Die-Cast (A Peter Marklin Mystery)

by Neville Steed

  So, other than being apprehensive about Gus, I was feeling pretty good when I pulled up outside Muir’s place.

  ‘Now, I promise not to be very long. Don’t get out of the car.’

  Gus nodded reluctantly, then asked with a grin, ‘What if I need a leak?’

  ‘Then get out. Do what you have to — I won’t be very long.’

  ‘All right then but don’t hang about. Me legs ache if I sit too much in one position.’

  I left him grumbling, and went excitedly up the path to see my beloved Flamingo.

  I was certainly not disappointed. Muir had done an expert job, and I was amazed how much the final detailing of the brass model had added to both its realism and its charm. When I had spent some considerable time inspecting it from every angle (it looked particularly good when viewed from the same angle as the old Meccano magazine photograph — in other words, when slightly looking down at it, half frontal), Muir pointed to the lower part of the right wing.

  ‘I don’t know whether you mind, Mr Marklin, but I have not incorporated the word “die” in “die-cast”.’

  I turned the model over and read in clearly defined lettering, ‘Cast in Dorset by P.M.’

  ‘You see, Mr Marklin, we need to be very honest, don’t we, in life?’

  What could I do, shake my head?

  ‘And I doubt if you will be actually die-casting this model, in the strict sense, will you? It would be prohibitively expensive, I would have thought.’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean,’ I said. ‘If I use rubber moulds, or whatever, I would be misleading the public.’

  ‘Or perhaps even contravening an Act. We have to be careful. But I can always replace the lettering, if you don’t agree with me. I should have mentioned it on the phone, I suppose, but I only made the modification this morning.’

  ‘No, I think that’s fine. “Cast in Dorset by P.M.” is quite sufficient, even if it was die-cast. My mother would approve, anyway,’ I grinned.

  ‘How so, Mr Marklin?’ Hell, he was taking me seriously. I should have known.

  ‘She always used to tell me, “Never say die”, that’s all,’ I blushed.

  ‘Oh.’ Muir luckily was lost for words.

  ‘Can you advise me on casting?’ I slipped in quickly. ‘I know next to nothing about the methods.’

  ‘Probably. My father often used to experiment with little models of his own of an evening, after he had returned from work at Dinky’s factory in Binns Road. That’s in Liverpool, you know.’

  I knew, and so does every die-cast collector in the whole wide world. Binns Road is as famous to them as Detroit is to a car enthusiast.

  ‘I still have some of his creations somewhere. In the attic, I think. You might like to see them sometime, and I’ll tell you how he made them, the different methods...’

  At that moment, the door of the sitting-room opened to admit the rather frail figure of Mrs Muir. I was amazed and concerned to see the change in her appearance. Whilst she had not exactly looked well on my previous visit, now she looked positively ill, her face ashen and her eyes troubled and seemingly without life or hope. I rose from my seat.

  ‘No, don’t get up, Mr Marklin. I only came in to get my book to take up to my bed.’

  Muir started ferreting behind the cushions on the chairs, found the slim volume almost immediately, and handed it to her. I noted the title, The Agony of Faith, and its dust jacket had an amateurish feel about it, as if it were the publication of some small religious society — the kind of thing you sometimes see clerics or maiden aunts reading on trains.

  ‘Your husband has created a marvellous master for me, Mrs Muir. He’s extremely talented.’

  Her rheumy eyes looked up at me. ‘My husband is a very dedicated man. He doesn’t rest until he has achieved the exact results he wants, however long that may take him.’

  ‘I wish more people were like him,’ I said, smiling, but she didn’t smile back.

  ‘You go upstairs, my love. I am sure Mr Marklin will understand.’ There was an edge in his voice I had not heard before, and Mrs Muir turned, tucked her tract under her arm, and slowly left the room, shutting the door behind her. Somehow, I sort of felt it wrong even to say goodbye, and suddenly I decided I’d had enough of the Muirs for one evening, so I remained standing.

  ‘Well, I’ll catch up on the different casting methods maybe next week.’

  ‘Oh, won’t you stay now?’

  ‘No, thanks, but I’ve — er, had a very busy day, and I’m sure you’d like an early night. I’ll take your beautiful model with me, though, if you don’t mind. I’d like to sit at home and admire it for a bit. Oh, I nearly forgot, I’ve brought my cheque book.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry now.’ Muir looked rather embarrassed, but I insisted and wrote him a cheque which would mean another telephone call to my bank manager, as I had neither got round to selling any of my recent tinplate investment nor banking the cash I had received from Gus’s surprising salesmanship.

  As we shook hands at the door, Muir suddenly asked, ‘Any more news on poor Adam Longhurst?’

  I shook my head. ‘He’s still in custody, awaiting trial. But I believe the police may have discovered some new leads now.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas what those might be?’

  ‘No,’ I lied. ‘I just heard it around, that’s all. Could be nothing in it.’

  Muir shook his head, sadly. ‘The whole Maxwell affair is most tragic. So many people caught up and tainted by his evil.’

  ‘You mean John Saunders?’

  He hesitated for a split second. ‘Ah, yes, John Saunders, and God knows how many others.’

  And the way he said ‘God’, for some reason, sent a shiver down my spine.

  *

  I was glad to run down the path to my Beetle, but less glad when I reached it. There was no sign of Gus, not a whisker, not a ruck of a sweater. I looked over towards the hedge bushes that lined the field opposite, but it was too dark to see anything except their vague silhouettes. There was nothing to do but get in the car and wait. It was a full ten minutes before he surfaced, and when he did he looked more than a little scared.

  ‘What’s the matter, Gus? Seen a bogeyman?’ I laughed. ‘Serves you right for being so long.’

  He clambered into the car and shut the door with more than usual force.

  ‘Next best bloody thing.’

  ‘Where the hell have you been? I could have had a whole row of leaks in the time you’ve taken.’

  ‘Wasn’t just the leak, was it?’ he muttered. ‘Decided I’d have a nosy around whilst I was out of the car. Wish I bloody hadn’t now.’

  ‘Why, what did you meet?’

  ‘Thought I’d met a sodding ghost, I did. In a large shed at the back of the house.’

  ‘What did you say? A ghost?’

  ‘Well, it’s like this ’ere. I’d had me leak, and decided to stroll around his garden. Thought he wouldn’t mind, considering I was a friend of yours. And I came across this large shed thing. Thought it was some kind of weird greenhouse at first; it had a lot of glass, you see, in the roof. So, being a curious bugger, I tried the door to see what kind of strange plants he might be growing in there. It opened and I went in. Couldn’t see much at first, until I struck a match. And then I saw it. Bloody great white thing, tall as a house...’

  ‘What the hell was it? Did you find out?’ I asked excitedly.

  ‘Well, I dropped my match in me fright, and ran out. But then I plucked up courage and thought, come on, Gus, and went back in.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I struck another match, and saw it was some funny statue thing covered in a big, white sheet. So I went up to it, still a bit scared like, and pulled a corner of the cloth. Bloody thing began falling off. I couldn’t stop it.’

  ‘What was underneath?’

  ‘A huge, gold, shiny figure with great wings and a terrible look on its face.’

  ‘An angel?’

  ‘Devil, more
like, by its expression.’

  I suddenly remembered what Muir had told me on my earlier visit, that he had been commissioned by his old church in Buckinghamshire to make an altar-piece.

  I patted Gus’s hand.

  ‘It’s all right, Gus, it’s a big angel he’s making, that’s all. He’s told me about it. Never seen it myself, though.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Gus grumbled. ‘Must be a pretty strange idea Muir’s got of heaven, that’s all I can say, with angels looking like that.’

  ‘Looked more scary in the dark, I dare say,’ I said, and started up the car.

  ‘Maybe. But there must be a devil in a man who can make angels look like that.’

  I thought about Gus’s remark for quite a bit of the journey home.

  14

  For Gus and myself, that Thursday morning seemed endless. Whilst I had devised a way of discovering about the initial scene at the International Conference Centre by getting Arabella to go straight there before going in to her paper — she didn’t take much persuading; she had visions of a scoop — we had no way of knowing about the real outcome until Blake phoned us.

  It even seemed hours until Arabella called. We almost fought as to who should pick up the receiver. I won. Her first words were like liquid gold.

  ‘They’ve just taken her away.’

  I blew kisses down the line. ‘Did you hear anything? Did she make a scene?’

  ‘Not as far as I could see, and I couldn’t hear a thing. I was kept outside the doors. I just saw her arrive, and vaguely through the glass, then saw her being escorted out by two police officers. They got in the back of a car and were driven away.’

  ‘How did she look? Could you see?’

  ‘Shell-shocked.’

  ‘Was she handcuffed or anything?’

  ‘No. She was walking quite freely. But one of the officers was carrying her handbag.’

  ‘I guess they just asked her to come down to headquarters for questioning. Can you get on down there?’

  ‘I’m on my way. Phone you soonest.’

  And that was that. Gus and I did not dare celebrate because, as yet, all we knew was that the first necessary phase was over. It was the second phase that would either uncork our bottles, or jam the damned corks further in.

  We didn’t bother opening up shop. We just sat around in the kitchen, with Bing, alternately making coffee and pacing the room. When lunchtime came, I broke open a couple of cans of Heineken, but neither of us went back to the fridge for more, nor thought of getting together something to eat. And what made the waiting worse was the number of false alarms. Two of the calls were queries from collectors about various toys I had listed on my last monthly mail-out, one was from Lana-Lee anxious to know if we’d heard anything, and the last from Sebastian Lynch asking likewise, and saying he was off to police headquarters, just in case.

  However, our nail biting did at last end — at a quarter to two. It was Blake. I held the receiver so that Gus could hear, too. His first words were even more welcome than Arabella’s.

  ‘Well, you can go back to being a toy dealer again, Peter. She’s confessed.’

  ‘To being at Osmington Mills the night of the murder?’

  ‘Better than that. She’s confessed to the murder.’

  ‘Lavinia murdered Ben?’ I said, in some disbelief. ‘I thought she must be involved in some way, but I never really dreamt she did the actual killing.’

  ‘You won’t like this, but Whetstone was right about one thing. It wasn’t a big conspiracy, or a devious plot. It was all very simple. “Domestic”, as he puts it.’

  ‘She killed Ben because he wanted to throw her over?’ I tried.

  ‘That was a part of it, she claims, but only part.’

  ‘And the big part?’

  ‘Drugs. She states it was all triggered by that anonymous phone call when she learned about the drug smuggling. She was horrified. She could see her and her husband’s whole lifestyle being put in jeopardy if it continued, so she decided to try to put a stop to it. First she rang her husband in Paris, but couldn’t make much headway. Then she phoned Maxwell, but was told he would be out until the evening. In the end, she waited for him, hiding in that clump of trees opposite the Manor gates. When she heard his car, she waved him down, and said she had to talk to him urgently. He was unwilling at first, saying their affair was finished, but she insisted. So he reluctantly let her in the car and they drove down to the quiet of Osmington Mills beach for their talk.

  ‘After a short while, he insisted they got out of the car and go to the far end of the beach, so as to draw less attention to themselves. She pleaded with him to stop the drug smuggling operation with her husband, even if he would not resume his affair with her. He laughed at her, apparently, and said she had as much brain in her head as she had between her legs.

  ‘She lost her temper and picked up a rock. He laughed, turned and began walking back to his car. It was then she struck him on the back of the head. He fell and she went up to him and felt his pulse. When she realised she had killed him, she was horrified. She threw the rock as far into the waves as she could manage, then climbed back up the beach, praying she wouldn’t meet anybody. But it was very dark, and the one person she did see in the distance, didn’t seem to see her. By the time she had got back to the main road, she’d devised a crazy scheme to throw suspicion elsewhere. She went home and immediately rang Longhurst...’

  ‘Imitating Lana-Lee?’

  ‘That’s right. That way, she threw two red herrings into the mix, got back at a previous lover who had ditched her, and his new American lady friend. She hadn’t prophesied how loyal Longhurst would be to Lana-Lee in not revealing who he thought the call was from.’

  ‘Do you think she would have eventually let Longhurst be convicted?’

  ‘I don’t know. I get the impression today that she is not so much horrified at being caught out, as relieved at being able to confess the truth at last. I don’t think she is fundamentally a wicked woman, somehow. Just very unpleasant.’

  ‘But she did bash Maxwell’s face about a hell of a lot.’

  ‘That’s an interesting point. She swears on everything that’s holy, that she only gave him the one blow, on the back of the head. In fact, she became quite hysterical about it.’

  ‘Do you believe her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d like to, but...’

  Gus suddenly grabbed the receiver. ‘Somebody else could have done it, couldn’t they?’

  Blake chuckled. ‘Well done, Gus. They could have, but only if they had come up on the body almost immediately after Lavinia had left. The medical evidence indicates that the facial injuries were inflicted only a very short time indeed after death.’

  ‘Well, maybe someone followed her. Who knows?’ said Gus, and handed the receiver back to me.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve got to have a meeting with Whetstone now. As you may imagine, he’s feeling very edgy, and I mustn’t delay things. Meanwhile, you should grab yourself a glass of champagne.’

  ‘I will. I must ring Lana-Lee first. Does this mean Longhurst will now be released?’

  ‘When all the formalities have been cleared, yes in all probability. Would you like me to ring Lana-Lee later and let her know when?’

  ‘Please. Thanks for all your help, Blake.’

  ‘Thank you, my friend. Dinner Saturday — on me?’

  ‘Dinner Saturday — on you.’

  I didn’t bother putting the receiver down. I pressed the tit with my finger, then dialled Lana-Lee’s number. Her gratitude poured over us like nobody’s business, and I could only break off the call by reminding her she should leave her line open for Blake. Then Gus and I popped along the road to the off-licence to buy some champagne — two bottles, in fact, one extra for when Arabella came home, hot foot, no doubt, from Inspector Whetstone’s second press conference to announce his candidate for the murder of one Ben Maxwell esquire.

  *

  The Rutan roared off down th
e close-mown grass strip, and I waved to Arabella in the cockpit. I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched the futuristic tail-first shape of the Rutan soar into the air in a steep climb. I turned to Lana-Lee.

  ‘He’s a good pilot, isn’t he?’ I asked to reassure myself.

  Lana-Lee nodded. ‘Do you know, this morning is the first time I’ve been allowed up with him? I hope Adam doesn’t only allow me to fly with him when he’s celebrating.’

  I laughed, as I watched the Rutan, tiny now against the cumulus clouds skudding across the sun, bank steeply to start what I guessed would be a high speed run across the strip, before proceeding out to sea to hug the coast to Lyme Regis and back.

  ‘He must have felt that he would never ever feel the freedom of flight again,’ I said, and Lana-Lee came nearer and grasped my hand.

  ‘He wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t been for you, Peter.’

  ‘Oh, the police would have discovered their error, sooner or later. Inspector Blake reckons Lavinia was so tired of lying that she would have eventually given herself up without any pressure.’

  ‘How long is “eventually”? It could have been a lifetime.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘Anyway, Peter, we owe you a hell of a lot. I wish you would let us repay you properly, instead of just settling for a holiday.’

  ‘But what a holiday,’ I smiled. ‘You don’t realise what a free trip to Hollywood and back with, no doubt, over-generous hospitality from your agent, Chester Austin, means to English folk like Arabella and me. We can’t wait to go west, ma’am.’ I tipped my forelock, as the Rutan sped across the grass strip in front of us and made off south-westwards towards the sea.

  Lana-Lee looked at her Cartier watch that was as thin as a platinum crisp. ‘I hope he gets back when he said he would, otherwise we will be late for lunch. I’ve prepared something rather special as a surprise.’