The Judas Pair l-1

by Jonathan Gash

  "I'll meet you at the station, seeing I'll be able to start the car now."

  "There's a switch near the starting pump. Push it down, and she'll start with the first crank of the handle." She pulled me into the driver's seat and showed me an exotic circular gear wheel, five gears and one reverse. I sat like a beginner as she explained the controls.

  "The London train, lady." The tea man knocked on his window to attract our attention.

  "That's it, then, Lovejoy." She brushed her hair back and got her case out.

  "I love you." I embraced her. "Give us a kiss, love."

  The train came and took her away.

  "Go easy in that monster," she called, her very last words to me. Go easy in that monster. Some exit line.

  "I will. See you Sunday."

  The tea man was out of his booth and examining the Armstrong as I came up. "You've a right bit of gorgeous stuff there," he said.

  "Yes. I thought it was an Armstrong." I kicked a tire.

  "Eh? Oh, no. I meant your young lady."

  "Oh, yes. Her too."

  I did the necessary and notched an intrepid forty-five on the trunk road back. The Armstrong—was it still an Armstrong?— didn't cough once and went like a bird.

  I rolled up to George Field's house in style.

  I was beginning to realize there was a lopsided distribution of wealth in the Field family. On the one hand was Eric, evidently wealthy, complete with mansion, eighty acres of manicured grass, and gardeners touching forelocks to the boss and his lady as they strolled out for a morning row on the two-acre pond. On the other was George, here in a two-bedroom farce on a small estate, with bicycles and wrecks of lawn mowers and old bits of wood bulging the garage. His little Ford, clean as a new pin, was parked in a drive barely long enough for it. Despite all this, he had dashed out a handful of notes, hired me as a would-be sleuth because of my knack of sniffing out antiques, and promised all those lovely D's for what could be a pipe dream.

  He came to the door agog for news. It was obviously a major disappointment to him when I told him I'd only called to give him a progress report. We went into the living room and he asked his wife, a dumpier female version of himself, to bring some coffee. I told him some of the events but was careful when I said I'd visited Muriel.

  "I'm so glad she's better now," Mrs. Field said. "She went through a very bad patch."

  "She's still rather nervous," I agreed, setting her clucking at the tribulations all about. "Was she always?"

  It seemed she was, but much worse since poor Eric's sudden end. I told George of my find in the apothecary box, mentally absolving myself of the payment I'd promised Sheila the day before.

  "Do you recognize it?" I handed it over and he put on glasses.

  "I wouldn't," he said. "I never touched the weapons, nor the screwdrivers. I wasn't much interested, as I said before."

  I ran down the main events of the past couple of days for him and remembered to ask him if he had any details about the sale of Eric's stuff at the auctioneers, but without luck.

  "It seems the cased weapons might have come from near a bird sanctuary near a coastal resort."

  "There's a nice holiday place near Fellows Nab," Mrs. Field said. "Too many caravans there now, though. That's in Norfolk."

  Mrs. Ellison's antique shop was a few miles from Fellows Nab. I'd seen the sign.

  "You never saw the wrapping?" I asked George.

  "No. You have to realize I only saw him and Muriel once a week on average, and he was always showing me this and that."

  "You should have taken more notice, George," his wife said.

  "Yes, dear," he said with infinite patience. I'd have to watch myself with Sheila, I thought uneasily, if this is marriage.

  "I'm making a systematic study of every possible flinter transaction during the past two years." I was eager to show I was really trying. "It'll take a little time, though."

  "But if you found out where they did come from, what then?" He was a shrewd nut.

  "I don't honestly know," I said as calmly as I could. "But what else is there? They've vanished. The police are—"

  "They've given it up," Mrs. Field said, lips thinned with disapproval. "I always said they would, didn't I, George?"

  "I suppose what I'll do is find whoever sold them to your brother and ask who else knew where they were."

  "Well, you know best, of course," he said, worried. "But poor Eric was a real talker. He wasn't the sort of person to conceal any of his finds in the antique world. He loved company and used to have his friends in."

  "Friends?" I interrupted. "Collectors?"

  "Oh, yes. And dealers."

  "And dealers," Mrs. Field echoed. "Ever so many people thought highly of Eric's opinion. Very knowledgeable, he was, about practically everything. Old furniture as well."

  "So it's probable a lot of people may have seen the Durs?"

  "For certain."

  I rose and thanked them. George came with me to the door.

  "Look," I began hesitantly. "Please don't think I'm rude, Mr. Field, but—"

  "Yes?"

  "Well…"

  Understanding began to dawn in his eyes. "You're wondering where I can get so much money from, Lovejoy," he observed with a smile.

  "It's a lot of money," I said in embarrassment.

  "Oh, I'm a careful man. Only thing I've ever done is run a shoe shop, and I didn't make good like Eric did in the property business." He was quite unabashed at my rudeness. "I have some savings, insurance. And the mortgage on the house is almost paid. I could take out a new one. You needn't be afraid the money would be forthcoming. After all, the Judas guns are the only real evidence, aren't they? If we can buy them back from whoever the… murderer… sold them to, they'll be proof, won't they?"

  I listened as he rambled on about them for a moment, and chose my words with care.

  "Mr. Field." I cleared my throat. "Do you mean to say that now, when you're comfortably settled and solvent at last, you'll chuck it all up and start working and paying all over again, just to—?"

  "Don't say it, Lovejoy," he said gently. "Of course I would. And don't go looking at Eric's wealth for a reason, either. That just doesn't come into it. I approached you because somebody did Eric wrong. It shouldn't be allowed. It's wrong. It always was. Even these days, robbery and killing is still wrong."

  I mumbled something I hoped sounded humble.

  "You see, Lovejoy," he finished, "if you take away people, there's nothing else left, is there?"

  I drove away. Ever feel you're beginning to lose your faith in human nature?

  There was something wrong with the cottage. You get feelings like that even though there's nothing in particular you can detect consciously. I hadn't switched the alarm on that morning because I had planned only to run Sheila to the station, pop back to the cottage to collect my Adams revolving percussion gun, then drive to Dick Barton's boatshed and complete the deal, all this before going to George Field's. If Sheila hadn't been so knowledgeable about the car I'd have been back in time to prevent the robbery, for robbery it was. You can smell it.

  Naturally I'd been done over before. Show me the antique dealer who hasn't. It's a hazard of the trade. Like injuries in motorcar racing, it comes with the job. Hence my usually meticulous concern for security. And the bloody alarm which had cost me the earth wasn't even switched on. Serves me right, I was thinking as I prowled about to make sure he'd gone. The place wasn't a complete shambles, but had suffered. Somebody in a hurry, obviously.

  There were a couple of letters addressed to Sheila care of me on the doormat, so the post girl had called on time. Maybe her arrival had scared him off, I hoped, as nothing seemed out of place at first. The carpet hadn't been disturbed over my clever little priest hole, thank heavens, but I realized pretty quickly that my walnut-cased so-called carriage clock had gone.

  I gave vent to every expletive I'd ever learned, ranting and fuming. I'd got the clock for a quid from a starving ol
d widow —one of my kinder moments this, because if I'd been true to myself I'd have beaten her down to a few pence. The sheer effrontery of somebody having the gall to come in, finger anything of mine he wanted, then take a rare priceless antique was sickening. Literally, I felt physically sick. I phoned our ever-vigilant constable Geoffrey, who was mercifully in, probably still having his morning nap. He was ever so sympathetic.

  "When you've stopped laughing," I snarled, "get my clock back."

  "Estimate of value, please, Lovejoy."

  "Six hundred," I said firmly. He was silent for once.

  "Did— Did you say—?" And he laughed again, louder this time.

  "Well, maybe three hundred."

  "You mean about eighty."

  "Ninety."

  "As a friend, Lovejoy," he said sadly, "I can only make it eighty-five."

  "But that's robbery."

  He agreed. "You can argue it out with the insurance people, Lovejoy," he said. "Incidentally, how'd he get in?"

  "I'll look. Hang on."

  There was a cut around the window near its catch. The window looked right down the back garden and could be reached by anyone standing on the grass, which grows right up to the cottage. I told Geoffrey and he said it was typical, but how about my alarm system connected at great expense to a noisy little flashing light in his office? I explained I'd been in a rush that morning.

  "Thanks, Lovejoy," he said cynically. "We love a bit of help from the public."

  "Are you going to come and look for clues or aren't you?" I snapped and crashed the receiver.

  I made some tea while I waited. Apart from scratches on the windowsill there was nothing. I moved about straightening things. The trouble is that you know where to look for antiques. Guns must be locked in an enclosed space, says the Firearms Act; porcelain will be in a fastened case; portabilia locked in a safe or drawer. He knew his stuff. Whoever had done this was neat, slick, and an opportunist dedicated to walnut carriage clocks. Now, two things worried me far more than the loss of the clock. One was that Geoffrey's guess about the clock's value wasn't too far out, which was important, because nobody robs for very little. The second thing stared back at me from the opposite wall as I lounged on the divan swilling tea. It was my Chien Lung plate, a lovely disk of hand-painted light pastel colors stenciled by a neat blue running-edge design. It stood in prominence 6n my desk on a three-leaved ebony hinge support of the sort the Chinese do so cleverly. Neither plate nor clock was unique, but of the two the plate was infinitely—well, ten times—more desirable in anybody's book, as well as being more valuable. So why pass it up?

  That left two possibilities. Either my burglar was well informed enough to know that I had a carriage clock to suit him, or he hadn't come for the carriage clock at all. Which raised the question, Why take it if he didn't want it? Answer: To cause his intrusion to be written off as a simple uncomplicated robbery by a burglar who happened to have a casual eye for antiques.

  It was starting to look as though I'd established contact with the owner of a very special pair of flinters.

  The rest of the day's happenings I don't really want to talk about.

  Geoffrey came on his bicycle and took notes. He examined the earth outside, searched patiently for heaven knows what sort of clues, and later went around the village asking who'd noticed what and when, with conspicuous failure. Left to my own devices, I retrieved my Adams from the priest hole before driving to Barton's on the estuary and settling with him for too much in part exchange, and bringing the cased Mortimers back home to gloat over despite the fact that I'd have to pay out to settle it before the month ended. I had my usual supper bought from the Bungalow Shop in the village, read a lot, and went to bed not knowing that by then Sheila was dead.

  She had got on the London train, and apparently went home before reporting to work that same day. It was on the way home that evening that she was said to have stumbled and fallen beneath the wheels of an oncoming train.

  The platform was crowded. In the friendly reliable way we all have, nobody came forward to say who was even standing near her. To hear the witnesses at the inquest, the three thousand people must have clustered awkwardly along the platform leaving an open space for several yards all around Sheila as she waited for the train to come and kill her. Don't go trying to say people may not have noticed somebody pushing a woman off a platform because of the crowd. There's no excuse. Women notice a pretty woman because they're practically compelled to, and men notice because they're compelled to in a different way. People simply look away when they want to, and they've no right.

  Later, a couple of days on, I remembered what George Field had said: If you take away people, there's nothing left. One can't be answerable for all mankind, no. But you can sure as hell stick up for the little chunks of mankind that are linked with you, no matter how that link came about—birth, relations, by adoption, love. It all counts. Podgy old George and his dumpy little wife knew the game of living, while I was just a beginner.

  I learned about Sheila from Geoffrey the day after the burglary. I just said thank you and shut the door.

  No jokes from now on, folks.

  Chapter 10

  Somebody once said you get no choice in life, and none in memory either. Judging by what the Victorians left in the way of knickknacks, they made a valiant attempt to control memory by means of lockets for engravings, "likenesses" in all manner of materials ranging from hairs from the head of the beloved to diamonds, and a strange celebration of death through the oddest mixture of jubilation and grief. Their memory, they seemed to think, should be neatly ordered to provide the maximum nostalgia centered on the loved one. If it needed extra emotional work to achieve that reassuring state, then the labor would just have to be endured. You can't say the Victorians were scared of hard slogging.

  I would have liked to have been as firm as they. You know what I mean, pick out especially fond moments from my friendship with Sheila and build up a satisfying mosaic of memories which would comfort me in my loss by giving assurance that all was really not wasted. Nice, but all really was wasted as far as Sheila was concerned. Finished. Done for. And for me Sheila was gone. Anyway, I'm not resolute enough to look inward for the purpose of emotional construction. Gone's gone.

  So that terrible day I sat and sat and did nothing to my records, left letters unanswered, didn't pick up the phone. For some reason I made a coal fire, a dirty habit I thought I'd given up. I shifted my electric fire, put newspaper in a heap in the grate, chopped wood, and got it going first time. There was a residue of coal in the old coalbin by the back door so I set to burning that. The cottage became warm, snug, and the day wore on. I had no control over my memories of Sheila as I watched the flames gleam and flash in the fire.

  She had this habit of watching me, not just glancing now and again to check I was still around and not up to no good, but actively and purposely inspecting me. I might be doing nothing; still she'd watch, smiling as if engaged in a private humorous conversation at my foibles. It made me mad with her at first, but you get used to a particular woman, don't you?

  Another trick she had was reaching out and absently rubbing my neck for nothing while she was reading or watching TV in the cottage. I'd probably be searching through price data of antiques and she'd just put her hand on my neck. It distracted me at first and I'd shrug her off, but moments later back she would come caressing me. There was nothing to it, not her way of starting sex play or anything. It was just her preference. She used to do it for hours.

  Then there was the business with the cheese. While I was studying she would suddenly put down her book, go across to the little kitchen, and bring back a piece of cheese so small it didn't matter, and push it in my mouth. Never said anything, never had any herself. It would happen maybe twice or three times in an evening. Often she'd not even stop reading; simply carried her book with her, reading as she went. As well she was tidy and neat, unlike most birds. They have this reputation, don't they, but most of t
hem get fed up with the tidiness legend and chuck it in during their late teens. Sheila was really tidy by nature, almost to the point of being a bit too careful. Nothing of hers ever got in my way. I never fell over her shoes, for instance, because they were tidied out of sight, not like some I could mention.

  And the fights. We scrapped a lot, sometimes because of sex, other times because stress is part of life and you let off steam. She was irritable sometimes. She'd announce it from the doorway on arrival, standing there. "I'm angry, Lovejoy," she'd say, blazing. "With me or without?" I'd say, and every time she'd fling back "With you, Lovejoy, who else?" and we'd argue for hours. I'd chucked her out before now because of her temper. Once women get their dander up, all you can do is send them packing, because there's no point in everybody getting in a rage to suit their need of a barney, is there? I've sloshed her too, sometimes when she'd got me mad and other times making love, but that's only the love sort of coming out, isn't it? Once I bruised her and got worried afterward, which made her laugh and call me silly. I don't follow their arguments, really, mostly because they make allowances for all sorts of wrong things yet go berserk over little matters you'd hardly notice.

  The fire was hot on my face from staring at it. I needed one of Dandy Jack's embroidered fire screens but wanted to see the fire. Of course, a hundred years ago people had fire screens to protect their complexions from the heat, and to shield their eyes from the firelight while reading or sewing in a poorly lit room. A bright fire was a source of light. The complexion bit was the important thing, though. Only peasants and country women had ruddy complexions. Elegant ladies wanted lovely pale faces on the unmistakably correct assumption that though ruddy's only healthy, pale's interesting.

  Natural light—fires, candles, oil lanterns—confers a special feeling in a room. One day a month when I feel like it I switch all electricity off and live by natural light. You'd be surprised at the effect it induces. Try it. Natural lights have sounds, small poppings and hissings betokening the fact that they have a life of their own. And that's another thing. Notice that word I just used, betokening? By natural light words you'd never even think of come back as it were from times before. Who uses words like that? See what even thinking of natural light can do for you. It teaches you a lot about times gone by too. Your eyes begin to sting sometimes if you use too many oil lamps in a room, so three is a maximum or you become uncomfortable.