The ferry was two-thirds full with passengers. I must have expected a few logs loosely lashed together because I gaped at this huge ocean-going boat. It had a funnel and round windows and everything. Cars were streaming aboard, even lorries.
You can get a meal or snacks and there’s a bar. The general impression’s a bit grubby but a few hours is not for ever. I like wandering about on ships. It being latish September holidaymakers weren’t too plentiful, only a few clusters of diehards catching the cheaper rates of early autumn. We were a mixed bunch. There were the usual tribes of businessmen discussing screws and valves over pale ales, hysterical crises over lost infants filially miraculously found again where they’d been left in the first place, and couples snogging uninterruptedly on the side decks. They’re my favourite. If Janie had been with me she’d have said not to look at them, then looked herself when we’d gone past. Women do that.
Liverpool began to slide away. I looked everywhere on the ferry for my watcher. Twice, I went round the lower decks, strolling among the cars and pretending boredom. No sign. He wasn’t on board, I must admit I was rather put out. You eventually feel quite proud, being shadowed. After all, not everybody gets trailed, if that’s the right word. Maybe he’d been laid off. I already knew that good old Edward was of an economic turn of mind. That meant Rink would be flying first class, of course. I just hoped he’d have sense enough to leave Nichole behind. If there was going to be any rough stuff I didn’t want her involved.
Seagulls cawed and squawked for nothing. They went and sat floating in our wake a lot. Somebody once told me they can actually drink seawater. They have this gland for handling the sodium or something. We had over a hundred following us out of the Mersey estuary into the open sea. You’d think they’d get tired because they’ve only got to find their way home again.
Ships are noisy, not just the people but the engines, the sea, the floor, the walls as well. Even the funnels make a racket. Somebody always seems to be ringing bells in the downstairs rooms. I went up into the air though the wind was cutting. A sheepdog came and sat near me by the railings.
‘Are you lost?’ I asked it. It smiled like they do and edged closer to lean on my leg. We looked at the sea rushing past below us. ‘If you’re lost, mate, there’s not much hope for the rest of us, is there?’
It said nothing back. I bent down and peered. It had nodded off, probably fed up. I knew how it felt. Me without antiques, the dog without a single sheep. I pulled it away from the railings for safety and hauled it next to me on a wooden seat. When you lift dogs up they seem to have so many ribs.
‘Some bloody watchdog you are,’ I told it. ‘What if we were sheep?’
I nodded off too. It’s the sea air.
Ships docking unsettle me. I’m not scared but they seem to head towards the walls so fast. Then the whole thing shakes for all it’s worth and stops. Some men threw ropes from our front end. Two chaps on land pulled them round a big iron peg set in the stone road, a queer business. Some others did the same at the back end. We all marched up a flat ladder thing and crocodiled up the stone steps to the town of Douglas, Isle of Man.
‘Do you all live on that thing?’ I asked the uniformed chap who was seeing us off.
He seemed surprised. ‘Where else?’ he said.
It’s a rum world.
I humped my case along a glass cloister affair and crossed over to the taxis, I spent a few minutes describing Bexon’s abode, carefully using the same descriptive terms in Bexon’s diary. One taxi-driver nodded finally and took my case.
‘Only one place that can be,’ he announced. ‘Groundle Glen.’ I was pleased. Bexon had used that name, though somewhat ambiguously.
The main Douglas beach is rimmed by a wide promenades and a curved road. Houses, shops and hotels gathered parallel for a dense mile or so. Then the hillside begins, suddenly rising to high green fells.
‘What’s a railway line on the main road for?’ I asked him as the north road started to lift out of Douglas town. It had been on my mind.
‘For that.’ He was laughing.
A tiny train, engine and all, was chugging uphill on our left, beside us on the road. One carriage carried the sign GROUNDLE GLEN.
Ask a silly question.
About a mile out the road ran above a small bay cleft in the rock. A cluster of newly built bungalows shone in the late sun. Ships hung about on the sea.
‘This is it.’
We turned right down a sharp incline towards the sea. There were maybe thirty or forty dwellings ribbed on the hillside, mainly greys and browns. New flower-beds surmounted bank walls by the winding road.
‘Do they have an office?’
‘It’s only one of the bungalows. A lassie sees to you, Betty Springer.’
The taxi driver carried my suitcase to my door. I was becoming edgy with all this courtesy. He praised the view and I tried to do the same, but all you could see was the green hillside and woods on the opposite side of the valley and the blue sea rustling the shingle below. A stream in its autumn spate ran below. There was a bridge leading to the trees.
‘Don’t you like the view?’ my driver asked happily as I paid him off. I strained to see the town we’d left down by the harbour but couldn’t. It was hidden by the projecting hillside. Bloody countryside everywhere again.
‘Lovely,’ I said.
The girl came to see I got the gas working all right as I explored the bungalow.
‘The end bungalow’s a shop too,’ she told me. ‘Papers and groceries. Nothing out of the ordinary, but useful.’
‘Great.’
‘Are you a friend of the other gentleman?’ she asked merrily, putting on the kettle. She showed me how to drop the ironing board, clearly a born optimist.
‘Er, who?’
‘From East Anglia too,’ she said. ‘Mr Throop, Just arrived this very minute.’
‘What a coincidence,’ I observed uneasily. My private eye?
‘I put him next door. You’ll have a lot to talk about.’
‘How do I get a car, love?’
‘Hire.’ She fetched out some teabags. ‘I’ll do it if you tell me what kind. Have some tea first. I know what the ferry’s like.’
‘And I need a good map.’
‘In the living-room bookcase. Please don’t lose any if you can help it. What are you?’ She faced me frankly.
‘Eh?’ I countered cunningly.
‘Well, are you a walker, or an archaeologist after the Viking burials, or a tape recorder man who wants me to speak Manx, or what? Sugar and milk?’
‘I’m . . .’ I had a brainwave and said, ‘I’m an engineer. Like my old friend Bexon who used to come here.’
‘You know him? How nice!’ She poured for us both while I rejoiced inwardly at my opportunism. ‘Such a lovely old man. He’d been to Douglas on his honeymoon years ago. How is he?’
She’d obviously taken to the old chap. I said he was fine and invented bits of news about him.
‘He was so proud!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’d helped to build a lot of things on Man. Of course, that was years ago. Are you here to mend the railway? It seems so noisy lately.’
We chatted, me all excited and trying to look casual and tired. Betty finally departed, promising to get a car. We settled for first thing in the morning.
So I’d hit the exact place Bexon had stayed. Now, then. Businesslike, I went to suss out the scenery.
The bay window overlooked the valley. Over a row of roofs the light was beginning to fade. Something was rankling, slightly odd. If Bexon was an ailing man, why ever stay at Groundle Glen? Betty Springer had told me the little train stopped near the crossroads up on the main road, maybe four hundred yards away. And an old man walking slowly up to the tiny roadside station could get wet through if it rained. So he was here for a purpose.
The bungalows were too recently built to be of any romantic significance to the old man. There seemed to be only one reason left. I peered down towards the river.
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Tally-ho?
I went out to buy some eggs, cheese and bread. They had some lovely Auckland butter which I felt like. I bought a miserable pound of margarine instead because the quacks are forever on at you these days. They had no pasties or cream sponges. I found I’d accidentally bought a cabbage when I got home. What the hell do people do with cabbage? I suppose you fry it some way. I opened the windows and looked about for some ducks but saw none. But do ducks like cabbage? I gave up and put it in a drawer.
I fried myself an omelet. That, a ton of bread and marge, a pint of tea and I was fit enough to switch on the news to see who we were at war with. Outside hillside creatures stalked and cackled. The sea shushed. The sun sank. Lights came on in the bungalows here and there. A ship’s green lamp showed a mile or two off shore.
It seemed a fearful long way to town. When you’re in countryside it always does.
I got the fright of my life that evening.
It was about midnight. The lights were on in the next bungalow. It was the man who’d followed me. I knew that. Throop. My lights were off. The telly was doing its stuff but I’d turned the sound down.
This figure moved in silhouette. My kitchen door was glass so he was easily visible. Probably thought I was out. I got the poker and crept to the little passageway. The stupid man was fumbling noisily with the latch. Some sleuth.
I hid in the loo doorway, trembling. My mouth was dry. In he blundered. His glasses gleamed in the part light as I leapt and grabbed him.
‘Right, Throop, you bastard!’ He was too astonished to struggle. I clicked on the light.
‘Greetings, Lovejoy!’ It was Algernon, pleased we’d met up.
‘You stupid . . .’ I let him go. ‘You frightened me to death.’
‘Did you not realize?’ He went all modest. ‘I’m being your . . . undercover agent!’
‘Brew up,’ I told him, trying to keep the quaver out of my voice and trying to hide the poker. I felt like braining him.
‘Certainly!’ He breezed into the kitchen, falling over a stool. ‘How perfectly marvellous that someone so perspicacious failed to penetrate my subterfuge!’ he nattered, chuckling. He pulled a kitchen drawer out all the way. The crash of the cutlery as it spread over the tiled floor made me jump a mile. Unabashed, he wagged a finger playfully while he grabbed the kettle. ‘You should have realized, Lovejoy! Algernon sort of goes with Throop!’
‘What else?’ I put my head in my hands. A spray of water wet me through, just Algernon trying to fill the kettle.
It was rapidly becoming a bad dream. Here I was trying to slip about quietly, a difficult, risky business with that sinister nut Rink on my tail. I’d thought I was doing reasonably well. Now, thanks to Algernon, following me would be like shadowing a carnival. I had to get clear.
‘And I have another surprise for you!’ he crowed, plugging the flex in with a blue flash.
‘Please, Algernon.’ I couldn’t take any more. My heart was still thumping.
‘No, Lovejoy!’ he cried roguishly, spilling tea round his feet and skilfully nudging a cup into the sink as he turned. I heard it break on the stainless steel. ‘I won’t tell you! It’s a surprise?’
Somehow he’d managed to pour hot water into the teapot though it was touch and go and a lot of luck went into it. To save breakages I got the cups. He broke the fridge door looking for the milk which I’d got prominently displayed on the table anyway. He prattled on about his journey, hugging himself with glee about the mysterious surprise he’d lined up for me. I had a headache.
‘Push off, Algernon,’ I said.
‘Very well, Lovejoy!’ he cried. ‘Your tea’s all ready! See you in tomorrow’s fair dawning! And when you wake . . .’ He went all red and bashful and tripped head over heels down the passage. The door crashed. I could have sworn something splintered. I listened, wincing. No tinkle of glass, thank God. Another crash. He’d made it home, the next bungalow. I took a sip of tea and spat it out. He’d forgotten the bloody teabags.
I sighed and looked for a bottle of beef. A secret with Algernon’s like a salvo. I’d have to get some sleep. Algernon’s secret would be on the night boat. Always assuming her car wasn’t too long to fit on the deck.
Somebody was in the kitchen again. Light tottered through curtains, still drawn. I vaguely remembered making love when it was dark. I forget to wind watches so there’s no point in having one, and those new digital efforts are always trying to prove themselves. I could tell it was about after seven o’clock. I went to the bedroom window and peered out. Sure enough, a Lagonda by the shop.
I climbed back into bed, sitting up. In she came, lovely and floury from baking.
‘Morning, Lovejoy, darling.’
‘I’m supposed to be here alone,’ I said bitterly.
She set the tray right and got back in with cold feet.
‘You can’t possibly manage without me, Lovejoy.’
‘It’ll be like a Bedouin caravan with you lot. How did you know I was here?’
‘Algernon,’ she said brightly. ‘I persuaded him your welfare depends on me.’
‘Anybody else?’ I demanded. ‘Jimmo? The Batemans? Jill?’
‘Just me.’ She dished breakfast out, smiling roguishly.
‘You’re going back. First boat.’
‘No, Lovejoy,’ she gave back calmly. ‘You’ve to pay up.’
‘Er,’ I said uneasily. She must mean the sale. ‘Well,’ I said slowly, working it out as I went, ‘I had a lot of expenses. I made about twenty per cent. Fifty-fifty?’ I keep meaning to get one of those electric calculators.
She was shaking her head. It was a pity we could see ourselves in the mirror of the dressing table opposite. She watched me in the pale light. I looked away casually.
‘A day. Remember?’ Hard as nails, women are.
‘Oh.’ Of course. I owed her a day. I thought hard. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. I had a good dozen antiques dealers’ addresses on the Isle. Some were supposed to be pretty fair. ‘Well, Janie love –’
‘Before you say it, Lovejoy,’ she told me. ‘No. No antiques. No dealers. No playing Bexon’s silly game. One complete day. And I say what we do.’
I groaned.
‘My hands are hurting,’ I said bravely. ‘They’re agony –’
‘And you can stop that,’ she interrupted. ‘It won’t work.’
‘Look, love –’
‘We’re shopping, Lovejoy.’ She ticked them off on fingers. ‘And you’re going to cook me a lovely supper. Then you’re going to sit with me in the evening, come for a walk and then seduce me in bed. Here. Beneath these very sheets.’
‘What if we pass an antique shop?’ I yelped, aghast. She’d gone demented.
‘You will walk bravely past. With me.’ She smiled, angelic.
I nodded, broken. Ever noticed how bossy women really are, deep down?
‘When?’
‘Whenever I say.’ She smiled, boss; ‘I’ll let you know.’
Day dawned grimly and relentlessly.
Chapter 17
I PICKED UP courage while we dressed. ‘Is this your day?’
Janie thought for a couple of centuries. ‘No, thank you.’
I cheered up at that.
‘I have a car coming. Nine o’clock.’
‘I’ve cancelled it,’ she said innocently. We don’t want Lovejoy getting lost; do we?’
Of course we didn’t, I assured her.
‘Come on, then,’ I said; ‘Get your knickers on and we’ll look around.’
‘Cheek.’
We walked down to the shore. The river runs into a curved stony beach, only about a hundred yards across. The stones are a lovely blue-grey colour. Steep jagged rocks rise suddenly to form rather dour headlands. In the distance towards Douglas we could see the gaggle of chalets forming a holiday camp. I’d seen the sign for it during the drive along the cliff road.
‘How noisy.’ It was a racket, stones clacking and. shuffling and the sea
hissing between.
We gazed inland. The shale-floored inlet, only ran about two hundred yards back from the water before it narrowed, into a dark, mountainous cleft filled by forest. A wooden bridge spanned the river there, presumably for us visitors to stroll across and up the steep hillside. Well, whatever turns you on, I thought. Then it occurred to me: what if it was Bexon’s favourite walk? After all, he had to have some reason for coming this far out of town. Bushes and gorse everywhere. It would be a climb more than a stroll.
We walked over and explored the hillside. The footpath divided about a hundred feet from the bridge, one branch running inland along the glen floor to follow the river. The other climbed precipitously on planked steps round the headland. Janie chose left, so we followed that.
‘Look. Palm trees.’
I was going to scoff, but they were. The valley bulged soon into a level, densely wooded swamp for about a quarter of a mile as far as I could tell. Somebody years ago had built tall little islands among the marsh, creating lagoons complete with palms. Here and there we could find pieces of rotten trellis among the dense foliage. Once we came upon a large ruined hut by the water. There were at least three decorative wooden bridges.
‘Betty Springer said they used to have dances along here.’
I wasn’t interested. No engineering works, and I wanted evidence. The valley narrowed again a little way on. The trees crowded closer and the undergrowth closed in on our riverside path. The water ran faster as the ground began to rise. I didn’t see any point going on. Ahead, an enormous viaduct crossed the valley. The beck coursed swiftly beneath, gurgling noisily. It looked deep and fast. We headed back past the lagoons and took the ascending fork from the bridge, talking about Bexon. The path was only wide enough for one at a time. I told her over my shoulder how I’d got the taxi-driver to find the place.
‘Are you sure this is where he stayed?’
‘Betty remembered him.’
Janie really found it first, a brick kiln set in the hillside. Overgrown, like the rest, but reassuring.
Gold by Gemini Page 14
