Classic in the Dock

by Amy Myers

  This Giovanni, however, was a far cry from the one who had flashed in so boldly in his bright-red Daytona three days ago. This time he had arrived not in his Daytona, but in a hired BMW arranged by his agent, and he looked careworn, defeated and even physically smaller.

  ‘I am not a murderer, Jack,’ he had pleaded as he came into the farmhouse. He didn’t have to tell me that. The very idea of it was nonsense. Planning a crime would be beyond his powers and even in his cups he wasn’t one to lose his cool. Spur of the moment passionate outbursts weren’t his way of doing things. I remember Dad telling me about a time when Maria had taken exception to one of his lady friends (a failing of his). Frying pans were flying, but Giovanni merely ducked, took her seriously (or appeared to) and kissed her.

  Louise didn’t look as though a kiss would pacify her. ‘How long will he be here for?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.

  ‘Great.’

  I revved myself up for a showdown. ‘What’s wrong, Louise? The extra work? My being distracted? Dislike of Giovanni?’

  ‘None of those.’ The words emerged as a mutter.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, Jack. Mainly perhaps not being able to cope with more than one life at a time. Anyway,’ she concluded firmly, ‘it will only be for a day or so. I’ve got a short run at the Albion in London. Rerun of that solo show I did on the Bloomsbury Group. Evenings and matinees, so I’ll have to stay in London.’ She keeps a small flat there for just such a purpose.

  ‘You hadn’t mentioned that before,’ I said. ‘Is it on the calendar?’ We both carefully mark our joint calendar with every expected movement as soon as it’s on the horizon.

  ‘Only just came up.’

  That was highly unlikely and we both knew it.

  ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I’ll cook myself something and leave you two to talk things over. Poor Giovanni,’ she added somewhat belatedly.

  ‘I don’t think Giovanni’s up to very much talking tonight, and nor am I. Not if I’m going to be without you for weeks.’

  She didn’t reply to that and I wasn’t surprised. I’d stepped over the boundary. When a star wanders there’s no point in shouting ‘Come back’ at it. Just wait for it to touch base again.

  Dejected, I left her microwaving a ready meal. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. Something had gone wrong and I couldn’t see how to mend it.

  Then I had a brainwave. I’d take Giovanni to the pub for a meal and give Louise space. Giovanni was somewhat reluctant, convinced that the world would be gossiping about him. That seemed unlikely as so far his arrest was not widely known, but I assured him that as he wasn’t in his Daytona and we would drive there in my Polo (my beloved Alfa – not a Romeo alas – had been retired). That way we would be reasonably anonymous, even if some people recognized him from previous visits as the Great Artist Giovanni. That cheered him up and off we went.

  Once he had eaten a large lasagne at the Half Moon followed by an apple crumble and custard, he began to relax. He took a careful slug of red wine, clutching his glass as if it were about to be wrested from him by the great DCI Brandon himself, the gimlet police chief at Charing HQ.

  ‘Now I tell you about it, Jack. This Hugh Compton, he is not interested in painting so why should I kill him?’

  ‘Tell me why the police think you did.’

  ‘Because of the blood and they do not believe my story.’

  ‘Which is? Tell me, Giovanni, right from the beginning – what happened.’

  ‘I do not know, Jack. I know we quarrelled, but the next thing I know I am in this wood and there is blood.’

  ‘How much? A smear? Or more?’

  ‘More. Much more. On me, on the seat, on the door – I cannot get rid of it, so I drive back to find out where Mr Compton is and what happened. But they say Mr Compton is missing and send for the police. The police do not believe me, so they take me in and take sample of blood and spit for testing.’

  So far the story was as clear as mud. ‘Start again from the beginning,’ I told him. ‘Tell me everything that happened that evening. Can you do that?’

  ‘I have been talking about it for two days, Jack. Why not again?’ he said with dignity. ‘But now I talk to you, so it is easier because you are my friend. I get to Plumshaw after I leave you that day. I find the manor, the pretty daughter Bronte answers the door, come in, come in. There I meet Mr Hugh Compton. I am taken to bedroom, which is nice, very nice.

  ‘Then I go outside to the barn with Mr Compton. He is a nice man, the sun is shining. All is well. I am happy in my heart. The painting begins to grow inside me when I see the car. I am joyful. I wish to share this experience with the owner of this beautiful object that Hugh shows me. I do not know if it is Mr Hugh or his father who is the big boss but Mr Hugh says we will talk about that later today. It will soon be time for dinner.

  ‘With God’s sunshine upon us, we should eat outside but no, I am taken away from the sunshine into the gloom of a dining room, lit only by candles in candelabra, and we sit in silence round a large table, with silver gleaming. The food is good, and I do not drink, only coffee. But the silence, Jack. They are all there. Mr Hugh’s father Peter, who I now see is the very big boss but he is old. Mr Hugh who runs the farm is very quiet. His sister Stephanie is there, much older than Mr Hugh and older than her husband Paul too. Him I do not like. Not simpatico. She is more friendly, but I not think he or Mrs Stephanie like Mr Hugh. There was Mrs Hazel too, the old man’s wife though she is younger, perhaps seventy-five, so she is not Mrs Stephanie’s mother. Mrs Hazel is a hard one, Jack, not like my Maria. But there is the pretty one too, Miss Bronte Compton, Mr Hugh’s daughter. She is very simpatica, very pretty.’

  I thought of the long-suffering Maria and her scorn for the ‘pretty ones’. I couldn’t get him to tell me any more about Hugh Compton, so I decided to go easy on him and talk about the car for a while. Giovanni has a different perspective to mine on classic cars. I see them for what they are: beautiful desirable objects of the past. He sees them in terms of paint and picture and imagery. That doesn’t mean his knowledge is any less than mine or any greater, but we differ in the importance we allot to each car. Over the Alfa Romeo, however, we were united. It was an extraordinary car, a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, as the poet wrote.

  ‘Did you talk about the Alfa Romeo at dinner?’ I asked.

  ‘No, but I look forward to seeing it again. I wish to go on my own, not with Mr Hugh. How could they keep such a car and not care for it? It will take pride of place in the art of the twenty-first century, Jack, the crown of my career.’ For a moment he looked his old self, but then he began to crumple again. ‘They are not interested in the car, Jack.’

  ‘What is its story? Did you ask the Comptons how they came to own it? Could they confirm it was the one that pulled out of the 1938 race?’

  ‘It is, Jack. I was not sure before, but when I see it, I smell that it is right. It is the car in the photograph that I found. Mr Peter Compton say he bought it after the war in Italy, but cannot remember where or from whom he bought it. But I do not care. It is here now, and I shall still paint it.’

  I had my doubts about that, but kept them to myself. To me the story didn’t add up, however. Why buy a car like that and leave it to rot? If the family was strapped for cash why not sell it? They could easily find out how much it was worth. I clearly wasn’t going to get any further on this issue, however, so I reverted to the main one.

  ‘What else happened at that dinner?’

  ‘Nothing, Jack. It was all quiet. Very formal. Even the pretty one say very little but she wink at me. I tell you, Jack, my happiness died in that silence. The seed of my picture began to wither inside me and I knew I must get back to the barn quickly and alone, so that the seed may grow again.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘No. Mr Hugh insists he will come with me. He says it is his duty as host. You English! I say I leave if I canno
t go alone but he says very well, leave. How could I do that when I have a duty to paint that car? I cannot study the car with him watching me, so we have coffee, he go to change clothes, I go to get my sketchbook and we go to the barn. We do not agree about the painting, so we stand there in silence. Do they think I will run off with it, when it won’t even start?

  ‘I close my eyes to hold the image in my mind,’ he continued after a moment or two. ‘I try to do the best I can with Mr Hugh watching me. And then …’ He paused and looked at me with pleading eyes. ‘I wake up, Jack. I am not in the barn, I am sitting in my Daytona in a wood in a place I do not know. Night has become day. It is seven o’clock. I am alone.

  ‘Then I see, Jack. There is dried blood on my jacket. There is some blood in my car on the back seat; it shows dark against the red of the upholstery. On the door there are some smears too. I do not see them at first because of the red paint, but then I do. Is it my blood? I can find no hurt on me. I am scared. I try to clean the blood off, but I cannot do so. Where am I? What has happened? I must return to Plumshaw Manor and find Mr Hugh Compton who will explain. I set my satnav but when I get to the manor they have not seen Mr Compton. Where is he? they shout at me. They say there is blood in the barn. They call the police, which I think is so that they can find Mr Compton, but it is not. It is to arrest me. I killed him, they say.’

  ‘How are you supposed to have killed him?’

  ‘I do not know. I tell the police there was no weapon in the car. Where is it? they say. There is no weapon in the barn either, but blood.’ Giovanni shuddered.

  ‘Why do the police think you would have wanted to kill him?’ I pressed him. This was a crazy story and I could get no handle on it.

  ‘I do not know. Perhaps they think Mr Compton tell me I cannot paint the car after all, which is not true. He knows nothing about painting or cars. He said that he wished it to be painted yellow, but I said no. The seed inside me did not see yellow. Now,’ he added dolefully, ‘that seems nothing.’

  ‘That hardly sounds like a reason for murdering anyone,’ I commented. Even for the most hot-headed Latin temperament, it would be an extreme reaction, especially for a middle-aged man like Giovanni. Nevertheless, I saw how the police must see it. Giovanni was supposed to have killed this man in red-hot passion, probably with a knife, as he was unlikely to have packed a gun in his suitcase, then taken the body and the weapon and driven away to dispose of them, and then brazened it out by coming back to the manor.

  ‘Where did you park the Daytona when you arrived on Wednesday?’ I asked, bearing in mind that bodies are heavy to move.

  ‘Outside the barn,’ he said dolefully. He’d obviously followed my reasoning.

  ‘That’s near the house?’

  ‘Some distance. The family would not hear the car if I had driven it away or heard our quarrel even if it had been serious. But it was not, Jack.’

  ‘But the police have let you go without charge, so they can’t have a clear case.’

  ‘My solicitor said until the blood is proved to be Hugh Compton’s, there is little more they can do.’

  I returned to the point again. ‘Nevertheless, they did let you go.’

  He shrugged. ‘Like a cat with a mouse, Jack.’

  He could be right. ‘Did they test you for drugs?’ That was the obvious explanation of his blacking out.

  ‘I think so, Jack. But even if I was drugged they will say I killed him and then drugged myself because I am a clever person. I am a clever person, but I am worried, Jack. Mr Compton has been missing for three days. If he were alive, whether in hospital or anywhere else, he would have been in touch. But he has not been. They would ring his phone and he would answer.’

  I tackled the problem another way. ‘Did you know any of the Comptons before this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did Hugh commission you to paint the car or did you ask them if you could paint it?’

  Giovanni replied to this with dignity. ‘I hear about the car from a friend. I write to Mr Compton to say I wish to paint it. With no charge. Mr Hugh invites me to come. My agent was not pleased, because he think I should take money. But for this car? No. Too beautiful. It is Italy’s history.’

  ‘And yet the Comptons don’t look after the car and don’t understand painting.’

  ‘After I paint it they will. Besides, the old Mr Compton, Mr Peter, is very strange but he likes Italy and motor racing. Many of my customers do not know about painting, Jack. They ask me to paint cars because I am famous. If I don’t like the car, I do not paint. I like this one and with my painting it will fetch much money for them.’

  He must have realized that wasn’t going to happen now, because he groaned. ‘I am sorry, Jack. Let us go back to your home. I am no good company. When Maria comes it will be better.’

  ‘Maria?’ I queried blankly.

  ‘She coming here. I need her, Jack.’

  I was struck dumb. I like Maria very much, but having her here with Giovanni was not going to make for calm seas ahead. For whatever reason, Giovanni and Louise were hardly soulmates and having Maria here too wasn’t fair on Louise. It was just as well that she had planned to be away for a few days.

  Giovanni obviously read my thoughts and was amused. ‘We stay in a hotel,’ he told me. ‘And tomorrow I will not be in your way. I go to see my friend.’

  ‘The police won’t like the hotel plan.’

  I couldn’t see it working with Giovanni and Maria both at Frogs Hill either, but nevertheless it looked as if our guest room was going to have another occupant.

  ‘We go. I not stay here with that woman.’

  Quick work. Maria had only been at Frogs Hill for just over an hour on Monday morning and already she had made her position clear, having passed Louise on her way out to work. Battle had commenced as soon as Maria had disengaged herself from Len’s car.

  She had been due to land at Gatwick airport at nine a.m., which would involve a long drive along the M25 in heavy traffic. By seven o’clock, however, Giovanni had not yet surfaced despite my bang on his door. I’d needed to remain here to keep a firm eye on him, and so Len had nobly ‘volunteered’ his services. He seemed to have taken to Maria, despite the long-haul drive. Hardly surprising, as I’m very fond of her myself. She’s small, dark, and ultra-determined, but that doesn’t stop her having a warm heart. Where Giovanni is concerned she is a tigress, the warm heart protecting him like a precious cub, except where his lady friends are concerned, naturally enough. Then battle rages. It always ends in a passionate embrace, but the going is rough. I know. I’ve seen it.

  And that’s what it was like today. She stomped after me into the house while Giovanni retreated into the Pits with Len. Maria had brushed aside my feeble offer of coffee, folded her arms in traditional style and delivered her ultimatum.

  I was reeling from the onslaught. ‘Louise?’ Louise was ‘that woman’?

  If I had a vain hope that she meant Zoe it was quickly dashed.

  ‘Si. She no good that one.’

  There was a thump between my shoulder blades as the god of jealousy landed and put a stranglehold on my throat. I’d never put myself down as a jealous man. Even when it was clear that Eva, my wife during a brief and stormy early marriage, was seeing someone else – a Mexican bandleader in fact – jealousy wasn’t my uppermost emotion, only rage at her disregarding our small daughter Cara’s needs. But we surprise ourselves when the unexpected strikes. I had been aware of Giovanni’s amours over the years, and Maria’s acceptance of the situation after the fighting was over. But Louise?

  ‘Giovanni and Louise?’ I struggled with this outrageous thought. Louise was quite a few years younger than me, and Giovanni was quite a few years older. Nevertheless, I had to face the fact that he was undoubtedly a very attractive man.

  ‘Si. I no like her. Giovanni no also.’

  ‘Why?’ It was a silly question, but in the past Maria had often got on well with his light o’ loves and Giovanni never harbou
red ill will.

  ‘She leave him.’

  ‘But wasn’t that good for you both?’ Something inside me was bleeding, haemorrhaging trust and dragging love with it.

  Maria glared at me. ‘Maybe yes, maybe no.’

  I knew little of Louise’s life before we met, apart from her public profile. I hadn’t thought it mattered. The past was past. I had told Louise about Eva and of other passing ladies in the twenty-odd years in between her leaving and Louise’s arrival. It hadn’t been important and Louise didn’t care, even when I warned her that Eva might hurtle back into my life periodically, although all seemed quiet at present. Louise had merely laughed.

  Now I realized why. I’d assumed she had had unimportant relationships which, like mine (save perhaps for Eva), had come and gone, but for Louise they had not all been unimportant. She had her own past to cover up. And yet I could not see this fitting in with the Louise I thought I knew. Some time ago, I had seen Louise in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida in which she had played the faithless Cressida. When her devoted Troilus had seen her in the arms of some other chap he was a broken man. ‘This is and is not Cressida,’ he moaned. It is one of Shakespeare’s so-called problem plays, and now I saw what that meant. I knew Louise – but I didn’t know her, and that god of jealousy was busy sticking a dagger in my heart. What was happening to my world? My friend accused of murder and my lover turning out to be his former girlfriend.

  Don’t be so blasted stupid, I told myself, and tried to force myself back to ‘normality’.

  ‘But where will you go?’ I asked Maria. ‘I can find a hotel for you—’

  ‘Giovanni find one.’

  So it seemed I was in the doghouse too. Maria was already marching out of the door to find Giovanni and I joined her as he emerged from the Pits. He looked just the same and yet how could he now that I knew the truth about him? I hadn’t been in touch with him for a while before his visit so he would not have known about Louise and me, and he had covered up his shock at seeing her so smoothly I could scarcely believe it. What else could he be covering up?