I was dried and in my priest-hole by nine o’clock. I was nervous, because I was going to kill somebody.
Who, I didn’t know. Nor where, nor when, nor in what circumstances.
But I knew how.
He would get nothing but the best, the very best Lovejoy could manage. Price no object.
I had a small amount of black powder – smoky gunpowder – in a pistol flask belonging to the Barratt guns. They wouldn’t do. Percussion, after all. Let’s do it properly. I began to go over the contents of the shelves.
Now, Lovejoy’s no killer. I love these flinters the way I love Bilston enamels and jades, as examples of supreme craftsmanship. I don’t like weapons because they’re weapons. Only maniacs love them because they kill. During one of these tiresome wars we used to have I was conscripted and put into uniform. We were stationed on a snowy hillside in the East and given some field guns to shoot. The trouble was, an army on the opposite hillside had guns of their own and kept trying to kill us by shooting back. For me, I’d just as soon we all kept quiet, but the general feeling was that we ought to keep firing. I couldn’t see what it was all about. Our hillside had nothing but a few trees, and from what little I could see of their hillside they were just as badly off. It was a waste of time, in addition to which I was frightened to death. But now I began to wish I’d taken more notice of the bare essentials during training.
The Barratts wouldn’t do, so could the Nocks? Samuel Nock had made special holster and pocket flinters swan-necked in the French manner, but occasionally deviated into singles made in a special utilitarian style. I had a pair of double-barrelled side-by-side flinters of his making. They really were precious to me, so I included them as possibles. A Brown Bess, heavy as hell, wouldn’t do. The space might be too confined when I came to it and forty-odd inches of massive barrel might prove cumbersome. Also, he was going to the slowly if the opportunity offered a choice; the Land Pattern might help him on his way too precipitately. We had matters to discuss. Reluctantly I put it aside.
The Adams revolving longarm was gone to Dick. That left me with two eastern jezail guns, flintlock of course, the Adams pocket weapon, an elegant gold-inlaid La Chaumette pinfire weapon with a folding trigger, a Durs airgun you have to pump up, a Cooper blunderbuss, an early Barbar flintlock brass-barrelled blunderbuss good enough to eat, a lonely Henry Nock dueller I’d been trying to match with its missing partner for twelve years, and last but not least the beautiful Mortimer weapons acquired that terrible day from Dick’s boatyard. The Mortimers it was.
I melted a piece of lead bar over a spirit-lamp and poured it from the pan into the bullet-mould, crushing the brass handles firmly to avoid pocking the bullet surface with bubbles. Twelve attempts it took before I got two perfect spheres of dulled lead. After cooling them, I polished both in a leather cloth until they were almost shiny.
The black powder I poured into the pistol flask. It was set correctly on the dispensing nozzle, so I cleaned inside the barrel with a swab of cloth screwed on to the wrong end of the ramrods. All this is easier said than done with white linen gloves on, but you must never leave fingerprints on a flinter – it ruins the browning after some years, and actually precipitates real rust even on the best damascus barrel. The barrels cleaned, I poured the dose of powder into each, and forced the bullets in after tamping the powder down. It was hard work getting them to the bottom of the breech but I managed it. After that, a soft wad of cloth torn from a handkerchief down each barrel to keep the bullets in. Then a squirt of powder into each nashpan, bringing back the cocks to half-cock position where the triggers wouldn’t work them and clapping the steel closed, and all was lovely.
I replaced them in their mahogany case, pulling the safety-catch into the halt position and dusting them off. They looked priceless, stylish, graceful, wondrous in their red-felted boxwood recesses among the accessories. Every item fitted snugly. Even the case itself was brilliantly designed, a product of an age of skilled thinkers.
There was one more thing they looked – lethal, maybe even murderous.
And that really pleased me, because I was going to blow some fucking bastard’s brains out.
I
’LL BE FRANK.
Before this the business had been a bit unreal-like, you know the sort of thing, income-tax rebates or these insurance benefits you get if ever you reach ninety. My attitude, I suppose, was one of blissful pretence. Sheila always said I pretended too much, romancing she called it. The Judas affair had previously been somehow at a distance even though I’d been involved in setting up a search for the pistols through the trade. I suppose there was some excuse since you can’t believe in a Martian in Bloomsbury in quite the same way you might believe in the Yeti or Nessie. I’d paid lip service of sorts to the Judas pair idea. If they were mythical, well, okay – I would spend time chasing a myth. If the bloke that had killed two people for those precious things believed in their existence, so would I. Funny, but my mind began to work clearer now I believed.
If he had searched and followed and then killed for a small accessory like my turnkey, it followed for certain that there could be no possible doubt about where the Judas pair were –
he had them.
I knew as sure as I breathed.
And I understood his anguish. Imagine the distress of scientists as they search for that one missing link creature whose existence will finally prove a million theories. Imagine the shepherd’s grief as he finds his prize sheep’s gone absent. Double all those sorrows, and it comes somewhere near the anguish of a collector with a stupendous possession one vital component short. I would have felt compassion in other circumstances, even shared part of his grief. Now I cackled with evil laughter as I emerged from my priest-hole and went about letting the light into the cottage and unlocking doors and windows. Let him suffer. He’d come again, somehow and some time he’d come because I had the instrument he wanted.
From now on I would have to be ready every minute of every day. I therefore checked the garden from behind the curtains and decided to play the game to its fullest.
I telephoned George Field. His wife answered. George was out.
‘I want a list from him, Mrs Field,’ I explained. ‘Tell him I need urgently – within the day – the names of all those people his brother was friendly with, known collectors or not. Dealers included.’
She was all set to chat but I cut it short and then rang Geoffrey.
‘Look, Lovejoy,’ he began wearily, but I wasn’t being told off by any village bobby. I was going to do his job for him and he was getting paid from taxes I provided.
‘Silence, Geoffrey old pal, and listen.’ He listened in astonishment while I said my piece. ‘I want the names, ranks and stations of the people in charge of Sheila’s . . . accident.’ Straight away he began his spiel about not having the authority to divulge and all that. ‘Listen, Geoffrey – I’ll say this once. You give me the names now, or I’ll take your refusal as obfuscation and ring the Chief Constable, Scotland Yard and my local MP. I’ll also ring the local newspaper, three London dailies and the Prime Minister.’ I didn’t know what obfuscation was but it sounded good.
‘What if I don’t have the information you want?’ he asked, a guarded police gambit.
‘There you go again, obfuscating,’ I said pleasantly. ‘Goodbye, Geoffrey. You’ll be hearing from the communications media and the politicians very shortly, if not sooner.’
‘Hang on.’
They can be very helpful, these servants of our civic organizations, when they’re persuaded in the right way. He gave me a number to ring and an address of a police station.
‘What’s got into you, Lovejoy?’ he said, very uneasy.
‘A rush of civic duty to the head,’ I explained.
‘I don’t like all this, I’ll tell you straight.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning I want to know what you’re up to, Lovejoy.’
‘Geoffrey,’ I said sweetly.
‘Yes?’
‘Get stuffed, comrade,’ I cooed. ‘Go back to sleep.’
I felt better now I was on the move.
Faith is a great prime mover. No wonder the distance to Jerusalem didn’t daunt the early crusaders. With all that faith, the fact that they’d have to walk every inch of the way would have appeared a mere incidental. Faith gives a clarity of vision as well as thought and I was reaping the benefit of the new believer. It gave me freedom. Apart from Old Bill, I could tell anybody the truth, what I was after and even say why. I could show my Durs turnkey to every Collector or dealer I’d ever met, knowing sooner or later I’d strike oil. Word would spread like fat in a hot pan. Then, one fine day, my visitor would arrive at the cottage for his big farewell scene. He wouldn’t be able to help it. He’d come back again.
I spent an hour on the blower. First, Adrian, explaining a friend of mine, Eric Field, deceased, had had a pair of Durs flinters now untraceable, and would he please keep an ear open for any whisper. I got derision back down the receiver but persevered. In the way of his kind he sensed swiftly there was something seriously wrong and went along with me saying he’d put the word out. No reply from Margaret Dainty, though I tried her number three times, and none from Dandy Jack’s either. He was probably sloshed still from last night, while Margaret was possibly up in the Smoke doing the street markets. Jane Felsham was in, coughing with the rasping breath of the morning smoker and saying what was the matter with me. She thought I was drunk.
‘It’s on, Jane,’ I said. ‘Don’t muck me about, love, because I’m tough and nasty today. Just take the essentials down and spread it about. Tell anyone, bring anyone to see me any time. And I’ll travel. There’s a bonus in it – keep thinking of all those pots you could buy with a bit of taxfree.’
Harry was out too, also probably down on the market stalls the same as Margaret. I left a message at the White Hart for Tinker and Dandy Jack to contact me urgently. The barman was out on the village green with the pub’s football team, training for the Sunday League, but his wife Jenny was reliable.
I wrapped the turnkey in white tissue-paper hankies (always the best for carrying small antiques, even storing them for years) and put it into my jacket pocket, using a safety pin to fasten down the flap. That way, if he wanted it he’d have to get me first. Before locking up and leaving, I phoned Dick Barton and asked him to sell me some black powder as I wanted to try the Mortimers later on. He was surprised, knowing my antipathy to flinters as actual weapons, but promised me three-quarters of a pound. I would collect it on the way back from Jim’s, in case Geoffrey decided to finger my parked Armstrong to learn what I was up to. The sale of the black powder in this cavalier fashion is highly illegal, you see, and the law is especially vigilant in this matter. Terrible what some people will do. I chucked a handful of crumbs to the robin to keep it going and drove to Seddon’s. On the way over I decided to park outside the showrooms, in accordance with my new plan of inviting my unknown enemy’s attention. Old Jim lived in a neighbouring street some four hundred yards down East Hill.
The town was almost empty of pedestrians and cars. One of those quiet days. Driving through in the dilute sun made a very pleasant change from the untidy scramble of the bad week. I parked, confidently facing uphill, and walked down to the street where Jim lived. Apart from a few folk pottering innocently off to shops and others strolling towards the riverside nursery gardens there wasn’t a soul about. The terraced houses seemed cheerful and at ease.
I knocked. Jim came to the door, frowning when he saw my happy smiling face.
‘Top of the morning, Jim.’
‘Morning.’ We stayed in an attitude of congenial distrust for a second. ‘No use coming here, Lovejoy,’ he said sourly. ‘All business must go through the firm, you know that.’
‘So I believe,’ I said, optimism all over.
‘What you want then?’
‘Now, Jim, you know me.’ I honestly felt benign towards him. ‘All for a quiet life.’ I let it sink in, then added, ‘You must be, too.’
‘Aren’t we all?’
‘Some, only some, Jim.’
He was being careful. ‘What’s this about?’
‘Your new job.’
‘Eh?’
‘You start now.’ He started to close the door but my foot was in the way. ‘No, Jim, leave the door open and don’t go inside. Stay and listen.’
‘I want no trouble.’
‘And you’ll get none, old pal.’ I beamed at him. ‘Remember the Field sale? Eric Field, deceased?’
‘I
thought
you hinted a bit too much,’ he said. ‘Nothing wrong, was there?’
‘Nothing,’ I said easily. ‘Your new job’s trying to remember everything about it, sales lists, who the auctioneer was, who was there, who bought what, and how much they paid –’
‘Confidential.’ Remarkable how self-important these pipsqueak clerks are. I went all concerned.
‘What about your arm?’ I asked anxiously.
‘What about it? Nothing wrong with my arm.’
I beamed into his eyes and winked. ‘There will be, Jim. It’ll be broken in several places.’
‘Eh? You’re mad –’
‘Left or right, Jim?’ I was really enjoying myself. No wonder people change when they get religion if this is what faith does for you. Faith’s supposed to cancel doubt, isn’t it? Marvellous how much calm conviction can bring. If Jim’s four brothers had called about then I’d have said the same thing. Numbers are a detail when principle’s the prime mover.
‘Get the message?’ I was so contented. ‘Don’t get in my way when I’m moving. Now, you’ve got three seconds to agree, and by six tonight I’ll have the invoices, the lists, the sales notes and all essential details of the Field sale. You bring them round to my cottage, and wait there until I come.’
‘You’re off your bleeding head, Lovejoy,’ he moaned. ‘I’ve no car.’
‘Don’t miss the bus from the station, then. Remember it’s a rotten bus service.’
‘Get stuffed,’ he said, kicking at my foot.
My forehead felt white-hot. For a moment, I struggled for control, then moved up into the doorway, pushing him back. I kneed him in the crotch and butted his nose with my head. When he was down in an easier position on the carpet I stove a rib in with a neat kick. Heaven knows where I learned it. I honestly am a peaceable chap. He tried to scramble away in terror and found an upright modern Jameson piano, only teak and 1930, to lean against. His face showed white above his ‘two-day’ stubble.