Classic Mistake (3 page)

However quickly the police found Carlos’s killer, I was going to be affected. There would be Eva’s future to settle, the trial, the funeral – I blenched at the implications. Even if Eva’s family and Cara took over some of the nightmare, I could see that I was going to be right in the middle of it. To take my mind off it, I decided to embark on a complete polish of the Gordon-Keeble. Dad had bought it for its rarity; I cling to it for the sense of endurance it gives me. Its fluid lines and its sheer understated elegance are a panacea for the worst of problems. At times such as this, it soothes the spirit.

Brandon arrived that afternoon, by which time I had managed to convince myself that he wouldn’t be coming. After all, some killers are found very quickly and I could contribute nothing myself to their case. That at least was true, but Brandon might not see it that way. I was talking to Len when we heard the car draw up, and I saw the look on Len’s face.

‘Here we go,’ I said to him in resignation and then went to greet my ‘guest’. At least he didn’t have a sidekick with him, which might mean this was not going to be too formal.

‘How’s it going?’ I said to Brandon as he climbed out of the car and followed me into the farmhouse living room.

As before, he replied, ‘Early days.’

Not good, that. It implied I was a witness, not just a side issue. Whether approvingly or disapprovingly, Brandon looked around him at the comfortable but ancient armchairs and sofa and my choice of pictures, ranging from a nude to a photo of Louise and an original painting of a Karmann Ghia by my famous chum Giovanni. ‘Did you know Carlos Mendez was coming to Maidstone?’ he added casually.

‘No. Nor Eva. Bit of a shock to hear from her this morning.’

‘She came two days later than he did,’ Brandon corrected me. ‘Because, she claims, he was down here to look up members of his former band and make new contacts.’

I spoke without thinking. ‘That rules me out.’

No comment from Brandon. ‘Did you know he and your ex-wife were in England?’

‘Not till she rang. We’re not in touch.’

‘Is your daughter?’

‘You’ll have to ask her. She’s not that close to her mother.’

‘Or her stepfather?’

‘Ask her,’ I repeated. ‘She’s on her way here.’

‘I understand your wife met Mendez when she was living with you here.’

‘Not
here
. We were living near Chartham when she scarpered with him. That was in 1991, and I gathered he’d been based in Kent for several years. I haven’t seen Carlos since that time, though Eva blew in occasionally.’

‘She must have been quite a stunner.’ An unexpectedly human comment from Brandon.

‘She often stunned me. Sometimes with a frying pan.’

Brandon grinned at the weak joke. It was a brief lull but then it was back to business. ‘Did you know his band was based round here? It was called Carlos and the Charros.’

‘I knew he had a band, but not the name. I was busy babysitting while she was following the drums.’

‘It disbanded after Carlos left with your wife. Did you know any of them? Carlos plus four others and a singer, I gather.’

‘As I said, I didn’t know Carlos or his band.’

‘Your wife claims otherwise.’ He said it so lightly that I didn’t instantly get the message. Then I realized he was looking at me so intently that there had to be some reason.

I groaned. ‘OK. Tell me the worst. What else did she say?’

‘That you could not be blamed for feeling the way you did about Carlos.’

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. ‘And what way was that?’ I enquired.

‘You tell me, Jack.’

At least he was still calling me Jack, so there was hope yet. ‘Answer: my only feeling was that I was sorry for the poor sap.’ Plus – though I wasn’t fool enough to tell Brandon this – a mild antipathy, after the one brief encounter I had with him.

‘He was married to her for a good many years. No need for sorrow on your part. Marriage to her seemed to suit him.’

‘Eva has a lot of rich relations – that could have suited him very well.’

An eyebrow shot up. ‘Sure you don’t feel resentment? They brought up your daughter after all.’

I ignored the reference to Cara.
‘I’ve never pretended to be overfond of Eva but have always thought Carlos was the relatively innocent party.’

‘Generous, Jack.’ There was no inflection in Brandon’s voice to tell me whether he believed me or not. Nor was there when he added: ‘Not planning to leave town, are you?’

I wasn’t, but I felt the nightmare closing in with a vengeance. Rumbles of approaching storms were not going to vanish. I watched him drive away and wished I could do the same, at least emotionally. I couldn’t, however. I realized that Brandon probably didn’t think I had anything to do with this murder, but that he couldn’t discount it. He had to go through the motions, and he would. What that meant was that I would have to look after my own interests as well as Eva’s by trying to find out who did kill Carlos.

Emotionally, however, I was in no state to do so. Seeing Eva again normally shakes me up for a while, not because I still harboured loving feelings for her (despite the day’s earlier sexual blip), but because of the knowledge that I had been so stupid in my youth. Only Cara remains the golden linchpin for those days. I’d never
resented
missing so much of her life, just regretted it. In the oil business you accept life as it’s thrown at you. Now it had thrown it in plenty, and I had to put that to rights or the glory that was Frogs Hill would be tarnished.

And then fate tossed me a lifebelt – although it hardly seemed like that at the time.

I watched in amazement as, in a cloud of smoke, a noisy, battered and ill-kept Volvo 144 drove into the Frogs Hill forecourt, swung round, and drew up with a cough and a splutter. Its driver emerged and marched towards me.

Daisy had entered my life.

A
cloud of golden hair, blue eyes blazing in indignation (obvious even from where I was standing), an English rose complexion, perfect figure, twenty years old at the most and apparently oblivious to all her attributes. True beauty doesn’t have to be sexy, just admired. I took all this in in an instant, and mentally put it aside while I wondered what caused the indignation – and, indeed, the visit. I could not recall any cars under restoration in the Pits that would have a Venus such as this as owner. She wasn’t dressed for effect, that was for sure: black tights, long blue dress and an old green anorak thrown over them. Rain was threatening, although this apparition walked with sunshine around her.

I had never seen her before and yet I seemed to be far from the top of her list of favourite people. I remained where I was outside the farmhouse front door, unable to move with shock. She marched up, planted herself in front of me and, yes, folded her arms grimly under her perfectly-sized (from what I could see) bosom.

‘Mr Colby?’

Usually, a stranger’s voice shatters any dreams that appearance might have inspired. Not with this young lady – except that the ‘Mr’ she employed would suggest I was way out of her range for anything closer than a business relationship. Her voice was low, musical, and on a different mission might have been honey-filled. I didn’t know what her mission was, but her angry eyes did not instantly suggest honey.

‘They told me you do the Morris Minors.’

I must have gaped at this unexpected pronouncement of hers because she patiently repeated it, to which I managed to reply: ‘We restore any classics. Morris Minors are—’

This brought forth a far from patient: ‘You
find
them, don’t you?’

‘You want to buy one?’

Heavy silence now, and I thought she was about to turn on her dainty heel and walk out. If so, she changed her mind. ‘They told me you were some sort of cop. Are you or aren’t you?’

I pulled myself together from wherever my fancy might have been planning to take me. ‘In a way. I work for the Kent Police Car Crime Unit.’

‘I know,’ she said crossly. ‘I called them to find out what they were doing about Melody because nothing was happening. They said you would be dealing with her.’

I was lost. ‘Who’s Melody?’

‘My Morris Minor.’ Her voice now held a note of kindliness, as if speaking to a very ancient person. ‘I’m Daisy Croft.’

I was still lost. Dave commissions me job by job, but none had been forthcoming recently – a fact of which my bank balance was well aware. He and the jobs he gives me are a major factor in Frogs Hill’s survival under my ownership. The classic car restoration side of things is patchy from the economic viewpoint, dependent not only on the flow of cars coming in but on the flow going out. As Len and Zoe pride themselves more on workmanship than deadlines, the latter can be a very slow process.

‘Your car’s been stolen?’ All right, that was a fatuous question too, but it was all I could cope with.

‘Last week. Outside the bakery. I left her there the night before because I only live down the road, so sometimes I walk. This old heap’s my boyfriend’s dad’s.’ She waved a disparaging hand at the Volvo.

‘And where is the bakery?’ My turn to be very, very patient.

‘Burchett Forstal. I work there.’

I wasn’t that surprised Dave hadn’t contacted me on this case. A Morris Minor is an odd car to steal. It was the first car built after the war to be accessible to everybody, and everybody duly loved it. It was Britain’s answer to the Volkswagen Beetle, although it never spread its fame worldwide, as did its rival. Production of the ‘poached egg’, as Lord Nuffield, founder of the Morris Motors company, pejoratively called it from its softly curvy shape, stopped in 1971, but the Morris Minor was so reliable it still defies oblivion in large numbers.

My guess was that Dave’s team had probably put the theft down to joyriders, which meant Melody would show up sooner or later, but after a week that scenario was beginning to have a question mark over it. Burchett Forstal is a hamlet roughly ten miles away from Pluckley and Piper’s Green. It’s in the Charing–Challock area, and it’s chiefly known to non-residents as the most unfindable destination in the long list of Kentish hidden villages. A pretty spot though.

I realized I’d been silent too long.

‘Well?’ Daisy asked. ‘Are you going to find Melody or not?’

‘I wish I could. But I have to wait until I’m asked to investigate.’

‘
I’m
asking you.’

Faced with this implacable goddess, I surrendered. Who wouldn’t? ‘I’ll find out what’s happening.’

This wasn’t enough. ‘I mean,’ Daisy said earnestly, ‘I’ll pay you and all that. Private-like.’

Difficult. ‘The problem is that it’s a police job as you’ve already reported it. I can’t barge in.’

As I hope I’ve made clear, Morris Minors are very special cars. They aren’t motor cars so much as symbols of a way of life, which puts them in a somewhat different category. Classic car-lovers usually fall into two main groups: those who remember a classic fondly from their youth, and those who admire beautiful objects from the past whether or not they have personal resonance for them. The Minor is almost in a class of its own, however. It rings bells from the past with those who owned them or grew up with them, whether in the fifties, sixties, seventies or even eighties. Whether new or second-hand, the bells ring so loudly that it has inspired a sort of folk memory down the generations, and today it flourishes in clubs and get-togethers. It’s nice and curvy to look at, has good engineering, and has entered the twenty-first century ‘trailing clouds of glory’, to quote Wordsworth’s poem. It becomes the centre of attention at picnics galore and carefree days out.

I saw Miss Sunshine’s face fall at my refusal to be drawn, so I added hastily, ‘Tell me about Daisy – no, Melody. Sorry,’ I corrected myself as she dissolved into giggles. ‘Wrong way round. A Morris Minor isn’t usually a first choice as a vehicle for someone your age.’

‘Melody belonged to my gran,’ she explained. ‘We lived with her, Mum, Dad and me, for a few years when I was still a kid. Mum and Dad were working, so Gran and I went on all these picnics and explored everywhere. She’s great is Gran. She’s pinky-coloured.’ More giggles. ‘Melody I mean, not Gran. Melody isn’t just a car.’ She searched for words. ‘She’s like part of us, see?’

‘I do.’ Pinky-coloured, I thought, was probably Daisy’s name for the glorious Rose Taupe Morris Minor pinky-grey. ‘Is it split screen?’ I asked. ‘What year?’

Daisy looked blank.

‘The windscreen,’ I explained. My turn to be patient. ‘Does it have a strip down the middle? And is it a convertible?’

‘Oh. No, it doesn’t. And it’s got a proper roof. Don’t know when Gran bought it.’

‘A Traveller?’ Another blank look from Daisy so I amplified this: ‘An estate car?’

‘No.’ Indignation now. ‘She’s a real
car.
’

Not a convertible, not a Traveller and had to be 1956 onward. It was obviously a Minor 1000. I was getting somewhere, I supposed. ‘How many doors, and what time of day did it disappear?’

‘Two, and she must have gone in the night,’ Daisy told me solemnly, and I could swear there were tears in her eyes. ‘I get to work at seven thirty for the first bread and rolls and stuff and found her gone. Last Wednesday it was.’

‘Any witnesses?’ I asked solemnly, knowing this question would be expected of me.

‘No. Come over and see the scene of the crime.’ Daisy was cheering up now I was taking her seriously, or at least appearing to do so. ‘Come on then,’ she added, when I made no move. ‘Let’s go.’ And when I still didn’t budge: ‘Look, do you want this job or not?’

I looked at Daisy, and I remembered the hornet’s nest busily building up with Eva. It could be a good excuse to dodge visits. ‘Yes, but two conditions: first it’ll have to be tomorrow morning, and second I have to clear it with the police.’

‘Why?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Don’t you have to ask the boss before you march out on a working day?’

‘Yeah,’ she conceded.

I watched her reluctantly climb back into the Volvo, clearly thinking she was being short changed. She wasn’t. Give me a choice between Daisy’s Melody and sticking my neck out with Eva’s affairs and there’d be no contest. But there was no choice. For all sorts of reasons, Eva had to be top of my agenda.