Classic Cashes In

by Amy Myers

  Now there were cars everywhere, parked along the road, and also filling a field on the far side of the track. The Packard was special, so there was no way I was going to park it on the road. It was the field that Wendy and I bumped our way over in great style. I could see her gritting her teeth and preferred not to dwell on what the Packard was making of this rough treatment. Now that we are so used to power-assisted steering, it felt heavy and I could almost feel its aggrieved reactions.

  For all its laid-back appearance, the barbecue was guarded by a ferocious security force of three when we finally parked and arrived at the entrance.

  ‘This,’ Wendy observed, ‘is not the world that Geoffrey Green moved in. He’d have hated it.’

  ‘It was Philip Moxton’s world though,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s why he treasured Monksford. He didn’t have to worry about security.’

  ‘Maybe he should have done,’ Wendy said sadly. ‘But believe me, Jack, this kind of mob wasn’t his style.’

  I could see her point, even from the little I had known of Philip Moxton. There was a mass of people here, a marquee, a band, a bar, a hog roast and burger barbecue and much, much more. I’d imagined a family gathering of people, maybe a dozen or fifteen. No way. There must be eighty or so here already and behind us there were still cars arriving in droves. Immediately we entered, Barney came up to us, and I introduced Wendy to him. ‘I’m from your father’s Geoffrey Green life,’ she blithely told him.

  ‘Good,’ he said with great satisfaction. ‘That links the circle, doesn’t it?’

  Wendy looked taken aback at such an easy ride. She’d been nervous on the way over as to how her presence would be greeted. ‘I’m not going to be a freak sideshow, am I, Jack?’ she’d asked me. ‘A sort of second wife tucked away. I wasn’t. We were friends, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t know how they’ll react,’ I’d told her honestly. ‘But it will be interesting to find out, won’t it?’

  A grin. ‘Yes.’

  Barney’s reaction was, as usual, unexpected. ‘Where’s the Packard?’ he asked immediately.

  I told him and he was horrified. ‘Don’t leave it there. You must bring it in. I’ll have the gates opened for it. It must be centre stage.’

  I tried to be tactful. ‘What about the Herricks? It isn’t their favourite subject.’

  He looked at me. ‘Jack, bring it in please.’

  A gentleman of force when he wanted to be, I thought.

  And so the Packard made a star entry through the gates. No one fainted or objected as it reached its position (allotted by Barney) which was indeed in the middle of the field near the central hog roast and bar. Immediately it became the cynosure of all eyes, though what lay behind some of those eyes was difficult to tell. Not everyone seemed pleased to see it.

  Somewhat to my surprise considering her diffidence, Wendy went off on her own without waiting for me to make introductions. I watched her making the rounds of the guests with no sign of reticence, but then lost sight of her as my attention was abruptly torn away from her. I was standing by the Packard and Moira had swept up to me, a commanding figure in silk shirt, designer jeans and boots. She pointed at it in horror.

  ‘What’s that thing doing here?’

  ‘Barney thought it a good idea.’ Had I been set up? If so, it was my own fault for suggesting it to him even if I hadn’t meant it. ‘It seems an appropriate contribution to the game that this barbecue ends,’ I added. I couldn’t be in any deeper water than I already was.

  ‘Barney’s contribution is paying for all this,’ Moira said crossly. ‘I suppose it had better stay here.’

  ‘Provided I don’t find it barbecued.’ I was growing tired of being a punchball.

  ‘It won’t be.’ Moira calmed down. ‘The game really is over.’ A pause. ‘Philip’s game, anyway.’

  It wasn’t difficult to pick up Moira’s innuendo. ‘You mean his life as Geoffrey Green.’

  ‘Yes. With your little friend whom you kindly brought. Quite a surprise for us all.’

  ‘Us?’ I queried. ‘You mean the Herricks and Moxtons? But that’s over, as you said.’

  She flushed. ‘Yes, of course.’ Then she apparently caught sight of someone she just must talk to, and was gone. It didn’t take a lot of working out that the link between the two families went beyond a mere exchange of a car over the years. Did ‘my friend’ Wendy affect that? Were they ganging up against her? Why should the Herricks care about Wendy’s part in Geoffrey Green’s life?

  When Emma Herrick suddenly materialized at my side and announced herself as the Herricks’ ambassador, it was clear that Moira had dispatched her daughter to keep an eye on me. Obviously by bringing Wendy I had thrown down a gauntlet and Emma had the task of picking it up and disposing of it. That was no problem. Emma was easy to chat to, as well as looking gorgeous in a slinky silk dress.

  ‘Mum says I should do the honours and introduce you to people.’

  I smiled at her. ‘Is the word people synonymous with game-players?’

  It didn’t throw her. ‘Partly,’ she said happily. ‘Although your friend isn’t one.’

  ‘Wendy was a friend of Geoffrey Green’s. They did things together.’

  ‘I bet,’ Emma commented mildly.

  ‘She says not.’

  ‘Maybe she’s right. But it’s a heck of a lot of money to leave except to a very dear friend.’

  This was a mental thump between the shoulder blades. ‘A heck of a lot?’ Wendy had said a little something.

  ‘A cool million or two.’ She laughed at my astounded expression. ‘Barney won’t miss it, but even so it makes you think. Joan is hopping mad.’

  ‘Whoa!’ I said. ‘This is all very matey.’ Just how far did the Herricks’ relationship with the Moxtons go?

  ‘Not mine. My parents’ friend. They were all at university together.’

  Sometimes one has to drag a story out in bits and pieces and this was well worth following up.

  ‘Who,’ I asked gently, ‘do you mean by all?’

  Emma took a sip or two of champagne, while she considered this. ‘I suppose I should tell you if you want to understand the game, though goodness knows why you should. The Packard’s only a car after all.’

  ‘Only a car? But it certainly seems to symbolize something. Tell me what, Emma.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here. OK. Tom, Philip, Joan and Gwen were all at Oxford at the same time although in different years.’

  ‘Gwen?’ I queried. ‘Tom’s sister?’ There had been a far closer network between the families than I had guessed.

  ‘Ah,’ Emma said reflectively. ‘Yes, she is. Tell me what you do know about the Herricks and Moxtons,’ she invited me, and I duly did so. I had nothing to lose and possibly a lot to gain.

  ‘Well,’ she commented, ‘so far as I can tell, they haven’t misled you over the game. You’re just missing a major piece or two of the jigsaw.’

  I groaned. ‘Such as?’

  ‘For a start you’re a player short, so let me introduce you to Gwen.’

  She took me over to a jolly-looking woman of about sixty, currently chatting to Tom. He took one look at me and he too decided there was someone he needed to talk to urgently on the far side of the field.

  Emma grinned, reading my thoughts correctly. ‘Gwen, this is Jack Colby. Jack, this is my aunt, Dad’s sister. Gwen, the game’s up, the gloves are off.’

  Gwen’s eyes glinted. ‘Sure about this, Emma?’

  ‘Quite sure. We’ve told the police most of it anyway, and Jack works for them over the Packard issue.’

  ‘That dinosaur is still an issue?’ Gwen said. I couldn’t tell whether she was neutral in this battle of wits or a powerful participant. ‘Well, Jack,’ she continued, ‘you won’t have seen me on stage or screen like Tom or my father Gavin or Emma here. I’m the one without the talent.’

  ‘Only in that way,’ Emma said firmly. ‘You’ve inherited your mother’s gifts.’

  ‘Perh
aps. My mother, Nancy, was a very special person, Jack. So is my son, Barney.’

  With this casual – or not so casual – statement a lot of jigsaw pieces snapped into place and knocked me mentally sideways.

  ‘You’re Philip’s former wife,’ I managed to croak.

  Of course. The fact that she lived abroad didn’t mean she couldn’t be a player in the game. She wasn’t off the radar, as I’d been told. She was here, very much with her own cards to play. ‘You’re Gwen Moxton.’

  ‘The missing link, Jack,’ Emma said. ‘The marriage was so much in the past we tend to forget about it.’

  ‘I’m very much an ex,’ Gwen airily confirmed. ‘So Herrick please, not Moxton.’

  They seemed very anxious to imply that this was an irrelevant factor in this case. ‘I was told you live in France, Gwen.’

  ‘I do some of the time. I have a small house there, but mostly I live here. I brought Barney up here but Philip thought I lived mostly in France. I’m not stinking rich, incidentally. When we divorced, Philip wasn’t in the financial position he reached thereafter, so I’m not living on the proceeds down on the Riviera.’ A pause. ‘You understand why I’m telling you this?’

  I made a stab at it. ‘The game,’ I said. ‘It was really about you and not the Packard.’

  I noted the quick glance she gave Emma.

  ‘No, the game was strictly between my father and Donald, and then Philip. Gavin never liked Philip and this ridiculous rivalry over the Packard made it worse. My father owned it at one point, and in revenge Philip married me. When we divorced my father demanded the Packard back.’

  I was reeling. Cars are important, but not that important. ‘Didn’t you have a say in whom you married?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course, but I have a rebellious nature. When my father made his objections clear, I persuaded myself that Philip was all the things Gavin wasn’t. Stable, serious, academic and reliable. I adored my father; he was impulsive, rich one minute, poor the next, and he never minded which. He forbade me to marry Philip, which made me all the keener.’

  This was crazy. ‘But surely Philip wouldn’t have married you just for the game?’

  ‘I hope not and I don’t think he did. I adored him at first and he liked that. He was just incapable of demonstrating any feelings.’

  ‘If he had any,’ Emma put in.

  ‘I think he did,’ Gwen said reflectively. ‘Perhaps he did for that friend of yours, Jack. Moira is convinced Wendy knew Geoffrey Green was Philip Moxton. Maybe I’ll have a chat with her. We might have a lot in common.’

  ‘She tells me she was just a friend.’ I was beginning to wonder about this.

  ‘Does she? Although Philip was incapable of showing emotions, he was very enthusiastic about sex.’

  Half of me wished I’d never brought Wendy, but the other half gave me a pat on the back. Bring all the players together and all sorts of interesting situations can occur.

  ‘Do you have feelings about the Packard, Gwen?’ I asked. ‘You wouldn’t like it back, would you? Barney turned it down.’

  She shuddered. ‘No, I would not. It might look a comfortable old beast to you but to us it symbolizes a whole lot of problems. Wherever we went the game hung round our necks like an albatross. I’m told Joan gave it to you and I’m not surprised. It was always there in the background. Don’t let the other side get ahead in the game. Philip, Tom, Joan and I all thought we’d thrown off the shackles of the game at university and then we believed it so again when you bought the car on Philip’s behalf. That was our final throw. We sold the car so that Philip could believe he had won. With Philip gone, Joan gave it away and now you bring it back here with Barney’s encouragement. Thanks a bunch.’

  She looked so woebegone that I hastily said, ‘You won’t see it again, I promise.’

  ‘Old Packards never die,’ she said savagely.

  ‘They just rob banks,’ I said idly. It was just a casual remark but there was a speedy reaction.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked sharply.

  Sometimes one hits a bullseye without planning it. ‘A journalist I know said this might be the Packard that had once been involved in a bank robbery.’

  ‘Are you implying my father or Philip robbed one?’ She looked very grim.

  ‘It seems unlikely. But there might be a story in the car’s past history. The logbook’s missing, and that might have given me a hint. Would you have it?’

  ‘No. None of us has.’ Then belatedly: ‘Sorry. And there isn’t such a story.’

  I wasn’t convinced on either score, not the logbook nor that this was the full story. But I wasn’t surprised now that Barney had suggested I came here.

  The Packard was certainly a draw. I maintained my guard at its side, having done my duty by the hog roast and stood like a guest of honour at a party and let people come to me. This time it was Joan Moxton, looking determined to be friendly – which was clearly a struggle, especially as John Carson was with her, just as grumpy but definitely smarter dressed. I wasn’t surprised to see him. This man had too much of a proprietorial air over Staveley not to play a larger part in her life than advising and working on the gardens. How much of a part did he play in his son’s career? I wondered. Was he, as with Joan, a sort of Rasputin or Machiavelli controlling the puppet strings?

  ‘So you’ve brought that old monstrosity here,’ Joan remarked, doing her best to keep up the jovial angle. ‘Can’t find anywhere else to dump it, eh?’

  ‘I didn’t realize how popular it was. People just can’t get enough of looking at it,’ I said. ‘Pity the logbook is missing – it would be nice to tell them more about its history. Would you have it at home?’

  That stopped the joviality. She glared at me. ‘No.’

  Time to bring Carson into the act. ‘Did you ever see it around?’ I asked him.

  ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Pity. I’ll have to get the information from other channels.’ I hoped this would produce a climbdown but Joan stared me out. ‘Do as you like,’ she said.

  ‘But not round our way,’ Carson added.

  ‘Do you have barbecues at Staveley?’ I asked to keep the conversation afloat. They so much wanted it to end that it was tempting to keep on going.

  ‘I don’t give my life to those gardens to have them set on fire with barbecues and the like,’ Carson informed me. ‘We’ve got plans for those gardens and they don’t include nothing like hog roasts. See?’

  ‘John and I see eye to eye over Staveley.’ Joan came to life again now that we were on a subject she was comfortable with. ‘We shall be making the gardens truly glorious once more, now that Philip’s gone. He wouldn’t let us touch them, even though we’re going to revert to the pleasure gardens they were in the eighteenth century. He wouldn’t have it. Staveley had to stay the same as when our father designed the grounds. Now we can get to work. Give it a year or two and you’ll see the results.’

  She rambled on but I was aware that Carson’s eye was still upon me. When there was a lull in the flow of garden talk, he broke it with, ‘Got a message for you.’

  Careful here. ‘Who from?’

  ‘My crazy son. He says to tell you the requested package got posted on by mistake! Don’t know what he’s talking about.’ He glared at me as if defying me to say he was lying.

  I did know. Richie was playing his own game with the Volkswagen Golf. No turning it over to the police as arranged. It could be out of the country by now. ‘Tell him I’ll be in touch, Mr Carson.’

  ‘If I see him I might.’

  It was clear why Richie hadn’t rung me himself. Either something had genuinely gone awry or he’d changed his mind. I’d thought he would keep to the bargain, but he hadn’t. That must mean his own interests had superseded mine. At least he’d let me know, which must mean something – even though his father was currently eyeing me up for possible composting material. Richie had been anxious to assure me that ‘Dad’ was OK. In what respect thou
gh hadn’t been clear. Was it over the Volkswagen and therefore Geoffrey Green’s death or over Staveley and Philip Moxton’s? Either way, did Richie protest too much?

  Looking around, it seemed that Philip’s death had benefited quite a few people here, not only John Carson. There were Timothy Mild, CEO of Moxtons, and Joan, for a start, not to mention Barney. He was a mystery. Had it changed the lives of Tom or Moira or Gwen? I couldn’t see how, save that Barney had inherited a huge fortune and had two families, the Moxtons and the Herricks. And then, I remembered, there was Wendy Parks, Geoffrey’s friend who had inherited a great deal of money – and money, it should never be forgotten, is the root of all evil, including murder.

  I watched Joan and John Carson walk away, and ridiculous though it sounds I almost envied them at that moment. Likeable or not, they had sorted themselves out in life. They had a mission, they had each other. Could I claim as much? I had Frogs Hill, I had my daughter Cara, I had Len and Zoe, but was I lacking the spark that brought the engine to life? When I walked off into the sunset as that pair was doing, what could I claim? I had everything, but nothing. Not like that couple ahead of me, nor the many others milling around.

  Nonsense, I told myself briskly. It was time to treat myself to some late strawberries and cream and to check Wendy was OK. I could see no immediate sign of her, so I helped myself to the fruit, ate it with great enjoyment, and then set off to circulate. Now that it was nearly dark, the evening was taking on an air of mystery and since it was late September a chilly one at that. Cardigans, sweaters, even jackets were appearing, and impromptu dancing was taking place near the band. Not everyone was dancing though. Many couples were still strolling around, though I could see no sign of Wendy.

  I did see Barney though. He and a partner were wandering off towards the trees at the edge of the field through which a path led to the Herricks’ garden. Since the woman was in red I thought it might be Wendy and I would join them. But her back was to me and a few more paces told me this wasn’t her, even though there was something familiar about her. Perhaps she was the come-and-go lady in his life. They were laughing, his arm was round her and she turned slightly towards him.