The Rich And The Profane

by Jonathan Gash

  Then I realized I was lost. I stopped, drifting, stared about. Where had the Jocina been? Somewhere in the final row, I thought. Or nearer the harbour mouth? Was it like motor cars at the town hall, marked parking places? I thought of knocking on a boat’s side and asking. What if nobody was at home? I’d get done for breaking and entering.

  Somebody spoke gruffly, very near. I almost cried out in fear.

  ‘You’re wrong, Bessie. A lugsail only looks ungainly. Its surface area makes it uncommon powerful.’

  ‘Cornwall!’ from Bessie, with derision. I heard a glass chink, a splash of soda. ‘You’ll have Cornish luggers at any price! Where are all the buggers now?’

  Slowly I drifted past. The argument raged, dissolved. I heard a squeal, laughter, silence. Lucky end to a scrap. I resumed rowing. I was just beginning to think that I’d never find the boat, or recognize it if I did, when I saw it. It had two lights on, rose and dipped slower than the smaller boats. Its awnings were gone. I gave one long stroke for momentum and shipped the oars.

  Relief’s hopeless, I’ve always found. For maybe five minute I clung to the gangway. I could have fainted from joy, no longer drifting about the briny. I was safe. I realized how scared I’d been. I’m terrified enough on land, let alone the sea. I tied the painter, and sofdy went aboard, my picture under my arm.

  The boat was still, silent. Except...

  ‘That’s it, lover.’ Somebody actually cried that aloud, gave a moan. I thought, Irma? At last, I’d got her. Definitely a woman. I’d never heard her in the throes of smile-making, my tough luck, but it had to be the missing Irma. Everybody else was at the auction. I heard distant strains of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, a distant roar of crowds. Gala time tonight in Splendid Sejour. Here? Here on the Jocina it was gala night for two. I’d assumed Irma would be alone on her aunt’s boat. I hated to interrupt, but had to.

  I leant the canvas against the railings, and eeled in. I had the sense to force the door gently up to prevent squeaks. Good old Gesso taught me that.

  Down five or six steps. Is it called a companionway? A light further along, the saloon. Quietly, I went towards the grunts, the exhortations. For all I knew Irma loved some gigantic oaf who’d crush me like a gnat. As long as it wasn’t Dook.

  The saloon door was ajar. Jocina was on her side, clutching and rocking, in ecstasy. The sofa was now a double bed. Her man was rasping, slamming into her. He too was naked, pumping as she clawed and laughed blindly over his shoulder.

  My mind went, Gesso?

  No, not Gesso. It couldn’t be, because I’d proved that Gesso was ...

  Somebody squawked. They both stopped and gaped, eyes riveting me, mouths going ooooh. Gesso ripped away, causingjocina to groan in anguish. He rose, stood grinning. A man of triumph, all right. Him, not me.

  ‘Lovejoy!’ He grabbed a towel, wrapped it about his waist. ‘I heard your con. Great, eh? Do you actually have a real picture or not? We’ve checked. The real one’s still with the rest.’

  ‘Yes.’ The lie took several tries. ‘I’ve brought it.’ No good explaining I’d thought to plant it on the good ship Jocina and swear later Prior Metivier had stolen it from the exhibition. It had been a good idea. He’d have lasted less than an hour, as the rival gambling syndicates took him apart. Jocina, deprived, was whining in grief, her stolen moment.

  ‘You didn’t die, then?’ I had to ask, stupid to the last. Like he was codding, raised from the dead, some hologram trick.

  ‘No. The pen torch was my idea.’ He grimaced. ‘Leaving it by the hot pool cost me emotion. But once we’d taken the decision ..

  ‘Darling!’ Jocina warned sharply, coming to. ‘Shut up.'

  Darling, my dull mind registered. Gesso, Jocina’s darling? Had everybody else known? And decision about what? To scratch a stone, drop a tenpenny flashlight? How come such a paltry decision needed the powerful and gorgeous Jocina to warn with such alarm in her voice? Unless there was something horrid at Albansham Priory, plus the cache of war-looted antiques. I couldn’t look away from the pair.

  He chuckled. ‘Lovejoy! You’re crazy for Jocina!’ He laughed so much I thought he was going to fall down. ‘What’s your idea? Give her the painting and take a turn with her?’

  ‘Irma,’ I said, ill. ‘Where’s Irma?’

  They glanced at each other. Gesso smiled and lit a cigarette. I hadn’t known he smoked. Jocina reclined against the pillows, pulling the duvet up. She looked exquisite. I’d have given her anything, if only she’d asked.

  ‘Look at it this way, Lovejoy,’ Gesso said, a sharper laying out cards. ‘Scams come once in a lifetime. You divvied a painting for us in the priory chapel. And that Chinese face. We had to know if the prior’s cache from Alderney was genuine or not. You were the test.’

  ‘And the cache is hidden at the priory,’ I said dully. No wonder they didn’t dare sell the damned place. And no wonder Irma wanted to buy it.

  ‘Yes, Lovejoy.’ He went to a drawer. I, like a nerk, watched him take out an old blued Smith & Wesson. It would throw a thing like a carrot through any person in its path. Through me.

  ‘And Irma realized, guessed, found out?’

  ‘She overheard, Lovejoy.’ He said it with exasperation, really annoyed. ‘Then she tries to buy the priory from under us. Thinks we’d give her everything Jocina and Prior George have planned for decades. Silly bitch.’

  Irma. Who’d been dragged to the hot pool, probably knocked senseless, been cast in, to sink ... I wobbled, sat.

  ‘Don’t take it hard, Lovejoy.’ He spoke so reasonably, good heavens, a fly in my soup. ‘These things happen.’

  ‘I should have realized, Gesso. You’re still doing atrocious fakes, even on Guernsey. And I take it you are the non-local Mr Slevin and that little antique shop of Rita’s is yours?’ The oil of cloves, that bad enamel on the Berlin iron jewellery should have tipped me off. And Irma had wanted to get caught stealing from Gimbert’s - to direct attention on to her gorgeous aunt Jocina. Too scared of her aunt’s thugs - meaning Gesso - to do it any other way. Irma, poor lass, had organized the meeting at Eddie Champion’s home, when she’d offered cash for the priory, hoping he, ex-policeman from the Company Fraud division, would somehow protect her. It hadn’t worked. The rich get rich and the wrong get glugged into bottomless mud pools. ‘And Prior George forced you to ... ?’

  They both laughed, Jocina louder, gasping herself back to breath. Laughing about Irma, how they’d killed her, and how ignorant I was.

  ‘Prior Metivier couldn’t run a booze-up in a brewery, Lovejoy,’ Gesso managed at last. ‘All he can do is gamble and lose. We nearly died when he conned his sister Marie into selling that antique to square his bloody stupid debts.’ Gesso whistled in awe. I stared at the revolver. It was growing larger by the second. ‘Those bare-fist gypos are nasty, Lovejoy, aren’t they? Cross them, you’re done for. No. Your Chinese bronze. We sent Marie with it to a private dealer.’

  ‘Took a buyer’s premium, the bastard,’ from divine Jocina. ‘Darling?’

  ‘Yes,’ from Gesso. I almost answered too. I’m pathetic. ‘No use postponing this. It’s time.’

  Time for what? ‘You can’t,’ I bleated, shaking.

  ‘Don’t beg, Lovejoy,’ she said with faint disgust. ‘You’ve an obligation to behave like a man.’

  So rich women always say, as they ride on, radiant in wealth and beauty, leaving corpses on the kerb. Noble, manly to the last, I broke down.

  ‘Please, Jocina. I’ll do anything—’

  ‘Goodnight, Lovejoy.’ She smiled at me with one comer of her mouth, the other comer more or less ambiguous. ‘Pity.’

  I closed my eyes not to look. Your whole life’s supposed to flash before your eyes. It doesn’t. You simply hear the deafening report as the enormous revolver booms and you feel... Nothing?

  The sound had come from behind me, the blast thumping my shoulders and shoving me forward a step. Now I couldn’t hear a damned thing. Smoke funnelled and bill
owed to where Jocina was mouthing, seemed to be silently screaming, holding out her palms as if to fend something off.

  In front of me Gesso folded, kneeling like he’d got belly wark. Except blood was swifidy spreading across the carpet, pulsing like it was still connected to him.

  ‘No, please!’ I heard a distant mosquito shriek.

  I tried to ask no what, and who said it, but my voice rumbled somewhere with no noise coming out. A siren shrilled in my ears. I turned to look.

  Dook was there, calm as you like. He simply nodded at me, and the weapon he was holding gave an upward nudge. The millisecond glare blinded me. I felt a sudden one-off vibration wave through my ribcage, smelled the tight stench of a double-barrelled shotgun. Something splattered on my face. My vision cleared.

  Something clattered - I heard it! - on the cabin floor.

  Dook, cool, had reloaded. He shot at the cabin wall. A light fixture shattered, sent shards everywhere, but I’d been ready that time and had fingers in my ears and eyes screwed up.

  The cabin was an abattoir, blood all over the bed. Gorgeous Jocina was a mess, hair against the pillows mixed with brain and blood. A row of teeth, Christ’s sake, lay on her bare breast. I vomited all over the dying, dead, Gesso.

  Dook shook my arm, repeating the same thing over and over. I couldn’t hear. It came through.

  ‘Lovejoy. Can you swim?’

  He was asking something to do with boats. Sod his boats. He dragged me out, up to the deck. Somebody was shouting, somebody hailing back calling what was the matter. A voice was insistent, get the prow battery lights on. My ears still sang.

  Dook was still shaking me. He pulled me down low on the deck. He was ice cool. I’d never laugh at him admiring himself again.

  ‘Ta, Dook,’ I heard my grating voice say. ‘Jesus, I was glad you came.’

  ‘Lovejoy. Stop whimpering. Look at me. Can you swim? I’d better get rid of the dinghy you came in, or they’ll blame you for the killings in there.’

  ‘Me?’ Then, quieter, ‘Me? But you shot them.’

  ‘To save you, Lovejoy. Here.’ He pressed the shotgun stock into my hands, but kept hold of the trigger guard. ‘Like that. See? If you can swim, it’d be best if you swam for it. You can say you weren’t here, that you fell in.’

  Good idea. It seemed so wise. ‘Thanks for saving my life. Except I can’t swim.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Honest. I can’t swim a stroke.’ I shivered. ‘Water gives me the willies.’

  ‘Then here’s what we’ll do.’ He beckoned, crawled towards the gangway. ‘Those nosey bastards’ll shine their prow searchlights over here any minute now.’

  I swarmed along the deck after him to the bow rail. He pointed over the side.

  ‘See that life raft on the water? I brought it. Lean out and see.’

  Once a prat. I leant out. He clobbered me and lobbed me overboard. I fell like a stone, splashed in the cold, frigging cold, sea and kept going. There was no life raft.

  The blow he’d given me was oblique. I’d suspected it. It got my cheek, and stung like hell in the salt water, but that was a bonus. Dizzy but conscious, I swam underwater until something clumped me on the nut. A boat. I was able to feel my way along it, emerge for a breath, seeing hardly anything in the dark, then dive slowly under in case Dook saw me.

  Blearily I’d marked the Jocina, or what I thought was her, and swam to a boat three further to landward. Two deep breaths a time, going under and swimming from one boat to the next down the line of moored yachts. I’d not done the breast stroke for a long time. It’s all I’m good at in water. No Dook, though, thank God. I was frightened and freezing. Twice I listened for oars, but couldn’t be sure what with my ears roaring and me still dazed.

  He’d got my fingerprints on the shotgun. Purdey of London, too, I’d noticed, standards falling everywhere. Poor Irma. Clinging to a mooring chain, I pondered whether to risk a shout for help, gave up the notion. In the dark you can fire a gun at noise, even with a searchlight starting to wave madly about, a laser baton conducting a mad silent black orchestra, engines and ahoys.

  I must have drifted. I tried swimming for a new mooring chain, missed it and floundered. God, I was tired. I kicked with what strength I had left, but the chain receded. So many lights were shifting about. Was this normal? Was this whole harbour normal, even? More shouts. Dook’s pals, maybe, coming after me? My head banged against a boat’s side. I grabbed nothing, sank, came up gasping.

  Then somebody clutched me. A lifeguard! I wanted to tell the figure ta, mate. A sudden flare showed me Dook’s face, his massive muscular form.

  ‘You lying bastard,’ he said, clasped me and took me down. I’d not even had the chance for a decent breath.

  For a few seconds I fought, clawing and scratching, thinking why is it me that ends like this? Lights flickered on the surface. I was terrified, but something in memory lectured about fright. Drowning people feel a terminal tranquillity. It was that ‘terminal’ did it. I gave a knee jerk, no good. I tried to nut him, but he knew that one. He was swimming strongly, clobbering me in spite of somehow keeping me trapped. How many arms did the swine have? I felt past caring.

  We surfaced. He had a hand over my mouth, shoving my nose flat. I wasn’t to breathe. All this night air was for him. I felt myself go under, his hands now doing no more than press my shoulders down. I saw a haze of lights, heard a roar, saw something creamy swish up there on the surface - me looking dazedly up, wondering even as I decided it was all probably too much bother and who cared.

  A clunk trembled through the water. Abruptly Dook let go. I drifted, amiably turning over, face down, not struggling. I was free, not breathing. I wasn’t doing anything in particular. I still could see sod all. My arm was in the air. I flapped it. It splashed. Ought it not to be doing something?

  I did it again. It splashed. I sank a bit more. I felt comfortable.

  It was almost an insult when something became entangled. Part of it was me, but part was this thing with two arms, sinking past me. I found a face close to mine, bubbles streaming audibly from its mouth. I thought blandly, Hey, isn’t that the sort of thing I scream at? I tried to scream, found I couldn’t. I couldn’t scream. Me, not even able to screech for help? Jesus. Fright returned with a whoosh. I reached for the surface, found none, kicked and got air.

  People were shouting among lights. I bawled, vomiting. A body bobbed against my foot and I thought, sod you, pal, pressed down so he sank further. It helped me to float while I was sick enough to make room for breath, more breath.

  Augusta told me later she’d held me against the side of the boat for a full ten minutes before she managed to haul me aboard. I blamed her for being slow, demanded to know why she’d taken so long. In a fury she said she’d saved my bloody life by running Dook down when he’d held me submerged. I said she’d taken her bloody time. She said what women always say when they’re justly criticized. She said typical, typical, kept on saying it even at the police station.

  You’d honestly think she’d have been glad, being useful for once. I think it’s their minds. They do something useful and expect all sorts of praise. It narks me. The police doctor came but was no use. The police questioned me. They were no use either.

  That night I slept in a cell.

  26

  Convalescence was in a hospital ward in wicked snooty Jersey. I got my chest aspirated - sounds like bad breath. The doctor used a hell of a lot of painful needles while I felt sorry for myself. Police came and went. I got better, got up, peered out of the window down Gloucester Street. The Opera House opposite was always on the go. Jersey looked beautiful, but not a word to Guernsey that I think so.

  They let me go Thursday of the following week. Police asked questions, not as many as I’d expected. Then I was returned - their phrase - to Guernsey. Face the music and dance.

  Augusta met me and drove me in what looked like a new car. I was astonished that Guernsey seemed untroubled, unfeeling bastard. The
stark truth was that Guernsey had taken my near death in its stride. A new pop group was due in, you see, what with dances and carnival processions. Guernsey’s really big news was that a swimming competition had been won by a local St Peter Port girl. The price of garden produce was going up, or down. It was all hap-

  pening. I was seriously narked. Me at death’s dark portal saving civilization, and Guernsey didn’t give a toss. Typical.

  My companion was somehow different. Gussy had gone. In her place was this bonny bird a good ten years younger. Her hair was different. She wore lime green, genuine silk. She looked summery. I felt redundant.

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, love,’ I said, off on the right foot. ‘I’m in the clear.’

  ‘Wrong, Lovejoy. You’ll see.’

  She swung the motor through the gates, into the car park at Splendid Sejour. A long queue of people snaked over the grass, round a corner.

  Holiday-makers roamed, bicycles weaving in and out. A band played sunny music among the greenery. Large cartoon figures wandered, patting children, dancing on paths among flowers. I could see everybody in Guernsey was really heartbroken with grief at my near fate, rotten unfeeling swine.

  ‘What’s the queue for? Tickets for Jonno’s show?’ ‘That?’ She laughed, modesty lacking. ‘No. For my exhibition. Oh, Jonno’s show’s going well. It’s been on television. He’s got a BBC series.’

  ‘So everybody benefits?’

  ‘Every single one, Lovejoy.’

  No mention of me. We parked and walked the rest of the way. Guards were much in evidence - for Augusta’s clumsy replicas? My mind went off its rails. Grouville was having coffee with two girls and a woman Ploddite. He nodded affably to me, gestured me to sit. The others left.

  ‘An informal chat, Lovejoy.’ He eyed the retreating lasses, pulled himself together, concentrated on talking me into admissions of guilt. ‘Your version, please.’

  Augusta sat beside me. I was grateful, even though his police eyes switched casually from her to me and back. I told them the tale, from Irma wanting to be taught how to steal an antique from Gimbert’s auction, right down to Florida Champion’s husband and the visit I’d paid to his -OK, his wife’s - mansion house so few nights previously.