Free Firefly Gadroon by Jonathan Gash Page B

swear she was grinning as we set off again. Her hooves were covered in the sticky mud. Drummer always ties blue and white ribbons to her tail, his football team’s colours.
    We made it. He’s laid a small tiled area near the shed door. Germoline jongled her way to a lean-to and startedeating from a manger inside. Dolly arrived gasping and wind-tousled.
    ‘Lovejoy,’ she wheezed. ‘You horrid—’
    ‘Keep Germoline company a minute, please, love,’ I said. Drummer went in to brew up.
    It took a second for her to realize. Then she exploded. ‘Stay out here ?’ She tried to push me aside. ‘In this ? Of all the—’
    I shoved her out and slammed the door. It has to be first things first. She banged and squawked but I dropped the bolt. ‘Sorry, Drummer.’
    Drummer was grinning through crashes of pottery teeth. ‘Still the same old Lovejoy. Here, son. Wash them cups.’
    I pumped the ancient handle while Drummer lit an oil lamp. There are scores of freshwater springs hereabouts, and some even emerge in the sea. Old sailors still fill up with fresh water miles off the North Sea coast where the freshwater ‘pipes’, as they’re called, ascend to the ocean’s surface. They say you can tell where a pipe is from the sort of fish that knock around. Drummer chucked some driftwood into his iron stove. There’s not a lot of space, just a camp bed, a table and a chair or two, shelves and a picture of Lord Kitchener and a blue glass vase with dried flowers. A few clothes hung behind the door with Germoline’s spare harness.
    ‘Coal carvings, Drummer.’ I’d checked Dolly couldn’t hear. ‘Know anything?’
    ‘Ar,’ he answered, nodding when I looked round enquiringly from the sink because locally the same word can mean no as well as yes. ‘It’s getting the right sort of tar coal nowadays.’
    ‘Much call for them?’
    ‘Ar,’ with a headshake. ‘I sold three this week.’ 65
    I sat at his rickety old table and pulled out the three carvings. ‘Drummer,’ I said sadly, ‘they’re horrible.’
    ‘What d’you expect, Lovejoy?’ he demanded indignantly. ‘Anyway, people needn’t buy them. And they aren’t bad as all that.’
    True. But if these three monstrosities were Drummer’s idea of art, then sure as God sends Sunday he’d never carved the lovely firefly cage.
    ‘Just suppose a bloke saw a coal carving,’ I got in when his teeth plummeted and shut him up, ‘so intricate and clever it blew his mind. Where would he look for whoever did it? Think, Drummer.’
    ‘I already know. My mate Bill.’ Drummer inhaled a ton of snuff from a tea-caddy and voomed like a landmine. The shed misted with his contaminating droplets. ‘That’s better—’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Bill Hepplestone. Me and him was mates – till he married up this rich young tart. Farm and all. Not far from here.’ He pointed to show me the kettle was boiling. ‘Stopped coming over at the finish. Too posh. Always trouble, posh women are. Never take up with posh, Lovejoy.’
    ‘Hepplestone?’ The name’s not all that common. I filled the kettle. ‘Any idea where he lives?’
    ‘Dead, son. Poor old Bill. Used to be inland, place called Lesser Cornard in a bleeding great manor house.’
    ‘Right, Drummer. Ta.’ I rose to open the door, finger to my lips. ‘Not a word. I owe you a quid, right?’
    Dolly fell in, blue from the wind. Germoline gave me the bent eye as I shut the door again. It didn’t look as if they’d exactly got on. I beamed at Dolly but all I could think was, great. That’s what I need, to go spitting in the face of fortune. Some uniformed berk of a chauffeur wants to take me right to the bloody place I’m searching for, andI thump him senseless. Really great. Sometimes I’m just thick. Mrs Hepplestone of Hall Lodge Manor. Widow of Bill the coal carver.
    Meanwhile Dolly was tottering towards the glowing stove, whining miserably.
    ‘Ah! You’re there , Dolly!’ I tried to beam but she stayed