by Amy Myers
Lowry. Art. Stolen art. Now that, I thought, was something that would have suited Polly down to the ground.
And then I did a double take. I’d been asleep at the starting switch. It worked! It fitted. It was the answer at last. Polly’s love of art, her love of adventure . . . I’d leave the ethics out for the moment. So sure I was right, I stood stock still under the bridge. This was a different scene altogether, like walking into a dark El Greco, and I quickly moved on. Here one could all too easily have a rendezvous with a gun or destiny.
The bell rang in my mind again and this time sharply. Even I couldn’t miss it.
My dream. The Formula 1 front line rushing towards me at Brand’s Hatch. The people in the stands had not been waving but warning me. You’re on the wrong track, they’d been yelling. And so I had been. The Lagonda. I’d been following will o’ the wisp stories about buried cash and laundering money in the Lagonda. But those spaces in the car, the one behind the rear seat and even the one above the petrol tank. Not used for money. Used, surely, oh surely, for canvases.
And that was when it hit me. For real. From behind.
I hadn’t been wrong. Someone had been following me. Someone had it in for me. It was not a cosh this time; it was an arm round my neck about to strangle me. Luckily, I was on firm ground here thanks to my oil days. A back kick, a thrust forward and a twist, and it was the other chap lying on firm ground. I hadn’t laid him out though, and there’d be no ripping off the mask to reveal who it was. He was up immediately and had me again in his grip, but again I manoeuvred my way out. This time he made off, as some brave folk were coming to my aid. Panting and coughing, I supported myself by the car-park fence, while solicitous people murmured about muggers and gangs and ringing the police. No gang, this. Too much of a coincidence. My attacker had been Dan Burgess’s height, but not his build. Not Slugger Sam’s either. Nor Rupert Stack’s – though I played with the idea. I wasn’t sure about him.
Art, I said to myself as I sat in the car, wondering whether I felt as good as I’d assured my rescuers I did. Art, and Polly. Of course. But where did I go from here? And how hard would someone try to stop me next time?
NINETEEN
I didn’t waste time dreaming that night. I had to make progress, and quick. I slept like the log my attacker had done his best to make me into and arose on Saturday morning knowing just where I was going and what I was after. There was only a week to go before Rupert’s art show on the thirteenth, and that seemed an unmissable opportunity to check out my new lead on Polly’s death – tentative lead, I reminded myself, but it hadn’t escaped me that wherever I turned I eventually came back to Rupert Stack. Stolen art? He had a golden alibi for the time of Polly’s death. I had brooded over this on my way home last evening, but I was forced to concede that there was no way he could have hosted that meeting on Tuesday morning and been down in Kent shooting Polly an hour later. Theoretically possible, but the authorities aren’t keen on private jets taking off from Piccadilly.
A thousand questions popped up. Was Polly still involved in the business when she died? If, that is, she ever was. Once again I seemed to be jumping so speedily from one leaf to another that Frogs Hill could have been named after me.
Could that pocket at the rear of the Lagonda really have held masterpieces of art? Again, theoretically possible, and if Polly were involved it would be much more likely than its having been used for money laundering.
First port of call was the Lagonda. Cursing the time it took to negotiate all my new security measures, I opened the barn doors and found her safely inside gazing out at me with those mournfully inadequate eyes. No doubt about it, this lady deserved something classier than laundered money inside her. Nevertheless, she looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her engine, let alone have canvases illicitly behind her rear seat and on top of her petrol tank.
Seeing the Lagonda there steadied me for some reason. Fantasy began to dissolve and a more chilling picture arose. The more I looked at that so innocent-looking seat, the more I could picture Polly and Mike’s lives – and perhaps deaths – as they had really been. Polly, lacking adventure after her former high profile job, and Mike, game for risk at any cost, could well have been smuggling stolen canvasses or drawings across the Channel. Their frequent trips to continental car shows would hide the rare trips on less innocent pleasures, although visits to receivers could also have coincided with the shows. The game, as they saw it, would have extra spice as they faked the photos for that make-believe album to prove their presence at these innocuous events. If this were not just a scenario but fact, would it make me think the less of Polly? My bones were telling me that it was indeed fact. That made me all the more frustrated because, having been deprived of Mike, she had been killed when her love of life might, just might, be returning.
But there lay the nub of it. Did she die because she was still playing Mrs Art Thief, or was it because of what she might have discovered about Mike’s death? I remembered yet again that look she had given the car when I had first met her. Of course she had loved that Lagonda. Of course she didn’t want to get rid of it; for her it conjured up her whole marriage to Mike and all they had been through together. She would still keep it registered in order not to draw attention to a sudden disappearance, but she removed the number plates and logbooks from the car itself in case of unwelcome visitors. Such as me. That made me gulp, and it took a moment or two to see the Lagonda clearly again. There seemed to be some kind of mist over my eyes.
Forward, I told myself. I played with the notion that there might be or had been a Leonardo or Van Gogh hidden in Polly’s barn, and that, not a pile of banknotes, was what the rumours of missing money were all about. Money would tie with an art racket, of course – all too well. The downside was that in that case Polly must have known about it. I couldn’t wait to get to Greensand Farm and back to the barn.
I gave the Lagonda a last loving pat. No doubt DI Brandon’s forensic lab could find proof of presence of canvas or paint in the car, but even without that I was increasingly sure of what it had been used for. Next stage, if she and Mike were the brains behind the thefts, there must still have been – and still be – others involved. After all, Mike was undoubtedly a car dealer, and Polly lived in Kent, not London. Neither of them could physically have shimmied through windows at dead of night to carry out the actual thefts. It was possible, therefore, that they’d conducted the whole operation from Greensand Farm, although unlikely. Polly might still have been running it, but I was inclined to think not. I couldn’t see her dealing in getaway cars and the likes of Mason Trent. And the last question, and perhaps the most important: did Bea know anything about her mother’s involvement? I couldn’t believe she did.
Nevertheless, I ought to ring her right away to make sure her barn was secure, so I turned to go.
The first thing I saw was a pair of smart leather boots.
There were on two sturdy legs planted outside blocking my exit. My eyes travelled up. I didn’t know those boots – or the grinning face above them. Swarthy, longish black hair with occasional curls, black shirt, jeans and a chain round the neck. Thirties. Tall. Straight out of Hollywood? Doctor Who?
Neither.
‘Mason Trent,’ announced the boot-owner. ‘Jack Colby, I presume. Heard you been asking about me.’
Now that I knew what I was dealing with, I recovered quickly. ‘We’ve met. Last night, I believe.’
His eyes slid over me. ‘Maybe.’ Then they slid past me. ‘Nice car.’
The Lagonda. I went cold. There was nothing I could do, but brazen it out – if he gave me the chance. He wasn’t going to risk another flooring from me, so the odds were that he was armed. I couldn’t see any obvious signs, but he hadn’t come bearing goodwill.
‘Heard you lost the little darling in a fire,’ he continued chattily.
Who from? Harry, Andy, Tomas – did it matter? Not just as that moment, no. ‘Forgot where I left it,’ I said casually. Keep the cool go
ing. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Not a lot. Car detective, you call yourself, don’t you? Police work?’
Corner this carefully, I warned myself. ‘Work where I can get it.’ Nice, I thought. Imply I’m anybody’s for a fiver.
‘Right.’
I saw his hand go to a pocket. So this was it. I stiffened. Perhaps I could somersault myself at his feet – stupid, stupid . . . I didn’t move.
The hand emerged again, and it wasn’t holding a gun. The hand stretched out towards me.
‘Here’s my card, mate.’
I stared at the revoltingly bright-pink object announcing Smiths’ Restorations and Repair Shop with an address in Barton Lamb.
‘Very funny,’ I observed.
‘Yeah. Used to know Mike Davis. Nice chap,’ he informed me. ‘Pity he went the way he did.’
Play this up front, I told myself. Taking a deep breath, I became matey. ‘Never knew him myself, but I liked Polly. You heard she was murdered too?’
That did it. He hadn’t missed the ‘too’, not Mr Mason Trent. ‘Yeah,’ he remarked, and the atmosphere grew chillier. He didn’t say or do anything. He was waiting for me to make the running. OK, I could take a hint.
‘Thanks for the card,’ I said politely. ‘What would I want to talk to you about?’
‘Mike owed me.’
‘Money?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Art money?’
A long pause now. ‘If you were to stumble across it, Jack, let me have it, eh?’
To my amazement – and relief – he began to stroll back towards his car. No bright-pink flashy job here, a modest Ford. The window was down, and he leaned out for a farewell word:
‘Oh, and, Jack, tell your chum Dave sorry we had to move out.’ I looked at the pink card – and he grinned. ‘We won’t be back.’
I tried: ‘So if I want to get in touch with you?’
‘Whistle and I’ll come to you. Just whistle, Jack.’ He drove off laughing, but I was under no illusions. I was on probation. One more move he didn’t like, and the laughing would stop.
I felt as if I was watching the Tardis pull out, but there was no benevolent Doctor inside. There was an urgent job for me to do. Trent wasn’t going to wait for me to hunt for that money – he’d be off to do it himself. And Bea might be on her own. I whipped my mobile out quicker than Clint Eastwood.
‘Bea!’ I almost yelled down the phone, relieved to find her in, but terrified for her safety at the same time. ‘I’m on my way. Don’t open the door to anyone except me.’
‘OK.’ Bea sounded as though she had this command thrust at her every day. ‘Rob and Zoe are here though.’
I never thought I’d be glad to hear of Rob’s presence anywhere. ‘Great,’ I said.
Even so, I leapt into the Alfa feeling like Doctor Who myself, and when I arrived at Greensand Farm, I dashed for the front door. At least there was no Ford in the forecourt. Nevertheless, I fell in the door – opened by Rob.
‘Bea’s OK, is she?’
‘Mind telling us what this is about?’ asked the supercilious little twit.
‘Chap called Mason Trent. On the hunt for missing money.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ Rob drawled as Zoe and Bea emerged from the kitchen. At least they had the decency to look anxious.
‘Are you all right, Jack?’ Bea asked.
She was actually worried about me, bless her. I gave them an edited account of my morning so far and the advisability of our getting down to the barn soonest.
‘Why?’ Zoe asked practically. ‘This Mason Trent might be hiding behind the door.’
‘But he might find—’ I began. ‘Stupid of me. We know there’s nothing there.’
‘And even if the dosh is somewhere around,’ Rob said languidly, ‘I’d sooner be here than there if he does show up.’
I longed to say I’d protect him, the little darling, but for Zoe’s sake held back. I’d not been thinking straight, of course.
There was no ring at the doorbell for the next few hours, and by the afternoon Zoe and Rob decided they had a mission elsewhere, but said they would be back later and stay on for supper. I pointed out that no way could Bea stay here tonight alone, so I’d sleep over here again. This caused a raised eyebrow from Rob, which surprised me until I thought it through. The trouble was that this place was beginning to seem much like home, and Bea such a fixture that I almost wished she wasn’t too young for me. Grow up, Jack, I told myself as I looked at her slumped in the garden – in Polly’s garden. I still thought of it that way, and I began to realize it wasn’t Bea so much as Polly for whom I was still hankering. Bea was the closest I could get to the dream, but she dwelt in another country, one which was twenty years younger than mine.
‘What’s that bruise?’ she asked curiously, when Rob and Zoe left. She was carefully inspecting my face. ‘I’ve been dying to ask you, but thought you might not want to make a public confession. Another cosh on the head?’
‘A mere tussle, and I won. Not serious.’
She looked relieved, which was pleasing.
‘Bea,’ I continued, ‘I’ve a theory to put to you. You won’t like it.’
‘Try me.’
‘How about art theft? Big time.’
She looked blank to my relief. ‘What about it?’
‘Smuggling paintings through customs in the Lagonda.’
She was there in a flash. ‘No money laundering then? Mum and Dad together?’
‘Right first time.’ I proceeded to explain, almost forgetting that it was her parents we were talking about, but luckily she seemed to take it with the same attitude.
‘What about after Dad died?’ she asked. ‘Mum did travel occasionally, but not in the Lagonda. I truly didn’t know she still had it.’
‘I believe she would have given up after your father died. No fun without him.’
Bea went very pale. ‘Then she must have been killed because she realized he’d been murdered too, just as you suggested. It’s still one big guess though.’
‘But tenable, and it implies that there were other people involved in the art operation. Maybe your parents were just cogs in the wheel.’
‘Must have been quite big cogs,’ Bea said bravely. ‘My father wouldn’t stand for being a lowly cog. He thought big.’ She paused. ‘Does this mean there would be no buried treasure after all, or that it’s more likely?’
‘I don’t know.’ The unpleasant thought occurred to me that Mike and Polly might have been responsible for bringing back the cash for the stolen paintings. Smuggling art out and money in. Handing the cash over – minus a bit. Perhaps not handing any cash over . . . Arguments over the cash. A hundred scenarios, but they all came down to the fact that only Mike and Polly would know where the loot was, and therefore murder would seem an inappropriate route to take.
‘If there really is buried treasure,’ Bea said with a wobbly voice, ‘I don’t think Mum knew about it. Fiddling the till might have been Dad’s private venture. He saw that kind of thing as exciting, but Mum didn’t. Not where money was concerned. So it’s all too possible he never told her.’
‘If you’re right, Bea, I need to check the barn again.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No way,’ I said firmly. ‘And I’ll wait till Rob and Zoe are back here before I go dashing down there. That’s if you don’t mind my poking around?’
‘Be my guest.’ She made an attempt at humour. ‘Don’t run off with the loot, though.’
I promised her that after the British Museum she would be the first to hear about it.
TWENTY
For all my brave words, I was not hopeful of finding anything buried in that barn, however hard I looked. The only thing that decided me on this venture was that I wasn’t the only person interested in it, although it was probable that by now they’d come to the same conclusion as I had. It was worth a second go, however, so I left my car outside the farm – as a subtle hint to Mason Tre
nt that I was around if he wanted a repeat match after last night’s – and walked through the farm to the barn.
As I did so, smelling the earth and trees around me, I wondered how many times Polly and Mike must have made this journey. They almost seemed ahead of me as I went through the kissing gate. I imagined them playing around there and laughing at the ‘game’. I began to feel less confident that I was going to achieve anything at the barn. I was a mere intruder into what was their secret. I began to wish I’d taken Rob up on his half-hearted offer to come with me. Especially as I felt my stomach muscles tighten. I could see what lay ahead of me – or rather who.
I wasn’t going to be alone at the barn. Big chap though I am, I felt the chill of fear strike again. Then I relaxed a little as I saw it was not Mason Trent but Guy Williams, and unpleasant words would be the worst that could pass between us. As I drew nearer, however, I sensed there was something strange going on. He wasn’t looking at me, though my arrival must by that time have been obvious. He was standing quite still, looking at the ground or something lying at his feet. He didn’t even look up as I approached and called out to him. It was almost as though he had been expecting me.
He was not far from where Polly had lain. And then I saw what he was looking at. Another dead body, more blood, more brains spilling out over the dry ground.
‘Tomas,’ Guy said to me matter-of-factly, as I felt my stomach heave. ‘He’s been shot.’
He must be in shock, I realized, and I must be too. I swallowed hard and tried to discipline myself into calm. ‘Have you called the police?’