The Sleepers of Erin (19 page)

Old Joxer, God rest him, had done a superb job, for all his habitual tipsiness. The weight of gold’s difficult to judge – I mean, who’d think that a whole ton of the stuff makes a block only twenty-five inches long by ten by twelve? It’s just so damned heavy.

Heindrick carried a case to a Pembroke table by the window and placed the torcs on a velvet cloth. There were fourteen, great twists of gold made into crescents to be worn by chieftains before the coming of Rome. Except they had been made over the last few months. They were exquisitely done, finished to a degree and gleaming with the love that the craftsman had put into them. My eyes blurred. That Joxer.

‘One’s genuine, Lovejoy.’ Lena had approached. ‘Balls – I mean they’re all fakes, love.’ There wasn’t a vibe among the lot of them. I touched them to make sure.

‘Well done. Show him now, darling.’

And Heindrick brought out a fifteenth. Well, I mean. If you’ve ever seen a diamond beside a burnt match – identical substance, but a world of difference. The ancient ages beat out of this pre-Roman Celtic torc with stunning impact. When my fingers lay reverently on its radiant surface all I could feel were the bell-like tremors in my chest. Genuine is genuine, and a real antique is nothing but pure solid love.

‘What’s the plan?’ somebody said dully, and I thought with horror:
that’s my voice saying that
. Whose side was I on for God’s sake, theirs or mine?

‘This way, darling.’

I don’t know how, but the next thing Lena was walking me in the grounds, Heindrick and Jason presumably still mesmerized by all that gold.

The trouble is that women like Lena start life miles ahead of the rest. She was one of those birds who make your breathing funny soon as they’re in reach. Attired in a loose high-collared knitted dress that could have given me security all year, and embellished with jewellery that made me moan, she was blindingly attractive. The fact that she pulled Heindrick’s strings and therefore would effectively decide where the scam’s profits went only weakened me further. Don’t misunderstand: I really was honestly still bitter about Joxer’s death, and being manoeuvred into joining the Heindricks was particularly shameful. In any case it should be obvious to anybody by now that in spite of not having much in a material sense I’m consistent and pretty honest. But I’ve always found that women tend to deflect you from the right course. I mean, I’d have been light years off by now but for Shinny, and if it wasn’t for Lena I’d be hiding on Kicknadun watching her men plant the sleepers and readying myself to happen by with a spade in the dark hours . . . We held hands like lovers do. I thought she was carrying an apple till I looked: it was only the enormous velvety Muzo emerald (the world’s best, if you’ve a spare fortune to spend) in her ring. She led me towards a summerhouse in the landscaped greenery.

‘Time to be utterly frank, darling.’

‘I always am.’

‘You and I have a kind of duty, Lovejoy.’

‘To . . . ?’

‘Each other, no?’

‘And the torcs?’

‘Let’s think of those as—’ she hesitated, all girlish charm – ‘the ties that bind two hearts that beat as one, shall we?’

‘That’s a hell of a way to put it.’

A couple of gardeners grovelled and melted among shrubbery in a practised drill. Clearly other companions had strolled this way before me. By the tall garden wall was a low brick structure. I sniffed the air – somebody was running a paraffin-burning kiln without its door sealed.

I felt a right daffodil in my dragon-covered gown, very conscious of the fact that men’s legs always look a scream.

‘Do come in, darling.’ She led ahead into the circular summerhouse. It consisted of one large room. I’d never seen so many curves, bed, furniture, rugs, the vast discshaped carpet, mirrors, the lot. The curtains began to hiss closed. Lena had touched a wall thing. ‘Do you like it?’ The curtains stopped, all but drawn to.

‘Are we going round?’ The sun was ducking slowly from one drape to another.

‘Of course. The summerhouse can turn with the sunlight.’

‘Oh. Right, then,’ I said lamely and perched on the bed. ‘You can’t mean pull the old violin gig on your husband, Jason, Kurak—’

‘Let me explain, darling.’ Lena undid the belt of her dress. ‘Money of itself has very little attraction for me.’

‘Mmmh?’ I said politely.

‘That’s God’s own truth, darling.’ She sounded quite earnest, really convincing. Her arms lifted, the way they undo zips. ‘I want more than changing numbers on a bank statement.’

‘Everybody’s a collector, Lena. Of money, sensations, porcelain, vintage cars, experiences. If money’s not your thing, what is it you collect?’

‘I collect people, darling.’

Her dress fell. She did not immediately step out of the heap like other women do, just stood there turning slightly and slipping her rings off, one by one and watching herself in one of the oval mirrors. A lesser woman would have crossed to the dressing-table and immediately done something to her hair. Lena simply continued undressing where she stood, smoothing her petticoat away from her hips. The faience necklace was Egyptian, as old as some pyramids, and its eighty or so pieces were splayed across her breast exactly as the pharaohs’ wives had worn them. Faience jewellery is only glazed earthenware or early pottery done in small palmates, fruits, dates and figs thread-linked between tiny cylinders, but worn right it is breathtaking.

‘Are people collectable?’ I said.

‘Certainly.’ All her clothes were about her ankles. She turned and walked in one motion.

‘In bottles of fluid, like the Royal College of Surgeons do?’

‘Not quite.’ She stood against me. My face pressed itself into her of its own accord. ‘I collect them for what they do.’

She raised a knee to the bed and pushed my gown from my shoulders, slowly, with introspective care.

‘And what do they do?’ I asked, muffled.

‘Everything I say, darling. From being exquisite bores, like your Jason, to those who will commit savage, awful things.’ She was breathing quicker, but not as fast as me.

‘You mean . . .’

‘Even killing? Yes.’

‘Like Kurak?’

‘Yes, darling. Like Kurak killed Joxer. And like you.’

‘Me? You’re off your head. I’ve never killed anybody in my life.’ Except when it was accidental or somebody else’s fault.

‘Including you, darling.’ We were on the bed now, hands and breathing anywhere and any old how.

‘Why collect us – me?’

‘Because you’ll respond against your will. To me, darling. For me. It’s thrilling.’ The luscious faience motifs from Ancient Egypt fell over my face as she murmured, ‘Power, darling. I crave it like you crave me.’

Am I for sale?’

‘Everybody’s for sale, Lovejoy.’

I had to ask what my price was for joining her collection of serfs, each one of us blindly obedient to her whims.

‘You?’ She leant up on an elbow, smiling down. ‘Your payment is a choice of the torcs once the scam is pulled – plus a permanent salary. Plus me.’

I started to say I would consider her offer but didn’t quite make it.

In that little death which follows after, I became aware that the curtains had somehow accidentally hissed apart all round, letting in sunlight upon us. Anybody could have seen us, even from the house. We were like tomatoes in a greenhouse. I should have been anxiously working out what bargain Lena and I had sealed, but sleep wouldn’t let me go.

Dozing on some time later I heard a whining miniengine start up in the distance and dwindle to silence. Lot of scooters about in Western Ireland, my mind registered. I rolled over into oblivion.

The crime-briefing conference opened with Cockburn’s white sherry and dry biscuits. Kurt was at his preening best. I was afraid Lena’s mood of creamy elegance would give us away but need not have feared. Kurt was full of the forthcoming scam. Only Kurak smouldered. Maybe he had taken a forbidden peek into the summerhouse, an unpleasing thought. Jason had gone, presumably taking the gold torc sleepers with him. Lena wore a new dress with a low waist, almost 1920 flapper style. On any other woman her age it would have been called too young. She wore a single sapphire pendant on a gold S-linked chain. Your mouth waters of its own accord when you see something that delectable. I’d only ever seen one bigger – the 393-carat Blue Star sapphire from Ceylon at the Commonwealth place in London, and they’d guarded that with a four-foot Sinhalese monocled cobra. I caught Lena’s look and smiled innocently into her dark eyes.

Believe it or not, we received the lecture in the library, Kurt enunciating with characteristic precision.

‘The plan is simple,’ Heindrick said. ‘No fewer than fifteen gold torcs of genuine Celtic design are discovered in a well-known archaeological site on open land. A miraculous accidental find. They are authenticated by a divvie who happens to be visiting the finder.’

‘Erm, the discoverer, erm, sir?’ I said humbly.

Ah. That will be myself.’ Kurt gestured eloquently at Lena. ‘Out walking tomorrow, we pause. A small cavein, a prod of my walking-stick, and I glimpse gold. Before adequate witnesses. The authorities are summoned.’

‘That fast, eh?’

He shrugged expansively. ‘Naturally. I am obviously wealthy and will use all my resources to exhort them to speed.’

And what is a society crowd doing wandering out in sloppy countryside?’

‘Looking at a private exercise session of my horses.’

‘Is that plausible?’ It didn’t sound so, to me.

‘Several million punters will find it so. Especially if two of those horses are running in the big race six weeks hence.’

‘Fair enough. But who examines this archaeological site?’

‘A famous archaeological department, the coroner – and you.’

‘What if they refuse to accept me?’

He tutted at such disbelief. ‘I’m your host. I
know
your particular gift of detecting genuine antiques from fakes. I will encourage them to make any test of your knack. You will convince them, as always.’

‘Exactly where’s this site?’ I asked, ‘Please, sir? Kilfinney’s riddled with a score of genuine archaeological remains. There are more Bronze Age places around than the parson preached about.’

‘That needn’t concern you, Lovejoy.’ Lena’s sharpness dispelled the calm. Lena getting edgy over something? Carefully I avoided staring in her direction.

‘Which of the gold torcs will be first out?’

‘You already know. It will be the genuine one, naturally. In fact, I will lift it from the ground. To—’

‘—To establish your claim as legally binding.’

Kurt was smiling. ‘Had you any other idea, Lovejoy?’

‘With your armed outriders on the skyline? Hardly. But one thing’s troubling me.’

‘The archaeological site, I take it?’

‘You’ve done your homework. As far as I can see there’s no way round the fact that to get the torcs into an underground Bronze Age crypt, burial site, foundation, or cave, we’ve got to dig deep.’

‘So?’

‘So archaeologists are well aware that the commonest con trick is to fake an antique item and bury the bloody thing, then miraculously “discover” it
in situ
. The trouble is, you leave slight traces of penetration, such as great mounds of rubble, bulldozers and the cranes you need to lift the Old People’s great stones. Some weigh many, many tons.’

‘That problem’s solved, Lovejoy,’ he said smoothly, ‘by Mrs Heindrick.’

Now I did turn and look. This was the biggest breakthrough since the wheel. ‘You mean you’ve thought up a way of inserting a forged artefact into an ancient archaeological site without leaving evidence of a break-in?’

‘Yes. Next problem?’

‘It’s impossible.’

Heindrick glanced at his watch. ‘Wrong. Your excolleague Jason – under a considerable armed guard, I might add – has just gone on ahead to arrange matters.’

I insisted, ‘But he’s had to lift at least one of the stones, or simulate . . .’

‘No.’ He was enjoying himself. Even Joe-alias-Kurak was smiling. ‘I do promise you, Lovejoy. From the old Celtic times until tomorrow when the archaeological team arrives hotfoot in response to my summons, not a grain of peat, soil or stone will have been disturbed.’

‘But that can’t be done.’

‘And the authorities, archaeologists, and you will all be honest, independent witnesses to see me draw out the very first gold torc, and place it in the hands of the coroner himself. Indeed,’ he smirked, really whooping it up, ‘the archaeologists themselves will have to cut down through the layers to assist its being brought to light.’

I gave that one up. So Lena had attributes other than taste, wealth, beauty, personality, attraction, style, sexual skill. To them that hath shall be given.

‘Okay. It can be done if you say. But how do you get the other fourteen?’

‘By the time we get the genuine sleeper out, it will be nearly dark—’

‘Kurt will claim to have seen the shine of other gold items,’ Lena cut in. ‘An armed guard will be found for the night.’

‘Your men?’ I guessed.

‘Right.’

‘—Who will look away while Jason and Kurak lift the others. You will then have “authenticated” gold torcs.’

‘Don’t miss the two main points, Lovejoy darling.’ Lena sounded strangely bitter. ‘There will be an outcry. The whole world will be informed next day that an unknown number of torcs were stolen from a proven Bronze Age site, which provides us with the most sensational – and free – advertising.’

‘You said two points.’

‘Authenticity. The more scientific tests they do on the one genuine piece they possess, the more they lend authenticity to our fourteen.’

‘Why put them all in the site, then?’

‘Soil analyses, radioactivity tracer counts, chromatography and spectrographic scans, mycological screening.’ Kurt sighed heavily. ‘Your undeniable gift, Lovejoy, blinds you to the scientific lengths to which cynical antique dealers will go in trying to establish authenticity.

And forever there will be a reference standard.’ Lena’s bitterness was back again. Even Kurt peered doubtfully at her. ‘Our buyers will naturally refer to the only known genuine item from the Kilfinney Hoard.’