Moonspender (15 page)

A bloke was waiting patiently in his motor by the cottage, the car
radio playing. Even though by now I knew the drill I was pleased to see him. At
least somewhere the nation's normality continued.

"Lovejoy isn't back yet," I said.

He checked my face against a photograph. "Sorry, Lovejoy.
Here.
" A manila envelope. Oh, joy. "Wednesday
fortnight, Suffolk Quarter Sessions."

"Who this time?"

"Major Bentham. Assault and battery. Obstructing a foxhunt,
inciting rabble. Grievous bodily harm." This was punishment for not
teaming up with him and Candice.

"It isn't all bad news these days, is it? Swing right at the
chapel for the main road."

Inside there was another summons from one Mrs. Candice Prentiss,
widow; Chelmsford Court of Common Pleas or something, to answer charges of
trespass and willful obstruction. It degenerated into incomprehensible
heretofores
and
aforesaids
after
that, twenty wretched pages. Lawyers keep a robber's grip on law, the swine, so
we can't use justice for its proper ends.

One good bit. There was a package from the 
Advertiser
 with
a scrawled message: "Lovejoy. Open this, and you owe me. Liza X." I
put the kettle on, and settled down to read the sheaf of cuttings.

Surprising how little we had figured in the world's consciousness.
A whole year, and local newspapers had featured my village's segment less than
fifty times. We might as well not have bothered to
newsmake
.
Irritably I slung out an unfair report about an antique dealer who'd been in
trouble with police, and an equally biased falsehood telling how the same
dealer was mangled by the bankruptcy court. Swine. That Lize. One day I'U bite
her ankles.

The rest slowly became two piles. The greater was rubbish, clearly
recognizable as Lize's demented space-filling—Women's Guild Protests on
Roadworks
Issue. It's the sort of thing she prints when
nowt's
happened, simply copies any extinct news and changes
the first line: "Anger flared today when irate villagers ..." It's
all based on a chance remark overheard at a bus stop anyway. The little pile,
however, was more important.

On the whole we're a rum lot. I mean people. Our rehabilitation center,
where hospital patients convalesce, had had its telephone switchboard damaged
by fire. A truffle hunter, would you believe, had been offered a fortune for
his dog. A fence had been repeatedly damaged on Manor Farm. Some nut had seen a
UFO among some trees—the Air Ministry glibly implied the report was from
lunatics. Young trees, stolen from a wood, were found in a lorry abandoned at
Coggeshall. Thieves had stolen a pedigree hen; whatever next? A nocturnal
cyclist had had an accident crossing the river footbridge, been treated in
hospital. A conservationist spokeswoman threatened legal action against
anybody, maybe everyone, if People Didn't Behave. There'd been a malicious fire
in ruins out beyond Chapel Lane End. One headline was a winner: Local Constabulary
Useless as Guardians of Root Crop Produce, Accuses Farmer. I decided to wait
for the film. The new restaurant, of course. The fox hunt demo. Two footballers
arguing over a team's beer money. An angler's car had been stolen—good old
Ollie Hennessey, no less, and him pally with Clipper, who's probably the
fastest resprayer of nicked motors in the east. I marked all these with a red
blob.

A protracted think, then another shuffle-and-split sorting by
dates. Four piles now. Significance? Well, we seemed to be in the news a little
more often at certain times than others.

But things stick in your mind, don't they? Things like UFOs, a
pointless fire, a nicked car, a complaining naturalist, and a damaged fence.
And maybe a job such as estate manager, offered by a bedmate.

Winstanley knocked at four-thirty, with Roger's lad from our
village garage. He had the keys of my ancient Austin Ruby. My old crate's
7-h.p. engine was raring to go.

As Roger's lad sauntered off", Winstanley said, "The
bill will be charged against your fees, Lovejoy. There's also Sir John's
message." He coughed apologetically. "He wants to know what you are
doing."

"I'm having a quiet read, Winnie. Ta for the motor."

"But—"

Solitude's marvelous, isn't it? When you're thinking against time
it's crucial but unnerving. I fried some bread and diced a piece of cheese.
Nothing in the fridge, of course. Typical.

By six o'clock I'd sussed it out. Boothie, I thought, but first
Vanessa. Toffee was kipping in her basket so I could leave her. A swift crank
of the Ruby's handle stirred the innards into a noisy wheeze. I could now comet
around the globe to my heart's content. Only one trouble: It was dusk, night
fast falling. Speed was called for.

With the Ruby's meager ccs beating maximum power, I notched a
giddy 22 mph. One brief pause at the White Hart to light the crate's oil lamps,
amid much ribaldry from boozers, and I puttered at a breakneck saunter into the
Boxenford
evening.

Vanessa and me met up
yonks
ago, over
some mayhem down
Pearlhanger
. We were close. I stayed
with her, but her healthy outdoor life proved detrimental. She's everything you
see in the Olympics— yachting, hang-gliding, waterski racing, a real
glassbum
. She had some idea of making me a permanent
fixture. Never works, does it?

The airfield has a shed and a windsock, plus enthusiasts. Colin's
the boss mechanic, a hefty youth with
spatuloidal
finger.. He collects recordings of engine noises; honest, it's true. In other
words, Vanessa's team are maniacs. As I arrived they were examining an engine
by floodlight. A generator muttered nearby.

"Swab, scalpel," I said. The lads laughed, knowing me.

Vanessa was delighted to see me. "Where've you been,
Lovejoy?" she said, pulling to greet me privately in the hut. "You
wretch. You promised to ring."

"My side's been playing up, love." I said. I'd forgotten
to limp on the way in.

"It has?" She was all consternation. I gritted my teeth,
smiled nobly.

"I've missed you, sweetheart." I went all misty, wishing
she wouldn't wear overalls with spanners in every pouch. They ram your belly.

"Lovejoy." She cupped my face, searching. "You
haven't come just because you want something?"

"Oh, I see." I said quietly, stung to the quick.
"That's how you think of me."

"I'm sorry, darting." She embraced me. God, the
spanners.

"Soon as I learned I was being sued I stayed away. Didn't
want you involved, sweetheart."

"Oh, Lovejoy! How sweet!" Her eyes moistened.

Bravely I smiled, McClintock of the Mounties, leg shattered by a
giant bear. "But as I was this way on, Vanessa, I thought of your
brother." He's an antique dealer, he says. "There's a find, in
Maldon
. An almost perfect
Dongware
pot, fluted, wonderful, ivory-colored."

"Oh, darling." Tears filled her eyes. "You came to
help my brother, and I suspected you of . . . I'm a beast."

"Everybody makes mistakes." We nearly burst into
"Maid of the Mountains." My own eyes were stinging. I really believed
me myself.

"Is there no way I could make it up to you, darling?"

"Certainly not!" I cried indignantly.

Later I
prised
Colin and his merry men
from under my Ruby where they were wistfully contemplating incipient ruin, and
rattled off toward civilization, with Vanessa's promise to cobble together all
the aerial photographs of the Pittsbury area. Vanessa said would a couple of days
be all right. I'd replied that it was surely too much trouble, and please could
I pay her. She got mad at that, so I bowed to her will.

Finding a priceless
Dongware
bowl for
her
layabout
brother was tomorrow's tough luck.

As dusk finally settled for darkness, I arrived at Boothie's.

In East Anglia not every house is a house, and not every cottage
is a cottage. My own cottage is thatch,
olde
worlde
wood, and plaster. Brick two-uppers, which abound
hereabouts, are also called cottages. Such a one was Boothie's. He lives near
Pittsbury Wood, the tip of a long isthmus of trees almost forming a separate
copse. I'm making it sound open and in plain view, but it isn't. His cottage
stands in a small fold, a tree-filled recess. I left the Ruby at thankful rest
and, calling nervously because of the dark, made my way over the stile and down
the thicket path. I took one of the Ruby's oil lanterns, leaving the old crate
one-eyed up on the brow.

"Boothie," I called. "It's me. Lovejoy." No
lights. I cleared my throat loudly. "Boothie. It's only Lovejoy."

The door stood ajar. I peered in doubtfully. Do poachers depart
for the night leaving their doors open? Well, do they? Did Boothie have the
electric, or was he an oil-and-candles man? The latter, by my recollection. I
went and knocked. Silence. Some fool of a bird swished big wings past my head
in a rush. Should be home minding its own business.

"Right, lads," I called in a strangled voice.
"Surround the building."

Wasn't that what the police say? "Right, sergeant. Search
every corner.

In, feeling daft. My lamp threw its feeble glimmer into each of
the four rooms. No Boothie. The back door was on the latch. I know because I
tried it. Upstairs, in the pantry, the loo. No luck.

"Right, er, lads." Sillier still, certain there were no
lurking footpads, but I felt my earlier
performance'd
earned it.

Decibel's kennel was there, the sack of gruesome biscuits Boothie
makes him hanging from a little strut. I've seen Boothie do them, fat and
oatmeal. What a sell. In a way I was disappointed. In fact I was halfway toward
the Ruby's flickering lamp when I heard the whimpering.

"What's that?" I called, terror returning with a rush.
My lamplight nervously gave up as soon as it hit the undergrowth.
"Hello?"

A dog barked, and came at me. It was Boothie's hitherto silent
skulker
Decibel, discovering a friend. We greeted each
other in an orgy of relieved licks, pats, hugs.

"Where's Boothie?" I asked, like a fool, and instantly
it was wriggling ahead into the vegetation, choosing a route that even I could
follow. Every few paces it paused, showed me my flame in its eyes, and
eeled
on while I lumbered behind.

Nobody pays much attention to these low hollows. They're
everywhere in the Hundreds. Useless, of course; hell to get into and hell to get
out of. Usually there's a murky pool, and the brambles murder your face. This
tanglewood
had a slow ooze smearing its way from the fields
higher up the valley's slope. It also had a man's body lying imprisoned under
two great roots.

"Boothie? Christ Almighty."

Decibel was whimpering, pawing at the mud round the inert form. I
couldn't tell if Boothie was breathing or not. He felt warmish, thank heavens,
but stuck. I stood my lamp, grabbed him, and heaved, slithering into the
sluggish stream with a thick
splosh
. Decibel
wriggled, wanting to help but not quite knowing how. No good. Then I had the
sense to feel. Boothie was wedged, actually wedged, under a big arched root. I
heard a discreet tapping, which frightened me before I realized it was only
coming rain. It would be quite a storm, judging from the big slow drops that
began to whack down on the fold.

But Boothie. I knelt in the water, only inches shallow. His face
lay about three inches from the
swark
. Lucky I came
or he would have

. . . Decibel was scrabbling like a mad thing. I yanked, cursing.
All it needed was another inch or two and he'd not be able to breathe. The rain
tumbled then, hissing and clapping above and about me. I sank back on my
haunches for a breather.

"Steady, Decibel. We've got all night." Boothie seemed
to have blood all over his temple.

The dog was berserk, scratching madly, its flung mud splatting. It
was as if it was trying to tunnel beneath its master, and I realized its
wisdom. Scoop under him, and you could pull him clear. I shone the light to
decide. Funny. It had seemed three inches deep. Now it was four. And that sleek
drift was wrinkled, turbid, not so slow. Faster.

Then my mind yelped. Torrential rainstorm plus a shallow stream
equaled a torrent. I tore into the mud, kneeling over Boothie and bawling for
help. I rammed a shoe under his head to keep his nose clear of the water. The
black water was running nastier and quick, fetching leaves and twigs down with
it that piled up against Boothie's face.

When his arm finally did come clear I shoved myself back on the
bank, hurting where the branches delved, grabbed Boothie's middle and dragged
him clear, Decibel with its teeth pulling along, up among the brambles until we
were a clear yard off that horrible muck. The rain was lashing down. God, I
felt a mess. Decibel was wagging round Boothie's rag-doll form, licking his
face—not a word of thanks to me, note. That's gratitude.