The Sleepers of Erin (8 page)

‘He’s a cold fish,’ Sinead observed.

Which surprised me, so I had another look. Marion was working her eyes and cleavage overtime, ignoring the table’s beer puddles despite her splendid Aran woollie. Jason’s ex-army, and our one inherently wealthy dealer. He has a big place overlooking the Blackwater estuary. Telling Sinead that reminded me of the Heindricks, which reminded me of the spot that I was in, which reminded me I needed to know why Sinead had been seeking me.

Tinker came with the drinks, all agog with urgency. The goon had brought Sinead a pint as well, but in a handle-mug, this being his idea of gentility.

‘Here, Lovejoy. The Old Bill’s out for you.’

‘George?’ He’s our village bobby. Whatever it was, I’d manage him.

‘No. Ledger. But no paper.’

Thankfully, I nodded relief at this news that Ledger held no arrest warrant. ‘Ta, Tinker.’

‘And Harry’s bought that collection of pot tennis balls from Dragonsdale.’

‘Hell fire,’ I cursed. Harry has a stall in the town antiques arcade. I’d been hoping for them, a genuine mahogany-cased set of four.

‘Pottery? But that’s impossible.’

‘He means carpet bowls,’ I explained as Tinker dived back towards the bar. ‘Queen Victoria’s favourite indoor game. They fetch about fifteen quid apiece, but a cased set’s damned hard to find. A full set is three lots of four, with a little white “jack” the size of a golf ball. You play like lawn bowls.’

‘You’re upset,’ she interrupted in wonderment. ‘Over a pottery ball?’

‘They’re very rare now, especially in mint condition. These had a luscious blue circle-and-petal design.’

‘You should buy things when you see them,’ she was preaching, when my red face beaconed through to her and she dried. ‘Sorry, Lovejoy. Are you really broke?’

‘It’s being in your lousy hospital,’ I groused. ‘I missed all sorts of chances.’ Discomfiture gave me the courage to ask outright what was burning in my mind. ‘Look. Why did you come to the cottage?’

‘Not here,’ she said quickly.

I drew breath to say why the hell not when our little party ended.

Marcia ruined everything by coming to aghast us all. She rushed in excited and dishevelled, choking on the news that there had been a fire. Joxer’s work shed in the Priory ruins had burned down after a small explosion had occurred. People were saying it was one of Joxer’s gas bottles, that kind of thing. Some of the amateur dramatics men in the Priory parish hall, painting new sets in a desperate race to meet their dress-rehearsal deadline, heard the sound and rushed out to investigate. They made heroic attempts to beat the flames down, but without much hope. Then the fire brigade had arrived and had a go. The Priory ruins were, well, ruined anyway and the new church hall was safe, so what? Marcia had looked everywhere for Joxer to tell him, but he was nowhere around.

Nobody seemed to have been hurt. Sinead relaxed at that. It was probably her nursing instinct which made her so tense at Marcia’s babbled news. Talk resumed. We all made clucking noises and some kind soul gave her a port-and-lemon. Then we all forgot it. Except me.

I sat for a long time looking at the table as the taproom babble went on and on, over and over Marcia’s account. Patrick dramatically fainted, with Lily, his acolyte, frantically trying to bring him round with smelling-salts from his mauve handbag. After a long time I realized Sinead had taken my hand. I wasn’t scared, not really scared, but a hint is a hint is a hint. All Heindrick had said was, ‘Very lax of us all,’ and poor Joxer gets his old shed blammed. I could only think of my grotty little cottage. It looked like the Heindricks had a divvie after all.

Sinead shook me gently.

‘Are you all right, Lovejoy?’ she was asking, and I came to. Her grey-blue eyes were anxious. I looked into them, thinking, well, all living is risk, isn’t it?

‘Yes, fine, thanks,’ I said. ‘Look, Shinny. About Ireland . . .’

Things went from bad to evil that night. It seemed to end on an increasingly worse note every few minutes. First, Sister Morrison dropped me off outside my cottage about an hour afterwards. We talked in her car, mainly about Mrs Heindrick, even though I was dog-tired.

‘That’s what I wanted to tell you, Lovejoy. She’s up to no good. She’s been on the phone asking about your condition.’

That narked me. ‘She could have asked me.’

‘Don’t worry. I disclosed nothing, and the doctors won’t.’

One thing struck me. ‘Why were you reluctant to tell me this in the tavern?’

‘That cold fish.’

‘Jason?’

‘Yes. Mrs Heindrick’s friend.’

Again that disturbing chill touched my neck. ‘Friend? Are you sure?’

‘I saw them both leaving my cousin’s place together the day after you were discharged from my ward.’

‘Cousin? Er . . .’

‘Joe. Joe Casey. He’s like you, an antique dealer.’

Odd, that. I’d always thought I knew everybody in East Anglia. Now there were all these unexpected cousins and friends of friends. Worse, friends of enemies.

Sinead went on, ‘Joe doesn’t trust her, that’s for sure. He did a few small jobs for the Heindricks. They were so bitchy about his work, checked every little detail.’

Well, if they were paying a workman they would naturally want good value. But I was thinking, Casey? Joe Casey? The name sounded oddly familiar.

‘Recently?’

‘Yes. Now. He even had to start work for them twice when it was dark. I ask you. He told me about it and we had a good laugh.’

And
still
it seemed unimportant, though I was to learn different before the night was through. I said thanks for the warning, and we made our rather stilted goodnights. Puzzled, I watched the red tail-lights flicker as she drove off along the hedged lane. Too many problems and too knackered a brain to cope for the minute, so I went in thinking it was time I had a quiet night. Things would seem clearer in the dawn.

He came for me about two, keeping on knocking even though I was yelling I was coming, for heaven’s sake. There were headlights outside from a car reversing to face the lane slope.

‘Who is it?’ I called, pulling the bolt.

‘Police.’

‘Come off it, George.’ I peered blearily into the gloom. Our village bobby stood there, at least as embarrassed as I was. ‘You’re not proper police.’

He drew himself up at that insult. ‘You’re to help us with our enquiries, Lovejoy. Get dressed.’

‘I’ve just come out of dock, George. How the hell could I have pinched, forged or stolen any antiques? And you’ve Mrs Heindrick’s alibi for that cloth job.’

‘Murder investigation,’ he said.

That shook me. ‘Eh?’

‘Get him out here,’ another copper called wearily from the car, stationary now. ‘Ledger’ll be going berserk.’

George wouldn’t say any more so I dressed awkwardly and was whisked into town by a dozily irritable constable in a posh police saloon. So many things about the whole business had bewildered me that it was only one more mind-duller when the motor cruised the wrong way down Priory Street and pulled up at the narrow iron gate leading to the ruins. The bobby parked illegally and led me through the old graveyard with the aid of his torch. Ever been in that state of mind where you can fully understand everything that’s going on, yet you know you’re not really taking any of it in or even believing what you see with your very eyes? Well, that was me when up ahead through the spectral yew trees we heard voices and caught sight of the great ruined arches washed by shifting torchlights. I
knew
, but didn’t gather quite what everybody was on about.

‘This way, sir. Mind your head.’

The lights blended into a brilliant glow as we came into the main flooring opposite the sanctuary area. A generator whirred, steadied, and floodlights hit from three directions. I’d never seen so many of the Old Bill not in a procession. Ledger was talking with two other plainclothes blokes and jerked his chin at me to follow among the mounds and gravestones.

‘You took your time, Smethurst,’ he grumbled to the constable.

‘My fault,’ I said, more to nark Ledger than from pleasantry.

‘Know what, Derby? Every bloody thing’s Lovejoy’s fault. Torch.’ One of his tame nerks snickered, and beamed his flash. Ledger led us through the nettles towards another island of floodlight where Joxer’s shed had once stood. Now the scene was a shambles of charred bricks and stench. An angry uniformed copper approached. He was covered in ash. Sweat glistened on his stained face.

‘Sir. These fire-johnnies are buggering us about.’

‘Stop them, Lynley.’

A yellow-helmeted fireman came up, sweatier and even angrier. The six others at the scene wore white helmets. Presumably he was the gaffer.

‘Sergeant Ledger! My duty is to excavate and neutralize all fire—’

Ledger spat on an innocent floodlit nettle. ‘Your duty is to make it safe here for my men.’

‘Then that means—’

‘Standing by until we tell you.’

The furious fireman tried to overbear but Ledger wouldn’t give way, and stepped down to where Joxer’s floor once was. I had difficulty seeing even where the bench had been. Ledger scuffed the debris and balanced on a piece of corrugated metal, part of Joxer’s fallen roofing. Ash clouded in the beams up to our knees. The white glare and the abruptly stencilled shadows made it a mad lunar picture.

‘Tell him, Derby.’

Derby intoned, ‘Antique dealer and fabricator known locally as Joxer, height—’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

Derby shrugged, skipped some. ‘Found dead in his burning workshop. Cause of death yet to be reported, but—’

‘Skull fracture,’ Ledger cut in. ‘Our quack says it
might
have been falling brick.’

Joxer was dead. So somebody had been hurt in the fire after all. I remembered Sinead’s sudden tension at Marcia’s news.

‘Might means might not, Ledger.’

‘True, Lovejoy.’ He kept balancing on the debris, hands in his pockets, looking at me. ‘You accuse Clarke and, Sam, and they inexplicably leap off a motorway bridge. You visit Joxer, and he gets stove in and stoved.’

‘And you’re arresting me for coincidences?’

‘Don’t be silly, Lovejoy. Last time that rich tart unhooked you. Same thing’d happen.’

‘Would it?’

‘Lovejoy.’ He came and stood by me. If I didn’t know better I’d have said he was feeling sad. ‘You’re in something deep with that pair of crooks—’

‘Which pair, exactly?’ Things were stupifying me.

‘The Heindricks. And I want you to know something.’ Derby was standing close by. ‘This old town of ours saw the Roman Empire out, saw the back of the Saxons, Normans, and withstood the Black Death. It’s going to survive the Heindricks. Understood?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even if the Heindricks team up with a wriggler like you, Lovejoy.’

‘Okay. But what do you think happened to Joxer?’

‘I believe the Heindricks – or you on their orders foully murdered Joxer and tried to burn his corpse.’

‘What makes you think—?’

Ledger lost patience. ‘Piss off, Lovejoy. Sign him out, Derby.’

Derby produced a clipboard and asked me to sign a form stating I had been interviewed at the site of a crime or accident. He gave me a pen. I started to sign, then tilted the board to catch that garish light and read it several times till Ledger asked what was up.

‘Ledger, who’s Joseph Xavier Casey?’

‘Joxer. His real name.’

A piece of gnarled twisted iron the size of a small horseshoe lifted from the ash as I moved my foot. Burning anything gives off a terrible stink. My breath was slow coming, but the sound it made caused Ledger to look harder. I signed his stupid form quickly, thinking of Sinead’s cousin Joe Casey who did clever special nocturnal work for the Heindricks. I’d been so wrapped up in my own plight I hadn’t even thought. Sinead had told me about her cousin Joe Casey soon after we heard Marcia’s news in the pub. She must have thought I’d realized they were one and the same person.

‘May I have a lift home now?’

His hesitation made me mad, but I maintained my sorrowful visage. He’s a cyncial sod. Not one ounce of trust.

‘Lovejoy. If I once find you—’

‘I don’t feel so good.’

He agreed, with yet more mistrust, which was how I thankfully found myself in Constable Smethurst’s car bombing back to my cottage. Near the brewery I conned a coin from the lad to ring my doctor urgently, or so I told him. Anyway he could afford it. The Old Bill pay themselves enough. I tried the hospital, saying it was an urgent message for Sister Morrison. The beleaguered Night Sister frostily told me that personal calls were forbidden on internal lines, and anyway Sister Morrison didn’t live in the nurses’ home. That was the end of my day. About three-thirty I waved so long to the copper and went indoors, not even a respectable failure.

The rest of that night was a bad one for me. The trouble is, when you are so utterly tired it sometimes works the opposite way and you can’t drop off no matter how hard you try. I’m one of these people who never cares whether I sleep or not, which is okay as long as you aren’t grieving. And I was.

My divan bed unfolds in my cottage living room. I’ve no upstairs, except for a crummy bat-riddled space under the thatch, which you climb into like Tarzan of the Apes. I hate those ceiling lights which always dangle glare in your eyes, so my two electrics are controllable table things. Tonight, though, I was in a familiar morose mood and fetched out my old brass oil lamp to shed a more human glow on the interior. Then I drew the curtains and lay in bed, thinking of Joxer and the state I was in.

Folk come and go in your mind at the best of times, always in and out of your life. Because of all this movement, it’s a sad mistake to try to keep things just as they are, though God knows enough people desperately keep on struggling to. Okay. That’s life, and I have the sense to accept it. But Joxer had been killed, and I wasn’t going to accept that one little bit.

The Heindricks wanted a divvie – me. They’d given me four days to recover. Then they were sending me somewhere, a place overseas where I wouldn’t need a passport. Lena Heindrick had said that. And Joxer had said Kilfinney. As a warning, as a tip-off? I’d never know now he was dead, but you don’t need a passport to Eire and Joxer was Irish and Kilfinney sounded vaguely that way on . . .