'Why does everybody hate me so?' he was wailing as I left the Arcade. I suppose it takes all sorts.
The hospital is a few streets away. You cut alongside the ancient steps through the remains of the Roman wall. As I hurried among the crowds I couldn't help thinking that too many things were happening too quickly all of a sudden. In spite of my hurry I couldn't help pausing at Dig Mason's, the poshest of the Arcade's antiques windows.
Pride of place was given to a delightful veneered drop-sided portmanteau. It contained an entire set of dining cutlery, china service, glass tableware down to cruets and serviette rings. Everything was slightly smaller sized than normal. My heart melted.
Perfect. Dig beamed out at me through the window miming an invitation to make an offer. I gave him the thumbs down and hurried away. He'd labelled it 'Lady's travelling dining case. Complete. Victorian.' All wrong. I'd have labelled it 'Officer's mess dining portmanteau. Complete. 1914-15. World War I' and been correct. The poor sods were made to provide complete mess gear and often their own china and cutlery in the Royal Flying Corps. As I hurried along I prayed Dig wouldn't realize his mistake before I got some money from somewhere. He'd under-priced it a whole hundred per cent.
I looked among the cars but there was no sign of Janie. She must have decided to stay away in a temper. Typical. Just as you need women they get aggro. They make me mad. They lack organization. Helen was at the hospital. She came over as soon as I entered the foyer. Funny what impressions hospitals leave. All 'I can remember is a lot of prams, some children and an afternoon footballer being wheeled along with his leg in plaster.
'He's not too good, Lovejoy,' Helen said.
'I'm glad you came.'
She shot a look at me and together we climbed to the second floor. I never know who's boss nurse any more. Once it was easy - dark blue were sisters, pale blue stripes nurses and doctors in white. Now they seem as lost as the rest of us. Helen accosted a matron who turned out to be a washer-up. We made three mistakes before we stood at the foot of Dandy Jack's bed.
He appeared drained, newly and spectacularly clean and utterly defenceless. Drips dripped. Tubes tubed into and out of more orifices than God ever made. Bottles collected or dispensed automatically. It seemed nothing more than one colossal act, a tableau without purpose or message. Dandy Jack was never a divvie, but even boozy dealers deserve to live.
'Did you see the accident?' a tired young house doctor asked. I said no.
'I did. From a distance.' Helen linked her arm with mine. I think we both felt under scrutiny, somehow allowed in under sufferance.
'Did he go unconscious instantly?'
'Yes. The car pushed him along quite several yards,' Helen told him. 'It wasn't going all that fast.'
'Did Dandy see it?' I asked her. She shook her head.
The doctor moved us out of the ward with a head wag.
'Are you next of kin?'
We stared, hesitated before answering.
'Well, he has none, Doctor,' Helen said at last. 'As far as we know.'
'He's… seriously injured, you see.' He asked us to leave a phone number.
We finished up giving Margaret's. Helen meant, but didn't say, that she'd know to reach me through Janie somehow. On the way back to High Street we carefully disengaged arms just in case. Helen told me the car was a big old Rover.
'I could have sworn, Lovejoy…' Helen paused. 'I had an idea the driver might have been… that chap you were talking to outside Dandy's.'
'The one with the blonde?' Rink.
'Yes, but a different car.'
'Well,' I said carefully, 'one doesn't use one's very best for dealing with the vulgar mob, does one?'
'I could be wrong, I suppose.'
'You could.' I left it at that.
'I'll tell Margaret we gave her home number,' Helen said.
She paused as we made to part. 'Lovejoy.'
'What?'
'Ring me.' She met my eyes. 'Whenever.'
'If I come into money,' I quipped.
'Have you eaten?' she examined my face. 'You're gaunt.'
'It's the ascetic life I lead.' We looked at each other another moment. 'See you, Helen.'
'Yes.'
I was wondering, can a duckegg like Rink be so savage? Then I thought, aren't we all?
CHAPTER IX
Contents - Prev/Next
THAT AFTERNOON I'd never been so famished. Hunger's all right but bad for morale. I combed the cottage for provisions and ended up with a quarter-full tin of powdered milk, a tiny piece of cheese I'd overlooked, one small cooking apple, some limp celery, a bottle of sauce and five grotty teabags. Hardly nosh on the Elizabethan scale. Just as well Henry wasn't due today. He'd have started on the divan. I glanced at my non-edible walnut carriage clock and decided to call on Squaddie. He's always good for a calorie.
First I would cerebrate for a minute or two. This Bexon business was starting to niggle.
I strolled into the garden. On the face of it, you couldn't call it much of a problem. I sat on the garden steps near the budgies' flight, whistling to think better.
An old geezer dies leaving behind a scrawled tale telling how he'd had a holiday and found some ruins or other. A mosaic. And a gold or two, Lovejoy. Don't forget them.
Then he leaves his story in duplicate. Well, big deal. Two nieces explained that. Clearly one booklet each and a funny drawing of Lady Isabella chucked in for luck. From the way Nichole's henchman Rink had behaved none of us knew any more than that. I chuckled at the memory of his absurd threat, making Manton and Wilkinson look round irritably at my whistling's sudden halt. Then I thought of Dandy Jack.
'Sorry, lads,' I told them. 'Just thinking.'
We all resumed, me sitting on the cold stones and the birds trilling on their enclosed branches. Singing makes their chests bulge so they rock about. Ever noticed that? It's a miracle they don't fall off. I expect their feet keep tighter hold on the twigs than you'd think from a casual look.
The problem lay of course in what we were all busy guessing. Nichole's wealthy hero obviously guessed an enormous crock of gold somewhere. Greedy sod. He was already at least a two-Rolls man. Janie guessed I was wasting my time again when I should have been seducing her away from her posh hubby. Dandy Jack was guessing that his Burne-Jones drawing would settle his boozing bills for some time to come, and he was right. Always assuming he got better and those bouncy nurses let him loose.
'Manton.' He looked at me in silence. 'What,' I asked, 'am I guessing? That's the real problem, isn't it?'
They glanced at each other, then back at me. We all thought hard.
'You're right,' I said, got out my rusty old bike and hit the road. I had to pump its front tyre up first, this being the space age.
About three miles from my cottage tidal creeks begin. Low-lying estuaries, woods, sloping green fields, orchards and beautiful undulating countryside blending with the mighty blue ocean and getting on my wick, though not everybody sees sense like I do.
Even though it was quite early a couple of anglers were ruminating on the Infinite along the Goldhammer inlet, and some nut was trying to get the total boredom of the scene on canvas - tomorrow's antique. Or even today's? I pedalled past with a cheery greeting. The artist was pleased and shouted a good day, but the anglers were mad because a bicycle bell warns the fish away. I gave it a couple of extra rings.
Cheered by my day's good turn, I rode out onto the strood.
That's a road sticking out from the shore across a short reach of sea to an island. You can easily pass over when the sea's out but have to wade chest-deep when the tide's in. People who live on these low windswept islands have the times of the tides written out and stuck inside their car doors. Always assuming you have a car, I thought nastily.
There's a lifebelt hung on the wooden railing so you get the message. The North Sea's no pond.
This particular strood's about half a mile long. Three or four boats lay sprawled close to the roadway on the exposed mudflats among reed wisps. A couple of fishing ketches were standing out to sea in the cold light. But the boat I was heading for would never sail again. It came into view halfway across, a blue lifeboat converted for houseboat living and sensibly rammed as far as possible on the highest inlet out of the sea marshes.