by Amy Myers
‘Loud and clear.’ This was no time for all the ‘buts’ rushing through my mind, chief of which was Jason.
‘Right. Next. This matter of Tim and the other volunteers that Jessica’s told me about. That’s off centre. Tim’s staying on at Old Herne’s. Paid, this time.’
‘Working for Glenn?’
‘No. Answerable to Jason.’
Back to the joker in the pack. The cards in my hand seemed far fewer than I had realized. It was Arthur who held all the kings, queens and aces – and now it appeared the joker too.
‘Jason has a watching brief on my behalf,’ Arthur continued, ‘on what’s going on with Old Herne’s. As for Tim, his official role will be Curator and Track Manager.’
Excellent. ‘Paid by Jason privately?’
‘No, by Old Herne’s.’
Arthur was playing a dangerous game. ‘Isn’t that awkward if Glenn’s CEO for three months?’ I asked. ‘At this rate there’ll be no Old Herne’s left to save. You know Glenn’s planning to chuck out a lot of the automobilia from the hangars? Can you and Jason stop that?’
‘I have. I guess even I can get old, and thinking about Mike I took my eye off the ball and let it get away from me. But I’m back on top now. I’ve told Glenn that from now on he’s only in charge of the clubhouse, including bookings, reunions, renovations – it needs that. Fenella can do her makeover.’
He saw my expression. ‘It’s crying out for it, Jack. The hangars won’t be touched without Tim’s agreement.’
‘Good.’ I tried not to sound too clipped. I felt I’d been working on this case as an assistant junior rather than an independent sleuth, and if it wasn’t for Mike and Jessica I’d throw in my hand completely.
Arthur came near to an apology. ‘Too used to keeping things to myself, Jack. I like working on a need to know basis, but I got it wrong. Here’s how it works. Glenn is temporary CEO but Jason is effectively in overall control until we get a new trust agreement signed. He’ll be in it. Jason feels as strongly about the place as I do – and, incidentally, as strongly about Mike’s murder. Trust agreements have to cover what happens in emergencies if the trustee is incapacitated or dies as Mike has. So as well as the trustee, a successor trustee had to be named. Mike was the successor trustee to Miranda. Only Mike, myself and more recently Jason knew what was in the existing trust agreement which was drawn up when Miranda died.
‘As you know,’ he continued, ‘I came over here with the intention of closing Old Herne’s down, but when the family and the Nelsons came to the Cricketers for drinks the evening before Swoosh I was still in two minds. There were questions about what would happen when Mike retired so I told them how the agreement worked, with the successor being his wife and, after her, Jason. With Mike’s death, and Lily no longer being in the picture, Jason will be the trustee under a new agreement. Unless, of course, I change the terms or revoke the trust completely.’
And therein, I thought, could lie a threat to Arthur. ‘Does Glenn know about this?’
‘Only what I said at the lunch. In view of Mike’s death, he knows only that he’s acting manager and that Jason’s representing me in overall control.’
I had to ask. ‘And Jessica?’
Arthur smiled. ‘Miss Hart will forge her own way.’
A polite rebuff. ‘Does she know the situation?’
‘Only as much as Glenn does.’
‘What about Anna Nelson’s position?’
Arthur sighed. ‘Leave her to me. I’ll see she’s all right. She’s out to please at present. She insisted we had a family gathering at High House last evening to decide about Mike’s funeral. Not that we’ve any idea when that will be yet. Ray was not pleased, but he had to be present, of course.’
At that moment Jason arrived with the tea and cucumber sandwiches as promised and the ensuing conversation centred on the hangars, on Tim, and on possible fund-raising events for Old Herne’s – for which they both claimed my input would be invaluable. The Porsche was not even mentioned, so I asked whether the registration had gone smoothly.
‘Thank you, yes,’ Jason told me.
‘And it’s running well?
‘Perfectly.’
Another stone wall. ‘Will you take it back to Old Herne’s?’
‘Not yet.’ Jason picked up a sandwich. ‘I grow the cucumbers myself. Did you know that?’
It all sounded great, but whether it would work out in practice was another matter. I decided to let the dogs of Old Herne’s lie for a day or two in the hope they were sleeping off the effects of the rows, and Frogs Hill seemed a comparative haven for the next few days – I say comparative because Len and Zoe had the Lea-Francis to finish and it was clear from the set look on their faces that it wasn’t going well. For me, it represented a stretch of clear road, however, after the recent gridlock at Old Herne’s. There’s something about looking out at the rolling hills beyond and the peaceful fields that does wonders for putting matters into perspective. Common sense might tell you that these peaceful fields are hiding a mountain of woes and centuries of crime and that even chalk downs have their sinkholes, but for me the sight was blissfully reassuring.
I had my doubts over Arthur’s plan, partly because it seemed too full of possible pitfalls. I had to choose between thinking of him as a great brain now bowed down with grief and age and trying to figure out if something else lay behind his plan. Glenn manager for three months, Arthur wanting everyone under his eye while Mike’s killer was hunted down … did the two mesh? Was Arthur pinning his hopes on me by keeping the group closest to Mike together? Hopes were surely too vague a basis for Arthur to work on, unless he was indeed too tired and sad to cope. Did he expect a result? I couldn’t see any grounds for it so far. I realized it was much more likely he had his own ideas on who killed Mike. Was he guessing, though, did he know, or did he fear? What if the result he feared was that his own son Glenn was the culprit? That would fit the plan. Glenn had motivation if he’d been counting on the club closing down. To me that translated into a need to eliminate all other possible factors in Mike’s death – including any remaining doubt over the Porsche’s involvement.
Accordingly, on Friday I drove the Alfa to Lewes, with Brandon and Dave’s reluctant permission. Alex Shaw had been traced, arrested, charged and released on police bail. I’d come alone which made me feel as though I were leading a Charge of the Light Brigade, every man jack of which had turned round and gone home except for me. I figured that it would not be in Alex Shaw’s interests to tell Doubler of my visit on the grounds that Shaw had little hope of proving his innocence in the case, which meant that the further he kept from Doubler the better for his health.
My plan today was to behave as though Shaw was not aware that the car had been stolen, thereby hoping for an indication of whose idea it had been to steal it in the first place. I had rung him on this basis, telling him I’d come from the Kent Police Car Crime Unit and angling it that it was in his interests to see me if he was an innocent party.
Shaw lived in a village near Lewes in Sussex, which is a civilized and gracious town, not instantly associated with crime. Its international claim to fame is that in the eighteenth century it had hosted Tom Paine as an exciseman. Paine later went to the States where he helped draft the Declaration of Independence and wrote his best-seller, The Rights of Man. Alex Shaw, enterprising though he might be, was hardly in the same league.
His house was in a highly respectable close in a highly respectable hamlet called Dunsley. It looked so respectable that no criminal would dare to live there, which is probably why Shaw chose it. Such was my cynical thought as I stood on the doorstep awaiting the pleasure of Shaw’s company. He proved to be tall, anxious-looking – a handy talent in his job – and good-looking, although not so outstandingly as to draw instant attraction on that account.
‘Do come in, Mr Colby,’ he murmured, peering round to see if the neighbours were watching. Then he led me through his highly respectable household to his livi
ng room where there were signs of a highly respectable wife and children, although none was visible at present.
And then we began the game.
‘The Nelson family,’ I kicked off, ‘are delighted to have the car back, but it’s hard on the innocent – Mrs Ansty and yourself.’
He pulled a face. ‘You could say that. I’m sure you know I’ve been charged.’
‘I do.’ I waited to see if this led further.
It did. ‘It’s quite ridiculous,’ he said. ‘I was duped, just as Mrs Ansty was. I bought it from a dealer who it now appears doesn’t exist.’
I decided to avoid the subject of dealers. ‘You did buy it under a false name, Simon Marsh,’ I pointed out.
A shy smile flashed in my direction. Good heavens, he had a dimple too. ‘It’s difficult, Mr Colby. It wasn’t only myself involved.’
Ah, so that was the escape route.
‘I suppose it will come out at the trial,’ he continued, ‘so I might as well tell you. I’m forced to have two names. I have a girlfriend.’
Nice one, Alex. ‘How difficult for you,’ I sympathized.
‘It is. The car was for her.’
Naturally. One always buys a car worth well over a quarter of a million pounds for a girlfriend. Shaw was good, but he had all the hallmarks of the fraudster. The charm button had been pressed, but sooner or later he would relax his guard. There’s a lack of what one might call aura around fraudsters or at least those that I’ve met. You can’t tell that the charm is switched on because it appears to be so natural, but you can tell when it flicks off, even for a moment or two. The fraudster has retreated into an invisible icebox cut off from contact with you and only cold remote eyes look out at you through it.
I decided to slide over the topic of Jennifer Ansty. ‘As I told you on the phone, I’m scouting around for the Car Crime Unit to find out just how the car came to be stolen in the first place. This dealer of yours – any idea how he came by the car? Could he have had a commission to steal it?’
He looked puzzled. ‘A commission? You mean a customer asking him to steal it for him? No, he sold it to me.’
‘Perhaps something went wrong, or perhaps the theft was the result of an insurance scam.’
I thought I’d gone too far, but he merely looked thoughtful. ‘I see what you mean. Mike Nelson arranged for it to be stolen and then he was murdered. That’s a terrible thought, poor chap. What a loss to Old Herne’s – that’s a great place. It says in the press that the owner is over here with his family. Isn’t that singer Jason Pryde involved somehow? But I can’t see a scam working – they must have plenty of money, so it seems unlikely.’
‘What is unlikely,’ I said chattily, ‘is that a professional car thief would choose that particular car to pinch and hope to escape notice.’
The charm vanished as Alex Shaw closed his icebox around him. ‘If you say so, Mr Colby. I’m not a car person – I’m in business. Frogs Hill, isn’t it, where you live? Near Pluckley? A car restoration business?’
Now how would he know that if he wasn’t a car person or didn’t know Doubler? But the mere fact that I had got under Shaw’s skin convinced me that I was on the right track about the Porsche theft being an inside job. What I didn’t like, however, was his knowledge of Arthur and Jason. I couldn’t yet see how they fitted into the Porsche story, but coupled with Doubler’s threat to me about Arthur’s safety it was ominous.
On my return I rang Nightmare Abbey in some trepidation to speak to Jason. ‘Could you lay on extra security?’ I asked him.
‘Why?’
‘I like to sleep easy and be sure that Arthur’s OK and you.’
‘We’re both in the pink, Jack, thanks, but I’ll do it.’
‘Tell him I’ll be along to see him.’
A pause. ‘Always welcome,’ Jason said.
I slept badly that night. I had nothing tangible to suggest that Arthur could be a target, but the thought had been well and truly planted. If Arthur died, to whose advantage would that be, as Cicero asked. Cui bono? Not the Nelsons’, not Jason’s, Tim’s or Jessica’s, but it would be to Glenn’s and Fenella’s. One way or another, there could well be a fuse laid where Arthur was concerned – and sooner or later it would be lit.
It was sooner, but I was wrong in one respect. On Tuesday morning came a call from Jessica who had just reached Old Herne’s for the day. We’d spent a pleasant Sunday together and talked of meeting during the week so I wasn’t surprised at the call – but then I realized her voice wasn’t normal. She sounded frightened. ‘The whole place is buzzing with police, Jack.’
‘Friars Leas? Arthur? Jason?’ That was my first fear.
‘No. Old Herne’s and High House. There’s been another attack.’
I was so stunned I couldn’t take it in at first. ‘On Ray?’
‘Boadicea. She’s not dead, but near to it.’
TWELVE
I remembered Boadicea’s hints that she might yet have a stake in Old Herne’s future. Perhaps I had been reading too many Agatha Christies, but could this be the reason for the attack on her? Arthur had made it clear that so far as he was concerned, she had no stake at all, but that did not rule out the fact that someone might have believed her. It was possible that Arthur was misleading me, but I doubted that, and yet she, not Arthur, had been the next victim after Mike. I should have paid more attention to her. Dubbing someone with a mocking nickname can take them outside one’s radar, and having been pigeon-holed they tend to remain there. Now Boadicea had stepped outside her pigeon-hole and left me temporarily floundering.
I drove straight to Old Herne’s. No time today to admire scenery. I scarcely noticed it anyway as I cursed the number of vans thundering towards me on the single lane roads of the Downs. Vans can be arrogant vehicles, so this involved my stopping, reversing and hoisting my car up on to any handy verge or gap to allow them past. This sent my tension levels rocketing and I felt sick by the time I reached Old Herne’s. I had calculated that there would be so many police cars and vans at High House that it would be better to park at Old Herne’s and walk the rest of the way. Besides, I hoped to find Jessica here.
I mentally cursed again as there was no sign of her in her office and no one else around, so I took the footpath to High House, half of me wanting to run at the double to get there, the other half wanting to stay right where I was. The first half seemed to be controlling my legs, however, and the path brought me up to the side of the house, from where I could see plenty of activity in the forecourt where I gathered Boadicea had been found. I braced myself to join it and saw that Jessica had not been exaggerating. It was a major crime scene. I saw Brandon with several scene suited forensic personnel standing by the cordon, which sealed off the whole of the forecourt and some of the front garden, and more scene suited figures were working within it. I could see Jessica and Peter watching from the garden, and as soon as she spotted me Jessica came over.
‘What happened?’ I asked. All she had told me on the phone was that Boadicea had been found outside the house badly injured but still alive, not long after midnight.
‘The police say she was hit from behind, probably as she parked her car last night. Ray had gone to bed at about nine, knowing that Anna was still out, as she always goes to choir practice on Monday evenings, getting home about ten. Ray sleeps downstairs but he’s fairly deaf so he heard nothing. He woke up in the night, wondered why the house lights were still on, and got up to switch them off. He can walk a little bit and he found the front door still unlocked, peered out, saw the car and realized something was wrong.’
‘How badly hurt is she?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. What’s happening around here, Jack?’ Jessica looked distraught. ‘First Mike, now Boadicea. I don’t think I can take any more. There are other jobs.’
‘Don’t make any snap decisions,’ I told her. ‘Old Herne’s needs saving, and so it needs you.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
I gave her a quick hug, just as Peter joined us. ‘Any news on Ray?’ I asked them.
Jessica answered. ‘Suffering from shock, so he’s been taken for a check-up.’
‘A gory sight for the old chap, judging by the dried blood on the ground,’ Peter commented. ‘I’ve been here most of the night, and believe me, there’s plenty of it around.’
‘A word, Jack?’ Brandon came out of the crime scene to talk to me. He’s not a tall man, nor particularly prepossessing, but he does have an uncanny way of exuding authority without saying a word, so Jessica and Peter retreated. The cordon area was even larger than I’d thought, as the house was included in it, which bemused me until I realized that theoretically it was possible that Ray was the assailant or that someone else had come from the house or through it to attack Boadicea.
‘No random attack then,’ I said.
The answer was obvious and Brandon didn’t bother to comment. ‘No sign of a weapon yet, but it’s a large blunt instrument of some sort. Luckily for her she had a heavy rain hat on, which gave some protection and threw off the assailant’s aim.’
‘Someone waiting for her?’
‘Probably. That means someone who knew her movements. This was no random attack by someone hanging around in the hope of pinching a mobile phone.’
‘Any car tracks?’ I asked. The forecourt was paved which didn’t help but there were verges, and the gravelled drive to High House might show something, especially with the recent rain.
‘Vans and cars calling here all the time, but we’re working on it. I’m treating this as connected to Mike Nelson’s death. You agree?’
I was being asked my opinion? Glory be. ‘High probability, I’d say. It looks as if the Grim Reaper’s still hanging around Old Herne’s. If I were in Arthur Howell’s position, I’d be locking every door twice.’