Classic Cashes In

by Amy Myers

  My head began to swim and my eyes to play tricks. For a moment I had thought it was Louise, my lost lover.

  Then she turned round to point at the band, tucked her hand under Barney’s arm, and they strolled on.

  It was Louise.

  Jealousy is a red mist, they say. It must be she who was Barney’s come-and-go girlfriend, and Barney had just inherited a billionaire’s estate.

  Then something made her look back and Louise saw me staring at her.

  EIGHT

  Ever felt frozen in time? The dangerous corner was upon me and I couldn’t even grip the steering wheel. What to do next? Should I rush up to her, greet her like a casual acquaintance from yesteryear? Demand that Barney hand her over immediately? Or should I give myself time to think? Would she come over to me? Had she even recognized me? Did she care? Was I history?

  The question was answered for me. Louise turned away and she moved on with Barney.

  Wendy appeared at that very moment and must have realized that something was wrong because she stopped whatever she had begun to say and looked over to where my glazed eyes were still focused.

  ‘Do you know her?’ she asked curiously. ‘That’s Louise Shaw, isn’t it? The actor?’

  ‘Yes,’ I managed to say. ‘And, yes I know her – knew her.’ Mistake. Wendy was instantly on the alert.

  ‘Girlfriend?’ she queried.

  ‘Ages ago.’

  ‘Ah.’ She looked worldly-wise. ‘She thinks you’re with me. Tied up. Harnessed.’ And as I must still have been looking out for the count, she added politely, ‘You look unavailable, Jack.’

  Unavailable? Me? How wrong could she be? ‘So does she,’ I said defensively. Then I wondered how I could possibly know that.

  I didn’t!

  Instantly I was on the move running after her with no notion of what I was going to say when I reached her. Louise and Barney seemed to be heading for the Herrick family group. Dangerous. I didn’t want to come face to face with her there. I had to detach her from Barney before they got there.

  In dreams you can’t run. Your mind manages it, but not your legs. Mine felt like that now. I wanted to be the giant in the story my mother told me as a child; he had boots that covered seven leagues with each stride. But I wasn’t that giant. I was the clown who managed to trip over his own big feet and sprawl on the ground right behind Louise.

  The commotion made her turn round – and then double up with laughter as I scrambled to my feet. ‘We met like this once before,’ I managed to say.1

  Her face softened. ‘Yes.’ She was still giggling. Barney looked rather bewildered, but caught the general drift of the situation and ambled away. The scowl I directed at him might have had something to do with it.

  I was alone with Louise.

  And then, in my confusion, instead of saying something sensible such as ‘I love you’, I took the belligerent route. ‘Are you two a couple?’

  She looked startled, not unnaturally. Louise normally has a calm serene face but that changed.

  ‘No. Are you and Wendy Parks a couple?’

  ‘No.’

  As a result of this terse exchange, we both mentally regrouped – at least I did, and she seemed to as well. ‘Likely to be?’ I ventured.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor me.’ A pause before I produced my next gem of love talk. ‘I thought you were in Australia. How was the film?’

  ‘Penal servitude. Released early and made a dash for the homeland.’ She looked as uncertain as I felt about what the next step should be.

  My next step was towards her. She moved back. ‘Later, Jack. Too much going on here.’ She said it gently, and not – I thought – as a put-off. My hopes cautiously rose.

  She was right. People were buzzing here, there and everywhere, the burgers and hog roast were in full flow and dancers were ready for the next session as the band regrouped.

  ‘At Frogs Hill?’ I suggested. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Speeding along far too fast.

  She hesitated, but at least she didn’t stalk away from me. ‘Not quite yet. Anyway, don’t you have to take Wendy home?’

  I groaned. ‘Yes.’ I’d forgotten about that.

  ‘See me before you leave?’ As olive branches go, this at least looked fruitful. I graciously agreed I would.

  Questions, hundreds of them, battered and bustled their way through my head like fireworks in a darkened sky. Amongst them was how come Louise was here at the Herricks’ party – or was it Barney’s party? Who was her contact? Did it matter? I wrestled with this and even wondered if she had known Geoffrey Green. That would account for her knowing who Wendy was. Then I realized the contact could be Tom Herrick, since he and Louise were both in the theatre world.

  Who cared? The merry-go-round whirling in my head came to a stop. This was a frabjous day, callooh, callay and nothing mattered now I knew she wasn’t hooked up to Barney.

  I watched her as she joined the Herricks’ group, and then still dazed I strolled back to the Packard, while I gathered my social wits for further partying. Not a bad old beast, I thought fondly patting its buttery coloured bonnet like an idiot. I was fond of everyone and everything; it was a stupendous evening and a glorious car. Perhaps I would even keep it. There was room for it at Frogs Hill and surely I could pacify Len and Zoe. Why not? The world was a wonderful place and its possibilities opened up as an infinite path of glory lying ahead of me.

  But then the shadow arrived in the form of mine host, Tom Herrick, who stood plumb in the middle of my glorious path forward. He was not happy. ‘You do know what you’ve brought here, Jack?’

  ‘The Packard? I asked, genuinely surprised. Symbol or not, it was only a car and didn’t deserve all this venom.

  ‘No. You’ve brought trouble. Wendy Parks.’

  I braced myself. After all, I’d brought Wendy here partly to see what the reactions were. ‘Barney was all in favour of my bringing a companion.’ If I was the patsy in this game of theirs, I was at least going to turn it to my advantage.

  ‘A companion’s one thing,’ Tom growled. ‘Wendy Parks is another. You know that.’

  I wasn’t standing for this. ‘Hang on,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m an outsider. I was invited, and I brought Wendy as agreed with Barney. I’m not part of any game. Over and out.’

  ‘This isn’t about the game,’ Tom said grimly. ‘It’s about legacies.’

  Ah. Now I was on track. ‘That’s not your concern either,’ I pointed out rather obviously. ‘It’s Barney’s, Joan’s and maybe Gwen’s. Not yours.’

  ‘A bequest of several million to Wendy Parks should send up question marks in anyone’s mind, especially the police’s.’

  ‘Several million?’ I echoed stupidly. The last I had heard it was one or two. This was going up and up. Then I pulled myself together. ‘I still don’t see it’s any of my business or yours.’

  Tom remained on the attack. ‘Barney’s my nephew.’

  ‘I know that now,’ I emphasized coolly. ‘But unless Philip’s will and the Packard relate to Geoffrey Green’s murder, my focus is on Monksford and his stolen Volkswagen. I can’t yet see that the Packard has anything to do with that. Nor your game,’ I added, hoping this might draw him out.

  It didn’t. Tom decided to take a gulp of beer while he thought this over. Then he said savagely, ‘Get that thing out of here – and that woman.’

  It was a weak rejoinder and he had lost the battle but I didn’t feel I had won it. I’d careered round a dangerous corner, but still seemed to be playing a game of blind man’s buff in which I was the masked victim in the centre of the circle vainly trying to find a way out that would lead to a murderer.

  That was mentally. Physically I remained standing stock still at the centre of the party waiting for humble admirers to pay their respects to the Packard. The next person to approach me was Timothy Mild, although he showed few signs of paying respects or of being humble despite his name. Fair enough. He’d been with me at Staveley when Joan had
dumped it on me. He seemed to be everywhere in the Moxton case, I reflected: he worked with Philip, he knew Joan, he knew Sam West and now it turned out he knew the Herricks. Fair enough. Networking must be second nature to him in his job. But did he also ‘know’ Geoffrey Green? Timothy strolled up to me, champagne flute in hand and with a rather conscious air of relaxation.

  ‘See you’ve brought the Packard then,’ was his conversational gambit.

  ‘I have,’ I dutifully replied.

  ‘And Wendy Parks too,’ he added in jocular fashion.

  ‘Of course,’ I agreed. ‘You know her?’ Timothy met Sam at the golf club but did he know Monksford and Wendy too?

  His champagne seemed to interest him greatly. ‘Slightly.’

  ‘But not Geoffrey Green?’

  He must have been waiting for that. ‘No. I met Wendy at a concert at the Royal Festival Hall. She’s in its Friends Association and so is my wife.’

  ‘The circles around Philip Moxton seem to be ever decreasing,’ I commented.

  Timothy parried this without the slightest hesitation. ‘It’s like that in the country, isn’t it? I know the Herricks, I’ve met Wendy, I play golf with Sam West – he said he’d met you – I’ve driven through Monksford, stopped for coffee there once on the way through, so I might have met her there before I knew who she was. I do assure you, however, that I never ran into Geoffrey Green.’

  ‘This case is full of coincidences,’ I said genially.

  ‘Case, Jack?’

  I remembered that to him I was a car dealer doing odd jobs for the police on that front only. My turn to parry. ‘The case of the Packard and the missing Volkswagen.’

  ‘Ah yes, the Packard.’ He turned to admire its curvy charms. ‘Great car, isn’t it? Forget the Volkswagen, Jack, but never forget the Packard or the game.’

  So he did know about the game. Was he hinting that the Herricks might be more involved in Philip’s death than had so far emerged? Or was he pointing the finger firmly away from his own motivation for wanting Philip out of the way? I’d liked him on our first meeting, now I wasn’t so sure. Being liked – up to a point – must go with the territory in his position.

  At this point Wendy rejoined me, greeting Timothy rather more casually than as a mere acquaintance – or perhaps that was my imagination working overtime. This was a casual occasion after all.

  Perhaps it wasn’t my imagination, however, because Timothy took the opportunity to suggest they went to get another drink and I didn’t seem to be included in the invitation. I seemed to be seeing plots and spies everywhere, so the Packard and I remained in our twosome to see who might turn up next.

  It proved to be Joan Moxton. Somewhere along the line she had become disconnected from John Carson, for which I was truly grateful. At this stage of the evening I could only take on one heavyweight at a time.

  ‘What are you going to do with this thing?’ she demanded, glaring at the Packard. ‘You’re not leaving it here, are you?’

  She seemed very concerned, which was odd. Did the game scare her so much that she feared just leaving the car on Herrick territory would open it up again?

  ‘No. I have to get home.’

  ‘Taking that woman with you, I hope. What are you going to do with the car then?’

  Here we go again, I thought. ‘It’s on hold until I’m absolutely certain none of you wants it back.’

  A heavy sigh, then amazingly she grinned at me. Wow, I thought. I’m climbing the popularity stakes at last. ‘We won’t,’ she informed me.

  ‘Is the “we” you and John Carson?’

  She looked astonished. ‘Good heavens no. You don’t understand, do you?’

  ‘No,’ I agreed wholeheartedly.

  ‘As far as the Packard is concerned, John and I don’t come into it. We run the Staveley Gardens. That’s all. As I told you, now Philip’s gone we can turn it into the dream place we’ve always wanted.’

  Two happy customers anyway. ‘Did Philip leave you the house too?’

  ‘The right to live there, but with Barney’s blessing I’m going to convert it so that we can hold horticultural courses there.’ A sly glance at me. ‘John lives in the Lodge and I don’t use much of the house, so it will be put to good use.’

  I still wondered what their relationship was. ‘Sounds interesting,’ I said politely.

  So that was the arrangement, or what she would like to believe it was. This was a new Joan Moxton, one alive and enthusiastic. I doubted whether this extended as far as my concerns, however, but it was worth a go.

  ‘Who,’ I added, ‘are the “we” you referred to in respect of not wanting the Packard back?’

  She fidgeted a bit, but she was disposed to be informative. It must have been the champagne. ‘The four of us,’ she said. ‘Philip, myself, Gwen and Tom. I gather you already know that we agreed in our Oxford days that the game must end when our fathers were both gone. Now they have, the game’s over and you have the Packard. It’s as simple as that.’

  She was avoiding eye contact. ‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s more to it, isn’t there?’

  She still didn’t meet my eyes. ‘Only an angle you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Do the police understand it?’

  Now she glared straight at me, ‘If you must know … No.’ She switched tack. ‘It’s not important and not relevant now I’ve got Staveley Gardens …’ Then, ‘Well, we agreed at Oxford that – no, I won’t tell you.’

  I put on my bulldog look. ‘Then you must talk to the police.’

  This made her hum and haw again, but at last she obliged. ‘There was money involved.’

  Not rocket science to guess that. ‘How?’

  ‘My father wouldn’t tell us much, just that there was a sum involved over the Packard because of a bet between himself and Gavin. At university the four of us agreed that after both had died not only would the game end, but the proceeds of the bet would be split between the four of us equally. Philip changed his mind when his father died in the nineties and he discovered the proceeds had been far greater than he could have imagined. He didn’t want to share it out. He told us he wanted the whole lot to go to Barney and he could divide it between the rest of us as he chose. We trusted Barney – luckily. All of us. He doesn’t set much store by money, so apart from just one bequest to that woman of yours who’s walked off with a cool three million and provision for Staveley, Barney has inherited Philip’s fortune and we’ll work the division out between us. So that’s that,’ she concluded defiantly. ‘The game is over. No one can challenge that.’

  Poor Wendy. For a moment I was sorry I’d brought her here, but then I reconsidered. Wendy wasn’t going to be poor any longer and her presence had brought a few pheasants flying out of cover. As that was the only bequest, if Sam West had also been looking forward to a little something from his chum Geoffrey Green he’d be disappointed, but he had already got his life sorted. Wendy’s lifestyle on the other hand could be dramatically improved by what Philip had left her.

  Then John Carson arrived to join Joan with his standard polite greeting to me.

  ‘Taking this thing to the scrapyard, are you?’ he snarled, thumping the Packard on its bonnet.

  Joan for once stepped in. ‘Let it be, John.’

  Why, I wondered, should John care about the Packard? There was room enough at Staveley to house a dozen Packards. Were there yet more pheasants waiting to fly out?

  As the evening wore on, I tried to throw myself back into the heart of the party for the interminable wait before I saw Louise again. I talked to Gwen, I talked to Moira, I even talked to Tom again. I saw nothing but smiling faces in the lamplit darkness and suddenly everyone seemed my friend. Even the Packard looked more at home. Someone had kindly fixed a spotlight on it which gave it a magical golden glow. Gradually eating and drinking petered to an end, although the dancing was still in full throttle.

  ‘Later’, I decided, had now come, so I went in search of Louise. I couldn’t find
her at first, although I knew she would still be here somewhere. Louise wouldn’t stand me up – she’s not like that. I did begin to panic, however, wondering if she had indeed done a disappearing act in order to avoid a difficult situation.

  ‘Looking for Louise?’

  I turned at the voice and saw Emma Herrick, drink in hand and looking highly amused. ‘I am,’ I admitted.

  ‘She’s nipped over to the house with my mum. She’ll be back any moment.’ Emma looked me over rather as she had done at our first meeting. ‘I’m glad I’ve met you, Jack. She’s not an easy lady, you know. But I reckon you’re not easy either. Don’t take any stick from her, will you? You’re on a winning ticket.’

  Was I? I glowed. ‘I take it you and Louise are friends?’ That explained the link between her and the Herricks.

  ‘Bosom, Jack, bosom.’ She laughed. ‘Good luck.’

  She tactfully disappeared, and in any case she had already lost my attention, because I could see Louise coming through the gateway from the house. The silver dress she wore was shimmering in the lamplight, as I walked up to meet her.

  ‘Dance?’ I asked.

  I held out my arms and she came into them. Neither of us said much, as we moved slowly round, with couples leaping, jumping and singing. They were just shapes of vivid colour around us, as our bodies met each other once again.

  ‘Shall we walk?’ she whispered. ‘Shall we talk?’

  ‘We should.’

  We slipped back into the Herricks’ garden, and found a secluded spot where we could be alone. I could feel my heart thumping. I could see and feel her with me. Who would speak first? She tried and failed, so I began.

  ‘I tried to reach you,’ I said.

  ‘I know. I couldn’t face it. I ran away.’

  ‘Because you’d closed the door on us?’

  ‘It seemed to close itself.’ She wouldn’t look at me. ‘It still does, Jack. I have to be free to dash here, there and everywhere.’