by Amy Myers
‘Evening, sir,’ was all he said, and sat down again, looking as relieved as I felt.
So the threat had to come from outside, and there was little I could do there, so I went to rejoin Jason on the first floor where a tray of sandwiches and drinks had appeared in our chosen base.
‘Arthur okay?’ I asked.
‘He’s snoring, so yes. What now?’
‘Just you and me, Jason, and the long night ahead. If we’re allowed it.’
We drank the hot chocolate, he and I. Jason was a teetotaller after his ‘bad patch’, as he termed it, but in any case I wouldn’t have touched alcohol tonight. We ate the sandwiches, we talked of cars, we talked of music, of Miranda Pryde, of women in general (a little). We talked of daughters too, he of Hedda, and I of Cara, my daughter in Suffolk. After surviving her own bad patch – in her case with her partner – she had settled down to a rural life, and seemed happy enough to do so.
And so the long night passed until, at three thirty, the first bird began to sing. He had perceived first light, and never had his song been more welcome. We left it another half hour until Jason said at last: ‘Go home, Jack. This has been a wild goose chase.’
‘Unless we were deliberately kept together in this room.’
‘You don’t believe that, and nor do I. Arthur is safe and the guards are still at their posts. The night’s over and dawn is coming.’
I wanted to believe him right and I did. No one would attack in the light. In summer people rise early. There are cows to milk, fields to plough, harvests to reap. It took the darkness for black clad figures to roam through it with guns.
I drove home in the Gordon-Keeble, past tiredness now, just wondering about life, about Jason and about tomorrow – or rather the day that now lay ahead of me. A day I had been by no means certain I would have when I set off yesterday evening. Time with Jessica? Just the two of us away from Old Herne’s? Perhaps.
I reached the lane to Frogs Hill under a silent sky, with dawn barely yet here. The spirits are low just before dawn and I no longer felt elated that nothing had happened. I felt nothing but a great numbness. As I drove through the gates, I decided to leave the Gordon-Keeble on the forecourt. There were no car thieves prowling and the milkman was hardly likely to take a fancy to it so I clambered out of the car and headed for my front door.
And then I saw it.
A rounded long bundle on the gravel not far from the farmhouse door, as though a delivery van had called and merely dropped the merchandise where its courier stood, annoyed at the lack of reply. Someone had called … and left something. Even though the security lights were blazing it felt dark and I had a terrible foreboding as to what I was looking at.
The words of Jason’s caller came back to me. Tell Jack Colby if he wants to see the end of the game come to Friars Leas this evening. He hadn’t said that was where the game would be played. The game was with me and it was here.
This was the game.
A hand was poking out of the carpet wrapping. The delivery was a body.
* * *
1 See Classic in the Barn
FOURTEEN
I had to force myself to go closer. I had to check in case there was still life extant. After all, I could be wrong. It might not be a human body – although I knew it was.
The food I had eaten earlier was on the brink of rejoining me, and I fought to keep it down as I struggled with fingers that wouldn’t obey me. A rope needed cutting and I remembered the knife in the boot of the Gordon-Keeble. And then I had to do the cutting. I tried not to think of anything as I did so, but terrible images kept flashing through my mind. Was it Len – Zoe? Was it Jessica?
It was none of them.
It was a face I had only seen once before, but I recognized it immediately despite the staring eyes and gaping mouth. It was Alex Shaw’s.
I rocked back on my heels, aware that my face was wet not with sweat but tears, perhaps for Shaw and his family, perhaps out of relief, perhaps because of the bloody senselessness of the way fate has of intervening in what we each see as our own privately arranged destiny. I was punching 999 into my mobile even as I struggled to regain control. Once that was done I felt reasonably back on course and stood up waiting for it all to begin. Brandon, Dave, the endless parade of scene-suited experts going painstakingly about their gruesome tasks. I tried not to think further than that. After the nightmarish night with Jason, I now had to face an equally daunting day ahead. I’d take it step by step – if I could – and not let this tsunami overwhelm me.
I watched as the first police car arrived, then the rest of the vans and cars. I answered questions, I dealt with issues, in the way one can after a night completely without sleep, seeing everything with a detachment and unemotional involvement as if standing behind some invisible screen in one’s mind.
Even so, eventually my brain broke through sufficiently to wonder why the farce of the detour to Nightmare Abbey had been necessary. I sleep (usually) during the night, so why couldn’t the body have been left here during the small hours without the trip to Friars Leas? The security lights and noise of the car on the gravel would not have presented a problem, as the body could have been deposited and the car be away before I was even downstairs, so why had Jason and Arthur been brought into the picture? A jolt of fear made me realize that perhaps by now they had been. Perhaps they had relaxed their guard with the night past and me gone.
A phone call fixed that worry. A guard answered and told me that Jason and Arthur were asleep. I hardened my heart. I had to know, so I insisted on speaking to Jason. I needed to be sure that mayhem had not broken out as soon as I left. It hadn’t, and Jason promised to keep the guard going and stay up himself.
I supposed the diversion tactic might have been a strike against me personally because of my interest in the Porsche. Frogs Hill was my castle, my fortress, my home and it had been attacked. I couldn’t see that scenario working either though – again, why bring Jason and Arthur into it? The name Alex Shaw inevitably resurrected the name of Doubler. There could well be an issue between the two of them, but why me too? And – a sickening memory – why had that red poppy been lying on Arthur’s table?
The whole of the forecourt and part of the lane had been speedily cordoned as soon as Brandon arrived, leaving me marooned in the farmhouse, contemplating the peaceful green fields and garden to the rear of my home which contrasted so sharply with the disaster zone in front. It was still only five thirty in the morning, but as soon as was decently possible I would have to ring Zoe and Len, as the Pits was clearly not going to be operating today. A vastly different operation was in progress under the Forensic Management Unit.
I duly gave the police my DNA, my fingerprints online and my shoes, then I rang Len who grunted and said he’d ring Zoe for me. I wasn’t entirely surprised when she called me back. ‘We’re coming in, both of us. I’m picking Len up.’
My sympathies to Len for his second ride in the old Fiesta. I reminded her of the cordon but she cut me off with a brief: ‘Footpath.’
I realized how sleep deprived I was. There was indeed a footpath passing the end of my garden which led through the fields to access points on the lanes where she could park the car. I watched through the kitchen window until I saw their familiar figures stomping up to my garden gate, both with a backpack, and went out to meet them. Zoe took one look at me and ordered me to bed.
So I obeyed, leaving them in charge of coffee and biscuits for the troops outside. I only slept for an hour and a half but it restored me to a working machine at least temporarily. The working machine then did its best. The first thing I saw when I came downstairs was Doubler’s red poppy, not yet returned to him, which focused my mind wonderfully on the subject of Doubler. He must surely be involved in the execution of Alex Shaw – for execution is what it must have been. Somehow Shaw had disobeyed orders. I remembered Doubler’s statement that he didn’t like being double-crossed. But how did red poppies fit with that?
The
second item I saw was Dave Jennings awaiting my arrival. Brandon was outside somewhere, he told me.
‘Payback for the Porsche, Jack?’ Dave looked quite perturbed.
‘Why me though? Your team got there as quickly as I did, and I didn’t give Shaw any aggro when I went to see him.’
‘Brandon’s set on the car theft being connected to Mike’s death and your midnight dash to the new owner’s place makes that possible.’
‘Nothing happened to the Porsche last night though,’ I pointed out.
‘Can’t be our Mrs Ansty going on the spree, can it?’
I didn’t even smile. Too much effort. ‘Whether it’s connected to the Nelson murder or not, Doubler’s involved in this, Dave.’
He groaned. ‘I was hoping you wouldn’t tell me that.’
‘No choice. He was. He masterminded the nicking job with Shaw or someone else, then Shaw could have disobeyed orders. I can’t see how, but the fact that the body has been dumped on my doorstep must indicate something.’
‘That Doubler’s planning to nick the Porsche again?’
That hadn’t occurred to me, but I couldn’t see much mileage in it. I wondered whether to mention red poppies but as I couldn’t see how they fitted in there wasn’t much point in attracting Dave’s standard withering silence when presented with apparent irrelevancies.
‘Unlikely,’ I replied.
At which point Brandon came into the kitchen to join us. ‘Then why go dashing up to Friars Leas last night, Jack?’
‘Not because of the Porsche. I’d been told to go if I wanted to see the end of the game, the nature of which was not specified. With Shaw dead, the game seems to have been the Porsche.’
‘Let’s get after Doubler then,’ Brandon said. ‘Who’s your contact, Jack?’
‘Via Huptons garage.’
‘But the chap Jack spoke to has left their employment, surprise, surprise,’ Dave said.
‘Have you talked to Harry Prince?’ I asked.
‘Yes. He’s never been so horrified in his life. Fancy employing someone by mistake with forged references and forged identity, what was the car world coming to? And to think that had apparently happened at a Harry Prince garage. He would be taking steps.’
I wasn’t surprised. Harry is good at turning blind eyes, but the minute a situation gets lukewarm, let alone hot, they are mighty good at becoming crystal clear, especially when his own safety is involved. So was Doubler, of course, but in a different way. Harry is genuinely nervous of tripping over the wrong side of the borderline he walks so carefully. He wouldn’t knowingly have sanctioned Huptons having a direct line to Doubler. Indirect maybe – at a safe distance and hidden in a labyrinth.
‘Is Arthur Howell still at risk, Jack?’ Brandon asked. ‘What’s your feeling?’
I thought this through. ‘If there’s only one game on the go then, as I said, it could be finished with Shaw’s death. But if there’s two, linked or not, then there may be more to come.’
The silence that greeted my statement confirmed my own fears. Mike’s murder was carried out by someone who knew Old Herne’s and the Swoosh programme. The theft of the Porsche also indicated a knowledge of Old Herne’s. Boadicea’s attack and Shaw’s death could be linked to Mike’s or the Porsche – or neither.
I went out with them to the crime scene where the team were popping endless tiny items into evidence bags with infinite care and inching to and fro on their painstaking search. Never had I felt so frustrated. I couldn’t help physically nor, it seemed, mentally.
‘He’d been shot, Jack. But not here,’ Brandon told me. ‘The car was parked and the body dragged over the gravel. That could be why you were called away. It takes some time to manoeuvre a dead body out of a car.’
‘If Doubler wanted Alex Shaw out of the way,’ I said savagely, ‘he had a thousand places he could have chosen to leave it. Instead he makes it visible by dumping me right in it. Why?’
‘You tell us, Jack,’ Brandon said blandly.
It was mid afternoon when I woke up after my second attempt at sleep – a more successful one than the first. Len and Zoe told me that I’d been asleep for three hours, by which time they were firmly established in the farmhouse organizing their own work schedules – including Arthur’s Morgan – and fielding umpteen calls from the rest of the world, including Jessica, Glenn and Peter. News travels quickly. Most calls were quickly disposed of, but not Jessica’s. I wanted to talk to her.
After I had finished my brief survey of events, she said simply: ‘That’s terrible for you, Jack.’ She had picked up immediately how I felt about the desecration of Frogs Hill. ‘Come and spend the night with me,’ she urged.
I was tempted to accept so that I could forget the past twenty-four hours for a while. But I knew I couldn’t leave Frogs Hill. ‘I need to face it, sweetheart, not make for a bolt-hole.’
She brushed this aside. ‘Do you want me to come to you?’
For a moment I hesitated, fool that I was, then thought of the long, lonely night ahead with so many unanswered questions out there in the dark. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Then I will. Len told me there was a footpath. I’ll be with you by six thirty bearing dinner.’
I didn’t protest. It sounded a great idea.
And then there was Jason, who had rung several times. I only hoped that didn’t mean there’d been trouble at Nightmare Abbey too, but I needed to have a word with Brandon before I returned his call. I rang Jason ten minutes later and he answered the phone immediately it rang.
‘Trouble?’ I asked him.
‘Not here. The police have been, though. You knew this man, Jack? The police wouldn’t give us any info on him.’
‘He was involved in your Porsche theft.’
‘Not the famous Alex Shaw?’
‘Yes. Simon Marsh was an assumed name. I doubt if he organized the theft though.’
A silence, then Jason said: ‘I don’t like this, Jack. I take it that phone message was merely to get you out of the house, but why here?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And why dump the body on you? You’d think it would be me since I’m the owner.’
‘I don’t know.’ I was getting fed up with everyone assuming I knew the answer to everything. ‘I’m a car detective, not a supernatural all-seeing god.’
But Jason was remorseless. What was wrong with the man? ‘You thought Arthur was at risk.’
‘He still could be.’
I was gritting my teeth in earnest now. Jason was a grown man for all his elfin looks and fragile appearance. He was Mike’s son, Arthur’s grandson and he was tough. So far I only had his word for it that there had been a call at all. I’d asked Brandon if he had checked that and of course he had, but the answer had not been conclusive. There had been a call from a mobile at the time Jason claimed, but the phone was not traceable. The nearest they had got was that the call had been made in the Friars Leas area. It could therefore, as Brandon pointed out, have been Jason himself who called. And incidentally, he had thrown in for free, the power line feeding Friars Leas had been cut.
For all my irritation with Jason, I couldn’t see how he could be connected with Alex Shaw, despite that red poppy. On a scale of ten, the probability was less than one. Besides, I respected Liz Potter’s view that Jason was a good guy. I then reminded myself that that wasn’t something to rely on in a murder case.
‘How did Arthur take the police visit?’ I persevered, as Jason didn’t comment.
He did this time though. ‘He insisted on seeing them, but it upset him.’
‘Because of the Porsche?’
‘No, because of Old Herne’s. Glenn, Fenella and Peter were remarkably quick off the mark with visiting him today.’
‘Routine visit or because of last night?’
‘The latter, but they regularly check in to ensure I’m not diverting the family fortunes away from them – even Peter. I didn’t tell them about Shaw, but a police sergeant has been doing
the rounds up at Old Herne’s.’
The net seemed to be drawing closer around the club, so perhaps the police were trying to link Doubler both to Shaw’s murder and Mike’s. If so, Old Herne’s was central – and at its heart was Glenn.
I decided to take a risk. ‘I noticed a red poppy on Arthur’s table last night.’
Jason’s surprise seemed genuine. ‘What about it? It came in the post to Arthur a week or two ago. Don’t know why and he didn’t tell me.’
‘It might be linked to the car theft.’
‘It isn’t,’ he said flatly.
Jessica was a lady of her word. At six thirty precisely she appeared at the gate to my garden laden just like Len and Zoe with a backpack, but she was also carrying a large basket in one hand. She was sturdily dressed in trousers, anorak and trainers, which surprised me – although I don’t know why it should. Jessica would dress to meet every occasion suitably clad. I ran down the path towards her with a lift of the heart. The garden on this late June evening was looking its best and murder seemed a long way away. I kissed her and took the bag from her.
‘Careful,’ she warned.
‘It’s a soufflé?’ I joked.
‘You should be so lucky. I’ve brought soup, bread, cheese, smoked salmon, strawberries and various bits and bobs.’
‘That’ll do, I suppose.’
She aimed a mock blow at me. ‘Shall we eat out here?’
Another great idea. The evening was warm enough and it seemed further away from the horror of the forecourt than did the house itself. It was pleasant to be dining here, I thought as I scurried to and fro bringing all the necessary paraphernalia and clutching a bottle of Chardonnay. Dad had built a sort of arbour to display his beloved roses, and we dined underneath its canopy of fragrance. I’m no gardener but I make sure that his roses are happy for his sake. My lost love Louise had loved this arbour, but there would be no thinking of her tonight, I resolved.
