the grass. ‘There’s a conduit cable under there to Mrs Cookson’s.’

‘Gas, then.’

‘He’d none.’

There was a long pause. We both watched the oily smoke. Oily.

I decided he’d need prompting. ‘Isn’t this where you’re supposed to tell me who did it?’

‘What’s your name?’ Maslow asked. He seemed angry.

‘Find out,’ I said. ‘You’re the detective. Where’s Mrs Cookson?’

‘The hospital,’ he answered evenly. ‘And I would advise you not to adopt that tone with me, sir.’

I honestly pity them when they go all official. ‘And I would advise you to use your frigging cerebral cortex,’ I heard myself say. ‘Try.’

‘Are you impeding a police officer in the performance of his duty?’ he intoned.

‘Some performance.’ Sometimes they’re just pathetic.

I walked to the drive where Sandy and Mel were arguing. Mel rounded on me spitefully.

‘If you think this is a
lift
, Lovejoy,’ he spat, ‘you can walk, because we’re going straight home this instant.’

‘Shut your face,’ I said as patiently as I could manage. ‘Look, lads. I’m going to the local hospital immediately. In this car. And if you’ve any other ideas, well, let’s get the chat over with.’

They glanced at each other. I opened the driver’s door.

‘Into the back,’ I told them. ‘I’m driving.’

They looked at my face and obeyed, while I asked
the gate constable the way. I saw Maslow standing on the lawn watching us go. He didn’t wave either.

It was the remains of, after all. The Reverend Henry Swan was dead on arrival. A shapely receptionist told us this, sounding really quite pleased everything had gone according to the book.

‘DOA,’ she explained, showing us the admissions list. ‘Do you wish to see the deceased?’

‘No.’ I halted. ‘Oh. Can you give a message to Inspector Maslow? He’ll be along shortly, when he can be bothered.’

‘Certainly,’ she said with pencil poised, sixty-five inches of syrup between two pearl earrings.

The message is that I want an explanation. And to be sharp about it.’

‘And whom shall I say . . .?’

‘Tell him Lovejoy.’ I walked out.

Martha Cookson was being accompanied to the police car. Her back had that brave look. No sign of Dolly. I watched her go. Sandy and Mel climbed silently in.

I can remember Sandy sobbing in the back. Just as well he wasn’t driving. I can remember Mel saying with relish that anyway he’d told that awful bitch of a receptionist her nails were a
mess
and her twinset didn’t
match
, so there. I had the feeling it was somehow supposed to be a compassionate gesture. I can remember George doing his night round grandly stepping forward and holding up his hand at the chapel, and I can remember driving past without a word.

I got out at my gate.

‘I appreciate your help,’ I told the silent couple. ‘I’m
sorry it was such a shambles. I’ll, er, do your scan at the weekend. All right?’ Mel drew breath to speak again but finally said nothing.

As Sandy, red-eyed and still catching his breath, turned the car I asked one last favour.

‘Should you happen to see George pedalling this way,’ I said kindly, ‘persuade him to go home. If he comes knocking I’ll break his legs. ‘Night.’

I went inside and shut the door.

I
THOUGHT A
lot next day. Now, antiques is a very rough game. Let me explain. .

Once upon a foetid hot day in 1880, a daring young Captain rode out near Kabul and performed a heroic rescue of three merchants and certain important bits of their baggage from a fierce and marauding band of brigands. A brave lad. But the point is that he got nothing out of it, which is especially narking when you realize that inside those bags nestled part of the hitherto fabulous Oxus Treasure, almost priceless. Alas, the Captain never got a rupee. There’s a lesson hidden in there, fans.

Don’t you try telling me that virtue is or has its own reward because it’s not and it hasn’t. Virtue has a sickening habit of breeding poverty and oppression. Everybody else benefits except the virtuous.

I’m telling you all this because the Oxus Treasure – nowadays tantalizingly arrayed in the British Museum – is a typical instance of treasure-troving. Get the moral? Most treasure’s in a minefield of one sort or another. And mines go bang. Old Henry Swan had learned that. And I’m no hero like that brave captain.

It was beginning to look as though the Martha
and Henry saga of the Grail was not exactly Lovejoy’s scene.

On the other hand, my mind went, you can think of a million examples of people finding treasure and living happily ever after. In dark old England, people are at it all the time. Right from our sinister prehistory to the weird present day, mankind’s precious works are scattered in the soil, under walls, on beams, in rafters, in chests and sunken galleys, in tombs and tumuli. You can’t help thinking.

I got one of those Dutch cigars and sat on the grass to watch the sun reach the tall trees down in the copse. Nurse Patmore pedalled by, wobbling to wave. I waved back, feeling fond of her. Devotion to duty’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

The point is that you have a choice. You can reach for the apple or you can resist the temptation. I felt I’d been warned. All the other antiques dealers had been warned off as well. Message received. Over and out. Some things just aren’t my business.