by Amy Myers
Moira flushed. ‘No. That’s why he bought the Packard back from us and Joan has given it to you.’
‘God knows why,’ Tom muttered.
Moira glared at him. ‘The Packard isn’t something any of us would want to keep, not with all its—’
‘Moira!’ Tom cut in warningly.
‘All its what?’ I queried.
‘Family connotations,’ she finished lamely.
She had opened up Pandora’s box. Now I knew I was not only on the right track, I’d hit the centre. Gwen had not been the ‘woman’ in the case, nor the queen on the chessboard. Far from it. So here came checkmate.
‘The game was nothing to do with one-upmanship or Packards. Your mother was the heart of the game, wasn’t she, Tom?’
By the looks on their stricken faces, I knew I was right. They didn’t have to say another word, or even concoct another story.
‘How and why did she die, Tom?’ I asked.
‘It’s not something we talk about,’ he said stiffly.
‘You must.’
Moira took one look at Tom’s face. ‘I’ll tell you, Jack. Nancy died in 1965. How and why we don’t know. Gavin adored her and so we guess might Donald have done from afar. Whether that had anything to do with the game we don’t know. I can’t see what, because when the four offspring, Philip, Joan, Gwen and Tom, decided to end it after their fathers’ deaths they told Gavin and Donald their decision. They didn’t seem to mind very much. After all –’ she delivered this with the air of playing a trump card – ‘the game continued after the Oxford agreement so Nancy’s death can’t have been involved.’
Tom looked so relieved, it flashed up a question mark for me. ‘So why,’ I asked, ‘did it continue?’
‘Because,’ Tom immediately replied, ‘four years later Philip married Gwen.’
Neat but not neat enough. ‘Against her will?’ I asked.
That silenced them both. Someone had to stand up for Philip Moxton and I’m glad it was me. Even if I was still stuck in the maze. No good being in the centre if you don’t know your way back.
‘You seem to have upset Tom.’ Joan plodded over to me, seeming rather pleased about it. Wearing a hat and navy spotted dress, she looked the most feminine that I had ever seen her. It suited her but I made the mistake of telling her that. She dismissed the praise instantly.
‘I’d no choice,’ I said. ‘You’ve all been doling me out snippets for too long. One way or another I need the truth.’
‘What gives you the right to play Solomon?’
‘Because you, Tom and Gwen are too close to the situation to judge whether the game is a major element in Philip’s murder. The game including,’ I added, ‘the part about Nancy Herrick’s role.’
Her face darkened. ‘Take care, Jack. Take great care.’
‘And you too. The game isn’t over yet.’
She gave a sort of harrumph, a cross between laughter and annoyance. ‘That’s what John says.’
‘Is he here?’
‘Unlike your friend Wendy, he didn’t think he should attend.’
‘My non-friend Wendy at present.’
She almost grinned. ‘Not difficult with that lady. John says she’s like her cakes. All squidgy jam and cream outside and tough as nails inside.’
‘How could he know that through one chat with her at the Staveley Park gates?’
A cool reply. ‘He can always tell, John can. That’s why he’s handling the management of our pleasure gardens.’ Then she was off on a dissertation about alcoves, Greek statues, ha-has and vistas, so it took quite a time to get back to Philip Moxton and the game.
‘The Herricks told me that the discussion of the will is going peaceably,’ I managed to break in at last. ‘Are you OK with the situation?’ I thought she might slap me down but she didn’t. She just looked surprised. ‘Of course. I get the house, the gardens and the upkeep costs.’
‘And Barney? Is he happy too?’
She gave me a curious look. ‘Barney’s always OK. He just does what he thinks best.’
‘For other people or himself?’
‘He’s not Solomon either. Not always.’
Which, I thought as she suddenly decided she needed another drink and bustled away, must be somewhat worrying for those expecting to live on Barney’s prospective fortune. I was not alone for long. I was moodily inspecting a canapé that had disintegrated half on to my shirt and half on to the floor when Gwen arrived, almost spitting with rage. ‘I hear you’ve managed to wheedle the story of my mother’s death out of Tom,’ she fumed.
Take this gently, I thought. ‘Wrong. Not wheedle and not even the full story. Gwen, the police are going to have to know what bearing this has on the murder. Does it have any?’
She calmed down and became almost reasonable. ‘I don’t see how. Barney told me about that robbery in the 1930s where Donald and Gavin were witnesses. That seems more likely to have sparked it off than my mother’s death.’
A good try, but not good enough. I braced myself. ‘Was it a natural death?’
I could almost see the wheels turning in her mind: death certificates, inquest verdicts, all could be checked by the police.
‘My mother killed herself,’ Gwen said at last. ‘My father never told me why. He was devoted to my mother. Tom and I can vouch for that, and he never married again. He threw himself into his stage career. He seldom stopped acting, even at home. One day we would wake up to Falstaff, the next to Prospero, the next to Jack Worthing. Actors are their roles.’
Was that true? I wondered. What about Louise? I couldn’t believe that of her. She cast her roles off with her stage make-up. Or was her life with me yet another role? My stomach seemed to turn over at that thought.
‘So now you know the story,’ Gwen continued bitterly, ‘you need not go on badgering us about the game. It can die in peace, along with that blasted Packard.’
There had to be more, I knew that, but it wouldn’t come from her. Had Nancy played her part in the Packard story? Had Philip married Gwen because of the game? Had it been Gwen’s idea to marry Philip? Was she the pusher or the pushed? The robbery must figure in the story, but how? The boys were in their mid-teens at that point so Nancy was unlikely to have been involved.
Wendy was now talking to Timothy again, and they seemed to be conversing with an urgency that spoke of more than a brief encounter in her café. It would achieve nothing to barge in, so I waited until Timothy had departed and made a beeline for Wendy. She seemed to be studiously looking in the other direction, but finally deigned to speak to me.
‘You’re out of place, Jack.’
‘We both are,’ I said pleasantly.
‘Not me. It was Geoffrey Green who died, not Philip Moxton.’
‘You’re right.’ I’d put a foot wrong. ‘It must be hard for you today.’
No way was I going to soften her. ‘I’ll get through it, thanks. Without your help, so if you don’t mind, Jack …’
She pushed her way through the crowd and I saw her making for Barney, the ‘daft son’ as she had termed him. Business with him too? I wondered. I circulated for a while as the party separated into groups of business colleagues, now rapidly thinning out, and those of friends and relations. Wendy was right. I had no place here now and it was time to leave, so I made my adieux and fought my way through the rush hour crowds to Charing Cross rail terminus and then on to the Pluckley train. I was glad that sanity would be awaiting me at the other end of my journey. My daily driver Alfa was awaiting a new gear box and I hadn’t fancied leaving the Lagonda or the Gordon-Keeble at the railway station all day, so Len was picking me up there.
I had to stand for most of the journey, which is no problem in itself, but today I had stood for several hours at the reception. I’d walked to Charing Cross. I’d fought for standing room in the train and now had pop music in one ear blaring through a youth’s headphones and the other ear assailed by a high-pitched mobile phone conversation. I couldn’t relax and wa
s ready for normality in the comfortable shape of Len and a lift home. With luck Louise might already be back at Frogs Hill or at worst she would be back in an hour or two. Home is a fantastic word. I hadn’t thought of Frogs Hill in that way for many a long year. Just a short trip and the evening would begin with Louise.
Quite a few people left the train with me at Pluckley, and as we all walked to our waiting cars, I scoured the car park. There was no sign of Len or his new love, a clapped-out Ford Granada estate, although he’d told me that as he would be working late it would be no problem to nip over and pick me up. He must have broken down on the way to the station or forgotten, I thought uneasily. Neither was like Len, however. I rang Frogs Hill, no Len, no Louise. I rang Len’s home. No Len. Mrs Len was somewhat indignant, although I would have thought that by now she would be used to her husband’s erratic (but self-imposed) hours.
The last passenger’s car drove out of the Pluckley car park and I was alone in the dusk with a few cars as yet unclaimed, the lights of the Dering Arms pub twinkling a little way off, but still no sign of Len. Really worried now I rang Zoe’s home. Again, no reply. She must be out on the town with Rob Lane. Taxi? There was none around. I couldn’t ring Louise’s mobile as they’re forbidden on set, so I tried the Frogs Hill number again. Answering service only. I’d have to walk. No problem on a fine summer evening, but in the dark of an October one, not good. Anyway, ten to one I would find Len’s Granada broken down along the Pluckley road. Needless to say, Len doesn’t believe in mobiles. The quickest way home for me would be two to three miles along part-road, part-footpath – the snag was that the footpath lies across open farmland and then rises steeply up the hillside, which is not an attractive prospect in the dark.
There was no help for it, so I set out, hoping the light would remain good enough for me not to fall flat on my face and that the welcome sign of Len fixing his Granada at the roadside would greet me.
My march along the lane leading to the Smarden to Pluckley road with the occasional street light wasn’t too bad – except that I didn’t find Len on it. It was definitely beginning to seem that something was wrong, but I’d no alternative but to push on. A couple of cars passed me once I had reached the Pluckley road, but not Len’s. Walking was easier here until I reached the point where the footpath branched off. The dusk made the lines of trees dividing the farmland look mysterious, almost threatening. The evening was nearly over, the birds were tucking themselves up for the night and the hedgehogs, foxes and badgers would be preparing themselves for their night’s hunting. I picked my way along the footpath, said hello to the only dog walker I passed and struck out – and up – for Frogs Hill.
When with great relief I finally reached the footpath’s end and joined the narrow lane that led to Frogs Hill, I’d never seen anything quite as welcoming as the farmhouse lights twinkling at me from afar. Home at last. I quickened my step – until I walked through the gates and the security lights blazed out.
All of them, not just the one I had triggered. All of them. Everywhere. From the rear garages, the farmhouse itself, the Pits. I saw Len’s Granada, I saw Zoe’s old Fiesta. What the hell was going on? Something must be seriously wrong.
I rushed to the Pits, the doors of which stood wide open, but there were no lights on within to suggest a late-night working for Len and Zoe. As I took this in, stars flashed before my eyes as the blow landed on me from behind with a sickening thud. I must have blacked out for a few seconds for as I opened my eyes again I realized I was stretched out on the ground, there was gravel in my face and pain everywhere.
As I tried to turn over, I saw the boot coming towards me.
THIRTEEN
Pain is a world of its own. I lived within it as images of faces swirled around me, anxiously doing their best to help. (I exclude, I hope, the gentlemen who put me here.)
Louise came and went from my consciousness. I was vaguely aware of her voice and sometimes briefly her face peering down at me, intertwined with those of others. I think one told me I’d been lucky, although that seemed a strange observation with my constant companion Mr Pain jabbing away at me. As time passed I gathered that the luck element had been that when Louise returned to Frogs Hill that evening, the security lights had indicated the obstruction of my body just in time to stop her driving right over me. I remembered the swoosh of her dark hair over me and of managing to get the words ‘Len’ and ‘Zoe’ out before I passed out again. There had been a few more flashes of consciousness as the paramedics arrived. Plus more pain. And more. I heard a ‘Don’t move, my sweetheart’, but nothing more until I woke up in hospital.
When I opened my eyes and felt more or less back in the world, I saw her sitting by the bed and had automatically reached out for her. Mistake. Mr Pain circled in furious waves around me, while he decided where to attack first. Then he dug deep, and I let her hand drop. All that mattered was that Louise was here now, and so, apparently, was I in some form or other. For how long I couldn’t be sure, so I got to the point right away.
‘Len and Zoe?’ I croaked. I wasn’t sure why I was asking about them because there was a blank in my mind but I knew it was important to hear the answer.
‘Unhurt, my love. Tied up in the Pits. Immobilized.’
‘Faulty starter?’ I managed to gasp.
‘If you can crack jokes, you’re on the mend,’ she said lovingly.
Joke? Was it? Not sure about that. Cracking seemed a suitable word, though. It took effort to crack anything but perhaps effort was what I should be making. Dim memories of howling my head off as a child floated by and my mother’s instructions to ‘Be a brave boy now’. I didn’t want to be a brave boy, if it meant enduring this pain. On the other hand, I supposed I had to make some attempt at it, so I did my best.
‘How …’
My effort petered out. I had meant to ask what happened to me, but the words failed to arrive. Before I could try again a nurse marched up and ordered Louise out, which threw me back into my pain world. This seemed fairly standard procedure for some days, although they were punctuated with visits from Louise, Len, Zoe and I think Dave. He came in with Brandon, although that might have been a hallucination – especially as both of them had cheery looks.
Meanwhile every single machine in the hospital (or so it seemed to me) established the fact that I wasn’t on the critical list; in fact it seemed I wasn’t on any list, save for serious bruising inside and out and a whole raft of cracked ribs. The general attitude seemed to be, however, not that I was a brave boy but that it had been pretty stupid of me to have got involved in a pub punch-up. When Dave arrived with Brandon for a second time flashing police ID cards, this only confirmed the hospital staff’s dark suspicions. No doubt the nurses would shortly have an armed guard to protect them from this desperado they were nurturing in their bosoms.
Only Dave looked cheery this time. ‘Don’t get up,’ he told me. ‘We’ve only come to decide which of us pays your bill.’
I managed a suitable laugh.
Brandon was more sympathetic, even if not cheery. He sized me up and down, and then said, ‘Bad do, Jack. Who was it?’
‘You tell me,’ I suggested. They were the coppers, not me. ‘They must have come at me from behind.’
‘That’s what Len Vickers told us and his assistant too. Three of them, they said. Masks of course.’
‘Who have you been upsetting most?’ Dave enquired.
‘Half the establishment and half the underworld.’ I meant this sarcastically, but Brandon took it seriously.
‘Underworld first,’ he said briskly.
‘Richie Carson’s lot and his father, but I can’t see why they should want to show me their appreciation of my services. I’d had a message from them that they had the car and would get it back to us. I’d given him a clear passage on it, so there’d be no reason for him to lie.’
Brandon looked sceptical. ‘Optimistic, Jack.’
‘Murder wouldn’t be Richie’s style,’ I retorted.
‘It would draw too much attention to his activities. Even this attack on me would be pushing it and anyway I hadn’t been giving him any grief. It’s off his books as an issue.’
‘Not off ours,’ Dave blithely informed me. ‘It’s back in the police pound.’
I jerked so much with this announcement that pain promptly hit me like a sledgehammer. ‘That was quick. How?’
‘Tip-off. Untraceable of course.’
‘Where was it?’
‘Monksford station car park.’
I must have momentarily passed out – which was hardly surprising, I suppose. I knew I had because both Dave and Brandon were now looking sympathetic. This case was getting away from me fast, so I made a mental grab at this new rocket that had been fired at me.
‘Why there?’
‘When you’ve stopped malingering you can tell us.’ Another cheery comment from Dave.
So I made a stab at doing so. ‘Carson?’
‘Junior or senior?’ Brandon asked.
‘Junior,’ Dave kindly replied for me. ‘Senior’s got his head too firmly in a plant pot.’
I tried again. ‘Any prints? DNA?’
‘Testing now.’
Brandon took over. ‘While we’re waiting, you can tell us why you think half the establishment is after your guts. I assume you meant establishment as involved in the Philip Moxton case.’
‘Yes.’ Saying yes was less painful than nodding.
‘Would any of them be heavy hitters?’
I thought, or tried to. ‘Only Timothy Mild and not personally.’
‘Would he have access to Richie Carson’s mob?’
‘It’s possible.’ I ran it through my mind but it came out blank.
‘John Carson’s more likely,’ Brandon said. ‘He’s reason enough to want you and Moxton out of the way.’