Spend Game

by Jonathan Gash

  I turned back to ask it, full of dread and already knowing the answer. They’d had four hundred active men for their tests. Now Doc was suddenly one short. I cleared my throat, grinning nervously.

  ‘So I’m a replacement for, er, for . . .?’

  ‘Poor Mr Leckworth,’ she said sadly. ‘Such a good friend of Dr Chase. A tragic accident. But driving these days . . .’

  Leckie. I’d known it the instant Doc spoke.

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yes. Quite casual. Only because Mrs Leckworth was Doctor’s receptionist for a while.’ I got the feeling things were out of control again. Leckie. Leckie’s blonde wife Doc Chase’s receptionist. Chase’s stuff in the auction. Her and Fergie’s lot. Leckie dead, the antiques smashed up. And . . . and . . .

  ‘It’s my duty to the nation to stand in for him, I suppose,’ I said bravely. ‘I’ll join your, er, group . . .’

  Miss Haverill was looking sceptical. I swept a muddle from a chair and said to sit down. She did, gingerly, as if the place was contaminated.

  ‘What an interesting piece of, er, medical, er –’ I began, smiling through my stubble and wishing I’d shaved. Events were ganging up on me.

  ‘Did Doctor explain what you’ll have to do?’

  ‘Er, no.’ I covered the ruin of my divan bed with the coverlet. It folds into a smaller thing and pushes back against the wall.

  ‘Wait!’ she cried. ‘The bed isn’t made!’

  ‘Eh?’ I’d gone back to my foul nosh when I realized she’d unfolded the bed again and was ripping the bedclothes off, the maniac. I shrugged and let her get on with it. Whatever turns people on, I always say.

  ‘You really must be more hygienic, Lovejoy!’

  ‘About these, er, sessions . . .?’ The quicker I got to hear more about Doc Chase the quicker I’d learn if he’d had any antiques which could be mistaken for his grotty old bureau. After all, Leckie had died for it.

  ‘Two miles and exercises.’

  Two miles away, I thought, my mouth full of fried bread. Not far. I could manage that, but I didn’t like the sound of those exercises.

  ‘Have you running shoes?’ She was really quite attractive without her clipboard. I watched her making the bed, full of thought.

  ‘Er, no. I can do exercises without.’ In my innocence I was trying to be helpful.

  She smiled. ‘You’ll need some old shoes for running. The path to Friday Wood’s absolutely awful –’

  ‘Running?’ Friday Wood’s at least a mile away. I was gripped by a sudden overwhelming fear. One mile to the wood plus one mile back equals two. She couldn’t mean run two miles, could she? The lunatic. I haven’t run anywhere since I was courting. ‘Er –’

  ‘You’ll love it!’ She paused, glowing with crusading fervour. ‘The invigorating dawn air! The crush of fallen leaves underfoot! Think how you’ll benefit, Lovejoy. Your muscles will ripple and tingle with health as you sprint through the forests at sunrise.’ She plumped the cushions.

  ‘Sounds great,’ I said miserably. ‘Er, if I have a bad leg can I get a doctor’s certificate – ?’

  Miss Haverill smiled a brilliant but knowing smile and wagged a finger. ‘Doctor said you’d ask that, Lovejoy.’

  I laughed merrily. ‘Only my little joke,’ I said, thinking, ‘The cunning old swine.’ Well, if I was in I was in, but I deserved my pound of flesh. ‘You work for Dr Chase, Elizabeth?’ Her initial was on the clipboard.

  She reddened slightly. ‘Elspeth, actually.’ She finished the bed and started mechanically on the rest of the room, folding things and making piles. I’d never find a bloody thing. It takes days to get back to normal after they tidy me up.

  I got her reminiscing about her old boss. She told me how keen he’d been on physique assessments as parameters of health indices predictions, whatever that means. I told her that was really great. He’d hit on this maniacal scheme to compare his patients with his partner’s after different sorts of exercises. I was now one of their statistics.

  ‘Wasn’t Doc Chase the doctor with that interesting hobby?’ I asked casually, going to wash up. ‘I heard about it.’

  ‘Oh, his old history.’ She smiled, coming over to help me at the sink. ‘He was always pottering about the countryside measuring mounds and things.’

  ‘I’m interested in history.’ This is absolutely true. I am. History’s where antiques come from.

  ‘You’d have got on well with him. Here, let me.’ She swapped us over, me drying instead of washing. I keep meaning to get one of those stick mops. Hot water burns my fingers. I don’t know how women do it. They can even drink hot coffee straight down, thermodynamic throats or something . . .

  ‘Didn’t he write some book about the place by, er, over by . . .?’

  ‘Scratton.’ She nodded, smiling. ‘I used to pull his leg, say to him why didn’t he just read his own book to learn about that silly old tunnel!’

  My hands froze. She laughed, then tutted as a plate crashed and broke.

  ‘Oh! Mind the pieces, Lovejoy, you butterfingers!’

  I tried to smile at all this drollery but my heart was in a vice. I’d felt my stomach turn over when she’d said tunnel. No wonder I’d been postponing thinking about Leckie’s message. Not that a deep dark tunnel’s anything to be scared of. I mean to say. And I’m really not frightened of a long tunnel with water trickling down the bricks and the mountain creaking and settling all around you. I’m not, honestly. But I felt a sudden unreasoning violent rage against Leckie. Why the hell couldn’t he have just given the heavies what they wanted for Christ’s sake, and saved me from being more and more terrified? Getting himself killed like that suddenly seemed the height of inconsideration.

  ‘Tunnel?’ I asked in a light croak. I tried to grin but my face wouldn’t work. My forehead was cold and damp.

  ‘He even went down into it, so they say.’ She was glancing about for a dustpan. She’d be lucky. I’ve plenty of dust but no dustpan. ‘Mind you don’t cut yourself on the bits. You’ve nothing on your feet.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he ever found much treasure trove.’ I went and got a broom while my heart hammered and my brow dripped. I felt I was back in a tunnel’s mouth near a bamboo bridge over a gorge for an odd minute. It’s funny how your mind works.

  ‘Oh, he found some old railway things. Gave them to the Elm Trees.’ That’s a museum near the Three Cups pub in town. I hadn’t been for over a year. ‘Lovejoy. Are you all right?’ She was looking at me.

  ‘Fine, fine,’ I said heartily, staring her straight in the eye and beaming.

  ‘You’re not diabetic?’ she asked hopefully. ‘I did interrupt your breakfast . . .’

  ‘Not today, thanks,’ I joked.

  She left about tennish, not without incident. I went to the front door to see her off. Sue, an expression of pleased anticipation on her face, was on the doorstep just about to knock. Her car was on the gravel. A red Ford stood in the lane, probably Elspeth’s.

  ‘Ah,’ I said swiftly. ‘Er, hello, er, Mrs Vaughan.’

  ‘Oh. Good morning.’ Sue’s quick at these situations, like all women. ‘I called about that antique . . . watch.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll pack it for you.’ Actually Sue wouldn’t know a Tompion timepiece from a sundial. ‘Would you mind waiting, please? I’m just seeing, er, Miss Haverill off. She’s my health visitor. She called about my exercises . . .’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Sue asked sweetly. From the look on her face I’d gilded the gingerbread. There was that fractional pause while she and Elspeth decided on mutual hatred as today’s best social policy. ‘Did you perform to her satisfaction?’

  Elspeth decided to cut out. ‘I’ll telephone about your programme, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Er, great.’

  ‘Not too strenuous, I hope?’ Sue cooed innocently.

  I grinned farewell as Elspeth swung down the path, then dragged Sue in and rammed my fist threateningly under her nose.

  ‘Cut out the icicl
es, Sue, or I’ll tan your bum.’

  ‘Promises, promises! I might do it all the more.’ She gave me a light kiss, smiling properly now, and walked ahead into the living room. I trailed after her. I try, but I’ve never been much good at telling people off. Sue rounded on her heel, fingers suddenly drumming on elbows. ‘How tidily you’ve made your bed!’

  ‘Er, my health visitor . . .’ I tried lamely.

  ‘And breakfast cleared away, too!’ she gritted. ‘Isn’t the Health Service considerate these days!’

  ‘Shut it. Doc Lancaster sent her.’

  ‘A likely tale –’

  ‘I’m glad you called, love. I’ve been wanting to ask you about the other night.’ I went and got my shaver while Sue started rearranging the room on principle. ‘Those two people, one tall and the other short.’

  She stilled. ‘The ones who caused . . . the accident?’

  ‘Yes. Could one have been a woman?’

  She thought hard, then nodded.

  ‘Sure?’ I pressed.

  ‘Could have been. I’m uncertain.’

  The door banged again, making me jump a mile. From the side window I could see Moll’s car blocking the gate. My cottage is like Piccadilly sometimes.

  ‘It’s Mrs Maslow,’ I said. ‘Copper’s wife.’

  ‘What a lot of visitors you . . . entertain these days.’

  She was getting ready for war again, but I hoofed her out, ready again to pretend I was seeing a buyer off. Sue neatly scuppered that act.

  ‘Good morning!’ she chirped, stepping past Moll at the door. ‘I’m Miss Haverill, Lovejoy’s health visitor. I’ve been deciding which exercises he’s best at. He’s really very vigorous –’

  ‘Thank you.’ I pushed her out on to the gravel.

  ‘I’ll phone about your programme, Lovejoy,’ Sue called over her shoulder. And she meant it. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Great. Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning,’ Moll said, looking doubtfully from me to Sue and back again. She had sunglasses on.

  ‘Good morning.’

  All these good mornings should have made me feel quite calm, but that’s what they say before a duel, isn’t it?

  I sat on my unfinished wall, thinking. It doesn’t separate any particular bit of garden from anything, just a wall. But my best guesses come when I’m sitting on it.

  Moll had only stayed a couple of minutes. Behind her sunglasses she had a real shiner, left eye. There was a graze under the lower lid. I went red when I saw it, but from her attitude we might have been simply renewing an old friendship.

  ‘Er, shall I brew up?’ I felt I had to offer something. I didn’t tell her it was either that or fried bread.

  ‘No thanks, Lovejoy.’

  I didn’t care much for that quiet voice.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ She wouldn’t sit down.

  When you’ve blacked a bird’s eye you can’t look straight at them like you normally do. I mean head on with your gaze evenly distributed, so many watts per eye as it were. You find your stare somehow concentrates itself into the injured eye while your mind squirms and you wait for the lawyers’ eerie politeness to come cascading through the letterbox.

  ‘Er, I suppose you called the Old Bill?’

  ‘No.’ Still quiet.

  ‘Phoned your Tom instead?’

  ‘That neither.’

  We watched each other in silence. Any woman can achieve a look. Moll was dressed for spring, small white gloves and everything different colours but matching. I wished now I’d not belted her one.

  ‘A summons?’ One of our local magistrates is a right cow. She’s got it in for me, through no fault of mine.

  ‘No.’

  I thought a bit. ‘Look, Moll. I’ve not a groat –’

  She shook her head impatiently. ‘I’m not here to take it out on you,’ she said at last. ‘You were quite right to – to be angry, Lovejoy.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I deserved it.’ She gazed dispassionately round at the cottage’s insides, taking in the general level of wealth. I waited uneasily for my sentence. Birds can be very odd, especially where blokes are concerned. ‘Leckie should be alive today, Lovejoy. And it’s my fault.’

  She pulled out an envelope. It crackled slightly, a beautiful and melodious sound. I felt dizzy. I always do when money raises its exquisite head.

  ‘For your expenses, Lovejoy.’

  I couldn’t take my eyes off it. ‘Expenses?’

  ‘Yes.’ She dropped it on the table. She watched me and I watched the envelope. ‘I’ve read your file –’ She stopped me with a gesture when I drew breath. ‘Let me finish. You’re a violent man. Some of the things –’

  ‘Not my fault,’ I got in quickly, hating all this. Women are easier when they’re mad at you.

  ‘Of course not.’ Moll gave me that level agreement which means just the opposite. ‘I know you’ll try to kill them, Lovejoy. You’ll do it for Leckie, for you, for all of us. I know it. Take the money. It’ll help.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ I said cagily. ‘Anyway, you’re a cop’s wife.’

  ‘It’s not a trick, Lovejoy.’ She half smiled as I backed off. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to weep all over you, though I suppose I ought to. I’ve been very stupid. Just take it. I realize now I was only wanting to play cops and robbers.’

  ‘No.’ Saying it took a bit of nerve and a lot of idiocy.

  She waited, thinking. ‘I expected that.’

  She walked about, looking and occasionally touching what passes for furniture. I suddenly wished I hadn’t had to sell my last good piece, a small mutton-fat finger jade, early Ch’ien Lung. It was the only thing I’d had in living memory worth looking at. She’d have been really impressed if I’d had that to show her. As it was my cottage looks like a doss house.

  ‘Lovejoy. You first come to my place looking for some precious antiques Leckie had just bought.’

  ‘I got them, but they’re duff.’

  ‘Duff?’

  ‘Wrong. Not worth anything. Maybe they’re not even the ones he started out with.’

  ‘Very well.’ She walked past me to the front door, pausing to pat her hair at the mirror. ‘Find them, then. Find the real ones. That money’s the commission.’

  ‘It can’t be,’ I explained. ‘Commission’s –’

  ‘Don’t be obtuse, Lovejoy.’ She opened the door herself. For once there was no woman on the doorstep. ‘Find the – the unduff antiques. I’ll buy them, or it. Whichever it turns out to be.’

  Unduff, for gawd’s sake.

  ‘But how can you buy them, if we don’t know what it is?’

  ‘I collect unidentified objects,’ she said serenely. ‘I’ve just begun, today. And I’m employing you. Get on with it.’ She clicked down to where the gravel begins.

  ‘What if it’s too dear?’ I called after her, wondering what was going on.

  ‘I’ll make the price up to you somehow,’ she said over her shoulder but not looking.

  And that was that. Her car weaved its way back to the main road in second gear, the blackthorn hedges scraping her paint all the way. I stood, listening. Sure enough, it changed up to third by the chapel. Satisfied she now had her handbag dangling correctly from the gear lever, I went in to go over the evidence. I decided to look up obtuse in the dictionary. I’d get mad with her again if it turned out to be an insult.

  In the bath I did some thinking. Not really cerebral stuff, but feeling my way outwards into the bloody mix-up. I’d honestly tried to keep out of it, hadn’t I? But Maslow was going to do sod all, and there wasn’t anybody else but me to keep faith with fairness in this mad tangled world. I’d have to do it – yet where the hell do you start?

  Leckie’s lovely blonde missus kept forcing her way into my mind, but why? All these events were all somehow connected. And the connection was through Leckie, now deceased by violence. I splashed my toes against the taps, though it always makes a
mess over the side. Sue does her nut and moans about having to mop the floor.

  So Leckie and Doc Chase were friends. My mind went: first, Doc Chase dies (but when and how? Maybe I ought to ask). Then, some of his rubbishy odds and ends are disposed of in a tatty local auction, Virgil’s dump in Medham. They’re always scouring the villages for stuff to sell on commission, so no mystery there. Then Leckie bids and wins it. Maybe his blonde wife learned somehow from Leckie that Chase’s effects contained something precious. She then disclosed it to, say, Black Fergus or Jake Pelman or the jittery Nodge – or all three? Maybe they then tried to ‘chop’ (this is dealers’ slang: to share profit and risk) with Leckie, and he refused. They then decide on hard aggro. Leckie’s killed. They realize the stuffs still at Virgil’s. They go back during the night hours, tell old George to get lost and break in. They rummage about and whistle Chase’s stuff up, but did they find whatever was precious hidden in it? If I’d guessed right they hadn’t found a bloody thing, judging from Nodge’s nervous face and Jake Pelman’s clumsy shadowing – always assuming they were the baddies.

  I sighed and stood up, dripping water. The best thing about having a bath is getting out of it, except when Sue’s in it too. It seemed I couldn’t escape from Leckie’s last request no matter how hard I tried. There seemed nothing for it. I decided to start by breaking a couple of fingers, one on Nodge and then one on old George. I whistled absently as I dried, pleased now that matters were out of my hands.

  Start as you mean to go on, I always say.

  Chapter 9

  NODGE IS ONE of those antiques dealers who are called ‘caley’ men in our part of this lunatic game. Somebody once told me it started out as ceilidh, Celtic for dingdong, a spree. Nodge goes along for months nervous as a trout, never buying without agonies of indecision and worried about selling. Then he’ll buy everything in sight, good and bad, spending like a drunken sailor and plunging into debt.

  Once every six months he ends up with a ton of pseudo-antiques nobody in his right mind would look at twice. It’s all hit or miss. You’d be surprised which world-famous collectors – I include museums – are run on the caley principle. Why people go along like this, hoping that ignorance might in fact actually turn out to be bliss in the end, nobody knows.