The Lies of Fair Ladies (27 page)

"No." I was gruff, dismissive.

"And Rye," she added. "We can trust him. Not like
Mr. Vervain."

"Not at all ... ? But you were all over Del."

"I was nothing of the kind, Lovejoy! I was merely ...
attentive. He's a famous broadcaster. But shifty. And so scared of the producer
people—"

"Wrong, Lune. They were scared of him. He's the star."

"Lovejoy. You have it the wrong way about. He is frightened.
He was frantic lest you didn't show."

"Really?" I remembered that strange glint in their eyes,
the hot expectation. And Joan's rather sinister glitter. What were they planning?
I remembered the rumors, Del's links with the rough toughs of Whitechapel. I
felt suddenly cold and told her to put the heating on. She did so, looked at
me, said nothing.

"Gawd Almighty, love." The mill grounds were heaving
with schoolchildren. "You made us late—"

"I?" she blazed, pulling in at the far end of the car
park. "Lovejoy! Who positively clawed to ... ? Who really made us late,
Lovejoy?"

Therla Brewer was somewhere in the maelstrom. Josh Whatnot was
trying to make four lads come off the waterwheel. It was locked static, thank
goodness, but two of them were wet through. Why didn't they take this mob to
the pictures instead? The thought of a hundred screaming ikes in the tumult of
a dark cinema made me delete the question unanswered.

"I want five minutes of Rye's time, that's all."

"He's lecturing. Look."

And there he was, the trustworthy Rye Benedict, leaning out of a
hoist window, hanging on to the dangling rope of the hoist's pulley with one
hand, speaking through a megaphone with the other. His feet were on the window
ledge.

"Good heavens. I hope he's safe, Lovejoy."

"Course he is, love. As houses."

"Knee, Lovejoy." Red-cheeked, she angrily pulled her
skirt over her knees. "Not here. This is a public place! With
schoolchildren everywhere."

"Sorry." My hand had accidentally fallen on her knee,
but the space in front car seats is always cramped.

"He's winching the rope thing. What's it for?"

We watched. "They unloaded the grain from wagons on the
ground. Winched the sacks to the top on that pulley. Then swing it in."

A horseless wagon stood beneath the hoist. We watched desultorily.
The children gathered below watched desultorily. The teachers expounded,
pleased at Rye's activity. Three or four sacks were arranged on the wagon. Rye
was leaning out, speaking down to the children, indicating something up above
the hoist, probably some control rope to stay the pulley's speed.

"That way," I said on, cursing my luck for being late. I
could have been at a viewing day in Norwich. "That way, all the grain's on
the mill's top floor, see? Fewer rats, as well as being able to chute the grain
down into the mill wheels when required."

Rye was calling for somebody to hook the pulley rope into a sack
on the wagon. Josh sprang on the wagon to do it, amid jeering applause. He took
it in good part, leaping spectacularly off when he'd done and bowing to the mob
of children. Rye reached inside. The pulley started moving. The sack rose.

"See? Simple. The old folk knew a thing or two. Used the
waterwheel power to lift the grain."

"The waterwheel's stopped."

"Probably got an electric motor inside, make it easier to
demonstrate to children. Principle's the same, though."

We watched idly, Luna saying how marvelous that people like Rye
took interest in these old things like watermills. He'd tried to buy it from
Oliver's town council, offered substantial money, she was saying quite
casually, but the council weren't allowed to sell. It was a trust.

The pulley slowed, stopped. Rye disappeared inside to check
something. Emerged, smiling, feet on the space ledge, looking down at the
children some eighty feet below, the wagon with its sacks. And at the sack being
winched higher and higher to the hoist window. Him stretching out, steadying
himself. I couldn't hear what he was saying, with the car windows almost closed
and the children making a din.

"Benedict offered for the mill again quite recently. He has
the river rights, on account of the market garden ..."

Rye reached, failed to find the rope for some reason. He turned as
if to look behind into the dark interior of the mill. And started to move
outwards.

I thought. What is he doing? Quite idly, my thoughts went. He's
going to fall, isn't he? Looks quite like it.

Luna shrieked. The children screamed. Rye was in the air,
reaching, still with one hand outstretched. Still with that smile on his face
as if to say, This is what shouldn't happen, children, so you will be careful,
won't you? and suchlike.

The screams rose as he tumbled over. Once. Twice. And a half. And
smashed into the edge of the wagon beneath. Blood spurted upwards, oddly,
moving outwards in a graceful arc.

Luna was clutching my arm, weeping madly, crying out my name. I
only sat staring. The children began to run in every direction.

Somebody knocked on the window, opened the door. Josh looked in,
shouting had we a car phone for Christ's sake couldn't somebody call the
ambulance or something because a man had fallen from the mill hoist.

I got out then, walked to the office, and smashed the window, got
to the phone and asked for the ambulance, and police. I said to send Cradhead.
I got Luna's car blanket from her boot, went and covered the body while children
and people shrieked and wept.

Twenty-three

R
ye Benedict's fall drew the short straw. Drinkwater established a
Star Chamber in the mill, ground floor, to waste everybody's time. Police
surged. Ambulance people tore up, had a fag, ogled the schoolgirls while the police
photographer flashed and ogled the schoolgirls. We were questioned.

"It wasn't me, Drinkwater," I told him in case he got
ideas. "Four million witnesses'll tell you."

"That's enough from you, Lovejoy."

"Here." I gave him a list of registration numbers on a
card.

Luna had started keeping ruled cards in the glove compartment. As
soon as we'd come down to earth (sorry) I made her list all the car
registrations. There were maybe a dozen parked motors.

Drinkwater read. "What's this, Lovejoy?"

"Car numbers, Drinkwater. Shall we check?"

He flung the card back. "Pathetic. Get gone, Lovejoy."

"I'm a valuable witness, you burke. I was actually
here—"

"You were actually groping the mayoress, Lovejoy." He
gestured me away. "I know you. About your level."

Luna was with the children. Astonishingly, she had been out
helping the teachers to round up the screaming children and line them up by the
river, looking across to the market garden. She had the bloodstained ones go
down to the little landing stage and rinse the ghastly splashes off. It was a
brisk, businesslike act, and I admired her for thinking of it. In fact, the
teachers started coming to her for orders. I was proud of her.

"He's chucking us out,'' I told her. "Come on."

A reluctant ploddite tried delaying us at the gate, hurt that we
were being allowed to go about our lawful business. I enjoyed myself, walking
over to tell Drinkwater his orders had been countermanded by beat feet. We
drove away in silence. I made to chuck her card out of the window, and paused.

"Hang on, Lune. What’s this line?"

"The other car park, Lovejoy. You said list all the cars.
Twelve at the mill. Three more across the river, Lovejoy, in the market
garden."

"Pull in." Near somebody's gateway, I counted.

The river, though small, was too wide to leap. There was some sort
of footbridge round the river bend, beyond hedges, trees.

"How could you see into the other car park?"

She tutted. "The footbridge, Lovejoy. I knew you'd get cross
if I forgot some cars."

Me? I'm hardly ever cross. In any case, it was only an incidental,
right? But the world's made up of atoms.

"I'll walk on, love. You drive round to the market garden.
Ask whose cars they are."

She caught me up ten minutes later. I was walking along the
approach road to the dual carriageway by then. I was narked as she drew up.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Talking with the old lady who does the bedding plants. They
were all down in the potting sheds, on the far side. They'd only just been
told. She was most upset about Mr. Benedict. Of course it's bound to've been a
shock—"

"Was one motor his?"

"Yes. The estate car's the saleslady's. She's done the job
since the father's time. There are five locals, four girls and a gardener for
the outdoor work."

"Whose is the third motor? Customer?"

"No. When they move the potting plants for public parks, like
today, they admit no one. It had gone." She almost smirked when I grabbed
the card. "Yes, I did, Lovejoy."

And she had. Two numbers below the line were ticked. She'd drawn a
ring carefully round the third.

"Did you say anything about the third motor? Ask them or
anything?"

"No.” She drove meticulously as yet another police car tore
past, shrieking its important way to the next pub. I wasn't sure if I
should."

And another, following an ambulance. No lights and sirens this
time, more sedate, without haste. Luna pulled in to let the cortege pass, then
drove after towards town. It was starting to rain. To wash Rye Benedict's blood
off the wagon.

"The garden has a second entrance. It stands ajar on potting
days. A notice on it says so."

I found myself looking at the car number, said casually,
"Anybody could have just dropped in. Fuchsia for their dad's birthday, eh?
Sort of thing anybody'd do. Easter cactus."

"Benedict's is terribly expensive," Luna said.
"Cheaper at Bellows and Calder's nursery. Except for bulbs. Their shrubs
are better value, because Oliver—"

The sky falling, Tinkerbell dying, the ticking crocodile rising
from the swamp, and Luna goes ape on the price of daffodils. I slumped in my
seat, and said to drive to Cambridge. She complained she hadn't left a note for
Oliver. I said he'd be too busy planting cheap shrubs to notice. She flared up
at that, and played merry hell. Lulled me to sleep in seconds.

It had to be Cambridge University. Not Oxford—I can't forgive
Balliol College for rubbling its lovely medieval chapel and replacing it with a
pre-Walt Disney clone. And for mangling the exquisite medieval stained-glass
windows when they reset them. Incompetent sods. Dr. Dymond was the bloke they
dredged up for me. He arrived in his office, swirling his cloak and dropping
things. Some student followed him in, languidly arguing for exemption from
something. The little bald-headed don was equal to the challenge. He shoved the
student out, patting him like a ball player.

''Omnium rerum
principia parva sunt
. Cicero, Tomlinson." He entered, rubbing his hands.

Half of what these dons do is an act, I'm sure. Music halls did
the damage, making all professors absentminded and all clowns heartbroken. If I
hadn't been there. Dr. Dymond would have let Tomlinson off his next essay or
whatever.

He sat in a swivel chair—modern crud—and placed his feet on his
piled desk. He was untidy. If I'd not sent Luna out snooping antiques, she'd
have had the vacuum out.

"
All things begin small
.
Sort of." He twinkled at some declension. "Local history, eh?"

"Only societies, if you could, please." I told him of my
col-

league's growing interest in the events of the 1640 decade.
"Not proper research. Dr. Dymond. Just a hobby.'' I smiled. I didn't want
to be banished with a Latin tag like Tomlinson. "He's quite elderly, so I
had to come for him."

"Local history societies are often least help, Lovejoy."
Dr. Dymond opened his palms, started one of his diatribes. "But I'll list
the most active ones for you." He did, but I knew them all. I'd looked
them up. "I suppose your friend has tried those? Particularly . . .
?"

"It's some trial thing, I think." I chuckled in
embarrassment. "The mid-1640s. St. Edmundsbury. We're waste metal dealers.
Our own lorries and everything," I said proudly. "Course, Old Fred
doesn't do as much as he used to. Getting on."

Hellfire. I was getting carried away, waxing lyrical about my
imaginary old pal. It was me wanted to know, not Old Fred, interfering swine.

"One trial was held in the house Old Fred lives in. It used
to belong to . . ."I wrinkled my forehead in perplexity, let it clear.
"Calamy Somebody. I'm almost sure—"

"Doubtful, Lovejoy. Edmund Calamy—did you know there were
several of that name?—didn't actually own a house there. In fact, I'm
practically sure he lived in Holborn, London. Very famous family." He
sighed, genuine regret. "You can't trust the Dictionary of National
Biography. Most history societies are frivolous. Like the Sealed Knot, who
enact Great Civil War Battles. Plenty of interest, little academic focus."