The platform creaked and spat splinters as I crept over it on hands and knees to spread my weight. A hinge, smugly veiled by its grime, was a foot from my face. Part of the wooden wall was crosscut, just as you see in stable half-doors. I found the finger hole after groping, and pulled. Naturally I fell beneath it as it tumbled out, but that's what comes of slow mental processes. Doors open, rotten doors fall outwards. The interior was a revolting mess of bird droppings and feathers. A set of wooden steps and a platform on the riverward side seemed more trustworthy than the outside planks, perhaps because they were protected from weathering. I crept up, jogging cautiously and waiting for the creaks to subside before trying the next step. The wheel was visible through a slit. I pulled at the edges. Rotten pieces came away in my hands. The whole structure was dicey. Only the gears were intact and they were practically perfect.

  The wheel was a working model, connected through its gear to an internal cogwheel about four feet across. Every single depression had been packed by grease, lovely thick grease, and the cogs were as clean as the day the gears had been cast. A solid locking lever held the teeth. Carelessly I unslipped the chain peg to see what happened. The wheel gave a great scream as its gears clanked round. I yelped and almost went through the crumbling floor. The outside rushing noise lessened instantly as the water pushed the wheel blades.

  I looked out. The great bow wave had gone from the waterfalls. Instead the millrace was busily turning the waterwheel, but nobody could get near the thing to examine it while it was heaving round. The great thing sounded alive, whining and groaning and sighing like that. It unnerved me. I leaned back. More wood came away. I judged the turning cogs exactly right and hauled the lever into place. The distressing human noises stopped and outside the bow wave spurted again. I'd rather have that going all the time than the horrid shrill whines from the wheel. I locked the lever firmly with its peg.

  It was rigid enough without it, but accidents happen. One kick and the wheel'd be off again, so careful. I'd had enough risks to last the day out.

  The bird droppings below showed no disturbance for years. Every sign in the whole narrow millhouse indicated somnolence with nothing moved or replaced. I glanced upwards into the roof beams. You could see the entire recess, even to the odd feather stuck to the ties. Take away roof and walls and floor, and that leaves what? I couldn't reach any of the windows but they too looked as untouched as the rest. There was no real door. I stayed where I was for a minute to work it out.

  Yet somebody, a devoted old engineer weary with years and illness, had carried a heavy tin of grease - not to mention a Roman lead coffin - along the glen and restored the simple machinery to pristine state. He'd greased axles, levers, every cog. That alone was a labour of love, because the wheel must have required stopping and starting a few dozen times. It had been a nervy business for me. For him less so but at least as exhausting. I pulled at the platform. A piece of wood came away near the gear wheel's axle. Nothing hung there. And a Roman casket's no matchbox. It's not the sort of thing you can tuck in a spare corner. No ledges, no shelves. A hollow millhouse. The gears themselves?

  I felt in my pockets. A comb, a pencil, a few coins. I scraped at the inner gear with a milled edge. Whatever the metal, it was solid and not gold. That only left the outside. I stuck my head out through the slit. Seen from out there, the whole world seemed full of surging waterfalls. The waterwheel was inches from my face. Despite the wind and spray I could see the millrace's surface where the wheel blades deflected the torrent. I noticed the water-run for the wheel. How clean the stone slabs were down there. How very, very clean.

  Now, why leave the wheel stopped? Engineers say machines are always better used.

  But it was locked. So the millrace channel obviously needed to be kept dry. Perhaps while somebody went down and removed a slab - one of those clean slabs - below? Or perhaps to show the way? If you risked a climb down the millrace while the wheel was turning you'd be squashed like a strawberry between two stones. Thoughtful old Bexon.

  I pulled back in, ecstatic. My bell was clanging delightedly. That old chest feeling was still there even when I heard her shout.

  'Lovejoy! She was below, but very close. 'Are you in there?'

  'Yes. Stay there. I'm coming down.'

  I’ll come in.'

  'No need, love. The platform's unsafe.'

  She came crawling in anyway. I reached the top of the wooden stair.

  'Did you find them?' Nichole's eyes were shining unnaturally bright. She looked lovely.

  'Why did you bring that bloody gun?' She must have been scared by the gloomy woods.

  She was smiling impishly. One good thing, she was as out of breath as me. 'I came after you, Lovejoy. To help, in case you got hurt. Did you find them?'

  'I've guessed. It's here. The millrace, behind the slabs.' I'd been first. The coroner would have to acknowledge that.

  'Show me, darling.'

  She hurried creaking up towards me. I yelped and tiptoed back. The struts couldn't take both our weights.

  'For Gawd's sake style='font-style:normal; mso-bidi-font-style:italic'>!' I told her to go easy.

  'Show me!'

  'Not here, darling.' I smiled and reached a hand to her. She smiled up at me and pointed the twelve-bore.

  'Yes. Here, darling.' There was something funny about her smile. Her eyes were brighter still.

  'Eh?'

  'Show me, Lovejoy.' It was her eyes. She wasn't making a polite request. I was being told.

  'It isn't up here,' I said lamely. 'It's down in the millrace.'

  'Where?'

  'Have you loaded that?' I asked.

  Her smile became a little less diseased. A trace of humour showed. 'Certainly.'

  'Look, Nichole, love.' I'd have to treat her gently, if only for the wonky platform's sake.

  'All this has upset you. Let's get outside. This place isn't safe.' I edged towards her.

  'I ran over Dandy Jack,' she said brightly, all confidence. 'So don't think I'm chicken, Lovejoy. I'll pull this.'

  'That sod Rink.' I quite understood. He was one of those sick cold people who impelled more normal people into lunacy. 'He forced you to do it. Never mind, love. He's gone.

  We - you and me - can manage without the others now.' I pointed. 'It's hidden behind the pale slabs below the waterwheel.'

  'Is it really there?' She peered timidly out. So help me, I actually steadied her by holding her elbow.

  'For certain,' I told her, smiling. 'Can't you hear the lovely radiance?'

  'Why!' she exclaimed delightedly. 'So I can!'

  She suddenly came back inside, staggering slightly as a board cracked and gave way, straightened up and shot me. What with the water noise, the sudden apocalyptic crack of the gun, the bewildering realization what had happened and being spun round by the force of the blow in my side, I was disorientated. I heard somebody screaming, not me for once, a high steady insane call. I was on the ground among the bird droppings and bleeding like a pig. I wondered why it didn't hurt. The rotten planking had given under the weight of us both. We'd been tilted different ways, me inside and Nichole out into the millrace. God Almighty, the millrace. My arm was stiff and bloody as well. Most of the shot had missed but I'd collected a hell of a lot of blast. She'd fallen through the rotten boardwalk. My arm was stinging. That smell was powder. Nichole. That was her screaming somewhere.

  'Nichole!' I yelled, coming to. She screamed again. 'Hang on. I'm coming, love,' I shouted, coughing from the acrid fumes of the gun's explosion.

  I hauled myself back up the steps. She wasn't there, but a great torn hole let the crazy view in, the still wheel, the hurling water and the tumbling drenched rocks rising abruptly above the falls.

  'Please, Lovejoy!' she was screaming. 'Darling!'

  'Hold on!' I called. 'Hold on!' The force of the gun and the rotten platform giving under us had thrust her back against the wall and it had simply fallen away. I spread myself on the platform as quickly as I could and slid towards the gap. She was lodged between the wheel and the stone slabs, head mercifully out of the onrush.

  I'd have to risk my arm and shoulder under the wheel. I examined the locking lever, in case. It looked exactly as I'd replaced it. One careless nudge against the peg could edge the cogs into place and the entire bloody waterwheel would turn, sweeping Nichole down and crushing her against the sliprace stone slabs. And I'd go too.

  'Please, Lovejoy!' She was moving, becoming frantic now, in worse danger of slipping further under the wheel.

  'Hold on!' I screeched. 'Hold on!'

  'I can't!' she gasped. Water was pushing against her head.

  'You must! One second!' I yelled into the roar. 'Drop the bloody gun!' She was holding mechanically on to the gun, for God's sake. As if it was any use. I turned aside to see if there was anything for me to hang on to. Not a bloody thing. Nichole must have feared I was going away because she screamed.

  'Lovejoy!'

  'I'm still here, darling.' I turned back to reach into the flood for her arm. I couldn't lose her now, not when I'd everything in my grasp. As long as I kept my legs clear of style='mso-spacerun:yes'> the gears and that huge ominous lever. 'Lift yourself,' I bawled, getting a mouthful of the water. 'Now.'

  'I - I didn't mean to.' She was babbling incoherently as our hands met. I pulled. Nichole started to come free of the water. I gasped at the exertion. My side was hurting now, but we were clinging firmer. I began to wriggle slowly back along the wooden platform.

  'I didn't want to kill your birds, Lovejoy darling,' she gasped.

  'What?' I yelled. Her relieved smiling face was an inch from mine. We were both practically submerged, me dangling upside down, hanging on, and her draped on the wheel in the funnelled mountain water. She still clutched the shotgun. As if I hadn't enough to lift.

  'I knew you'd forgive me, darling,' she said breathlessly. I still held her in an embrace.

  'And the bike was a silly joke.'

  'You?' I shrieked.

  'And I just had to push Edward…'

  I was still pulling her up but now I stared in horror. She must have seen my eyes change. Her lips stripped back off her teeth. Even in that position she struggled to lift the gun at me, screeching hatred. Hatred at me, who practically loved her. And honest to God it was an accident but my hands slipped. Her fingers unlatched or slipped or something, I don't really know any more. I couldn't help it. Everything happened in a split-second blur. I swear it was beyond my control. My side suddenly gave out and my hand jerked away. It just happened. She slid back down screaming, wedging with a burbled shrill squeal into the millrace. She was howling dementedly with outrage. Her eyes glared up with pure hatred as she dragged the shotgun up against the force of the water. I removed my arm and edged frantically away from the wheel on to the crumbling platform. I swear my hand just slipped. Honest to God. And in the suddenness of her weight vanishing my flailing foot clanked the lever. Before I knew what was going on I heard the gears engage. It was a pure accident. Maybe I was trying to scrabble away from the coming blast of the shotgun. She gave one screech and the wheel lurched round. I heard it. Then there was only the moaning and whining sound of the big wheel's slow turning and turning. I lay there, gasping. The paddles had blood on, but only the first time round.

  I'd had to roll over. She'd been lifting the gun at me again. You can see that. If she hadn't been trying to pull the trigger I'd have reached for her again. Accidents always happen when you're in a hurry. Everybody knows that.

  I don't know how long it was before I dared look out. She was crushed beneath the wheel, her corpse deformed and mangled on the rocks and washed quite free of blood.

  The recesses between the boulders were covered with dark brown discs. I edged along the planking. The turning wheel had used Nichole to scrape the slab covering off the bed of the millrace. There were hundreds down on the river bed. I'd been right. Bexon had walled the lead coffin, now lying crumpled and exposed in the water, behind the millrace.

  I could see Nichole's waxen head in the clear water. It took me an age to work up courage to lock the wheel again. Honestly, hand on my heart, it was accidental.

  But as I climbed painfully down pity was alien to me. At that instant it was utterly unknowable. Her arm swayed like the limb of some obscene reptile as I splashed into the water below the waterfall. My side oozed blood.

  I stood knee-deep in the millrace, the onrush thrusting against my legs. Looking around it became obvious most of the fortune was in copper and the occasional silver coins. I didn't blame Bexon, picking out the golds like he had and putting them in the Castle for bait. It was exactly the sort of thing I would have done. Anyway, the Romans considered copper the mediocre twin of gold itself. There was a small crusted bronze statue, a she-wolf suckling two infants.

  I caught a glimpse of one dulled yellow. Her palm was tilted in the water, exposing a Roman gold between two fingers. I took it carefully from her.

  'Hold them by the edge,' I said. I keep telling people this but they take no notice.

  I thought of saying something else to her submerged face through the rippling water layer, but finally didn't speak.

  CHAPTER XXII

  Contents - Prev

  JANIE WAS telling me off again.

  'We didn't leave,' she was saying angrily, 'because a polite note from you was just too good to be true. You'd have just gone.'

  'Charming.'

  We'd all but packed. The bungalow stood clean and aired ready for more, for all the world like a runner on starting blocks before another race. I knew Janie was working up to something. She attacked suddenly in the lounge, unfairly bonny and colourful with white net gloves and pastel shades.

  'Lovejoy.'

  You can tell it's trouble from the way they say things.

  'Yes, love?'

  'Look at me.'

  I'd been staring admiringly at the hillside. St Lonan's chapel with the valuable engravings was only two miles off and nobody would be there as early as this. I'd visited briefly. Some scoundrel would nick them one day. He could slip up the hedgerow, turn left at the road and cut through the sheepfold. Nobody'd see him.

  People are rogues and can't be trusted.

  'Yes, love?' I gazed innocently into her lovely eyes. They looked full of suspicion.

  Women get like this.

  'Lovejoy. The Roman coins.'

  'Don't,' I got out brokenly.

  'You didn't mention them very much to the police, did you?' She waited.

  'They almost slipped my mind. When I heard how Nichole had been… well, ill for so long, in close care and all that…' I paused bravely. 'Still, I did own up. Eventually.'

  'Did you take any?'

  'Me? Take -?' I was outraged. 'Certainly not!'

  'Look at me, Lovejoy.'

  I'd accidentally turned away, honestly not because I wanted to avoid her eyes. I steadied up and gazed back.

  'Did you,' she asked, grim all of a sudden, 'did you go back and steal some?'

  I gasped, injured. Women have no sense of grief, not really. It takes a woman to be savage, even barbaric. Look at Nichole.

  'Steal?' I demanded coldly. That hurt. 'I showed the police where they were and everything. I said how I'd been looking for Bexon's find. And how she'd followed me and tried to keep the Romans for herself. Shooting me as soon as I'd found them. And pushing poor Edward off the cliff…' I shuddered. No need to act for that.

  'Steal,' she said, still suspicious as hell, very determined. 'Steal. As in nick, lift and thieve.'

  'No,' I said, wounded to the quick.

  'And,' she added unabashed, 'as in Lovejoy. There seemed very few coins. Only a dozen or so. Wouldn't a Roman army carry more than that?'

  'How should I know?'

  'Janie!' Algernon was suddenly there. I was very glad to see him. She never moved or took her eyes off me. 'How dare you!' He quivered with indignation.

  'How dare I what, Algernon?' Janie kept judging and weighing me up. She's basically lacking in trust. It must be terrible to be that way.

  'Make - ' he steeled himself - 'well, what can only be designated… suggestions about Lovejoy's character.'

  'Go and see to the car, Algernon,' Janie said evenly. 'I've business with Lovejoy.'

  'N - n - no, Janie.'

  She stared at him then, astonished. Served her right for losing confidence in her fellow-man. She repeated her command but good old Algernon stood his ground quivering like a pointer.

  'No, Janie. I can't allow these unpardonable insinuations against Lovejoy's character to go without demur.'

  'Algernon,' Janie ground out, 'I think it's time you faced the facts. Lovejoy's an unprincipled, greedy, lustful, selfish -'

  Algernon scraped up some more demur and faced her, pale to the gills but still full of heroism.

  'You're very - ' he swallowed and finally made it - 'wrong, Janie.'

  I gasped in horror and turned aside, doing my strongman-overcome. 'Algernon!' I exclaimed. 'Janie didn't mean -'

  'The swine's acting, Algernon!' Janie cried. 'He's up to something. Can't you see?'

  'If you only knew, Janie, what terrible events Lovejoy has been through,' Algernon continued icily. 'How absolutely courageous he was -'

  'It was nothing,' I muttered, embarrassed.

  'How calmly he explained to the police, despite a serious wound -'

  'It's only a scratch,' I put in self-effacingly.

  '- when he'd been in the very jaws of death!'