“I’ll be pleased.”
On the spur of the moment I tried a flyer. “Don’t suppose it’ll be easy taking good old Joseph’s place. Is he around? Like a word with him.”
She was shocked that I knew, and the cake stand just made it to the table. Her face suddenly went abstract, as women’s do for concealment. “Now what did I do with that butter dish…?” she said vaguely, and that was as far as I got.
Margaret finally landed Tinker for me in Fat Bert’s nooky shop in the Arcade. I’d wasted a fortune trying different pubs. Absurdly I was really pleased to hear his long rasp.
“Where the bleedin’ hell you got to, Lovejoy?” he graveled out, wheezing. “ ’Ere, mate.
We in trouble?”
“Shut it, Tinker.” Maybe he was only three-quarters sloshed, I thought hopefully. I hate to chuck money away on incoherence. “You sober?”
“ ’And on me ’eart, Lovejoy. Not a drop all bleedin’ day.”
“Listen. That driver who got topped. His name Joseph Something?”
“Dunno, Lovejoy.”
“Find out from Antioch. I’ll ring tomorrow. Any news?”
“Nar, Lovejoy. That bleeder’s still round the Hook.” He meant Dutchie hadn’t returned on the Hook of Holland ferryboat. “But there’s some Ities hangin’ round.”
“Italians?” My soul dampened.
“Aye. Millie’s youngster Terry reckons they wuz circus rousters or summert. Two big buggers. They come soon after that tart.” Millie’s a barmaid. Terry runs pub messages, bets for the two-thirty at Epsom and that. Terry’d know, if anybody would.
“Tinker.” I’d not had a headache all day. “Which tart?”
“The one you used to shag down Friday Wood before—”
“Tinker.”
“—before that little blondie you had went for that shoeshop manageress you fancied in the White Hart—”
That’s what I need, I thought bitterly, hearing Fat Bert roaring laughing in the background while Margaret lectured the stupid pair of them. Friends. “Clear them out, Tinker.”
Mutter, mutter. “They’ve pissed orf, Lovejoy.” Tinker’s drunken idea of subtlety. “You remember her, lovely arse—”
“What did she want?” I’d already identified Francie.
“She come in hell of a hurry, after midnight. Said nothing, only asked where you’d got to. Her nipper told me it’d been in bed on a train.”
All children are “it” to Tinker. Betty Blabbermouth, my erstwhile helper at the Great Antique Road Show. Francie must have hoofed into East Anglia on a night express, and reached Tinker a few millisecs before Sidoli’s killer squad came a-hunting. I swallowed.
In spite of Joan, Francie still felt something for me and had rushed to warn.
Well, I didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to reason that various folk were cross, simply because I’d injured a few blokes, damaged a wagon or two, shambled a fairground’s livelihood, and nicked their vastly expensive generator. And now they wanted repayment in notes of the realm, my blood or other equivalent currency. I quavered, cleared my throat.
“Sure there was no message?”
“Only she’d be at the Edinburgh Tattoo.” A long pause. “It’s north of Selkirk,” he added helpfully.
Francie’s way of saying steer clear of Edinburgh until that vast military tattoo closed the Festival? Well, I was already in Edinburgh’s black books, and there must be enough guns in two fairgrounds to make a jury think that one accidental shooting of a no-good scruff like me was a permissible average… No. Francie’s message was a very, very useful hint indeed.
“News from Jo?”
“That teacher bint? She visits Three-Wheel Archie.”
A glass clinked, Tinker finding Fat Bert’s reserve bottle.
“And, Lovejoy. There’s money from your sweep. We made a killin’. Margaret says as she’ll send your slice to a post office if you’ll say where the bleedin’ ’ell you—”
Click and burr. I didn’t want anybody knowing my address after that lot. Escape’s like murder, a private business. I stood indecisively, then walked out of the tavern into Dubneath’s cool, watery day for a deep ponder. Life’s got so many risks, you’re lucky to get out of this world alive. Wherever I looked, enemies lurked. Back home in East Anglia, fairground heavies dangled ominously in the trees. The long roads between Caithness and my village were filled with irritated night drivers whose colleague had got done in. I strolled down Dubneath’s empty wharf to examine the vacant harbor.
Hell is people, somebody once said. He forgot to add that so’s Heaven. The more I thought about it, the safer Tachnadray’s claustrophobic solitude seemed.
Two hours I walked about the somnolent town. For ten minutes I stood with Dubneath’s one layabout and watched the traffic lights change, really heady excitement. A tiny school loosed about four o’clock, pretty children much tidier than East Anglia’s, with twisty curling accents. I thought longingly of Jo, a lump in my throat.
