The Grail Tree (12 page)

‘If I could, I’d have done him that kindness years ago.’

‘I quite understand.’ We were suddenly eyeball to eyeball. It’s a very disturbing sensation because Jessica’s shapely and somewhat overpowering. ‘Come in one day, say tomorrow. Use a lot of money to buy one of Lennie’s pieces. Anything.’

‘I’ve no money.’

‘But,’ she explained, looking carefully like they do, ‘I have.’

‘Look, Jessica, love . . .’

‘You need clothes, Lovejoy,’ she breathed softly. ‘And other things. A woman always knows when a man’s so clever he can’t . . . fend for himself. And you need more than just money, sweetie.’

‘Er, look Jessica.’ My words stuck.

‘Think it over, Lovejoy.’

I escaped thankfully, saying maybe. Which was a lie, because I would for certain.

For an hour I went round the town, looked in at
the viewing day at our local auction. Some good stuff, some utter dross. Liz Sandwell was casually inspecting the porcelain.

‘Spending your ill-gotten profit, Liz?’ I joked, meaning about the Irish glass.

‘Precious little profit from you, Lovejoy.’

‘Jimmo been in?’

‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Lovejoy – those vases.’

Genuine large Second Satsumas, big with ostentatious white slip. I’ve already told you how little I think of them. They were nothing special, though honest Japanese nineteenth-century. Holland’s full of them.

‘Ordinary Satsumas,’ I told her. ‘Interested? When in doubt, Liz, buy.’ Smiling, I quoted the antiques dealers’ old maxim. It’s good advice, but only sometimes.

‘I could have sworn they’re the ones I sold Jimmo a fortnight ago. I heard he’d sold them on the coast for a whacking profit.’

‘Well, good for Jimmo. He’s learning.’

‘So why are they back?’

I shrugged. Double deals are common. You often handle things twice.

She was still doubtful, though. We chatted on about some French marionettes that were rumoured about town and then parted, both of us spicing the chat with cheerful falsehoods after the manner of our kind. I promised to see Liz for a drink on Saturday when I knew her bloke was splashing around a rugby field in Essex.

I tore myself away when I was sure Harry the attendant had popped out. Sure enough he was next door, where thoughtful brewers had guessed right six centuries back and built the Rose and Crown.

‘How lucky to find you here, Harry,’ I said, and persuaded Harry to a pint of beer. It took little time and less skill. He was busy at his newspaper with a pencil stub. ‘The Satsumas,’ I said. ‘Left side of the Victorian bookcase.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Who sent them in?’

‘Gawd knows.’ He dragged his eyes from the list of runners. ‘Want me to find out? I heard tell it was Caskie.’

I made a great show of thinking, finally shaking my head. ‘No, thanks, Harry. Just thought I’d seen them before.’

‘Cheers, Lovejoy.’

I walked back up East Hill and sat in St Peter’s churchyard to watch the motorcars go by on the distant London road. Some children were playing in the Castle Gardens across the way. Shoppers were streaking into town and trundling out again laden with bags. A really normal average scene, the sort I usually like to sit and enjoy for a minute or two. Happy and at ease.

But, folks. Old Henry dead
and
Jimmo suddenly well off?

Suddenly Jimmo has plenty of time to neglect his mediocre antiques business and go fishing, in a new two-tone motorcar. Second Satsumas are not worth much, and that seemed to be the only business Jimmo’d done. But again, so what? So, Jimmo’s made a few quid. That’s the game, isn’t it?

I rose and walked back through the alley towards the Arcade. Lisa saw me from the window of Woody’s. I waved, signalling. I drew a deep breath so I’d enough oxygen and opened the glass door of Woody’s Bar. She slipped out.

‘Hello, Lovejoy.’ ‘Lisa. Do something for me?’ ‘Yes. Do hurry. Woody’ll go spare. What is it?’ ‘Find time to go to Lennie’s. Know where?’ ‘Yes. Him and Jessica.’ She obviously disapproved. ‘That’s the one, love. Get Jessica alone, so Lennie doesn’t hear you. Tell her from me the deal’s on.’

‘With her, or with Lennie?’ I saw that anti-woman frown developing on Lisa’s brow.

‘It’s to do with antiques. Honestly.’

‘It had better be. She’s a right vampire.’

‘Shut up and listen. Tell her to buy the Satsumas at Gimbert’s auction tomorrow, and that if she does I’ll go through with it. Okay?’

‘The Satsumas at Gimbert’s, and you’ll go through with it,’ she repeated. ‘You still all right for the fireworks?’ She saw my blank expression. ‘Our date. Castle Park.’

‘Eh? Oh, yes. I’ve, not forgotten,’ I said, having clean forgotten. Woody appeared at the window in a rage. ‘Er, well, I’m a bit busy –’ I began but she had plunged back into the blue fumes. I should have scuppered that because the fewer complications the better. And young Lydia should be turning up for work. I’d glanced in at Margaret’s as I passed. Lydia and Margaret were going through some Victorian tapestries, one of today’s seriously underpriced antique items.

Getting Lisa to fix the arrangement with Jessica gave me half an hour to telephone Martha. It took a lot of nerve, but it had to be done. Mercifully, she was glad to hear me, and said could I come over please as soon as possible and had I heard the terrible news. We arranged to meet at a cafe on the Buresford road in thirty minutes. She said get a taxi and she would pay.

There’d been one whole day between my two visits
at Martha’s house. It was high time I found out what Henry had been up to in that time. Whatever it was, it got him crisped. And one other realization came to me as the old taxi trundled down the northside hill out of town past the railway. If Henry had an old pewter cup which he thought very special, well, it couldn’t have vanished entirely, could it? Henry might have gone, but his pewter cup was still around somewhere.

G
UN
H
ILL’S SUMMIT
now has a little walled garden, cafe, roses and fountain with trellis to trip the unwary at every step. It’s a quiet place overlooking a valley and woods, with sheep and barley fields adding local colour. Really average. Martha was waiting.

‘Henry and I used to come here.’

‘I’m so sorry, Martha.’ You never know what to say at these times.

‘You’ve just no idea, no idea.’ She blotted her face a minute while I gazed at the revolting rural scene below. ‘We were so happy.’

‘Martha,’ I said carefully. ‘I’m not after his pewter thing –’

‘Grail.’

Let her have her way. ‘Grail, then. Honestly I’m not. But one thing keeps nagging in my mind.’ I weighed Martha up. Maybe it wasn’t the right moment to talk about killing. ‘Is it possible that . . . well, that Henry had something really valuable? I mean, did you ever see his, er, Grail?’

‘No.’ She shook her head.

‘Didn’t he show you a picture, draw it for you, anything?’

‘No.’ She was looking at me, though I tried to stare casually into the middle distance. ‘Lovejoy, what is it?’

I shrugged, wondering how best to go on. For all I knew Martha herself might have . . . No. Impossible. Look at the woman, for heaven’s sake, the state she was in. I decided to plunge.

‘The boat. It was just a hull.’

‘So?’

‘So tin boats only explode when there’s something to explode.’

I’ll say this for Martha Cookson. She’s pretty cool. She sat there a full five minutes, occasionally lifting her head as if to speak but saying nothing and letting her eyes wander about the garden. She was very pale.

‘You believe . . .?’ she tried finally.

‘Yes, love.’

‘Have you told the Inspector?’

‘I’ve tried to, the pompous sod. He takes no notice. I’ve had a go at him. Look.’ I leaned across our table earnestly. ‘Henry said he’d fetch something back, right? A day passes. Then a . . . er, a tragedy. See what I mean, Martha? Henry said he was going to fetch something precious back. Well,’ I ended lamely, ‘maybe he did, see?’

‘You mean –’ Martha faced up bravely.

‘You know what I mean, Martha. No need to say it.’ We obviously had to go in stages or she’d be shattered. ‘Where did Henry go that day?’

‘I don’t know. He took some money.’ She wept a steady minute or so, remembering. ‘Henry isn’t – wasn’t – a very worldly man. I always had a tobacco jar in the living room with money in it, so he could take whatever he needed. It’s empty. He was pleased that day,
very quiet. Kept to himself.’ Again the slight defiance. ‘He prayed a lot. And before midday he went to church. They don’t burn candles or anything hereabouts, so he does it in the stables.’

‘He
what
?’

Martha fidgeted, obviously wondering if it was disloyal to reveal Henry’s foibles. She decided I could take it.

‘I was always having to buy candles. He had rather a thing about sanctification, you see. I can’t say I quite understood entirely.’ She sniffed again while I pondered the rum image of an elderly reject lighting candles in a stable. Some symbolism there, I supposed, if you bothered to look.

‘Always in the stables?’ I asked shrewdly.

‘Not necessarily. The boat, the stables, the garden shed sometimes. On the little wharf, the river bank beneath the big willow trees there, if there were no anglers out.’

‘Where would Henry actually
keep
it, though?’

‘He only ever brought it once before, that he ever admitted.’ She smiled, full of tears. ‘About six years ago. Twenty pounds of candles, all in one week. You see, the church . . .’

I nodded. East Anglia’s so Low Church you’ve to be careful blowing your nose in evensong – the merest flash of a white linen hankie’s enough to set people worrying that papists are smuggling altarcloths in.

‘Those two friends of his?’ I asked. ‘The ones I met at your house after lunch?’

‘Sarah and Thomas?’

‘How often did he see them?’

‘Very rarely. They never stay, only maybe an hour or so. You know how old college relationships decay.’

‘Show me the house?’ I asked. She thought a bit, nodded and discreetly paid the bill.

She let me poke about on my own outside.

The stables were a short row of three but now they were connected. Henry or somebody had removed the intersecting walls. It was quite a large roomy building, single windows to each third and those daft half-doors horses like to gaze over, only there were no horses. Sure enough, you could see black smudges and opaque white droplets where his untidy candles had burned on the sill. He had erected a trestle table for a crude work bench at the far end. I couldn’t resist going across, though it seemed an intrusion.

A spindle, hand-drill and a few small saws. A power drill. A good piece of thickish mahogany. A lathe. Underneath a table was a chair, in pieces. I picked up a loose leg, lovely African mahogany. Though you can’t really tell without seeing it entire, it had the feel of a mid-1880 English withdrawing-room chair by a good maker. Its weight puzzled me until I found the plug. ‘Whoops. Sorry, Henry.’

I’d intruded further than I wanted to. You fake old furniture by increasing its weight, making vigilant would-be purchasers think they’re buying heavy and dense (and very rare) hardwoods. A really skilled faker will drill
down
the interior of a chair leg and insert a beaten lead cylinder, carefully plugging the hole up with filings glued in place by an epoxy resin, or plastic wood stained under a coat of hard polyurethane varnish. It isn’t too easy to spot by naked eye alone if it’s done really well, but I’ve never seen a ‘reamer’, as it’s known in the antiques game, you can’t detect with a reasonable hand lens.

‘You sly old dog, Henry,’ I said. He wouldn’t want this wicked evidence found after his promise to Martha to go straight. I mentally asked Henry’s permission to come up one day when Martha was out. I’d finish it for him. ‘No good leaving a job half done, is it?’ I asked the bare ceiling innocently.

There was also a drawing. An emigrant miner’s brooch. It looked as though Henry was a regular contributor to the world of so-called antiques. These brooches are lovely small solid gold works of art. Cornish miners off to South Africa’s gold fields in late Victorian days made these precious brooches and pendants, often including a South African gold coin of the year in the design. Mostly though it is crossed shovels, picks, lamps, flags and suchlike. Naughty old Henry was obviously intending to fake one. I scanned around, but no gold.

The stable floor was beaten earth. Bare beams in clear view. No signs that one part of the whitewashed wall had been repainted lately. I went on to the cobbled courtyard to see the two loyal yokels duck back behind their kitchen curtains.

The shed was a blank. Hardly anything but garden tools. I meandered about to get the feel of the place. From the workshop bench in the stables you could see the shattered longboat and its huge tethering willow tree. I lit the stump of a candle and put it in a broken plantpot for safety before heading back in. Martha would be wondering what I was up to. I was careful to walk all round the house first. It took some time.

‘Did you see everything?’ She’d made hot crumpets, for heaven’s sake. I like them but get covered in butter. Everybody else never does.

‘Almost.’

‘I suppose you have questions to ask, Lovejoy.’

I drew breath. ‘There are two sets of stapled wires leading up to one of the windows.’

‘That was Henry’s idea.’

‘An extra phone, aerials?’

‘No.’ She smiled, embarrassed again, but defiant. ‘Henry’s hobby was badgers, owls, wildlife. He had night cameras and bleeps. They used to wake . . . us up.’

‘And . . .?’

‘He’d sometimes photograph them.’

‘At night? In the dark?’

‘Oh, yes. From our bedroom window. And night-glasses by the bedside.’

She showed me Henry’s elementary electronic centre upstairs. One was a commercial warning device, an interrupted ray system. Anyone walking between an issue and receptor outside activated an alarm by their bed. I’d found three boxes concealed among low foliage and wires from them dipping into the ground. The other was a battery-operated bell for the outside tripwire, crude but good. Benign old Henry had been pretty vigilant.