'How do I know you'll come back?'

  He smiled again then. What worried me was that he wasn't sincere. It should have tipped me off but I suppose I was too scared right then. Oh, I know he'd been painstaking and finding me had cost him a quid or two. And he'd risked a hell of a lot, killing Dandy Jack like he did. But that spark was missing. I should have known. Every single genuine collector I've known is always on heat. Mention the Sutton Hoo gold-and-garnet Suffolk cape-clasps to a collector and his eyes glaze. He pants like a bulldog on bait. He quivers. There's music in his ears and stars glitter in his bloodshot eyes.

  Your actual collector's a hot-blooded animal. Not Rink. I'll bet he did pure mathematics at school. I ought to have realized. Unfortunately I wasn't in a thinking mood.

  I’ll shout for help,' I threatened. Some threat.

  'I dare you. Ever seen lead shot ricochet?' He was right. One blast directly into my pulpit would mash me like a spud in a grinder.

  'Don't talk with your mouth full,' I said. He took no notice, just sat noshing and gazing at the scenery. 'What if I don't guess at all?' I shouted over.

  'I can wait. Day after day, Lovejoy. You'll die there.'

  'And the knowledge dies with me, Rink.'

  'Don't be illogical, Lovejoy. If you know,' he said reasonably, 'it's a consequence of your visit to where you are now. style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Or else, it stems from what's in the copy of Bexon's little books which you carry on your person. As soon as you're dead I shall come down and have access to both sources of information.'

  'I don't have them any more.' Lying on principle.

  'They're not at your bungalow,' he called. 'So you must have.'

  'My bloke'll come searching soon.' Get that, actually threatening a maniac with Algernon. The cavalry.

  'I've taken care of that.' He sounded as if he had, too.

  'Er, you have?'

  'I left them a note saying you'd gone home. Told them both to follow you as soon as possible, urgently.'

  I’ll do a deal,' I called. He said nothing. 'Rink?'

  'You're in no position to do any dealing, Lovejoy.'

  'All right,' I said at last. 'I know where the stuff is.'

  'Tell me.'

  'No. I want… a guarantee.' That's a laugh, I thought, an antique dealer asking for a guarantee. A record. It'd make a good headline. Antique Dealer Demands Guarantee As Typhoon Grips Ocean…

  'You're inventing, Lovejoy.' He was looking intently at me.

  'I'm not. I do know. It's true.'

  And all of a sudden it was.

  I yelped aloud as if I'd been kicked, actually screamed and brought Rink to his feet. I knew exactly where Bexon had put the gold. I could take anybody there. Now. A place I'd never seen, but the precise spot there and I knew it almost down to the bloody inch.

  I could see it in my mind's eye. The wheel. The water. The Roman coffin. Splashing water and the pompous lady of the sketch in her daft one-wheeled carriage. I was smiling, even, then chuckling, then laughing. What a lovely mind the old man must have had. How sad I'd never met him.

  'I know!' I was laughing and applauding, actually clapping like a lunatic as if a great orchestra played. I laughed and cheered and jigged, banging my palms and taking bows. I bounced and shook my bars. 'The old bastard!' I bawled out ecstatically, laughing and letting the tears run down my face. I practically floated on air with joy. If I'd tried I could have flown up and landed running. 'The beautiful old bastard!' I roared louder still with delighted laughter. 'The old bugger's had us on all along!' And I was on the selfsame island, the very ground where the Roman Suetonius had landed, pouring his Gemini Legion on the Douglas strand. History was wrong. Bexon was right. The clever old sod.

  'Where is it? Where?' Rink was on his feet, puce with rage.

  'Get stuffed, Rink!' I screamed merrily, capering. 'It deserves me, not a frigging cold lizard like you, you -'

  I’ll - ' He was raising the gun in a rage when he seemed to jerk his legs backwards.

  Perhaps he slipped. He gave a rather surprised but muted call, not even a shout, and tumbled forwards. The shotgun clattered on the platform. I watched frozen as he moved out into the free air above the yawning seal pen and started to turn downwards.

  It was a kind of formal progression. I can see him yet, gravely progressing in a curve, arms out and legs splayed as if to catch a wind. Only the scream told it wasn't as casual as all that. It began an instant before the body dropped tidily on to the iron stakes on the crumbling stone barrier. Rink seemed to move silently once or twice as if wanting to settle the iron more comfortably through his impaled trunk. An incoming wave began its whooshing rush at the inlet's horrible mouth. His limbs jerked once before the sea rushed over him. An arm moved slowly as if reaching into the trapped lagoon of the seal pen. The wave sighed back, stained dark. Oddly, it only became a deeper green from his blood. There was no red. I was staring at him some time. He must have been dead on impact, I guessed. What a terrible, horrendous word that is. Impact. There's nothing left once you've said a word like that is there? Impact. I was shivering from head to foot. Impact. I was violently sick inside the cage.

  The worst of it was the sea kept moving him. It seemed as if he was alive still, trying to rearrange matters so as to make a slight improvement in the circumstances in which his corpse now unfortunately found itself. The start of a demented housekeeping in his new resting-place. I turned away and retched and retched. Lighter now, I thought wryly, maybe an easier climb.

  'Lovejoy,' a pale shaky voice called. I could see nobody.

  'Who is it?'

  'It's Nichole. Are you safe?'

  'Is there a rope up there?' A pause. Please don't let her have fainted or anything.

  'Nichole?'

  'Yes.' Her voice carried distantly down the cliff. I strained to see her. 'It's fastened to the wood.'

  'Don't pull it off!' I howled in panic. 'Don't touch the fastening. Just chuck the free end over. And keep back from the edge.' I repeated the instructions time after time in a demented yell until I saw the rope come. I tugged it, swinging on it as a test. 'Does it look firm to you?' I shouted.

  'Yes.' She didn't sound so sure. I swarmed up, holding the free rope between my feet like I'd seen circus climbers do to lessen the strain on my hands. It seemed an age but, knowing me, couldn't have been longer than a couple of millisecs.

  I sprawled gasping on the rock at Nichole's feet. Why hadn't I noticed it had started raining? The poor lass was weeping but quite honestly my sympathy for others was a bit used up. I crawled away from the edge and rose shakily. We embraced, Nichole trembling and heartbroken and me quivering from relief and eagerness. It wasn't far to Bexon's hoard.

  'I was so afraid,' Nichole said. 'You were so calm and brave. Edward was like a mad thing. He kept making me help.'

  'Thanks for the rescue, love,' I said. I moved us further inland. Neither of us wanted to see the inlet and its seal pen ever again.

  'Is… is Edward…?'

  'Let's go straight home.' I comforted her as we walked towards the sheep. A group was watching. They looked so absolutely bloody calm. What right had they to be so unconcerned while I'd nearly snuffed it? I was furious and made them scatter with a sudden shout to teach them a lesson, the smug bastards. It was all right for them. They were safe in a field of their own.

  'Don't we have to tell the authorities?' Nichole asked. 'Poor Edward.'

  'In a minute,' I said. I’ll show you my bungalow first. It's in Groundle Glen. Not far. You can rest there. I've got something to do. I'll only be a few minutes.'

  Janie and Algernon would be gone, Rink had said.

  We got through the wire into the fold. The sheep had assembled on the landward side.

  I avoided their accusing eyes as we made our way over the humped field and clambered down to the overgrown railway. Well, I thought defensively, they could at least have looked just a little bit anxious on my behalf. People are far too bloody complacent these days. Just let a sheep get into trouble and it expects shepherds, collie dogs, a wholesale search, the lot. Sheep have even got a parable to themselves, selfish swine.

  'Look, love,' I said. 'About poor Edward.'

  'He was obsessed with these fanciful stories,' she sniffed. 'He made me -'

  'Yes, darling.' I explained how we'd better just go. People would assume it was some ghastly hunting accident. Nothing could be done for him now anyway. She took it really well. I said she was a brave lass.

  Neither Nichole nor I looked back at the inlet, nor down into the water. We left the platform with Rink's gun and its open hamper. The seagulls would handle what was left.

  I was still smouldering when we came within sight of the ruined terminus. I pointed out the bungalows across the valley from among the trees.

  'See that one with the smoking chimney?' I said.

  'Near the blue Lagonda?'

  'Eh? Oh, er, yes.' Well, well. Janie was supposed to have gone chasing to the ferry.

  'Anyhow, three roofs to your right. That's it.' I gave her the key. 'Wait there for me. I'll be back smartish.'

  'Edward's car's there too,' she sniffed. 'We had the bungalow next to the shop place.'

  Cunning old Edward.

  'I'll not be long.' I saw her off where the footpath wound down from the railway. She kissed me. Twice she turned to wave. I watched her go. I didn't move until I saw her slight figure appear on the valley floor below. She walked out upon the wooden bridge and turned to wave again, shading her eyes at me. I waved and stayed put. She stepped on to the metalled road, heading up to the cluster of bungalows.

  I ducked behind foliage and raced along the railway track.

  You can't blame me, really. The law of treasure trove says firmly that the person finding precious archaeological stuff is entitled to the treasure's value. No messing about. So if you find another priceless miraculous dump of 'old pewter', as it was called, like that pop singer did at Water Newton - incidentally now the brilliant centrepiece of early Christian silver exhibitions the world over - you claim its market value. The coroner fixes the money for you with independent assessors. Naturally, you can't keep the actual trove itself. That usually gets stuck in the British Museum or somewhere. But you get the market value. Fair's fair. The trouble is that two equal finders are made to share equally by the nasty old coroner, who cruelly wouldn't trust Lovejoy to be reasonable.

  After what I'd been through I deserved at least sixty per cent, I told myself as I hurtled through the undergrowth along the steep hillside. If not seventy. In fact, I was reasoning as I ran breathlessly by the ruined terminus and started down the steep stepped path towards the waterlogged forest floor and the clumps of palm trees, I really deserved it all.

  There must have been torrential rain somewhere on the uplands. The river was in hectic spate. Even the lagoon water was swirling. I noticed that several of the small overgrown weed islands were partly submerged. The run was taking it out of me, probably the after effects of the climb and Edward Rink. I was astonished to realize blood was running down my face. My own blood. Then I remembered, just before fainting with fright, that he'd taken a shot at me. A rock chip had caught my face. It really had been a hard day.

  I slowed to a jog along the narrow river path, then a walk. Finally I reached where the tributary beck trickled beneath its elegant bridge. I had to sit on a wayside stone for breath. Only now it was no trickle. It was a tumbling spouting cascade which had dropped an octave from an innocent lightweight chuckle to a deep threatening lusty boom. Spray watered ferns high above and the ornate bridge was quivering with the sustained impact of the falling water. God help fishes. I rested longer than I meant to.

  I pushed on. It wouldn't be far. The steep valley narrowed sharply at the next bridge.

  Despite the full daylight, now the water noise and the steep forested rock sides made the scene claustrophobic.

  It was a real hiding-place for Druids on the run. Opposite the ruined wooden shelter that Betty Springer had said people used for parties I had to rest again. I panted and gazed at the vegetation. Algernon said the glen was famous for its celandines, bluebells and wind anemones, but like all flowers they're just basically different sorts of eccentric dandelions. Two days before he'd tried to show me a monstrosity called a bladderwort that ate insects, the maniac. I edged away from some long-stemmed red flowers and pressed on upstream. They looked full of appetite. The brick uprights of the causeway showed among the trees ahead. I crossed at the last bridge to keep to the main path.

  The viaduct was gloomier and darker than ever. Janie and I had never gone all the way beneath. Now, the rush of the swollen river caused the path to be flooded by a nasty swark. The three races, parted for the giant columns of the overhead road, emitted as they ran a sustained bellow which echoed and intensified between the brick pillars.

  Thoughtful Victorians had cobbled the path but forgotten a handrail. People were made of sterner stuff in those days, probably. I pushed sideways along the path on to the cobbles and stepped into the flooded bit. It was only a few inches deep this high above the river but still rushed with disquieting force against my ankles.

  Beyond, the glen couldn't really be called a glen any more. There was very little space from wall to wall. It was more of a dark crevasse whose walls were encrusted with polished tubers of igneous rock mortared by ferns and lichen. Trees soared upwards, practically meeting in a great knitted entombing arch two hundred feet high. The path stayed beside the hoarse river, now demented by the addition of grey-black honed rocks. I plodded on, occasionally having to take hold of a tree branch for my weight where the path was either too overgrown or vanished completely. Algernon had told me they were beech, fir, birch, alder, willow. Their names sound all garden and tea-on-the-terrace, don't they, but down in Groundle Glen they were having a hell of a time of it.

  They were twisted and scrabbling for toe-holds up the soaring valley walls. One had fallen here and there, slamming down into the river or lodging across the boulders. I was struggling breathlessly over a slain skinned trunk and thinking that some lunatics do this for fun and call it rambling, when I saw it, a few yards up ahead. I yelled out for joy, clawing up through the undergrowth towards the wheel.

  If everything was twinned in Bexon's trail, what else for Big Izzie but a Little Izzie? And where else but long the very glen where he'd stayed? An old sick man just can't get far, especially with a digging job to do. I'm stupid, really slow.

  Judging from the state of the old path nobody had been this far along for years at least.

  The river rose to a natural series of bouldered waterfalls. And that exact point was where years ago Bexon had sited his little ornamental water-wheel, a beautiful simple copy of the original Lady Isabella. Her twin. If I'd had any sense I should have guessed: two identical diaries, two sketches, two nieces, but the carriage in the picture he'd chosen to copy had only one wheel. Find the missing thing and you're there. Stupid Lovejoy. I'd stayed in the same glen and never worked it out.

  A decorative wooden millhouse stood amid engulfing greenery, maybe thirty feet tall. It was painted a crumbling black and white, typical Tudor in style, to offset the faded yellow of the wheel itself. Trust old Bexon to get the colours right this time. Guessing now where the path probably went, I hauled myself towards the millhouse breathless with excitement. My chest was suddenly tightly constricted, clamouring and clanging.

  Warm and getting hotter. I stubbed my foot on a stone. Steps ran - lurched - upwards.

  A rusty old handrail showed in the foliage, curving along the rock wall towards the millhouse. Of course. In those days the people were families on a day out. For safety there would be no way to the actual waterwheel except maybe for a man to work it. I clambered up the steps. The handrail looked pretty precarious so I kept away and tried pushing myself along the rock face among the honeysuckle and brambles. I smelled sweet but was gradually being shredded. The steps curved narrowly up between the incised valley wall and the millhouse planking, very similar to one bend of fairground helter-skelter, with the millhouse representing the tower and the steps the slide. It was about as steep. Twenty steps and I was almost on level with the roof.

  The path was rimmed by railing from there and ran level but higher, perhaps to climb steadily along the glen to emerge eventually on the main sea road, but I couldn't see beyond a few feet because of the day-dusk of the overhanging rocks and the dense vegetation. The river was three feet below me where it started its torrential dash to the boulders. A wooden lock gate had once diverted the flow from the millwheel's blades.

  Now the wood was rotten. The river split on a big pile, spraying a race against the wheel in a high bow wave. The wheel showed a gear on its millhouse side, maybe half the full wheel's diameter.

  Where else but in the millhouse?

  The walls seemed fairly substantial. I tested by pushing the planking carefully. Stable. I guessed the wheel to be about ten feet tall. If that gearing was still in working order the turning force of a millrace in this sort of spate would be colossal. Decorative, but dangerous. I'd have to be careful. There were no windows on this side but a diminutive platform projected over the waterfalls. Entrance therefore from below. I clambered down and peered up at the mill-house.

  It's surprising how big things look when you're feeling vulnerable. The millhouse seemed supernaturally tall and thin. I could have sworn the wheel, clapped so firmly to its side and spurting the rushing water aside into an aerial jet to join the rest of the torrent, was no more than ten feet in diameter. From below it had grown. I was standing level with its lowermost blades. Only the merest trickle crept out from beneath, a testimony to the builders' skills. Stray trickles are wasted power, energy just chucked away. Even in decoration craftsmanship tells. I splashed the few yards through the muddied undergrowth. A wooden platform, crumbling, about chest height.

  The millhouse's downstream aspect showed four turreted windows, two and two, not large enough to enter. I hauled myself on to the planking, making two give away instantly. I tumbled through on to the fetid mud beneath the platform. I was in a hell of a state and cursing worse than usual. But if the platform was fixed and I was the first to plunge through, then nothing could have been hidden beneath, correct? I was grinning like an ape, sweating in the dank air and almost bemused by the percussions of the booming river. This close, the falls were indescribably ugly. I've heard people go over in coracles for fun. They're welcome.