Moonspender (17 page)

"But how can you buy every brick, Lovejoy?"

I thought, I honestly don't believe this. "Because," I
said, as if to a child, "I've a builder of my own who'll remove this
turret section before crooked councillors and cretinoidal NHS administrators
can."

"But won't they notice?" He was all on edge. "And
what can your builder do with a load of old bricks and beams?"

"Doc," I said, several headaches now rattling my skull.
"Promise you'll never become an antique dealer. Okay?"

Gerald was grinning. "Mrs. Hampson's son is on again."

"Tell him to go to hell." The old saint explained,
"Wretched man won't accept that his mother's fit to come home."

We left Gerald cheerily relaying the
reblikes
.
"Play your cards right, doc," I promised, "and you'll finish up
with a solidly rebuilt extension. You may have to ignore a certain amount of
activity. Don't ask," I cut him off hurriedly. "Just accept."

"And if we don't?"

"I go to court. Don't worry," I said. "I know the
way."

Outside, I checked. The turret windows were the only ones from
which you could see over Pittsbury Wood. I left fairly optimistically,
wondering which local builder wanted a knighthood.

On the way home I used the reassuring daylight to bump across that
track and check Decibel's kennel, just to make sure the dog cakes had gone and
not merely been shifted in the police search. I thought, Aha, where are you
Boothie? And where's loyal little Decibel? I drove into the village whistling.
I was so happy.

13

Women have a knack of all being stupid in exactly the same way.
Ever noticed? This somehow frees them from original sin, so they can display
infinite variance in everything else. On the other hand, we blokes go total in
daftness; our emotional energies are dissipated by being so barmy in so many
absorbing patterns that we've nothing left for anything else. Message: Birds
are brilliant at the practicalities of life and love, whereas we males haven't
a clue.

So you'll imagine my surprise to discover that Margaret Dainty had
shelved blame onto me for good old Raymond's failed fiddle. She and I are
marvelous friends, in the best way possible. She has that luster in her face
you only see in eighteenth-century porcelain. That very luster, the "poor
man's silver," which produced that dazzling luminescence, was actually
solid platinum—the only metal that truly
ensilvers
in
the kiln (silver itself goes a straw color). Margaret is exactly that lovely.
What I don't like is that she protects me against myself, instead of against
everybody else.

"Margaret," I said, pleased to have arrived at the
Arcade just as she was starting her midday bite—two triangular
crispbreads
with a millionth of a sardine on each. Plenty of
customers were around, taking their time. Always a good sign. In antiques two
slow customers are worth ten harriers.

"Kevin," she called. "Get four pasties and some
tea." Kevin's the tea lad.

The Arcade's a gauntlet of antique shops. Some are reasonable: Hal
Freeman, silversmith; Gillian Ryder, a pretty alleged innocent dealer in
Regency furniture; Lily of the woeful countenance and multiple lost lovers;
Mannie
the clock dealer, who lives on lentils and meals
charitably provided by police when he gets done for fiddling social security.
And Margaret.

"That's kind, love," I said, sitting on a patchwork
dumpty. "Got much genuine stock in?" I was thinking of Suzanne's
restaurant.

"Have I, Lovejoy?" she asked.

The chimes were moderate but sincere. I closed my eyes in bliss.
"Pity about that
secretaire
." I nodded to
the grand piece that dominated her nook, with its brass and tortoiseshell
inlay, parquetry areas on the panels, and a heroic bust on each comer pillar.
It looked right, but emitted not a single chime. "Fraud. Somebody been
reading up their French ebeniste work, eh?"

She grimaced. "I wish you'd been around when I bought
it."

Kevin came with the hot pasties. I fell on them, not a pretty
sight, but soon I was going to bum through the Eastern Hundreds like a rocket,
and there'd be no time for grub. Margaret watched approvingly. Real women get
as much satisfaction seeing you eat as you do yourself. I can't understand why.
I knew a bird once who lived on tastes, ate hardly enough to keep a sparrow
feathered, yet used to work out menus like Watson and Crick planning molecules.
Then she'd order, and quietly nick forkfuls, frowning and telling the waiters
off while I got on the right side of every plateful. I used to ask her why she
never had a proper meal. She just said don't be stupid. Chefs loved her, used
to come out and spend ages arguing what kind of sauces with the veal and that.
Where was I?

"It's signed JH Riesener, Lovejoy," Margaret protested.

"Spelled right, is it?"

My joke. (Fakers often misspell that most famous name, so always
check.) Jean-Henri Riesener was no boring old eighteenth-century cabinetmaker.
I'm really fond of him. His master was the great Oeben, a German of wonderful
skill who became 
ebeniste
 to the French king and made 
maître
 without
an apprenticeship. The scandal occurred when Oeben died. Jean-Henri and another
workman scrapped over the attractive widow. Riesener won workshop, widow, and
the guild mastership.

But a good scandal never really lies down. To this day spite
snipes in the world of antiques about Riesener. Rumor says that the delectable
furniture he made for Marie Antoinette was really Oeben's work; that Riesener's
superb mounts were made by Gouthiere; that he and Mrs. Oeben were more than
good friends; that Oeben was murdered . . .

"Come back, Lovejoy."

"Eh? Oh, aye. Why did you bubble me over Raymond?"

"So they'd arrest you, Lovejoy."

Half a pasty of contemplation later I asked, "Can an
erstwhile lover request reasons?"

"So you'd be tried and found guilty, Lovejoy."

Well, consistency's reliable stuff, but this was no joke. She was
looking at the floor. "Any particular logic, sunbeam? Be careful how you
answer. I might not let you rape me anymore."

"So they'd put you in jail, Lovejoy."

That did it. "Of all the frigging nerve!"

"You'd be safe in prison, dear," she pleaded. "And
after it was all over I could make Raymond own up so they'd let you go."

See what I mean? Women land you in it, but it's for your own
bloody good. "After what's over, for God's sake?"

She'd gone quite pale. I'd have clouted her with the pasty but I
was starving.

"Everybody knows it's bad, Lovejoy. Sykes is at the George
with his hoodlums. Major Bentham and that horrible Candice have their teeth
into you. People dead. Police everywhere . . ."

Then an odd thing. I was so preoccupied I didn't notice the
significance of it then. The gray-eyed Enid walked past down the Arcade. And
Podge Howarth strolled past simultaneously. He definitely saw her, but they
exchanged no sign of affection. Strange, that, because ex-lovers swap glances
in a very definite way. In fact I'd swear they barely recognized each other.

"You're best out of it," Margaret was saying. "It's
something horrid, darting." She only calls me that when she goes deadly
serious, like now. "Evil, rotten. Out there in the woods. Poor George
found that out. Then poor Ben Cox. And now Boothie. I want you to keep
away."

Would-be helpers slay me. "Seriously?" I asked, going
into my doubtful act.

"Seriously, darling. Please."

"Well," I said, doing my very purest persuaded-against-my-will
gaze. "If you really think so, love. Only, Sykie and Sir John are—"

"Explain to them," she urged earnestly. "They'll
understand."

"Right, love. I'll do what you say." I took her hand.

"Thank you, Lovejoy." Her eyes were brimming. "I'm
so certain it's the right thing. I'll tell Big Frank to tell Mr. Ledger we made
a mistake."

"Margaret, love," I said, all soulful. "You won't
get into trouble?"

"No, darling." She dabbed her eyes. "I'm just so
thankful. Bless you."

I struck. "You couldn't run to another pasty, could you,
love? Only, I'm a bit
peckish
."

Ten minutes later I'd sprung from all that dangerous help and into
vengeance. I finally raised the question of Lammas with someone who'd know.

"Lammas, Lovejoy?"

Reverend Woking's not a bad vicar, especially for a struggling
parish like ours, but he is unnecessarily learned, a real scholiast, when we
need somebody homely. For me, I don't mind him. Well, the only priests without
faults are saints, and asking the bishop for one of those would be lengthening
the odds somewhat, so our village blunders on turning ritual into habit, church
observances into folklore. Nobody cares either way.

"Yes, reverend. What's Lammas actually mean?" I already
knew, but had to get round to Lize's newspaper cutting somehow.

"Lammas? One of the old festival days. Quite pagan." He
has all the hallmarks of the learned pedant: sherry for theology, tea for
disputatious parishioners, fruitcake for little literary socials. "The
gule
of August, from
gwyl
. Old
British language. Means a festival."

"What went on?"

"Oh, quite innocent celebrations." He hesitated with
decanter poised, an Edwardian pressed-glass affair I hate. Some ecstatic
auntie's ordination present, silly old crab. Why couldn't she have bought him a
decent antique?

"Nothing sinister, then?"

"Certainly not." He chuckled, the very idea. "There
are certain odd . . . coincidences about the day. Like the sacrificial lamb at
York Minster. Folk assume all sorts—lamb-mass, you see, but quite wrong. '
Loafmass
’, really. A special little harvest celebration.
Think Pancake Tuesday and you have it."

"About Saint Michael's," I said innocently.

"Saint Michael's?" he queried, just as innocently. The
trouble with interrogating a priest is they've had millennia to learn clever
replies. His glass refilled. Mine didn't. Some agitation was going on.

"Beyond the stile at Chapel Lane End," I said firmly, to
keep him cornered.

"Oh, those old ruins? Good heavens, yes. I'd forgotten about
those." He rose, paced, a really amateur send-up of a rector thinking
hard. "Saint Michael's church is long since deconsecrated. Quite ploughed
under now, I believe."

"The newspaper said somebody started a fire there."

"Tut-tut." He shook his head gravely. "Foolish
prank, Lovejoy. All those valuable crops."

"Isn't it," I said. "It was on last Lammas
eve."

He gave me quite a good gaze, not at all bad for a lying
theologist
. "Good heavens."

"And there was another fire. Same ruins. On May Day
eve."

"More sherry, Lovejoy?"

"And the day before Candlemas."

"February—let me see—the first, is it?"

"Aye." Him forgetting Candlemas is like Tinker
forgetting Derby Day.

"Terrible, terrible. Irresponsible." He did the whole
pantomime; the sigh, the dolorous headshake. "It's probably nothing more
than young louts, too much time on their hands."

"Only, aren't there the old, er, bad, days? There was
something in the newspaper. Witches, the rural tradition . . ."

He laughed merrily. "Lovejoy, you deserve a medal for
imaginings! The idea!"

I chuckled along. "Nothing in that Whalley Abbey business,
then?"

He tried to look blank. "Whalley Abbey? Isn't that in the
north. . . ?"

"Last year's official conference on witchcraft and black
magic."

"Oh, 
that
, " he countered airily. "A
few folklorists."

"A hundred parsons, plus the bishop's exorcist."

"And you suggest that here in dull old East Anglia. . . ? No,
Lovejoy." His veteran's gaze met my innocent one. We both went tut-

tut. "Mere fanciful foolery. If there was anything serious
hereabouts I'd have heard, Lovejoy."

We talked a bit about music for All Saints, then he waved me off.
Sir John's car was at the end of my lane as I drove in and Winstanley flagged
me down. Sir John was reading the Financial Times or some other comic.

"Lovejoy," he announced, "this is irksome."

We agreed for once. I bawled over my clattering engine.
"Another pricey visit, Sir John?"

"Don't think it isn't in your account, Lovejoy."

"Well, no news so far about any bronzes."

"I want a written report of your progress tomorrow noon at
the latest, Lovejoy."

"Right." I'm cheerful when lying. It's the only time
everything's predictable. I made to drive on, knowing he couldn't possibly
resist asking.

"Oh, Lovejoy." Such studied casualness.