Classic In the Pits--A Jack Colby classic car mystery

by Amy Myers

  ‘Have you any idea what you’re asking?’

  Even now she wasn’t over-aggressive. The opposite, in fact, as she was giving every sign of surrender.

  ‘Yes,’ I said gently. ‘And I’m not expecting miracles, but if you could find anything it would be invaluable for the paperwork.’

  ‘I’ll try.’ She said this with a finality that left me no room to manoeuvre, so I had nothing to lose by overstepping the mark.

  ‘They might turn up if and when you decide to move from here, Mrs Nelson.’

  A return to the Warrior Queen. ‘Move? Why should I?’

  ‘This seems a large house for you to run.’

  ‘Run?’ Definitely hostile.

  An unexpected chuckle from Ray Nelson, who came to my rescue, probably unintentionally. ‘What this fellow means, Anna, is that now you’re broke you might have to sell up. He doesn’t know this place belongs to me. It’s me who’ll do the turfing out.’

  Warrior queen she might be, but this was taking matters to extremes, and I was relieved when he continued, ‘Don’t worry, Anna, I won’t do it. I need a bloody carer at my time of life and better the devil you know and all that.’ He cackled again, although I doubted if this was meant as a joke, and Boadicea sat there stony-faced. I could hardly blame her.

  I wasn’t laughing either.

  I found Jessica in the clubhouse, where a brightly clad Hedda lit up the bar area, singing happily to herself, while piped music of completely different melodies emerged from the loudspeakers. Jessica was not alone, however, for which I was personally, if not professionally, sorry. She was with Peter Nelson, who had obviously emerged from the shadows where we had thought he was lurking as regards Old Herne’s. Having greeted Hedda and obtained a much needed coffee from her, I went over to join them. They seemed on much more amicable terms today, and lounging in jeans and a sweater, Peter looked a less truculent figure than he had on that fateful Sunday, although the superior grin was still prominent.

  ‘Jess tells me you’ve been to see Grandpops and darling Aunt Anna,’ he said as I sat down with them.

  ‘I have,’ I agreed.

  ‘Bet that made a cheery morning for you.’

  ‘Understandably, no.’

  ‘Typical for High House,’ he commented.

  ‘Your grandfather seems to consider your aunt is his carer,’ I said casually. ‘Is that the case?’

  Peter laughed. ‘That’s only to rile her up. She cooks most of the meals, that’s all. For everything else, there’s someone comes in every night and morning plus a cleaner or two. Now the nasty stuff has hit the proverbial fan though, they might have to cut down on this life of luxury.’

  ‘Jason would support them, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Jason only looks after one person’s welfare and that’s Jason’s,’ Peter whipped back smartly. ‘After he fell out with Mike, that was that for the family as far as he was concerned. He’s always been at loggerheads with dear Aunt Anna, so he’s hardly likely to start baling her out now.’

  A good opening. ‘What did he and Mike fall out about?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Peter shrugged. ‘I never did. It did me a good turn anyway, or so it seemed at the time. I became flavour of the month which is what got me the job here – till Jess turned up and I was booted out.’

  I refrained from doing some booting myself as Jessica retorted, ‘Hardly. Mike had to boot you out because you merely stood by and watched while profits vanished into losses. Not my fault.’

  ‘Nor mine. Brother Mike was hardly businessman of the year, as I’m sure you’ve discovered. I wish Glenn joy of the place. And Fenella. Now there is someone to spread joy.’

  ‘I wish you well there,’ Jessica said wryly.

  ‘Thanks. I see her as an angel of mercy.’

  Aspiring to commercial golden wings, I thought. For all his jokey words, however, Peter seemed serious where Fenella was concerned, although whether out of true love for her or her connections I wouldn’t like to bet. ‘Do you live at High House too?’ I asked him.

  ‘No way. I’d be stark staring mad after a week. The only thing that keeps Ray going is his feud with Auntie Anna,’ he said with scorn. ‘And now that she’ll be dependent on him, he’s on a winning ticket. ‘I’ve a flat, Rochester way – I’m an IT consultant. I run the business with a partner.’

  Since Peter was lounging on a sofa at eleven thirty on a working day the partner must be very generous minded. ‘Might there be a role for you back here at Old Herne’s?’ I asked casually, and saw Jessica freeze.

  Peter raised an eyebrow. ‘Now it’s under new management, who knows? Could be some scope there, don’t you think, Jess?’

  He was exactly the sort to exploit any scope at all. This lazy debonair mask would slip at a moment’s notice if it suited him. I saw the future of Old Herne’s under his or Glenn’s rule in my mind’s eye. Gone would be the Tims at its core. In would come the neat display boxes, the uniform little café tables, and the layers of management. For Peter, Mike’s death could be an ill wind that blew considerable silver linings. The question was whether these silver linings had been as a result of the ill wind or whether the ill winds had been planned with them in mind. Where was he at the time of Mike’s death? I wondered. Jason, Arthur and Tim were at the track, Boadicea had been hunting for Ray who turned up at the bar. Glenn and Fenella were trying to find Arthur. But Peter? There had been almost an hour between the time Mike closed the doors to Thunderbolts Hangar for visitors and the time the concert had begun. Long enough for any of them to have entered Thunderbolts through the double doors, donned that greatcoat, picked up the axe – and dealt with the disposal of the blood-soaked greatcoat.

  I went on thinking about this after Jessica and Peter had gone their separate ways and I was left alone at the table, contemplating my empty coffee cup and my next move.

  ‘Boring old place, isn’t it?’ Hedda called across to me.

  ‘It shouldn’t be,’ I replied, getting up to return the cup. ‘This place will be humming with life when the public starts pouring in again.’

  ‘Don’t know about that,’ Hedda said, leaning over the counter to stare dreamily into my eyes. ‘What say we take off to see the world, sugar daddy?’

  ‘I’ve a better idea. How about we start our own band?’

  She giggled. ‘I’ll have to look for a new job of some sort, if that Glenn gets his hooks into this place.’

  ‘If he replaces you with a machine, you mean? He won’t – he’ll need staff.’

  ‘He and Dad don’t get on.’

  ‘That shouldn’t affect you.’

  ‘Grow up,’ young Hedda suggested to me.

  ‘I’m very grown up. Even the newest brooms don’t sweep everything clean, and anyway, he might want his own personal line to Jason through you.’

  She looked thoughtful. ‘Right. But not after my spat with Flouncy Fan.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Miss Fenella. Peter fancies her you know – well, her or her money.’

  ‘Still doesn’t affect you.’

  ‘It does,’ she said dolefully. ‘He don’t fancy me. Wish he did, though. I could make something of him, but he sees himself and Flouncy Fan as an upwardly mobile couple. Hope they didn’t knock old Mike off between them.’ She threw this out as a challenge, as if hoping I’d deny it.

  ‘Someone did,’ I pointed out after I got my breath back.

  A pause. ‘Time to see my dad, Jack.’

  ‘You’re going to see him now?’

  She sighed. ‘Not me. You. Talk to him.’

  ‘What about?’ I asked patiently.

  ‘You work it out.’

  ‘I heard Arthur Howell was moving in.’

  ‘Right. Room to swing a few billionaire cats in Dad’s house. They get on OK. Talk to him too.’

  Good plan, I thought. I opted for Arthur first, as he was employing me.

  ‘How about tomorrow?’ he suggested, when I rang his mobile, and then gave me direc
tions to Jason’s home.

  Friars Leas lay several miles away in a maze of lanes that were unfamiliar to me and were further towards Canterbury on high flat land. It wasn’t entirely in the wilds, but near a hamlet called Chartham Dene. It was along such narrow lanes, however, that burglars would be hard put to it to escape notice by night or by day. I had decided to bring the Lagonda on a rare outing, with the hazy idea that Arthur might like it, as it had been a favourite vehicle with World War II pilots.

  Friars Leas was set in large grounds and I took the Lagonda up the long drive at a leisurely pace, savouring the experience of approaching this house for the first time. It was a staggering sight; from the bridge in front of me it looked as though there was a moat or at least a stretch of water in front of the house, and cars were obviously meant to be parked this side of it. On the far side of the moat the house reared up like a Wizard of Oz castle. What a place! Huge, part medieval-beamed, part Tudor brick, gables, turrets, a Georgian style wing, enough Victorian crenellations to make Dracula feel at home and sufficient chimneys to keep a sweep happy for life.

  I walked over the bridge cautiously, but at least it wasn’t a drawbridge and there was no sign of a portcullis with boiling oil ready prepared to drop on unwelcome visitors. I could see why this rambling concoction might appeal to Arthur as a temporary safe haven.

  It wasn’t Arthur who opened the door however. Nor a butler or footman. It was Jason Pryde.

  He gave me one of his crooked smiles. ‘Welcome to Nightmare Abbey.’

  NINE

  I was aware that Jason was waiting for me to say, ‘I thought this house was called Friars Leas?’ Tough. He was going to be disappointed. In a trice I was back in my father’s study of long, long ago, where amongst other forgotten treasures was a copy of Peacock’s early nineteenth novel of gentle mockery, Nightmare Abbey. I grinned at Jason, grasping for anything I could remember of this neglected classic which my father – mysteriously to me at the time – thought so screamingly funny. My memory – or Dad – obliged.

  I then replied with some confidence as the book reared up in my mind more clearly, ‘Mr Flosky, I presume. Mystery is your mental element. You see ghosts at noontide.’

  Jason’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who doesn’t? Scythrop Glowry in fact,’ he added. ‘The son and heir. Come in, do. Arthur’s waiting for you.’

  That was just as well. I’d reached the limits of my knowledge of Peacock’s classic, although I had a vague memory that Scythrop, disappointed in love, had a passion for reforming the world. I’d bear that in mind in case it gave me an understanding of what made Jason tick.

  As he led me through the hall and up a dark mahogany staircase – dark because little natural light percolated to this point – I began to feel I was indeed in Nightmare Abbey, although Peacock’s idea of it could not have included a huge oil painting of Miranda Pryde belting out one of her famous songs. Nor would his Abbey have included paintings and posters of motor cars driven by a young Mike Nelson and whizzing round a track. My friend the Italian artist Giovanni would have been proud to acknowledge one of the paintings, so surreal was it. Then I looked closer and realized it was a Giovanni, with Mike’s Porsche portrayed in it.

  Nightmare Abbey, however, might well have accommodated, had the technology existed in Peacock’s time, the dancing skeleton grinning at me from an alcove, or the ghastly apparitions looming over the staircase in a way I had not been loomed over since I last went on a haunted house trip at a local fair.

  ‘Do they attack at will?’ I asked Jason mildly as one of these dangled perilously near the top of my head.

  ‘Only if you want them to do so. That’s the secret of life. There’s a dark lantern of the spirit,’ he told me conversationally, ‘that brings them out, but none see by it but those who bear it.’

  I suspected we were back to Peacock’s novel again, but I struggled to keep up. ‘Do you see it?’

  He considered this and stopped his progress along a corridor on the first floor as dark as the stairs. ‘Oh yes. We all do at times.’

  ‘This must be one of those times for you. A bad one, and I’m sorry.’ It was a risky step for I judged this was a man who would only let me approach on his own terms.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, and indicated that we should sit down in an alcove halfway along, which was provided with two velvet upholstered chairs, a table and a huge carved angel looking down benignly upon us.

  Although his brief reply was hardly encouraging, I continued, ‘It seems to be general knowledge that you weren’t on good terms with your father, and that must have made his death worse.’

  He looked interested. ‘Do the police think I killed him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied truthfully. ‘That depends on forensic evidence or lack of it.’ I’d heard no more from Brandon on that front. ‘On the timescale they might, or if they decide there’s a link between the Porsche theft and his death.’

  His sharp intelligent eyes flickered. ‘Yes, I see that.’ A moment’s pause and then he added, ‘But consider. Would I do such a thing to my father, to Miranda Pryde’s son? It seems unlikely.’

  I agreed, but capricious minds such as Jason Pryde’s can jump enormous gaps at will – or worse without knowing it. I was wary of him and even warier now that Arthur was under his roof. How had that come about, and what was Arthur making of Nightmare Abbey?

  ‘It does,’ I replied. ‘And the aftermath of your father’s death can’t be helping. You must feel strongly about Old Herne’s passing out of your hands with Glenn running it. It’s been part of the Nelson family story ever since it was founded.’ I sensed I’d put a foot wrong – and so did Jason, but he let me off the hook.

  ‘You’re floundering, Jack,’ he told me kindly. ‘Do you need a lifebelt?’

  I laughed. ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Then let me show you my tower.’

  ‘You said Arthur was waiting—’

  He brushed this aside. ‘He’ll understand.’

  I hoped he would, as for all his slightly elfish appearance Jason Pryde was a man of steel. He set off along the corridor, we turned a corner, he opened a door – and I saw the tower. The room was circular and light streamed in from the huge bow window, although the door faced not that but the wall opposite.

  At first glance the room looked like another tribute to Miranda Pryde and to his father. There were pictures and photos of her, of Mike, and even a ghost or two, I noticed. There was a reproduction (perhaps an original?) of a Victorian painting, in which I recognized the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Next to it was another painting with a similar ghostly figure, this time female. As for the photos, these differed from those of Miranda and Mike that I had glimpsed elsewhere in the house. The majority of them had Old Herne’s as a background, although there was also one of Miranda surrounded by RAF personnel. Another striking adornment to the room was the huge number of model aeroplanes and cars. They peeped out between photos and files, adorned work surfaces, some were displayed on the floor, some in a showcase, and their quality varied. I could see a tinplate Schuco sitting next to a plastic London Routemaster.

  I assumed at first that this was Jason’s office or study, but I could see no computer, not even an old typewriter. At the far side of the room a twisting spiral staircase obviously led to the ground floor level and to another floor above. There was a small desk, a chair and armchair, a large china cat, some books, a Kindle lying on the desk. I took all this in first – and only then turned belatedly to the window itself. Here stood a huge telescope trained out on the Downs, and from the way that Jason was staring at me, I could see he wanted to see my reactions.

  ‘This is your thinking room?’ I asked carefully, feeling my way.

  ‘It’s where I think.’

  ‘Music?’

  ‘No. There’s a recording studio downstairs and the routine music stuff I do all over the place.’

  ‘So what then?’

  ‘Look through this.’ He trained the telescope and
motioned to me to take his place.

  Once the view had settled down from its usual blur of blues and greens, I could see to my amazement an unmistakable shape. ‘Isn’t that—?’

  He nodded. ‘Old Herne’s control tower.’

  I could see it so clearly that I could even focus on the empty garage. No Porsche, no Morgan. Then I managed to train the telescope on to the track, where a solitary car was whizzing around. No doubt about that stylish sports car. It was the Morgan of course, with, I presumed, Tim at the wheel, although I couldn’t see the driver clearly enough.

  ‘Fun, isn’t it?’ Jason said behind me.

  ‘Yes, but why is it here?’ What was it that he wanted me to understand?

  ‘Castles in the air. It’s the Scythrop in me.’

  So we were back to Nightmare Abbey. I hoped we weren’t going much further with this or I would be a sad disappointment to him. ‘Can you explain?’ I asked.

  ‘Scythrop kept a stool to be melancholy on. This room is my stool,’ Jason told me matter-of-factly.

  He was looking so unmelancholy that this was a shock. ‘Do you use it often?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Roots. Mine. No one can sing without roots, even if one doesn’t sing about them. Mine are Old Herne’s. In the recording room I keep just one picture of Old Herne’s to keep me going, but usually I come in here, get my dose of roots and then go and sing. Do you think that’s why my marriage broke up?’ he concluded disconcertingly.

  ‘Possibly,’ I said cautiously. ‘Perhaps you spent too much time here?’ I began to see how Old Herne’s might be his Scythrop passion for reforming the world.

  ‘No. I didn’t own this place then. My wife walked out during my detox period, taking Hedda with her. She had got used to being on her own, she claimed, and I was too wrapped up in my grandmother Miranda.’

  ‘Was your wife right?’

  ‘Who knows? Hedda’s my root now. Have you met her?’

  ‘Yes. She’s a great girl.’

  ‘She can’t sing a note, but that’s good. Two singers in one family are enough. I went wrong in the nineties after Miranda died, so I don’t blame my wife for giving up on me. Couldn’t see my way through, so I went to dry out and detox, and landed back at Old Herne’s to get back on track. I’m still on it, I hope – aren’t I, Arthur?’