Spend Game (27 page)

The carriage had stopped. On cue, the explosion had caused the landslip. Chase had dug his way through to the well, pulled the bricks out and climbed up. At the top he had simply pulled gorse in the hole, to cover it up. And there it jrew, year after year.

He’d had to have some luck, because his plans had gone slightly askew. I could tell that. The landslip had gone faster and further. than predicted. But he’d made it, done his act, and successfully lived to finance the rival route. The clever, wicked old devil.

His two engineers would have been in on the plan. They had to be. But why those two tough men had ended up at the bottom of the well when the Right Honourable had managed to escape probably didn’t bear thinking about. They probably got a percussion
ball in each earhole, from one of those folding trigger pistols we antiques dealers are always after. The truth was obvious. Jonathan Chase, pillar of Victorian society, was a scoundrel. And old Doc Chase, maybe not realizing how valuable the silver piece would be, and anyway fearful for his family’s reputation – as if that ever matters – kept watch over what he knew to be the terrible evidence of his ancestor’s perfidy. You couldn’t blame an old bloke of his generation, though. It was only natural. I suppose it needs a scrounger like me to ignore reputations.

‘What will you do with it?’

‘Eh? Oh.’ I thought for a minute and cleared my throat for a lie. ‘Give it to the museum, I suppose.’

‘Will you? Honestly?’

She looked so moved I was moved too. ‘Hand on my heart,’ I promised with sincerity.

She smiled radiantly. ‘I’m so pleased, Lovejoy.’ She squeezed my arm. ‘He would have loved that.’

‘In memory of him,’ I said piously. Being praised is quite pleasant.

‘Will there be a formal presentation?’ She was already planning a new frock.

‘Er, no,’ I said, all modest. ‘I wouldn’t like people to think I was blowing my own trumpet.’

‘You’re really sweet, Lovejoy.’ She turned to me mistily.

‘Stop a second.’ I actually felt sweet, grotesquely smug.

There was a phone-box at a crossroads. I dialled emergency. The operator clicked me breathlessly through to a narky policewoman who wanted to start filling in forms.

‘Hark,’ I interrupted her questions. ‘You’ve got a
grouser called Maslow on your books. Tell him Lovejoy rang.’

‘We don’t pass on personal messages through this telephone exchange,’ she told me with asperity. ‘This is for emergencies.’

‘This is for murder,’ I continued. ‘Say I’m prepared to make a statement of evidence.’ Now I need not say anything about Sue being the other witness. When Fergie and Jake got their ugly mugs in the papers the Brummie mob would start asking nasty questions about their missing pair of nerks. Jake and Fergie would be for it either way. Poor lads, I thought, smiling.

Elspeth chatted happily all the way home. She assumed I had phoned my decision to the museum, and was so pleased. I didn’t disillusion her.

The cottage felt as if I had been away for years. Elspeth gasped at the sight of all the furniture and the treens everywhere, but I ran a bath and didn’t explain. We decided to go out and celebrate. Elspeth had enough money for us to have a real splash.

I was drying myself when this car came screaming down the lane in third gear. It stopped in the gateway, and Moll emerged, dressed in a smart new green suit. She knows I like green. See what I mean about women? There’s no letting up, minds always on the go.

I honestly wasn’t trying to keep out of the way, but it didn’t seem my sort of scene. I’d had the silver model in the bath with me, soaping it. None of your scraping and sanding for precious silver, please. Mild soap and ordinary water is about the limit, followed by a cold but gentle towel. Having to leave the presentation case was a pity, but I wasn’t going back for it at any price. I’d knock up a quick fake instead. That would really set it off, pretty as a picture. Imagine the millions of
people who’d get pleasure from seeing it beautifully displayed in our Castle Museum. I finished wiping the silver surface dry while Moll and Elspeth nattered at the door.

‘Lovejoy’s rather busy,’ Elspeth’s voice announced, frosty.

‘Not to me, he isn’t, dear.’ Moll sounded confident and oversweet.

‘For everyone.
Dear.
’ Elspeth was obviously going to stand her ground. I made no noise.

‘I’m in a somewhat different category,’ from Moll.

‘That’s quite possible,
Mrs
Maslow,’ Elspeth shot back.

I slipped on my clothes and wrapped the silver in a dry towel. Time for Tinker to bowl up. The idle swine was still swigging ale somewhere, though I’d phoned him almost an hour ago on the way back. I’ll cripple him, I thought furiously.

‘Tell Lovejoy I’m here,’ Moll ordered.

‘If this is in the course of police investigations . . .’ Elspeth’s voice turned the sugar on.

‘Lovejoy is
my partner.
’

I gasped from behind the bathroom door.
Partner
was beginning to have a nasty permanent ring about it. She must have read more into buying all that bloody treen than I had.

‘He hasn’t a partner.’

‘Where do you think he acquired this houseful?’

It was time I left, even if it was on foot. I ducked and crawled between the furniture. There is a back door, but the hedge is thick and there’s no way through. I’d have to make it round the side and somehow cut out of my gate.

The sound came when I was crawling round my
little unfinished wall at the rear of the cottage. The beautiful, melodious clattering of my sewing-machine engine. Tinker, with my crate, bless him. I was still blazing, but if I was quick . . . Get down there before they saw me. And before he turned into the garden.

A rapid sidle round the cottage wall, ducking beneath the sill to avoid being seen through the kitchen window, worse than any gangster in a shoot-out. Flattened against the side wall I peered round. The spluttering sounded nearer and nearer.

‘It isn’t a question of being obstructive, Mrs Maslow.’ They were still at it, with Elspeth gaining the upper hand. She didn’t seem to have let Moll in yet.

‘Don’t you think you are rather misunderstanding your functions?’ Moll’s voice. The chips were down. ‘You’re behaving rather like a wardress –’

It was warming up. I knew from the sudden easing of the engine’s chug that Tinker had reached the chapel. Only one place to turn, about a hundred yards up.
Now.

I clutched the silver in the towel and ran. On tiptoe, like a bloody fool, as if grass echoes. I drew breath and ran straight into the hedge as gently as I could. Luckily Moll’s car blocked the gateway. I was round it in a flash and scarpering up the lane as my crate rumbled into view. Tinker was driving, and he had Lemuel with him. He knows I hate Lemuel in the crate, because he always leaves a liberal sprinkling of fleas behind. I spend a fortune on those sprays.

Tinker saw me waving frantically and screeched – well, creaked – to a stop. I hurtled up, signalling him to turn. He was already backing when I undid the door and fell in.

‘Get going, Tinker,’ I gasped.

‘I fetched Lemuel for the aggro,’ Tinker explained, desperately wobbling the gear stick. It’s a bit loose. I’ll have it mended when I get a minute. Luckily, we dealers always carry blankets. I wriggled under one and lay still, pleading, ‘Hurry, for gawd’s sake, Tinker.’

We rumbled forward.

‘No scrapping, Lovejoy?’ Lemuel quavered thankfully.

‘It’s all done, Lemuel.’ Already I was beginning to itch.

Another car sounded ahead of us. A horn tooted. ‘Sod it,’ from Tinker. We stopped.

‘Tinker.’ Sue’s voice. ‘Is Lovejoy home?’

‘Er, just dropped him off there, lady.’

‘Thank you.’

And she was gone. ‘Great, Tinker,’ I told him, still muffled under the blanket.

‘That all right, Lovejoy?’ Tinker asked as we pulled away again. ‘Here. What happened to the Brummies?’

‘What Brummies?’ I said under my blanket. ‘There aren’t any Brummies.’ It was hellish uncomfortable bumping on the motor’s tin floor. If only the springs hadn’t gone. Sue usually brings cushions.

‘Course there are, Lovejoy,’ Lemuel croaked earnestly. ‘That Fergie’s got two frigging big hard nuts to do you –’

His voice was nudged to a thoughtful silence, probably by Tinker’s elbow.

I could tell we’d reached the chapel. Tinker was just going to turn right when another motor came close to the van’s side and throbbed in my lughole.

‘Stop,
Dill.’ Maslow’s voice, the bastard.

‘Where’s Lovejoy?’ Oh, hell.
Tom
Maslow’s voice now.

‘He’s, er, at the cottage, Mr Maslow,’ Tinker said suddenly. We all hate talking to the Old Bill.

‘With that bird with the big knockers,’ Lemuel said, cackling evilly.

‘That’s enough from you.’ The engine boomed and went off in smooth top gear, burning my taxes.

Lemuel fell about laughing. He and Tinker would be on about having tricked Maslow for months now. ‘They couldn’t find a bottle in a brewery.’

‘Where to, Lovejoy?’

I stayed silent as we trundled towards the main road. The cottage would be like a carnival, what with Maslow wanting my evidence, and Sue charging in on the existing war between Moll and Elspeth. And from the Maslows’ manner they had harsh words for Moll. Maybe Elspeth would catch it, as well, for not informing on me the way Maslow wanted. And Elspeth would fly at Sue for wrongly giving Moll her name that time . . . It was a right mess. The trouble is that absolutely none of it was my fault. Not one bit. I honestly don’t know who gets me in these shambles, but it’s not me, that’s for sure.

‘Where to, Lovejoy?’ Tinker said again.

I was suddenly happy. I held one of the most valuable pieces of post-Georgian silver probably ever made. Me. I was here with it, embracing it. In my very own motor.

But then I remembered my promise to give it to a museum, the promise which had moved Elspeth so deeply. I’d been really magnanimous, maybe too magnanimous. After all, who’d been sick with terror deep in the earth, down a well full of unspeakable horrors, risking his life hour after hour? Yet I’d promised.

On the other hand, was my promise spontaneous?
Given of my own free will and accord? Or had it been exorted from me? Wrung out of my unwilling soul by Elspeth’s cunning playing on my emotions? Under the blanket I seethed with indignation.

‘Lovejoy. Where the frigging hell are we going?’

Jill’s place is a haven full of hard-working vannies, so that was out. Margaret’s was too near the cop-shop. Lily would instantly phone Patrick, who would be so excited at helping to conceal me for a few days I’d not last an hour. Lemuel’s is a doss house full of fleas. Tinker’s place is so grotty it’s indescribable. Big Frank has so many bigamous wives that he’s always being followed by divorce agents. I ran my mind down the list of friends. And suddenly Helen came to mind. I could see her now in the White Hart, smiling and smoking and stretching her lovely long legs towards the carpet.

‘Eh?’ Tinker was asking. ‘You all right?’

I must have moaned. Helen could be trusted, if I owned up to escaping from Sue and the others. And Helen always had a good string of buyers for precious silver. Well, the bloody museum would want me to
give
it to them, as a totally free gift. Cheek. After all I’d done. And as for Elspeth, worming that ridiculous promise out of me so treacherously . . . I decided I’d go back to the cottage in a week or so. I like surprises.

‘Drop me at Helen’s, Tinker,’ I said, and smiled under the blankets as we took off.