Die-Cast (A Peter Marklin Mystery)

by Neville Steed

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘None of our business.’

  ‘None of our business.’

  ‘Got our own lives to think of.’

  ‘Got a lot to do.’

  ‘My Flamingo, for instance. Take a deal of time.’

  ‘And we promised ourselves a late holiday. Paris, remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Mustn’t keep you. Only rang to tell you...’

  ‘Thanks. Know when you’ll be home?’

  ‘About 7.30.’

  ‘I’ll have a G and T in the oven waiting.’

  ‘That’ll be nice. Anything on telly?’

  ‘Some murder mystery or other. Miss Marple, I think.’

  ‘Oh.’ Then she said sadly, ‘We don’t seem to be able to get away from amateur sleuthing, do we?’

  You know something? There was just no answer to that.

  *

  I had hardly put the phone down, when it dringed again. I knew who it was immediately. I guess I had been half expecting it. The conversation was very short and to the point. I said I would come over right away. She sounded tremendously relieved.

  I hardly remembered the drive over. And it wasn’t because my mind churned over what few facts I knew of the case and the people involved. That didn’t take long. What did take time was a heap of Peter Marklin self inquisition, the whys and the wherefores of my own motives in saying yes to the lady on the phone.

  Lana-Lee met me at the door, and just behind her skirts was another figure, a little eight-year-old variety. I could see the sucker punch coming. After receiving effusive thanks for turning out, I was ushered into the huge drawing-room. A scotch and soda was in my hand in no time at all, and, instantly, I was looking into four big, blue, sad eyes. (Tara-Lee was almost the spitting image of her mother in miniature. It was uncanny — I began to believe I was behind a looking glass.)

  ‘Peter,’ Lana-Lee began at the deep end, ‘please help me. I’ve got no one else in England to turn to. You see, Adam is just about the only real friend I’ve made in my time over here. And now he’s...’

  She couldn’t even bring herself to say ‘arrested’, which made the strength of her feelings for him very clear.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said (those four eyes were really doing their stuff), ‘I’ll do what I possibly can. But what made you think of me?’

  ‘I’ve heard a bit about you. Adam knows some friends of a Mr Treasure, I believe his name was, and learned that you had been involved in some private investigations — in conjunction with the police, of course — that had led to the unravelling of the real facts behind the disappearance of his wife.’

  I swallowed a gulp of scotch. Well, I thought, the Dorset grape-vine certainly bears bonny fruit, blast it.

  ‘Yes, well, I...er...’ I staccatoed, ‘...er...only got involved with that case because some antique toys were stolen, and it was heavily in my financial interests to get them back, you see.’

  Lana-Lee leaned forward, and the musk of her perfume worked overtime. ‘Peter, I understand what you’re saying. And I’d like to make provision for that. I have not had a chance to discuss it with Adam yet, naturally, but neither of us is exactly poor...’

  ‘I did not mean—’ I interrupted, but she interrupted back.

  ‘Whether you did or not, Peter, we couldn’t expect you to help us without some financial reward. One of the reasons for coming to you is that I gather you were infinitely discreet over the Treasure affair at all times, a virtue that I might not be able to discover, and certainly not guarantee, in a professional investigator.’

  Tara-Lee watched me intently as I took another sip of my scotch. I found it rather disconcerting. I hoped she didn’t think I was an alcoholic.

  ‘So, Peter, if you will agree to help us, I will pay you five thousand pounds, and a further five thousand when the—’ she hunted for a suitable word — ‘business is over.’

  I whistled inwardly. That kind of money would come in very useful after the slack trade in the summer and the cost of producing the Flamingo. But she knew already, really, that she had got me with those blue eyes. The smackeroos were just a mark of sincerity, I reckoned, or were they, perhaps, to help atone for a guilt — which brought me to my next question.

  ‘I hate to say this, Miss Claudell...’

  She stopped me. ‘It’s Lana-Lee, please.’

  ‘Lana-Lee, I repeat, I hate to say this but I must know whether you really think Adam Longhurst is totally innocent of your husband’s murder.’

  ‘Totally.’ She leant forward and grasped my hand. ‘I promise you. I know men. And I know positively that Adam, short-tempered though he may be, could never ever kill a living soul.’

  I believed her. I mean I believed her belief. And it wasn’t just because a famous film actress’s hand was touching mine. Or was it? My other hand found refuge in raising scotch to my lips.

  ‘Tell me, Peter, will you help us?’

  ‘Please say yes,’ added Tara-Lee quietly. ‘Then perhaps I could come to your shop and see some of your toys.’

  ‘You can come over any time,’ I smiled. ‘But I promise I will help your mummy as well.’

  ‘Real honest injun, cross your heart and hope to die type promise?’ she went on.

  I crossed my heart and spilt a little of my scotch. Tara-Lee giggled, I searched for my handkerchief, and Lana-Lee let go of my hand.

  ‘Now you go off and play, Tara. It will be bedtime soon. Peter and I have some boring talking to do, I’m afraid. Okay?’

  Tara-Lee got off the settee and ran out of the room. Lana-Lee went over and shut the door.

  ‘Now, where would you like me to begin, Peter?’ she asked, again seating herself directly opposite me. This time she crossed her long elegant legs, and I caught a glimpse of svelte thigh. I did not complain, but it did make concentration that mite more difficult.

  ‘From the beginning,’ I smiled. ‘Or actually, before the beginning of this particular tragedy.’

  ‘What do you mean, Peter?’

  ‘Well, if I’m to help Adam Longhurst, I’ve got to know everything that might have a bearing on this case, however irrelevant it may seem now.’

  ‘Okay, fire away.’

  ‘Firstly, I’d like to know what your feelings towards your husband were. I gather you were planning a divorce when he returned to you.’

  ‘We were. I won’t beat around the bush with you, Peter. Ben and I hadn’t got on for years. In fact, towards the end, I began to actively hate him.’ She hesitated, then continued. ‘So I have to admit that I’m more heartbroken that Adam has been arrested than that Ben is dead.’

  I thought for a moment, then asked, ‘Can you tell me then, why you allowed him back into your life?’

  She hesitated again, then said quietly but positively, ‘I had my reasons, Peter. I’m sorry I can’t tell you what they were. But I can assure you they had nothing to do with what’s happened now. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure. Sorry, but I’ve got to keep a little of me private, away from the public eye.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘I’ll pass on to question number two. Why do you think your husband was murdered?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her stocking. ‘He wasn’t a popular man either in private or in business.’

  ‘What was his business now?’ I asked, looking Lana-Lee squarely in her beautiful blue eyes.

  ‘It sounds silly, but I’m not quite sure what it was.’

  ‘Please, Lana-Lee, if I’m to help you, I must know it all. Don’t hold back. You must have had some inkling of what he did recently to earn a living. Or did he exist on his savings from his motor racing days?’

  She smiled. ‘Ben never saved anything. It went out, usually, even before it came in. I paid most of his bills myself.’

  ‘So what was he living on?’ I remembered Blake’s guarded words about smuggling. ‘He seemed to have somethi
ng going with Saunders of Reinhardt perfumery.’

  ‘Nothing formal. I don’t think he got paid. They were just buddies from the old motor racing times.’

  ‘So what kept him afloat? Was it — er — anything illegal, do you think?’

  Lana-Lee looked more than a little disconcerted. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

  I had a feeling she had a darn good idea what it had been, but was terrified of her public image being tarnished by disclosure — even to a tight mouth like myself. I took a deep breath and plunged in.

  ‘Was he into smuggling? Drugs maybe?’

  She sat up straight and uncrossed her legs. Her voice was sharper now. ‘Have you been talking to Inspector Blake? Or was it Arabella the other day?’

  ‘A guess,’ I lied. ‘First thing you think of with the movie world nowadays, I’m afraid. It’s all the tabloid coverage such activities get.’

  Lana-Lee reached for my hand again. I let her take it. ‘Peter, I’d better tell you what I told Inspector Blake. Yes, Ben used to be in drugs smuggling in a small way. It was easy, you see. His wasn’t the only Grand Prix team that tried it, I’m sure.’

  ‘Smuggled drugs in the transporters or the cars?’

  ‘The cars, I gather.’

  ‘Packed into the chassis tubes, into the tyres, or crannies in the monocoque shells?’

  ‘That’s right. No one suspected, Ben told me when I at last got wind of it. The team’s transporter was waved through most Customs checks in Europe without much of a search in the old days. So it was an almost foolproof way of distributing drugs across the continent — and into England. And for the American teams like my husband’s, into the States as well.’

  ‘So he made a pile from his driving and another pile from his hobby?’

  She nodded. ‘When I discovered what was going on, it was just another nail in our marriage’s coffin. I begged him to stop for my sake, for Tara-Lee’s, but he just wouldn’t listen.’

  I didn’t say anything for a moment, digesting what I had learnt. At least I now knew what had brought Blake to the West Country. Or did I?

  ‘Your husband retired from motor racing some years ago,’ I eventually continued. ‘But I suppose he had the same opportunities with other teams when he was doing the circuits as a commentator.’

  ‘I suppose so. We had separated by then.’

  ‘Do you think he came to England to set up some other kind of drug dealing?’

  ‘It has passed through my mind more than once. But I didn’t see any sign of big money. He was getting me to support him.’

  ‘But then, he had not been here all that long, had he? Blake wouldn’t be interested if he didn’t think something irregular was still happening.’

  ‘I know. But I honestly have not seen any sign of it.’

  I finished my drink, and she made to freshen it. I waved my hand. ‘No thanks. I’d better keep a clear head. Now, can I ask you again why you had your husband back again? You knew he was crooked...’

  Her big eyes flashed annoyance; I’d seen just such an expression from her many times in her movies on television.

  ‘Please, Peter, don’t ask me that again. I’ve told you it can have nothing to do with Ben’s murder.’

  ‘And you really are convinced Adam Longhurst is not involved in any way?’ I persevered.

  ‘Of course. He’s incapable of killing — especially that way.’

  ‘Oh, it’s easy enough in a flash of anger to pick up a rock and...’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I mean the other things.’

  ‘What other things? The police have been saying he was simply struck on the head with a rock of some sort. It could have been a deliberately planned murder or just a spontaneous act. There are plenty of rocks down at Osmington Mills without the need for the murderer to bring his own.’

  ‘Please, don’t joke. It’s too horrible.’ Her voice began to break for the first time. ‘Maybe the police wouldn’t like me to have brought up the question of the other injuries.’

  ‘What other injuries?’ I leaned forward in my chair. ‘His lower jaw was so smashed, some teeth were broken, and missing. And—’ she stopped, and tears started to roll down her cheeks — ‘his right eye was gone.’

  My mind leapt back to Gus’s comment when he had first heard about Maxwell’s death.

  ‘The seagulls,’ I said very softly, getting up and putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘It must have been the seagulls. I gather that’s how the body was first spotted by the little girl. There were gulls flocking all over him. But it doesn’t explain the jaw.’

  She shuddered, and I sat down beside her on the settee. She turned suddenly and buried herself in my arms.

  ‘Oh God, God,’ she whimpered. ‘I can’t go on any more tonight. I can’t, I can’t...’

  I rocked her gently to and fro, my arms now tightly around her. ‘That’s all right,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t worry. We’ve covered enough ground tonight.’ The softness and warmth of her body, combined with the aphrodisiacal properties of her musky perfume, were not exactly helping my mind to think straight and I could feel my body starting to react in a distinctly nonprofessional manner. I prayed my client noticed not.

  I cleared my throat. ‘I’ll try to see Mr Longhurst in the morning,’ I said very softly. ‘I’ll make an appointment with Inspector Digby Whetstone. I believe he’s heading the actual murder enquiry.’

  ‘Yes,’ she mumbled into my shirt, ‘thank you.’

  I stayed a further three minutes or so, not so much for her, but for me. I needed time to relax myself a little before walking out of the room. For who knows, otherwise I might have shocked the butler.

  6

  ‘I’m only seeing you for one reason, Mr Marklin.’ Inspector Digby Whetstone sweated behind his desk, not through any excess heat in the room, but because of all the excess calories he’d absorbed over his forty or so years. He had all the weight and more of a prize-fighter but none of the muscle, and his chubby face had made his pencil slim, ginger moustache seem like he had borrowed it from someone a quarter his size.

  ‘And what’s that?’ I asked rather irritably, as I had been kept waiting in a draughty corridor at Bournemouth CID headquarters for an hour and a half before Whetstone saw fit to see me.

  ‘My colleagues from Scotland Yard put in a good word for you.’

  I tipped my mental hat to Blake.

  Whetstone sat creakily back in his tilting chair, and smiled — I tell a lie — his lips just curled up at the ends. ‘I can’t imagine what I can do for you. Or you for me. I told you that on the phone.’

  I went straight to the point, for I had only been granted ten minutes in the Inspector’s diary.

  ‘Two things: first, I want to know the extent of the case against Adam Longhurst; second, I want to see him.’

  Whetstone’s chair creaked some more as he chuckled. ‘My dear Mr Marklin, what on earth can be your interest in such an open and shut case as this? Are you a friend of his?’

  ‘Not particularly. I’m just kind of pally with a thing called justice and fair play and all that.’ I knew I shouldn’t have said that the instant it issued from my mouth. But that hour and a half’s wait had done nothing for my temper. Whetstone instantly leaned forward at his desk and the message in his tiny eyeballs said it all.

  ‘Mr Marklin, don’t try my patience. I repeat, I’ve only seen you because of Inspector Blake, and I’ve no time for insults. I’m up to my ears in work. Not just this Maxwell case, but you may have read there’s a child molester about; there’s been vandalism this morning on a ferry; there’s a youth in a coma at Bournemouth general after a punch-up outside a pub last night; we have a guy in custody concerning sabotage to the oil-drilling operation; I’m about to interrogate two men from a caravan site about the rape of a fourteen-year-old girl...Get the picture, Mr Marklin? If you’re starting to, then add thirty-seven unsolved burglaries, three with grievous bodily harm, umpteen stolen cars, would you believe an aeroplane p
irated from Christchurch, half a dozen missing persons, suspected arson at a wallpaper factory...’ He began to run out of breath.

  ‘I’ve got the picture,’ I said quietly. ‘Believe me, I’m only here to help.’

  ‘Help whom? Certainly not me.’ He pointed a finger. ‘Someone has convinced you that Longhurst is innocent, haven’t they, that we’ve got the wrong man?’

  ‘I don’t know whether he is or not. That’s what I want to help discover.’

  ‘You’ve been put up to this by someone, haven’t you? And it doesn’t take a genius to guess who it is.’

  ‘It’s no secret. I’m trying to help Lana-Lee Claudell.’

  Whetstone sat smugly back again in his chair.

  ‘I thought as much. She phones here on the hour, every hour protesting his innocence. Now she’s taken to employing outsiders. God, as if I haven’t had enough trouble with Longhurst’s lawyer.’

  I was relieved to hear the last bit. At least I wasn’t alone.

  ‘She’d better be careful, that lady,’ he went on. ‘Just because I have detained her love — Mr Longhurst, it doesn’t mean to say she is not needed for further lengthy questioning herself.’

  ‘You haven’t charged him yet?’

  ‘No. We’re still questioning him. That’s why the answer to your second question is “no”. You can’t see him until we have finished with him, one way or the other. At the moment, we are restricting access to his lawyer, Mr Lynch.’

  I made a note to get together with Mr Lynch at the very first opportunity for I had probably been naïve to think Whetstone would disclose anything about the case beyond what had already been said at the police press conferences — until they brought a charge in court, that is. It certainly made me miss someone I thought I never ever would — dear old Sexton Blake.

  Whetstone removed his bulk from behind the desk. ‘Look, Mr Marklin, a word of advice. I’m newish down here in Dorset, but I did a bit of checking about you, while you were waiting and what I heard was not too pleasing. Like about a year or so ago, you were involved in another case, and my local chaps consider you got up to some pretty dubious tricks under the guise of getting back some stolen toys, is that right?’ He did not wait for an answer, but propelled me towards the door. ‘And, what’s more, there could have been a little matter of concealing evidence and so on. So I’d watch your step, Mr Marklin, if I were you. We wouldn’t want that kind of thing happening on this case, now would we?’ He opened the door. ‘Stick to toys, Mr Marklin. And leave investigations to grown-ups.’ His lips turned up again at the ends, and he didn’t offer his podgy hand. But then I didn’t offer my slimmer one.