Moonspender

by Jonathan Gash

  "Boothie," I called. "It's me. Lovejoy." No lights. I cleared my throat loudly. "Boothie. It's only Lovejoy."

  The door stood ajar. I peered in doubtfully. Do poachers depart for the night leaving their doors open? Well, do they? Did Boothie have the electric, or was he an oil-and-candles man? The latter, by my recollection. I went and knocked. Silence. Some fool of a bird swished big wings past my head in a rush. Should be home minding its own business.

  "Right, lads," I called in a strangled voice. "Surround the building."

  Wasn't that what the police say? "Right, sergeant. Search every corner.

  In, feeling daft. My lamp threw its feeble glimmer into each of the four rooms. No Boothie. The back door was on the latch. I know because I tried it. Upstairs, in the pantry, the loo. No luck.

  "Right, er, lads." Sillier still, certain there were no lurking footpads, but I felt my earlier performance'd earned it.

  Decibel's kennel was there, the sack of gruesome biscuits Boothie makes him hanging from a little strut. I've seen Boothie do them, fat and oatmeal. What a sell. In a way I was disappointed. In fact I was halfway toward the Ruby's flickering lamp when I heard the whimpering.

  "What's that?" I called, terror returning with a rush. My lamplight nervously gave up as soon as it hit the undergrowth. "Hello?"

  A dog barked, and came at me. It was Boothie's hitherto silent skulker Decibel, discovering a friend. We greeted each other in an orgy of relieved licks, pats, hugs.

  "Where's Boothie?" I asked, like a fool, and instantly it was wriggling ahead into the vegetation, choosing a route that even I could follow. Every few paces it paused, showed me my flame in its eyes, and eeled on while I lumbered behind.

  Nobody pays much attention to these low hollows. They're everywhere in the Hundreds. Useless, of course; hell to get into and hell to get out of. Usually there's a murky pool, and the brambles murder your face. This tanglewood had a slow ooze smearing its way from the fields higher up the valley's slope. It also had a man's body lying imprisoned under two great roots.

  "Boothie? Christ Almighty."

  Decibel was whimpering, pawing at the mud round the inert form. I couldn't tell if Boothie was breathing or not. He felt warmish, thank heavens, but stuck. I stood my lamp, grabbed him, and heaved, slithering into the sluggish stream with a thick splosh. Decibel wriggled, wanting to help but not quite knowing how. No good. Then I had the sense to feel. Boothie was wedged, actually wedged, under a big arched root. I heard a discreet tapping, which frightened me before I realized it was only coming rain. It would be quite a storm, judging from the big slow drops that began to whack down on the fold.

  But Boothie. I knelt in the water, only inches shallow. His face lay about three inches from the swark. Lucky I came or he would have

  . . . Decibel was scrabbling like a mad thing. I yanked, cursing. All it needed was another inch or two and he'd not be able to breathe. The rain tumbled then, hissing and clapping above and about me. I sank back on my haunches for a breather.

  "Steady, Decibel. We've got all night." Boothie seemed to have blood all over his temple.

  The dog was berserk, scratching madly, its flung mud splatting. It was as if it was trying to tunnel beneath its master, and I realized its wisdom. Scoop under him, and you could pull him clear. I shone the light to decide. Funny. It had seemed three inches deep. Now it was four. And that sleek drift was wrinkled, turbid, not so slow. Faster.

  Then my mind yelped. Torrential rainstorm plus a shallow stream equaled a torrent. I tore into the mud, kneeling over Boothie and bawling for help. I rammed a shoe under his head to keep his nose clear of the water. The black water was running nastier and quick, fetching leaves and twigs down with it that piled up against Boothie's face.

  When his arm finally did come clear I shoved myself back on the bank, hurting where the branches delved, grabbed Boothie's middle and dragged him clear, Decibel with its teeth pulling along, up among the brambles until we were a clear yard off that horrible muck. The rain was lashing down. God, I felt a mess. Decibel was wagging round Boothie's rag-doll form, licking his face—not a word of thanks to me, note. That's gratitude.

  Whacked, a few paces at a time, I staggered with him to the cottage. The worst bit was laying him on his kitchen table. All right, I know it's not proper first aid, but I was in a worse state than he was. The only difference was that one of us was unconscious. Some poacher.

  In the light of my lamp I inspected him. His head was battered. Not a beat of pulse, not an eddy of breath. Oh, God. I'd been handling a dead man; I'd rescued a corpse. I was alone in a storm with a dead man. I rushed into the rain with my lamp, one shoe missing.

  "Guard him, Decibel," I bleated, and blundered up the path to the Ruby. A split minute and I was clattering away from that horrible dank copse toward the nearest police, Geoffrey's house at the next village crossroads.

  "Tell me again, Lovejoy." Ledger was sitting on Boothie's wet table swigging coffee. They'd offered me none. Phyllis with her portable was typing reproachfully by torchlight. "Are you sure it was Booth? And his dog?"

  "For God's sake, Ledger. Who took Decibel walks that time Boothie had pneumonia?"

  "A poacher? Headfirst down in his own brook?" His eyes never left me. "Why no trail, Lovejoy?"

  "Because it's raining cats and dogs. The bloody stuff runs downhill, you burke. Look." I pointed. "The table's wet where I laid him."

  Ledger indicated the sash windows. "It's all wet, Lovejoy. Windows and doors open. Booth left his cottage agape. Sudden rainstorm blew rain inside. Common enough story."

  I went through and looked at the back door. Ajar. I stooped by the kennel. Well, well.

  "Then, Lovejoy, where is the corpse and its dog?"

  "I don't know."

  "Book him, Phyllis." Ledger rose, beckoned to the policeman outside. Three police cars swung their nasty blue blinders asynchronously beyond the copse.

  "What for, Ledger?"

  "Malicious misuse of police resources."

  "Ledger," I said brokenly. "I won't—"

  "Add resisting arrest, Phyllis. And bring our own coffee next time." He shoved his hands in his pockets and went to the door, judging the teeming rain.

  " 'Night, Ledger," I said dismally.

  He glanced back, turning up his collar to make the dash. "Not you, Lovejoy. You're coming with us."

  And I did, my Ruby puttering head-on into the rain behind the file of impatient police cars. But you can't help wondering what kind of murderer steals a corpse, and its loyal dog. And removes its personal dog biscuits. Ledger was right: poachers don't fall. They have to be pushed. And maybe they rise up and steal away.

  12

  Perhaps you don't know them much but a magistrate's court is a complete waste of space. They can be pretty informal. I've known one old duffer go on about fly-fishing till all the bobbies nodded off. Today's clown was a veteran, clearly bored to be working when he could be out burning peasants. He glared at me as I was led in. I'm on a right winner here, I thought, heart doing its customary dive at the spectacle of law.

  "Lovejoy, sir," a bobby announced for me, in case I irresponsibly uttered fact.

  "Why is he in such a state?"

  Ledger had refused me permission to wash, my condition being part of his evidence. Hence I was still the monster from the black lagoon.

  "Germane to the case, sir," my peeler said.

  "It happened on my estate, sir," I said, building hassles in the sky. "I've not had time to change."

  "Did he say on his estate?"

  "Yessir. I'm estate manager. Manor Farm, sir." Ledger's stricken stare hit me like a missile, but I was past caring. "I've had trouble with a poacher, sir, and ..." Battles between poachers and estaters in East Anglia are background yawns. Nobody in his right mind lets them into court. The growsy old bloke erupted and sent us all scurrying for wasting the court's time. They released me after two phone calls, so I must have guessed right about the boundary. Boothie's cot
tage was on Manor Farm.

  "Good one, Lovejoy." Ledger walked me to the steps. A bright fresh morning, cold as charity. "Gainfully employed, eh? A legend in your own lunchtime." Passing people stared at me, a symphony in gunge.

  "Ha ha," I said dutifully. "My crate's in the pound."

  Companionably he ordered the gate nerk to release my Ruby, me distrusting all this camaraderie. Police, like criminals, are determinants of social disorder. Their uniqueness lies in the fact that they apply the law by unswerving guesswork, whereas criminals follow form. Hence, Ledger's happiness was in inverse proportion to mine.

  "You know our number, don't you? Ring any time." He grinned. "You see, Lovejoy, my lords and masters will go berserk if you get topped, after today's hilarious court proceedings. See my predicament?"

  I hesitated. "You did believe me about Tom Booth?"

  He laughed, genuinely laughed. "Only for public consumption, Lovejoy. Good luck."

  Off he went, chuckling. I didn't like it. I mean, subtlety and peelers don't mix. Ledger being master of the single entendre. Yet he falls about at being foiled?

  This clearly called for a visit to the convalescent home. The Ruby whined into complaining life and carried me there in thirty minutes flat, only two rests for breath. The exhilaration of speed. I felt like an astronaut.

  The convalescence unit's at a crossroads outside the comer of Manor Farm's sprawling estate, with a good view of Constable country, rivers and such. It's lonely, but all right on a cold October day with white clouds racing to make the coast before the fenlands squeezed them into dry extinction.

  The elderly stooping chief, Dr. Pryor, looked in sore need of a bit of convalescence himself, tired and gaunt.

  "Before you say anything, doc, I lied to your nurse." I gave it half a second. "I'm not ill. I'm not a moaning relative. And I'm not a Health Service administrator whining about your colossal expenditure."

  He sat back, not knowing quite what to think. "Our expenditure's not colossal."

  "You're right, doc." When I grovel I go all the way.

  He was smiling. "Reporter?"

  "No. I boned up on the gallant defense you made in the local newspaper." Lize's photocopies. "So you'd show me round on trust."

  He scanned me and nodded, scoring me harmless. "You must be on our side. NHS administrators can't read. Come on."

  A rehabilitation unit's no picnic. Traction, splints, walking frames, it's all there. Ropes dangle. Pools steam. White-coated troglodytes have poor sickly people breathing desperately into piston machines. Fluorescent screens blip traces. Wires, flex, plugs, cables everywhere. Doc Pryor got in, "Lucky you've come when we've tidied," but I stayed close by him in case a machine grabbed me. There was the all-pervading NHS pong of cooking.

  The old doctor noticed I was hanging back, squeamish.

  "I see," he said laconically, and after that showed me only corridors, day rooms, the bleep system.

  "Why's everybody happy, doc?" I asked. I'd counted several definite smiles. A young bloke wobbling ecstatically along in a frame thing even panted a cheery greeting.

  "They're getting better." Pryor's tone announced that they'd improve or else.

  A peculiar metronomic chanting lapped my ear. I asked what it was. He swung open a door on a little girl about eleven, hair in bunches, syllabizing words to a metronome's beat. "So - the - horse - cant - ered -home - to - its - sta - ble - " Another smile and a thumbs-up sign.

  We went on, me keeping an eye out for the comer turret room I wanted so badly to see, where the fire had been.

  "Little Christine has a terrible stutter. Old-fashioned remedies do work sometimes."

  "Stutter?" I halted.

  He was pleased at my interest. "Yes. They start on the metronome. Then graduate to this." He showed me a little watch-shaped cylinder. "Orchestra conductors hold them." He pressed it into my palm. It tapped gently, a minimetronome. As we ascended the staircase I asked if it would work for a grown woman.

  "Depends on the type of stutter," he was saying. "We use several different methods. But that one's usually worth a try. The trouble is stutterers think it's a cross they're simply born with. Society's unforgiving, no compassion. ..."

  I liked this irascible old man, flapping ahead in his grubby white coat, throwing out his accusations. We ascended stairs to the turret room.

  "Last and not most, here's Gerald, idle good-for-nothing. Tyrant of the turret room, bleep boss."

  Gerald was a youngish bloke at a switchboard bank, earphones, mouthpiece. Metal flaps leapt from the old-fashioned console every time a green light buzzed. The room was a mess of ripped plaster. Its floorboards were exposed, stained, a few scorched by recent mayhem. Lize's newspaper had spoken the truth, an innovation. Plywood wall panels were partly burned away showing grubby tiles beneath. My spirits soared. Tile pictures. You get patches of decorative tile work in old hospital units like these. They're rare and valuable, so look before you ruin. Jesse Carter became the archetype when he started his Poole Pottery in 1873. A good stretch—say 300, of 15 tile pictures—will net you a blond, a world cruise, and still leave you enough to buy a new car. Many of these lovely old tile pictures are secret—like the four dozen incredible panels of nursery rhymes in the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle. Don't tell anyone. I came back to earth in the semiwrecked room.

  "Wanted on three, doctor. Mrs. Hampson's son again."

  Pryor grimaced. "Tell him to go to hell."

  "Doctor Pryor says go to hell, Mr. Hampson," Gerald intoned.

  The turret room was just that, a small room dominating the comer of the building. Like many of these National Health Service places, it had been an old family house once, its exterior displaying lovely ornamental brickwork. It set me thinking. The turret room commanded a view of Pittsbury Wood, the adjacent fields, the distant sea line, a gleam of estuary, an eave of Dogpits Farm, the stables at Manor Farm. I caught a glimpse of a tribe of red-coated hunters on brown smudges with white waggly dots shoaling ahead of them. Major Bentham's pack was out, the maniacs. Just before I opened my big mouth to ask about the view I spotted Gerald's cupped hand moving across the console. He was having to feel for the flap, not look at the green-light signal. Blind.

  "This was where they did the damage, eh?"

  "More newspaper talk?" Pryor smiled, looking about. "Yes. Three weeks gone. Smashed the windows. A fire, a night raid."

  "Reasons?"

  "Who knows?" he said despairingly. "The times we live in, I daresay. There's no money for repairs, so it'll have to come down."

  "Hang on."

  This place had once been a lovely old family house. Real people had talked and loved here for generations. It deserved better than being bulldozed, even if it was wilting under attack.

  "Doc." I held out a coin. "Sell me a brick."

  "Beg pardon?" Pryor was puzzled, but Gerald was smiling.

  "Tell Lovejoy yes, doctor." Before I could reply the blind man added, "I heard you, once, at a lecture about antiques. People told me about you."

  I'd heard that the blind are unerring at voices.

  "Very well." Pryor took the money warily.

  "Right. Now sell me a tile." I thought of explaining how the Tile Society's burgeoned, but said nothing.

  He was guarded. "You mean these?" He nodded at the exposed grubbiness.

  "Aye. Now, doc. Sell me the lot?"

  He cleaned his spectacles agitatedly. "They're not mine to sell, Lovejoy. They belong to the Health Service."

  "Who will rubble them, and move your unit into a box."

  "I don't understand, Lovejoy."

  "Shut your cloth ears, Gerald," I said, "this is high finance." So, while Gerald—who'd long since got the point—chuckled and worked the phones, and I wondered how a clever old coot like Dr. Pryor could be so blinking dim, I explained in monosyllables the most routine of modem robberies.

  "It's called the wall game," I said. "Get it? A building is, say, eighteenth century. By law it's sacrosa
nct. But builders want to cram pillboxes on the land for profit. So they secretly weaken the structure. The building becomes unsafe. In the interests of public safety, the council hires a builder—usually a most sincere friend—to destroy the lovely house, and everybody's happy, no?"

  "But that's dishonest," Dr. Pryor said, frowning.

  My headaches usually come on when honesty raises its head. You can only keep going. "The dishonesty is that the kingdom has lost a priceless treasure."

  "But how can you buy every brick, Lovejoy?"

  I thought, I honestly don't believe this. "Because," I said, as if to a child, "I've a builder of my own who'll remove this turret section before crooked councillors and cretinoidal NHS administrators can."

  "But won't they notice?" He was all on edge. "And what can your builder do with a load of old bricks and beams?"

  "Doc," I said, several headaches now rattling my skull. "Promise you'll never become an antique dealer. Okay?"

  Gerald was grinning. "Mrs. Hampson's son is on again."

  "Tell him to go to hell." The old saint explained, "Wretched man won't accept that his mother's fit to come home."

  We left Gerald cheerily relaying the reblikes. "Play your cards right, doc," I promised, "and you'll finish up with a solidly rebuilt extension. You may have to ignore a certain amount of activity. Don't ask," I cut him off hurriedly. "Just accept."

  "And if we don't?"

  "I go to court. Don't worry," I said. "I know the way."

  Outside, I checked. The turret windows were the only ones from which you could see over Pittsbury Wood. I left fairly optimistically, wondering which local builder wanted a knighthood.

  On the way home I used the reassuring daylight to bump across that track and check Decibel's kennel, just to make sure the dog cakes had gone and not merely been shifted in the police search. I thought, Aha, where are you Boothie? And where's loyal little Decibel? I drove into the village whistling. I was so happy.