'Before you say it, Lovejoy,' she told me. 'No. No antiques. No dealers. No playing Bexon's silly game. One complete day. And ,' 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 XVII

Contents - Prev/Next

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. V '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.

'Look how flat the path is here.' She pointed out the iron rails set in the ground. The path ran on the contour line seawards from the kiln.

'That's odd. It looks dead level.' The flat path was wider now than any other on the hills.

'For hauling bricks?' she suggested.

'Maybe.'

It was a little railway. We traced it inland. It ended in a hillside glade. There we found a ruined station, wooden, collapsed into the forest down the steep slope. We walked back, almost hurrying now. A railway means an engineer. Maybe Bexon worked on it, probably a scenic run through the woods to view the sea from the headland or

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