Tinplate Read online

  I looked for his reaction, but Arabella was in the way. Soon Mrs Fitzpayne had me down the steps and into the drive. As I left I caught a glimpse of a Silver Cloud in a thatched barn. It had the Harold Radford conversion, and, beside it, was what I took to be Arabella’s own little car, a silver Golf convertible. I had a feeling it would be useful if our two Volkswagens could get together, and we could let our tops down.

  *

  I did not go straight home. It was not very often I came Lulworth way, so I dropped down to the Cove to grab a coffee and a think. The day was on the grey side, so the horse-shoe shaped pebble beach was not crowded. In fact, there were only about ten or so people around, and half of those looked like locals. I could hear the Army booming away on the hills, pretending the Russians had landed. It annoys me that the military choose places of natural beauty for their unnatural games. I was the only person in the tiny cafe having coffee, and the proprietress looked very annoyed when I left and did not buy as much as a shell or a picture postcard.

  I strolled amongst the pebbles and tried to take stock. In no time at all, I was kicking myself for having put Treasure’s back up so early. If I had been a little more diplomatic, I might have led him on to the odd indiscretion or two. But then, as my ex-wife would tell you, diplomacy isn’t exactly my strongest card. And patience isn’t either. I went on to kick Arabella for interrupting us, and then I withdrew the kicking as I worked out that she could be my way into Treasure if I played my other cards right. After all, she seemed vaguely interested in me, I thought. But maybe she was interested in anything that looked more or less like a man. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not actually too bad looking. On a dark night and with the right cigar, I am told I look a little like Clint Eastwood. Mind you, I was only told it once, and she did have what looked suspiciously like spectacles made with glass pebbles.

  I sat down on a grassy tuft, and looked out over the bay. It was one of those still grey days, when the flat sea seems to merge with the flat sky, a perfect day for playing ducks and drakes when one was a kid. But I was grown up now. And anyway, the water was too far away.

  I wondered what Treasure’s motive could be for not excavating the Spitfire, for it was now pretty obvious that PO Redfern’s wishes didn’t come into it. Was the Vicar doing a shady deal with him, on selling or developing that bit of Church land? But he would have the Church Commissioners to contend with, and they could not all be corrupt too. Or could they? Or was Treasure a man who never liked to be beaten — a case of a grossly over size ego? That certainly fitted his character, in which case I would have to find a way of giving him a graceful ‘out’, if that Spitfire was ever to see the light of day.

  I was also kicking myself for not having included Treasure on my original list of suspects for the toy theft, when I saw a familiar outline chugging into the bay. I waited until it almost reached the tiny jetty, then got up and strolled over. He didn’t see me at first, busy as he was tying up the boat.

  ‘Hello, Gus. What contraband are you dealing in now?’

  He looked up immediately, then relaxed as he saw who it was.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said with relief.

  ‘Who did you think it was? Her Majesty’s Customs?’

  He didn’t laugh. Old Gus had made the odd clandestine trip across the Channel before now. In fact, I never enquired too deeply into where Gus’s sudden flushes of money came from. He didn’t probe into my private affairs, except by invitation; I didn’t into his. However, this time he did let me into what he was doing.

  ‘Old Mrs Blunt next door asked if I could pick up a settee and two chairs she bought last week from a lady who died. Got ’em cheap, she did. They’re too big to go on my Popular, so I brought the boat round. Care to give me a hand?’

  I was somewhat amazed he had not at least tried to get them on the roof of his car, as he had reckoned it strong enough for a piano, but kept my mouth shut and went off with him up the little road to a cottage with the ‘For Sale’ notice in the garden. It took us three-quarters of an hour to lug the stuff, piece by piece, down to his boat and stow it on board. How Gus had intended to do it on his own, I had no idea. But Gus is a great optimist at heart; he always reckons something will turn up — and I did.

  When we had done, Gus sat on one of the faded uncut moquette armchairs with the tell-tale loose threads from a cat perpetually sharpening its claws (Bing did the same, despite having his own bit of wood precisely for that purpose), brought out a hip flask from his pocket and offered it to me. I took a swig, and then looked around for my breath. God knows where Gus gets whisky like that. The Devil, most likely. I relaxed back in the other chair, and we must have looked a prize pair of idiots in our floating sitting-room.

  ‘What you been doing then? Seen Treasure?’ Gus asked, taking another swig with no apparent after-effect.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Win him over our way, did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Waste of petrol, then?’

  ‘No, not really. I may have learnt one or two little things about Mr Treasure. He’s still dead against digging up the Spitfire, but I can’t yet fathom the reason. It’s certainly not to let Redfern rest peacefully in his aeroplane.’

  ‘Strange man,’ was Gus’s only comment.

  ‘Secondly, Gus, a girlfriend of his let slip that he is a fanatical toy collector, which I hadn’t realized. I had known him before from the occasional phone call enquiring about Marklins, but I didn’t suspect how deep his interest really is.’

  ‘So he’s a suspect now, is he?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Don’t want too many suspects, do you? Never get through them all.’ He chuckled to himself.

  Really, Gus could be very irritating at times.

  ‘Gus,’ I enquired, ignoring his last remark, ‘what do you know about Treasure? What’s his background? After all, you’ve lived here all your life, and I haven’t.’

  Gus took another swig. ‘Don’t know much really. He has lived round about for donkey’s years. Moved into that Victorian thing about ten years ago, when it was restored. Used to live over Wareham way before that.’

  He made himself more comfortable in his chair. A holidaymaker on the jetty pointed us both out to his girlfriend. They sniggered and turned away. I don’t blame them.

  ‘Don’t know much about him, otherwise. He inherited a lot of money from his father, I believe, then made a bit more himself, buying and selling houses and land and the like. Clever bugger. Not so clever with women though, I hear. Had a wife much younger than himself once. She ran off with one of her lovers to Switzerland, I think, or some place like that. That was not so long ago. But he’s always got women around him, so they say. Not too difficult is it, when you live in a dirty great house and ride in a Rolls?’

  He laughed and the boat rocked.

  ‘How long ago? The wife running off, I mean?’

  ‘Three, four years, I reckon. Something like that.’

  I wondered if Gus had got it wrong, for I could not see a man like Treasure putting up with any wife of his having lovers. But then, maybe he didn’t know until afterwards. That’s often the case.

  ‘Didn’t he try to get her back?’

  ‘How would I know? Might have, might not. Anyway, I can’t sit around like this all day doing nothing, and nor can you, I’d have thought, my old dear.’

  He got up and made it plain he was off. As he began fiddling with the old engine under the hatch, he mumbled, ‘I’m not being much help, am I? What would you like me to do? All you’ve got to do is say.’

  ‘I will. Thanks. When the time comes.’

  He got the engine reluctantly to start.

  ‘Got any ideas, have you?’ He had an uncanny way of reading my mind.

  ‘Maybe, I’ll let you know.’

  I got off the boat onto the jetty.

  ‘Thanks for lugging those old things.’ He waved his hand.

  ‘Pleasure.’ I watched him until he disappeared from sight aro
und the curve of the cove, then went back to my Beetle in the car-park. Somehow, I felt a good deal better for my little visit to Lulworth.

  *

  I grabbed some lunch in a pub in Wareham, then went home, fed Bing, and opened up shop. After all, I still had a living to make when and if this whole calamitous affair came to an end. I sat behind the counter for a bit, and then made a phone call to a mate of mine from my advertising days, who worked on the Western Gazette, to see if he had any more gen on Treasure. He said he could not look it out right then, but would ring me back the next day. I said I wanted to know everything there was to know. He said he knew what I meant, but newspapers weren’t MI5, and he would do his best. So that was that.

  Then I dialled Heathrow, and eventually got through to a Welsh lady at British Airways, who put me on to a man with a Scottish accent, who put me on to a dim-witted girl who made Goldie Hawn seem like Einstein. After five minutes chatting to her, I’d almost forgotten why I’d rung in the first place. In the end, she asked me to try another number. I replied I loved her too, and tried it. Eventually a man with an Indian accent ferreted out the information I was after. I was kind of relieved to learn that Mr and Mrs Gerald Rankin had indeed not returned from South Africa until last weekend. They had been away two months. Now, unless Rankin had spies permanently in the Black Lion waiting for Gus to blurt out my every move and intention, it looked as if I would have to, as they say, eliminate him from my enquiries — at least at this stage of the game.

  *

  The afternoon turned out to be like the curate’s egg. The good bit centred round my shop, the bad bit round my ex-wife. I sold a mint Dinky Toy Shetland flying boat of 1949, in its original box, for my asking price of £350 with no haggling at all. A rather scruffy guy in a raincoat peeled off £285 in oncers for a pre-war Dinky Horlicks van. And a sixties Schuco BMW Formula Two went for £15 to an eighteen-year-old. But the big news was not what I was selling, but what I bought. An old lady tottered in and shakily unwrapped some old newspapers to reveal a superb Wells thirties Rolls-Royce in blue and cream tinplate, and a Dist-ler twenties tinplate racing car. Found them in her attic and did I want them? I pretended I wasn’t very interested and got them for £15 each, knowing I could sell the Rolls for £300 or more, and the Distler for maybe £450 — £500. Aren’t I a rat? Not really. I forgot to tell you, the old lady came in a chauffeur-driven Daimler.

  Now for the bad bit. Dear Deborah rang soon after I put the phone down on the Western Gazette. Sounded a bit upset (but then she normally does) and said could I see her because she needed someone to talk to about a problem she had, and that I had always been a good listener and given sound advice, if nothing else. I explained I had loads to do and huge problems of my own, but then she began crying and I began weakening, and her problems flooded mine out.

  She came over at seven, but at least had the decency to bring a bottle of Graves. We had been apart now four years, and divorced two, but each time I saw her again rekindled the old original flame a little — not enough to cause first degree burns, but a singe nevertheless.

  She entered the house as usual, as if we’d never been apart, and flopped into a chair as if she’d just been out shopping for an hour or two. I opened the Graves and filled a couple of glasses.

  ‘Bottoms up,’ I said, and she smiled, remembering the old joke we used to play whenever I said that in the old days. The memory excited me for a split second, and I looked across at her. She was still a pretty attractive woman; dark hair framing high cheek bones and a very generous mouth — generous in every sense. Perhaps the eyes had less hope in them now. Comes from having crows-feet move in next door, and too many temporary lovers. But it’s what she walks with that have always been nothing short of sensational. And they reach to her armpits. She crossed them deliberately in front of me. I crossed my own in self-defence.

  After a bit of banter about how well we were all looking, and how was Bing (she had always hated him and did he know it) and was she still enjoying advertising (yes, she was — a full Account Executive now) and how was her Bournemouth flat (very light and airy) and did I still have that weird old car (I didn’t ask whether she meant the Beetle or the derelict old Daimler), we gradually got around to the point of her visit. By then she was three drinks into the game.

  ‘Peter, I hate to ask you, but could you give me a loan?’ She leaned forward, very intimately, in her chair and was taken aback when I burst into laughter.

  ‘My dear Deborah, you’ve chosen just about the worst time in the world to try that on me.’

  She looked very hurt, until I explained my little dilemma, which I did, leaving out all the detail, locations and names of dramatis personae in case her knowing too many of the facts got me into even deeper trouble. Her mouth is generous with words too, and often loud (one of the nails in our marriage’s coffin), and I didn’t want all the details going round the whole locality like wildfire. Wouldn’t be good for business.

  ‘… so there you are, my love. It’s more a case of “could you lend me twenty thousand quid?’”

  She looked heartbroken. I think more for herself than for me, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘Oh Peter, I’m terribly sorry.’ She leaned over and took my hand. My heart skipped a beat, but got back on tempo. I got up, ostensibly to open another bottle of Graves, which I just happened to have.

  ‘Anyway, Deborah, how the hell are you in financial trouble? You’re doing well in that Bournemouth agency. You’ve got your own flat, your own car. You don’t live extravagantly, unless you’ve changed recently. You’ve no dependents to support. So

  … ?’ I looked at her, and then suddenly realized what the answer must be. She was like that.

  She didn’t reply for a minute, then it all came out in a flood, with appropriate tears. ‘… he said it was to set up this printing and design operation which would soon be in profit. I believed him, and took out a second mortgage on the flat, and sold that sapphire pendant you gave me, and some shares that Father had left. And I loved him so, Peter, and he seemed so wonderful. I wanted him to have everything …’

  Well, she succeeded in her wish. He’d taken everything. And I felt very, very sorry for her. Deborah has not had the greatest luck with men. There is a childlike naivety about her, which will always land her in trouble. Yet it is that same naivety that makes her devilishly attractive at times. God knows why she likes advertising so much. It is hardly a sentimental business, and the childlike do not usually survive for long. Or wish to. And it was my growing dislike for, and her growing like for, advertising, that had split our marriage further apart. I took her in my arms and realized I had been without something soft for far too long.

  We stopped short of the whole hog — just. Neither of us really desired that. We just wanted to prove we could still raise it if we wanted to. And the warmth helped us both. And the wine, of course, played a not inconsiderable role.

  After that, she cooked me an amalgam of bits and pieces she found in the fridge, and we had choc-ices from the freezer for afters. Graves is the connoisseur’s recommendation for choc-ices. It goes down a treat.

  Then we got round to comfy chit-chat, both sitting on the sofa. I began to feel very sleepy, and began nodding off as she rambled nicely on. But then, out of the blue, she said something that got through to me, and I had to get her to repeat it.

  ‘… all I said was that Derek is luckier with his boyfriends then I am with mine.’

  I sat bolt upright. ‘No, not that bit. Before that.’

  ‘Oh, you mean when I said this rich guy took him out to all the best places. No expense spared.’

  ‘You said something else.’

  ‘Oh, it was only a joke, Peter. Derek said his boyfriend was a real treasure because that was his name. Was that the bit?’

  ‘Yes, that was the bit. I take it he meant he’s a Mr Treasure?’

  ‘Yes. Why are you so interested all of a sudden? Going queer in your old age?’

&
nbsp; I couldn’t tell her. But I suddenly saw Treasure in an entirely new light. ‘No, it’s just that someone was talking of a Mr Treasure the other day. Lives in a Victorian extravagance near Lulworth. Gathered he liked lots of girls.’

  ‘So he does, so Derek says. And he doesn’t mind as long as old Treasure doesn’t go out with any other boys. Derek’s a strictly one man Art Director, faithful as they come, silly idiot.’

  I remembered Derek of old — talented at the lay-out pad, but pretty sad otherwise. It didn’t take much to know which one of the two lovers was the dominant partner. I thought for a moment. Then decided it was worth taking the risk.

  ‘Listen, Deborah. There’s a little something you might be able to do for me …’

  Five

  I went down to the beach early next morning, immediately the post had arrived. Bing came with me, on a lead of course. There wasn’t a soul about, which suited me. Suited us, I should say, as Bing did not like crowds either. And Bing hadn’t read the post.

  Both the letters were depressing, one in particular. The first, from Chalmers, was to be expected. Just a repeat in writing of the terms he had stated on the phone — like, get back the toys or return his money, all in just over three weeks from now. But it was the second one that disturbed me most. It was from France, from Monsieur Vincent. In astonishingly neat handwriting, he just said he hoped I had got back all right, and that Mr Chalmers liked the toys. I suddenly realized that with all my preoccupation with a possible huge financial debt, I had completely forgotten that the toys weren’t just tinplate objects, but a living, breathing part of Monsieur Vincent’s soul. I had, in fact, lost his brother, his mother, his past … I wasn’t very proud of myself, so I was hoping the sea air would blow some of my guilt away.

  Bing and I walked one complete length of Studland beach, from the rock pools to the nudist end. Well, that’s not quite true. I walked it all. Bing only walked two thirds of it and then I had to carry him. I could understand it: his legs are a tiny bit shorter than mine, though he does have two more. We finished up with the crabs and shrimps by the rock pools, with the old wrecked World War II gun emplacement grinning at us in the background. I sat on a rock and pondered, while Bing watched the tiny crabs, who were wondering where all the big blue sea had gone. I knew how they felt.