Ten Word Game (19 page)

“Did he steal it?”

“Got it as a pressie, and took it to St Petersburg for his Winter Palace in St Petersburg. His daughter Elizabeth shifted it later. They called it the Wonder of the World.” I smiled. “Now,
that’s
an antique!”

“Is it there now? Can we see it?”

“It went missing in the war, love.” I tried to make a joke, to escape. “If anybody finds it, let me know and we’ll split the proceeds! Oh, Harry!” I pretended to see somebody beyond them and waved. “Just coming! Look, I’m sorry, but I’m late for an appointment. Ta for listening…”

And ran, with a grateful smile to Delia Oakley. Nice lady. The bloke trotted after me with his pearls, but I kept going. Honest to God, I thought, does he want blood?

And made it to the Raffles Lounge, where a concert pianist was playing, so nobody could talk to me for at least an hour. No wonder people go on voyages for their health. I wish I did.

The harbour was sunny with a river, tangles of shops, cafes, harbour steamers and yachts. A nautical
fairground
, all colours and on the go. In other
circumstances
I would have loved it. I was allowed ashore, which only meant Mangot could get me back on board any time.

Trying to make up for my surliness the previous night, I smiled at Delia and Fern as we made our way off. I was pleased they didn’t seem offended. In a few paces we were among shops in a sunny seaside. Not many antiques places, and those pretty manky, but a holiday atmosphere lifts the spirit. I liked the place.

“It’s the kind of port people call tacky,” Delia said, laughing. Fern agreed, and went off all eager to find clothes. “Fern hunts presents,” Delia explained. “So far she’s only bought two prezzies, and she has
seventeen
on her list. It’s all she comes for!”

A bridge spanned a river where estuary ferries
glided
and disgorged revellers.

“Don’t worry about last night,” Delia said. “I guess you don’t like Lauren. Mind you,” she added when I started a denial, “she frightens me too. Such intensity! She’s devoted to Henry Semper. Must be very
upsetting
for her.”

“Upsetting?”

“He’s terribly ill. Didn’t you hear?”

I watched a small boat disembarking passengers, families out for a day’s revelling. Seaside holidays are among the best. Several arrivals set out with
determination
for the cafes. I saw a familiar figure, who looked up and made an economical gesture of
recognition
. I didn’t wave back. He carried a camera and went towards a row of gaudy shops along one arm of the estuary. I’d go that way and see what he had to say
this time.

Delia was looking at me. “Someone you know?”

“Eh? No. Coincidences don’t happen to me.”

“Come on. You can pick me out some amber. They say this place is good for amber.”

“Don’t you want to wait for Fern?”

“No. She’s a shopaholic.”

We started into the touristy shops. There was a range of amber, much of it moderate, with one or two good pieces. I had the feeling that most had been cleared out by wholesale merchants long before the holiday season.

“That’s ambergris.” I stayed her hand when she picked up a piece of greyish material. “Sperm whales produce it, to protect their intestines from hard bits of squid. It floats in the sea. It’s a horrible black stuff and stinks. Then it mellows after a while, and looks
ochre-grey
, like that. It’s used in perfumes. Charles the Second liked his eggs cooked with ambergris.”

I dissuaded her from buying a small magnifying glass with an amber-coloured handle. It was only ambroid, those waste bits of amber pressed into shape. Block amber is real single pieces worth carving. I showed her how to look at amber in different lights, turning the piece as you go. You can see the planes where the fragments have been pressed together to make one large chunk. Dealers always pretend ambroid is genuine block amber because they can charge you five times more. Chemically it is genuine, but it’s really only the sweepings from the floor after the amber-carver’s gone home. Anybody can scoop up rubbish and press it. You only need a kettle.

“Don’t be fooled. Daylight is your best friend when buying amber.”

She squinted. “I can’t see the different areas, Lovejoy.”

“Look at the bubbles. If they’re elongated, then most likely it has been made of spare bits. Old antique dealers say ambroid – the pressed amber – always looks ‘frozen’, but I never know what they mean.”

“There are insects in this.”

The thought of some poor insect struggling,
looking
at sixty million years of imprisonment until it gets a chance of hanging on some gentle lady’s breast in a pendant … I winced.

“People fake amber. I mentioned copal varnish. They put pine pollen and insects in it. It’s very
convincing
. The test is to touch the surface of copal with a dot of ether, and it will cloud. If it does, don’t buy it. Glass lookalikes are heavier and sink in salt water. So does Bakelite.”

Mr Moses Dulpoy was taking a photograph of the harbour up ahead. He wore a natty check suit with a straw boater, out for the day. He must have done another airport zoom to get here. An organised bloke.

“Tell me, Lovejoy. If you know so much about antiques, why are you broke?”

“I’m not!”

“I’m on the next table, remember. I overheard them laughing at your mistake about the meals that first dinner night. You looked like you’d suddenly lost your wallet.” She was smiling. “I’m offering to help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Of course not,” she said quickly. “What I mean is, you and I could come to an arrangement. You could teach me which antiques are genuine. Lauren and June Milestone are doing an antiques quiz after we sail tonight. There’s a prize.”

It was tempting. Delia was the only trustworthy person I’d met so far, someone who was neither policeman, crook, or a bent antiques dealer on the make. We stopped to watch children feeding ducks by
the jetties. Amy and Les Renown were just boarding a small hired motorboat. They saw us and waved. We waved back. Les took the controls and moved the craft with expertise, very nautical. I just wished they weren’t wherever I was.

“I want to learn, Lovejoy. I’m new at antiques. I’d pay.”

“There are talks by experts. Go to those.”

“I do.” She glanced about. “You’re on edge. What is it?”

“Nothing,” I said innocently. “Why?”

She smiled. “You haven’t arranged to meet some lady here, perhaps?”

“No. We’ve reached the end of the shops.”

The last place was a small caff with wooden tables and benches set out on a verandah projecting above the edge of the riverbank. Hardly a soul, just a couple
talking
over some photographs and a babe in a pushchair slumbering with its feet in the air. Between the caff and the last shop was a narrow alley overgrown with weeds. It led down to the water where a small dinghy rocked. Beyond the balcony was a series of bushes. I could see a donkey staring at the water traffic on the river. Where had Mr Moses Duploy got to? The path petered out, from a firm metalled surface to a track, finally
becoming
a footpath onto a small peninsula. He’d vanished.

“Look,” I said, suddenly nervous and wanting to find the little blighter. He’d made me an offer and I’d accepted. I could at least play along. “I think I’ll maybe have a drink here for a minute. I’ll see you back at the ship.”

She looked blankly at me. “Shall I not come with you?”

“There’s Fern,” I said. “Don’t miss her.”

“Oh, right. See you later, perhaps.”

We did that hesitation dance with which people
hope to avoid misunderstandings, then parted. I went onto the caff’s verandah, certain that Moses would be lurking nearby, possibly down by the water. I ordered a coffee and paid as soon as it appeared so I could be off the moment he showed up. The couple were laughing at their holiday snaps. I saw two rowers heaving a skiff across the surface. A ferry glided beyond, raising a wake into a million glitters. Delia was walking back along the promenade. It was peace.

I saw figure moving by the dinghy. I could just make it out. A boatman maybe, or somebody trying to attract my attention? The couple were inside the cafe. I pretended I’d finished my scalding drink, and went down the alley among the weeds and tall grass, as if moving to the waterside to gape at the boats.

Moses was lying half in the water, bleeding onto the surface in great bursts of red. It floating with a curious sheen. I’d seen blood before but never quite such a colour. Blood goes brown once it’s aged. They get it wrong in the movies, usually making it bright garish scarlet when that’s only the hue of new blood. They use eosin. My mind snapped and went into a silent scream,
What the fuck am I saying
? He was bleeding, so it was a new injury. The side of his chest was heaving as if it was being punched then pulled, punched in and pulled out, by some invisible powerful hand.

And it stopped moving. Moses died. Just stopped everything and became still, except his lower half was in the water. Bloody froth gathered about his mouth. A trickle went down his chin, and he slipped further into the water. I backed away, turned and made my way back up the narrow alley.

On the path I looked at myself. No blood. Blood would have been all over me had I tried to pull the little bloke up out of the water. I was clean. No trace of anything incriminating. No sign that I’d tried to help
the poor sod, nothing so honest or noble.

No, I’d simply turned and left him there dying, dead in the river. He might still be alive, waiting for me to lend him a hand, drag him up among the weeds and run for help.

But I’ve seen death before. I know it. There’s no mistaking the moment when somebody’s alive and with the rest of us on earth going about our business, and the next when it’s all ended and there’s no more of anything. I’d seen him.

I couldn’t feel the ground. I noticed that as I
started
along the track back towards the bustle and activity of the harbour, following where Delia must have gone only moments before. It came to me, as I
plodded
on in a state of utter disorientation, that whoever had stabbed – had he been stabbed, coshed, or smashed somehow? – whoever had killed him must have been within a hand’s reach. Perhaps the killer was there, hidden under the wooden pilings on which the projecting verandah stood? Or maybe he’d gone out on the dinghy. And now I couldn’t even remember if the dinghy had still been there when I reached the water. Had I seen it leave, the killer moving upstream?

About then I began shaking, my knees and feet becoming uncontrollable. I found my teeth chattering – this on a warm sunny seaside day. I should have gone for help. They can do wonders these days, bring people back from… I mean restore people to life however dead they look, if you believe the newspapers. Except I’d come within a whisker of joining Moses Duploy. I’d no doubt. If I’d run screaming into the shops and raised the alarm, I’d have got one step and that would have been it.

The trouble was, I’d not even bothered. I could have pretended to walk back to the path, then ran and told the caff proprietor about some poor chap who looked
like he might have fallen into the water. I might have said I couldn’t quite see because I’d not got my glasses, could you please take a look. And then stood back while they called for the ambulance and police.

I’d not done that. I found myself sitting on a chair outside a small bar with a waiter asking me if I wanted anything. People were milling about and another boat was just moving away from the nearby jetty carrying a load of holidaymakers, music playing, people in and out of small stores. It was as pleasant a scene as you could wish to see. Further along, there was the bridge. I glimpsed Fern showing Delia what she’d bought, something in a coloured bag. Delia glanced my way, and just as quickly turned away. I’d offended her. I should have told her about Moses Duploy. She might have been with me when I’d seen him, and could have been a witness, proved my innocence. And allowed me to be safe while I helped the poor little geezer.

“A beer, please.”

I sat and drank in the sunlight, safe and sound. Down the riverside path, I saw people start to gather when passengers on one of the yachts started to shout and point. Somebody a hundred yards back came
running
. A policeman on the bridge pedalled his bike, coming nearer, talking into a device on his shoulder, everybody getting out of his way.

He pedalled towards the caff where I’d sat during the last moments of Mr Moses Duploy. His scams had ended. It wasn’t fair. I settled the bill, the waiter
preoccupied
by the disturbance. I heard a distant
wah-wah
, an ambulance coming. As casually as I could make myself move, my feet recovering their feeling, I walked slowly along the grass verge towards the bridge. I kept looking at my shoes, my trousers, and my cuffs for signs of blood. Not a one. Had I tried to help, I would have had at least a trace.

But I was pure and unsullied. Which is about as pathetic as you ever can be. I made the ship, half an hour’s slow walk, stopping every now and then to go into a shop and examine their goods. I kept thinking. Had he fallen, perhaps cracked his head on the dinghy? But then why was his chest bubbling and stove in? And that red froth in his mouth? And was the dinghy still there when I reached him?

And I’d seen no sign of head injury. But had I looked?

I bought a tee-shirt with something on in German. Jolly, no doubt. Only when I was being sick in my cabin did I realise, as I wiped my mouth on the damned thing, that it had a picture of the harbour printed on it. I’d inadvertently bought a memento of my bravery where Mr Moses Duploy had died. It made me sick again. Like I say, pathetic.

Eventually I came out of it. For over an hour I sat on the bed staring at nothing. I had a shower, made sure I wasn’t trembling. Then I went for a swim in the Crystal Pool in the sunshine. I thought of Amy the dancer and Les the comic. They would perform on stage with the troupe after dinner. I found a recorded phone message from Lady Vee saying to collect her for the show. She’d ended her message with a titter. “June sends her love!”

Aye, I told myself, we’re all a load of inscrutable masks. I felt cold, and deliberately stayed wet after another shower in my cabin. I grew cold. The light began to fade outside, day drawing in. Time passed. I got colder. Still I stayed wet. My teeth began to
chatter
. I’d once had malaria, and knew it was quite like this. The image of Moses Duploy stayed with me and I shivered worse.

He was no angel, but who is? And was he any worse than, say, you or me? Time I stopped being a drogue
and did something off my own bat.

I dried and dressed. The noise bonged for dinner. I went out calm and confident, saying hello to
everybody
, poisonously hearty to one and all.