Classic In the Pits--A Jack Colby classic car mystery (7 page)

Arthur looked his full age this morning, and I wondered what on earth was coming my way. Just a request for an update on the Porsche? Coffee and croissants were on a table before him, but no sign of his having touched them himself.

‘Sit down, Mr Colby,' he said quietly and I took the armchair facing him. ‘Coffee?' He poured it with a steady hand and then there was a silence for a few minutes as I drank it and he made a token attempt at doing the same. ‘See those hills?' he eventually asked.

He was looking out at them and a fine sight they were in their early summer green, but Arthur didn't wait for any comment from me. Instead he continued, ‘I'm going to tell you why I set up Old Herne's. OK by you?'

It was, but I became even more intrigued as to the reason for this visit.

‘My father was British-born,' he told me. ‘Saw war the first time round and went to the States later. He fought on the ground and had a bad time at Messines in 1917. That's what made me choose the air. Thunderbolts, Jack. That's what I flew in World War II. Stationed at Debden in Essex, Fifty-Sixth Group. Been to the American Air Museum at Duxford, have you?'

I had, which impressed him.

‘Great building, isn't it?' he continued. ‘Thunderbolts are rare beasts nowadays, but they house one there for a private owner. I go and look at it once in a while, and go back to Debden too, but my heart's buried deep at Old Herne's.'

‘I heard you crash-landed there.'

‘Right. Summer of 'forty-three that was, mid August. Flying the new model P-47D. Ever been in a Thunderbolt?'

A rhetorical question because he swept on: ‘Monsters they were, not like your Spitfires. Joke was you could get lost finding your way round the cockpit. We were day fighters, escorting the heavy bombers – Fortresses, Liberators – and under arrangement with West Malling airfield here in Kent we could refuel there. Old Herne's was its auxiliary advance landing ground. Black Wednesday – heard of that? Bad day for the Eighth Air Force bombers over Regensburg and Schweinfurt. We fighters mostly fared better – not me though. Thunderbolts had belly tanks then which meant problems. I caught some strikes from some Focke-Wulfs – engine trouble, and I only just made it to Old Herne's. The Thunderbolts were noble beasts and I got away with only minor burns and cuts, thanks to the Crossley guys. I was taken to West Malling, and they checked me over and sorted out the Thunderbolt wreckage. I was a lieutenant, so I stayed at the Manor House – know about that?'

‘A new one on me,' I told him.

‘It was the West Malling officers' mess. Great place, flowers, lake, lawns. When you were there, you could pretend there wasn't a war on. Till the next mission, that is. It was there I met Miranda Pryde. Her voice,' he continued, ‘you'll have heard on records and film, but that was nothing to the real experience. You think Jason can sing? He can, but not like that. Miranda and her partner Ray toured, so I got them to come up to Debden once or twice and the next year I was back in Kent at the same time as they were. D-Day time, when we were trying to persuade the Luftwaffe that we were planning to attack Calais, not Normandy. Heard of the Twitch Inn?'

‘No pub of that name round here now,' I told him. I'd have remembered a name like that.

He grinned. ‘It was a nickname for the cellar at the Manor House, used for entertainment in the evenings, music, drinks – quite a place. A substitute night club. Only problem was there were no women allowed there – except for the barmaid and sometimes the singer. That's where Miranda sang. In the weeks following D-Day, I made a vow. If I got through this I'd make enough dough to do something as a memorial to Old Herne's – that's if we won the war. None too sure of that then. I wanted Old Herne's to be remembered. Over here you have your castles and churches and all that history around you. When twenty years later I heard Old Herne's was for sale, I thought I'd add to this heritage of yours by making sure the old place didn't disappear. Miranda and Ray had given up touring by that time and Mike was already addicted to racing, and so it seemed to me we could combine the two to the satisfaction of all. Mike had his Porsche and I bought that Morgan.'

‘So yesterday's tragedy must have been a personal blow, having known Mike so long.'

All this time he had been gazing out of that window but now he turned his face to me. ‘Yes. A long time, Mr Colby.'

‘Jack,' I murmured.

He nodded. ‘They all call me Arthur. Reckon that's a good name to have around these parts. Your King Arthur's supposed to have fought a battle or two in Kent.'

‘That's the legend.'

‘Where do legends spring from? Guess no one sits down and says I'll dream up a great legend today. Somewhere there's a truth hiding inside. That's why I called you here.'

I was thrown for a moment. ‘About King Arthur?'

He didn't even notice this idiocy. ‘About Mike. I'm told you're some kind of private eye.'

Tread cautiously, I thought. ‘Yes, to find stolen cars. I work with the Kent Police Car Crime Unit.'

‘The folks in the hotel say more than that. There's a story about an Auburn and a murder round these parts.'
¹

‘That's true but I'm not employed in that capacity.'

‘
I'm
employing you, Jack. Any objection?'

A mental sledgehammer hit my face. ‘For Mike's murder?'

‘Your police are good, I'm told, but it's my guess you can do what I want quicker. You can tell me what's going on. I don't care if the police get there first with the chains and cuffs. I want the background story all the way along and I want results.'

‘Hold on,' I interrupted. ‘Sorry, but this is not possible.' I had a vision of Brandon's face if he ever found out. True, he wanted me to ‘stick around' but I knew full well that was limited in scope.

‘It would clash with your police job?' he shot back at me.

‘Yes, but there's another angle that worries me more. Mike Nelson was one of the most likeable chaps I've ever met and I can't see who would want to kill him unless it's to do with Old Herne's and possibly the Porsche too.'

‘Agreed. But your Porsche job gives you a free pass to nose around Old Herne's.'

‘If,' I continued doggedly, ‘Mike's murder
is
linked to Old Herne's, that means people
you
know being involved – his family, his employees, even you as owner.' The more I thought about it, the more likely the Old Herne's angle seemed. Mike would not have been happy about a casual stranger messing around on the Crossley, nor, if he had been checking under the Crossley's bonnet, would he have asked a stranger to start her up.

‘I see where you're going, Jack,' he said quietly. ‘Go on.'

‘And therefore
your
family could be involved too.'

He looked at me. ‘Why do you think we're on our own here, Jack? And I made sure the room isn't bugged. Always do that anyway. You're a straight man, that's what I'm told, and I reckon that's what I see. I don't know who killed Mike, but I'm going to find out and I want you to help me
whatever
the result. OK by you?'

I quickly thought this through. Could I depend on him still to think this way if push came to shove? ‘With reservations,' I told him.

‘Name them.'

‘First, whether the results do or don't please you, I have to report to the police.'

‘Goes without saying,' he grunted.

‘Second, I have to tell them of any material discoveries even if they don't seem to be leading anywhere.'

‘Understood.'

‘Third—' I hesitated over this one, but I had no choice. ‘I heard you've given Old Herne's a reprieve, but I need to know more about the situation before I begin. Are you still considering closing it down, what's the legal position now, and does Mike's death affect what you're planning to do?'

I thought I'd wrapped it up well enough but he still took the point.

‘You mean am I a target?' Arthur shrugged. ‘Jack, I'm ninety years old. There's Someone up there who deals out death more efficiently than Mike's murderer and at ninety years old He already has His eye on me. Sure, I could be a target for this killer but finding him is top of the agenda, not a bulletproof vest for me. That clear?'

‘It is.'

‘So now I'll tell you about Arthur P. Howell and his ownership of Old Herne's. For your ears only, Jack.'

‘They're a safe house.'

‘We never did get on, Ray and I, right from the time we met at the Twitch Inn, and that grandson of his, Peter, takes after him. Nevertheless, as I said, when I bought the old place it seemed to me that he and Miranda would do a good job running it. Miranda did most of the work, I reckon, and when she died in 1991 Ray retired and Mike took over. His racing days were in the fifties and sixties and since then he'd had some kind of admin job in the motor racing world, but he wasn't good at business. I found that out soon enough. Too likeable, Jack.' His voice shook slightly and I quickly intervened.

‘I heard there is a trust of some sort.'

‘Yeah. There was and is. I remain owner of Old Herne's. Miranda was my trustee, looking after the management and finances, and after her death Mike took the role over. Any profits got divided up between me – as long as I was alive and kicking – and Mike.' A pause. ‘You've met his son Jason?'

‘Briefly,' I said diplomatically.

‘He's a good lad. Takes some knowing though.'

‘This must be a hard time for him. I was told he didn't get on with his father.' I had added this tentatively, as I wasn't sure how it would go down.

Arthur fixed me with a look. ‘Right, but it would have sorted itself out.'

I didn't comment. If no holds were to be barred in this investigation I needed the truth, but it was too soon to make rash judgements on how far I might have to go to find it.

‘After my death,' Arthur continued, ‘Mike would have inherited the whole lot, with the profits shared with Jason.'

‘Only, there have been no profits.' He had made no mention of his own family being included in the trust and I wondered how they regarded that. Probably, there was enough money to satisfy them without Old Herne's, but on the other hand I've noticed that the richer some people are the keener their urge to improve their lot still more.

‘Too right. Only losses,' Arthur replied. ‘So I came to a decision that the old Thunderbolt days have passed and Old Herne's couldn't go on. Glenn and Fenella have been pressing me for a long time to pull the plug and I reluctantly had come to the same conclusion. There aren't many of us veterans left now and most of the revenue comes from the classic car side. I'd see Mike was compensated and anyone else affected, but basically it was finished.'

‘But if it's a trust and Mike was in total charge,
could
you just close it down? Doesn't it work like a charity?'

‘No way,' Arthur said. ‘It's a
Revocable
Living Trust. As long as I'm alive I can change it, cancel it, sack the trustee any time I choose.'

Now I was beginning to understand, and it raised all sorts of questions. ‘You had been planning to revoke it at the lunch yesterday?'

‘That's what I came over to do, Jack.'

‘It seems to have been generally believed that it was going to close.'

‘In family and close circles, yes.'

‘So how does Mike's death change the situation?'

‘It depends on what you find out about his murder.'

The enormity of this statement left me gasping. ‘That's a big responsibility you're laying on me.'

‘I've had ninety years to discover that sometimes things don't work out. I can live with that. Can you? You'll go ahead?'

Call me crazy, but my instinctive reaction was to say yes – and so I did.

‘Then there's one more factor I have to explain. I woke up yesterday morning, looked out of the window and saw those classic cars making their way up the hill. Hundreds of them.'

This was more like it, and on Swoosh's behalf I waited hopefully.

‘The day before Swoosh, after I'd settled in at the Cricketers, I met Jessica Hart and asked her for a frank run-down on the finances. It didn't look good, and when the whole gang came over to the dinner that night I told them all that. Said I was going to sleep on it. Next morning, when I saw the cars and we drove into Old Herne's itself I knew I couldn't do it. So at lunchtime I told everyone that Old Herne's was going on. Mike would stay at least for a while and the trust would continue for the foreseeable future.'

And that, I thought, must have set a lot of emotions running riot.

‘Less than four hours later,' Arthur finished, ‘Mike was dead. Want to change your mind, Jack?'

I wanted to say yes, I wanted to say no. The no won the battle but it was a hard fought decision. Looked at in the light of this family-led situation it seemed a minefield for any outsider to enter. That must be exactly why Arthur had wanted my input – the outsider's view. I told him I'd reconsider and give him my answer tomorrow.

‘Good. After that we can talk money,' Arthur said approvingly. ‘And another thing. That Porsche. I feel as strongly about that as the Morgan. Get it back.'

Talking money is something I usually like, but today I seemed to have been hit by a sandbag. Find the Porsche? Find Mike's killer? Related search? The warning signs were flashing in earnest now. Drive on or stop right now?

I went back to Frogs Hill and stared into space for a while. Unfortunately, space provided no immediate answers. What I had learned from Arthur needed to be digested for a few hours, given that the motivation for Mike's death could well lie right there. Instead, I began the Porsche search in earnest. Hunting down a man's beloved car when he had just been murdered seemed a tasteless task, but if it was linked to his death delaying it was worse.