by Amy Myers
‘Or walking the dog,’ I added, ‘or arranging a local garage for the De Dion. Perhaps it’s inside her garage, which is why the Polo is outside.’ I was talking to thin air. Helen was already peering through the garage window, and then she disappeared through a gateway to the garden, while I waited hopefully. She quickly reappeared.
‘No sign of her or the De Dion.’
‘Right. Let’s see if Brenda’s in.’
I put my arm round Helen’s shoulders, and it felt comfortable. So comfortable that I wasn’t prepared for a sharp jerk back to the real world as we walked back down the driveway to the road and saw mud on the grass.
Or what I thought was mud. It wasn’t. It was dark red.
The colour of congealed blood.
‘Stay there,’ I told Helen sharply.
I forced myself to investigate, and she didn’t stay anywhere. She was right beside me as I skirted the bushes and saw what was lying on their far side. I could see the iron lug wrench that had battered the life out of Victoria Drake, and the blood-covered gloves that the assassin must have worn. Her legs stuck out grotesquely, as if she’d fallen flat on her face just as she walked. Her light jacket and fancy black skirt looked as though she had been dolled up for some special occasion – before they were covered in her blood from the now all but unrecognizable head.
I’ve seen quite a few corpses over the years, but even so I had to look away. I pressed Helen’s shaking body to me and led her back to the path, held her close for a moment, then suggested she waited in the Gordon-Keeble. I felt rather than saw her shake her head, and she was right not to do so. Who would want to remain alone after such a dreadful sight? She needed the reassurance of a living, moving human being. I rang the emergency services first and then tried Dave, by now on voicemail. Of course. The whole bloody world lived on voicemail.
I had to remain where I was, but Helen did agree to drive the Gordon-Keeble nearer to the house, although not into the drive, of course. The move was unnecessary, but it gave her something to do and provided communication between us while we still could not cope with the reality. It was beginning to spit with rain and I was glad when Helen returned, bringing my large umbrella from the car. She didn’t seem surprised when I held it over the corpse.
‘Crime scene,’ I managed to say jerkily, and she nodded.
There was more to it than that. It seemed a last attempt to give Victoria Drake the dignity of being a human being. I knew I should be looking critically at the crime scene myself but I couldn’t. I could only cope by distancing myself mentally and, as far as I could, physically. I work for the police. I know the routine of crime scenes: the first police to arrive would assess the scene – and me. That happened. Then came the radio calls and the resulting team converging from all directions on Elmtree House. The tent over the corpse, the crime-scene suits and shoes, the barrier tapes . . . It was out of my hands and thank heaven for that. I could wait to be interrogated and join Helen while I did so.
The crime-scene manager was not Brandon, but a woman, a DCI Fielding, whom I hadn’t run into before. She was one of these efficient types, blonde, fortyish and cool. She gave me the once-over, as I briefly explained my presence and my role in the De Dion Bouton. The latter failed to make much impression on her – and faced with this brutal murder I could understand why.
Without my even noticing, local residents had begun to gather, attracted by the police sirens and cars, and the incident vans now parked outside. Helen and I were banished to the narrow stretch of grass on the far side of the drive, and I realized I must be on automatic pilot because it was only belatedly that I recognized Brenda and Tom standing across the road. Shortly afterwards I saw Patricia join them, so with the gateway roped off, I walked down to the fence so that they could come over to me if they wished. A white-faced and visibly shaking Brenda did.
‘I’m taking Patricia and Tom home with me,’ she began, not even questioning what Helen and I were doing here. Her voice faltered and she gave up the attempt to be practical. ‘Did she suffer much?’ She looked at me with hope in her eyes.
‘No,’ I said, lying because I had to. How could I know, how could anyone know the answer to that?
‘Do join us . . .’ she managed to say.
I thanked her, but explained that Helen and I had to wait until the DCI gave us permission to leave the crime scene. How long that would be, I had no idea. At least Fielding allowed us to sit in the Gordon-Keeble until summoned again, albeit I could see a PC keeping a close eye on us.
At last DCI Fielding and her sergeant – both of whom turned out to be quite human – came to take our initial statements. We made a cosy foursome sitting in the Gordon-Keeble, but at least we were away from the horror of Elmtree House and its terrible garden scene. I made another stab at explaining why we were here and gave her Dave Jennings’ number to check me out. I also covered Alf’s death, and she began to be mildly interested in the De Dion at last.
‘The victim collected this car yesterday?’ she asked.
‘I was told she had,’ I emphasized. ‘I saw it in its storage shed in the afternoon and returned to find it empty in the evening.’
Not surprisingly she seemed to think this strange, until Helen explained it had been at her urging and why. Fielding still looked doubtful, however, even though I gave her Dave’s direct number.
‘Where is this car now?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. That’s what we came to find out. From what we could see it wasn’t in the garage.’
‘That’s empty, except for an old mower and garden junk. No sign of any old cars. You say it’s valuable?’
‘Very. And in a month or two’s time it might be much more valuable. If the car was the reason for this murder, it’s odd timing. Any sensible thief would bide his time until the market value shot up. He’d also want to pinch any papers relating to its history. Was the house broken into?’
‘No signs so far, so it looks as if the car couldn’t have been the reason she was killed. She’s been dead some time so it could have been a random attack last night.’
‘With a handy lug wrench? More likely to have been someone she was with. There’s a lot we don’t know about the De Dion Bouton story.’
Her reply was dismissive. ‘When you know it and if it’s relevant, I’ll take it on board.’
I couldn’t leave it there, delicate ground or not. ‘There’s one angle you might want to consider. If this car is potentially as valuable as I think, the killer might be close at hand, family even.’
A cool look but not an unfriendly one. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
She asked us to call in at HQ to make formal statements but otherwise we were free to go, while her team crawled over every inch of garden and house for forensic evidence. Ours would only count as ‘hearsay’ but I was sure that in this case ‘hearsay’ would be a vital constituent.
Helen and I discussed joining Brenda and the Morrises. I had no option, but I suggested she might want to give it a miss. She didn’t, but as outsiders we agreed not to stay long.
‘Could a woman have killed her?’ Helen asked as we walked along to Brenda’s home. Her voice wobbled.
I’d been wondering that myself. ‘Non-professional opinion, but caught unawares and in the right position, it’s not impossible. It would take a strong-minded woman to batter away like that, though.’
She did not comment, and I didn’t take it further. I was summoning my energy for what was to come. Brenda looked almost glad to see us – either to find out what was happening or because she needed help with Patricia and Tom. There was no sign of Nick. Patricia looked shrunken with shock and I began to think that Helen and I should not be here, but they accepted our arrival without comment. I was surprised that any of them were up to asking us questions but they seemed eager to do so. Tom asked most, but Patricia listened with great attention as Brenda fussed ineffectively with coffee cups and biscuits. In the end Helen went to carry the tray in while Brenda sank down
in an armchair at last.
‘When did it happen?’ Tom asked me. One of those questions that even the questioner knows can’t be answered but they fulfil the need for communication.
‘Probably last night – she was dressed for the evening rather than the morning.’
‘I was out,’ Brenda moaned. ‘When I came back, I saw there were no lights on in Victoria’s house. Well, I didn’t think anything of it, why should I? But all the time she might have been lying there. Dead. Oh I can’t bear it, I really can’t.’
Patricia said nothing; but her coffee cup remained undisturbed. I began to realize that what I’d taken for ‘listening’ could be silent shock.
And then it came. ‘Did Victoria say anything about the De Dion to you?’ Tom shot at me. ‘Brenda’s story is that Victoria was going to arrange to bring it down here.’
‘That’s what Victoria told me,’ Brenda confirmed. ‘Doris King didn’t have her telephone number, so I had to give it to her. Victoria said she would arrange to get it here right away. I don’t know why.’
‘There’s no sign of it at the house,’ I pointed out, glad that the subject was at least on the table.
‘Then where the hell is it?’ Tom shot at me.
‘In her garage, I suppose.’ Brenda was rocking to and fro in agitation.
‘It’s not,’ I told them.
‘Not?’ Patricia roused herself, while Tom and Brenda stared at me as though I were in league with the devil, for which I had no current plans.
‘What the hell are you doing here anyway?’ Tom belatedly shouted at me. ‘You’ve got the car yourself, haven’t you?’
The gloves, it seemed, were coming off with a vengeance, but the fact that they were wrangling over this now left me stuck for words.
‘No,’ Helen replied for me. ‘He hasn’t.’
‘Then they’ve got it,’ Tom swept on. ‘By God, I’ll see—’
‘Tom, stop!’ Patricia cried.
‘Who are they?’ I asked with interest. Connor Meyton for instance?
‘That Hopchurch fellow and the crazy collector chap who came over to badger us all. Couldn’t get her to part with it by legitimate means, so they did it this way.’
Helen flared up. ‘Are you accusing Julian and Stanley of murder?’
‘When a million or more is at stake, you have to think that way,’ Tom snarled. ‘That car’s our inheritance, so where is it? The old woman hadn’t a penny other than that falling-down barn of a house. So where the blazes is it?’
Once the word inheritance is on the table all sorts of maggots can crawl out of the woodwork, so I kept quiet. Unfortunately the maggots weren’t given a chance.
‘I suggest,’ Brenda said with dignity, ‘that you postpone this discussion for a more suitable time. Poor Patricia needs our consideration.’
Helen was still trembling when we reached the Gordon-Keeble, whether with shock or anger I could not tell. All I knew was that we needed to be out of this place, away from crime scenes, incident vans and police cars. From murder to car valuations was too big a jump for both of us.
‘How can he talk that way?’ Helen said. ‘As if Victoria wasn’t a person at all. She was his mother-in-law.’
I tried to be charitable. ‘Unexpected death can have odd effects, especially when it’s murder – people can’t take in that it’s for real.’
‘Apparently they can when it means money for them,’ Helen said bitterly. ‘And accusing Julian and Stanley is way out of line.’
‘I’m afraid,’ I warned her, ‘that the police might well be asking just the same questions.’
I did not get back to Frogs Hill until late that afternoon, as both Helen and I elected to make our formal statements right away. That done, Helen returned to Harford Lee and I came back home. She was spending the rest of the bank holiday weekend with her parents, and I didn’t persuade her to change that plan. Distance can help shock.
Frogs Hill felt good as the Gordon-Keeble made its stately way over the gravel to its home next to the Lagonda. A platform for me to breathe again. Helen departed in her Fiat, and I strolled into the Pits, trying to feel ‘normal’. To my pleasure Len was still there. He looked up and grunted as I came in.
‘Give us a hand, Jack.’
So I did. We worked for an hour or so on the Porsche with great care, and that too felt good. I was under Len’s supervision of course – he doesn’t think I can tell a nut from a bolt. One drawback to this interlude: I’d never thought of describing our restoration workshop as lacking a woman’s touch, but it did. Not any woman’s touch, of course, but Zoe’s. The horrors of the morning began to recede at least momentarily until just as Len was leaving he thought fit to mention that Dave had left a message for me to ring as soon as I came in. There was, I saw guiltily, the same message on my mobile. The news of Victoria Drake’s murder must already have percolated to him, I realized. The message was to ask me to meet him for lunch on the morrow at the usual place. This is the Markham Arms, a pub that Dave favours because he fondly imagines that it gives him a low profile. The fact that he’s kept to the same pub for years, however, means that every villain in Kent plus their networks had come to know who he is and by association anyone he meets there. Such as me.
It must be urgent if Dave wanted to meet me on a Sunday. That’s usually sacrosanct as a family day. The Markham Arms is a sixteenth-century building and not too much has been done to it since, thank goodness. It’s still possible to walk in and see the present-day conglomeration of local workers and other residents dissolve into a scene of their medieval counterparts.
It was the first time I’d been here on a Sunday, and the clientele was different, especially as its reputation for good food brought families here for lunch. The pub was packed when I arrived, but I could see Dave sitting in his usual place at a table in the window, a tomato juice before him and The Times newspaper folded at the Sudoku puzzle lying beside it. It proved to be Friday’s Super Fiendish one, which is suitable for Dave, who looks and acts benign and slow and is the very opposite. Many a villain has more than met his match by underestimating Dave. I never did, or do, make that mistake, which is probably why we get on.
‘Morning, Jack,’ he greeted me as I arrived with a half of bitter in my hand. ‘This De Dion—’
‘I take it that’s now reached your official missing list.’
‘Not missing.’
I blinked. ‘That was quick.’
‘Certainly was. On the list yesterday afternoon. Off it thirty minutes later. Had a call put through from a place on the A21 near Tunbridge Wells. Chap rented a solo garage out two days ago, car installed the same evening by elderly lady by name of Mrs Drake. He heard the news on the grapevine, checked the garage and was mighty surprised to find something out of a museum there. Car seems safe enough. Now tell me all you can about this Mrs Drake, Jack.’
I filled him in as fully as I could, and he listened carefully.
‘Any luck with Connor Meyton?’ he picked up.
‘Yes. He’s around, but no proof.’
‘Not surprised. He’s a slippery customer. We tried Dean Warren ourselves, but he’s still saying he’s no longer in contact. Former number doesn’t work.’
‘I’ve got one contact might help. Bob Orton. Only drawback is that he’s tied in with Pen Roxton.’
‘That Graphic woman? Careful as you go, Jack.’
‘I hear you, believe me, but it’s worth the risk.’
‘You seem to have taken Meyton to heart,’ Dave observed mildly. ‘Why?’
I considered this. ‘Because he’s there like a raspberry pip stuck in your teeth.’
‘Like that chap who’s always hanging around Frogs Hill?’
‘Who’s that?’ I asked, thrown.
‘Fellow at the bar over there.’
I swivelled round – and lo and behold, the one and only Rob Lane was lounging there in his inimitable way.
He nodded casually as he saw me looking at him. I excused mysel
f from Dave, saying I’d be back. He commented I should do just that or I couldn’t charge him for the session. The word budget was mentioned.
Rob seldom moves towards you; you move to him if one requires an audience with His Majesty. And today I did so move – purposefully.
I forced myself to act cheerily and we relocated to a less crowded part of the pub. ‘What are you drinking, Rob?’ And, that settled, I added, ‘Good cruise?’
‘Rocky in the Med, but not bad,’ he drawled. ‘Cannes was much as usual.’
Of course. Just a dreary old round of high-society parties, celeb spotting, beach parties, restaurants and moonlight serenading interspersed with the occasional splash in the pool or stroll into one of the casinos.
‘I need your help, Rob.’
Rob looked wary. It isn’t often that I say that to him. It might need action on his part and that he dislikes.
‘Zoe,’ I began.
Even more wary.
‘She’s left Frogs Hill,’ I told him. Rob thought this highly amusing – until I added: ‘For a chap called Dean Warren at Alf King’s old place.’
Less amused now. ‘Working for him?’
‘And whatever . . .’
Rob put his drink down on the bar, looking almost sinister.
‘Who knows with Zoe?’ I added hastily.
‘I do,’ he said grimly. ‘Leave it to me.’
I longed to ask him how the ‘dumb floozie’ was, but decided to hold my peace. If Rob Lane’s presence in my life was the price we had to pay for Zoe’s return, it was worth it.
Having concluded my talk with Dave and agreed to contact Bob Orton I spent the rest of the day at Frogs Hill reading in a deckchair in the garden. Taking time off? No way. I was studying all the books on the Peking to Paris rally that I could find. It seemed a profitable way to spend a Helenless day. I’d told her I would come over on the Tuesday to see the Mad Major as well as her, but he was nagging in my mind so much I had rung him to see if I could go straight over. No reply, but he did ring back eventually and we fixed a date for the morrow, Bank Holiday Monday. Well, spending a day racing cars at a model Brooklands track wouldn’t be a bad way of unwinding from the horrors of yesterday.
