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

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    ‘Isn’t the Earth’s core hot? Won’t it melt?’
    ‘I’m coating it in ceramic, like space shuttles.’
    ‘Won’t the buyer want to see in it?’
    ‘No opening. I’ve stamped USAF on it. It’s full of scrap iron.’ He looked wistful and lit his pipe. ‘Scientists reckon you only need dig it down fourteen miles, and it’ll sink through the Earth’s magma. Isn’t that brilliant?’
    Well, no. The scientist’s original might do just that, but Mr Smethirst’s scrap iron ball would just melt and send no letters home. Deceivers deceive.
    ‘Ted Moon, Smethie. Why didn’t the plod nick him?’
    ‘That girl? Wasn’t dead. Lovely. I’m glad she and him…’ He cut himself off. ‘I thought you’d know, Lovejoy. There’s been sightings, like Elvis and Sir Francis Drake.’ He blew a smoke ring, to my envy. I keep trying to do it with candle smoke. ‘I wonder about his missus’s win.’
    That stopped me. He pointed with his pipe, keep going. I resumed pumping the bellows.
    ‘You think she didn’t win anything?’
    ‘We’ll never know. I knew Ted when he was a babby.Good as gold, honest as you or me.’
    ‘Pure, then?’ I cracked.
    ‘Don’t joke, Lovejoy. Not all people are bad. I reckon she was playing away.’
    ‘Laura had another bloke?’
    ‘She was a right goer, if you’ll pardon the expression.’ Too many contradictions for me, and I said so.
    ‘Young Edward was straight as a die. I lost touch, until Laura told me to collect antiques for her to show.’
    I heard somebody coming down the path to the shed, so I shushed him and bent to my task, cunning smoothie that I am.
    ‘D’you like my Regency silver tree, Lovejoy?’ He gestured at the windowsill. ‘Silver nitrate costs the Earth, though they always sell.’
    ‘I’ve never seen an original Arbor Dianae.’
    As I worked the bellows I inspected the glass globe. We think we have reached the epitome of civilisation. Wrong. The average Regency dame was talented. She played musical instruments, composed verses, quoted Milton’s poetry, made any food or clothes you cared to name, preserved fruit and groceries for winter, identified plants, and made family medicines from opiates to laxatives.
    And, I thought, she constructed her family’s amusements. The globe was sealed, and contained a colourless liquid with, well, a miniature silver tree.
    It was beautiful.
    ‘Four drachms of silver nitrate in distilled water, four drachms of mercury, and that’s it.’ We dedicated forgers talk in old measures.
    ‘And it just grows, eh?’
    ‘I’ll set it in resin so it can travel, then sell. Notice I’ve used old glass, for authenticity?’
    ‘Good point.’ I also like lead and tin trees, which are common, but silver glitters better. I love genuine fakes.
    ‘I sincerely hope, Mr Smethirst,’ Lydia said sternly from the shed doorway, ‘no deception is intended. May I enter, please?’
    ‘Wotcher, love. Mr Smethirst is giving it to charity.’
    ‘That’s right,’ the old man said gloomily.
    ‘Then I do hope its mercury is adequately sealed.’ She smiled at my industry. ‘How sweet of you, Lovejoy, to help with the kiln.’
    Isn’t it? I thought miserably, giving him the bent eye to keep quiet.
    ‘I brought your travel funds, Lovejoy.’
    ‘Where am I going?’
    ‘Mrs Ellen Jaynor will donate to the Sick Baby ward, Lovejoy, in return for your services. Refusal is out of the question.’
    ‘Oh. Right.’ I thought wistfully of killing Ellen Jaynor. I could run her down in a dark alley, if my Austin Ruby got going and the chassis held out. I wish I hadn’t thought those thoughts, in view of the deaths soon to happen. ‘See you, Mr Smethirst.’
    ‘Toodle-oo, son. Good luck.’
    ‘Incidentally, Lovejoy,’ Lydia said, as we left. ‘Did you know the four expertises a Regency lady needed to grow peas? She sowed the purple variety of late pea, after soaking them overnight in warm milk. Then covered the drills in minced gorse,