Janie took it up the lane to our post office as soon as it opened in the morning. By then we'd copied the lot, word for word.
For the rest of the day I let my mind rest. I suppose Janie had slipped me a Micky on Doc Lancaster's orders. Or maybe it was her brew, the western world's most soporific stimulant. Anyway, I dozed a lot.
By evening I was alert enough to feel certain. Edward Rink was a maniac. He'd killed Dandy Jack. He was determined that, if old Bexon had left a clue about a Roman find, nobody else would get it but him. But what the hell did a beauty like Nichole see in a nerk like that? Doesn't it make you wonder, all those old sayings about women and rich men? Rink must have burgled the Castle to get Bexon's coins from the display case. To check they were genuine Romans, not crummy electrotypes people are always trying to sell you these days. It was as simple as that. A cool swine. We're never ashamed of our crimes, not really, but being thought inadequate in some way's the absolute humiliation. Aren't people a funny lot?
About eight o'clock our vicar, Reverend Woking, came to ask if I'd sufficiently recovered from my mythical 'flu to sing in the choir for Dandy Jack. The service would be at ten in a couple of days. They would do the Nelson Mass, though he's not supposed to have papist leanings. I said okay.
'I don't think Lovejoy will be well enough, Reverend,' Janie said. 'He's had an, er, accident in his workshop.'
'Yes, I will,' I said. 'I'm fine.'
'Good, good!' He hesitated, wondering whether to chance his arm and preach to us about Janie's status, but wisely decided to cut his losses.
'Before you start,' I put in as Janie prepared to go for me, 'you've never heard our tenors. Without me the Sanctus is doomed.' We bickered this way all evening.
CHAPTER XII
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HALF THE CHURCH was crowded. Half was bone bare. We were all there. Helen holy without a cigarette. Jimmo with his asbestos cough. Ted the barman from the White Hart. Jill Jenkins with her poodle and a bewildered young uniformed navigator she'd somehow got off a coaster new in harbour that day. Harry Bateman and Jenny lighting candles for all they were worth because their new place opened in the morning. Patrick sobbing into a nasturtium hankie, Lily trying to comfort him and weeping worse. Big Frank from Suffolk trying to look as if he wasn't reading a Sotheby's catalogue of seventeenth-century German and French jewellery. Tinker Dill giving everybody a nasty turn having no cloth cap on and shaming us all to death by stubbing out his fag in our church's exquisite thirteenth-century baptismal font ('Well, what's the bleeding water in it for, then?' he whispered in an indignant stage bellow when Lily glared). A miscellany of shuffling barkers unrecognizable with washed heads and clean fingernails - one had even pressed his trousers. Margaret, the only one of us all who knows when to kneel down and which book has the right hymns - we all followed her example. Gimbert's auctioneers had sent a ghoul or two by way of unmitigated grief. And Dig Mason in a morning suit for God's sake, gear so posh we all knew the Rolls outside was waiting for him and not the coffin. And Algernon falling over twice moving along the pew. He'd brought his uncle, Blind Squaddie from the houseboat, who felt the hand-embroidered kneelers a little too long. I'd have to count them after he'd gone. And a few villagers on a day trip from across the road to get a kick out of life.
Oh, and Dandy Jack.
We'd got some flowers in wreaths, one lot shaped like a cross. I'd sold Big Frank my single display Spode plate, cracked and just about in one piece, and bought a lot off lowers. I could tell Janie thought they were the wrong colours but they were bright.
Dandy Jack liked bright colours. By then I'd spent up. I got three lengths of wire from a neighbour's lad and threaded the flower stems in and out with green stuff I'd taken from my hedge. It's hard to make a circle. Try it. You don't realize how much skill goes into making things till you do it yourself. It looked just like a real wreath when it was finished. Making it didn't do my hands any good, but I was proud of it. Janie went off somewhere and came back with one of those cards. We wrote 'In Remembrance' and our names on it and tied it on with black cotton.
'It looks great, doesn't it?' I asked Janie.
'It's beautiful,' she said, which was a relief because Janie can be very critical sometimes. The trouble is I knew she'd have said the same if it hadn't been right. Still.
The coffin was on a bier. I wasn't to carry Dandy because of my hands. Patrick nobly volunteered, but broke down. Trust Patrick. A barker stood in at the last minute. Our church has this small orchestra, five players, counting the organ. Reverend Woking arranging the choir stuck me behind Mary Preston, our plump and attractive 'cellist.
('You like being here, Lovejoy, don't you?' he said brightly while I avoided Janie's eyes, large in the congregation.)
We didn't sing badly for Dandy Jack. Owd Henry's probably our best bass. He's an eccentric filthy old farmer whose legendary battles with the government over farm subsidies will be sung of by future generations of ecstatic minstrels. It's better than Beowulf. He wears an outlandish stovepipe hat for posh, which is hard luck on our altos because as a result they haven't seen a choirmaster's baton beat time since before the war.
Helen never looked up once. She seemed really upset. We listened gravely to Reverend Woking's sermon on Dandy Jack's virtues. It was fifty minutes long, practically par for the course. As far as I could make out it dealt mainly with problems of translating Greek non-deistic pronouns from the Aramaic in the synoptic gospels. Gripping. We'd just got going again when in the middle of it all your friend and mine Edward Rink pottered in, taking my breath away. It was lucky we weren't at the risky bit in the Agnus Dei, which is nobody's plaything. Nichole, pale and elegantly fragile, slipped along the pew after him. Algernon kindly passed Rink a hymnal, acknowledged by a curt nod. I'd have to speak to Algernon. Politeness is all very well.
During the service Rink's eyes only met mine once. It was during the Dies Irae. That instant any doubts left me. He wouldn't give up, not him. The swine was as cold as any reptile. It was as if I'd gazed into the eyes of the stone crusader on his plinth in our nave. Stone, solid stone. I was so calm I lost concentration for a moment and felt our blacksmith tenor Jim Large's surprised glance along the row. There and then I made my first and last original De Profundis. Rink's head was reverently bowed as I prayed, aiming at the middle of his balding spot. That tonsure would have to go. And the scalp as well. I know that a funeral isn't exactly the place to pray for a successful execution, but matters were out of my hands now.
I prayed: Dear Lord, Sorry about this, but Somebody's got to finish Darlin' Edward. And if Somebody doesn't get a move on pretty sharpish, I suppose it'll be up to me. Don't say I didn't warn Somebody in good time. Okay?
The whole lot of us sang a beautiful Amen.
Reverend Woking shook me by suddenly announcing that I would stand and utter a short homily on Dandy Jack. He's a forgetful old sod. He should have said. I could have worked out what to say.
I rose and gazed about. Silence hung. Everybody but Helen was looking.
Dandy Jack's known as Dandy because he's so tatty. He was always cheerful. I remember once he passed over a job lot of two exquisite model railway pieces at an auction. One was a brass miniature of the famous Columbine made about 1850 (the one drive-wheel looks a bit big, but don't be discouraged because it always tends to on models). The second was a lovely model of Queen Adelaide's bed coach, No. 2. I've only ever seen their kind once before so they're hardly penny a dozen. When I'd groaned and cursed Dandy for missing a real find, he looked rueful for a second and said, peeved, 'I thought they were just bloody toys. What the hell did grown engineers want to make little things like that for?' Then he'd laughed and laughed at his own idiocy, so much that I'd found myself grinning too. Finally, I gave up being mad and laughed as well. We were in Woody's over egg and chips at the time. Lisa thought us barmy and Woody shouted from the back what the hell was going on in there and if people couldn't behave in a restaurant they'd have to piss off. That only made us worse. The place finished in uproar. Finally we'd gasped our way over to the Marquis of Granby and got paralytic drunk. It's a right game, this.