Classic In the Clouds

by Amy Myers

  I found his home easily enough. It was in Old Lilleys, a small village on the far side of Canterbury. Not many homes have a large stone Bentley in the middle of the lawn, nor, I imagined, a Brooklands race track in their rear gardens. I rang the bell but did a double take when he opened the door. He looked ill. Gone was the smart former army officer gear. He was unshaven, and in old cords and baggy sweater, and seemed to have forgotten I was coming. He ushered me in, and needless to say the place, as befitted a former army officer, was tidy, but devoid of family touches. Helen had told me his wife had died about six years earlier, and the house reflected it.

  ‘You found her, I’m told,’ he said abruptly. ‘Victoria.’

  ‘I’m sorry – even sorrier that Helen was with me. Her murder must have been a shock to you and Julian.’

  He stared at me. ‘A shock?’

  Something odd here, but I persevered. ‘Because you knew her in the Sixties, didn’t you?’ A love affair? It seemed likely.

  ‘You should have seen her, Jack. Got a photo somewhere.’ He rummaged in a desk drawer and brought out a framed picture of a woman standing by one of the bookseller stalls by the River Seine in Paris.

  It was a young Victoria – still a woman of purpose, judging by the strong face, but smiling happily at the photographer, probably the Major himself. ‘Was she married then? Or were you courting her?’ I asked, not so much for information as to keep the conversation going.

  A nod was his only response, but to which question? Or both, of course.

  No help for it. I’d have to plunge in. ‘You knew about the car then, didn’t you?’

  ‘Car?’ He looked bemused.

  ‘The De Dion Bouton. She told you she owned one, or that her husband did.’

  He came alive at that. ‘Good grief, no. That cad Fairhill? It was hers.’

  Right. Something established. ‘She told you the story behind the car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The full story? Not just that it belonged to her family?’

  ‘I knew it.’

  I let this oddity pass. ‘Did Mrs Drake say whether she had any documentation relating to the car, anything that might prove its origins?’

  ‘I have it.’

  I couldn’t pass this one. Even accounting for shock, something wasn’t gelling. ‘Have what?’

  ‘She stole it,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Victoria pinched the provenance documents?’

  ‘The car,’ he said impatiently. ‘Florence. It belonged to my grandfather, Pascal Merrault.’

  So that was why he started the rumours about the car earlier this year. I seemed to have hit the jackpot without even pressing any buttons.

  NINE

  Tell me this is a joke, I pleaded silently, but Major Stanley Hopchurch merely stared at me defiantly. It must have taken willpower on his part not to burst out with a defence or apology – or even, heaven forfend, an explanation. Never had his nickname seemed more applicable.

  ‘You’ll get your money,’ were his first words. That was a relief but believe it or not it wasn’t top of my agenda at that moment.

  ‘Do you mind telling me why you got me involved in this wild-goose chase?’

  ‘Because you found the goose.’ The Major seemed to think this was adequate as an explanation.

  ‘True, but why not tell me in the first place that you had a stake in this car?’

  His eyes went out to the racetrack in the garden, clearly visible through the windows, as though only that could provide salvation from this confrontation.

  ‘Not an answer,’ I said briefly. ‘You knew the car existed, you’d met Victoria Drake, albeit some time ago, and you knew she thought she owned the car. You had a private talk with her last . . .’

  I stopped right there, as the truth belatedly dawned. At last, at last, I could see a pattern in this crazy story. Talk about ‘in the clouds’. This one was in an alternative world all its own. ‘It wasn’t the car you wanted to find, was it? It was the woman. You wanted to find Victoria Drake herself.’

  The Major found his tongue. ‘Nonsense!’ he roared.

  His expression told me I’d hit pay dirt. This whole charade had been a mere cover for finding a lost sweetheart – or, it occurred to me, lost enemy. Whichever it was, it was no problem of mine. I rose to my feet. ‘I’ll send in my invoice to date.’

  The Major gave no reaction, so soft soap leeway was over; it was time for the hard facts. ‘You realize I’ll have to report this to the police, as there could be a connection between her death and the De Dion Bouton. You’re going to have to be ready to talk some time, so why not tell me now?’

  From bully boy to punctured balloon in one swoop. The Major became putty in my hands, although he did summon up enough energy for a weak attempt at control.

  ‘Sit down,’ he mumbled. ‘Shaken me up a bit, this news of Victoria’s murder.’

  As an apology it wasn’t much, but it would have to do. I sat down.

  ‘Suppose I’ll have to tell you,’ he said grumpily.

  ‘You suppose correctly.’

  ‘Know anything about France and 1968?’ he began.

  I did know quite a bit but I shook my head.

  ‘I was twenty-two,’ he continued. ‘Sent to Paris for six months – army liaison duties. Been there in the fifties on a school trip, but by sixty-eight everything had changed practically overnight. Students protesting and all that. And not just the students. Everyone shouting the odds. French police out in force. Champs de Mars choc à bloc.’

  ‘Protesting against what?’

  ‘Who knows? French johnnies like a good rebellion once every so often. Old regime. Time for new things, Sergeant Pepper and the Beatles, that sort of thing. Victoria Fairhill was one of them. Met her in a café. My word, she was a sight to be seen. Sparkling, funny, and a stunner to look at. When it got rough, I tried to get her out of there. She wouldn’t come at first, but I more or less dragged her out before she got herself arrested. She was furious at first but finally gave up and laughed at me. “What’s your name?” I asked her. “Victoria,” she said. “Where shall we have dinner?”

  ‘My mouth dropped open, I can tell you,’ he continued gruffly. ‘I wasn’t used to that sort of thing. A chap did the asking in those days. “We’ll go for a walk first,” she told me. We walked along the Champs Élysées and passed the Renault showroom-cum-museum. “Let’s go in,” she said. “I like old cars.” I did too, so there we were. Spotted a De Dion Bouton. “Got one of those,” she said. “Old family car. Took part in the Peking to Paris rally.” That floored me. Thought I hadn’t heard right. “Your name isn’t Florence, is it?” I asked – cautiously, mind. “No, but I had a grandmother called Florence.” “Florence Manning?” I asked. Well, she looked surprised at that, and said yes. So I told her all about it. “I’m supposed to shoot you on sight,” I joked. “My grandfather Pascal Merrault owned that car but it was stolen from him by an ex girlfriend called Florence. My father’s got all the paperwork.” “So have I,” she said simply. “Here?” I asked, unable to believe this. “My mother has it in Scotland,” she told me.

  ‘I said next time I was on leave I’d get in touch with her and we could check to see which of us had the legitimate papers for provenance.’ Another harrumph of embarrassment from the Major. ‘When I tried, I found she’d given me a false address. I don’t mind telling you I was damned annoyed. After my wife died, I started thinking things over, and when the idea of this rally popped up I thought I’d spread the word about that there was a De Dion that took part in the 1907 rally still around in Britain somewhere. Thought it might turn up something. It hadn’t, and I was pretty desperate, since I knew it existed. That’s when I called you in.’ He eyed me hopefully to see how I was taking this.

  Reasonably OK so far. ‘One hitch,’ I said. ‘You spread the rumour that the car was around in Kent.’

  He looked me straight in the eye. ‘Had a hunch. Went back and looked at the records my grandfather h
ad left me. This Florence lived in Kent, so it was worth a try. Maybe her granddaughter did too.’

  I tried again. ‘But it was Victoria you wanted to find, not just the car?’

  His face went blank. ‘The car,’ he maintained. ‘The car, man, the car. Dammit, with Julian wittering on about it I’d no option. The rally and that De Dion Bouton – all fitted like a glove.’

  I was not totally convinced, but I let him have his way. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘So tell me what you know about the car, and how it got to the UK.’

  His eyes lit up then settled into that fixed faraway look of the true car buff. ‘The Peking to Paris rally,’ he breathed almost reverentially. ‘You probably know all about that.’

  ‘A little. Fill me in though.’ It would be interesting to hear him talk about it.

  He needed no urging. His eyes lit up. ‘You probably know the limelight focused on the Itala, driven by that Italian johnny, Prince Scipione Borghese, and the Spyker, which had a madcap former jockey at the wheel, Charles Godard. They lassoed the headlines all the way. Borghese because he was dead set on winning, and Godard because he was forever having to be bailed out of trouble one way or another. The two De Dions, though, chugged their way across deserts and mountains, the lot. And they played the game helping the other out – occasionally,’ he added fairly. ‘One of the De Dions was driven by Georges Cormier, who tended to be the boss, and the other one by Victor Collignon – both of them regular drivers used by the De Dion Bouton firm from time to time.’

  ‘Wasn’t there a fifth car, a tricar, involved?’

  ‘Yes. The Contal driven by Auguste Pons, but that was a bit of a dud. He got lost in the Gobi Desert, had to abandon the car and come back by train. Prince Borghese had the sense to take a journalist as passenger and announced he was going to arrive in Paris on the tenth of August, exactly two months after he left Peking, and so he did. He and his forty h.p. no-expense-spared Itala. Those two De Dions were only ten h.p. but, by Jove, they survived the whole route. They got to Paris on the thirtieth of August, twenty days after the Itala, and the Spyker came in even later after a bit of hanky-panky. Understandable enough. They’d all been through a pretty tough time.’

  ‘The publicity seems to have gone on for a while,’ I observed. ‘Appearances at car shows and so forth. That included the De Dions, given that one of them was at Olympia in 1907. Given that, tell me the missing link. How does your documentation tie in with your grandfather?’

  The Major looked hunted. ‘Pascal married a count’s daughter, Françoise, a year or two after he split up with Florence. They had one daughter, Marie, who married General Basil Hopchurch and came to England to live. Here I am. Grandfather Pascal died in the First World War. Neither of my parents was keen on cars, but they noticed I liked playing around with them so my mother turned over to me in due course the papers about the De Dion.’

  ‘Proving its provenance as one of the two original cars?’

  ‘The whole caboodle, Colby, including a letter to my mother explaining that before he married Françoise he had been engaged to an Englishwoman who had run off with the car itself, but he still had the papers to do with it, and here they were.’

  ‘Run from where to where?’ I asked patiently. ‘You – and I – need to know the full story.’

  He glared at me. ‘Come and look at the stuff if you like.’

  If? Try and stop me. The Major led me – still reluctantly – to an antique desk that suggested it might double as a drinks cupboard although if so that compartment remained firmly closed. He swept various piles of papers off the surface of the desk, and heaved a suitcase on to it. The suitcase was an ancient one which needed a leather strap around it, probably because of the flimsy clasp. There was a generally battered look to it that Lady Bracknell would have dismissed in an instant. The Major made a great parade of opening it, more for effect than with good reason, I suspected. I stood at his side almost panting with anticipation.

  On the top was an old photograph album to which my hand went immediately as he gestured to me to help myself. No urging needed. It was a treasure trove, I could see that. On the first page was a picture of a De Dion – whether the De Dion or not was impossible to tell. At its side stood, I presumed, Pascal, who looked every bit an early-twentieth-century version of a Dumas musketeer. His arm was around a full-skirted damsel, who simpered out at the viewer with blushing pride at her choice of beau (or car). Then followed photos from the 1907 rally whose provenance was unclear and I had seen them or very similar ones before, such as one of Collignon at the De Dion’s wheel in Warsaw, and a photo of both cars trying to cross the bridge over the Cha Ho River. There followed several more photos of Pascal and Florence, all with the car, including one captioned ‘Dunkirk docks’.

  ‘What’s the rest of the story?’ I asked.

  ‘Read it for yourself.’ He irritably gestured at the papers lying underneath the album.

  I only wished I had several days to study it – a wish I was unlikely to be granted. From what I could see, there were work sheets for a garage in Dunkirk and a report on the De Dion’s condition dated November and December 1907 respectively. There was a bill of sale dated early January 1908 and a letter headed by the De Dion Bouton company, and goodness knows what else.

  ‘Can you precis it for me?’ I asked the Major.

  He heaved a great sigh. ‘Florence was going to take the car back to England after he bought it, because he had nowhere to store it. He was a young man just setting out on a journalist’s career.’

  ‘So what was Victoria Drake’s claim to it?’ I asked. I didn’t like the way this story was heading.

  Drawn back to the present day, I thought the Major was going to break down, but he didn’t. ‘Victoria and I had a laugh about it,’ he said. ‘She was the daughter of Muriel, Florence’s only child – she’d married in 1912. From what we worked out, Florence had proof that she, not Pascal, had bought the car, as he was skint at the time. She intended to make it a wedding present for him, so she kept it here and waited for Pascal to come over and marry her. Which he didn’t, so she kept the car.’

  ‘That doesn’t add up,’ I pointed out. ‘Here’s a bill of sale made out to Pascal.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ he admitted, ‘Victoria told me she’d seen an identical bill of sale in her box, made out to Florence. That’s why I did nothing more about it at the time. Forgot all about my own claim.’

  If true – and I was by no means convinced by this odd tale – it was not good news. The existence of two bills was going to throw a doubt over the whole ownership issue. One vast practical joke? I wondered. The car existed, however. I’d seen it. I looked carefully at the car in the photo at the front of the album. I could see a number plate that looked French, but couldn’t read it. How to tie it down to the 1907 rally car? The De Dion Bouton company had ceased to exist decades ago, so no hope of tracing anything there.

  Which bill was the fake one? None of the answers would necessarily prove the car was not one of the original Peking to Paris survivors. If it had ‘disappeared’ on the way back either from Dunkirk or the Paris motor show to the De Dion works, however, it would need a bill of sale in order to resell it or prove its provenance.

  And here I was dumped in my own heffalump pit again. If it had been nicked, it couldn’t have been sold as the rally car without attracting attention from the De Dion Bouton company, which existed up until nearly the end of the 1920s.

  ‘Your solicitors are going to have to see this,’ I told the Major gently, ‘and perhaps the police too.’

  ‘Why?’ Another glare.

  ‘Because it might have something to do with Victoria’s murder,’ I told him bluntly.

  I’d caught him off guard, and there was a split-second silence before he replied. ‘My dear chap, her murder . . .’ His voice quivered. ‘. . . can have nothing to do with the car. That’s mine and I shall consider claiming it.’

  ‘Is this question of ownership what you and Mrs Drake ta
lked about the other day?’

  ‘Yes, she showed me her documents on it. Not as good as mine.’ He seemed to find difficulty looking me in the eye.

  I said nothing.

  ‘No doubt about it,’ the Major added more confidently. ‘The car’s mine. Of course I’m consulting my solicitor. What I want you to do now is find that car and bring it over here.’

  I reeled at his cheek. ‘Not in my remit,’ I said firmly. I could see myself buried in my own Gobi Desert of legal complications.

  His eyes bulged in annoyance. ‘I’m paying you, aren’t I? The rally—’

  ‘Major Hopchurch,’ I said patiently. ‘The Police’s Serious Crime Directorate will be in touch with you if there’s the slightest chance that this De Dion Bouton was the motivation for Mrs Drake’s murder. No way could I touch that car in the meantime, even if I knew where it was. So far as the Morrises are concerned, it’s hers. In any case, it has to be her murder that takes priority now, not the rally.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ The Major deflated quicker than a burst balloon. ‘I just want to talk to them about it – the family . . .’

  Talk to them? I sighed. ‘Were you in love with Victoria Drake in 1968?’

  He fired up again. ‘She was a married woman.’

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily rule love out,’ I said drily.

  ‘Get out, Colby.’

  I went, but that didn’t stop me thinking.

  Next on the list was contacting Orton about Meyton as Connor seemed to specialize in being anonymous. His own number was, as I’d been told, permanently on voicemail, so I had no option but to play into Pen Roxton’s hands by ringing her stooge.

  The stooge sounded alarmed on my behalf. ‘Contacting Meyton? Sure that’s a good idea, Jack?’

  ‘No, but I have to do it.’

  ‘On your head be it, but I hope it’s not.’ Chuckle. It wasn’t a joke I shared. ‘This one might reach him. I ferreted it out – I was told it’s the one Mick Smith uses when he wants to contact him. Did it for Pen. Cost her, but worth it, I reckon.’