Faces in the Pool (5 page)

Colo’s milk float got me into town. Something Paltry said was worrying me. Today he would be on the river footpath, collecting money at the Castle Green cricket. The rain had stopped,
Dei gratia.

Cricket takes three days, dawn to dusk. Crowds attract Paltry like marmalade draws wasps. Cars park on the greensward, throngs mill in, and Paltry trips about shaking his tin. He wears a label,
F
or My Opration Plese Giv Genrussly
(sic). Women want details. Blokes hurry on, desperate not to miss the game. Paltry swills the takings in the Marquis of Granby.

Arriving motors were churning the grass, throngs heading in. An idyllic setting. Swans glide, boats float, flowerbeds show off, children splash in the pond. Distantly our village’s morris dancers downed their beers.

‘Hey, Lovejoy!’ Bosh yelled, our morris-master. ‘We’re one short. Straggo’s late. Play for us?’

‘Not me, Bosh,’ I shouted across the footbridge. ‘I’m still lame.’

They laughed. Their uillean bagpipes were warming up.
This is the English bagpipe. Morrismen use it because it’s the only reed pipe that sounds beautiful however drunk the musicians. You do it under-arm, no blowing.

As I approached I could see Paltry among the cars, slithering on the wet grass, and decided to catch him.

Because I let infant cricketers cross the footbridge ahead of me, I didn’t see Paltry die.

‘Good luck, pal,’ I was telling the last neophyte cricketer, when I realised something was horribly wrong. People were clustering where Paltry had been. I started to run.

A woman was screaming, two quick-thinkers tapping mobiles. Slipping in puddles, I ran to the mêlée.

By the time I shoved through, Paltry was dead. He was on the ground, his frock awry and his daft high-heeled shoes off. His wig was beside him, his collecting tin still in his hand. Two women and a little girl were staring
white-faced
at the carnage. Blood smeared the grass, men waving cars to stay away. A St John Ambulance man was calling to keep back, please.

Paltry had been crushed between two motors. One was a silvery thing with a grinning radiator grille wearing fragments of flesh like a bloodied mouth. A gent was wringing his hands and explaining, ‘He jumped right out in front. I braked but…’

Can you jump in high heels on muddy grass?

He hid his face, overcome. I watched him. Thespians are never any different. They’re born to it. St Nicholas is patron saint of bad actors. He has a lot to answer for.

‘Use this.’ Gentry had a travelling rug. He looked bored.

A kindly stranger covered Paltry’s body. I noticed
stubble on Paltry’s chin. How pathetic is that? The overcome gent was still acting distraught. Melodramatic. Killers often are.

Another man said, on cue, ‘You didn’t stand a chance.’

Any chance of prosecution? No. Of justice? No. Of being done for Paltry’s murder? No. Of getting off scotage free, though? Sure, for murderers always depart laughing. Blood money fixes laws.

Firemen arrived and shepherded cars. I stood closer to the killer, who was giving his lies to some policeman who had finally bothered to come. The whole sorry panto was a sham. The oh-so-handy witness was calm, like any man of straw. In olden days, men willing to sell their election votes lolled by tavern walls with a straw sticking from their boots – hence the term ‘straw man’. This witness didn’t swap glances with the murderer. They’re trained.

Odd fact: straw men are always female in the north, male in the south. My cousin in Lancashire runs a list of straw men. He calls it his Girl Panel: forty-two housewives, alibis to order. He takes thirty per cent. (Sorry. This sounds like a commercial.)

Liza, our town’s reporter, rushed up. I pointed out the gent who killed Paltry. ‘Got your photographer, Lize?’

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘My fucking luck.’ An Oxford sociologist, Liza thinks crudity is trendy.

‘Borrow a camera and snap the perpetrators. I’ll point.’

‘Fucking brilliant,’ she said, and did. She then looked. ‘Perps, Lovejoy?’

Maybe Paltry knew something his killers wanted kept silent. ‘Aye. One day, I’ll send word. Promise you’ll come a-running, OK?’

‘Lovejoy?’ she said uncertainly. ‘Was it truly murder?’

I nicked a pencil and listed car numbers, makes, colours of vehicles until I got moved on. An ambulance took Paltry. I’d never seen Paltry in normal clothes. Was he really serious about Florida and a sex change? Blue lights flashed, no sirens. The police collected Paltry’s tin. A constable asked, curious, ‘What operation was this?’

‘Dunno.’ Well, I didn’t.

‘Did you see it happen?’

‘No. I was too late. Like you.’ And went on my way.

Hurrying down Long Wyre Street, I saw Big Frank.

‘Who backed the tea auction, Frank?’ I didn’t mention Paltry.

Every tea auction needs an organiser, auctioneer, tyler – Eunice this time – and a wallet, as we call the hard man who funds any crime.

‘Tasker. Nice bloke, Tasker.’

My heart reeled. ‘Aye, nice bloke.’

Tasker is a quiet Irish geezer, smallish and thin. You couldn’t guess his age if you tried. His face looks used up. Blue of eye, never raises his voice, and wears the same overcoat summer and winter. An Ulsterman of unswerving loyalty who wears an orange rose, Tasker has a slow sigh worse than a death knell. I told Frank so-long and shakily turned into Eld Lane and headed for the music I could hear. If Tasker realised I’d spotted the marred decanter… Would Eunice tell Tasker?

Ahead, I glimpsed Hennell, the stout gent who’d bought Sandy’s rotten glassware. In the town square Sandy was already performing his lunatic dance, hoping somebody would talent-spot him and put him on TV.

‘Isn’t Sandy wonderful?’ Laura’s iron grip drew me under a coffee awning. I went with her, the weakest wimp in the Hundreds.

‘No. He’s a loon.’

She ordered coffees with an imperious gesture. Serfs leapt to obey. It’s money. Laura seemed to be alone. For a tired moment I felt like telling her to leave me alone, but gave in and sat with her. Sandy was prancing round the fountain in a sequinned cape. His loony idea of fashion was red leather thigh boots, a copper breastplate and enough coloured sashes to sail the Cutty Sark. I saw little to admire.

‘Oh, come
on
! He’s divine! And he funded me when I needed it.’

‘You know Sandy well?’ So her Arcade meeting was a sham?

‘He was marvellous. We became friends when my…’ She was going to say husband, but cut out. ‘Sandy will be invaluable in our project.’

Our
project now? For the first time I saw her features clearly. Her cheeks showed that incipient Mach 3 drag, though it wasn’t quite the wind-tunnel effect so noticeable after a sixth facelift. OK, so she was deadly serious about her mission. For mere vengeance, though?

‘Sandy’s on my team. He’s vital.’

My spirits rose. ‘Then why not marry Sandy instead?’

‘He’s no divvy, Lovejoy.’ The waitress served two coffees. ‘My husband would believe I’d marry a divvy – but Sandy?’

Mr Hennell joined us, huffing slightly and fanning himself with his hat. He carried the decanter box.

I said, ‘Odder things happen, missus.’

Not often, but they do. I know Sally, a dealer from Argentina. She is crazy for Astro, an incompetent drunk. She’s offered to buy him out of penury, his addictions and debts, and pay his wife off. Even Isaac Newton couldn’t join those dots and make sense.

‘Isn’t Sandy magnificent?’ Hennell gasped. ‘Soon he’ll release streamers and be a Greek goddess rising from fiery waters.’

Unbelievably, surrounding idlers actually applauded. I craved sanity.

‘Amazing!’ Laura said adoringly.

Sandy’s embarrassing shows always make me feel I’m watching the sea trials of the
Titanic
. I’d not touched her coffee. ‘See you later, missus.’

‘Stay,’ she commanded. ‘Mr Hennell.’

Hennell parroted, ‘Lovejoy. Your illegitimate son Mortimer verified an antique for Sandy.’ He wiped his brow. ‘Warm, isn’t it?’

Mortimer did? Responsibility weighs you down. I hate it.

‘I am the marriage lawyer you’ve no intention of visiting,’ Hennell explained. I should have known. You never see a thin priest, lawyer or politician. They’re all as fat as a butcher’s dog. Meanwhile Sandy was splashing to Handel’s
Messiah
music, the water gold-scarlet and Mel shovelling in colorant. More cleaning bills for ratepayers. People were yelling encouragement.

Laura added sweetly, ‘Mortimer is therefore involved in the tea auction fraud. You may not care for Eunice, Lydia, Tinker Dill, Geraldo, Tasker, and the rest. Or even
yourself. But you will save Mortimer.’

‘It’s called a set-up, Lovejoy,’ Hennell wheezed. ‘Sandy swapped his mint antique decanter for the faulty one.’

Laura rolled in the aisles. ‘Isn’t Sandy gorgeous?’

Gorgeous, was he, that idiot ponce who put Mortimer into danger? Now ice cold, I stared at Sandy’s finale,
Yeomen of the Guard
, with him transmogged into a strutting guardsman before admiring sycophants. Two council workmen wearily moved in to clear the mess.

‘Time for marriage talk, Lovejoy. Ready?’

Hennell yanked out a watch that made me weak with longing. I’d assumed my malaise came from his decanter. It was a pair-cased watch by Antram of London. He clicked it open and examined the champlevé surface. (Incidentally,
pair
-cased: inner and outer cases.) Mesmerised, I gaped at the priceless thing. Joseph Antram never signed his Christian name, just surname, even in the watches he made for King George the First about 1715. Champlevé only means the surface pits are grooved and filled with enamel.

‘That isn’t nicked, Mr Hennell?’ I asked humbly.

Two similar Antrams were lately stolen, but hadn’t yet reached the Art Loss Register. To date, the ALR lists 140,000 decent stolen items, which isn’t much considering the vast annual turnover.

‘Maybe,’ he said laconically. Lawyers smile like they’ve never done it before. ‘Do you want the Antram, Lovejoy? As a persuader? I can always get another.’

And he meant it
. I looked from him to Laura.

‘You the big bun, Mr Hennell?’

Bun is the northern dealers’ word for the wallet.
Hennell gestured a modest oh-come-come with a throwaway smirk.

‘I
contribute
, Lovejoy. I never
exploit
.’

‘Excuse me, please.’ Laura rose with that pretty movement women have. A man stands up like an expanding trellis, all creaks and angles, whereas females are fluid. I watched her go. Mr Hennell sighed.

‘Isn’t she a picture, Lovejoy? Women never recognise the man they’re made for.’

Hello, I thought, was this unrequited longing? I know it, having so much of my own. I eyed Ginny, the waitress. I’d done her a favour when she was evicted from her grotty lodgings after a calamitous affair. I paid her to act as spam, meaning somebody to ask phoney questions about antiques. This is a quick way to identify rival dealers. They can’t resist replying, to denigrate particular antiques, or to suss out other bidders. A spammer is always a she, incidentally. They can easily be spotted if they’re bad actresses.

‘No credit, Lovejoy.’ She swung away.

‘People think,’ Mr Hennell began affably, ‘that marriage has always stayed the same. Not so.’

‘So?’

‘Half of all marriages end in divorce. One mega-famous Hollywood actress even boasts of a marriage that lasted a mere fifteen
minutes
. Was it Zsa-Zsa Gabor? Now for the history…’

He would have been interesting if I’d listened. Instead, I watched Laura, and thought. We tend to forget that motive doesn’t exist when nostalgia takes over. In May 2003, some Hapsburgs demanded back a schloss, plus 
20,000-odd hectares of woodland. The grandson of the last Austro-Hungarian Thingy made a polite request: the nation’s rules say it is compulsory to restore rightful ownership of possessions nicked in the 1930s. Ergo, said blithe legal phrases, the Hapsburgs were victims. Ordinary Austrians were outraged, said it all belonged to the people, so the Hapsburgs could get stuffed. The argument continues. My point: never mind motive. It’s what you do that matters.

A bird I knew was a writer’s wife from Leeds. She was an Aussie publisher, rich and pretty. The writer fell for another woman, – fights, divorce, mayhem. The OW was older and plain as a pikestaff, as folk say. His rich ex-wife quickly remarried back into her own elite circle – you still see her photo in glossies. The writer now drives a Leeds bus, and his OW cleans the village hall. They are happy. But is the beautiful rich lady publisher full of merriment? No. She never smiles in her pictures. So life really is as
you
see things. I think the Hapsburgs should stop griping. They, however, think they’re victims. A researcher recently counted ‘victims’ defined by Human Rights pillocks, and totalled 109 per cent. Daft, or what?

‘…so, you’ll be divorced the next day, Lovejoy,’ Mr Hennell concluded, finally catching my attention. He saw my confusion and looked his reproach. ‘I just explained.’

‘I’m not marrying anybody.’

Ginny immediately came over to earwig. ‘More coffee?’

‘Yes, please,’ I said firmly. ‘And biscuits. On credit.’

‘Just this once,’ she said, and moved away.

See?
As you see things
. Malthus touched on the subject and got nowhere.

Hennell’s voice sank to a whisper. ‘How many friends have you, Lovejoy? Twenty, thirty? List them. They could all go bankrupt.’ He smiled as tumult broke out across the square, Sandy at Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Ruler of the Queen’s Nav
ee
’. Sandy says shame is its own reward.

‘You see, Lovejoy,’ Hennell added kindly, ‘Laura’s scheme is a necessary sham that is vital to her. Just go along, and all will be well. I sprang Tasker’s two sons.’

A gong stunned the world. Two pigeons fainted. People applauded. Mel revved the rheostat. Sandy re-appeared trilling, ‘I am the monarch…’ to guffaws.

Tasker? Breeding yet more psychopaths? Hennell beamed. ‘So Tasker owes me. Your friends? Ruin, homelessness, desolation, Lovejoy. Or…’