An Inch of Time (3 page)

‘Not on what you're paying me. Only kidding. But I do have a real job, you know? The bill-paying kind. And I can't take a holiday for another age now. Can't you try Jake again?' he suggested fatefully. ‘He can usually come up with something.'

Tim was right: Jake was the obvious answer, though I probably owed the man so many favours by now that I might one day have to start working for him. Should I call him? I decided on a visit. Why give him the chance to hang up on me?

A fine mist of moisture drifted on the wind as I kick-started the Norton. There were so many layers under my leathers that had I come off the bike I might have just bounced along the road. This illusion of protection wore off less than three miles into the journey. My face was frozen by the stinging rain, my fingers went numb and the rain had found its way under my jacket.

Jake owned a smallholding a few miles outside Bath towards Chippenham, where he had originally tried to make a go of breeding ponies. The business had failed, so, with a little lateral thinking, he switched from pony power to horse power and turned his hobby – restoring classic British cars – into a business. It took off and is still flying. Jake had looked after a succession of automotive ancients for me that, according to him, could only be described as classics in the sense of ‘classic mistake'.

By the time I got there I was frozen numb. Wind and rain were much wilder up here. I was relieved to see the bright light spilling from the workshop doors and hear the sound of growling power tools. Jake's place looked even more ramshackle than my own, though appearances were deceptive. Unlike me, he had a complete mental map of where was what and could always lay his hands on what he needed. At least, that's what he tells me. Every available outbuilding was crammed with cars – some complete, some quietly rusting, awaiting attention. The perished concrete of the yard was littered with cars and car parts, under tarpaulin or seemingly abandoned to the elements. By now I felt pretty abandoned to the elements myself. I parked the Norton under the eaves of a corrugated iron shed and walked into the workshop. The warmth from an enormous space-heater instantly steamed up my goggles.

Jake looked up from where he was grinding showers of sparks off some car part or other, held in a vice. ‘Ha, look, it's Biggles. Sorry, we stopped doing biplanes. You can't get the parts, you know?' One of Jake's mechanics, a factotum with electric hair, nodded at me from under the bonnet of a curvaceous Bristol car and went back to work. I ignored both of them and stood in front of the roaring space-heater until I was once more in command of a full set of limbs.

By that time Jake had made tea and handed me a mug. ‘You still running round on the Norton? In this weather? You must be madder than I thought. Or are you in fact here because you have come to your senses?'

‘Well, it is and it isn't. I've got a job on and the Norton just isn't up to it.'

‘I always said a classic bike's no transport for a private eye. It's hardly inconspicuous, is it? And far too noisy.'

‘It's not even that. I don't think the bike's going to get me there. The job's in Greece.'

‘Nice work if you can get it. Better off on four wheels, then, I agree, but I still think a classic car isn't a good idea . . . oh, I get it. What was I thinking? You don't want to buy a classic car.'

‘Not really.'

‘You mean you want to borrow one. To go to Greece? You must be kidding.'

‘A woman went missing in Corfu and they want me to find her. Naturally, I want to help but, as you know . . .'

‘You don't fly – yes, I know. Also can't stand heights and you're scared of dogs. You're lucky mine have enough sense to stay indoors in this weather. So it's the usual: you're broke and need transport. When will you manage to hold on to enough money to buy a decent motor?'

‘Don't know, but this could be the one. Big corporate client.'

‘Anyone we know?'

‘Can't tell you; it's confidential.'

‘Yeah, right.'

So I told him. I was always going to anyway.

Jake approved. ‘Hey, nice one. Perhaps they can pay you in roast beef and vintage cider.'

Each to his own. ‘Would that get me transport to Greece?'

Jake slid the grimy baseball cap off his bald head and scratched at a welding scar. ‘It just might. Times are hard and getting harder. There's quite a few people who are mothballing their classics because they've turned into indefensible luxuries. Fortunately, not all of my customers think so. But everyone's struggling. Remember my mate Charlie, the builder-stroke-brickie-stroke-handyman? He's never been out of work since he was sixteen. Well, he is now.'

I made sympathetic noises. Whenever the economy takes a dive, sales of my paintings go down and the detective business picks up. More divorces for a start, and half of all divorces involve private detectives.

Jake brightened up. ‘But roast beef gave me an idea. An idea that means you can avoid having to eat all that foreign muck on the way, too. Follow me.'

I didn't bother telling him that I considered foreign muck a definite bonus of this job and that my main worry wasn't how to avoid it but how much of it I'd be able to snaffle on my meagre budget. Jake led me out of the workshop, back into the rain, across the yard and past several outbuildings. We skipped puddles in the crumbling concrete hardstanding between them until we reached what might once have been a milking shed. In its lee stood a mobile home. At least, it did if you used your imagination.

‘You can certainly borrow this. I took it in part exchange last year. It'll be ideal for the job, don't you think?'

Did I? The vehicle in question was a large Ford motorhome and had probably seen better days in the last century. It was whitish with broad brown stripes running around the body. ‘Does it go?'

‘Of course it
goes
. I wouldn't be offering it to you, knowing what you're like as a mechanic. In fact, the engine is sweet; I worked on it last year. Yeah, we even took her to the Lake District last autumn.'

There was a definite ‘but' in his voice. ‘But?'

‘Sally hated it. Her idea of getting away from it all apparently doesn't include taking the kitchen with her. It also rained and we trod on each other's toes a lot, being stuck in the van. I'd never get her to do it again.' He opened the side door for me. ‘Which is why I never finished doing up the inside.'

That was patently obvious. Inside, the van had everything; only the fittings had not worn well. Gift horses being what they are, I didn't quibble. I thought it had potential. As a death trap.

‘It's basically all here. You've got your bed that converts into the table and benches you see there. There's a shower in there, quite nifty –' he slid open a narrow door – ‘which I admit is a bit small for a grown woman like Sally, if you know what I mean.' He opened the cupboard next to it. ‘I installed that myself – the Fretford Porta Potti Three. Actually, I'm not sure I ever emptied it.' He hastily shut the door on it. ‘This is the fridge, which is new, and the cooker with oven and grill. Gas bottle down here. It's all there, basically.'

The cooker proudly proclaimed its pedigree on the front of the grill: The Leisure Princess 6. I pulled out the grill pan and hastily returned it. ‘It's great, Jake. You think this will take me to Greece?'

‘No problem. Once you put some wheels on it.'

Which is what I did in the squelching wet for the next freezing hour. Jake helped me with the last bit, getting her off the bricks. The van looked more of a viable proposition now with a wheel at each corner. Under Jake's ministrations, the engine coughed and backfired once, then ran smoothly, sounding normal. As I started to familiarize myself with the controls, an unusually cheerful Sally turned up. Never had her eyes looked so friendly upon me. The prospect of seeing the back of the motorhome – with my track record, possibly for good – had brought her out into the rain, frizzy dark hair stuffed under a plastic hat, carrying a large cardboard box full of camping gear.

‘You'll want this,' she said, shoving it under the table with a gleeful expression. She didn't hang around. ‘Say “
iássu
” to the Greek islands for me, Chris. Have a good trip,' she called as she walked back to the house, with a definite
rather-you-than-me
inflection to her voice.

Jake had already stowed a cardboard box under the bench with the words ‘Bits and bobs you might need – spare bulbs and stuff', and now he handed over the papers. I called the classic insurance people and insured the van for a laughable sum against third party, fire and theft – the most likely being fire, considering the state of the grill pan – then stashed the Norton in the back and drove home a happy camper. I had never driven a motorhome and found that it took a lot of gas pedal, gear shifting and thoughtful cornering, but by the time I got it to Mill House I had warmed to the thing, though not literally; it was perishingly cold and I couldn't get the heater to work. On the passenger side the seal around the windscreen appeared to be leaking, which explained the miniature lawn of algae spreading across the dash in that corner.

As I was parking the van in the yard near the kitchen door, for some reason I decided to call her Matilda. I didn't know at the time that the name meant ‘strength in battle'. With a little more foresight, I'd have chosen a different name, perhaps one that meant ‘not so good uphill' or ‘what are you laughing at?'

Annis stood in the kitchen door and laughed for longer than I considered polite. Derringer, the resident feline villain, appeared beside her, eyeing the new arrival with suspicion.

I felt protective towards my new charge. ‘There's nothing much wrong with her; the engine is sound and the rest is cosmetic. Tax exempt, too.'

This brought on a fresh wave of mirth. She grabbed a raincoat off the hook by the door and ventured out for an inspection. ‘Tax exempt! It should be drawing a pension. There's classic vehicles and there's . . . this. I bet you a fiver it won't make it to Dover harbour on its own wheels.' She gave one of them a speculative kick. ‘Tyres look new,' she grumbled, then tried the passenger door.

‘That's stuck,' I admitted. ‘The driver side works, though.'

‘That's always handy.' She opened the side door. It groaned reluctantly on its hinges. ‘We could use it as a shed, I suppose. Go park it by the barn. We'll keep chickens in it.'

I rolled the Norton out of the back with the aid of a plank of wood. ‘It's going to Greece. Tomorrow.' I followed Annis's meaningful gaze around the interior. ‘The day after,' I amended. ‘I'll have this fixed up in no time.'

‘But of course.' A second after Annis left, Derringer jumped in. I climbed in after him, closed the door against the wet and cold, and when I turned around the cat had disappeared. I opened cupboards and lifted lids but found no trace of him. ‘Nice trick,' I admitted. Especially in a space that small.

The gas cooker worked, despite the historical strata of gunk that covered the top. I found the fridge was a lightless hole in which something forensically challenging had perished a long time back. The shower discharged a dribble, and Jake had been right about the toilet.

When, hours later, Tim's immaculate Audi rolled into the yard, I was too deep in soap suds and Marigolds to notice until he came and stuck his woolly head through the door. ‘Ah. Was it me who suggested going to Jake's for transport? I'm so sorry.'

‘Another doubting Thomas. Annis is cooking supper. We can have coffee in here in style afterwards. In the meantime, can you see what you can find on Kyla Biggs?'

‘Is she the damsel in distress you are hired to find?' He ran a speculative finger over a sill, examined it, then wiped it on the back of the driver's seat. Tim lived in a clinically clean ultra-contemporary flat in Northampton Street.

‘She's the one. They gave me a name and a photograph and nothing else.'

‘And a thousand quid, I hear.'

‘Petrol money.'

‘You still owe me for the last job we did.'

‘Send me an invoice.'

‘I did.'

‘Damn. How much?'

‘Call it a hundred for cash.' He held out a broad hand.

I still had the envelope in my jacket and handed over a couple of crisp notes which disappeared into his jeans pocket.

‘I'll see what I can do, then.'

‘You can use my computer,' I offered.

‘No thanks, I'm not a field archaeologist. I've got my notebook in the car.'

An hour later I stepped back to admire my work and thought Matilda's interior looked worn but acceptable – at least by my standards, which admittedly have been called ‘bohemian' by some. ‘Appalling'
by others. As I turned around, Derringer materialized from thin air on the table opposite the cooker. Some of his other tricks, besides appearing out of nowhere, were being able to smell if you thought of eating fish and the knack of opening doors by hanging from the door handle. ‘I know there's no point in asking. Let's go; must be feeding time.'

It took me only a few minutes of fiendishly tricky detective work to find Morva Lennox's phone number in Corfu in the back of an ancient diary. Morva's work had always sold well enough to keep her in near starvation and teaching jobs. A few years ago, she and her husband, who was some sort of consultant, upped sticks and moved to Corfu where they bought a flat in the capital. Year after year I promised to take her up on the open invitation to come and visit, but now I couldn't even remember when I had last written to her. I dialled the extremely long number with excuses at the ready. The phone was snatched up after the second ring and a forceful female voice barked something in Greek at me. I asked for Morva Lennox, repeating the name several times without appearing to provoke even a glimmer of recognition. The woman simply poured more Greek into my ear and hung up. Had Morva moved? I had the address, so I'd find out in a couple of days.