understand. Nothing I can say to persuade you to postpone your journey, Lovejoy?’
‘Not really.’ I grinned but without much conviction. What with Jason in his cavalry twills and his armyofficer efficiency, the Heindricks and their murderous driver, and trouble with Ledger and his merrie men, I was really in the gunge now.
‘You wouldn’t be crossing to Ireland?’
‘That
Paradise Lost
you got me to buy? No, Jason. Forgotten all about that.’ That was the bookseller-printer I’d told Sinead about, who owed me.
‘A natural mistake, Lovejoy.’
‘Sure it was. See you, Jason.’
He said evenly, ‘Soon, eh?’
Recognizing me, the ticket collector did not hold out his hand for my ticket, having once had his thumb clipped with his own clipper by a certain antique dealer to whom he had shown ferocious rudeness. I paused. He recoiled into his red booth, wincing at the memory, hands behind his back.
‘Go straight through,’ he said in a shaky falsetto.
‘Go straight through . . . ?’ I prompted.
‘Go straight through . . . sir.’
The train was on time. Janet had made me some cheese and tomato butties, which lasted me almost till the station was out of sight. All I could think of was Pat Harvest, with annoyance. The British Museum Turner exhibition ‘doing the sublime bit’, indeed. That innocent exhibition of watercolours had suddenly informed everybody how important some ideas are – and promptly sent the price of first editions of Edmund Burke’s book on the
Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful
soaring five hundred per cent in three days among dealers and provincial antiquarians. A mint copy cost a few bob in 1757. It makes you sick.
Still, a few things stay the same in this murderous antiques game. Dear Patricia’s idea of the sublime and the beautiful hadn’t changed since she was born. Money. And at least I’d tried to lay a false trail by repeating those different locations to anyone who cared to listen. Like Jason.
* * *
On the plane they gave us those plastic dinners. I always get confused by so many little pots and get fed up halfway through. The hostess was bonny but their uniforms look so sterile they put me off. I dozed, worried about the mess I was in.
My mind goes funny when I’m sleeping yet not sleeping. Joxer had done some quiet jobs for the Heindricks, so quiet indeed he had been compelled to work in the night hours. Night, when there would be none of Marcia’s amateur actors rehearsing on the greensward among the Priory ruins. Which meant stuff could be carried into Joxer’s workshed and worked on without the chance of some stray actor witnessing Joxer’s secret labours. I knew that Jimmy Day and Marcia and some of the others used Joxer’s little loo, and occasionally persuaded him to brew up for them on his bunsen burner. He was usually pretty tolerant and pleased with company, though dramatics folk can’t talk about anything else except drama.
As the plane banked, Joxer’s last words came to me:
Can’t you watch a minute with me?
Whether people ask for you to watch a minute or an hour with them, the answer’s always no from goons the likes of me. Aren’t people pathetic, I thought in my miserably fitful doze. And whatever I found in Kilfinney there’d be hell to pay when I zoomed home – Patrick would go berserk about being tricked out of my cottage, Lily would be demented about the money, the Heindricks would be decidedly upset when they found out I’d scarpered, and Kurak at having murdered Joxer for possibly nothing. But Jason was thick as thieves with Lena Heindrick, so Sinead said, and the bastard might have sussed me out at the station when I phoned Patricia Harvest. And Ledger distrusted everybody. I groaned inwardly, remembering I’d signed his bloody form the other night. Had its typescript included a promise not to leave the area without letting him know? What a mess.
The trouble is, I always feel like a chicken in a Western – under
‘Not really.’ I grinned but without much conviction. What with Jason in his cavalry twills and his armyofficer efficiency, the Heindricks and their murderous driver, and trouble with Ledger and his merrie men, I was really in the gunge now.
‘You wouldn’t be crossing to Ireland?’
‘That
Paradise Lost
you got me to buy? No, Jason. Forgotten all about that.’ That was the bookseller-printer I’d told Sinead about, who owed me.
‘A natural mistake, Lovejoy.’
‘Sure it was. See you, Jason.’
He said evenly, ‘Soon, eh?’
Recognizing me, the ticket collector did not hold out his hand for my ticket, having once had his thumb clipped with his own clipper by a certain antique dealer to whom he had shown ferocious rudeness. I paused. He recoiled into his red booth, wincing at the memory, hands behind his back.
‘Go straight through,’ he said in a shaky falsetto.
‘Go straight through . . . ?’ I prompted.
‘Go straight through . . . sir.’
The train was on time. Janet had made me some cheese and tomato butties, which lasted me almost till the station was out of sight. All I could think of was Pat Harvest, with annoyance. The British Museum Turner exhibition ‘doing the sublime bit’, indeed. That innocent exhibition of watercolours had suddenly informed everybody how important some ideas are – and promptly sent the price of first editions of Edmund Burke’s book on the
Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful
soaring five hundred per cent in three days among dealers and provincial antiquarians. A mint copy cost a few bob in 1757. It makes you sick.
Still, a few things stay the same in this murderous antiques game. Dear Patricia’s idea of the sublime and the beautiful hadn’t changed since she was born. Money. And at least I’d tried to lay a false trail by repeating those different locations to anyone who cared to listen. Like Jason.
* * *
On the plane they gave us those plastic dinners. I always get confused by so many little pots and get fed up halfway through. The hostess was bonny but their uniforms look so sterile they put me off. I dozed, worried about the mess I was in.
My mind goes funny when I’m sleeping yet not sleeping. Joxer had done some quiet jobs for the Heindricks, so quiet indeed he had been compelled to work in the night hours. Night, when there would be none of Marcia’s amateur actors rehearsing on the greensward among the Priory ruins. Which meant stuff could be carried into Joxer’s workshed and worked on without the chance of some stray actor witnessing Joxer’s secret labours. I knew that Jimmy Day and Marcia and some of the others used Joxer’s little loo, and occasionally persuaded him to brew up for them on his bunsen burner. He was usually pretty tolerant and pleased with company, though dramatics folk can’t talk about anything else except drama.
As the plane banked, Joxer’s last words came to me:
Can’t you watch a minute with me?
Whether people ask for you to watch a minute or an hour with them, the answer’s always no from goons the likes of me. Aren’t people pathetic, I thought in my miserably fitful doze. And whatever I found in Kilfinney there’d be hell to pay when I zoomed home – Patrick would go berserk about being tricked out of my cottage, Lily would be demented about the money, the Heindricks would be decidedly upset when they found out I’d scarpered, and Kurak at having murdered Joxer for possibly nothing. But Jason was thick as thieves with Lena Heindrick, so Sinead said, and the bastard might have sussed me out at the station when I phoned Patricia Harvest. And Ledger distrusted everybody. I groaned inwardly, remembering I’d signed his bloody form the other night. Had its typescript included a promise not to leave the area without letting him know? What a mess.
The trouble is, I always feel like a chicken in a Western – under
Similar Books
