PearlHanger 09 (16 page)

erroneously
enjoying incompatibility all along. I've not forgiven her that chair, though. I never did get it.

What I mean is that the future's guesswork, isn't it? Otherwise it wouldn't be future.
So, while futurists might be really brimful of worthwhile data, the rest of us wait disbelievingly for a translation.

And don't think there was any significance in that odd line from the old folk tune, between the salt water and the seashore. Songs aren't psychic. You'd go off your head if you let coincidences worry you. I was only after proof that Chatto'd killed Owd Maggie and Sid Vernon to liberate my lovely Donna. Anybody who knows me will swear I'm not given to vengeance. I was only after justice. Honest truth.

Keeping calm, I went in. Mel had wanted to come too but Sandy wouldn't let him. Barney was out piloting the ocean wave. Beatrice was there, Sandy, me, that plump middle-aged bird I'd liked at Owd Maggie's seance, her dried-prune husband, two nondescript grannies, and a serious old bald geezer who had to contemplate alone for a few minutes before the whistle. Bea told me she'd brought her friend Seth, but I was damned if I could see him. There were eight chairs.

"Does it have to be so hot in here?"

"Shhh, Lovejoy. Don't be afraid," Beatrice said, patting my hand.

Stupid woman; wrong end of the stick again. Afraid? I ask you. The only thing on my mind was to get the hell out of here and put the finger on Chatto by raiding old Deamer's house . . .

"Hands," the plumpish lady was saying to me. We were supposed to stretch our hands out flat.

"Will it rock about?" I whispered to her. "Only, on the pictures
once ..."

138 .

"Shhh."

"Seth," Beatrice was saying, her eyes closed and breathing rhythmically. We'd all promised to concentrate. Bea's cleavage drew my eyes, honestly accidental. Eyes have got to look somewhere, haven't they? That's their job. The room should have been darkened at least. Or is that for fortune-telling? Faith-healing? "Seth," Bea went. "Please speak to me."

"Doesn't she mean Cardew?" I whispered.

"Seth is Beatrice's spirit guide. Shhh."

It was all so mundane. I couldn't imagine anything less spiritual than a sexy friend tuning in among a motley crew like us. A right sham. Everybody else was switched on all right, a picture of concentration. And Bea was doing her stuff, calling for Seth as if he were an overdue boat on some distant pleasure pond. I looked round. The grannies smelled of lavender mothballs. The plump bird was inflating with awe while the silence brought out the ticking of her prunish husband's fob watch. I wondered if it was antique. Baldie communicated with the infinite under a frosting of sweat. It was really gripping, like Wimbledon tennis and telly cricket, and other interminable yawns. My mind drifted. Old prints of so-called sports have soared in value. Don't take any notice of those silly newspaper articles saying half of the oil paintings in club houses are fakes. Since when did newspapers ever say anything right about art?

"Do you mean Lovejoy, Seth?" Beatrice said. Nobody had said anything, not even Seth.

"Here, love," I said nervously. Well, not nervously, really, because I'm a cool customer and don't get spooked.

"Shhh," everybody went, probably Seth as well I shouldn't wonder.

"Madame Blavatsky, Seth. Is she well?" Bea spoke

. 139

conversationally
, none of that phony falsetto voice which Owd Maggie had used.

"Which Madame Blavatsky?" I whispered, and got a communal ballocking for interrupting. That narked me, because how can you interrupt a nonconversation?

"Madame is happy, friends," Beatrice announced, smiling.

Some of us murmured appreciation and relief. I didn't, though I've nothing really against deception. It's been pretty useful even to me.

"Seth. Why was Madame struck down?"

This was the crunch. We all saw Beatrice's head nod to some inner affirmation. Silence. My hands were damp, but only because it was so damned hot.

"Because of the message," Beatrice said, as if repeating. "Seth. Please ask Madame what it was."

"Look, love," I whispered to Beatrice while people glared. "I'll wait outside, have a stroll for a minute."

I'd risen to leave despite efforts to pull me down. Sweat poured off me. Nothing to do with this farce, of course. Only, the stupid room's heat was practically boiling me alive. The others were simply too stupid to notice it, that's all. Sandy was looking at me, ashen.

"To warn against the death in threes," Beatrice said in that same unnerving chat-show voice. "Is the message complete, Seth?"

It frigging well wasn't. "There were only two deaths," I croaked.

"A third is near. Friend shall strike friend."

This was ridiculous. Sweat trickled down my flanks. It stuck in a cold ring round my neck. If I wasn't scared of Barney I'd have given Bea a clout for fooling about like this, because three minus two leaves one.

140 .

Their daft game was too much. I had a plane to catch and here I was tarting about while Bea played silly sods.

"Which friend?" I said nastily while the others were being scandalized at my spoiling the show.

Beatrice suddenly opened her eyes, which happened to be fixed straight on me, only pure chance. Owd Maggie's gravelly voice said straight from her mouth, "Thee, Cockalorum."

IS

Even when I was a virgin—practically before Adam had a lass—I knew that women were born pests. Apart from that brief exhilaration when consummation first equates with life, I've remained pretty well immune to them because I'm reliable, and everybody knows that this quality and women are immiscible, like oil and ale. They have this dyed-in-the- wool knack for nuisance, like horsehair. The old dears who taught me, determined grannies, threatening aunties, lovers, friends, the lot. I'm reasonable and tolerant, and they're not. Simple as that. This incompatibility's bound to cause problems, and invariably I'm the one who comes off worst because fair-minded people always do.

Sandy and Mel drove me back from Beatrice's after I'd developed a bit of a headache at that bloody seance. That's all it was. Everybody gets a headache now and again.

"It was the heat," I told Lydia for the umpteenth time. They'd collected her on the rainy drive to my cottage.

Sandy was delighted at the rain because his rotating musical wing mirrors had new neon striplights. "It's your karma, Lovejoy," he said.

142 .

"I hadn't realized Bea could even do impersonations," I explained. "Anybody would be shaken, hearing Bea impersonate an old friend who'd pegged out, right?"

Lydia was white as a sheet. I felt mentally spread-eagled.

"Thank you for the journey and your pleasant company, Sandy," Lydia said formally, hands clasped and feet together. It's her way of saying you can't come in.

"We'll come for you at four, cherubims," Sandy trilled. "Today's scoop: Watch my rear lights."

We watched, numbed, as the vast old Rover bowled into the lane. Inevitably two huge red headlamps beamed back at us, the offside dowsing in a horrid slow wink. Even over the motor's din we heard his shrill laughter.

Gone.

Lydia insisted I lie down on the divan while she brewed up. The stunning silence was gradually whittled by normal household sounds. Outside, a bird recovered from Sandy's visit and gave an experimental chirp. Lydia tutted because coat hangers wouldn't behave when she was tidying. The divan creaked as I turned on my side. A cup chinked. Two garden birds squabbled. A spoon tinkled in a saucer. Lydia ahemmed for the crunch.

"Lovejoy?"

"Mmmmh?" My eyes were closed against any more shocks.

"How would it be—dear," she managed the endearment with resolve, "if we asked Constable Ledger for assistance?"

"Why?"

"The police can effect a resolution far more speedily than you alone, Lovejoy."

She went on in this vein but you can't just lie there taking it.

"Police don't assist. They do what they like."

"They represent the law, Lovejoy," the innocent little thing said gravely. Every truth is daft to somebody. I had to explain this.

"Law's trouble for us vulnerables, love. Those who moan hard enough become exempt. Silent folk like you and me get crushed or keep out of its way. The majesty of the law is for those who dispense it."

Her expression closed into despair, and I knew immediately what she was going to do. Because of Beatrice's silly ventriloquist's trick—ridiculous what grown people will get up to—Lydia was going to phone Ledger. Far more logical to accept that, if I got there quickly and secretly enough, there'd be no third death anyway. Clear as day.

"I am entirely confident," this endearing little creature said, "in Vanessa's skills as an aviator. I insisted that Mel ascertain that she is in possession of an authorized pilot- instructress's license. But your abilities, Lovejoy, cause concern."

Time to lull suspicions. "You're probably right, love. Shall I pour?"

At half-three I decided to have a stroll up to the village shop for some envelopes, and put on a great show of being casual. I asked her for some shredded cheese for the robin and chucked it out. Then ostentatiously I ambled up the lane, darted back along the hedge for my bike, and pedaled off like hell toward Boxenford without a single helper, and therefore in a better state of preparedness for survival than

I'd been for many a long day.

*

144 .

The plane hadn't arrived when I reached the flying field two hours later. It looked like no airport I'd ever seen. In a way I was quite glad. Personal service.

Vanessa turned out to be a pleasant lass in oily overalls. She was mending a tiny outboard engine in a shed. A scruffy leather-clad yokel was at a workbench singing to a noisy trannie. A few other blokes were around, one or two busy on other engines. A big kite was laid on the grass. Somebody nearby was using a buzz saw, judging by the big-wasp sound.

"Wotcher," I said.

"You Lovejoy?" Vanessa offered me some tinned beer but it always tastes flat as printers' ink. "Mel says you want to land near that big house beyond Pearlhanger. Between the sea and the sandy spit. That right?"

I avoided her eyes. "Mmmmh."

"We've the equipment, if you've the money."

A pause. I usually try for credit. I've found it goes further. "What's it cost?"

She smiled, pretty. "A Japanese helmet, miniature. My brother's an antique dealer in Norwich."

He would be. "Fake or genuine?"

"Either."

"You're on." Apart from the lacquer it's the cheapest forgery you can do. Starch, shredded paper, sawdust and that's it. I settled down to wait. A few old posters were fraying on the walls. No hope that they'd be as valuable as the one John Lennon defaced in an American hotel—and which Sotheby's auctioned as lot 460 for a fortune—but . . .

"Lovejoy?" Vanessa was calling. She was outside, by an orange sheet fixed to an outboard motor. Pause.

"Yes?" I said. "Has it arrived?"

The others looked up. Expectancy dwindled, transformed into puzzlement.

"Worried about the wind, mate?" one of the blokes asked kindly. "You'll be all right. There's hardly a breath."

They were expecting me to take off. I looked into their seven waiting faces, and Vanessa's brow suddenly cleared. "Lovejoy. You weren't really expecting an airplane? Like a Cessna?" That buzz saw sounded closer.

I swallowed with difficulty. "Well, I assumed that flying meant using a frigging plane, love."

"You're standing on it." She wasn't without sympathy but inwardly she was rolling about. You can tell. The kind bloke guffawed. The others shook disbelieving heads. I stepped aside.
Plane?

"Dave's landing one now, Lovejoy." Vanessa pointed down the field. "Microlight. Dave can do seventy miles an hour. Some microlights have flown higher than sixteen thousand feet."

Dave was a distant man-shaped shadow dangling from a noisy orange kite, arriving in the distance with petrifying slowness and at frightening risk. The shadow touched earth, its little legs going like the clappers on the green grass. The engine coughed, spluttered, stopped. I found I'd sat down on the grass. These lunatics weren't aircrew at all. They flew cloth kites, bloody morons.

"Some people are just scared of the idea," the kindly bloke was saying.

"Here, mate." Vanessa sacrificed a tin of warmish ale. I sipped while the field settled into place. The intrepid bird- man's figure plodded nearer. The blokes went back to work, one laughing aloud.

"Vanessa, love," I began, eyeing the wretched thing on

146 .

the grass beside me. "There's just no chance of me flying a motorized hankie."

"Why not?" She was frankly unable to see the problem. "You just face the breeze and trot forward. Simple as that."

"Quietness," I said, delighted at my brilliant mind. "It has to be silent, you see. Haven't you got a helicopter?"

"You get a hundred decibels of noise even inside a helicopter," she said scornfully. "And ninety-six percent of helicopter pilots get the 'leans.' And slow-low copter flight's famous for its pitch, roll, and yaw, as well as its three-axis linear acceleration in controlled hover. In twenty-nine percent of Royal Navy night hovers over water, disorientation occurred ..."

"Great," I said to stop the flow. Dave merged with the others by the workshed. "So how do I land without attracting attention on that spit?"

"Hang glider?" Vanessa suggested. It was no joke. I'd got a serious girl here, though as a salesman she'd starve. I listened dully because you have to humor cranks and women, and she was both. "The trouble is that up to ten percent of reported accidents are fatal. Over forty percent of major injuries are leg fractures, but do keep it all in perspective."

I'd do that all right. "In perspective, love," I said wearily, "if I won't fly a sodding blanket with an engine, you're daft supposing I'll fly one without."

"You're chicken, Lovejoy." She was disappointed, shook out her hair like they do. She was politely avoiding saying I'd been brave until I'd realized I wasn't going by Pan Am.

"There are no windows on the house's top floor that side ..." I offered.