trees; and I have a little roof-garden with potted conifers, so it’s quite pleasant sitting at my little pub cast-iron table, with four aluminium repro French rococo chairs, from B&Q. I offered him a drink, and he had a lime-juice.
When I had finished making my statement, and he had written it down in painful near-copperplate he said, ‘That fireman’s in a bad way. It could be a murder charge yet.’
‘Bad business.’ Why do we always say ‘bad business’ in that stuffy way?
‘I shall be glad when that Pond’s finished and done with. Under the sod.’
‘It’s the heat!’ We had just reached that stage of a June scorcher when it starts to cool and you find it a luxury to remember just how hot it’s been.
‘Anything to do with that Pond, the Super dumps it in my lap, now.’
‘Any progress on the . . .’ I couldn’t quite bring myself to say either ‘baby’ or ‘skeleton.’
‘Not much. It was about three months old, they reckon. A well-grown boy-child, from the bones. And they’ve had a bit of success with that crucifix. It was quite an expensive one, silver. With the maker’s mark on it. Belgian. Never sold in this country. Never sold anywhere but Belgium. Not much call for them, I suppose, that size. Except in Roman Catholic countries.’
‘Any back records of missing Belgian babies?’
‘What do you think?’ He sighed, and took a long swig of lime. ‘Firm stopped making them crucifixes about six years ago. They made them from 1969 till 1981. Not that that gets us much further. We’ve done a lot of house-to-house, but Wheatstone’s the worst place in the world for that kind of thing. They find the bodies of old ladies who’ve been dead three months and nobody noticed. Aye well, the fire brigade reckon another week to pump the Pond dry. Roll on.’
‘Anything about that murdered bookseller?’
‘Only that he was a horrible old man – well-known in the occult world. An acquaintance of Aleister Crowley, I believe.’
He did not leave a happy man.
Chapter 7
There was more trouble the following morning. It seemed a different sort at first.
The kid with the van and the adhesive tape round his spectacles was back.
‘Gorra bit more stuff for you, squire!’ he announced, shuffling into my shop. He had a battered cardboard-box under his arm. He put it on my desk without asking permission, and proceeded to unload a collection of tat. And, what’s more, I could tell at a glance that it was dangerous tat. Old square wrist-watches, silver propelling pencils with no lead in them, a battered little silver milk-jug that had once been quite nice, some bracelets and other jewellery, and lastly a dressing-table set with silver-backed hairbrush and mirror. All with a neglected look; downright dirty.
It had ‘burglary’ written all over it; the kind of stuff an incompetent burglar would find in five quick minutes of rifling drawers. I looked at him, with a rising feeling of rage. Everything about him spoke of his incompetence. His mended glasses, the rusty skirts of his van, which he hadn’t even tried to repair with fibreglass. The one rear tyre I could see was badly worn; the police would have him for that alone. It would not be long, given such incompetence, before he was caught. And then he would grass, to try to cut down his sentence, and I would be had up for receiving stolen goods . . .
‘I don’t buy this kind of stuff,’ I said coldly. ‘It’s not the sort of stuff I sell. I only deal in big stuff, furniture . . .’
‘And model boats . . .’ he said, with a sneer. I realized I was standing on very thin ice; if I offended him, he might shop me anyway. Better buy something off him to shut him up; till I could get down to the Duke of Portland at lunch-time and complain to Mossy about him. I reckoned Mossy would not approve of this free-lancing. I reckoned Mossy would skin him alive when he knew. And I knew Mossy was utterly reliable.
The only thing he had that took my fancy was the silver dressing-table set. It would look quite nice, set out on one of my dressing-tables in the shop.
‘How much?’ I asked, picking up the mirror and brush. They were twentieth century, but decent. Swags and roses and stuff embossed on the back. Dressing-table sets don’t change all that much over the years.
‘Sixty.’
I shook my head. ‘Forty. That’s the best I