Classic In the Clouds

by Amy Myers

  ‘It’s not a scoop, Pen,’ I said firmly. ‘But there might be one for you shortly.’

  ‘Really?’ She looked at me narrowly. ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘If I had one, I would.’

  A prickly feeling at the back of my neck told me that the story was far from over. Dave must be around here somewhere, but I hadn’t seen him – or any police presence, come to that. Just the security guards. Was I wrong? Perhaps this was just the finale to a social occasion.

  Pen considered this. ‘You’ve got two hours,’ she told me finally. ‘And then I file.’

  I mulled the whole De Dion story over again. I thought of the Leonardo masterpiece over which there was continuous dispute as to which was the original. The argument didn’t seem to have done the contenders any harm, although I had to admit that a De Dion Bouton, however wonderful to car buffs, might be a little further down the line of historic value than a Leonardo. Perhaps not to car lovers, however.

  Two hours. Be damned if I was going to be held to ransom by Pen, although none of the cards to play against her were in my hands.

  And then my mobile rang. An irate Benson had picked up my message. I’d apparently got it all wrong; he’d told Mrs Carlyle time and time again that until he gave the all-clear the car remained his responsibility and must be returned as arranged to his protection this evening. Why couldn’t I get that into my head? Mrs Carlyle had understood that quite clearly, and he had just spoken to her to ensure that she did. She had been most upset at the misunderstanding.

  ‘No misunderstanding,’ I told him. ‘Worse. Much worse.’

  Still no Dave when I tried to contact him, though I hoped he was around somewhere. Another message. The whole world seemed to be run by message services now. That settled it, particularly when I could no longer see any sign of Brenda. I was not going to leave the De Dion’s side even if I had to chain myself to it. No one, but no one, was going to take this car anywhere but Len and Charlie.

  And then Julian appeared to admire the car – or was he coveting it? His eyes devoured it so greedily I wondered if he feared this was the last time he might see it. ‘Have you seen Brenda?’ I asked. ‘It seems she’s been holding out on us.’ No reason to keep this secret. ‘She’s not been authorized to take the car.’

  His eyes lit up with joy. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Stop her taking it.’

  ‘I’m with you on that. Are the police here?’

  ‘Haven’t seen any – must be somewhere.’

  ‘Find them,’ he ordered me. ‘I’m not going to give that car up.’

  ‘Even though it’s looking as if it’s not one of the Peking to Paris cars?’ I told him about Meyton’s claim to Pen.

  He looked appalled. ‘But I know that car. I’ve worked on it, I know it. It’s right.’

  I remembered Helen’s words, ‘It’s not an impostor’, but now we had to face the apparent certainty that the odds were against its being the real thing, and if I knew Pen the whole world was going to know shortly. It wouldn’t stop at the Kentish Graphic.

  I warmed to Julian. How does one know ‘right’? One might see a woman across a crowded room and be drawn to her. But to know her needs the quiet of the day and the quiet of the night. Louise had taught me that. Perhaps cars too need a solitary communion between owner/driver and machine before one knows all is ‘right’ between you. And yet Julian had to face the fact that in this case it was not right.

  The Major was in great form when he came to the dais to talk about the rally and its ‘crowning glory’ the De Dion, which made my news even worse. For once, he chose his words tactfully, omitting all mention of its ownership. Pieces of a celebratory cake were then distributed – a cake made by Brenda, so Helen told me, though I still could not see Brenda herself. She had certainly taken the rally to her heart. I remembered the delicious French pastries she had produced and wondered what drew her to France so much. The country? Her marriage? Why was she so set on fulfilling Victoria’s apparent wish for the car to live in France?

  There was something wrong somewhere, I was sure of it, but I could not fix on it. Something Helen had said; something Pen had said . . .

  I could see Julian rounding up people for his tour of Treasure Island. I was sorely tempted to join them but I dared not do so. I tried Dave again without success, and resigned myself to a lone sojourn with the car. Ridiculous really, as nothing could happen to her. Not yet at any rate.

  I was nevertheless relieved when the tour ended and the crowd spilled outside again. With a mob of people around I began to relax – until I realized I was shivering, and not just because the sun had disappeared behind the clouds. I glanced up at them – just as all hell broke loose.

  Explosion after explosion came from the far corner from where I was standing and behind the cars that had permission to park there. Noise assailed my ears as the crowd screamed and pushed to get away from the point of the explosions of which each seemed louder than its predecessor, filling the air with fumes and smoke. I rushed towards the noise with some of the guards. That sounds weird but I sensed this was not a major bomb attack. Nevertheless the stampede away from the noise prevented our reaching it – and then came more explosions bursting on our ears, this time not from Burnt Barn Bottom but from the field behind it, where the majority of cars were parked. The noise became ever more intense in a crescendo of sound that mercilessly assaulted my ears.

  This began a second stampede as some of the crowd tried to reach their cars and others pushed in the opposite direction. I began to head for the field, then changed my mind as another round of explosions began from the first site. I saw the Major and Julian rush inside Treasure Island, obviously to ensure nothing was amiss there, but now that the way was clearer I was able to get to the source of the explosions.

  Stupid? Maybe, but as I’d figured out they weren’t terrorist bombs it was worth the risk. I was right. The noise ceased and I rushed to investigate. Simply done. The explosions were caused by fireworks that must have been tied together in large groups. So what the—?

  The De Dion Bouton. It had to be that.

  I spun round and saw to my relief that one of the security guards was cranking the engine to drive her out of danger – no! Brenda was at the wheel. This was no safety measure. And that could be no security guard. Brenda had moved over and he was now at the wheel. Didn’t I . . .?

  No time for reason to catch up with instinct. I had to act now. I was pounding across the yard, pushing people out of my way, as I saw the De Dion beginning to move.

  So what did I do?

  I had some mad idea of stopping it. I rushed to throw myself in front of it – how crazy can one be? Somehow I didn’t reach the ground. A tremendous thud in my back sent me stumbling and staggering to the car’s far side where I collapsed in a heap, but clear of danger. Even as I struggled to my feet the shouts and yells around me made me realize that the momentum of whoever had thumped me had resulted in their being knocked down by the De Dion. It hadn’t been going fast but where people meet car wheels it hurts. I was vaguely aware of several people pulling my saviour free and another two or three pulling the non-security guard down from the car. It was Dave Jennings’ team. Sergeant Blake supported me as I hobbled over to see how my saviour was. And who it was. He was still lying on the ground, alive though clearly injured.

  Sometimes one can be wrong about people. It was Connor Meyton.

  I stood back with Helen while the first-aiders checked him over. Dazed, I tried to make sense of this show – or perhaps even in my stupor Helen’s and Pen’s words dovetailed, ringing all my bells at once, and I reached a staggering conclusion.

  ‘It’s my car,’ Brenda was screeching at Dave, even while he was arresting her partner for suspected murder. Two of his men had him firmly held. It wasn’t Dean Warren and of course it wasn’t Meyton. But it was someone I recognized. So did the Major.

  ‘I’d know that scoundrel anywhere,’ he roared. ‘It’s that rotte
r Robert Fairhill.’

  It was Victoria Drake’s first husband and, I discovered later, prospective second husband to Brenda under the name of Monsieur Beaumont. I knew him as the impostor Bob Orton.

  Arthur Orton, his professional photographer’s name as Pen had told me: of course it had rung a bell. Arthur Orton was the name of the impostor in the famous nineteenth-century Tichborne Claimant case.

  ‘Typical of that con-man’s arrogance,’ the Major grunted. ‘Scales fell from Victoria’s eyes pretty soon after they married.’

  We had managed to hold on until the last of the participants had reluctantly left this never-to-be-forgotten rally finale and then went back to Julian’s house to try to work out just what had happened that afternoon. One thing became clear from Brenda’s incoherent ramblings about her ‘dear Robert’ before DCI Fielding took her to headquarters for questioning. We had assumed her ‘French neighbour’ and prospective husband was French in nationality as well as location, but Beaumont is as much a British surname as a French one. It was he who had persuaded her into this final attempt to seize the De Dion.

  ‘Poor woman,’ Helen had said soberly while we were waiting for the ambulance for Connor, who by then was conscious. ‘What a shock for her.’

  Was she innocent or guilty? I wondered. I couldn’t cope with that for a while. Nor with how guilty or otherwise Connor was. No doubt Dave would be seeing a lot of him when he was fit enough.

  ‘Orton’s no good, Jack,’ Connor had muttered when he recognized me.

  I squatted down at his side. ‘What did he do to you?’ I asked.

  ‘Used me. Me. Did his dirty work for him and then he puts me in the frame and does a vanishing act.’

  ‘Alf King?’ I said grimly. ‘Victoria?’

  ‘Not me, Jack. I steer clear of murder.’

  He’d possibly saved my life and he was in great pain, so I had left it at that.

  It took a week or two for the dust to settle. Then I met Dave for a pub lunch and he filled me in – provisionally.

  ‘So Meyton was a good guy?’ I asked innocently.

  ‘Not so good. No murderer though – at least Fielding doesn’t think so.’

  ‘Orton killed Victoria Drake?’

  ‘Sure. Not much doubt there. Fielding says the DNA on the lug wrench will fix him. Put his gloves on a bit too late. She’s hoping for a match on glove and footprints too.’

  ‘And Alf King?’

  ‘More of a question mark. Orton denies it, so does Meyton. Mick Smith is the more likely contender, either off his own bat or on Orton’s orders.’

  ‘Why though?’

  ‘Meyton’s story is that Orton appeared out of the blue early in the year and commissioned Mick to find the De Dion. Said the car would make a killing after the publicity of the rally. When Mick found out that Alf thought the car wasn’t the genuine article he tackled the problem of keeping him silent about it rather too enthusiastically, probably on Orton’s orders, but tried blackmailing him afterwards. Then you come along asking questions and Bob does a disappearing act, after ridding himself of Mick. Meyton reckons Orton got rid of the body and fired the garage to put Meyton in the frame not him. Meyton does admit to arson – but only for Carter’s garage. He was determined to scotch Orton’s plans for a happy retirement with the De Dion.’

  ‘Did he know who Orton was?’

  ‘No, but he was pretty sure he was using a false name and lived overseas. That was why he was sure that the rally would be the focal point.’

  ‘Why not during the rally itself?’

  ‘As the Mad Major said, Jack, Fairhill was an arrogant con-man. He wanted max publicity for the De Dion to send the price sky high. The press was saving its powder for that finale – if it had disappeared en route it would have been a minor story, not major.’ Dave paused. ‘That’s Fielding’s and my conclusion – how about this Brenda Carlyle though? How does she fit in, Jack?’

  I’d had a couple of weeks to put two and two together. ‘Rough idea OK?’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Fairhill, as the Mad Major puts it, is a scoundrel,’ I began. ‘Speaks fluent French and gives himself a French pseudonym, Beaumont, which is not only a translation of Fairhill but both a French and English surname. He was divorced from Victoria, but by then knew all about the De Dion. Has the luck to run across Brenda—’

  ‘On a Channel crossing in 2007, he says,’ Dave confirmed.

  ‘And discovers that she lives next door to his former wife, whereupon he gets her to find out whether Victoria still has the old car, which he no doubt still believed was the genuine article. Sees a bit of cash to be made, something he is usually short of, as the Peking to Paris rally was in the news again. Sees his opportunity through Brenda and somehow ends up her neighbour.’

  Easy enough, I had realized. ‘He could have told her he had a house in the same village and then proceeded to rent one under a false name,’ I said. ‘She only went there intermittently, so wouldn’t have known whether he arrived before or after she had met him. He sets Brenda up to urge Victoria to sell the car to her at a knock-down price. Even if she mentions her “French neighbour” it won’t be by the name of Fairhill. Victoria refuses to sell, saying, perhaps at Brenda’s suggestion, that she’d leave it to her in her will. She knows full well that it’s not the genuine article, but good old Bob Fairhill still thinks it is. Brenda immediately accepts, which might have set Victoria back, but she doesn’t go back on her word. Chum Bob lets the matter lie fallow – until Brenda happily tells him about the forthcoming rally last autumn when the local councils on the route were first alerted.’

  ‘Odd she didn’t want to leave the car to her daughter,’ Dave commented.

  ‘Agreed, but that kind of thing happens. Probably Tom got up her nose. Then the pace must have hotted up, because rumours were flying around about the De Dion, thanks to the dear old Mad Major. Monsieur Beaumont decides that the rally would make the car shoot up in value, and if Brenda was going to inherit, the sooner the better before Victoria changes her mind and sells it. A fortune could be his, thinks Monsieur Beaumont, if he and Brenda marry. They could sell the car for a vast sum; he could get his hands on the loot and disappear at will.’

  ‘Why pull the photographer Arthur Orton trick though?’ Dave asked.

  I’d thought this out too. ‘Maybe it goes like this. Firstly, he hears about the rally from Brenda, and decides the time has come to enrich himself, so as neither he nor Brenda knows where the car is – because Victoria won’t tell Brenda – he needs someone to find it. Enter Mick Smith and Meyton. Orton discovers that Alf knows the car isn’t the genuine article after all – which implies that Victoria knows that too. So Alf has to be fixed. Secondly, Meyton has found out where the car is and Orton urges Brenda into some good work on the phone with Doris. Once Orton knows that Victoria is planning to move it from Alf’s storage barn nearer home, he promptly wines and dines his wife as he did from time to time – ostensibly when he was over from “America” – and kills her.’

  ‘He’d have known where she’d moved the car to, so why not grab it then?’

  Easy one. ‘He needed the car to run in the rally, in order for the price to go up, so he just had to sit back and wait – as he thought. Only to have the Mad Major raise the stakes by his counter claim.’

  ‘But two murders. For the car or the cash?’

  ‘My guess is cash. Murder has been committed for far less than the De Dion would bring, with or without its provenance, and there’s nothing rational where money’s a motive. Don’t forget he probably killed Mick Smith too . . .’

  Dave regarded me coolly. ‘Don’t go painting Meyton as the hero of the hour, will you? It’s only his word at present that it was Bob who knocked off Smith and decided to give Dean Warren a warning by dumping the body in the garage and torching the place.’

  I had mixed feelings. It was hard not to feel some fellow sympathy for someone who’s saved you from a very nasty experience, such as de
ath.

  ‘If it’s any comfort, Jack,’ Dave continued, ‘I agree with Fielding that Connor’s a bad lad, but that he doesn’t do murder.’

  ‘And Brenda?’

  ‘Her too. Orton’s stooge.’

  ‘That low-loader we passed on the way in to Burnt Barn Bottom, was that Orton’s doing?’

  ‘Yup. They had it planned to the minute, reckoning the diversion tactics would keep people busy for fifteen to twenty minutes or so, enough time to get the De Dion out of the yard and fixed up on the low-loader. Typical con-man’s arrogance.’

  ‘He conned Brenda too.’ She must have seen Orton’s plan as a romantic gesture to pick her up in the De Dion and more or less elope with her to Dover. I thought of how I’d seen her at the finale. She hadn’t looked excited then, and I wondered whether she had begun to suspect her dashing beau’s motives. Then I remembered her screeching at the police when the plan had gone wrong, and felt less sorry for her.

  I didn’t even have to hunt Pen down to break the news. She walked right into my web by arriving at Frogs Hill in a towering temper. She seemed to think I was responsible for all her troubles. As if.

  ‘What the hell’s going on, Jack? You and I were partners on this story, remember?’

  ‘Police work excepted, Pen.’

  ‘Unexcept it then.’

  ‘You really want the gen? Fresh from the horse’s mouth?’

  ‘Spit it out.’

  So I told her the whole sorry tale, or as much of it as I could. It silenced her. I almost couldn’t bear to watch. I’d never seen her so crushed.

  ‘You mean that creep used me, Jack? Just to keep up with the story and keep it running?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘He told me untruths?’

  I loved her way of putting it. ‘Throughout.’

  A variety of expressions crossed her face, but bewilderment won. ‘I don’t like that, Jack.’

  ‘Don’t blame you. What will you do about it running the story – when you legally can, of course?’