Classic In the Clouds

by Amy Myers

  He was right of course. Victoria had been murdered and the likelihood was that this had been the reason for it. And, I couldn’t help bearing in mind, two of those with motives for the crime were here beside me. I found that hard to believe – but that’s always what neighbours say when criminals are carted off to meet their deserts.

  I returned to Frogs Hill in sobered mood. How could I even have thought it was not my job to investigate Victoria’s death? How does one define such a concept? It had been my job to hunt down the De Dion and my job to investigate Alf’s death – which had brought me on to a collision course with her murder. No, it was my job all right and the rally was almost certainly part of it. Dave would not be paying me for that, but at least I could face Doris King and Patricia Morris with a clear conscience.

  Len looked up as I walked into the Pits in the afternoon. ‘Chap looking for you,’ he grunted.

  ‘Unless his name’s Connor Meyton I haven’t the time,’ I told him.

  ‘It is.’

  Great. Just when I wasn’t up to coping with him, here he was like a genie out of a lamp. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Around.’

  Not good. Planting a firebomb in the Glory Boot? I found his Jaguar tucked by the barn conveniently out of sight. Meyton wasn’t in it, and I seethed, guessing where he’d be. And he was. Right inside the barn where I keep the Lagonda and the Gordon-Keeble. No professional technical skills required of him today, however. He was with Zoe. She was talking; Meyton was listening. He was good at that, I suspected. That would be the way he worked. Snake-like, waiting for the enemy to move first. Sizing up the terrain. I only hoped that Zoe was not his prey. Or, come to that, me. I suspected this was more a prospecting call, however.

  ‘Good morning, Jack,’ he greeted me.

  ‘And to you, Connor,’ I said. We shook hands like well-brought-up gents before we entered the ring. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Why not?’

  I could think of quite a few reasons, but I could play a waiting game too. It irked me to take him back to the farmhouse but I’d little choice. It was beginning to spit with rain – or was it snake venom? Zoe opted to return to the Pits, to my relief. Meyton told me what a jewel I had in her; I agreed and escorted him to my living room. We chatted as I waited for him to play his hand, which took some time.

  ‘Really looking forward to the rally, Jack.’

  This sounded ominous. ‘Spectator?’ I asked cautiously.

  ‘As if.’ He grinned as though we were buddy-buddies. ‘I’m a fully paid-up participant.’

  ‘I didn’t see your name on the list.’

  He shrugged. ‘Down as a passenger maybe. Haven’t yet decided.’

  I couldn’t resist it. ‘Taking a classic four-by-four?’

  He looked shocked. ‘Bad taste, Jack. A Sunbeam Alpine Tiger.’

  ‘Sounds good.’ I longed to add, ‘Is it yours?’ but decided to bite my tongue. Instead I asked: ‘What can I do for you today then?’

  ‘Not sure.’ He frowned. ‘This De Dion . . .’

  On guard, folks. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Carter seems to be keeping a close eye on it.’

  ‘Can you blame him?’

  He considered this. ‘No. Tell him to take care though. Such a shame if the car didn’t make it to the rally.’

  I stayed silent. If he expected to lure me into a description of the safety arrangements – although he must already know them – he’d be disappointed, and if he wanted to provoke me into discussion of any other issue the result would be the same. Let him make the running.

  ‘That crazy fellow,’ he continued, ‘the Major. He’s an oddball. Know this Brenda Carlyle, do you? And the Morrises?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Interesting story about Nick wanting to drive the De Dion.’

  I waited to see if he came forth with any indication that he knew I was now in that lucky position.

  ‘Doubt if that will happen, Jack,’ he continued.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  He smiled. ‘Solicitors and all that. Know Peter Benson, do you?’

  Nice one, I thought. It was time to goad the snake into making his move.

  ‘That why you signed up for the rally, Connor? Just to see the De Dion?’

  ‘I’ll see it before then, Jack.’

  A gauntlet had been tossed down. ‘Not a chance,’ I said.

  ‘I understood the De Dion is to lead the rally procession, Jack. It will be at Dover Castle before the festivities begin, surely.’

  He’d caught me, but these were minor points. Time for gloves to be off, not just a gauntlet dropped. ‘What’s in this for you?’ I asked. ‘The car’s value can’t be worth all the effort you’re putting into this.’ If he wanted it on behalf of a ‘client’ then his commission would be peanuts to him, and yet I couldn’t see him as a collector in the sense that Julian was.

  The snake went very still and his reptilian eyes flickered. ‘I don’t like being double-crossed. Never have, never will. That’s what’s in it for me. Tell that to your mates, will you?’ He rose to his feet. ‘Oh, and thanks for the coffee. Not bad at all.’

  The writing was on the wall unless Meyton was bluffing. Somehow I didn’t think he was. What he had said rang true – though that word sat oddly in relation to him. Mick Smith was possibly blackmailing him, Dean Warren was scared out of his wits and Zoe could be next. What other ‘mates’ of mine could he have in mind? Nick, his father – mother even? Julian, the Major, Brenda? I ruled her out but then wrote her back in again. She had inherited the De Dion.

  One ‘mate’ needed to be informed of Connor’s ‘interest’ right away: Julian Carter. He remained unavailable by phone all day and it was not until the next morning, Friday, that I could get over to see him. I’d arranged to call at his home at ten, but when I arrived, I found I was too late. There was a police car parked outside Cobba House. Just one. My thoughts flew to the De Dion. For the life of me, however, I couldn’t see how Connor could have spirited it away without half the police sirens in Kent blaring after him in minutes.

  There was no one in the car, so I rang the doorbell. One of Dave’s team, a Sergeant Blake, opened it and my fear escalated.

  ‘What’s on?’ I asked.

  ‘Car pinched.’

  My stomach did a three-point-turn far too quickly. ‘What car?’

  ‘Four-by-four Range Rover.’

  I remembered Connor’s ‘I don’t like being double-crossed.’ I remembered his ‘warning’ to Dean. I remembered his usual line in car theft. It seemed he had decided to ‘tell’ my ‘mates’ himself. Was the warning just to Julian, or did it include Helen and the Major as a threat to the rally?

  ‘Any more cars gone?’ I asked Blake.

  ‘Not that I’ve heard.’

  Fear subsided a notch, even though I didn’t like this omen.

  Nor did Julian. He came out just as Sergeant Blake left.

  ‘When did it go?’ I asked him.

  ‘During the night. Didn’t hear a thing.’

  ‘Was it in a garage?’

  ‘No. Parked in front of the house. The security lights blinked on and off, but no engine noise, so I thought it was the cats setting off the lights.’

  More likely to be snakes, in my opinion.

  ‘This is a coincidence, Jack,’ he continued. ‘But no one could get at that De Dion.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ I said. ‘Time to take steps, Julian.’

  I drove straight over to Old Lilleys. There was no answer to the doorbell so I went round to the garden and sure enough found him racing cars on the Brooklands track. From what I could see the Bentleys seemed to be losing. They were way behind at the Byfleet Banking.

  The Major looked up irritably. ‘Blast you; you’ve put Woolf Barnato off his stroke. What do you want, Jack? I’ve paid you your money.’

  He had, and I’d been duly grateful. ‘Where do you keep your Bentley, Major?’

  ‘Garage.’ He indicated a ramsh
ackle Sixties affair, set well back from the house.

  ‘Secure?’

  He looked cornered. ‘Reasonably.’

  ‘Better notch up the security. You’ve heard about Julian’s Range Rover?’

  ‘I did. He seemed to think it was my fault,’ he grumbled. ‘He’s convinced Nick is behind it.’

  Julian hadn’t mentioned that scenario to me, but from his point of view it was a reasonable one. Was I so set on Connor Meyton pulling the strings that I couldn’t see the wood for the trees? That was conceivable, I acknowledged. Nick might have pinched it out of spite, although it seemed more likely he’d have a go at the De Dion itself rather than a Range Rover. What would he do with a stolen four-by-four? I played with the theory that Nick was indeed in league with Meyton. I pitied him if so, for he was no match for that snake.

  ‘Why does Julian think that?’ I asked him.

  ‘Because he’s convinced the Morrises are behind everything. They’re not. They’ve got enough to contend with.’

  ‘It’s tough on them that Mrs Carlyle was left the car,’ I agreed. ‘But then you’re claiming it too.’

  ‘One half of it would go to me if the Carlyle woman hadn’t poked her nose into the will,’ the Major grumbled. He had one eye on Woolf Barnato who was speeding along the Sahara Straight.

  ‘Have you offered the same deal to her?’

  ‘No. She’s not a bad old stick, but obviously she leaned on Victoria to leave it to her, and carefully forgot to tell the family. Legal johnnies are working on it, anyway. My claim’s better than Victoria’s. It was obviously Pascal’s in the first place.’

  ‘You both had a bill of sale for it.’

  ‘Maybe there was a bit of hanky-panky about it,’ he agreed fairly. ‘Don’t know. Anyway, it was his.’

  ‘The bill of sale was from a legitimate firm though?’

  ‘Vaugirard in the Rue Fort Louis, Dunkirk. Are you doubting me?’ The lion was beginning to roar.

  ‘Just checking. The solicitors will.’

  ‘All Victoria had was a copy of the bill of sale.’

  ‘But made out to Florence,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Of course it was.’ Roar again. ‘Just to get Florence through customs and get the car registered in England. But she just hung on to it. Pinched it.’

  ‘Didn’t Pascal ever get in touch to claim it?’

  ‘The woman disappeared and Pascal was killed in the First World War, so who knows? But it was still his. Now mine.’

  ‘A sad story,’ I said. I meant it. I’d got a mental picture by this time of a happy-go-lucky Frenchman and his English girlfriend, enjoying a late Edwardian summer with the De Dion. And then love had flown out of the window – or, correction, driven off in the De Dion to an unknown destination.

  ‘Pascal had married; he started a family,’ the Major said fiercely. ‘Couldn’t go looking up his previous girlfriend. Anyway, the car wasn’t worth much in those days. Excitement of the rally died down. De Dion Bouton firm busy designing new cars. Pascal did them a favour by taking the old wreck off their hands.’

  It struck me how often such situations come about. I thought about incidents in my own life where I knew the truth but if I’d fallen under a bus no one else would have done. The De Dion was another such case. Two lots of documents, one adjusted for customs maybe, but both faked? Would Pascal and Florence have bothered to sit down to concoct evidence to prove this was the Peking to Paris De Dion car when they could hardly have foreseen its future value? The Peking to Paris rally was flavour of the month in 1907 but new rallies and adventures were taking place all the time. Its value would have decreased not increased. That argued well for the Major’s explanation being true, and that this indeed was one of the two 1907 rally cars.

  Nevertheless I still felt I was not getting the full story from the Mad Major. He had started off this whole merry chase by spreading rumours just because he wanted to find Victoria again. How important to him was the car? Did it matter much to him now? The car was safe and sound (we hoped), the rally would take place in less than a month, and the lawyers were dealing with the ownership issue. Nevertheless out there somewhere Connor Meyton could still be planning trouble.

  When the phone rings in the middle of the night, it’s hard to orientate oneself. Mine rang at three o’clock on Sunday morning. It was Helen and she was panicking. The only word I could distinguish at first since she must be speaking from her mobile was ‘fire’.

  ‘The car?’ I yelled.

  ‘Yes.’

  I was already out of bed and dragging some clothes on. Then I rushed for the Alfa. Fire couldn’t break through the solid walls of that garage – or could it? Was that the plan – to ruin the car out of revenge? Or was it to get it out of its secure cell intact and then nick it? Crazy scenarios flashed through my mind as I set off.

  Driving late at night can be an exhilarating experience. With the cool air, the stars in a darkened sky and the roads almost to oneself, man seems in tune with nature. Tonight it didn’t relax me though; it made me all the more apprehensive.

  I could already smell smoke in the air as I drove through Harford Lee. As I bumped along the track to Cobba House I could see smoke above the trees, pluming into the air, hear the noise of engines. When I arrived at the forecourt, I could see two fire engines, plus security and police vans, presumably all that would be needed for what might seem to them a routine fire. But to Julian and Helen it must be the worst of nightmares: black shapes in the darkness, flames still flickering up and around the garage like some weird Bonfire Night brought forward to summer. I reversed and parked my car some way back, clear of the drive and forecourt, then ran back to join Helen and Julian who were standing in the porch of the house. I’d brought a torch but flames themselves were lighting the last part of my way. If I’d needed any proof that Meyton was still in the game, it was here. This was not just a warning, but was it the main operation or only the beginning?

  ‘Are there any other fires or just here?’ I asked Helen urgently.

  She understood immediately and looked horrified. ‘You mean Treasure Island? Not so far, but . . .’

  Our eyes met. Could Meyton still be about? Was he out to destroy the museum too? Now I really was scared. ‘Let’s go,’ I told her, and we ran. One of the firemen heard us and a police car picked him up and drove after us. I thought Julian had remained glued to the terrible sight before him until I glanced back and saw him running behind the car. The air seemed increasingly full of smoke and I feared it came from in front of us as well as behind, but with a sob of relief as we reached Treasure Island, Helen cried, ‘It looks OK.’

  We checked the museum and sheds for any obvious fuel accelerants – petrol rags or traces round windows and doors or any sign of other tampering with them that might indicate that Meyton’s plans extended to include Treasure Island.

  Finally we, the senior fire officer and the police were all satisfied. ‘Back,’ I said to Helen, catching her hand. I didn’t want to give anyone who might be watching ideas for future attacks.

  By the time we reached the forecourt again, it was clear the firemen had won. The smoke was worse, but the flames had been vanquished, so that it was easier to see the extent of the damage. The doors were burnt through, and the firemen were able to break down what was left of them so that we could see within.

  I heard Helen catch her breath. Or was that me? Inside was a charred wreck where the flames had broken through. If Connor Meyton had hoped to drive the De Dion out he would have miscalculated on two counts. Firstly, there was no way the fire could have left the De Dion in anything like a drivable state. Secondly, what Helen and I were staring at was not the De Dion. It was one of the old wrecks from Pompeii.

  It had been a long shot, but it had paid off. I was so weak at the knees that my forebodings had been justified that I was unable to bask in the glory that Julian was showering on me. The Major had at last arrived, looking much the worse for wear, but who wouldn’t at four thirty in
the morning? One glance at the wreck told him what had happened.

  ‘Good work. Where’s the De Dion?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘In Treasure Island, disguising itself as a Darracq,’ Julian said complacently. ‘Jack’s idea.’

  The Major looked suitably impressed. ‘Appreciate it, Jack.’

  ‘But where,’ Helen asked, very pale, ‘do we put the car now?’

  I leapt quickly into this awkward problem. I didn’t want Julian producing his own suggestion, nor could we risk Meyton knowing where it was. ‘I’ll talk to the police and try to get hold of the solicitors later on,’ I said firmly. ‘They’ll need to move it – but I doubt if they’ll use the same delivery firm.’

  THIRTEEN

  With all the TV and press cameras that had squeezed on to the slip road by Dover Castle, as well as swamping the Castle’s grassy slopes, it looked like a film set and I had to concentrate hard to remember that this was for real. It was Friday and August, and the rally was about to begin. I was a mixture of anticipation and dread. The dread was because not a word or whisper since the fire had emerged to indicate anything untoward would happen, and yet I could not believe that we had moved forward on the Alf King front, and nor had DCI Fielding made any apparent progress on Victoria’s death. Plenty of DNA – but no matches. Except, it seemed, the kind that lit fires in the hope of destroying the De Dion Bouton in which I was now sitting.

  I had travelled to Dover in Charlie’s cabin with Len and Zoe – Charlie being the Frogs Hill name for our ancient but trusty low-loader. On its flatbed and well wrapped up against the drizzling rain, the De Dion had travelled in state to her date with destiny. Now I was sitting beside Brenda at the head of the procession shortly to leave the castle, with most of the other rally cars tucked behind us or still in the car park.

  ‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ Brenda said.

  It was hard not to agree. She was suitably togged up in a huge motoring hat, veil, goggles and dustcoat against the vagaries of the Gobi Desert. I doubted if the Romney Marsh would be so demanding, but she looked splendidly weird. I flattered myself that I didn’t look so bad myself, in goggles, natty chauffeur’s motoring hat, buttoned jacket and heavy gloves and leggings. I’d probably end up ditching some of this heavy gear as the day grew warmer, but it looked good for the start.