The Judas Pair

by Jonathan Gash

  I temporarily shelved the notion that, if it was true that all bad came from desire, then maybe all desire was bad too. Calm but feeling alive again now I gently worked my way back to a proper behaviour.

  Six whole weeks after I’d gone up to Maltan Lees and met Watson, I was well again.

  Not that I was yet in the full circle of my usual life. I kept out of friends’ way, didn’t phone any of them and only spoke when I was directly addressed if ever I ran into anyone I knew. Business picked up from nil and a trickle of post came again. The phone calls started. It was a pleasure to be active and doing something useful but I had to keep myself from regretting the lost opportunities during my holiday. There’d been an undeniable upsurge of deals in the antiques world during the previous weeks. I just had to accept that I’d done my business no good by chasing all over England looking for a needle in a haystack.

  Finally, when I was really well and having to restrain myself hourly, I shook out the reins of my mind and took off.

  I rang Field. He was very relieved.

  ‘I’m sorry about your illness. What was it?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I parried, ‘some virus, I expect.’

  ‘Terrible, terrible things, those.’ After passing on some amateur therapy he told me of the replies to the advertisement.

  ‘Were there many?’

  ‘You’ve no idea!’ He drew breath. ‘The wife nearly went off me – a mountain of letters, some really rather odd. I’d no idea people could be so extraordinary.’

  ‘Are they mostly cranks?’

  ‘Some, but some I would say are worth your attention. You’d better come and have a look.’

  ‘I shall.’

  We fixed a time and I rang off. Feeling strong I rang Tinker Dill at the White Hart.

  ‘Tinker? Lovejoy,’ I greeted him. ‘What’s new?’

  ‘Christ!’ he exclaimed in the background hubbub from the bar. ‘Am I glad to hear you!’

  ‘I want ten buyers tomorrow, first thing.’ It was the best joke I could manage, feeling so embarrassed at his pleasure.

  ‘Will do,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘I heard you was about again. Okay?’

  ‘Not bad, ta.’

  ‘When you coming into town again?’

  ‘Oh, maybe tomorrow. I think I’ll come into the arcade.’ I wasn’t too keen on going, but I could always ring later and postpone it if I wanted.

  ‘Everybody asks about you.’

  I’ll bet, I thought. ‘Much stuff around?’

  ‘Some,’ he said with sorrow in his voice. ‘You’ve missed quite a bit of rubbish, but there’s been some interesting stock whizzing about.’

  ‘Ah, well.’

  ‘Tough, really, Lovejoy. A set of fairings went for nothing last week . . .’ He resumed his job, pouring out details of everything important he could think of. It sounded lovely and I relished every word, stopping him only when his voice was becoming hoarse.

  ‘Thanks, Tinker. Probably see you tomorrow, then.’

  ‘Right, Lovejoy. See you.’

  It was enough excitement for one day. I drew the curtains and gathered an armful of the sale lists that had arrived while I was ill. There was a lot of catching up to do.

  As I read and lolled, lists began forming in my mind, of faces and where I’d seen them. I don’t mean I stopped work, just studied on and let faces come as they wished. Tinker Dill seemed everywhere I’d ever been, practically, since the Judas Pair business began. And Jane. And Adrian. Dandy Jack. And Watson, of course. And, oddly, the Reverend Lagrange, which for somebody who lived many miles north in darkest East Anglia was rather enterprising. But he said he went to Muriel Field’s house, being such a close family friend and all that. Did priests get time off? Maybe he’d struck a patch of moveable feasts and it was all coincidence. And then there was Margaret, Brad, Dick Barton who’d sold me the Mortimers. Plus a few incidental faces who appeared less frequently, so you barely noticed them at all.

  But that’s what murderers are supposed to be good at, isn’t it?

  That same afternoon I had a cup of tea ready for the post girl, a pleasant tubby lass who worked the village with her brother. He kept a smallholding and sold plants from a stall on the London road by-pass.

  ‘I brewed up, Rose. Come in.’

  ‘Whatever do you do with all these magazines, Lovejoy?’ She propped her bicycle against the door and brought a handful of catalogues and two letters. She was a plain girl, long-haired and young. They seem so active these days and full of talk. ‘I’ve just had a terrible row with the Brownlows – oh, you should have heard them going on at me! As if I have anything to do with how much stamps cost.’ She sank on to the divan thankfully.

  ‘Been busy?’ I knew she had two spoonfuls of sugar.

  ‘Don’t ask!’ She grinned.

  ‘What time do you start your round?’

  ‘Five, but then there’s the sorting.’

  ‘Do you do that as well?’

  ‘Sort of – get it?’

  ‘Super pun,’ I agreed, stony-faced.

  She grinned and settled back. There’s this shed in the middle of the village where the post comes.

  ‘I was worried in case you had one of your birds in with you.’

  ‘You’re too young to know about such matters.’

  ‘You’re a hoot, Lovejoy, you really are.’ I tell you, youngsters nowadays must learn it from the day they’re born.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  The whole village can hear you making . . . er, contact with your lady visitors some nights. And some mornings.’

  ‘They can?’ That startled me.

  ‘Of course.’ She giggled. ‘We’re all terribly embarrassed, especially those of us who are still in our tender years and likely to be influenced by wicked designs of evil men.’ A laugh.

  ‘Well, the village shouldn’t be listening.’

  ‘Face it, Lovejoy –’ she began to look around – ‘you’ve something of a reputation.’

  ‘That’s news to me.’ And it was.

  ‘Is it really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She turned to eye me. ‘You’re our most exotic resident.’

  ‘Pretty dull place.’

  ‘Pretty exotic character,’ she countered.

  ‘I can’t be more exotic than our musician.’ We have a man who makes an extraordinary musical instrument of a hitherto unknown pattern. Needless to add, it cannot be played – which for a musical instrument is some handicap.

  ‘Compared with you he’s a bore.’

  ‘Then there’s the preacher.’ This is a chap who preaches somewhat spontaneously at odd hours of night and day. Very praiseworthy, you might say, to have deep religious convictions in this immoral world. Well, yes, but to preach to trees, fence posts and assorted bus stops is hardly the best way of setting a good example.

  ‘Even the preacher.’

  ‘What’s special about me?’ I was fascinated. Rose seemed surprised at my astonishment.

  ‘You collecting old pots.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said ironically. So much for years of study.

  ‘And that crazy old car. It’s hilarious!’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘And your . . . lady visitors.’

  ‘Well,’ I said hesitantly. ‘They’ve diminished of late, apart from the odd dealer. I was ill, in a way. I expect you noticed.’

  ‘Yes.’ She poured herself another cup and stirred sugar in. ‘You had one special bird, didn’t you?’

  ‘Sheila.’

  ‘Better than that blowzy brunette with all those teeth.’

  ‘Which was she?’

  ‘About four months ago. You remember – she shared you with that unpleasant married lady with the nasty manners.’

  ‘You keep my score?’

  She grinned. ‘Hard not to, when I’m coming here every day.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Did she give you the sailor’s farewell?’ she asked sympathetically.
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br />   ‘Who?’

  ‘Sheila.’

  ‘No, love.’ I drew a slow breath. ‘She . . . died, unfortunately.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Was that why you . . .?’

  ‘Lost control, my grandma would have called it,’ I said to help her out. ‘Yes, it must have been.’

  ‘Was it over her you . . .?’ she hesitated.

  ‘I what?’

  ‘You were going to kill somebody?’ Word had spread, then. Not really surprising, the way I’d behaved.

  ‘How did you hear that?’

  She leaned forward excitedly. ‘You mean you are?’

  ‘Do I look in a fit state to go on the prowl?’ She looked me up and down.

  ‘Yes, probably.’

  ‘Well, you can think again.’ I offered biscuits while I got myself another cup.

  ‘The whole village was talking about you –’

  ‘Even more than usual?’

  My sarcasm hardly touched her. ‘We were all agog.’

  ‘Well, you can de-gog then. I’m better.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her disappointment should have been a bright moral glow of relief at salvation from dastardly sin.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder about you women.’

  She beamed roguishly. ‘Only sometimes?’

  ‘I mean, you’re all interested when you think I’m going to go ape and axe some poor unsuspecting innocent –’ the word nearly choked me – ‘yet when I’m going straight again’ you’re all let down.’

  ‘You must admit, Lovejoy,’ she was reprimanding, so help me, ‘it’s more, well, thrilling.’

  ‘You read too many books for your own good. Or letters.’

  She accepted the jibe unabashed. ‘No need to read letters the way some people carry on. You found quick consolation, Lovejoy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I nearly saw her the other night, and her natty little blue pop-pop.’ She poked her tongue out at me.

  I gave a special sheepish grin but shook my head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she mocked. ‘Just good friends, I suppose.’

  ‘It must have been the district nurse.’

  ‘Like heck it was. Nurse Patmore doesn’t go shoving her bike in the hedge – it’s been here twice. I saw it.’

  ‘One of the forestry men,’ I suggested easily.

  ‘On a woman’s bike?’ She fell about laughing. ‘You’re either kidding or you’ve some funny friends, Lovejoy. It’s an old-fashioned scooter bike, no crossbar.’

  ‘You’re mistaken.’ Keeping up my smile was getting very hard.

  ‘Can’t she afford a car, Lovejoy? Or is it just that it’s quieter in the dark and easier to hide?’ She snorted in derision. ‘You must think we’re dim round here.’

  I surrendered, grinning with her.

  ‘A little of what you fancy,’ I absolved myself.

  ‘They run a book on you down at the pub.’

  ‘In what race?’

  ‘The Marriage Stakes.’

  ‘Out!’ I said threateningly, and she went, giggling. ‘You’re probably being raped, according to that lot of nosey parkers.’

  ‘That an offer?’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky to your elders!’

  ‘Any particular cheeks in mind?’

  I waved her off, both of us laughing. She pedalled down the path and was gone. I went in to clear up.

  Now, Rose actually starts her work about five, but her actual round only begins once the sorting is ended. That could take up to an hour. So she was round my place no later than six-fifteen in the morning. Her afternoon round was much more variable on account of the number of chats she had to have between the sorting shed and our lane. She must have glimpsed the woman’s – if it was a woman – bike at the ‘ungodly hour’ of six a.m. or so. How much light was there at that time? I couldn’t remember whether the clocks had been put on an hour or whether we still had that to do.

  Rose would be out of our lane by now. I locked up, chucked the robin some bread and cheese and walked down to the lane. It’s a curving road no more than twelve feet across with high hedges of hawthorn and sloe on either side. My own length is two hundred feet, dipping slightly to the right as you look at it from the cottage. A house is opposite, set a fair way back from the lane like mine. I hardly ever see him, an ascetic chap interested in boats and lawn mowers, while she’s a devotee of amateur opera. As I said, it takes all sorts. They have two grown-up children who periodically arrive with their respective families. Down the lane is a copse, if that’s the right word, a little wood joining my garden. For some reason old people once built a gate into the copse, perhaps to let pigs in to rummage for berries or acorns. Now it’s derelict and falling apart. Up the lane but beyond another strip of hazels and birch is a cluster of a dozen houses centred on a well, then the lane gradually widens and levels off to join the main road at the chapel. Since the lane leads down to a splash-ford going to Fordleigh, the next village, not much traffic comes along it except for the milk float, sometimes a car risking the ford in exchange for rural scenic delights, and genuine visitors or people out for a walk or cycling. You can get to the village road again that way, but only with a bike or on foot. There’s no way through for cars except by continuing on over the river.

  Which sets you thinking.

  The lane was empty as usual. You can hear cars approaching a couple of miles away. Nothing was coming, and with it being schooltime still the children weren’t yet out to raise a hubbub at the chapel crossroads. Whoever intended to watch the cottage from a hidden position would have been wise to either come through the Fordleigh splash and appear in the lane at the copse, or pretend to be out for a quiet country stroll and walk down from the chapel towards the river. Whichever way they – she? – came, she could always duck into the copse and work her way near to the cottage among the trees. There was little likelihood of being seen so early anyway.

  Yet there was one important proviso in all this. Does any reasonable morning stroller need a bike, and a motorized one at that? Answer: No. But my visitor did. And why? Because she was a stranger to the village, that’s why. You don’t go to a village miles away for a morning stroll.

  All of which meant that my watcher was not a villager, and had come towards my place by crossing the river. She had used a motorized cycle of some sort to ride within walking distance of the copse and pushed the pop-pop into cover while slinking closer to the cottage. Then she’d watched me, presumably to nip in and steal the instrument when it was safe. She? But a forester or a farm labourer would never ride a bike without a reinforced crossbar.

  I came to the open gate. I’d not looked at it for years. You don’t scrutinize what’s familiar, though I must have passed it a hundred times. My hedge was only thick enough for concealment in two places and they were undisturbed. It had to be here.

  My scalp prickled The gate seemed untouched, but behind the rotting post brambles and hawthorns were crushed. A few twigs were broken and one sloe twig was quite dead, hanging by a slip of bark. Deeper inside the ground was grooved and clods of dried mud still showed above the vegetation. Some scooters have quite wide tyres. Those of the more orthodox bicycle shape have tyres thicker than for ordinary bikes but thinner than the tyres of, say, a Mini-sized car.

  I entered the copse with as much care as I could and knelt to examine the ground. It must be a motorized pedal-cycle or something very similar, I thought. The grooves were of a type fairly thin but of a probable radius about bike size.

  There’s something rather nasty about being spied on. I once knew this woman friend of mine. We’d been out for an evening and on reaching her home for a light chat and a drink – her husband was abroad – found the place had been ransacked by burglars, whereupon she’d been violently sick. It had seemed odd to me at the time, but now I felt nausea rise at the image of a silent watcher here among the trees near the cottage. The intrusion wa
s literally sickening. There wasn’t exactly a beaten path through the undergrowth but the path the watcher had taken was pretty obvious if one assumed the purpose was to get near to the cottage. It took me about an hour of careful searching to find out where she’d waited.

  The ground was dry and had that beaten look it gets from being covered by trees. One edge of my garden runs adjacent to the copse and it was about midway along it that the watcher had established herself, having a broken stump to lean on. There was adequate protection from being seen. I leaned on the stump myself. You could just about see my front door and the near half of the gravel path. The car was in full view, plus a side window looking into my kitchenette and an oblique sight of the front two windows. They’re only small so the chances of actually watching me move about inside were practically nil, especially as I’m not a lover of too much light. And, considering how it’s my usual practice to draw the curtains as soon as I switched on, that must make it more difficult. What really displeased me was the horrid sensation – I was having it now on the back of my neck as I imitated my silent watcher – of having somebody peering in. I actually shivered.