Oh, you'll be allowed as many guesses as you like. Take your time.'
'How do I know you'll come back?'
He smiled again then. What worried me was that he wasn't sincere. It should have tipped me off but I suppose I was too scared right then. Oh, I know he'd been painstaking and finding me had cost him a quid or two. And he'd risked a hell of a lot, killing Dandy Jack like he did. But that spark was missing. I should have known. Every single genuine collector I've known is always on heat. Mention the Sutton Hoo gold-and-garnet Suffolk cape-clasps to a collector and his eyes glaze. He pants like a bulldog on bait. He quivers. There's music in his ears and stars glitter in his bloodshot eyes.
Your actual collector's a hot-blooded animal. Not Rink. I'll bet he did pure mathematics at school. I ought to have realized. Unfortunately I wasn't in a thinking mood.
I’ll shout for help,' I threatened. Some threat.
'I dare you. Ever seen lead shot ricochet?' He was right. One blast directly into my pulpit would mash me like a spud in a grinder.
'Don't talk with your mouth full,' I said. He took no notice, just sat noshing and gazing at the scenery. 'What if I don't guess at all?' I shouted over.
'I can wait. Day after day, Lovejoy. You'll die there.'
'And the knowledge dies with me, Rink.'
'Don't be illogical, Lovejoy. If you know,' he said reasonably, 'it's a consequence of your visit to where you are now. style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Or else, it stems from what's in the copy of Bexon's little books which you carry on your person. As soon as you're dead I shall come down and have access to both sources of information.'
'I don't have them any more.' Lying on principle.
'They're not at your bungalow,' he called. 'So you must have.'
'My bloke'll come searching soon.' Get that, actually threatening a maniac with Algernon. The cavalry.
'I've taken care of that.' He sounded as if he had, too.
'Er, you have?'
'I left them a note saying you'd gone home. Told them both to follow you as soon as possible, urgently.'
I’ll do a deal,' I called. He said nothing. 'Rink?'
'You're in no position to do any dealing, Lovejoy.'
'All right,' I said at last. 'I know where the stuff is.'
'Tell me.'
'No. I want… a guarantee.' That's a laugh, I thought, an antique dealer asking for a guarantee. A record. It'd make a good headline. Antique Dealer Demands Guarantee As Typhoon Grips Ocean…
'You're inventing, Lovejoy.' He was looking intently at me.
'I'm not. I do know. It's true.'
And all of a sudden it was.
I yelped aloud as if I'd been kicked, actually screamed and brought Rink to his feet. I knew exactly where Bexon had put the gold. I could take anybody there. Now. A place I'd never seen, but the precise spot there and I knew it almost down to the bloody inch.
I could see it in my mind's eye. The wheel. The water. The Roman coffin. Splashing water and the pompous lady of the sketch in her daft one-wheeled carriage. I was smiling, even, then chuckling, then laughing. What a lovely mind the old man must have had. How sad I'd never met him.
'I know!' I was laughing and applauding, actually clapping like a lunatic as if a great orchestra played. I laughed and cheered and jigged, banging my palms and taking bows. I bounced and shook my bars. 'The old bastard!' I bawled out ecstatically, laughing and letting the tears run down my face. I practically floated on air with joy. If I'd tried I could have flown up and landed running. 'The beautiful old bastard!' I roared louder still with delighted laughter. 'The old bugger's had us on all along!' And I was on the selfsame island, the very ground where the Roman Suetonius had landed, pouring his Gemini Legion on the Douglas strand. History was wrong. Bexon was right. The clever old sod.
'Where is it? Where?' Rink was on his feet, puce with rage.
'Get stuffed, Rink!' I screamed merrily, capering. 'It deserves me, not a frigging cold lizard like you, you -'
I’ll - ' He was raising the gun in a rage when he seemed to jerk his legs backwards.
Perhaps he slipped. He gave a rather surprised but muted call, not even a shout, and tumbled forwards. The shotgun clattered on the platform. I watched frozen as he moved out into the free air above the yawning seal pen and started to turn downwards.
It was a kind of formal progression. I can see him yet, gravely progressing in a curve, arms out and legs splayed as if to catch a wind. Only the scream told it wasn't as casual as all that. It began an instant before the body dropped tidily on to the iron stakes on the crumbling stone barrier. Rink seemed to move silently once or twice as if wanting to settle the iron more comfortably through his impaled trunk. An incoming wave began its whooshing rush at the inlet's horrible mouth. His limbs jerked once before the sea rushed over him. An arm moved slowly as if reaching into the trapped lagoon of the seal pen. The wave sighed back, stained dark. Oddly, it only became a deeper green from his blood. There was no red. I was staring at him some time. He must have been dead on impact, I guessed. What a terrible, horrendous word that is. Impact. There's nothing left once you've said a word like that is there? Impact. I was shivering from head to foot. Impact. I was violently sick inside the cage.
The worst of it was the sea kept moving him. It seemed as if he was alive still, trying to rearrange matters so as to make a slight improvement in the circumstances in which his corpse now unfortunately found itself. The start of a demented housekeeping in his new resting-place. I turned away and retched and retched. Lighter now, I thought wryly, maybe an easier climb.
