Faces in the Pool

by Jonathan Gash

  It actually started where the wedding feast had been. That, I thought bitterly, was to prove to the fire brigades that good old Lovejoy had been carousing and somehow set the place alight as he, poor soul, slept in a drunken stupor in a side room. Lovejoy, never changing the habits of a lifetime.

  The conflagration climbed up that grand staircase. I worked it out, watching the show. A wise incendiarist would lay secondary starts halfway up the stairs, so the evidence would be consumed as the ceilings fell in. They actually erupted where the stage was. I saw the kitchens go up last.

  The whole building whoofed into a frank blaze. Eventually fire brigade sirens sounded across the moors. From Blackpool?

  Hating everybody, I kept griping about friends who hadn’t come to help. I’m really good at sulking, keep it up for hours once I get going. You’re always on your own in life. You’re alone, so get on with it.

  Morosely, in the shelter of the Somnell House shrubbery, I observed the Keystone Kops start chopping their way in, smashing windows and spraying water from the ornamental ponds. My gran used to say there were different kinds of temper. Her special concern was cold temper, meaning somebody who would stop at nothing to punish a wrongdoer. ‘Never have a cold temper,’ she told me, ‘because you never come out.’ She made me promise. I did, of course.

  Circumstances change things. I found myself telling the night air that, as sparks gusted aloft and firemen shouted and slices of the manor house tumbled into the fiery maw. Sorry, Gran, but tonight it’s cold temper, but whose fault is that?

  Right, I thought. They wanted me dead. If it hadn’t been for the manky writing implements they’d carelessly left me, I’d have been done for, trapped in that locked room, fondly waiting to divvy those precious antiques. They’d intended me to die. Why they wanted me wed and dead, though, was anybody’s guess.

  It came on to rain. I stayed long enough to see that no other soul started screaming from the upper windows. Somnell House lit the moors for miles around. Nobody seemed to need rescuing. In a truly ugly mood, I buttoned my bloodied shirt and set off on the long walk to the inn. I followed the roads Ellen had driven. The firelight was enough to see by. Marker constables were stationed along the route, so not even I could get lost. They held flashlights. One ploddite had the gall to accost me.

  ‘Out walking on this foul night, sir?’

  Like, no, Constable, I’m playing golf. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you know anything of the fire at Somnell House?’

  ‘No.’

  He shone his light at me and seemed taken aback by my appearance. ‘Had a fall, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Trying to get out of the bloody way of your stupid motors. You police should obey the fucking road rules.’ Like I said, an ugly mood.

  ‘There’s no need for that, sir. Doing our duty.’

  ‘That old one?’

  ‘Did you see the fire start, sir?’

  ‘No. Have you seen my dog? Your stupid cars knocked it over.’

  ‘Not seen any dog, sir.’ He flashed his light to signal another police car racing up to do nothing.

  ‘Can you take down its details?’ I kept on. ‘It’s a brown Labrador with facial markings.’ I couldn’t recognise a Labrador if its name was written on it.

  ‘Sorry, sir. Not just now.’ He wanted rid of me.

  I’d had to save myself from getting crisped and now had to trudge miles to where the Faces were celebrating, having pulled off the biggest antiques heist since Christie’s and Sotheby’s lost their criminal-conspiracy bosses in the law courts. I lectured the constable I’d report him for lacking sympathy. In a rage I mentioned the Dog Society, hoping there was such a thing, and the Animal Lovers’ Welfare Agency (ditto), and left fuming. The idle sod stood there shaking his head. No pity for my poor dog, heartless bastard. Rain came on heavier, a real moorland downpour. I thought of him becoming drenched to the bone. Serve him right for running over my faithful dog.

  Like a drowned rat, I plodded off the hillside to the inn.

  There in the car park I split my remaining usable thumbnail hot-wiring a miserable old Fiat. (Tip: VWs are said to be easiest.) By then I was apoplectic. As I drove away, my bloody shirt sticking me to the seat, I planned a furious complaint to Fiat about their junky vehicles.

  Some days nothing goes right. Within a few furlongs of the Golden Mile, the petrol gave out. I coasted to a stop. The famous Tower was visible in criss-cross searchlights by the sea. Luckily I found a man’s jacket on the back seat, one pocket full of condoms. Bad planning, mate, I thought, finding a few notes. I looked like nothing on earth, but at least my back had stopped blotting everything with blood. Whimpering from pain, I plodded into town.

  Nobody could see I’d been in a mess unless they stared hard. I went slowly. You can’t get lost in Blackpool. You simply head for the Tower. The Faces would finish up there, at the one venue where a couple of hundred strangers wouldn’t raise a squeak of comment. Tourism is what Blackpool is for.

  It was also the place for working things out, like who were killers and who not. I approached the Golden Mile.

  There used to be a zoo in the Tower. I think it’s gone now. Lifts take you to the Tower’s very top. You can hire a plane to fly round it on a good day. There is a giant ballroom for international dances. It is a palace of entertainment.

  Among the evening crowds as they milled on the promenade, I thought, Now what? I had assumed that, saving myself as I had – thanks to nobody – answers would simply come. Maybe I imagined I’d simply stroll among those avaricious and astonished killers, lighting a cheroot one-handed like Bing Crosby always did in the Road pictures, ‘Thought you’d got rid of me, hey?’ then signal Inspector Lestrade to arrest the lot.

  In reality I stood there like a lemon. Buffeted by crowds, I stood on the corner. A limousine drew up. I ducked my head.

  A man alighted with a gorgeous lady in full evening apparel, all glitzy. Slender and lovely, she was far more glammed than when she married me. I shuffled off among a mob of football supporters chanting some result or other. I looked back. Laura was successfully concealing her grief at the death of today’s husband, viz. me. The gent wore spats, would you believe, and a Ronald Coleman tash, hair slicked 1930s style. Wait long enough, fashions come back.

  Uniformed minions ushered them through. If winter comes, etc, or something. There would be others. In a moment, I recognised two of Donna’s big six, including the mighty Hugo, who’d made that oh-so-amusing speech, toasting – as in toast, get it? – me in those witty puns. Everybody got the jokes except me. They were all posh and glamorous.

  One strange thing. I went to a pub on the Golden Mile, certain none of that elegant crowd would drop in there. I went to the loo, then got mineral water and some pasties. I believe in the Duke of Wellington’s dictum. In war, pass water at every opportunity. I presumed he meant have a swig and a nosh too. They’d tried to burn me to death. That’s what war is. I thought of Laura’s escort.

  Tall, elegant, suave, with a political decoration in his lapel. I cast about in my mind, and remembered where I’d seen him. My weary mind needed time to rally its neurones. Once I’d got it, I went on a recollection spree. The saloon noise receded, and for a moment I was back at one of the most famous London antiques sales of all time.

  Not every collector is famous. Some were only famous for their secrecy. Like Nathan Wildenstein, a humble necktie salesman. He did well, young Nathan, bought the Hôtel de Wailly in Paris. All along, Wildenstein was fascinated by art. He bought and sold. I’m not making aspersions about that elegant Polish countess he knew, honestly I’m not. Their business, and I’m no gossip. But by selling a supposed van Dyck to her, Nathan made his number.

  Buying cheap eighteenth-century French paintings, slickly selling them on for a multiple, he made serious money. From your simple want-a-tie-guv trader, Nathan became the buyer-in-chief of Old Masters in Paris.

  The Wildenstein Collection grew. Nathan kept some items for himself, and an
noyed rival art dealers by never showing his private collection. Nathan died in 1934 or so. His possessions included sculptures, rare André-Charles Boulle furniture. Also, a massive antiquarian library of a quarter of a million tomes, plus virtually everything else of European importance. His place became the Wildenstein Institute. Sadly, the new millennium dawned with the inevitable lawsuits. Judges hit the fan and the mightiest sale on earth began.

  I’d been in the street near Christie’s on the day of that giant mega-sale. They wouldn’t let me in. I saw the buyers arrive for the viewing, and two women I’d once bought antiques for. I recognised a Yank lady who owned a theatre in New England. She refused my calls (jealous of her friend I knew). And, that soggy day in London town, I saw a movie backer I once bought Edwardian jewellery for.

  The man who went in the Tower ballroom with Laura was that same bloke. You see his name on picture credits, Nateo Dunknaister. Once, it had been ‘Call me Nat, Lovejoy.’ No longer. I wasn’t jealous, sipping my mineral water, feeling like a train wreck and wincing from the splinters in my torn back. But somebody would have to suffer. Who had to face poor Tansy’s ghost when she came asking if I’d caught her killer? Me, that’s who. And poor Paltry’s spirit? And poor old Smethie’s ghost?

  ‘OK, mate, keep your hair on,’ the bloke standing next to me said. ‘I only asked the score.’

  ‘Sorry, wack,’ I said. I must have been glaring.

  ‘I am sorry, sir,’ a familiar female voice said to the annoyed Liverpudlian. ‘My brother forgets to take his tablets. I apologise. Would you allow me to offer you a pint?’

  Dully I watched as the bloke was mollified. Nice folk in Blackpool. He told the woman it was OK, and best get him (i.e. me, like I was an imbecile) home quick. She drew me outside into the cold night air. The pavement crowds had thinned. Time for the second house in the main shows?

  ‘You could have got me one, Lovejoy,’ Tinker groused. ‘I’m frigging parched.’

  ‘Where the frigging hell were you, you idle old bastard?’

  ‘That will do, Lovejoy.’ She held me in a firm grasp. I looked at her with curiosity. ‘Come along.’

  ‘How come you are the boss?’

  She said, exasperated, ‘You’re so slow, Lovejoy. Can you still not see the obvious?’

  ‘That bird who got topped by the sea marshes,’ Tinker said helpfully.

  My head swam, because Ellen Jaynor wasn’t topped in any sea marsh. Nobody was. I wanted a lie down. Wanting order, I said, ‘Shut up, Tinker.’

  ‘We must take urgent steps, Lovejoy. You must decide how to bring the miscreants to justice.’

  ‘Look,’ I began.

  She propelled me to the pavement. ‘Into the car, please. Front seat, where I can keep an eye on you.’

  Her limo was pristine. I seethed with anger. She’d managed to clean her sodding motor while I burnt to death. Another great ally.

  ‘Got a drink, missus?’ Tinker asked. ‘My chest’s bad in night air.’

  ‘When I say, Tinker,’ Ellen said with asperity, ‘and not a minute sooner. In, both of you.’

  ‘But I got wounds. It’s always me that suffers.’

  ‘I shan’t tell you again. We’re all so sorry, Lovejoy.’

  I almost filled up at her kind words. The car moved along the promenade.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ken: store of stolen antiques (ancient slang)

  We drove to what folk now call a trailer park, copying the American name for tin caravans, tin homes on tin wheels. They stood in miniature streets with lights and tubs of flowers. The tidiest place I ever did see. I could hear the occasional television set in the darkness.

  ‘Here?’ I was incredulous. They had these places near Great Yarmouth on the east coast, but this wasn’t for holidayers. This was a town and looked planted.

  ‘Make no noise,’ Ellen warned me. ‘People go to bed early.’

  ‘Where are we?’ Shouldn’t I have been in the Tower planning revenge?

  ‘The Fylde, Lovejoy. The others are inside.’ She spoke in that laconic way. It really narked. ‘You’re our one hope, Lovejoy.’

  The night breeze felt chilly. Ellen shivered. Tinker hawked, coughing with his usual piledriver noise. So much for sound sleep in Moss House Caravan Park.

  ‘Others who?’ Weren’t we secret, us battlers against the dark powers?

  ‘You’ll see. In.’

  The caravan was astonishing. Like a shoe-box on the outside, within it simply went on and on, one room after another. You could believe you were in a dinky hotel. Kitchen, sitting room, bedrooms, loo and bath, you could take to such a home. The group looked at me.

  ‘I see you all made it,’ I told them in my frostiest voice.

  ‘You should have been here before now, Lovejoy,’ said Mortimer. He didn’t even stand. What happened to respect? I thought, God, just listen to myself. I sounded ninety. ‘Whose jacket is that?’

  ‘I couldn’t stop to pack,’ I said with sarcasm, ‘after you left me to die.’

  Determined to be nasty, I vowed to make the treacherous little punk suffer. Instead, he calmly sat next to the gorgeous Donna da Silfa.

  ‘I left you obvious means of escape.’

  ‘Don’t sulk, Lovejoy. Mortimer thought it all out.’

  ‘Can somebody tell me what Mrs da Silfa is doing here?’ I asked.

  Everybody looked at each other. Mortimer said, ‘A possible ally.’

  ‘And I,’ said Leg-Breaker, sitting there as if he owned the place, ‘am on Mr Hennell’s staff. Ex-SAS, seeing you still haven’t got it.’

  ‘I changed sides, Lovejoy.’ Donna gazed at me with defiance.

  ‘From which to what?’ I sat facing them. ‘Members of Parliament change sides and say they’re honest.’

  ‘How can you be so insolent, after…’ She dried up, checked with Mortimer.

  ‘After you forced me to wed a murderess?’

  ‘Any chance of a drink?’ Tinker went and groped in the fridge. ‘There’s not much.’ He coughed over whatever sterile produce it held. He opened a bottle by clicking it on the edge of a table. If I tried that, the neck would snap and send beer everywhere.

  ‘Is your loyalty anything to do with the gold price?’ I asked Donna. I turned to Dr Giles Castell and his randy wife Penny. She was smiling. ‘And is your greed what you two got me arrested for?’

  ‘Now, Lovejoy,’ Penny Castell purred. ‘The roads we travelled do not matter. The fact is we are here to save the day.’

  ‘Whose day?’ I waited. ‘Nobody’s answered me about the gold price.’

  I reminded them of a few facts. Gold is the pulse of the world’s economy. Every year, India buys a third of all the world’s mined gold, and its banks hold over 23,000 tons of the pricey stuff. Worldwide, stock markets scrabble after Ghana’s gold as South Africa’s seams decline and new finds elsewhere come in. As I spoke, I saw Donna da Silfa’s eyes flash. She remembered that an English king’s-head sovereign – the most desirable – had been less than 800 rupees in Madras when she was younger, but one now would cost an arm and a leg. They joke in Kerala that you can’t see that lovely ancient city because of the gold merchants’ adverts. Three-quarters of the world’s gold has already been dug up. Not much left.

  ‘Gold,’ I ended, ‘is a mania. It will buy anything.’ I could have mentioned peerages but didn’t because I’m kind deep down. ‘And you love it, Donna. We talked of it.’

  ‘You’re becoming fanciful, Lovejoy,’ Dr Castell boomed. ‘We must block their wicked schemes.’

  ‘Can I smoke this?’ Tinker lit a monster cigar he’d looted.

  ‘He’ll be here soon. Dr Castell can explain, seeing as he knows Daniella.’ That was Donna da Silfa.

  Does he now? I thought. ‘Who?’

  ‘You’ll see, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Who?’ I looked around. Mortimer looked exasperated, like I ought to have worked things out, the arrogant little sod.

  ‘Time you got me some smokes,
Lovejoy,’ Tinker said, alternately glugging and fuming the air with carcinogens. ‘When you get paid.’

  ‘I’ll wait outside.’ I choked on the smoke. ‘Give me a shout when the gang’s all here.’

  ‘Please wait, Lovejoy,’ Mortimer said. And he sounded truly sad, like he had the very worst news. The others looked at the floor, and stayed silent.

  ‘We shall have to tell him,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Not me, please,’ Donna da Silfa said, tears filling her eyes.

  ‘Well, I can’t.’ Ellen looked at Mortimer, who shook his head.

  ‘You poor bugger, Lovejoy,’ Tinker said. His eyes are always rheumy but just for a nanosec I wondered if even he was near to skryking.

  ‘Tell me what?’ I asked.

  ‘Tell him, Giles,’ Penny said.

  ‘Please, no, Penny. You.’

  ‘How can I, Giles, after…?’ She halted.

  ‘What?’ I said again.

  This was probably the first time Giles – or any man, come to that – had ever denied Penny Castell.

  ‘You poor sod,’ Tinker said.

  In a temper I flung outside. I’d had enough. Let them get on with their stupid glances and innuendoes.

  The open air was marginally more breathable. I stood in the gloaming among those tin dwellings. Greed had to be the single determinant. Hadn’t I just proved so, with my gold prattle? What else was strong enough to bring those antiques-rich Faces from their rock pools, and turn them into a murderous team?

  If any crooks wanted to make a fortune, they could clean out America’s Folger Library, the world’s biggest Shakespeare hoard. Every stolen thing is saleable, whatever the Antiques Fraud Squad pretends. More difficult would be Virginia’s National Firearms Museum – you’re talking untold wealth in antiques there. A third would be Washington’s International Spy Museum. It doesn’t sound likely, but it all depends what you like…What was I thinking? Here I was, night-dreaming, when I was seriously up against it. Whatever Mortimer said, I hadn’t a clue what was happening on my own patch.