'Hello, Lovejoy.' The old bargee emerged with his little grandson Jack.
'Can I take my pick of these longboats?'
He hid his astonishment. 'Jack, show Lovejoy the engine.'
'This way, Lovejoy.'
Little Jack took my hand as if I were senile. He's six. At the non-sinking boat he held up his arms. I lifted him aboard, clambered after. Old Kettle sat on a bollard and lit his pipe while Jack showed me starter, forward, reverse. I heard him out and said ta.
'I want to go to Saffron Fields, Kettle. Tonight.'
He spat, tamped his pipe and wiped the stubber on his trouser leg. 'Not allowed night journeys on a canal, Lovejoy.'
'But I'm a crook,' I said, narked.
'The canal's blocked up,' Jack said. 'It tried to reach the sea but doesn't.'
I looked at him. 'Don't be a nosey little sod, you.'
'Lovejoy swore, Grampa.'
'There's three locks, Chelmer style,' Kettle said. He used to make barge ware from sheet tin. I helped him to paint his jugs, kettles, tin vases, in the old style. We sold well to tourists, but he lost heart as his longboats failed. 'The last lock's our terminus.' He spat, eyed me. 'It's two fields from the sea estuary.'
'Why're you telling me this?' I asked, indignant. 'Think I'm going to smuggle a barge load out of the country, onto some blacked-out ship like they used to do in olden days?'
'Course not, Lovejoy,' Kettle said evenly.
Four o'clock in the afternoon I went back to my cottage to nosh on bread and fried tomatoes, have a sleep. It would be a long night. 36
ABOUT SEVEN I rang Gluck from the phone box by the chapel. It seemed impossible that he wouldn't hear my blood rushing in my ears.
'The news of a gallery theft breaks soon. The eastern promise is set up.'
'Where and when?'
'Dawn. All one shipment.' I made myself sound shakier than I was. 'I can get the lot to your manor. You'll get a legit bill of sale.'
'Wait.' He spoke to somebody, muffled. I didn't catch a word. 'Legit?'
'Above board. I deliver the antiques. You're allowed thirty days to pay.'
'It sounds good.' Yet he sounded wary. I thought, Dear God, must I lead everybody by the nose? Any dealer'd jump at it. I could see I'd have to make difficulties, to make him bite harder. I looked outside. The light was fading.
'There's a problem, Gluck. The eastern promise just arrived offshore.'
'Offshore where?'
Hooked him. 'Can't you guess? It'll all soon be on your land. But there's a risk.'
'I don't like risks.' His speech became guttural. He hated risks.
What the hell did I say now? There was no risk. With Billia and Dang under arrest soon, Judith the broadcaster observantly recording every detail in Dulwich's dark ditches, with Wrinkle and Honor fornicating among Jack the Ripper's ghosts in Spitalfields, every menace was safely neutralized. There wasn't even a risk for me, an all-time first. My brilliant planning had finally triumphed.
'The risk is I might need to get a van from somewhere.'
'Silence.' He actually said that, like a schoolmaster. 'It will be dark. You will have the excess items covered. No vam.
Okay, I was to see it didn't rain. 'Right, Mr Gluck. When you have all the antiques, you will leave the lad and the rest of us alone?' He said of course. 'Where do we meet?'
'The end lock, in three hours.' He sniggered. 'I shall be strolling on my canal path, looking for trespassers.'
Don't sniggers sound unpleasant? I was wet with sweat. I went to get the longboat from Kettle.
'Going far, captain?'
'Avast me hearties.' Normally I'd ignore repartee because I'm no good at it, but as I clambered aboard I had a crazy impulse to ask the old man to come too.
'You all right, son?' He passed me the heavy iron key. 'Don't lose it.'
The engine started first time. The best thing about these old canal longboats is they stay put. Until you engage gear there's no motion, because a canal isn't a river. No current, no parking problems. You want to stop, just glide to the bank and switch off.
Best holiday in the world, a canal longboat. Every mile there's steps up to some tavern for your dinner. And canals pierce our towns and cities. Go up canal stairs, you're astonishingly in the middle of, say, Birmingham, Manchester, with glittery shops.
Hell, but a canal's quiet in the country. And black. Apart from the muted thump of the engine, nothing. Fields invisible, trees looking at you thinking who's this interloper. It's like night unmasks countryside's hidden menace. I had a torch, shone it all about.
Nobody. Something splashed ahead. I hate night splashes. I hate daytime splashes too.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that all splashes are bad news.
Longboats on canals,
