Moonspender (21 page)

Toffee emerged to coil round my ankle. She'll do anything for
warmth. "As long as it doesn't lead to a lawsuit." Enid did her opal
stare. "I've had a few bad encounters lately."

She nodded understandingly. "Those fox-hunters. We believe
you're empathic to our cause." Toffee leapt on my other side. Blackbird on
one shoulder, black cat on my other; no wonder Enid looked apprehensive.

"What you want me to do, love?"

"Keep intruders away from the retreats."

I looked my question: What the hell's a retreat?

"Places where wild flowers grow, where we gather and
ritualize. Do you know that the world is exterminating ten species a day?"
These statistics slide off me like snow from a duck. She grew vehement.
"It's your duty to protect Pittsbury Wood and Earth Mother, Lovejoy!"

Toffee raised herself, arching and hissing. Mildly I looked about.
Usually she only does that for dogs. I told her to shut it. She subsided but
stared at Enid with undisguised hate. Well, females never hit it off.
"How?" I asked Enid.

"Put your gamekeepers round the perimeter. We've had birds'
egg collectors, nature photographers, badger-hunters, all sorts of
predators."

Everybody suddenly wants me to post guards round the countryside.
I'd only been gaffer a day.

"Look," I said, deliberately goading to suss her out. I
just didn't believe in Enid, not after finding she was Harold Ayliffe's bird.
"There's only two gamekeepers. I'm no saint, Enid—"

"Saint?" She was suddenly bitter, furious. "Saints,
Lovejoy? If women were Devil's Advocate no saint would ever be beatified—"

Toffee sprang down and raked Enid's hand, spitting. Blood started
along Enid's skin in parallel lines. Enid yelped and rose. Toffee streaked onto
the wall clawing Enid's neck. Enid screamed, recoiling with blood everywhere.
Toffee was all ready for another go but I yelled her name angrily. She returned
at smug stroll, quite unfazed.

"Gormless moggie," I said, threatened her. She sniffed
my fist. "I'll thump you. Sorry, Enid. She's never done that before, not
even with field mice. Toffee, no breakfast for that. Burke."

Toffee licked her paws. I'd never seen her so satisfied. She knows
I've not the heart not to feed her. Like all women she takes advantage. Enid
was staring at Toffee, at me.

She said, "Doesn't she attack them?" She meant the
chiselers currently eating me out of house and home.

"The birds are friends." It came out before I realized.
"Er, Enid. One thing. Tell me about George." She halted at my words,
cast a gray glance. She was still blotting her neck and hands.

"George is dead." Words flat as a board.

"Then use the past tense."

"George was nothing to do with us. He should have stayed at
home. Like the rest of them."

What a lot of plurals. I watched her go, out through the gap in
the hedge and up the lane, a small indomitable figure. I fed Earth Mother's
assorted scroungers, then had my fried bread and drove to work. I took the
aerial photos Vanessa had delivered, to examine when I had a minute.

At the manor house Councillor Ryan was alone having his breakfast,
a runny egg with Worcester sauce. His thickened mottled face revealed what his
shape did not, nights of council arguments and the big-belly lunches. I swear
the years fell off him when I entered.

" 'Morning, Lovejoy. Settled in?"

"Yes, sir."

He beckoned me in and gave me his wife's coffee cup. I stood.
"Good to see you. Problems?"

"No, sir. An offer."

His hand stilled, slowly lowered the coffee pot. It was Royal
Doulton, Edwardian vintage but pristine. Sensible spending, that. A real
antique set costs a fortune. As things stand, you can easily make up an
oldish
Wedgwood or Royal Doulton set for a quarter of the
price of new.

"Money, Lovejoy?" He thrilled to the possible.

"No, sir. Money plus prestige."

He laughed then, shaking his head. "No, no, Lovejoy. Prestige
costs money."

"Make a profit my way, and you'll be near a knighthood."

"Knighthood? For a confidence trick, Lovejoy?"

His coffee was great, but then I've no culinary record to compare.
"Your building firm at Seven Elm Green."

"Yes. It's an honest business."

With colossal exercise of will power I didn't guffaw.
"Transfer some brickwork from Point A to Point B and you'll rescue a
health unit from closure."

"Who pays?" He knew the unit I meant.

"Point B." Well, cross that bridge.

He lit a fag and thoughtfully polluted the dining room. "Sit
down, Lovejoy. Have you had your breakfast?"

"No," I lied, settling down near the toast.
"Thanks. This is it: Set your
brickies
dismantling the unit's exterior while repairing the interior damage. A, er, man
called Sandy will organize its reinstallation elsewhere. I've already arranged
the finance. Payment on the nail."

"What guarantee, Lovejoy?"

"My job," I said. "You're the boss, not me."

"True." He blew a smoke noose, watching me. "Do you
always eat that hungry, Lovejoy?"

"Eh? I didn't think you wanted your eggs." He'd invited
me for breakfast, for God's sake.

"Is it worth a press announcement, Lovejoy?"

"No." I get narked by little coffee cups, hardly a swig
in the damned things. "I've a friend runs the 
Advertiser
.
After it's done we accidentally leak to the press . . ."I hesitated. Mrs.
Ryan was there in the doorway being amazed at the spectacle of six)use and
lover noshing a merry repast. "We don't mention your profit." I rose.
"Morning, Mrs. Ryan. Forgive the intrusion."

She swept in. "Stay, Lovejoy. There's much to discuss."

"Right," I said, sadly scanning the bare plates. She
rang for more grub. Ryan was due at the town hall, which meant I'd be able to
refuel in peace, so to speak. I smiled at him when he rose and said yes, stay
and finish.

"If you're sure, sir," I said obediently.

About black magic, superstition, witchcraft.

I'm not at all superstitious. I never get spooked. No, honestly.
It was just coincidental that I decided to broach these questions in broad
daylight. I got the Ruby parked in the tangle of motors that
thrombose
the shopping mall and made Moran's Music Shop in
good time.

Not many two-manual harpsichords play during working hours, so the
music led me to Dorothy, my favorite witch. Actually I don't know any others,
but even if I did she'd be a contender. You know what I mean. Dorothy is
Moran's resident musical talent, strings and keyboard, to pull the crowd.

"John Dowland?" I guessed. She plays in the foyer,
forever complaining about the cold.

"A pavan from his
Lachrymae
,
Lovejoy." Dorothy is always dreamy, playing. The passion's always a
Dowland giveaway, like lust in John Donne's religious poems.

"Lovely, Dorothy." I scanned the crowd, maybe twenty
people. Not the right time for confidences about black magic.

Dorothy could see my expression in the window glass, and
gracefully improvised a coda to the pavan. Her instrument was a kit assembly,
based on an early seventeenth century Flemish maker called Ruckers. New, it
costs half the price of a new car.

"Break time, folks," I announced, shuffling people into
the street. They clapped a bit, moved out. Her jealous husband Les glowered
from the side window. I grinned and pulled the chain so his roller shutter
descended on his distress.

"About witchcraft, Dorothy. You still one?"

"Are you serious, Lovejoy?" She was curious but muted
her voice. "What on earth are you asking things like that for?"

"Are you. . . ?" What the hell do you call a witch? Do
they go in leagues, like football? . . . "you all the same, love?"

Passing shoppers gazed into the foyer. I pretended to be a sober
harpsichord purchaser. If Ledger heard I was boning up on witchcraft in the
High Street he'd have me certified.

"Of course not, Lovejoy. There are four white covens locally.
If you want a black coven the
nearest's
beyond
Wormingford
—" "Hang on. White? Black?"

"White roughly equals good. Black equals—"

A nod shut her up. "Where do you meet, love?"

"Please don't ask me anymore." She closed the keyboard
and rose. I grabbed her arm.

"Dorothy. Please, love." I was in agony. "Answer me
one question." She hesitated. I cast about, put my hand on the imitation
Ruckers harpsichord. "I swear I'm on your side; on Dowland's original
keyboard."

Out stormed Les to sling me out of his grottie foyer. "Piss
off, Lovejoy, or I'll—"

"Dorothy. Please." My eyes held hers. "Is it in
Pittsbury Wood, on the four old days? Lammas? Candlemas—?"

She hesitated, gave a discreet nod. I kissed her coldish cheek and
left, an inch nearer truth.

17

Oliver Hennessey was the bloke I'd seen in Woody's caff with
Clipper the gypsy. He's proprietor of Vesco's supermarket. I caught him
supervising the checkout tills.

"Only four girls turned up today," he said bitterly,
giving a girl a tin of pineapple chunks. "Put that through a few times,
Tracy."

"Yes, Mr. Hennessey." She mouthed to a pop tune wafting
over the hubbub, rolled her eyes at me in mock exasperation. The put-through is
the checkout con trick. I watched Tracy for a minute, for old time's sake. She
rattled customers' figures into the till then, with a casual, "This yours,
love?" got a denial, lifted the tin to one side and carried on. But the
price of the chunks would be on the shopper's bill. The old dears pay up
unthinkingly. At the end of the day Ollie keeps the extra. It's always the
tills nearest the walls where the put-through is worked, so beware. It only
takes new girls three attempts to become perfect con merchants. Says a lot for
mankind.

"Any old tills, Ollie?" I asked in his office. "Old
adding machines?" They chuck them out free. Form a small collection and in
a year or so you'll be able to sell them at a convincing profit. It's not
antiques, but it's bread.

"
Mmmmh
." He stared morosely at
the mayhem of people smashing into each other's heaped wheelies. "Thought
you were on the scrounge.
Coupla
quid each? They're
in the stores."

"Ta. I'll collect them on the way out." I went to stare
with him. God, I hate shopping. Whichever way I put my plastic bags down they
fall over. A proper pre-Edwardian shopping bag stands up on its own. Our
ancestors weren't thick. It takes modem civilization Like us to be gormless to
the highest degree of efficiency. You might say we've raised incompetence to a
modem art.

I said, "Here, Ollie. Did you get your car back? I heard it
was nicked down by the river while you were fishing."

He started then, as I knew he would, snapping right out of his
gloomy inspection and really seeing me for the first time. "Who told
you?"

"In the paper. Only, I thought I saw it yesterday. Manor Farm
way."

"Blue Cortina?" he asked, too casually.

"No. An old Montego. Light red, four-door?"

"You didn't report it or anything?"

"Your business, Ollie, not the peelers'."

"Thanks, Lovejoy." Desperately he began maneuvering me
out. "Take two old tills.
Tracy'll
show you
where."

"Ta, Ollie. Oh, still at the old hobby?"

Another start, but more deeply shocked this time. He looked
stricken. When he heard I was Mrs. Ryan's estate manager he'd have to do
something. Him and his nongypsy mates, that is. I gave him a knowing wink.

"Fishing?" he said, meaning something different.

"Yes," I said, meaning what he meant.

"No, Lovejoy. Too busy."

We parted in mutual apprehension, me to raid his stores and chat
up the succulent Tracy, him to phone his mates and say I signified trouble. I
drove to see Clipper. Start as you mean to go on.

Driving to the gypsy site with six obsolete electronic calculators
and three old mechanical spring-tills in the Ruby, I should have been pleased.
I wasn't. Tracy had turned out to be simply what she seemed, an all-time first
for womankind. She was an ordinary checkout lass. No special relationship with
Ollie—in fact she thought him a worm. I'd learned nothing new, but fixed a date
with her at the sports club, Saturday. Any port in a storm, and life's one long
storm.

Our local gypsies are distinguished by being nongypsies. They
neither sow, spin, reap, nor tinker. They couldn't mend a kettle to save their
lives. Mostly they exist on social security supplemented by nicking anything
metal. They masquerade as poor downtrodden vagrants so they can plead
victimization if anybody threatens to stop their many illegal scams.