by Amy Myers
‘Following your wandering star?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
So this was it. The iron door had clanged shut and the prisoner remained inside. I felt very cold. I’d assumed all was going to be well between us, that this meeting was meant for that purpose only. How wrong can one be? Now the clown had fallen flat on his face again, and this time no laughter.
‘And you?’ Louise asked.
I swallowed, trying to sound casual. ‘Various adventures, nothing changed. Still the constant star, but under that star was I born.’
‘That’s a quotation from Much Ado about Nothing.’ She put her hand over mine.
‘I know. I saw you play Beatrice.’ I had put myself through agony to go up to London to see it, but in a way it had helped. It had emphasized the distance between her world and mine. She had been brilliant in the part, which had helped me understand more fully why she had left me.
I could hear her breathing. I could feel her hand tighten in mine. And then she said: ‘I could follow a fixed star that wanders off course and pops back to home base – if we could work such a thing out.’
Drive slowly, drive carefully. ‘At Frogs Hill?’
‘Yes. Perhaps if …’ Her voice trailed off. She needed my help.
Take it easy, take it calmly, I told myself. This was tough for Louise as well as for me. I had to ease up on the accelerator, change gear to give her time. ‘Barney talked to me of a come-and-go girlfriend of his. When I saw you together, I thought it was you.’
‘It isn’t.’ She relaxed a little. ‘Emma’s my friend and Barney’s her cousin, that’s all.’ She looked down at our joined hands. ‘Come-and-go. Are you agreeing that might be possible?’
Jump, leap, now. ‘Yes.’
‘It wouldn’t be easy. There may be months away, there would be weeks away, lots of days away. Could you take that?’
Another tricky corner? This one I shot round a top speed. Too fast? Perhaps, but I’d take it anyway. Now. ‘Yes, Louise, I can.’
After this, I was in such turmoil that I almost forgot about taking Wendy home, especially after Louise and I parted (with reluctance to say the least). Then it was from the sublime to the tedious. Timothy turned up again just as I was making my way back to find Wendy and the Packard. ‘Glad I caught you, Jack.’
I wasn’t at all glad. I was eager to get going with the rest of my life.
‘Joan tells me,’ he continued, ‘that she’s told you about the financial aspect of the game and the will.’
‘Some,’ I said guardedly.
He looked at me sharply. ‘She likes stirring up mischief. I wouldn’t go there if I were you. It’s up to them to sort it out with Barney, although I’ve agreed to referee it informally.’
‘You and the Herricks must go back a long way then.’
‘Some way,’ he conceded. ‘They’ve told you about the game, I presume,’ and when I nodded, he added, ‘I wasn’t so much referee as mediator there. Good practice for my career, but I didn’t bargain for quite the degree of mediation I’d let myself in for.’
This was getting more interesting. ‘In respect of Philip’s murder?’
‘No. In general. Although that wasn’t why I was present at Staveley House when you called.’
‘I assumed you were here to support Joan.’
He grimaced. ‘She doesn’t need support. I was there for quite another reason.’
I had a bad feeling it wasn’t going to be as simple as sorting out Barney’s division of spoils.’
‘It’s about what didn’t happen,’ he continued.
‘Something to do with the big merger your bank’s involved in?’
A sharp look at me. ‘No again. And I’m only telling you this because you seem to be in the thick of things so far as the police are concerned, for all you say it’s only over the cars. The police know it already. At the time he died, Philip was in the process of dramatically changing his will. I was involved because it meant discussing it with the bank’s board and myself. He was intending to tie up all his money in a foundation under the bank’s aegis. All of it, including bequests and the main inheritance. Including the bequest to Wendy.’
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. This was mind-boggling. It changed the entire murder case, surely, which was beginning to prompt more corners and high banks than Brooklands race track. Oddly enough, instead of confusing the issue, this one clarified my mind like butter in hot sun. It all began to make sense. Philip Moxton was afraid of being murdered, presumably by someone with eyes on his fortune. What better than to stick it all in a foundation so that that temptation was removed, and furthermore he would be doing good to his fellow man by, in effect, giving it to charity? However, that did mean that those whom he suspected of wanting him dead would have to know about his plans.
‘Had he told his family this?’ I asked bluntly.
‘I don’t know. I imagine he did. I don’t know what the arrangement for Joan would have been – if any. When I mentioned the foundation at that meeting at Staveley House, she didn’t seem surprised, nor did she give any impression that she supported the plan.’
‘Was it known outside the family?’
‘You mean to the Herricks and your friend Wendy? Again, I don’t know, but I would think it extremely likely.’
NINE
The night is seldom the best time for logical thinking and never was that truer for me than now. I wondered what on earth I was doing, driving Wendy back to Monksford with Louise snuggling into every corner of my mind. With Wendy beside me, I ought to be focusing on Philip Moxton and this shattering information about his plans for a foundation, but every time I did so Louise charmed her way back and took over my thoughts again. I could hear Wendy chatting, but I had no clue what about. Louise took care of that too.
I thought Monksford would never loom up on the road signs and when at last it did, I nearly cheered out loud. When we drew up outside her home on the outskirts of the village, Wendy thanked me very sweetly.
‘Thanks for inviting me, Jack. I’d been worrying over what the other side of Geoffrey’s life was like. Now I know and I feel part of the pack.’ She gave me a peck on the cheek and was gone, leaving me to my guilt over having invited her in the first place – especially as she wasn’t and would never be part of the pack. I couldn’t tell her that though.
When I finally arrived home, it seemed a dozen times more cheery than it had recently. After all, I assured it, as I put my key in the lock, Louise would soon be here with me. Not tonight, probably not tomorrow, but she would be here.
I made straight for the Glory Boot. This contains the vast collection of odds and ends of automobilia collected by my father, which is envied by the entire classic car world. The Glory Boot is a place for calm reflection, being in an annex to the farmhouse, and all too often I go there to sort out troubles away from phones, computers, doorbells and other distractions. Tonight was different, however. Louise had cast a spell over me and the Glory Boot and I felt back on track as regards this weird case.
Both Dave Jennings and DCI Brandon seemed to have some faith that I would come up with pointers and information that were eluding them. Brandon’s particular bugbear, the Met, put him in a damned-if-you-do (i.e. come up with a solution and it turns out to be wrong) and a damned-if-you-don’t situation. As I saw it, it was my job to make sure that he and Dave avoided the latter even if I couldn’t guarantee the former.
So, back to this foundation, Dad, I mentally told the Glory Boot’s founder. If Joan and Barney had known about the foundation then it was probable the entire Herrick family had also known, plus John Carson – and, I had to face it, Wendy. Just as they all thought they had their futures nicely sorted out, the game had taken this unexpected turn. I perched on a trunk of as yet unsorted photos of races dating back to the days of the De Dion motorcycles and considered whether the foundation had been another throw of the dice in the game for Philip. Was it a desperate effort to end it, because it was tied in wit
h his current will? Had he bought the Packard back and displayed it so prominently at that open day at Staveley as part of that process? I couldn’t see what that might be, though. Nevertheless the Herricks’ appearance there had been no coincidence. Philip had to live long enough to sign the foundation paperwork and he hadn’t done so.
This didn’t entirely satisfy me as a theory. Nor I think did it satisfy Dad, who still seemed to be hovering in his beloved Glory Boot which indicated he disapproved of it too. OK, Dad, I agree with you, I told him. There were other factors involved and Geoffrey Green was one of them, because that brought Wendy into the picture as well as the still possible opportunist thief-cum-murderer.
I suspected Dad wouldn’t like the latter theory and nor did I. Back to the drawing board. On it sat the Packard and the Volkswagen. The former had only one avenue of progress open at present – the missing logbook. I’d tackle that tomorrow. The Volkswagen was a different matter. I now knew it had either passed through Richie Carson’s hands or he knew something about it. I wasn’t happy with the story of this Golf. Certainly it looked as if it were at least one motive for the break-in, but for Philip’s murderer to carefully unlock the garage, find the car keys and drive it out didn’t strike the right bells for me. To pinch it after Philip had been killed would have been one hell of a risk.
Eventually I gave up. Dad seemed to have gone to bed in disgust and I couldn’t blame him. I would, in his shoes. But, I thought happily, if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t have Louise to dream about.
The next morning provided me with a clear head, which was a bonus. Monday morning was even better. Louise had telephoned to say she would be here before the day was over. I’d replied that I would lay the world before her feet in the form of the best dinner our local pub in Piper’s Green could run to, but she had brushed this aside. A supermarket takeaway would be fine. I could do better than that, I protested. I can produce the best spaghetti outside Italy if I have enough incentive. And today I had all the incentive in the world.
It galvanized my work too. My priority was to ring Brandon. His tone of voice was not encouraging when he heard why I’d rung.
‘Did I know about what foundation?’ he barked at me.
So the Met hadn’t passed this on. As I knew all too well from my oil trade years, cooperation can equal territory protection where careers are concerned. I explained more fully and was greeted by silence with a touch of heavy breathing. I could imagine the thoughts running through his mind.
‘Thank you, Jack,’ he eventually said politely. ‘No, I wasn’t told.’ A pause. ‘It could change things.’
‘It gives a whole new meaning to the end of the game.’ I ran through the possibilities, half expecting a withering put-down, but it didn’t come.
‘This foundation would have served them right,’ Brandon observed. ‘The end of a hopeful dream if they’d expected the son to shell out to his entire family.’
‘You’ve met Barney,’ I pointed out. ‘Not so far-fetched.’
‘I don’t go with this game as a motive in itself, but when they found out about the foundation it would have given them one very big motive indeed. No wonder Moxton was afraid of being murdered. Nothing to do with that Packard of yours.’
‘You might be wrong there,’ I said ill-advisedly.
‘And so might you,’ he whipped back. ‘How’s the Volkswagen search?’ he added meaningfully.
‘Away with the fairies. Carson wouldn’t talk to me in person, but I had a brief phone conversation with him. There’s been a slip-up. He’ll get the car back asap.’
‘You might be wrong there too,’ Brandon commented. When I asked him why, he got his own back on me. ‘Dave wants to tell you.’
He clearly wanted me to press him, but I reasoned that if he had information I’d be playing his game by pushing for it. I had enough games on my plate not to need another one. It was clear that the Met was keeping quiet on the forensic evidence in the Moxton case, which meant that Brandon’s concentration on the cars was still his only hope of coming out of this mess with a career plus. That Golf was a pathway to it and might still come up with trace evidence.
Nevertheless I rang Dave, since he showed no signs of ringing me. He listened to my spiel and then shot at me:
‘Brandon’s right. We have got a line we’re following up and it does lead to Richie Carson. Can’t tell you more as yet. Trust this villain, do you, Jack?’
Go careful here. ‘Why should he lie? I’ve given him immunity in exchange for information. Let’s milk it for all it’s worth.’
‘Make mine a pint,’ he snarled. ‘And not milk.’
He was so pleased with his joke that I smoothly slipped in the suggestion that his team might follow up the missing Packard logbook with Swansea. The logbook had probably vanished for ever, but finding out the car’s history in terms of registered owners could be done with the DVLA’s cooperation, although it would take time.
Dave was not amused. ‘Do you know how many man-hours that will take?’
‘I’ve a fair idea.’
‘All that for a game?’
‘And for Brandon.’
‘Ah. Seen to be doing? Is that the idea? OK, you’re on, but make it two pints and lunch.’
Next on my list of priorities was Pen Roxton. If the national press had heard rumours about the proposed foundation, it was highly probable that Pen had too and I wanted to know what she was doing about them. She was a night owl, so I might still catch her in, even though it was already gone nine thirty in the morning. No phone call this time. I needed her help and with Pen that’s tricky on the phone.
She lives in a most unlikely place, given her lifestyle of constant movement and that, contrariwise, is probably why Pen chose it. It’s in a hamlet buried in the countryside called St Thomas, near to the Mallings. It gets its name from the legend that St Thomas Becket blessed a well nearby, one of several in the vicinity. Pen lives in an eighteenth-century red-brick cottage, and it even has a rose or two round the door. It looks innocuous, whereas its owner presents a different image.
It was ten thirty by the time I erupted into her life again, but when she opened the door I could see an oat flake or two around her lips. Good. I’d caught her still at breakfast.
She admitted defeat right away. ‘Fancy an instant?’ she asked.
‘Why not?’ One coffee in any form is a spur to my day and at a pinch I can manage two.
She led me through to her kitchen, piled high with a mix of kitchen ware, storage jars, notepads, a telephone and a laptop. ‘Heard Louise was around these parts again,’ she began in true Pen style, as she poured the boiling water into a mug.
‘Did you?’ Pen had been a pain in the neck when I first met Louise and she wouldn’t be any less painful now. Louise can’t stand her.
‘Not in touch with you?’
I avoided answering this by reaching for a half-full milk bottle on the table to pour into my ‘instant’, then I suggested politely: ‘Business, Pen?’
‘Louise is business. My business.’
‘Philip Moxton,’ I said firmly.
‘Great.’ I had her attention now. ‘What can you give me?’
Typical. Always ‘give me’ from Pen. ‘Nothing. That’s our problem.’
‘Your problem,’ she snarled. ‘Not mine.’
‘Yours too if you want a story.’
She considered this for a moment. ‘Murder or the will story?’
That’s my Pen. Trust her to be one step ahead. She’d already winkled something out.
‘Which do you prefer?’ I asked.
‘Murder – if the line about the Moxton foundation is connected to it.’
‘Ah.’ I put on my best expression of disappointment. ‘It was that I came to tell you about. Are you following it?’
She snorted. ‘Old hat, Jack. Pity the great freedom of the press has been muzzled by an injunction. The news must have upset a few apple carts for prospective legatees. That’s why you’re
here. Want to know who did him in to stop him signing on the dotted line. Well, you tell me. Who did?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ My best look of being perplexed.
She eyed me suspiciously. ‘When you do, remember I’m your best friend. Right?’
‘Of course.’ I more or less had to be if I was to keep her from snapping at Louise’s footsteps. It was time to feed Cerberus a titbit or two. ‘There might be a story for you in the Staveley House—’
She leapt straight in. ‘Now?’
‘Possibly. Philip Moxton’s sister Joan talks openly about her reconstruction of the gardens with the help of the head gardener there.’
She wrinkled up that quivering nose. ‘Gardens? Can’t use that. Boring.’
‘Not on your watch.’
She brightened up. ‘You’re telling me that the foundation could have scuppered their plans for a pretty little garden? Is that their motive for murdering the brother?’
Reign in the horses! ‘Bear it in mind, but don’t, don’t, rush off to suggest that to them.’
She looked hurt. ‘I tread delicately, Jack. You know that.’
‘Like a sledgehammer on an anthill.’
There’s no malice in Pen. ‘It gets results. Is this woman screwing the gardener?’ she demanded.
I tread delicately too. ‘No idea.’
‘Tell me, laddie. Tell me.’
‘He lives in the Staveley House lodge. He’s middle-aged, his name’s John Carson, his son Richie runs a stolen car racket and you’ve never heard of me.’
‘OK. I’ll check them out.’
Things were moving nicely. Faced with me or Pen, Richie might prefer to give information on the Golf to me, and with Joan Moxton she’d have a formidable opponent on the other front. ‘My turn, Pen. You once threw out a mention of a bank robbery in connection with the Packard you saw at Frogs Hill.’
She looked guarded. ‘Did I? Have a biscuit.’
There weren’t any biscuits and she wasn’t going to throw me off. ‘I can’t find out what you were hinting at.’
She grinned. ‘Straight up, Jack? Cards on the table.’
