'Yes. The car pushed him along quite several yards,' Helen told him. 'It wasn't going all that fast.'
'Did Dandy see it?' I asked her. She shook her head.
The doctor moved us out of the ward with a head wag.
'Are you next of kin?'
We stared, hesitated before answering.
'Well, he has none, Doctor,' Helen said at last. 'As far as we know.'
'He's… seriously injured, you see.' He asked us to leave a phone number.
We finished up giving Margaret's. Helen meant, but didn't say, that she'd know to reach me through Janie somehow. On the way back to High Street we carefully disengaged arms just in case. Helen told me the car was a big old Rover.
'I could have sworn, Lovejoy…' Helen paused. 'I had an idea the driver might have been… that chap you were talking to outside Dandy's.'
'The one with the blonde?' Rink.
'Yes, but a different car.'
'Well,' I said carefully, 'one doesn't use one's very best for dealing with the vulgar mob, does one?'
'I could be wrong, I suppose.'
'You could.' I left it at that.
'I'll tell Margaret we gave her home number,' Helen said.
She paused as we made to part. 'Lovejoy.'
'What?'
'Ring me.' She met my eyes. 'Whenever.'
'If I come into money,' I quipped.
'Have you eaten?' she examined my face. 'You're gaunt.'
'It's the ascetic life I lead.' We looked at each other another moment. 'See you, Helen.'
'Yes.'
I was wondering, can a duckegg like Rink be so savage? Then I thought, aren't we all?
CHAPTER IX
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THAT AFTERNOON I'd never been so famished. Hunger's all right but bad for morale. I combed the cottage for provisions and ended up with a quarter-full tin of powdered milk, a tiny piece of cheese I'd overlooked, one small cooking apple, some limp celery, a bottle of sauce and five grotty teabags. Hardly nosh on the Elizabethan scale. Just as well Henry wasn't due today. He'd have started on the divan. I glanced at my non-edible walnut carriage clock and decided to call on Squaddie. He's always good for a calorie.
First I would cerebrate for a minute or two. This Bexon business was starting to niggle.
I strolled into the garden. On the face of it, you couldn't call it much of a problem. I sat on the garden steps near the budgies' flight, whistling to think better.
An old geezer dies leaving behind a scrawled tale telling how he'd had a holiday and found some ruins or other. A mosaic. And a gold or two, Lovejoy. Don't forget them.
Then he leaves his story in duplicate. Well, big deal. Two nieces explained that. Clearly one booklet each and a funny drawing of Lady Isabella chucked in for luck. From the way Nichole's henchman Rink had behaved none of us knew any more than that. I chuckled at the memory of his absurd threat, making Manton and Wilkinson look round irritably at my whistling's sudden halt. Then I thought of Dandy Jack.
'Sorry, lads,' I told them. 'Just thinking.'
We all resumed, me sitting on the cold stones and the birds trilling on their enclosed branches. Singing makes their chests bulge so they rock about. Ever noticed that? It's a miracle they don't fall off. I expect their feet keep tighter hold on the twigs than you'd think from a casual look.
The problem lay of course in what we were all busy guessing. Nichole's wealthy hero obviously guessed an enormous crock of gold somewhere. Greedy sod. He was already at least a two-Rolls man. Janie guessed I was wasting my time again when I should have been seducing her away from her posh hubby. Dandy Jack was guessing that his Burne-Jones drawing would settle his boozing bills for some time to come, and he was right. Always assuming he got better and those bouncy nurses let him loose.
'Manton.' He looked at me in silence. 'What,' I asked, 'am I guessing? That's the real problem, isn't it?'
They glanced at each other, then back at me. We all thought hard.
'You're right,' I said, got out my rusty old bike and hit the road. I had to pump its front tyre up first, this being the space age.
About three miles from my cottage tidal creeks begin. Low-lying estuaries, woods, sloping green fields, orchards and beautiful undulating countryside blending with the mighty blue ocean and getting on my wick, though not everybody sees sense like I do.
Even though it was quite early a couple of anglers were ruminating on the Infinite along the Goldhammer inlet, and some nut was trying to get the total boredom of the scene on canvas - tomorrow's antique. Or even today's? I pedalled past with a cheery greeting. The artist was pleased and shouted a good day, but the anglers were mad
