Faces in the Pool (23 page)

‘Was she wrong?’

‘Hugo treated tarts like her as a joke. We used to laugh after he’d rogered some up-tight bitch. He’d go on about them, the things he made them do. They went delirious with sex.’

‘He fell for her? Was she wrong?’

‘I thought so, until I heard her and Hugo talking.’ She took an age to go on. ‘Then I knew he was going to leave with her. Can you imagine?’ Well, yes, I could. ‘She was younger, almost pretty, and she knew antiques. Maybe she told him lies, said she too could be a divvy. I don’t know.’

‘The Castells reneged on you, Laura?’ I was guessing now.

‘Spineless. Penny and Donna went to Eastwold as girls. When they heard Gentry’s lot killed Paltry, they chickened out.’

‘Your plan was hopeless from the beginning.’

‘Lydia went along with it all. Daniella got the Eastwold College list of past pupils, and told Tansy. Tansy’s mistake was to tell Lydia. They went to warn you at Lincoln. Lydia knew, oh yes, she knew.’

‘But poor Smethie did no wrong.’

‘That was Paltry’s fault. He was hustling in the George bar, overheard bits when I stayed there with Hugo.’ She barked a hyena’s laugh. ‘He tried to blackmail Hugo. Paltry told Smethie Hugo’s idea. It brought on the old man’s attack. You know the rest.’

‘So some were honest,’ I said.

She almost smiled but habit was stronger. ‘Smethirst was an Anglo-Dutch burgher of Ceylon, Sri Lanka. He was the only honest one.’

‘Mmmh.’

‘Smethie’s daughter always hated Hugo, wouldn’t have anything to do with her traditions, her origins. Despicable.’

‘Two honest, then. Miss Farnacott and Mr Smethirst?’

‘And Mortimer.’

‘That’s good, then.’ I’d been waiting for that. The rest could get lost.

‘Won’t you accept my offer of bail? I guarantee your release. Mr Kine left absurd procedural holes in your arrest.’

‘No, ta. My releases never work, Laura.’

She sighed. ‘Then it shall have to be here. Still, it will be worth it. After all, I’ve lost everything.’

Out of her briefcase she hauled a heavy handgun, the sort you buy for 200 zlotniks down Streatham – or anywhere else these days, I suppose.

The thing mesmerised me. I stared at it. A genuine shooter? I’d no idea where the safety catch was, or if the damned thing even had one.

‘What are you on about?’

‘Haven’t I made myself clear?’ She had kept her gloves on since she came in. Lawyers don’t do that, not visiting clients in clink.

Nobody was recording this, lawyer-client confidentiality being a myth you have to pretend. I almost screamed. Where were the fucking plod?

‘There’s obviously something you haven’t heard, Laura.’ My voice quavered. New lies make it do that, especially when I never know what they’re going to be. ‘So I’ll accept your offer.’

‘Stop lying, Lovejoy. You were jealous of Hugo’s influence over Lydia. You heard of the
Maeonia
shipment and determined to wreak revenge.’

I thought, People don’t ‘wreak revenge’ except in old Farnol books, any more than they say ‘swashbuckling’. She was off her head. I judged the distance to the door. What
would the screws out there do if I yelled for help? Laugh their silly heads off, that’s what.

Gloves don’t leave fingerprints. My hands could, if I were shot. She’d make sure of that. Wasn’t it Chekhov who said that if you write a play with a gun in it, it has to be fired or you’re a cheat? My breath felt hot.

‘People don’t say “wreak revenge” any more,’ I actually said.

‘Ah, but they act as if they did, Lovejoy.’

She was almost hugging herself, a little girl keeping an enormous secret from teacher. Desperately, I thought, This lunatic is my frigging wife, for God’s sake. My mind went funny.

But maybe the plod were listening? I said, ‘What’s the idea of the gun?’

‘The charge will be laid against you in an hour, Lovejoy. You boarded the
Maeonia
to kill him and Lydia, to make off with the antiques.’

‘That’s rubbish.’

She looked dynamite, so attractive now she was into madness. Conviction adds radiance to women. They take on a lustrous quality. We men can’t do it.

‘How will you do it?’ I asked Laura.

‘I’ll wrestle with you, Lovejoy.’ Amused, she went on, ‘Screaming, of course. This gun will go off. The headline? Brave little woman struggled with a multiple killer.’

‘Then you’ll miss out, Laura.’

‘Miss out?’ Her features grew ugly. ‘Haven’t I lost everything?’

‘Who else have you killed?’ I thought back. ‘The girl your husband, Ted Moon, was supposed to have topped?’

‘Fionuella? She set her cap at Ted. He was always weak.’

The last tile in the wall. I invented new lies, fables, untruths, thinking how to stop her fondling that gun. Her addiction was Hugo Hahn, so I invented –

‘What about Hugo, Laura?’ I said it with what I hoped passed for assurance. ‘His trial is next week.’

‘Hugo?’ Uncertainty showed in her eyes.

‘Look. I don’t want Hugo blaming me, with his flaming temper. Don’t muck me about. You were in on it with him. He told me so last night.’

‘Hugo’s dead, Lovejoy. You murdered him.’ But hope hung on.

‘He’s in Gonerstone,’ I managed. Having to make names up always tires me, because I forget them. ‘On the inter-prison phone link. I promised I’d give his lawyer Mr Smethirst’s recorded explanation. As long as Hugo promised he’d get me sprung.’

‘Hugo? Alive?’ Tears flowed from aghast eyes. It looked weird.

‘’Course.’ Impatience now, me acting away. ‘Will he keep his promise?’

‘Alive?’ She shone, blinding me. I’m always impressed by the power of a well-told lie. She seemed as if levitated. ‘It was…?’

‘Don’t come it, Laura. You knew. I just want out.’

‘What’s the evidence?’ Her gaze raked my face for truths.

‘You and your maniac Faces can get on with whatever you want. They’re all diplomats. OK, I’m sorry about Lydia. She tried to fight Hugo and fell. Lawyers can prove it was accidental.’

‘He’s safe?’ Rivulets ran down her cheeks. It would have been beautiful, except I remembered this loon had a gun. Did she know how to use it?

‘Don’t deny it. You and Hugo set it up.’

‘Prove it, Lovejoy.’ She fiddled with the damned thing. If I’d been a hero I’d have bounded across.

‘Promise you’ll get me off? In exchange for the recording?’

‘What is this recording?’

‘The chip thing Mr Smethirst did.’

‘What does it say?’

‘God knows. About the Faces and civilisations, the day before he died.’

Before he was killed by your killers, you bitch
. I was begging in my usual whine.

‘Where is it?’

‘Don’t blame me if it’s a bit damaged. I sent it by post…’ I let cunning show. God, I’d have been a brilliant actor. ‘How will I know you’ll not just take off with Hugo and leave me rotting?’

‘I promise, Lovejoy.’

‘And pay me the fee? And dis-wed us? No more Somnell House stuff?’

‘That was a mistake. Those others…’

I stood and casually walked round the table. ‘Swear it?’

‘On anything you want, Lovejoy. And thank you. I almost—’

She had blossomed, was exhilarated, about to rescue her man Hugo even though he was a murdering bastard who’d betrayed his pack for greed. Like the rest of us, really.

Cocky now I was free of her threat, I extended my hand
as if to shake, and like an idiot said, ‘On Hugo’s life?’

‘I swear it on Hugo’s…’

Her eyes stopped smiling. Abruptly, they hardened in horror as my lies struck home. I screeched, grabbing for the gun. It went off with a deafening bark. Something shoved me in the right hip and spun me across the floor.

The table went over and people came milling in. I couldn’t hear anything for a woolly thudding, like somebody’s heart trying to thump hard.
Whose heart?

Shouting? Was that shouting? Boots, scores of boots. I had a view along the floor. It hadn’t been cleaned for a generation, I saw with detachment. Lydia would play hell with them for that.

Thinking of Lydia and how she would shed tears for me when she learnt that I’d gone, I thought, Oh well, at least Laura would spend the rest of her life in clink. The world began to vanish.

Hospitals are the pits. They leave you in a bigger mess than when you go in.

They took their time mending the hole Laura’s weapon made in my pelvic bone. I now stood wonky, listing. The surgeons had done their stuff then drifted back to the golf course before another ten minutes’ work was due. A tired house surgeon about eight years old came daily, but I soon proved too uninteresting to hold his attention. He too stopped coming.

It took a fortnight for Mr Kine to call, though a uniformed ploddite often drank coffee in the corridor to demonstrate eternal police vigilance.

‘Better?’ Kine had the nerve to say, plonking himself down.

‘Managed to get through the security screen?’ I felt sour, having tried three times to escape, each time captured by bad-tempered nurses.

‘I have influence. I’m considering letting you go.’

‘Not fixing up to have me shot by some other maniac?’

‘Now, Lovejoy, don’t start all that.’

‘I didn’t,’ I said, nasty. ‘Your madwoman gunned me down.’

He was unfazed. ‘Why hold grudges, Lovejoy? It’s a sad way to be. It was your criminal wife shot you, not the police.’

‘You keep fitting me up with false charges, I’ll tell the judge.’

‘It might not come to trial, Lovejoy, if you’ll sign.’

Sign what? I didn’t say.

‘A simple statement, then you can hop it.’ He smiled. ‘Well, limp.’

‘No.’

‘I have statements from Dr and Mrs Castell, Laura Moon, Ted and his Fionuella, and that dancer lady, Daniella. Oh, and your son, Mortimer.’

‘All as reliable as ever, I trust?’ I wanted Lydia to help me here.

‘They paint a credible picture of events. Your apprentice, Lydia, is, ah, unavailable. You already know that.’

‘And the Faces?’ Emotion is a pig.

‘The usual. Diplomatic immunity, skipped the country. Your affair with Donna da Silfa hasn’t gone unnoticed by your lady friends. I failed to keep your reputation unsullied.’

He gave a bark of a laugh. He had nothing legal on me, and knew it.

‘I’m leaving hospital tomorrow, Mr Kine. For a holiday.’

‘Ah, no. Sorry. I can’t allow that.’

‘I’ve hired a lawyer. Phoned while your policeman was on his three-hour lunch break. I’m suing the police.’

‘You’re making this up, Lovejoy.’

‘Wait, then. My two solicitors will be here in an hour.’

He’d had to suffer police procedure meetings, and not emerged unscathed. He was in serious trouble, having got everything wrong. I almost felt fond of Laura. Her obsession with Hugo Hahn put me in quite a good light. Playground stuff, but it was my ball now.

‘I’ll have to vet them, Lovejoy. You’re in police detention.’

‘Arrest?’

‘As far as you’re concerned, yes.’

I was interested, never having seen him lose his rag before. He looked ready for a scrap. Well, playgrounds after all.

‘Go and finish your tea.’

He left in a silent rage. I’d guessed his position exactly. I was in the clear.

For a while I limped about doing a lot of groaning. Three weeks since my accident, and physiotherapists had done their worst. I was good for a slow yard. While the corridor plod chatted the nurses up, I nicked a mobile from the nurses’ desk and tottered to the loo, where I rang the music school.

‘Miss Farnacott? Lovejoy.’ I spoke with cheery innocence.

‘It is not convenient right now,’ she said in that get-lost voice.

‘It’s about the murders you paid me to do.’

Lo-o-o-ong pause, then, ‘I’m in conference. Ring later, please.’

‘I’ll be with police lawyers. It’s now or never.’

‘A moment, please.’

The mobile’s battery was running out. I blame nurses,
those high wages and nothing to do all day, and still they can’t bother to charge their phones. It’s sloppy. Nurses don’t get organised.

‘Lovejoy? What are you ringing me for?’

‘That Hennell,’ I reminded her. ‘He’s my lawyer. I want paying, please.’

‘Paying?’ No ice now.

‘I have your father’s last recorded testimony. And your offer of payment for the desperate work I did for you.’

‘I don’t remember.’ Her voice was appalled.

‘The recorder does.’

I gave her the address of the hospital and told her Hennell could be through the front door in five hours if he got his skates on. She rang off in a temper. I told the nurses I needed my clothes to meet my lawyer.

Then I returned the phone to the desk, saying I’d found it in the sluice, earned their eternal thanks, and slept.

That afternoon I dressed with painstaking care, got the plod to help me to Radiography, and limped through Casualty Out-Patients among exhausted football rioters being sewn up. I sat by the hospital entrance. I collared Hennell by yelling ‘Terminal!’ a few times before the penny dropped and he came over. Two uniformed plods emerged and started yakking into their mobiles.

‘Lovejoy.’ Still sweating. His suit looked battened down ready for a Biscay storm. ‘You survived, then.’

‘Ta for the protection.’ I wasn’t going to let him off. ‘Your success rate is down, Mr Hennell.’ In a flash of insight, I added, ‘Tasker will be pleased.’

He blanched. ‘Lovejoy, there’s a small problem.’

I cheered up. ‘Yours, I take it?’

‘You see, I like Tasker. But he is not given to kindly analysis. We may need to amend some facts.’

The day was suddenly much, much brighter. When people start saying
we
, they’re trying to wheedle. I said, ‘I once saw Tasker wrap a man round a lamppost. His limbs broke. Nasty business. Did it all himself.’

He ahemed and blotted his face.

‘Also, Mr Hennell, I want this Laura marriage sorted.’

‘It’s done. Marriage under duress is not valid. I’ve seen the Marriage Records. It was never registered. I’ll just see Mr Kine, then we can go.’

‘We? All I need is the fare. I want to be back in my own cottage.’

‘Ah,’ he said.

Half an hour later I was seated in a grand limo on the way to East Anglia. Leg-Break drove, he who’d taken me to visit Smethie. He stayed quiet, but sneered a lot.

There was something different about the fairground. I climbed out making audible creaks to get upright.

The electric was back on. I heard a generator’s comforting thrum, and saw two or three blokes heaving on guy ropes. Over the far side two lorries were dumping gravel, workmen laying paving slabs.

‘Lovejoy.’ Pete came to shake my hand. ‘Welcome to the restoration.’

‘Doing OK, then?’

He indicated the farmhouse. Lights there too, and the horse in the paddock looked decidedly smarter, its lads grooming it. A saloon car stood by. ‘We’re opening up in a three-week.’

‘Great,’ I said lamely.

‘Thanks, Lovejoy. We start in Mehala Bay.’

I’d come to say I couldn’t help, and here was Pete with his fair a going concern.

‘Lovejoy!’

‘Donna?’ I smiled. Events were moving fast. ‘I thought you…’

‘No, silly.’ She spoke with a woman’s complicity so I knew she meant shut up. ‘I came a few days early.’

‘Good idea. Those trains.’

She took my arm and walked with me, her maid hovering nearby. Donna wore garish wellingtons.

‘Pete is charming,’ she said quietly. ‘We see eye to eye, you understand.’

‘Of course.’

‘My proceeds from the sale can easily cope with Pete’s fairground. It has all worked out.’

Hennell and Pete weren’t close enough to overhear.

‘What about the others?’

‘My antiques are selling separately, Lovejoy.’ And she trilled her little-girl laugh. ‘No, Lovejoy. I don’t need a dealer. A distinguished London firm in Bond Street is coping.’

‘Sotheby’s have had trouble with the law. And did Christie’s behave themselves over the Princess Margaret sale? Why not me?’

She wouldn’t listen, stubborn bitch, then made me promise eternal silence about her lustful smiles. I swore lifelong honesty, and meant it most sincerely.

We made our goodbyes and I left in Mr Hennell’s grand limo. Not half as posh as Donna da Silfa’s, but life is one long hardship.

That evening I reached… ‘Hang on,’ I told the driver’s array of neck boils. ‘This isn’t my cottage.’

‘No. Out.’ He opened the door. I cranked out and stood.

‘You made it, Lovejoy.’

She ushered me inside the small bungalow. I vaguely knew the area, on the outskirts of Sudbury. I felt like a visiting vicar, she still smart and brisk with something new about her. She offered me a seat. I sank into it, looking round. Thank God they’d taken my tubes out a fortnight before.

‘What is this, Miss Farnacott?’ I waited for calamity to strike. It had done a lot of that lately, mostly from women.

‘You must be hungry after your journey, Lovejoy.’

And then I saw. She was friendly. Because I’d killed her dad’s killer?

‘Killing Hahn wasn’t my fault,’ I said. I almost added it was more luck than anything, but that didn’t sound promising.

‘Of course not.’ She coloured. Her newness was a gentle air of submission. To whom and for what? ‘Your meal will be up shortly.’

‘Why?’ I rummaged in my mind for explanations. This lady held a high position with lots of pull. Also, exactly whose bungalow was this?

‘I have reassessed, Lovejoy, since I learnt everything. Your actions were commendable. I could not have found better.’

Did she mean me? ‘Than me?’

‘Correct. I mistrusted you, yet you sacrificed friends and wealth to achieve vengeance. That is true worth.’

Me, an avenging angel in unrelenting pursuit of killers?

‘Sorry, love. You’re mistaken. I’d no idea what was going on.’

‘I quite understand, Lovejoy.’ She became conspiratorial. ‘Caution is everything. I bought this for you. Here.’

Bought? ‘I live in—’

‘No, Lovejoy. Your cottage was purchased by a lady with a vile temper. You live here now.’ Anxiously, she glanced about. ‘I furnished it in haste. Please do shop around. I’m rather good at décor. You’ll live rent-free, of course.’

‘What’s the catch?’

‘No catch.’ She smiled. ‘Freshen up, and I’ll feed you. I shall appreciate having a man around.’

She showed me to a bedroom and ran a bath. New clothes were laid out on the bed. ‘I guessed your sizes, Lovejoy, but you can buy new tomorrow.’

‘Sorry, love. I’m broke.’

Her high colour returned fleetingly. She avoided my eyes. ‘Cost is irrelevant, Lovejoy. Expenses are taken care of.’

‘I can’t pay off any debts, Miss Farnacott.’

‘Jonetta, please. Owing each other is a thing of the past, Lovejoy, now we’ve settled in. Shall we say twenty minutes?’

She hurried into the kitchen. Was I a kept man? There were dangers, though. Rural as the bungalow was – I could see trees, a river, cows being boring – Tasker could zoom in and I’d be a goner. Time to scarper. I heard her humming and clattering in the kitchen and nipped round to the french windows in the living room. The garden led to…

‘Lovejoy.’

Tasker stood there, still as a hunting heron. In the bushes two larger shadows loomed, his goons. I swear I heard them cracking knuckles. I thought, Rocco? Another piece clicked into place. That volume he surprised me by reading, the day I left prison. He was Tasker’s serf. Then, I thought sadly, weren’t we all?

‘Tasker,’ I croaked. ‘I was just coming to ring you.’

‘I apologise, Lovejoy.’

‘Eh?’ I felt the blood drain from my face. I’d once heard him say that before tying some bloke to a carthorse… ‘Look, Tasker—’

‘Let me finish.’ He only ever speaks in a sibilant whisper but his meaning is never in doubt. ‘I’m sorry you had to do it all on your own, but with the Fraud Squad around I had to risk somebody, and it couldn’t be me, right?’

‘Certainly not, Tasker,’ I agreed.

‘Losing Lydia must be a sad blow. In payment, you get the Antiques Arcade. The boys fixed Sandy and Mel. Fire that idjeet girl. She makes rotten tea. The Arcade’s yours from today.’

‘I’ve not a sou, Tasker.’

‘You own it, Lovejoy. Make it pay.’

‘About the tea auction, Tasker.’ I didn’t want any wrong memories troubling his sleep.

‘You did well, Lovejoy. Good guess that it was a setup to show your divvying talent. And your lad Mortimer didn’t let on. You bred a winner there, Lovejoy.’

‘Oh, well,’ I said weakly. ‘Stab in the dark.’

‘Well done. See you.’

‘Thanks, Tasker,’ I called anxiously, making sure he knew I was a total ingrate devoid of moral strength.

He went round the side of the bungalow and I heard a car start. Gone. I sweated with relief.

Jonetta helped me to bathe, then fed me. Later that night she helped me to rest properly for the first time in ages. She was beautiful and full of kindness.

Next morning she went off to the music academy and her infant prodigies, insisting I stay in bed until she came back about five. I promised.

As soon as she’d gone, I dressed and got a lift to town from a passing dog-handler. In the library I got the Antiques Fraud Squad’s number and rang from the main entrance. I asked for Joanna, on a psychic whim. She came on and said, ‘Lovejoy? I’m so glad you called. You did well.’

‘People keep telling me that. I still don’t know why.’

‘Clever old you! You stopped the Faces’ antiques scam.’

‘I rang to ask after a friend in Brum.’

‘Fiffo? He’s on my staff now, as technical advisor.’

‘Oh, right. And Ted and Fionuella?’

‘We lost interest in Fionuella as soon as we discovered she was still alive. That story – feared dead from an unknown assailant – was estuary gossip.’

‘Of course, I knew that,’ I lied, joining the winners.

‘They’ve gone to live with Ellen Jaynor, Fionuella’s mother. She runs the Yorkshire Foundation for Arts.’

‘I heard,’ I fibbed coolly. ‘Wish them well, eh?’

She laughed. ‘Anything else you want cleared up, Lovejoy? Now you’re chained in Jonetta Farnacott’s little nook?’

That hurt. A man has his pride.

‘Just visiting, while I get back on my feet. Then back to speed-dating any old scrubber.’