'Aye. Any time.' I cleared my throat. 'Er, knock first, eh? Only, sometimes a lady might stay.'
He held out his hand. A robin immediately flew on it, sticking like they do. Mort had a tiny white thing in his fingers. The robin took it, eyed me with a cock-of-the-walk sneer, and flirted away.
'They eat cheese instead of grubs,' I said, narked.
'They need living things,' he said. 'Cheese alone won't do. This bus is Mount Bures.'
This bus? I looked about. Nothing. We stood by the gate, spoke for a bit. I asked if he'd been in the wood the day I visited Arthur's grave. He nodded. I didn't mention Colette, but asked about Arthur's canal plans. He told me. Then a bus really did chug into sight.
'You kept the tide? Lord of the Manor, Saffron Fields?' He nodded. 'Primogeniture. Dad kept it back when he signed the guarantees.'
'See you soon, then, Mort. Come any time.'
'Thanks again for missing the birds. Write to me care of Mr Hartson.'
Did you shake hands with somebody you ought to have known all his life? I dithered, finally didn't, caught the bus.
I watched him until the bus rocked round the bend.
That was the good bit of the day, slaughtering all that wildlife and encountering Mort.
Now read on.
19
FOR THE LIFE of me I couldn't remember what Sorbo had told me about his dealings with Gluck. Was it how Sorbo had been done out of his mother's ambers and intaglios, that had set me off thinking about Thomas Jenkins and the Great Castellani? Something about Sorbo not being paid for 'the half he'd delivered, slaved for nigh on a year'.
Tired as I was, shoulder hurting from not killing birds, I got the connecting train from Sudbury. I was worried about Sorbo. Something I should have said, done, thought of, rankled. So I fled the darkening countryside and hours later I arrived in London's bright lights, caught the 133 bus. I was sweating, nauseous, not hungry. Bad signs.
The trouble with London is it can look stuporous yet be in a ferment. Tranquil surface, seething below. Streatham Hill in the lamp hours is streets with trees, closed shops, a few restaurants still at it, the train station kiosk just closing. I hurried. Sorbo doesn't believe in phones.
As I puffed up the quiet avenue, I tried to talk myself out of fear. I get into these horrors, telling myself I should have done this or that. Usually it's silly imagination. My Gran used to tell me, 'Always have clean on underneath, in case you get run over.' As if it would prevent accidents, placate some God of the Unclean. Imagination is dafter than motive.
The house looked the same in the gloaming. I halted, wheezing. Steps, a faint light through the vestibule. I almost fell over the dustbin, knocked. Silence.
And felt for the bell. I tried the handle, shouted 'Sorbo!' through the letterbox flap.
More silence. I could see the light in his room.
Til try the back, Sorbo!' I shouted, then stumbled my way round the side. A group of people went laughing up the road. I was unseen, the tall London plane trees dappling the street lighting.
These houses were built for manufacturers drawn into late Victorian London. They always seem taller than they need be. It's because they have cellars, a basement where housemaids lived. I proved this by falling down the cellar steps and hurting my good shoulder. Lovejoy, cat burglar to the gentry.
The cellar door was barred. Wearily I climbed up into the indefinable garden, couldn't see a damned thing. Brambles caught my face. I hunched against them, felt along the house wall. Duck down, you can see silhouettes against sky glow. I made the back steps. That door was also locked. Maddening to see the faint light inside. I did my knock, shouted who I was. Nil.
It's then that my anxiety began to fade. I'm weak as water. I sat on the steps and talked myself out of worrying. I'd dashed to London to make sure Sorbo was safe, enroll him into my anti-Gluck platoon, and found the house quiet. Sorbo was probably boozing in some local pub. I'd wasted all that anxiety. Why wasn't he on the phone like everybody else except me? Sorbo'd thoughtlessly got me frantic for nothing.
Nothing for it, but to resume where I'd left off, visit the carder man. A carder is a land of private clerk who keeps records of antiques sales, thefts, transactions, rumours, anything and everything to do with antiques. For instance, you'd go to the carder man to buy from him details of major mother-of-pearl Edwardian brooches recently sold, stolen, in museums, plus the addresses and charges of the best fakers and forgers of mother-of-pearl antiques. You pay for his 'card' on the subject, hence the name.
Nowadays it's computers, but he's still called a carder man.
Sighing, I rose. Maybe with luck I could get Saunty to put me up. It was getting late. I felt my way down the steps, and fell over something bulky. I went headlong. I swore, scuffed my hand on the ground, damned near broke a bone. Just what I needed.
Getting upright, I touched it, this obstacle. I put my hand on a face.
For a second I actually felt about. Stubble, a nose, an eyeball half covered. I withdrew, the penny still not dropping. Then I screamed, didn't scream, stifled my noise, recoiled falling over some chance thing, a brick maybe, hands to my face in horror gasping and going 'Oooh, oooh,' and holding my hands away in the black night because they'd actually felt somebody's dead face and it was horror and my hands were sticky.
I ran. It didn't have the decency to rain so I could get clean. I dashed blindly out, making a hell of a clatter as I ran slap into the dustbin and brought myself down, slamming my cheek bone against the wall, reeling towards the avenue. I heard my throat moaning but couldn't stop. I was violently sick near Sorbo's front wall. It saved me. I had the sense to stay huddled down shivering and retching while a crowd of late-nighters walked by yelling football threats to another group across the road. A trannie blared pop music from a passing car. A bus trundled past twisting shadows. I wanted to throw my hands away.
