Faces in the Pool

by Jonathan Gash

  One thing clung to my mind.

  It’s called ransom.

  Not long back, two Turner paintings were nicked, clean as a whistle, from London’s mighty Tate during a loan exhibition to Germany. Art experts everywhere sobbed into their champagne. Curators were edgy, reputations plunged, and the criminal world rocked with laughter. I well remember how we (correction: they) threw a party in the George. Fabulous works of artistic genius vanished forever, sob-sob, right? Well, no. Not quite.

  Because the paintings (Light and Colour was one, Shade and Darkness the other) suddenly reappeared in the Tate Gallery. Miraculous? Yes, produced by handing over millions to a Continental lawyer who incurred certain ‘expenses’ and had ‘information leading to the recovery of’, as euphemism has it. Now, I’ve nothing against Frankfurt lawyers. And don’t believe the rumours about Balkan mafia. The Tate hierarchy waffled their usual blandeur. They’d ‘paid in a number of directions’. Cynics said a reward would be necessary. Darker mutters mentioned ransom, a term hotly denied. One does not pay ransom to criminals, old chap, what?

  Listening for the latecomer’s car, I watched a bank of lights on the wine-dark sea (sorry, I pinched that phrase from schoolboy Homer). It joined smaller dots. Presumably little boats, ferrying friends to an ocean-going yacht anchored offshore. All right for some, I thought bitterly.

  It’s true. Art movements are dishonest. The famous Waverley Report yaks on about export controls. Like, say you have bought the fabled Clive of India Flask – an exalted item everybody knows is worth millions. You intend to take it to your hot native clime, and ask the UK Government for an export licence. Instantly, politicians grumble about the nation’s treasures being lost. Museums begin begging for money to match the market price. You let the various museums scratch around for some months – then blithely announce you’ve no intention of taking the item overseas at all.

  To the criminal mind, this scheme offers massive chances for deception. Not accusing anybody, but in East Anglia there’s a woman in a faded university who collects data on such possibilities. She lives in Royston, near where that old mill…

  My mind went, Hang on. Why wasn’t I back in the warm fug listening to their dud explanations? I never do things according to reason. I only ever go by instinct, possibly wild and random, then think, Good heavens, how come I worked that out?

  The sea lights separated. I stamped a bit like you do when you are frozen. The smaller vessels, two lights only, must still be ferrying friends out to the splendid ocean-going yacht party. Plenty of friends when you’re loaded. Like that English noble multimillionaire. Sir Benjamin of Maunsel, still youngish as I scrawl, looked into his family history and learnt that his umpteenth great-grannie had been a close lady friend of King George the Fourth. An earlier grannie had cavorted with King Charlie Two. An interesting snippet thrown up by history. Except the snippet hit the headlines, and suddenly 20,000 heirs came zooming in. (If your ancestors are called Slade, good luck.)

  And I thought of Hugo Hahn’s speech at the wedding nosh. And tried to guess who we might be waiting for.

  The jokes in his woody speech kept echoing in my skull. I’d been daft as a brush all along, missing the obvious. Toast, he’d said, and last, and everybody had laughed. His speech, in fact, was all farewell.

  The night breeze freshened. I shivered in my stolen jacket. The original owner would be even colder, poor chap.

  Float, Hugo Hahn had quipped, in that terrible historical phrase: ‘floating the idea of the final solution’. No wonder I was shivering, because finally I knew what they were doing. ‘How’ problems could remain unsolved. Forget the worrying bits, like how did Dr Castell and Penny know the Faces. That College? I felt a twinge of sorrow, or was it only pity? I’ve seen a gillion scams tried, and one way or another they crashed. Or they ended in ugly deaths in alleyways. That is their fate.

  Tasker, best of friends and worst of enemies, warns, ‘The only foolproof scam is the next.’ Like politics, that art of making a dog’s dinner of perfection.

  It was Hugo Hahn, so he’d have to kill me. And the beautiful Donna was his double-agent envoy. Daniella, Veronica, Ellen, Laura, I didn’t know what to think. Mortimer was innocent, surely? I badly needed help. What were they so reluctant to tell me in the caravan? The trouble was, waiting for Morgyn the Mighty to stride over the horizon is comic-book stuff. I’d have to go on my own. I could honestly say that I wasn’t thinking that I could snaffle those delicious antiques, no. It didn’t enter my mind. OK, I could have phoned friends if I’d had a mobile thing, and I might have called out Tinker and maybe Mortimer on some pretence. But they’d hold me back.

  Of course, I didn’t march off and get a taxi to the police. To arrest diplomats? Instead, I slunk like a nightstealer down to the sea.

  The beach, maybe four furlongs from North Pier, was all activity with hardly any lights. High tide, of course, making loading easier. Eight or nine vannies were unloading two giant pantechnicons by the glim of hand torches. I heard one call, ‘Last-but-one load, wack.’ One of the giant lorries closed its rear doors and was driven off.

  Two small craft nosed to the shingle, their painters looped over staves driven into the shore, the men plodding back to help carry loads from the last wagon. I walked down to the boats. Both engines still muttered in neutral. I shoved one off and boarded the other. A good hundred yards off the beach, I heard the first shouts and looked back. One bloke ran helplessly into the waves after me. The rest stood there gaping. I towed the other boat. Nobody could follow because I’d nicked both boats.

  The engine was the familiar kind I knew from Mersea Island. I aimed steadily at the great yacht thing, so brightly lit out on the dark sea. What, a mile off?

  The beach seemed static, the vannies baffled at my theft of the boats. No spare boats, so I felt momentarily safe. Unless they got a power boat from somewhere, I’d at least have time to get close to the big vessel and see what the hell. Easy to steer with a tiller – point this way or that, the craft moved in the opposite direction. Simple.

  Slowly puttering towards the looming yacht, I was aghast at the size of the damned thing. She was the Maeonia. God, she swelled into a giant as I butted my way to stand off from her to seaward. She was lit all over, portholes and gangway visible, and a set of chained steps with a miniature gantry ready to haul up furniture and other heavy antiques.

  My breath was rapid but not from the cold. They would have left an armed guard on board. And I could guess who that was. The big boss, the leader of the pack.

  I cut the engine of my towed craft and cast it adrift. If it was Hahn, I had some daft idea I might be able to jump overboard and swim for it, with any luck. My own boat I tied to the bottom of the gangway, its engine still on the go in neutral, and climbed up on deck.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  ‘raj’: the boss of a group of antiques criminals

  For the first time in my life I felt in control, at the nearness of a world’s worth of antiques. The yacht must be bulging. An unbattened hatch showed light slits from its edges. They must be confident. Chimes made me shiver, gorge rising and my left temple throbbing.

  That’s when I heard the first human sound. It was me. I’d tried to nudge some wood thing aside. For a frightened second I almost ran for it, but halted. Criminals in mid-heist would leave a sentinel aboard. Armed? Sure. And he’d be my favourite speechmaker. I heard his voice exclaim, ‘Listen to the noisy sods.’

  And a female voice, husky with love, said, ‘Never mind them, darling. Come back here.’ And I thought another thought, except this one was even more stupid. I actually recognised her voice, until I corrected myself. It couldn’t be, never in a million years. One thing about my stupidity, it never gives up.

  The man was furious. ‘Christ knows what they’re doing. If it’s my Ashanti carvings I’ll machette the bastards!’

  ‘You’ve your own work to finish, darling.’

  The voice was sweet, charming, graceful. I’d heard i
t so many times, though not exactly in these circumstances. The man was tough. I’d seen that among the traffic in Head Street, and when he’d glared down at Erosa. The blighter had haunted, hunted me. And now…

  ‘That’s it, darling,’ the female voice purred, ‘right there.’ I’m so thick. I moved quietly forward, then reminded myself that the loaders wouldn’t tiptoe. I clumped along the deck, giving a guttural grunt, trying to sound like seven or eight vannies heaving antiques.

  Passion in the cabin started again as I reached the curtained portholes. Curtains. Even then, trembling from the divvy malaise, I was still foolishly half-smiling at the sounds of lust. I couldn’t see her face, but her body I’d known well. At least so I’d assumed, the way you assume you know love. Her modulated voice urged the man on, in a growling quality I’d only heard once. Back then, I’d felt rather proud, a beast raising my own Miss Ice Maiden from her usual primness to passion.

  This bloke seemed be doing all right, beyond the concealing porthole curtain. Of course, that was the sort of demure move she would make, make sure the sacking was over my cottage window in case somebody came a-peering. I hadn’t been lucky often, no, just a few times. Each was beautiful, in the relish of the moment. She was superb. Was. Past tense, if she was the one I imagined.

  Then I caught myself. It couldn’t be. Some human events are beyond possibility. No question. Making sounds like that? Calling for him to do this, that, hurt her and gagging in the height of rut? Never. Then something she grunted was her. It was her ultimate phrase, only gasped in extremis. Couldn’t be anyone else. The evidence of senses is horrible stuff. I retched on the deck outside their porthole, spewing what grub hadn’t got down far enough. A right mess.

  Moments when your world ends come pretty often to me. I’ve always found that. The ground goes from under your feet, and you might as well float off in space. And not from happiness. Not horror either. A woman I knew once told me, ‘When I found my feller sleeping with my best friend, I almost smiled.’ I’d asked her why. And she smiled at me along the pillow and murmured, ‘Because it was suddenly all so simple.’ And she told me, ‘I ran her over in my car.’ The best friend, treacherous to the last, hadn’t been helpful enough to die. Doctors worked frantically, and saved her. The principle is the same, though. Think of the very worst that could happen, and the vilest punishment whispers, ‘Why not top her? She deserves it.’ Logic never fails.

  Without knowing quite why, I looked over the side. The sea seemed hell of a way down. I glanced round the deck. No smaller craft nearby. On shore, to my amazement, the dark scene now seemed mad, like some old jerky film. I guessed the plod had arrived, from the swirling blue lamps and headlights trained onto the beach where blokes struggled. Who had called them? I could hear brawling sounds, reminding me of distant midges by the Stour. Ambulances were nosing through the gathering crowds up on the promenade. Where do people lurk until mayhem brings watchers out?

  Down in the cabin passion stormed on. I felt giddy listening. Time had gone or not gone. It could have been an hour or a few seconds. I wiped my sicky mouth on my sleeve. How long since I’d come aboard?

  They say the woman becomes worse than the man, when sexual craziness gives utter release. What was the old saying? ‘A woman in a parlour an angel, in a kitchen a fiend, and in bed a monster.’ As here. I felt so tired. I honestly wasn’t bitter. Maybe I’d known deep down she was never mine in the first place. Dunno. I just felt weary, like when you recognise the mufty con, the scally, or the drop-drop con, and know you’ve been had. Tricked into complicity by her seeming innocence, even her love. Love, was it?

  My head was pulsing from the antiques in the hold, the inaudible vibes shaking me as if I were the clapper in some psychic bell. I gathered myself. I didn’t have long. Soon I’d need to make a run for it, or be caught here with the two lovebirds. Their cries and grunts were reaching delirium. Detumescence soon, and they’d be free to have a cigarette – though she hated smokers, wouldn’t even touch tobacciana at Gimbert’s auction.

  They would come up to see the last of the loading. A killer guarding his valuable sea-going yacht, his wondrous woman, and his priceless haul of antiques, would have to be armed.

  And Lovejoy would be done for. Unless I scarpered? I could leave in my trusty little craft bobbing by the gangway. But…?

  I almost started down as the couple below reached finality. And I thought, No. I wasn’t standing by my gun, nothing brave. And I’m not one for vengeance. Vengeance is a failure of reason. We should think of charity, find a way where all would come right.

  I’m not the most moral bloke on earth. I’ll never make Archbishop of Canterbury. But all these certifiably genuine antiques? And the people who’d killed Tansy – Christ, I thought, aghast, who had killed Tansy? Surely it couldn’t have been…?

  No, a thousand times no. I even started humming that daft old music hall song as I went to get the thing I’d fallen over. It was a roundish bat. Long as a cricket bat, but heavier at the far end. Baseball, like bouncers carry in nightclubs? I stumbled over two more, picked up a second, and went down into the cabin. I listened at the door. The lovers were swearing undying love and lust. I decided to trap them in their love-nest by shoving a baseball bat through the handle. I honestly intended nothing vicious, and I mean that most sincerely. ’Course, it was natural to feel sad, to put it no more strongly. And didn’t the ‘holy’ (he wasn’t) Pope Innocent the Third famously say that it was no sin to kill somebody over a game of chess? He did. Look it up. He wasn’t joking. This wasn’t chess.

  Then I noticed the extra door. A storm door? It would just fit. As they settled from their climax, I slotted it in place. OK, it would trap them inside, as it was for keeping the sea out in a hurricane. They were sealed.

  Betrayers inside, innocent people outside. I could leave. They couldn’t.

  For a second I stayed there, as their passion descended through the superstrata to sea level, so to speak. I’d never felt such sick hate. Love does it.

  See how often I use the word love? ‘Love’ is today’s code word for every noble and beautiful sentiment. Yet it now only means want. Read the glossies in any shopping mall. Simply replace the word love for want, and you have it. I knew that now. ‘I don’t love him/her any longer’ means ‘I don’t want him/her any longer.’ Or even more bluntly, ‘I’ve had a better offer,’ and off they go. And remember, they’ve sworn undying fidelity, and written the altar promise down. Meaning, of course, until they become bored/ disinterested etc, or find somebody younger/richer. Sorry, but I didn’t invent cynicism. It’s just how people behave. Half of marriages end in divorce in five years. You can get those odds spinning a coin, heads or tails. Gamblers call it luck.

  On deck, I examined the controls. Still no chasing craft full of enemies. The riot ashore was diminishing. I was still safe. The switches were elementary, if I could believe the labels. Anchor Aft meant, I hoped, the chain in the water at the rear. Forward Anchor meant same at the front. Lift could only mean to hawk it up from the seabed. Now I’d fastened Hugo Hahn and his – his, note – eager lady in, they could share their undying love in their watertight cabin. Whatever I did with this grand sailing machine was now up to me. I wasn’t really upset. I don’t get that concerned most of the time.

  The on switch was a simple button. An electric-sounding roar told me I’d done it. I’d been thinking of those old piston-engined steamships that they show on late-night TV. This engine meant serious business. I levered the anchor, hoping it would work. Clatters, a sudden release in the ship’s gentle rocking and she pulled free, slewing seaward. I suppose I ought to have put some headlights on, but you can’t think of everything. Anyhow, she had lights on her mast. I was surprised when I looked up. I’d expected to see square-rigged canvas sails like in Errol Flynn pirate pictures, instead of a stumpy little stick with wires. Maybe I lived too much in films. Once I’ve seen some oldie, I can run it through my mind over and over. Fiction, though. Like love.

/>   Not hurrying, I headed out to sea, the speed lever only halfway along its groove. I was in no hurry. Was there some law about how fast you could go?

  That woman downstairs, though. I mean, how do you tell the difference between a lie and truth? You go by feel. At least I do. You listen to how a woman says things, and guess. The lie-detector test is unreliable. Or you can do that MRI scan of the brain. (A liar’s MRI lights up fourteen brain areas. The truthsayer’s brain ignites a paltry seven.) The real way is to wait and see. I’d waited, and I saw. The hard way.

  The cold breeze stung my eyes. Not sorrow, because I don’t feel that emotion much. Women are women, and there’s plenty written about them and truth, right? One way to look at it is to see it as an aberration, and then forgive. Sociologists claim sixty per cent of wives forgive erring husbands, but only thirty per cent of blokes pardon wives. And employers nowadays are urged to forgive workers who abscond from work and ‘pull a sickie’ on National Sickie Day – it’s 6th February. Liverpool’s our major sickie capital. Glasgow holds the world record in scamming Social Services Benefit money. Statistics are nonsense. Nothing alters. We all know it’s just counting numbers. Life is fable against feelings.

  In Lancashire they used to say, Old flame, new foe. Was the old saw reliable? I faced the sea, steering my stolen ship. Now she was moving, it seemed to have grown. Doing its thing, I suppose, glad it was no longer tethered in the swark.

  The shore had somehow swung. I was headed slightly towards the washing-lines of promenade lights. I turned the wheel, making for the tip of North Pier. Easy as driving a car. I looked round for something to hold the wheel in place. I let go of it and picked up two of the bale hooks. They looked strong enough to do the job, but I was sorely narked. If those vannies had used these great hooks to haul any of the antiques aboard and damaged any, I’d…

  The shore had gone quiet. Somebody was starting an outboard motor, the kind that powered the two small craft. They’d sussed that this big vessel was the focus of the goings-on. As long as it was only the uniformed plod and not the coastguard, I was OK for a while. This ship could really move. It was slicing through the dark waters with engines in mid-yawn. The speedo was marked up to over forty knots, whatever they were, and the digital display showed I was doing a mere six. I was still trying to lodge the wheel by a bale hook when somebody said, ‘Can I help?’