Moonspender (22 page)

Clipper was predictably surprised to see me.

"Good scrap in Woody's, Lovejoy." He laughed, but
watchful. "Over that stuttering whore."

I didn't rise to his goading. "Down to a mere ten cars, eh,
Clipper?" Four or five caravans and a scattered herd of
semiderelict
cars. "Catch much the other night?"

"What other night?" he asked, cutting a stick into the
fire and not looking.

"You and Ollie Hennessey. Going fishing."

"Better than selling hankies." He was inspecting my
Ruby. "Sixty quid for that crate of yours?" "Ollie's motor no
good, then?"

"None of your cracks, Lovejoy." He stared up angrily. He
could make three of me.

"Only a joke, Clipper." I waved him down. "You're
big for your boots, gaffer."

A man nearby snickered. There were four of them talking over a
battered car. Clipper meant my new job. A few children ran wild. A woman hung
out washing on an improvised line. No red Montego was among the motors.

Deciding on a guess, not quite random, I said, "That's what I
came about, Clipper. I heard your mates were sniffing around the end of
Pittsbury Wood."

The air stilled. Clipper looked at his hands. Of a sudden his
knife seemed a foot longer. His patch is near the railway station. Traffic was
nudging past a hundred yards off". Broad daylight, so I felt under no
threat. Not much.

"Doing no harm even if we were," Clipper said evenly.
"Which we weren't."

"No. Course not." I smiled pacifically at his mates.
"But my job's got responsibilities, Clipper. The nature conservancy people
are complaining about you lot killing wild birds, uprooting flowers and
whatnot."

Clipper relaxed. "Everybody's got a down on us poor
gyppos
, Lovejoy. You know that." His mates laughed.

"Well, just be warned. I'm setting a gamekeeper by the gravel
pits for the next few nights. Cheers."

I'd done well. Clipper called after me, "Ta, Lovejoy. I owe
you a favor."

To keep up the deception I laughed along and called back,
"Aye. Tell any real gypsies you meet to let me have some caravan
ware." Caravan ware is the type of metal buckets, tins, pans, and
suchlike, graphically painted in
florals
and rustic
scenes. You will see them on canal longboats, and occasionally genuine gypsies
will sell you one.

I drove off in high good humor. Two of the men even waved, all
friendly. My hands were damp. I was certain that over the past two or three
days I'd spoken with the killer, and I was still breathing.

At the farm Mavis had a phone message. "Councillor Ryan
agreed to the proposed building project." I phoned Suzanne York to prepare
for invaders that afternoon. Then I warned Doc Pryor at the rehabilitation unit
that he was not to notice if suddenly a gang of
navvies
gently stole the facing brickwork of his building.

"Are you serious, Lovejoy?" he asked.

"They'll replace it with new, Doc, and repair your damage."

"But, Lovejoy," he tried. I talked over him.

"Don't worry. Doc. It's complicated, but it all comes right
in the end." Fingers crossed.

Before Mrs. Ryan dragged me into the woods and wreaked her sordid
lusts on my poor defenseless body, I summoned Robie. I had Mavis digging
through the files for notable public criticisms of Manor Farm over the past
year, and got the district map out.

Robie said, just short of outrage, "I should be with the
herd, Lovejoy; south pasture. You're another of them, doing wrong by the
land."

I'd had enough. "Shut up, you miserable old bugger. See this
map?"

He was really miffed. "I don't need no map."

"But I do. Which farms are productive?"

His wizened face split in a grin. "All on um, Lovejoy."

"Except us?"

"Aye. We're mostly Grade Two land. There's only bits of the
farm country Grade One. They can grow anything along there."

"Why can't we?"

"
You'm
an idiot, son. This land's
goodhearted, till you mess it about. Now it costs a fortune in fertilizer
chemicals and we get a big yield—of idiot subsidy crops. You're a
jack-in-office, lad. Not a clue."

"But you have?"

That staunched him. "Aye."

"Suppose I set you to grow old-fashioned on ten acres,
Robie."

"The
councillor'd
scupper it."

"Never mind him. Where would you choose?"

He pointed to the field abutting Pittsbury Wood's northern
boundary. "There."

"New Black field. Why there, Robie?"

"Black earth, not the local red. It'd grow anything, New
Black."

"Has it always?"

"Not been there long, lad. Barely two hundred years."

"That can't be true." The farms in the Eastern Hundreds
have been the same shapes since before
Domesday
Book
was written by William the Bastard's one patient scribe. Robie saw my disbelief
and tapped the map.

"Till then it was part of Pittsbury Wood. Trees mulched that
field since time began."

It was a quadrilateral extending between our wood and the estate's
apple orchards. Where they killed poor George Prentiss. They'd then carried his
body half a mile, to be gored by Charleston the bull. A good way of shifting the
blame.

"Robie. Think up a list of best crops. You'll grow
nine-tenths for public sale, and one-tenth special stuff."

"What special stuff?"

I lost my rag and yelled, "How the hell do I know?"
People expect me to do every bleeding thing. "Get gone. Fetch your crop
list to the Treble Tile about nine."

"Right, gaffer." He was looking at me. Just then Mavis
came trotting in with some files.

"But, Lovejoy," Mavis wailed, "Sir John's
secretary's just phoned a supper invitation for tonight and—"

I took her shoulders. I was due to meet Mrs. Ryan for a woodland
rape or else, and suddenly everybody wants to chat. No wonder you get narked.
"Mavis, doowerlink. Your job depends on my performance during the next
hour. Contain yourself till I return."

"What does he mean?" I heard her asking Robie as I hit
the road. He didn't answer either. He'd now got problems of his own. High time.

Mrs. Ryan lay over me, penciling my features with a grass blade.
Tiny women often do this, I've noticed. Heavier, taller women he and give
horizontal pillow glances. I suppose there are statistics somewhere. But all
talk afterward. Why? I was away in the dozy death, so tragically full of
dismay, which affects the man's
detumescent
soul.
Women think a man just nods off. But if ever one senses that terrible grief and
knows the right thing to do, she can have me for life. I'd love her for
nowt
.

"Lovejoy?"

Here we go. "
Mmmmh
?"

"You've had a lot of women, haven't you?"

"You made that blade of grass a corpse. No wonder
conservationists are out to get me."

She laughed, her breasts shaking. Her blouse was over her
shoulders, agape, like her jacket. A cynic would have said she'd come prepared,
pleated plaid riding skirt
so's
not to show a crumple
from being
rucked
up. We were deep in Pittsbury Wood.
I'd sent the two gamekeepers along the river on some wild goose chase.

"Tell me about your other women."

This called for my purest he. "You're my first, Mrs. Ryan. I
was a virgin until you."

Another laugh, an admonitory tap on my face. "You're an
innocent, Lovejoy. But feral.
Therianthropic
. A born
theriac
."

What was the woman on about? "One day I'll nick a dictionary
and give you a mouthful back, Mrs. Ryan."

She prized my eye open to see in. Her indignation was genuine.
"You see? You never call me anything but Mrs. Ryan."

"You told me to."

Another
minislap
, this time more impact.
"That was ages ago." A pause. Cunningly I slid my eye shut.
"Lovejoy. What's my Christian name?"

"Erm. Jane?"

Silence. Well, bound to be close. "Jean?" Silence, but
with threat. "Joan? Joanne?" Maybe it didn't begin with J.
"Florence?"

"It's Dora." Dora? I could have sworn . . .
"Naturally I took the precaution of saying always be formal. James is so
quick. A single slip and . . . and ..." She gave a moan of exasperation
and rolled over.

"You see, Lovejoy, it's not only James. It's women too."
As she spoke I came to, leaned up and gazed thoughtfully across her lovely
form. The ground swelled where we lay, rose in a great sweeping curve through
the wood. How wide its diameter, if you completed the half-circle to a full
one? A mile? She was prattling on, but tardily and with sorrow. "It's
different for a woman, Lovejoy. All other women are at her heels. They'd be on
me like wolves if this got out."

Well, women have these wars. I let her talk,
ooohing
and
aahing
to show I was all ears while I thought
about this wood. The great King
Cunobelin
,
Shakespeare's Cymbeline, Lived here before the Roman emperor, that clever idiot
god Claudius, decided to dust us over. I've no illusions about these earthworks
that mark our countryside. They were probably nothing more than cattle
compounds, though they're called all sorts of fanciful names: ramparts—hence
Biam's
Ramparts Comer— dikes, walls. We just don't know.
Archeologists don't know most of all. This particular "rampart" on
which we lay runs in an enormous half-circle through the wood. Ten feet high,
sloping sides, about twelve feet or more thick. Trees grow thickly on and by
it, and the undergrowth is densest about its slopes.
Robie'd
said the New Black Field was formed by clearing the wood and leveling that part
of the great ring that continued out there. Mrs. Ryan and I had made love lying
on the ridge's slop>e. We'd kept dry in the autumnal cool on her riding
cloak. Her horse was knocking about somewhere.

". . . not enough any longer, Lovejoy."

"Eh?" Some ominous tone had snuck in.

"James lives a marvelous Life—business, great
supppers
, council work. For me, it's second."

Thank God I'd come to. This line of reflection was playing into my
hands. "But you've got everything," cunning old Lovejoy said, full of
thoughtful concern. "You run the estate. You ride, entertain. And
then," I added as if I knew everything about everything, "there's
your special interest, isn't there?"

Her head turned, tense. "Special interest, Lovejoy?"

"Me, Mrs. Ryan."

She laughed, that disturbing tension easing. "Promise me
you'll stay, Lovejoy."

"I'm not planning a move."

"I don't mean that, darling." She pulled me down to her
throat. Her skin felt cold. She talked softly over my nape. "I'm not
stupid. I know you're only between wrongdoings. You'll leave as soon as it
suits, back to your silly old furniture and vases."

Silly old furniture? She was off her nut. I told her so. She
didn't laugh this time, just drew the fold of her cloak over my bare shoulder.

"Promise me you'll stay, Lovejoy." She sounded so sad.
"Even if you don't mean it. Promise."

"Why me?" I don't really care for this sort of talk. The
words are the same as always, but it takes more out of you.

"Because you do what you will, no matter what."

Oddest reason I've ever heard for a promise, but here goes.
"I promise, love."

"Thank you, darling." She was still speaking misty-eyed
as she raised my head so she could peer into me. "Now seal it. I won't
mind if you hurt."

Yet only last week she'd played merry hell because I'd left a mark
on her thigh, which quite honestly couldn't be helped and I mean that most
sincerely. I was especially obedient as I complied, because I was sure now that
Mrs. Ryan wasn't an enemy. Which was far, far more than I could say for most.

And now I knew what to do. It'd lead to more lawsuits, but hang
the expense.

Then I sent word to Winstanley that I'd got wind of a possible
Roman bronze found locally. Then phoned Sykie's sons with the same he. Then I
told Mrs. Ryan and Robie that I had to visit the farm employers' federation
office—fervently hoping there was such a thing because I made the name up—and
went to
Gimbert's
auction on East Hill.

18

Tinker was waiting for me in the delectable aroma of paradise:
sweat, dust, and centuries of humanity's grime. Add greed, and it's the nearest
to heaven we'll ever get. It's honestly moved me to tears before now.

The auction had been going about twenty minutes. Old Spurrier was
on the rostrum because our regular
gaveler
was sick.
He's precise and slow, for like all auctioneers he has no cerebral cortex.
People—meaning dealers—had barely arrived. Auctioneers start with rubbish,
saving the best wine for last, so to speak. Only a few adrenalin-drenched
hopefuls were breathlessly penciling minuscule bids in their offset catalogs.
The current flavor of the month however was jubilation. I was among my own
kind, within arm's reach of antiques.