'Where does this infant put it all, for heaven's sake?' Janie exclaimed. She glanced across and saw I was flicking through one of the exercise books. 'You're wasting your time with that rubbish. I've looked.'
'Keep your mind on your job,' I said. I hate being interrupted.
It was rubbish. The old exercise books were just scribbled boredom, perhaps some fragments of a diary of the sort one always means to start but never quite gets round to. Dejected, I decided on the spur of the moment to teach Henry to read, which of course made Janie split her sides. I've tried before but Henry ate the highly-educational alphabetic book I got him. I showed him a line and said to concentrate. He seemed to be amused, but obligingly gaped at the pages while he noshed the nougat.
'I then caught the train back to Groundle Glen,' I intoned, pointing to the words as I read.
'They start learning on single letters, Lovejoy,' Janie criticized.
I reached obligingly for the other booklet. Maybe there was a set of capitals.
'I then caught the train back…' caught my eye. 'Hello. What have we here?' It was the ninth page about halfway down. 'That's the same sentence.'
I flipped the pages over. The sentence was identical, ninth page about halfway down.
'What is it, Lovejoy?'
'They say the same things.' And they did, both dogeared exercise books. 'One's a copy of the other.'
The pages were ruled, obviously for school use. About twelve pages were filled with meticulous writing, ballpoint. I examined both books swiftly. The words were identical, word by word. Even the blot on page ten was carefully copied into the other book's tenth page. Each written sheet was signed 'James R. Bexon.' I picked a page at random. Page six. The other book's page six was identical, sentence for sentence, down to the last comma. Crazy.
If you ask me he's a madman,' Janie said. 'Who writes a diary, then copies it out all over again?'
Maybe the old man was a maniac. The Restoration forgery and its clever give-away leapt into my mind. Then again, I thought carefully, maybe he wasn't.
'Bexon was no nutter. I've seen a painting he did.' I checked Henry over. 'He'll need changing in a few minutes.'
While Henry whittled his way through the rest of his nougat I read one of Bexon's exercise books. Absent replies from me kept Janie going while she prattled away, how she'd buy a town house for us and I could keep the cottage on if I really wished. I was absorbed.
The diary was twelve pages, each page one day. A simple sentimental old chap's account of how he had a holiday on the Isle of Man. The dates were those of a couple of years previously. It was all pretty dreary stuff. Well, almost all.
He'd rented a bungalow, walked about, visited places he'd known once years before.
He'd gone to the cinema and hadn't thought much of it. Pub on a few occasions at night. He complained about prices. Chats with taxi-drivers, boats arriving and the harbour scenes. He'd gone about, seen a few Viking tumuli and Celtic-British remains, watched the sea, ridden on an excursion. Television shows, weather. It was dead average and inordinately dull. Home on the Liverpool ferryboat. Argument with a man over a suitcase. Train to London, then bus out to Great Hawkham. That was it.
But there was this odd paragraph about the coffin. The same in both books, in Bexon's careful handwriting:
I eventually decided to leave them all in the lead coffin, exactly where I would remember best. I can't face the publicity at my age - TV interviewers are such barbarians. That is to say, some three hundred yards from where I first dug down on to the mosaic terracing. I may give a mixed few to the Castle. Let the blighters guess.
Both diaries continued with chitchat, how the streets of Douglas had altered after all these years and what changes Millicent would have noticed. That was his wife.
Apparently they'd honeymooned on the Isle years before.
'It sounds so normal there,' Janie said into my ear. 'Even sensible.' She'd been reading over my shoulder. Careless old Lovejoy.
'Very normal,' I agreed. Then why did it feel so odd?
'What do you think he gave to the Castle?' she asked. Henry gave a flute-like belch about C-sharp.
'Heaven knows,' I said as casually as possible. Popplewell's face floated back. The cracked glass, the cards in disarray under the cloth. 'It could have been anything. Henry needs changing. The clean nappy's in his sponge-bag.'
I half filled a plastic bucket with water and undid him. It's easy as long as you stick to the routine. Unpin him on a newspaper, wash off what you can in the lavatory, chuck the dirty nappy in the bucket and wash him in a bowl. Then dry and dust. Five minutes.
'Eleanor takes the dirty one,' I explained.
I set about making some coffee. I keep meaning to buy filter-papers and a pot thing but so far I've never managed to get beyond that instant stuff.
'Lovejoy. Mine's different after all.' She'd been showing Henry how the pages turned.
'At the back.'
I came over.
'There's a drawing of a lady in mine. Yours hasn't.'
On the inside cover Bexon - or somebody - had painstakingly drawn a snotty crinolined lady riding in a crazy one-wheeled carriage, splashing mud and water as it went. A carriage with one wheel? It looked mad, quite crazy. The drawing was entitled 'Lady Isabella.' Pencil, Bexon's hand.
'There's no horse pulling it,' Janie pointed out. 'And only one wheel, silly old man.'
'Unless… Janie.' I fetched coffee over. Henry likes his strong. 'You said Dandy Jack has a separate sketch?'
'Yes. He said he'll see you tomorrow.'
We all thought hard.
'So if there's a message,' I reasoned aloud, 'it's in the words, not the sketch. The drawing's only a guide.'
'Oh, Lovejoy!' This made her collapse laughing. 'You're like a child! Are you sure it isn't a coded message from the Black Hand Gang?'
'Cut that out,' I said coldly, but she was helpless laughing.
'Anyway, who in their right minds would make a coffin out of lead?' she gasped.
'You're right.' I gave in sheepishly and we were friends again.
But the Romans did.
You know, sometimes events gang up on you. Even if you decide against doing a thing, circumstances can force you to do it in the end. Ever had that sensation? The last time I'd had the same feeling somebody'd got themselves killed and the blood had splashed on me. For the rest of Henry's time we played on the divan. I'd invented this game where I make my hands into hollow shapes and Henry tries to find the way in.
I shivered. Janie looked at me a bit oddly. She switched the fire on, saying it was getting chilly. Henry began to snore, about an octave deeper than his belches.
'He sleeps for an hour now, till Eleanor comes,' I said. 'You'd better go just before she calls.' I didn't want my women customers believing the cottage was a den of vice.
I lay back and watched the ceiling.
I've been assuming up to now you know the facts, but maybe I'd better slip them in here. If you're a bag of nerves you should skip this bit. It gives me nightmares even yet, and I read it first as a lad at school.
Once upon a time our peaceful old land was still and quiet. All was tranquil. Farmers farmed. Cattle hung about the way they do. Folk didn't fight much. Fields, little towns, neat forests and houses, Thursday markets. Your actual average peace. Then one day an anchor splashed in the Medway, to the surprise of all.
The Romans had landed.
The legions, with Claudius the God Emperor bored stiff on his best war elephant, paraded down our High Street after dusting over the Trinovantes, boss tribe in those days. Our town was called Colonia, capital of the new colony of Britain under Governor-General Gaius Suetonius Paulinus.
It would have all gone smoothly, if only the Druids had not got up his Roman nose.
They skulked over to Anglesey, off the coast of Wales, almost as if Rome could be ignored. Well, you can imagine. Suetonius was peeved and set off after them, leaving (here it comes) Britain in the hands of tax gatherers. Usual, but unwise, because Claudius was a real big spender and had left millions for the tribal kings as a gesture of goodwill. The politicians showed up and pinched the money. Sound familiar? They had a ball - especially the night they raped the daughters of a certain lady called Boadicea.