Classic In the Pits--A Jack Colby classic car mystery (21 page)

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 living 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.'

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.'

Brandon frowned. ‘You think he's at risk?'

‘I did – but this has thrown me.'

‘The forensics on Mike Nelson aren't throwing up a clear line yet, but I'm concentrating closely on the families involved, especially the Howells. That might fit in with the attack on Anna Nelson but not with a threat to Arthur Howell.' A pause. ‘Could the staff, paid or unpaid, be involved?'

‘I can't believe—' I stopped. What I believed was immaterial. Those who didn't know Old Herne's had been reprieved with no change of management, and who desperately wanted it to be saved, had just as much reason to want Mike out of the way as those that didn't want it to go on, if they saw Mike as the root problem. A new manager might achieve wonders.

Did Boadicea fit in with that scenario? If she knew who the killer was, yes, or – it occurred to me – if she herself had a genuine claim to Old Herne's.

I shivered although the day was already a warm one. There was a chilliness about High House for all its red-brick solidity and sheltered position. Houses reflect those who live in them, and this one had fared badly with Ray and Boadicea, at least since Mike's death. Perhaps it, too, was in mourning.

‘Does Ray Nelson get on well with the victim?' Brandon asked.

‘Far from it, but they're dependent on each other so it's unlikely that either of them would go too far, even if Ray were physically capable of such a blow, which I doubt.'

‘And the rest of the families? I have the impression the victim wasn't universally loved.'

‘She wasn't. There was enough family ill will around to stoke a lot of fires.'

‘There was more than ill will here last night,' Brandon observed.

‘She'd been hinting openly that she might have a stake in Old Herne's future, but Arthur Howell doesn't seem to agree and he should know.'

‘I'll talk to him again. This attack looks planned. Someone either knew her regular evenings out or went out of their way to discover them.'

‘Ray Nelson had been complaining about people traipsing in and out of High House so that could have been one way her movements became known.'

Brandon's gimlet eyes stared thoughtfully into mine. ‘If she dies who would it materially affect?'

‘No one as far as I can see, unless this claim of hers was significant. Arthur keeps all his cards close to his chest to say the least, but he told me the trust doesn't include Anna Nelson.' I gave him a run down on its provisions.

‘So why this claim of hers?'

‘I don't know. Arthur says he told them all on the evening before Swoosh what the situation was. When he died, the person who would take over would be Mike's wife—'

‘You just said no one would gain by Anna Nelson's death,' Brandon broke in.

‘No, his first wife, Lily.' Then I groaned. ‘
That's it
! Arthur told them the successor was Mike's wife under the trust agreement. That was drawn up in 1991, but Boadicea didn't know its provisions and assumed the wife he referred to that evening was herself. It wasn't – it was the first wife.'