Classic Mistake

by Amy Myers

  I walked to the garden centre, deciding that the footpath route would do me good. I purposely left my mobile behind on the basis that any bad news could be avoided for a while longer. Liz is a busy person so I am never sure what my reception will be. Today, however, her wellington boots stopped in their tracks when she saw me. I hoped that there would be a grin of welcome but there wasn’t. Instead she looked anxious.

  ‘I’ve heard the news, Jack,’ she began alarmingly. ‘Come into the office if you want to talk.’

  Even more alarming. Her office is a cubbyhole overlooking her attractive layout of tables, flower-beds and blooms, so it was a bad sign that she took me there and not, as usual, to the café. ‘It’ll be more private here,’ she explained with a look of sympathy that I did not like at all. Liz’s sympathy usually takes the form of ‘I told you so’.

  ‘What news?’ I asked. ‘About Carlos’s murder?’

  ‘Well, yes. Is it Eva?’

  I went cold.

  ‘It was on the radio,’ she continued uncertainly, obviously having read my expression correctly. ‘They said a woman had been arrested, and as she was his wife I assumed it was her and that you knew.’

  ‘No,’ I said numbly. ‘I didn’t.’ All I could think was that it could be Eva and I’d been blithely ignorant of what was going on. Len and Zoe aren’t great ones for listening to news broadcasts and nor am I.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Liz said. ‘Want to talk?’

  ‘I don’t think I can, Liz.’ My brain seemed to be a crazy carousel of stray thoughts spinning round and round and up and down. Why hadn’t Cara rung me? Why hadn’t Brandon? How was Eva herself? Did she have anyone with her? Why hadn’t she rung me?

  ‘Old feelings rising?’ Liz asked.

  ‘Yes – no. Liz—’

  ‘You feel involved? Responsibility?’

  I managed to translate this into a coherent thought. ‘Because of Cara, yes. It has to be unlikely that Eva will be charged. She might have wanted to kill Carlos, but she’s too fond of her own skin to actually have shot him.’ I wasn’t sure I believed that, but I hoped it was true.

  ‘Anything I can do?’

  I reached out for Liz’s hand. ‘You’re here, and that’s good. Carlos had some girlfriend over here, so Eva claims. Maybe she did it, or else … Liz, I’ll have to get going. Make some calls.’

  ‘Make them here. I’ll vanish.’

  ‘Thanks, Liz, but no. I walked here, and the way back will give me time to—’

  ‘To what, Jack?’ she asked, as I paused. I’d been going to say ‘time to think’ but I wasn’t sure it would work that way.

  ‘No idea,’ I admitted. ‘Get my emotional armour on?’

  ‘Knights of old galloping to the rescue? Pageboy here when required, Jack. You know that.’

  I gave her a kiss and was halfway out of the door when she threw at me: ‘What did you come here for, anyway? To buy a dozen red roses?’

  I groaned. I was losing my grip. ‘To ask if you know someone called Jonathan Lamb.’

  ‘Yes. Not well though. House designer. Did some work for a chum of ours.’

  ‘He was in Carlos’s band, I’m told. Does the name Neil Watson mean anything to you?’

  ‘No – wait a bit. There was some story about a lad in that band who killed himself.’

  ‘That’s it. What’s Jonathan Lamb like? I’m going to see him on Monday.’

  ‘Successful, smooth, likeable, clever, introverted, sharp – how much more do you want?’

  ‘That’s enough. Thanks, Liz.’

  Once again I was already at the door when she called out: ‘Jonathan Lamb, Jack. He and this Neil Watson were an item. That’s why I remembered it. Jonathan’s gay.’

  So the reason for the annual lunch was established. Was it the reason for murder too?

  By the time I reached Frogs Hill I was in control again. Brandon first. Result? DCI Brandon was not available, I was told. It was his weekend off. I told the sergeant that DCI Brandon was available this weekend and that the true answer was that he didn’t fancy talking to Jack Colby. Try again. This time Brandon was there, a bad sign in itself, and I prepared myself for the worst.

  He sounded remarkably human, however, and didn’t try any of this ‘can’t discuss it’ stuff. Well, not much. ‘Early days,’ he trotted out as usual. ‘But I’m afraid it’s true that Eva Mendez has been arrested.’

  ‘Enough evidence to charge her with?’

  ‘Waiting on the CPS.’ Fair enough. The Crown Prosecution Service is there to give guidance over charging. Then Brandon added, ‘Afraid there’s not much chance we won’t go ahead though.’

  I thanked him – genuinely. Presumably, I had been and still might be on the suspect list and at the very least I was an interested party, and so Brandon was unlikely to keep me abreast of events from now on. Dave was another matter, however. Brandon could talk to him as a colleague in the Car Crime Unit, and Dave might talk to me. He knows by now that I can respect boundaries.

  Dave and I get on well – and never had that been as important as now. He might know what was going on, espe-cially as they work out of the same HQ at Charing. Not for the first time Dave was on voicemail. He, too, tries to guard his weekends like most of us, but he rang back quickly.

  ‘Sorry, Jack. I know this must be a major headache for you. I’ve checked into it and at least Brandon isn’t after you as a co-conspirator. Where were you on Monday night, incidentally? Joke,’ he added hastily.

  ‘What’s he got on Eva?’ I asked. ‘He can’t seriously be thinking Eva got it into her head to rush out of the hotel to Allington Lock and murder her husband.’

  ‘Actually yes, Jack. He does. Your wife—’

  ‘No longer my wife,’ I replied automatically.

  ‘Don’t quibble,’ Dave said dismissively. ‘Mendez went out in his car that evening just before nine and the car was duly found parked near where he was found. Your former wife lied about not leaving the hotel. They’ve tracked down the taxi that dropped her at the lock itself at about ten fifteen. I gather that was on the other side of the river from the crime scene. Hotel reports they’d had a flaming row during dinner, loud enough to disturb the other customers and be heard by the staff. Another taxi picked her up on the crime-scene side of the river near the Kent Life museum at about eleven p.m. Hotel reports her return there at about eleven thirty. Estimated time of death for Carlos Mendez between nine and eleven p.m. Not too bright, your Eva.’

  I thought furiously. There must be a flaw in this. Dave was right. It was a crazy story. For a start if Eva had been dropped at Allington Lock itself she would not have thought about crossing the river unless Carlos had specifically told her where he was due to transact his ‘business’. Then my heart sank as I thought that it would be just like Eva to forget the details and remember them too late, sending her rushing across … No, I’d go no further.

  ‘What about the pub?’ I asked. ‘Didn’t anybody there see or hear anything? There’s a large outside seating area.’

  ‘Apparently not. Brandon said the body was quite a way from the pub, on the far side of the bridge and sluice and hidden in undergrowth.’

  ‘Right. It was. And the noise of the sluice meant no one would have heard anything anyway. Of course. Very useful spot for a murder.’ My brain was spinning like a washing machine without its cleansing properties. ‘Did Eva pack a gun in her luggage?’ I still couldn’t believe that.

  ‘Don’t know, but no gun’s yet been found at the crime scene, although they’re still checking the river. Trouble is, Carlos himself was in the habit of packing a Smith and Wesson with his underwear. Evidence from the Mexican police is that he always carried one.’

  That was cautiously good news. Eva wouldn’t have the nous to be clever over removing the gun and hiding it somewhere less than obvious. ‘Trace evidence?’ I asked. ‘DNA?’

  ‘Lab’s still working on it. But there was an imprint of a high heel or two in the earth. It doesn’t look
good, Jack.’

  He was right, and we both knew it. ‘What’s her story?’ I might as well know the worst.

  ‘Guess what. She thought Carlos was meeting a woman so she admits she dashed out to find him. She thought he was in one of the moored boats on the lock side of the river, but he wasn’t, so she crossed the bridge thinking he might have gone to one of those moored on the far side, but went nowhere near the point where he was found, and as there was no sign of him she then went home.’

  Then went home. If anything more was needed to convince me that Eva’s story was economical with the truth those words nailed it down. An Eva in pursuit of Carlos and a floozie would not have given up and just gone home. Never.

  I waited impatiently for Monday, eager to get on with something, anything, that might help me get to the truth of the situation. Cara was Eva’s next of kin, and former husbands did not rank in the list of those to be informed, even through Dave as intermediary. My fear was that Eva had indeed murdered Carlos. In vain I told myself how unlikely this was, because each time I did so, I remembered those intemperate rages of hers when she was beside herself with unfounded jealousy. She had not changed. Who else but Eva would even consider a tryst might be taking place on a towpath at nearly midnight in showery, cool Maytime?

  Come to that, I still thought it was an odd place for a business meeting. Unless a boat was indeed involved. That would make sense – frightening sense. I reminded myself that both Carlos and Eva had been on the opposite bank to the lock, but there were boats on both sides of the river and they were an obvious line of enquiry that Brandon would be pursuing.

  I repeatedly rang Cara without success or a return call and grew increasingly jittery. On her home landline, I did reach Harry, but he simply told me Cara wasn’t there – either he was the uncommunicative sort or was protecting Cara’s whereabouts on her own instructions. Even from her father? That really made me feel great, and even my two classics failed in their duty to comfort me.

  When Sunday, Monday and several hours of Tuesday morning passed without news, I felt like a Ford deprived of its V8, empty and unable to move in any direction. And then Cara drove up, looking so drawn and white that all thought of reproach left me. She wasted no time.

  ‘Eva’s been charged, Dad.’

  I hardly noticed her use of ‘Dad’. The nightmare was upon us.

  ‘She’ll get bail, Cara,’ I said firmly. No point uttering panaceas such as ‘it’s all a mistake’.

  Luckily, she was still in ‘coping’ mode. ‘I suppose they think she’ll flee the country?’

  She was right. That was possible. Because of her Spanish birth, Eva was an EU citizen, so she wouldn’t get far by heading for Europe, but returning to South America might be on the cards. Nevertheless, as for fleeing: ‘She couldn’t find her own way out of a paper bag, let alone this mess,’ I reassured Cara. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Still with the police.’

  ‘If she gets bail—’ I couldn’t frame the words. They sounded too inadequate, so selfish in this situation.

  Cara understood anyway. ‘She won’t come here. Not suitable.’

  I realized she was right, thank heavens. With the kind of restrictions there were likely to be on her bail if granted, Frogs Hill would hardly be ideal. So next came the vital question: ‘Can you stay in Kent?’

  ‘As much as I can.’

  ‘At Frogs Hill?’

  ‘I’d love to, but someone has to look after Eva. I can’t inflict her on Harry, so I’ll sort out something to rent in the Maidstone area.’ She looked at me and grinned. ‘Your face, Jack. It’s a picture.’

  ‘A bleak one, I imagine. I’m not doing much to help.’

  ‘Wrong. You, Jack dear, are the one who is going to get us out of this mess. I don’t believe Eva shot him, but she is going to be one hell of her own worst enemy while you’re trying to prove it.’

  I had my orders and I was happy with them, but I looked at her face and saw that despite the assurance the other Cara was hovering very close. ‘Are you secretly afraid she might be guilty, sweetheart?’

  Her relief was obvious. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So am I. But the likelihood is that she isn’t. Which means I’ll turn every stone I can upside down to find the toads that might be hiding beneath.’

  She managed a giggle. ‘I like toads.’

  ‘So do I. But one of them might be in disguise.’

  Seeing Cara had heartened me, and driving out to see my first potential toad that afternoon, I was just in the mood for Jonathan Lamb. I’d already decided he was a smooth cuss and probably a murderer, and no amount of telling myself I was somewhat in advance of the facts did any good. I had little doubt that I was following in Brandon’s footsteps and that Lamb would probably slam the door in my face, but he’d find it a hard door to shut.

  When I drew up at the House of Lamb, which was on the outskirts of Canterbury, it was clear that it was nothing like Liz’s garden centre. Its declared aim, according to its website, was to consider interior and exterior as one, whether the inter-ior was house or flat and the exterior was garden or patio and window sills. The building in front of me, combined with the neat parking area and small garden, bore this out with colourful window boxes echoed by tubs and flower plantings. There were several cars in the parking area, and I had little doubt that the Bristol 411 was Jonathan’s, even if it didn’t seem to go with my idea of a murderer. But as I have never made a study of murderers’ cars, who was I to judge?

  I gave my name to the receptionist (trying not to look too bullish), fully expecting the answer that I could take a running jump and lose myself. I was somewhat surprised therefore when Jonathan Lamb himself emerged and, with a welcoming smile, ushered me into his sanctum. A wolf in toad’s clothing? I wasn’t sure. He was in his mid forties, I guessed, smartly dressed but not the oily operator I had expected. His curly hair and rugged looks suggested he would be as at home on a country walk as in a five-star restaurant. Nor did his office display the clinical decor I expected. There were photos everywhere of designer houses and gardens, but they were good ones: attractive, rather than fighting the landscapes that surrounded them. Even the chair he offered me looked solid enough to take my weight rather than being a sophisticated piece of moulded plastic.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear the news about Eva,’ he said.

  ‘You knew her?’ I was surprised. I had imagined Carlos had kept his affair with Eva low profile. Stupid really. Eva would never be low profile.

  ‘Oh yes. We all remember Eva Colby.’

  ‘Was she that much in evidence at the May Tree?’

  He considered this. ‘No, but when she was there she left an impression, shall we say. She oozed, if you’ll forgive me, trouble.’

  ‘Did she pick on Carlos or vice versa?’ I decided it would be prudent to leave my knowledge of Josie’s role out of it for the moment.

  ‘Difficult to say. Carlos fancied her, that was clear, but he liked money and I think he imagined she had more than she did. He was strapped for cash. The Charros were doing well but not well enough for him to create a new life for himself and Eva in the style to which they were both accustomed.’

  ‘He managed it somehow. Probably with the help of Eva’s relations. Incidentally, did she ring you to tell you she was back in Kent?’

  ‘No. Nor,’ he added, ‘did Carlos. I imagine that’s what you want to know, isn’t it?’ He looked at me ironically.

  ‘Is it so obvious?’

  ‘If it was my partner, even a former one, I’d do the same as you.’

  I liked that. ‘I’m rooting around trying to find a reason for Carlos’s death. The police think they have got the measure of Eva, but something drew Carlos back here.’

  ‘What you really mean is that you’re fishing around to see who might have killed Carlos if she didn’t.’ He said it lightly and, I think, without intending to give offence. He couldn’t do that, in fact, as it was true.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered him.r />
  ‘And you think the answer lies in the Charros?’

  ‘I amend that to Carlos’s past.’

  ‘Good. Well, you’re on fertile ground with our former band. None of us had any reason to love him for what he did to us. He left us with mud on our white Charro suits. How could a Mexican band work without a Mexican? No way. So we had to hang up our whites and do the best we could in other fields. It was a tough time.’

  I was aware that someone else had entered the room, and I looked round as Jonathan greeted him. ‘Hi, Clive. Friend to see us. Eva Colby’s husband. Clive was bass guitar, Jack.’

  Clive Miller was no smooth Jonathan. He was a burly man also in his forties, but with suspicious eyes and a closed-in look that warned me it would take some time to get on easy terms with him. ‘Once,’ he grunted. ‘Don’t play a note now. What are you here for?’

  The emphasis on the ‘you’ indicated he didn’t see me as a potential chum.

  ‘Because Eva’s been charged—’

  ‘With Mendez’s murder. That scum. He deserved all he got.’

  In my book very few people deserve to be murdered, and Carlos was not one of them, dislikable though he might have been.

  ‘He wasn’t top of my list of favourite people either,’ I replied, ‘and my marriage to Eva is history. But with her arrest and my daughter in a spin –’ (forgive me, Cara) – ‘I’m trying to gather all I can on Mendez’s background.’

  A long silence, then: ‘You’re with the police, aren’t you?’ Clive hurled at me.

  ‘Car theft is my line, not murder. I help out in cases where classic cars are nicked. Specialist area. I like the Bristol, Jonathan.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jonathan said, perhaps too politely. I was aware that I was very much under scrutiny from both of them.

  Clive brushed the topic of cars aside, fixing me with a look that indicated his stocky barrel-like figure was ready for a punch-up and only Jonathan’s presence was stopping him. ‘So you thought you’d prefer to pin the murder on us? No way, mate, no way. That scumbag wouldn’t have dared to show his face to us, let alone meet us. We’d be the last people to whom he’d announce his arrival. We heard it through the grapevine. He knew what his reception would have been if he’d come to see us. If it hadn’t been for Jon here giving me a job I’d have been a complete washout. I did a spell in prison for drugs after he went and—’