Classic in the Barn (12 page)

Gentle investigation every time I moved my head another inch, when a V12 started up inside it again, proved that my mobile had made it into the neat little locker at my side. Then I remembered no mobile calls in the hospital. Some hospitals have fancy machines for patients to phone from, but if this one had, somehow I'd been missed out on the fun. I'd have to get hold of a landline somehow, though. It took half the afternoon to accomplish it, and when I did, Dave was not on duty. I had his private number for emergencies, however, and this was one. He wasn't so sure.

‘Your Zoe rang me too. The invisible Mason Trent after you, is he? Zoe said you were at death's door, Jack. Aren't you? I told Brandon you were attacked.'

We both knew that would go nowhere. ‘Car crime,' I declared. ‘Your territory. Unknown person after Lagonda.'

He saw where I was going. ‘Can't guard it, but it's noted, Jack.'

I supposed that was something. If it was burned to bits or pinched, someone might get interested, especially if I were in it. Despite continuing to fret, I ate my healthy jacket potato, and even a rice pudding that evening. Then I conked out.

Next morning, being a bank holiday Monday, I was none too sure that any doctor would appear at all, but one did, and I was out of that bed and off immediately I had my marching orders. I took a taxi to Frogs Hill: an anxious journey since I'd heard no more from Zoe. The journey was punctuated only by the driver's moans that his Audi would need to go in for repairs if it went over any more of these bumps in Frogs Hill Lane, but once he was paid off and departed, I breathed the fresh May air, full of the fragrance of trees and flowers, the hum of bees and the incomparable smell of petrol and garages, with great satisfaction. Home again.

To my relief, Len strolled out of the farmhouse. No bank holidays for him then, bless him. He nodded at me on his way to the Pits, as if I'd just got back from the pub. I stood there a moment, rocking slightly as it occurred to me I wasn't quite so back to normal as I'd thought. He beckoned me towards the workshop, where the doors were closed, until they were dramatically opened from within, operated by Zoe. She was standing by the most glorious sight in the world. The Lagonda: blue, innocent, elegant and at present flying aloft on the lift.

‘Just a car, Jack,' Zoe said, laughing, after my gurgle of delight.

‘You got it here. Well done.'

Len gave something that might be a smile. ‘Charlie did.'

‘Any trouble?'

‘Not a bit,' Zoe assured me. ‘Bea thought you'd gone loopy after your bang on the head, but she was quite happy to go rushing around opening gates and so on.'

It was almost a let-down after my fears of conspiracies and arson attacks. ‘Did you tell her to cover the traces?'

‘She didn't need telling. She locked the barn up, and we removed all signs of Charlie's exit; he took a gate with him on the way out, but we've sorted that out too.'

‘Anyone hanging around?'

‘Passed a few people, but no one we recognized. Except for your Gorilla Guy, who wanted to know what the hell we were doing. Bea told him to mind his own business. He thought it was his business. Bea clarified the situation. Then Tomas turned up . . .'

‘He had the nerve to come to see Bea with a possible murder charge looming?'

‘Yup. He wasn't pleased to see me, and Bea made it clear she didn't much want to see him.'

‘What did he want? As if I can't guess.'

‘He was all charm. Realized that it was difficult for Bea and said he would keep out of her way for the time being, as the law had made this ridiculous mistake. Of course, Guy's workers would be in those fields all the time mowing and hoeing, so Tomas assured her he would be around if she needed him. You know, Jack –' Zoe changed course – ‘I'm beginning to agree with you about this old banger.' She looked aloft at the Lagonda, but in the overall interest I ignored the slur. ‘It's interesting.'

‘Too kind of you,' I commented.

‘Bea's overrun with caring relatives and whatnot, so I've become a good Number Two to keep them at bay. Or not. Harry Prince dropped by to see her yesterday afternoon.'

That did my head no good at all as my blood pressure shot up. ‘Was Teresa with him?'

Zoe took my point. If his wife had gone with him it could have been a courtesy call. If not . . . it was business, however disguised. Harry was Harry. He didn't poke his nose in unless there was an angle that suited him.

‘No,' she said.

OK. So we knew where we were on that one. ‘What did he have to say apart from condolences?'

‘From the sound of it, he was just oily old Harry Prince, oozing about poor old Jack, and was the Lagonda safe? Anything he could do to help, anything at all?'

‘Like take it off her hands?' Surely even Harry wouldn't be that crass so soon.

Zoe grinned. ‘How about: and if you need any help clearing up the farm, I might be able to help you out on any old cars around. After all, what's a pretty girl like you going to need an old wreck of a Lagonda for?'

I was lost in admiration for Harry's cheek. Or was there more to it?

‘She turned him down.' Zoe hesitated. ‘In case it's relevant, he said that after Mike's death there was a rumour flying around that Polly was worth more than a bob or two. Big money. It's died down now.'

‘Any truth in it?' I was interested that this rumour had come to me from two directions, first Peter Winter and now from Harry Prince. And if it had reached
me
, was it also reaching other people – such as Tomas or Andy Wells?

‘If so, Bea doesn't know about it. The way she talks she'll have to sell up to pay inheritance tax, but that wouldn't be too heavy anyway.'

‘Polly had the money from Mike's business.'

‘And was living on it, according to Bea. Picture framing and rent from Guy Williams didn't take her very far.'

I'd store this snippet away under the ‘knowledge' category, I decided. ‘Thanks, Zoe. Had a closer look at our beauty up there yet?'

‘No. Len nobly decided to wait for you.'

The man himself looked modest.

‘Let's go,' I said.

So what had Harry's call on Bea really been for? I wondered. Just neighbourly concern? No way. It was the Lagonda. Len, Zoe and I stared up her underside contemplatively – especially Len. In anyone else but him I'd have thought it sacrilege. A Lagonda has her pride and, unless in dire straits, doesn't need her innards and private parts exposed to gaze.

‘Raring to get started, Len?' I called over to him cheerily.

A grunt was his only answer.

Together we gazed up at her, but nothing looked amiss other than the usual corroded exhaust system and brake lines. Len brought her safely to ground again, and then we considered the engine. It had presumably been unused for four years. If the engine had seized, of course, it would have to be disassembled so that Len could get to the pistons inside the engine block. That meant they'd have to be broken loose. Even if the engine hadn't seized, it would probably have to be rebuilt.

Len caught my eye. ‘Tomorrow,' he decreed.

‘Day after. There's that rush job, remember?'

Len and Zoe had an urgent date with a Porsche 356, and urgent in this case meant by the end of the next day, so there was no chance of getting to the Lagonda earlier. The Porsche was needed for a continental show and had to leave on Wednesday. I had no great hopes of finding anything more on the Lagonda, so whatever it was that my assailant thought was so important wasn't going to be obvious – even if it existed.

Len and Zoe reluctantly agreed that the Porsche had to come first, but that didn't stop us on our preliminary lustful examination of the Lagonda.

‘Headlights?' Zoe shot at me.

I did a few swift calculations on the bank balance and reckoned we could run to the real McCoy instead of these pre-war misfits. I handed over to Len the pleasurable task of consulting Brian Woollerton to see what he could dig out. I'd save my powder for the call about the Merc. Right now, there was something more important. I had a lady to attend to. I wondered where the number plates had got to, and, come to that, the tax disk. Why had Polly gone to the bother of taking them off?

Lady Lagonda's paint wasn't in too bad condition, and her interior would have to wait until the mechanical side was sorted. Certainly, the upholstery needed attention, once we'd sorted out the basics, and I'd have to report in to Bea at least on anything major that needed to be fixed.

I did remember the scrap of paper, however: the bill I had found in the car on that first occasion. The garage receipt was just a tankful of petrol, but it had been after I'd given the café bill to Polly that she had become so distracted, although perhaps that had been sheer coincidence. It was only for two coffees, and I couldn't even remember where they'd been drunk. Then I recalled how a mere ‘scrap of paper', as the Kaiser had called it, had set World War One ablaze, so I decided to tuck the two coffees away in the back of my mind.

TEN

Bea sounded delighted when I called late that Monday afternoon to say the Lagonda was safe, and so was I, and that I'd like to come over. Discounting the possibility that a visit from me would really make her day, I guessed there was some reason for her delight. Her ‘Do come, Jack. Straight away, if you like,' had the flavour of an ulterior motive.

When I hared up to Greensand Farm in my daily driver, the Alfa Sportwagon, I could understand what it was, even without entering the house. Parked in the forecourt was a familiar Bentley, which I recognized from the day of the art show. Either Rupert or Lorna Stack – or both – were laying siege to poor old Bea.

Forewarned is forearmed. Bea came to the door with an agonized expression and a whispered: ‘Don't leave me alone with them, Jack. Get rid of them if you can.'

I'm glad she added the rider, because it became patently clear that one Stack at least would not be budged until a time of her choosing. All beams and smiles as I was ushered into the conservatory, Lorna promptly broke off her diatribe to Rupert to greet me. ‘Why, darling, look. It's Jack Colby. You came to our art show, didn't you, Jack? You must be quite an art lover.' There was a little pause between the art and the lover, with a meaningful flutter of dark eyelashes.

Rupert politely stood up to shake hands. ‘Of course. We didn't get a chance to talk much there, but Bea tells me you're being a great standby for her.'

‘Not so much of a standby, as a falldown,' I murmured conversationally.

‘I beg your pardon?' He looked bemused.

‘Jack had an accident here on Saturday,' Bea explained. ‘Hit his head and landed up in the hospital.'

‘Oh Jack.' Lorna immediately leapt up to inspect the damage, which was now represented by a large plaster covering the wound and a shaved patch which had once been covered with hair. I felt her hand pressing my shoulder and her breath whispering past my ear. Another second and it would be in it. Sure enough, it was.

‘I'm planning to set a new hairstyle trend,' I joked feebly, wondering where the vampire would attack next. My neck? Fortunately not, and having given me the message that she was available, Lorna sat down next to her husband, ‘forgetting' to pull down that tight short skirt a modest inch further.

Having endured ordeal by Lorna, I chatted inanely while we all sized the situation up.

‘Andy tells me you're checking over Polly's old Lagonda for her,' Rupert said, inadvertently launching the conversation in the right direction.

I gave Bea a slight nod as she turned to me. Better to get the news around that it was at Frogs Hill, rather than risk Bea being the next to be coshed if it was left in the barn.

‘I wanted it out of the way for the time being,' Bea said brightly, ‘and, as I told Andy, rather than sell it I thought I'd get it restored.'

‘Darling, what a lovely idea,' Lorna cooed. ‘A tribute to Polly. She loved it so much.'

Bea winced, and I winced for her.

‘Your father did too,' Rupert added.

‘Darling,' Lorna reproved him, ‘that's rather tactless of you.' A glance between husband and wife declared some kind of stakes were up for grabs here. ‘Bea went through a bad time when Mike died.'

He flushed. ‘Sorry, Bea.' He sank back into his usual anonymity.

Bea was made of sterling stuff, luckily. ‘No problem, Rupert. All I can grasp, Lorna, is Mum's death. Everything else sort of floats by me. The solicitors and police seem to be doing everything in the background of my mind. It's as much as I can do to remember to eat and drink now and then. So talk all you want about Dad and cars. It won't bother me.'

It was a long speech for Bea, and she looked a lonely and defiant figure as she sat on the sofa in her summery top and skirt, which were made for happier times than she was going through now. Polly would have been proud of her.

‘You knew Mike well, then?' I asked the Stacks.

‘Oh yes,' Lorna told me, heavy with emphasis that she had known him
very
well. Perhaps I was imagining too much here, and in any case, predator though she was, that had no bearing on Polly's death.

Or did it? I thought of her genuine rage with Polly at the art show – there was hatred there, I thought. Was that for some reason that I hadn't yet fathomed out, or was it because she really thought Rupert had something going with Polly? Or did it go back further? Had Mike been a magnet for Lorna – and had Polly then broken up the affair or possibility of having one? Even if she had, it was a long way from that to Lorna wielding a gun and shooting her, although I wouldn't yet rule it out. For my money, that was more likely as a possibility than Tomas deciding to take the quick way to a fortune. There
was
no fortune, according to Zoe, but to a young man in Tomas's position the farm might look like one, especially if it was the way to establish himself in lovely old Britain.