Last Ditch by Ngaio Marsh Read Free Book Online

up and make fools of ourselves here and now. How about it?’
    Syd was crouched over his task. He mumbled something that might have been ‘Forget it.’ Ricky, feeling silly, walked round to the other side of the truck. It was being inspected by Bill Prentice with much the same intensity as Miss Harkness had displayed when she examined her horse. The smell of petrol now mingled with the smell of fish.
    ‘She’s OK,’ Bill said at last and climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘Silly bitch,’ he added, referring to Miss Harkness, and started up the engine.
    Syd loomed up on the far side with his suitcase, round which he had buckled his belt. His jeans drooped from his hip-bones as if from a coat-hanger.
    ‘Hang on a sec,’ Bill shouted.
    He engaged his gear and the truck lurched back on the road. Syd waited. Ricky walked round to the passenger’s side. To his astonishment, Syd observed on what sounded like a placatory note: ‘Bike’s OK, then?’
    They climbed on board and the journey continued. Bill’s strictures upon Miss Harkness were severe and modified only, Ricky felt, out of consideration for Syd’s supposed feelings. The burden of his plaint was that horse-traffic should be forbidden on the roads.
    ‘What was she on about?’ he complained. ‘The horse was OK.’
    ‘It was Mungo,’ Syd offered. ‘She’s crazy about it. Savage brute of a thing.’
    ‘That so?’
    ‘Bit me. Kicked the old man. He wants to have it destroyed.’
    ‘Is it all right with her?’ asked Ricky.
    ‘So she reckons. It’s an outlaw with everyone else.’
    They arrived at the only petrol station between the Cove and Montjoy. Bill pulled into it for fuel and oil and held the attendant rapt with an exhaustive coverage of the incident.
    Syd complained in his dull voice: ‘I’ve got a bloody boat to catch, haven’t I?’
    Ricky, who was determined not to make advances, looked at his watch and said that there was time in hand.
    After an uncomfortable silence Syd said, ‘I’m funny about my painting gear. You know? I can’t do with anyone else handling it. You know? If anyone else scrounges my paint, you know, borrows some, I can’t use that tube again. It’s kind of contaminated. Get what I mean?’
    Ricky thought that what he seemed to mean was a load of highfalutin’ balls, but he gave a tolerant grunt and after a moment or two Syd began to talk. Ricky could only suppose that he was trying to make amends. His discourse was obscure but it transpired that he had been given some kind of agency by Jerome et Cie. He was to leave free samples of their paints at certain shops and with a number of well-known painters, in return for which he was given his fare, as much of their products for his own use as he cared to ask for and a small commission on sales. He produced their business card with a note, ‘Introducing Mr Sydney Jones’, written on it. He showed Ricky the list of painters they had given him. Ricky was not altogether surprised to find his mother’s name at the top.
    With as ill a grace as could be imagined, he said he supposed Ricky ‘wouldn’t come at putting the arm on her’, which Rickyinterpreted as a suggestion that he should give Syd an introduction to his mother.
    ‘When are you going to pay your calls?’ Ricky asked.
    The next day, it seemed. And it turned out that Syd was spending the night with friends who shared a pad in Battersea. Jerome et Cie had expressed the wish that he should modify his personal appearance.
    ‘Bloody commercial shit,’ he said violently. ‘Make you vomit, wouldn’t it?’
    They arrived at the wharves in Montjoy at half past eight. Ricky watched the crates of fish being loaded into the ferry and saw Syd Jones go up the gangplank. He waited until the ferry sailed. Syd had vanished, but at the last moment he re-appeared on deck wearing his awful raincoat and with his paintbox still slung over his shoulder.
    Ricky spent a pleasant day in Montjoy and bicycled back to the Cove in