Read Online Faces in the Pool by Jonathan Gash - Free Book Online Page A

between you and Laura?’
    ‘Lawyer and client, Lovejoy!’ He leant forward confidentially. ‘And you know how close those relationships can be!’
    Prima waved from the bookshop opposite. I reached for the biscuits – gift horse and all that.
    ‘I’ll be at my cottage, OK?’
    ‘Glad you’re seeing sense, Lovejoy.’ He snaffled the biscuits quicker than I could blink. Lawyers and clergymenalways move fast for freebies. ‘Thank you, young lady. On Lovejoy’s credit, I think you said?’
    As he rose to go, I asked outright, ‘Mr Hennell. Did you top Paltry?’
    His fat gut bounced with humour. ‘Not personally. No good having a dog and barking yourself, eh?’
    Always leave a sinking ship, I say. Grab the lifeboat before anyone else. I went hopefully towards Prima. Laura beckoned me from Sandy’s merry mob. I pretended not to notice. I wondered who would pay for Paltry’s headstone, and what to tell the stonemason to engrave. Him or her?

CHAPTER TEN
    spam: false interest in antiques (trade slang)
    Prima lives in a dream, hoping to find the world’s most-prized antique. Greed makes us all lunatics. She uses her husband’s gelt to fund private investigators to look into tales of fabled antiquities, so she has connections.
    ‘I’ve a sniff, Prima.’ I looked round like a spy.
    ‘What, darling?’ she breathed.
    ‘Laura’s husband – Ted, isn’t he? – had sight of Good Queen Bess’s portrait locket ring. You know the one? Opens to reveal miniatures of her mum, Anne Boleyn, and Bess herself. Close the locket and the two portraits kiss. Beautiful.’ I almost filled up at the thought, being sensitive. Prima zoomed to the heart of the matter.
    ‘God, what a find ! I’ve heard of it!’ She clutched my arm. I saw Laura frown, suspecting rival falsehoods. ‘Ted Moon, the collector who ran off when his wife won gillions? A missing girl from the sea estuaries? She’s not dead, Lovejoy. We think Ted ran off with her. See Smethie. He taught Ted Moon jewels.’
    ‘Eh? That’s him.’ I gazed at her with max sincerity. ‘Ifwe find the locket, Prima, you and me’ll go halves. It’s gold, with rubies.’
    Her face clouded at the thought of sharing. ‘Of course, darling!’ she cried. ‘I’ll get a man right on it! Love you!’ And was gone. She would simply hire somebody to hunt my – no, her – rumour down.
    Fed up with all that breathing, I went to find Mr Smethirst. I felt Laura’s eyes burning me as I left the square.
    Old Smethirst lives next to his sister-in-law whom he loves. His wife is pure malice, but who knows which came first, the hen or the egg? (Actually, scientists now say it was the egg because it was all mutated DNA, but much they know.) Has motive any power at all? Good Queen Bess once actually received a letter, currently in Greenwich, from Czar Ivan the Terrible. It was a proposal of marriage. Ivan blithely offered to poison his current Czarina so he could wed our Liz One. But who can swear the proposal wasn’t dangled by Bess herself for complex diplomatic reasons? She is my womanest bird of all time. Cleopatra’s my also-ran. Hen, egg, motives.
     
    Mr Smethirst was in his workshop.
    ‘Wotcher, Mr Smethirst.’
    ‘Sorry, Lovejoy.’
    He was at his shed workbench, covered in dust. He’s always firing a kiln. I took over the bellows while he had a rest.
    ‘Don’t worry. No harm done.’
    For a minute we spoke of Paltry. He heard me out and we expressed bafflement. ‘What are you making?’
    He survives on fakes. His factoids are usually culled from newspapers.
    ‘A miniature scientific bathyscape.’
    ‘A deep-sea diver’s submarine?’ His kiln was shoebox size.
    ‘Ah. An American scientist invented a football-sized gadget that will sink to the Earth’s centre. I call my fake Prototype XI. I’ll sell it at Mildenhall.’
    Mildenhall was once an American Air Force base, mucho secret. So far, so plausible. Except, how many scientists would his football