Vault ciw-23

by Ruth Rendell

  Burden, who liked cars, looked close to nostalgic. He gazed dreamily into the middle distance like one seeing visions. ‘An Edsel Corsair,’ he said. ‘Well, think of that. Fords made it. Dates from the late Fifties. Lovely, but it was never popular and it didn’t sell well.’

  ‘How do you come to know all that?’

  ‘My dad was mad about cars. He told me the Edsel was promoted on E-Day, September 4th, 1957. I’ve never forgotten it.’

  ‘Evidently,’ said Wexford in a dry voice.

  Burden took no notice. ‘I wonder if it was a two-door or a four-door hard-top? Potential buyers are very stupid about this sort of thing. They didn’t like its grid, a pursed mouth instead of a wide grin, if you can believe it. And then the onset of the recession of 1957 was one of the external forces working against …’

  ‘All right, Mike, all right. I don’t want to buy one.’

  ‘It came in red, of course, and blue and rather a nice discreet sort of pale greenish yellow, and other colours too …’

  Back to his old form, Wexford almost growled. ‘Pale yellow, I think. What does it matter? It was big enough to carry bodies in. And whoever he was, he parked it in the mews, sometimes overnight. It must have been a spectacularly recognisable car, which makes me wonder why whoever used it did use it. Why not hire a van if hiding bodies was his purpose?’

  ‘If it was. Let’s say it was. Using the Edsel as his means of transporting bodies must be because that’s all he could use. Was it his or had he borrowed it? So why not hire something else? Because he was poor, he couldn’t afford it. Can you think of a better reason?’

  ‘No, but I can easily think that a man in the mews in an Edsel around twelve years ago had nothing whatsoever to do with the bodies in the underground tomb – I call it the vault, by the way. And how about the fourth body?’

  ‘Ah. The young woman. Now you say she’s been there only two years.’

  ‘About that, they think. She was only about twenty or less. She had quite bad teeth but had no dental treatment. Now, though that’s not rare in old people it is quite rare in the young. But if you look at those photographs in the papers of crowds in Asia or even Eastern Europe you’ll see that quite a lot of even young women have discoloured teeth or prominent teeth or gaps between their teeth. I’m wondering if she could have come from one of those places and have been an asylum seeker or an illegal immigrant. But I mustn’t jump to conclusions.’

  ‘Whoever put her in the – er, vault, maybe your Edsel owner, must have known about the vault in advance. I’m thinking he came there with the three bodies twelve years before, and when he killed again thought of it as the ideal place to hide another body.’

  ‘He would have had to count on the door to the mews being unlocked.’

  ‘For all we know, Reg, it was always unlocked. Has anyone asked Rokeby?’

  Wexford shook his head, but he didn’t really know. He thought of what a lot he didn’t really know and that finding out might be closed off from him. He couldn’t go to Rokeby and ask him. He couldn’t even phone him and ask him. He wasn’t Lord Peter Wimsey or Poirot, he wasn’t even a policeman any longer. What he could do, he thought, was find an Edsel dealer or some dealership (as Americans called it) where they had sold Edsels in the past. They must have been rare even twelve years ago. Remembering that Burden had said they dated from the Fifties, he began to lose heart. But no, this must have been a real vintage car in the Nineties, it wouldn’t have been forgotten …

  Burden said as they parted, ‘It’s good to see you.’

  While still in Kingsmarkham he searched the London phone books he had for car sales, but all he could find were car body repairs, car accessory manufacturers and car hire. Then he tried ‘Edsel’ but nothing was listed. Most people these days, he thought, would investigate the Internet or go online, as they called it. Dora was better at this than he was. She told him she would Google Edsel and she did so with remarkable speed. He was surprised to find so many Edsels from 1958 to 1960 for sale. There were pictures, too, and for the first time he set eyes on one of these large – and in his eyes monstrous – vehicles, red ones, green ones, as well as a photograph of a chocolate brown leather interior. They were all for sale privately or from someone who apparently specialised in Edsels and offered them at prices ranging from $2,500 to $25,000. Prices were all in dollars and since those advertised gave their owners’ locations, the cars came from Tennessee, Georgia, Indiana and Virginia.

  None of this was any use to him. None of this could help him find the identity of an Edsel owner twelve years ago. But he studied the pictures, the descriptions and the prices. These cars, for all their failure to corner the market back in the late Fifties and early Sixties, seemed to be cherished by those who owned them. One advertisement said ‘one owner, never in an accident, only 70,000 miles’ and another ‘garage kept, in perfect condition’. Unfortunately for him, you could only find out more by email. No phone numbers were given and really that was as well, considering he didn’t want to pay for God knows how many calls to the United States, and he would have to pay. He was no longer in a position to claim the cost of such calls.

  But these pages of advertisements had taught him something. Edsels were valued, they had vintage standing. Back in the late Nineties the Edsel he was interested in would already have been about forty years old. Through those years someone had treasured it, kept it in a garage, nursed it, replaced spare parts and accessories. It seemed unlikely in these circumstances, very nearly impossible, that it would have ended up on a dump somewhere, to be crushed into a block of metal and disposed of. If the owner was poor, as Burton had himself suggested, he might try to sell it, he might have succeeded in selling it. It could even be one of those pictured on the site – but no, they were all in Canada and the United States. So was it still in this country? Was it still around, cherished and kept in a garage by some new owner?

  After a good deal of fumbling around, losing the email page and then losing the Internet altogether, he told himself to take it slowly and be patient. Eventually he succeeded in enquiring about Edsel dealerships in the United Kingdom and asking for the name of some English expert who could help him, and when that was done, in sending his first ever email. Or he thought he had until one arrived to tell him that someone called the postmaster wanted him to know that delivery had failed. How to find out what had gone wrong? He clicked on ‘sent’ and the failed one appeared. No wonder it hadn’t gone to Jonathan Green of Minneapolis, master, apparently, of fifteen Edsels. Wexford had typed Jonathangrene@greenco.com. He tried again and this time it went.

  No reply to his request could be expected, he told himself. What would this American Jonathan Green know about Edsel dealerships, if any, in England? What would he know about some English person Wexford could talk to personally rather than by encounters in cyberspace?

  Sunday passed as Sundays do, quietly and emptily. Though with no commitment to churchgoing, Wexford and Dora were both affected by Sunday’s apathetic yet restless dormancy. You may phone your friends on Saturday, you won’t think twice about it, but phoning them on Sunday is an intrusion. Calling on neighbours without prior notice is an affront. Maybe even the sending of emails on a Sunday was ‘not done’. When Monday is to be all rush and activity because you have a job and a responsible one, Sunday can be appreciated as a day of rest. But what if Monday is likely to be much the same as Sunday? What then?

  It might have been different, he thought, if Tom Ede had phoned. But there had been no word from him and now Wexford, who had never been in such a position before, was beginning to think it would be better for all concerned if he were to give Tom a call himself at midweek, and tell him that being his adviser wasn’t going to work out and thanks, but no thanks. During the day he looked twice at his inbox but there was nothing from Jonathan Green and he wasn’t surprised. Why would the man answer when there was no sale in it for him?

  Sylvia came round in the late afternoon and brought Mary with her. B
oth Wexford’s grandsons were still in education, the elder away at university, the younger at school. Mary told him excitedly about her new rabbit and the hutch called a Morant hutch it lived in, one which gave it a small lawn of its own to nibble.

  ‘Mummy said I could name him, so I’ve called him Reginald after you, Grandad.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Wexford. ‘Does he ever get called Reg for short?’

  Mary was shocked. ‘No, never.’

  Dora went to look at his inbox just before they went to bed. ‘Two for you, Reg.’

  ‘You’ll have to call me Reginald now. After the rabbit.’

  The first email was from Tom Ede, saying he hoped to see him on Tuesday. He had forgotten he had given Tom his email address, but of course he had, tentatively, along with his phone number. When Wexford saw the name ‘Jonathan Green’ he realised something. Minneapolis time would be six hours behind British Summer Time, which meant that when he sent his request it had been four o’clock in the morning there. Green had replied at nine-thirty his time. And what he said was that the only Edsel dealership he had ever heard of in Great Britain was Miracle Motors of Balham, London, but so far as he knew they had sold their last one in 2001. Wexford could try them. They might well know the location of all the Edsels in the United Kingdom.

  He slept soundly that night and they set off back to London at nine next morning.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MIRACLE MOTORS WERE in the phone book. But he wouldn’t call them; he’d go there on Monday afternoon. He had paid visits to south London in the past but they had been rare. The Tube and the Northern Line were the obvious transport choice, for he had rejected the idea of driving through the traffic congestion. Miracle Motors was in the High Street, not far from Balham tube station.

  By this time he had learnt quite a lot about Edsels from Wikipedia, because he had at first intended to present himself as an Edsel enthusiast. But he now saw the flaw in this, for such an expert might be expected to know more about the whereabouts of this Ford model than any salesman at the showroom. Instead, finding a girl of about twenty (something of a surprise, this) seated in a small glass-walled reception area, he simply told her the truth or half of it, that he was trying to trace an Edsel last seen in St John’s Wood about twelve years ago. Neither she nor the manager she fetched showed the least interest in what might prompt this investigation, though the manager appeared to think he was some sort of inquiry agent. In a way he was.

  ‘I’ve only been manager here for two years, but I can tell you we haven’t sold an Edsel for – oh, I’d say it’d be eight or nine years. Collectors buy and sell them online. This is one particular one you’re looking for, is it?’

  ‘It was a pale yellow colour or greenish-yellow. 1958 or 1959 – I’m guessing there. I don’t know if it was two-door or four-door. The owner or driver in 1998 seems to have been a very young man.’

  The manager thought about it. ‘Your best bet may be to ask Mick.’

  Wexford looked at him inquiringly.

  ‘Mick worked here for years. Mick Bestwood. He retired three years ago. But he knows all about Edsels. He’s even got a couple of them. He’s only just round the corner in Crowswood Road or I can give you a phone number. I’m sure he won’t mind.’

  He would have found Mick Bestwood’s house without any directions. What had once been a front garden had been concreted over and become the parking place for an enormous car Wexford recognised from the Wikipedia pictures as an Edsel Citation convertible, probably of 1958. It was sky-blue, not a pale greenish-yellow and so large and long as to dwarf the already small house behind it and the garage joined on to it.

  The front door was opened by a young woman in a pink tracksuit he took to be Bestwood’s daughter, but she turned out to be his wife. Bestwood was a small spry man, maybe sixty-five but because of his still dark hair looking much younger. The marriage appeared to be quite recent to judge by the way the woman he addressed as Cassandra kept flashing her wedding and engagement rings. Wexford wondered if marriage had assumed a special status it hadn’t had for thirty or forty years now that so many couples lived together without benefit of registrar.

  Mick Bestwood showed not the least surprise that someone had come to inquire about Edsels. The first thing he asked was if Wexford had noticed his own in the front garden. Wexford didn’t say he could hardly help noticing it and that a more appropriate question would be had he noticed the house, but simply answered that it was a nice car and in perfect condition.

  ‘It is,’ said Bestwood, ‘and only ten years younger than me. Wished I looked as good.’

  ‘Oh, Mick,’ said Cassandra. ‘You look lovely, you know you do.’

  Bestwood took hold of her ring-flashing hand and smiled. ‘I’ve got another one in the garage – not mine. I’m looking after it for a customer.’ He said like a doctor, ‘So how can I help you?’

  Wexford repeated what he had said to the Miracle Motors man. The hand was dropped and Bestwood got up.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ They went outside the way Wexford had come. ‘The chap was called Gray or Greig, can’t remember which but something like that. He had this Edsel, used to bring it to us for service and repairs. He worshipped that car. We heard he’d left it behind with his nephew and gone to live in Liphook, but when I say we heard it that was from the nephew, there was never a word out of Gray.’

  Bestwood lifted up the up-and-over door on the garage. Inside, filling it, so that the first thing that struck Wexford was what skilful driving it must have taken to wedge it in there unscathed, was an enormous greenish-yellow car, streamlined and finned and spotlessly clean.

  ‘Where are the number plates?’

  ‘Are you asking me? Someone had nicked them before I ever set eyes on it.’ Bestwood gave the car a little pat as he might a beloved pet which had suffered some small injury. ‘Miracle Motors know very well it’s here, but that new manager’s got a head like a sieve, he said. ‘What happened was this. The nephew tried to sell it to us but we weren’t having that, not without the owner there or at least notification from him, not without the registration document. It was me told him to get his uncle to come in himself, but he never did and we never heard another word from him. Then one day – it would have been ’97 or ’98 and winter or autumn – I was in Notting Hill, passing through, I mean, on my way from Shepherds Bush, when I spotted this vehicle parked on a yellow line and plastered all over the front with parking tickets and without its number plates. I couldn’t stop then, but I went back later and had a good look. I talked to the then manager. We didn’t have an address for the nephew and all we had for Mr Gray or Greig was Liphook. It was what you might call a dilemma. We decided in the end to fetch the car. Oh, we hadn’t got the keys, but there are ways as I daresay you know. We brought it back to Miracle Motors, paid the fine incidentally and set about trying to contact Mr Gray. Or Greig.’

  ‘You did all this for someone else’s car?’

  Bestwood looked at Wexford the way one might look at a man who has just taken an ice cream from a child or kicked a dog. ‘I’m talking about this car. This is an amazing car, a dream of a car. Right?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Well, me and Mr Mackenzie – he was the manager then – we talked about it, thought what to do. I don’t know if you know Liphook? It’s a small place. We didn’t know where to start, though. We’d no contact details for the young guy. All he’d said was his relation had gone to Liphook. The young guy up in St John’s Wood – what did he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Wexford thought of the young man’s body in the tomb. He hadn’t seen it, but he could imagine. But he had no reason, no reason at all, to connect that young man with one seen driving the Edsel. All he knew about the one in the tomb was that he had never been to a dentist and was in need of having one of his teeth filled, had been dressed in jeans and a jacket, whose pockets were full of jewellery worth £40,000 and a p
iece of paper with ‘Francine’ written on it and ‘La Punaise’. Oh, and a number, a four-figure number. None of that need be told to Bestwood. ‘What were you going to say about Liphook?’

  ‘Only that the young guy called him his “relation”. Funny that, wasn’t it? No one talks about his “relations”.’

  ‘You don’t remember the name?’

  ‘Only that it was the same name. Gray or Greig.’

  ‘It wasn’t Keith Hill?’

  ‘I told you. Gray or Greig. I tell you what, Wally Mackenzie might know. He knew all about it, said we should hang on to the vehicle, but he didn’t know where, there not being that much room at Miracle Motors, so I said let me hang on to it and he said why not. It was all above board. And I’ve had it ever since, taken good care of it, it’s been kept in perfect condition for Mr Gray or Greig if he ever comes back for it. Not likely now, though, is it?’

  ‘Do you know where Mr Mackenzie can be found?’

  ‘I know where he lives or used to live. Somewhere in Streatham.’

  ‘The registration document would help,’ Wexford said.

  ‘Sure it would, but where is it? I’ve never seen it.’ Bestwood went back to the open front door and called, ‘Cassandra, would you be a duck and fetch me the phone book, darling?’

  Cassandra quickly became a duck and fetched it. ‘Here we are,’ said Bestwood. ‘W. P. H. Mackenzie, 27 Villiers Road, Streatham. It’s got to be the right one. No one else’d have three initials.’

  Wexford said, ‘D’you mind if I have a look inside the boot?’

  ‘Be my guest. But you’ll find nothing in there. It’s all clean as a whistle.’

  Wexford lifted the boot lid. The boot was empty. Of course. It was clean and odourless.

  ‘What are you looking for? Dead bodies?’

  Bestwood laughed at his own joke.

  Walter Mackenzie still lived at the Streatham address. He had left Miracle Motors two years before and gone into partnership with a friend starting a dealership in vintage cars in Norbury, a business which he told Wexford, when he was scarcely in the door, was feeling the recession’s bite. He was a small thin man, much younger than Bestwood, a sharp-voiced man whose tone held a hint of bitterness. The homely, even cosy, atmosphere chez Bestwood was lacking here. The place was furnished with the bare essentials, but cluttered with stacks of paper, magazines and what looked like bills and invoices in need of filing.