The Tartan Ringers (28 page)

The soldiers formed up, marching easily past, some grinning. The drum major glared, abused me from the side of his mouth. The portcullis creaked. Applause and an announcement over the roar. The back-marker strode past, boots in time and the familiar double-tap of the big drum calling the instruments into noise. Gone. The entrance tunnel was empty. I couldn’t follow the band into the arena, so I turned. Best if I tried to get to George Street. Those assembly rooms . . .

I stopped. My moan echoed down the tunnel towards the exit. Dobson stood there, pointing. Two goons, overcoated neat as Sunday, appeared and stood with him.

‘Help!’ I screamed, turning to run. And halted. Round the side of the arena gateway stepped Sidoli’s nephews. Two more henchmen dropped from the tunnel archway, crouched a second then straightened to stand with the Sidolis. Big Chas walked between them. Five in a row. Both ends of the tunnel were plugged. I was trapped.

‘Now, lads,’ I pleaded, swallowing with an audible gulp. Blubbering and screaming were non-negotiable. ‘Too many people have been hurt in all this . . .’ The fairground men trudged towards me.

Dobson called, ‘He’s ours, tykes.’

‘Ours,’ a Sidoli said. The tunnel echoed, ‘Ow-erss, owerss.’ He was Sidoli’s nephew all right.

No side doors in the tunnel’s wall. I stood, dithering. Big Chas’s line was maybe twenty yards away and coming steadily. Dobson’s pair had pulled out stubby blunt weapons. I thought: Oh Christ. A war with me in the middle.

‘Stop right there, Chas,’ I said wearily. ‘You were good to me. You’ve no shooters, like them. It’s my own mess.’

And I walked towards Dobson. My only chance, really. And it bought me a couple of seconds. It bought me much more than that, as it happened. I moved on trembling pins towards my end. At least I now only had one army against me instead of two. More favourable odds, if doom wasn’t a certainty.

‘No!’ a Sidoli shouted. ‘Noh,’ the tunnel yelled angrily.

Dobson backed smiling out of the tunnel entrance to where I’d first cannoned into the Guards band, his goon with him. I came on. They were in a perfect line. A stern warning cry, ‘Loof-yoy! No!’ behind me.

If I’d known it would have ended like this, in a grotty tunnel, I’d have marched out into the arena with the band and hared up through the crowd somehow—

An engine gunned, roared. It seemed to fill the tunnel with its noise. I hesitated, found myself halted, gaping, as a slab lorry ran across the arch of pallor, and simply swept Dobson and the two overcoats from view. And from the face of the earth. All in an instant time stopped. To me, forever Dobson and the two nerks froze in a grotesque array, legs and arms any old how, in an airborne bundle with that fairground slab wagon revving past. They’re in that lethal tableau yet in my mind. Dobson’s expression gets me most, in the candle hours. It’s more a sort of let’s-talk-because-there’s-always-tomorrow sort of expectation on his face. But maybe I’m wrong because it was pretty gloomy, and Ern didn’t have any lights on as he crashed the wagon into and over Dobson and his nerks.

Footsteps alongside. I closed my eyes, waiting.

Big Chas’s hand fell on my shoulder. ‘Lovejoy,’ he said, friendly, and sang,
‘Hear thy guardian angel say: “Thou art in the midst of foes: Watch and pray
!” ’

‘I’m doing that, Chas,’ I said.

Mr Sidoli was overjoyed to see me; I wasn’t sure why. They gave me a glass of his special Barolo while I waited. I’d expected death. Unbelievably I was left alone on the steps, though everybody I remembered came up and shook my hand. The fairground seemed to have grown. There was no sign of Bissolotti’s rival fair. Instead, a marquee boasted a dynamic art show, periodically lasering the darkness with a sky advert.

Francie rushed up to say everybody was proud of me. Her whizz kid was temporarily running the Antique Roadshow. Like Tom the cabin boy, I smiled and said nothing, simply waited for this oddly happy bubble to burst.

It was twenty to midnight when I was called inside. Mr Sidoli was in tears. His silent parliament was all around, celebrating and half sloshed.

‘Loof-yoy,’ he said, scraping my face with his moustache and dabbing his eyes. ‘What can I say?’

‘Well, er.’ Starting to hope’s always a bad sign.

‘First,’ he declaimed, ‘you bravely seize. Bissolotti’s main generator, and crush his treacherous sneak attack.’ He glowered. Everybody halted the rejoicing to glower. ‘And restrained yourself so strongly that you only destroyed three men.’

Scattered applause. ‘Bravo, bravo!’

‘Destroyed? Ah, how actually destroyed . . . ?’

His face fell. ‘Not totally, but never mind, Loof-yoy. Another occasion, si?’ Laughter all round. ‘Then you cleverly tell the police it is my generator so I can collect it and hold Bissolotti to ransom.’

This time I took a bow. The nephews burst into song.

‘And at the arena you bravely tried to spare my nephews then the risk when they go to help you, knowing how close to my heart . . .’ He sobbed into a hankie the size of a bath towel. Everybody sniffled, coughed, drank. I even felt myself fill up.

And you walk forward into certain death!’

I was gripped in powerful arms. Ern and Chas sang a martial hymn. Fists thumped my back.

When you think of it, I really had been quite courageous. In fact, very brave. Not many blokes have faced two mobs down. It must be something about my gimlet eyes. You must admit that some blokes have this terrific quality, and others don’t.

Joan was watching in her usual silence. Her eyes met mine. Well, I thought, suddenly on the defensive. I’d been almost nearly brave, hadn’t I? I mean, honestly? Joan smiled, right into my eyes, silly cow. She’s the sort of woman who can easily nark a bloke. I’d often noticed that.

They’d have finished the auction in Tachnadray.

It was three o’clock in the morning before I remembered Tinker. Sidoli’s lads found him paralytic drunk busking in George Street, Dutchie doing a political chain dance round his political granite block. Tinker said we’d all go halves. His beret was full of coins, enough for a boozy breakfast for us all.

C
OUNTRYSIDE
. N
O
RAIN
, no fog. And, at Tachnadray, no longer only one way out. Me, Duncan and Trembler were talking outside the workshop. They’d taken on half-a-dozen apprentices. From the quality of their work I wouldn’t have paid them tea money, but Duncan said they’d learn.

‘Make sure you spread them about this time.’ I meant the reproductions they were going to mass produce. ‘One each to East Anglia, Newcastle, Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol and Southampton. Stick to one route and you’re in the clag.’

‘We’ve had enough trouble,’ Duncan said with feeling.

‘You didn’t have any,’ I pointed out nastily. After all, I was the hero. ‘Okay, your son was a hostage, but safe. He’s a McGunn.’

‘There’s no trouble for you now, Lovejoy, eh? I mean, those two men, and the others?’

‘Tipper Noone? And the driver? No. Whatever the police find won’t matter a bit. Dobson and his killers are dead.’

The vehicle was fixed by Ern, a spontaneous case of brake failure. The police could enjoy themselves speculating on the guns found on two of the deceased. I, of course, wasn’t within miles. I sprouted alibis, Sidoli’s doing.

‘Wotcher, love,’ I said to Elaine.

Elaine had a new automatic wheelchair. I said it wasn’t as good as the old garden machine we’d sold at the auction. She’d bickered back that I didn’t have to sit in it.

‘Lovejoy,’ she said, in that tuneful propositioning voice women use when they’re going to sell you a pup. ‘How’d you like to become a partner?’

‘If that is a proposal of marriage, you’re too plain.’

‘Stop fooling. In Tachnadray.’

‘It’s not me, love. Trembler here will. It’s time somebody took him in hand.’

That’s what we’d been heading towards all along. Elaine turned her seabed opalescent eyes on Trembler. ‘Will you, Cheviot?’

‘He’s been on about nothing else,’ I said irritably. ‘He’s trying to work out how to word it. Nerk.’

Trembler tried to start a solemn contractual conversation. ‘I’ll have to think—’

‘Me and Tinker did a draft contract for you after breakfast. And,’ I added, ‘my percentage of the auction profits you can spilt three ways – Tachnadray, and the families of the driver and Tipper Noone. How’s that?’ As soon as I’d made the offer I groaned. Still, easy come, easy go.

‘Is Lovejoy serious?’ Elaine asked.

‘I’ll do a list of exploitations. Pottery, prints, pressed flowers of Tachnadray, tartan novelties, photographs of the ancestral home. And you’ll sell inch-square plots to tourists, fortune at a time, each with a great Sale Deed in Gothic Latin lettering, a sealing-wax blob on a ribbon. Postage extra. And “coin” tokens in fifteenth-century denominations. It’s where greatness lies.’

‘There’s something scary about all this, Lovejoy.’ But Elaine’s eyes were shining.

You have to laugh. For the first time in her life she’d challenged the outside world, and won victory. Now she wanted the thrill of the contest over and over. There’d be no stopping Tachnadray now, especially with Trembler on the team.

‘I’ll come and check on you every autumn, Cheviot.’ It was the end of an era. There’d be a sudden drop (I nearly said tumble) in Soho’s sexploitation shares tonight.

They had moved away when Elaine paused. ‘Oh, Lovejoy. Can I ask something?’

I walked over. Trembler moved politely out of earshot. Her eyes were radiantly lovely looking up at me.

‘Lovejoy. Did you and Michelle?’

‘Eh? Did we what?’

She blushed, a lovely rose pink. ‘You
know
.’

‘No.’ I was puzzled. Then my brow cleared. ‘You can’t mean . . . ?’ I was mixed furious and hurt.
‘Elaine!
How can you ask that, after . . . after . . . you and me . . .’

‘Shhh,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’ My back was towards the workshop. ‘I honestly didn’t mean anything, darling. And thank you.’ She blew a mouth and left smiling, beckoning to Trembler.

Duncan and I watched them go.

‘She’ll take him in hand, Duncan.’

‘Aye.’

Michelle was there in the car, waiting to drive me to Inverness for the train home. I’d already said my goodbyes. Mrs Buchan had wept uncontrollably at the simultaneous loss of two prize appetites. I’d restored her to normal apoplexy by saying I had to get home because her pasties weren’t a patch on East Anglia’s. Mrs Moncreiffe was also sad: ‘It was all so naughty, wasn’t it?’ she said, tittering. Tinker hates tittery women. Dutchie would be down again before long. I’d said so-long to Hector, his two dogs and the others. Robert hadn’t looked up from shoeing a horse. I kept out of range in case he lobbed the anvil at me in farewell.

‘Duncan. You’ll say cheerio to Shona for me?’

‘Aye. I will.’ He knocked out his pipe, cleared his throat. Something was coming. ‘She’s always been headstrong, Lovejoy. She shared all the clan obsessions. Don’t blame her.’

‘I don’t,’ I said, with my sincerest gaze. ‘But the road Elaine’s taking is healthier. More open. More people.’

‘Aye.’ He sighed. ‘My sympathy’s with Jamie. It’ll be a sorry union between that pair.’

‘One thing, Duncan.’ I pointed to the east wing, by far the weaker of the two. ‘Ever thought of having a fire? Accidental, of course. Just before a sale, like that Norfolk business in the mid-’seventies . . .’

‘Och, away wi’ ye.’

He was laughing, as I was, as we left.

‘Are you sad to be going, Lovejoy?’ Michelle had waved to Duncan, said she’d be straight back after she’d dropped me.

‘Not really. No antiques up here, is there?’

She gave a tight smile. After we’d reached that wretched bridge and were cruising on the metalled road instead of shaking the teeth out of our heads on the bumpy track, she shot me a glance.

‘Lovejoy. Did you ever . . . you know, with Elaine?’

‘I
knew
you thought that.’ I spoke with indignation. ‘I could see the bloody question coming. Look, love.’ Bitterness now. ‘If that’s the best your vaunted woman’s intuition can do I’d trade it in for guesswork.’

‘Did you?’ She slowed, to inspect my eyes.

‘No,’ I said levelly, with my innocent stare. I never try for piety because it never works. ‘And if you count the tableware you’ll find it complete. Anything else?’

‘I was only—’

‘Because I’m a bit scruffy and don’t share your blue blood I’m the perennial villain. Is that it?’ I was looking out at the moors, quite a tragic figure really, I thought.

‘I’m sorry, Lovejoy. But you must realize—’

‘You and the laird, okay. I did realize, eventually. But your main problem with Elaine is Trembler – forgive me, Cheviot Yale, Esquire – not me.’

She pulled at my hand. ‘Don’t be angry, darling. It’s only natural anxiety. I didn’t mean to offend . . .’

We were three hours reaching Inverness. I forget what took us so long. Anyhow, before saying goodbye Michelle promised in spite of all my protests to accompany Dutchie on the runs to East Anglia with the reproduction antiques. She looked shy, new, voluptuous.

‘You don’t want me, love,’ I said, thinking of Francie, Joan, Ellen, and Jo who would be desperate to hear how I’d got on. ‘I’m even bad at hindsight.’

‘Next month to the day, darling,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay with you a whole week. I’m dying to see your cottage, and nobody need know. Here. For you.’ She gave me a parcel, quite heavy. I know you’re not supposed to, but I can’t help palpating presents to guess what’s inside. She saw me and laughed. My chest was bonging a definite chime.

The Mawdslay had gone before I remembered. I’d promised Ellen I’d stay on her houseboat down the Blackwater for a few days about then. And Sidoli’s fairground was due through on its run south in that week. And Jo had hinted she’d have three half-term days to spare. And I’d Margaret to thank. And Helen. Oh God. Why is it that trouble always follows me, and never anybody else?

On the train I unwrapped Michelle’s parcel. The lovely pair of snuff mulls shone as the fading light patched and unpatched the carriage windows. The milky silver gleamed in time with the train wheels, and then blurred. Bloody women. No matter how you try they always get you at a disadvantage, don’t they.