Peddling drugs is a serious offence, as serious as it gets, and some people believe that tobacco is as pernicious as any. Jeff Caton posed as a buyer of King Edwards and brought their advertiser back in with him. We sat him in a cell for an hour and decided to let him off with a caution, this time. Selling tobacco isn’t illegal but importing cigars, other than for your own consumption, is. He’d brought a thousand back from Spain and was a non-smoker.
I put on my jacket, straightened my tie, and went downstairs to give him his bollocking, arranging my expression to one of suitable solemnity. He stood to make about a tenner per box of fifty, which would give him a grand profit of two hundred pounds. Somehow, I just couldn’t take it seriously. I told him that he was robbing the exchequer of their cut, reminded him that if he was prosecuted we could seize his assets, and suggested he didn’t waste my time again.
“What about the rest of the cigars?” he asked. He was a real professional.
“How many do you have left?”
“Four boxes.”
“Well put them on the compost heap.”
Somerset Bob had left a message for me when I arrived back in the office. I tried his number but he’d gone out. “After the Eileen Kelly attack,” I asked him, when we finally crossed wires on Wednesday afternoon, “was the information released that you were looking for a Jaguar?”
“Um, not sure,” he replied. “I’ll have to check the cuttings. Why do you need to know?”
I told him about my little talk with Silkstone. “He clammed up as soon as I mentioned the mascot, as if he knew it had been a mistake. If he saved it, afterwards, we never found it when we searched his house.”
“I’ll check. Want to know what I’ve dug up?”
“Yes please.”
“OK,” he began. “I’ve checked his insurance records and discovered a bit about the accidents. It wasn’t easy — they’ve had several take-overs since the time we’re talking about. The Jag was written off and sent to the crusher. Apparently it was vandalised after the accident and set alight. The MGB went to somewhere called Smith Brothers Safe Storage, which is one of those places where insurance cases are stored until a settlement is made. They’re at Newark. Silkstone’s occupation is down as area manager with a company called Burdon Developments and he covered the Midlands, which is probably why he was over there.”
“Bet it wasn’t his fault,” I said.
“No,” Bob agreed. “He was dead unlucky. An old lady stepped off the pavement right in front of him and he skidded on loose gravel avoiding her. Lost control and sideswiped a telegraph pole.”
“Another write-off?” I asked.
“No, the electricity board straightened it up and dabbed some creosote on and it was as good as new.”
“That’s a relief. And what about the MG?”
“Oh, that was a write-off. Bent the chassis beyond repair.”
“It could happen to anyone. Have you taken it further?”
“Haven’t managed to raise anyone at Smith Brothers, but I’ll keep trying.”
“Do that, please, Bob,” I told him. “Who knows, somebody may have bought the wreck and rebuilt it. We’re getting warm, I can feel it.”
Nigel had a date with a sister from St James’s, so he wasn’t at the Spinners that evening. I assumed he meant the hospital, but with my luck she’d probably be from a convent of the same name. Dave brought Shirley to make up the number, and we sat looking miserable, hardly speaking. On the Saturday they were taking Sophie and her belongings to Cambridge in a hired Transit, hence their gloom. I had no excuse. I told them that Annette and I had decided not to have a future together, but didn’t mention her other boyfriend; the one with the two daughters. I said that she wanted to stay with the CID and being linked romantically with the boss might not be a good career move. They made sympathetic sounds and Shirley said: “Oh, Charlie, what are we going to do with you?”
I smiled, saying: “Looks like I’ll just have to wait for Sophie getting her degree,” and was rewarded with a growl from Dave as he picked up his glass. I’d touched his weak spot.
Bob rang me in the middle of Thursday morning, in a state of high excitement. “The Smiths’ve still got records, Charlie,” he told me, “after all these years. I talked to the son of the original proprietor. He found the file, eventually, and it said that the MGB was sold as scrap to someone called Granville Burgess-Jones, who owns a small motor museum just outside Newark. He’s a regular with them, builds and restores vehicles. Sometimes they’re not always roadworthy, or might not have an engine in, but they look good. Most of them are just for show. We might be in with a chance, Charlie. You know what these collectors are like — never throw anything away. If the bonnet wasn’t damaged,” he gushed, “he might still have it.”
“That’s fantastic,” I agreed. “Any chance of you getting over there?”
“It’s a bit awkward for me,” he began, “and you’re quite a lot nearer…”
“I understand, Bob,” I told him. “Give me all the names and numbers and leave it with me.”
“There’s a couple of other things.”
“Go on.”
“Well, after the Eileen Kelly assault we issued a statement saying that her attacker drove a dark sports car, possibly a Jaguar, so Silkstone would have known what we were looking for.”
“And destroyed the mascot.”
“Exactly.”
“Mmm. Did you say a couple of things?”
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking. Even if we find the actual bonnet, it won’t have a serial number on it, or anything. The only link between it and Silkstone is the paperwork. It’s vital we maintain the integrity of that.”
“God, you’re right,” I told him. “Good thinking. OK, here’s what we do. I’ll set off for Newark in about, oh, an hour. Any chance of you ringing the local police and having someone meet me at the Smith Brothers’ yard, just to witness things? It’ll take me about two, two and a half hours to get there.”
“No problem. Good luck, and let me know what you find.”
“Thanks, Bob, you’ll be the first to know. Meanwhile, I’ve another job for you. Put it all down in writing, particularly this conversation. Make it read as if we have a hypothesis, and all we have to do to prove it is examine the bonnet of that MG. That’s what our entire case revolves around.”
Five minutes with the map can save you fifty on the road. I just made that up. It needs working on, but it’s true. Head for the M1, A57 at J31 and then the A1 down into Newark. Smith Brothers were on a trading estate on the south side, as you left town, I was told. I memorised the route and set off.
I reached my destination half an hour earlier than expected thanks to clear roads and a reckless disregard of speed limits, but I was still overtaken by a procession of expensive cars on the motorway, heading for the next appointment. They can’t all have believed that they’d be able to sweet-talk the traffic cops because they were on their way to nail a murderer, but they drove as if they did.
I lost the half-hour looking for the yard. It was well outside town, at an old World War II bomber station, and the business was based on the storage capacity of three huge hangars. There were wrecked cars everywhere: piled in heaps outside; stacked neatly on pallets inside. Multicoloured conglomerates of twisted metal, chrome and glass; each one, I thought, bringing misery to someone. About ten people a day are killed on our roads, dotted about the country like a mild case of chicken pox, but this was where the evidence came together in one great sore. Some were hardly damaged, awaiting the assessor’s go-ahead to repair; others — many of them — were unrecognisable, and you knew that people had died in there. Once these hangars had housed the bringers of carnage, now they housed the results. A corner was reserved for bent police cars, gaudy in their paintwork but strangely silent, like crippled clowns. Wandering down the first aisle, between the neatly shelved wrecks, I saw abstract images, paintings and photographs, everywhere I looked. I tore myself away and knocked at the office door.
A uniformed PC was inside, drinking tea with a man in a blue shirt and rainbow tie. A woman in a short skirt with a ladder in her tights, a small-town siren, was typing in the corner. “DI Priest,” I announced to all present, “Heckley CID. Hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
The PC stared at me, open mouthed, and the man in the shirt coughed into his hand. “Lost your tongue?” I asked the PC.
“No, er, Sir,” he mumbled, reaching for his hat.
“Never mind that,” I said, turning to the other person and asking: “Mr Smith, is it?”
“Um, yes,” he replied uncomfortably.
“Good. I understand you have some records for an MGB that was brought into here back in 1982.” I told them the registration number and continued: “A colleague in Somerset has rung you, hasn’t he?”
The PC unwound himself from the chair and stood up. He was only about twenty-two, but even taller than me. “Could I, er, see your ID, Sir, if you don’t mind, please?”
“Sure.” I already had it in my hand. He took it from me, studied it carefully, then said: “Oh, heck.”
I pushed some papers to one side on a desk against the opposite wall and perched my backside on a corner of it, saying: “I think you’d better tell me all about it.” I folded my arms in the pose of a patient listener and waited, except my patience was rapidly evaporating.
“I’ve just arrived, Sir,” the PC stated, and introduced himself. “I came straight here when I received the message, but thought I must have missed you. Mr Smith had better explain.”
I turned to Mr Smith. When Bob had described him as the son of the proprietor I’d immediately formed an image of a young man barely out of college, but he was probably in his late forties. Another reminder of the passing years.
“Well,” he began. “I, er, received this telephone call, yesterday, I believe it was, from the police about the MG. Nothing new in that, it’s always happening, except usually it’s about something that came in recently, not twenty years ago. I said that we kept all the record cards and that we would probably have it somewhere if he gave me the dates.” He turned to the woman, who had stopped typing and was listening to our conversation. “Glynis here found it, didn’t you, duck?”
“Got black bright,” she complained. “It’s filthy in there, that far back.” She was wearing false eyelashes that a Buddhist monk could have raked the gravel with.
“And then what?” I asked.
“I was saving it,” Smith continued, “here in my drawer. He rang me again this morning. Twice, in fact. First time I told him we’d found the card, second time he said that you,” — he showed me the pad he kept alongside his telephone, with my name written on it — “would be calling to collect it. Then, about five minutes later, this man came in. Blimey, I thought, that was quick. Thought he’d said you’d be coming down from Yorkshire. This feller asked about the MG, gave me the number, and I said: ‘Are you DI Priest?’ and he said he was, so I gave him the card.”
“Can you describe him?” I asked.
“Well, he wasn’t very tall. Didn’t look like a cop, now you mention it. Dark hair, slim build, wore a leather raincoat.”
“I know him,” I said. “He’s a reporter.”
“A reporter!” Glynis exclaimed, clasping her hand to her mouth, as if I’d announced that the Son of Beelzebub had walked amongst them. I couldn’t imagine what she might have told him.
“Did you ask for a receipt for the card?” I asked.
“No, I’m sorry,” he replied.
“Or make a photocopy?”
“No, sorry. After all these years…”
“Nothing for you to be sorry about, Mr Smith,” I interrupted. “You were trying to be helpful and he took advantage. That’s how he earns his living. He definitely said he was me, did he?”
“Yes. I said: ‘Are you DI Priest?’ and he said: ‘Yes, that’s right,’ just like I told you.”
“Can you remember what it said on the card?”
“No, not really, except that I remember telling the other policeman, the one who rang, that Mr Burgess-Jones had bought the MG from the insurance company. He’s at Avecaster, on the Sleaford road, about fifteen minutes from here. Has a museum of vintage and classic cars. Used to buy a lot of stuff from us, but not so much these days.”
“OK,” I said, “here’s what I’d like you to do. Our young friend here,” — I gestured towards the PC — “will take a statement from you, putting in writing exactly what you’ve just told me, and anything else you remember. I’ll be grateful if you could do that for me.”
“Yes, glad to,” he agreed.
I stood up to leave. “And Glynis can make a contribution, if she has anything to add. Towards Sleaford, did you say?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s just off the A17,” the PC explained.
“Then that’s where I’m headed.”
It’s a different landscape to the one I live in: kinder to its inhabitants but two-dimensional and undemanding. Neat and fertile fields stretch away into the distance, outlined by lush trees, and in every direction a church steeple punctures the sky. Underneath the signpost pointing to Avecaster was one for Cranwell, home of the famous RAF college. I’d considered going there, once upon a time. The thought of roaring up and down the countryside in the latest fighter plane, silk scarf blowing in the wind, had a great appeal to me, but they changed the uniform and I lost interest. Avecaster was a typical Lincolnshire village: yellow stone houses; ivy-clad walls and an understated air of prosperity. Close-cropped verges fronted walled gardens. In the main street the houses crowded the road but on the outskirts they stood back from it: some quite modest; others with stable blocks jutting out to balance the triple garage at the other side. Mr Granville Burgess-Jones and his museum were at Avecaster Manor, probably known locally as the Big House. The gates were open so I drove in.
It was a respectable driveway, curving and lined with ornamental chestnut trees to hide the house until the last dramatic moment. A sign pointed left to the museum and car-park, with the information that it was only open at weekends and bank holidays. I went straight on, through an archway in a high wall, to where I could see several parked vehicles.
Denver’s car was parked at the end of the line and I turned towards the space alongside it, gravel crunching under the tyres, making the steering feel heavy and imprecise. Away to the right a group of people turned to see who the new arrival was.
I was in a courtyard, with the house facing me and outbuildings down the adjacent sides. The sun was out and I felt as if I’d wandered on to the set of Brideshead Revisited. Denver had reversed into his parking place, but I drove straight in, so my driver’s door was next to his. Why people reverse into parking places mystifies me, unless it’s so they can make a fast getaway. I climbed out and stretched upright. The little group of them — I counted six — were still looking towards me, over the roofs of the other cars in the line. Denver was there, and so was Prendergast, which was a surprise. I didn’t know the others.
I glanced down into Denver’s car and saw his mobile phone on the passenger seat, plugged into the cigar lighter to have its battery recharged. I also noticed that his keys were dangling from the ignition lock. It’s a funny thing about Fords. Because of the activities of some of the younger members of our society, they, along with all the other manufacturers, have spent millions of pounds trying to protect our beloved vehicles against theft. War, they say, brought about vast improvements in the field of aviation. Little scrotes like Jamie What’s-his-name initiated the development of the car alarm and immobiliser, thus creating thousands of jobs in the security market. Thanks to him and his friends, the key I held in my right hand had a minute electronic chip built into it. It would only open a lock that had a certain combination of signals, and there were two hundred and fifty thousand possible combinations. My mind boggled at the thought of it. A thief had a 1-in-250,000 chance of his key starting my car, which made the odds against him guessing my pin number and emptying my bank account, at a mere 1-in-9,999, look a good bet.
What they don’t tell you is that any Ford key will lock any Ford car. When it comes to locking the car, they’re all the same. It was Sparky’s sixteen-year-old son, Danny, that told me that. His dad had just bought an Escort, and Danny bet me a pound that his dad’s key would lock my car. I lost the bet. That’s what they teach them at school, these days.
The little group were still looking my way. Without taking my eyes off them I felt for the lock of Denver’s car with the tip of the key for mine. Years of practise, opening the car day after day, give you an instinct for it. The key slipped home and I turned it away from the steering wheel. I heard the whirr of electric motors and the chunk of the bolts slamming across as a glow of satisfaction welled up inside me. Denver was locked out, and that was the best quid I’d ever lost.
Two of them were TV people. Freelancers, armed with cameras and sound equipment and presumably hired by Denver. The other two were wearing blue overalls with Avecaster Motor Museum embroidered on the breast pocket. The taller of them had a gaunt face and was puffing on a cigarette stub, the other had a handlebar moustache and the complexion of an outdoor man who enjoys a tipple. The type who never hunts south of the Thames nor services the wife in the morning in case something better presents itself in the afternoon.
“Mr Burgess-Jones?” I asked.
“That’s right,” he replied. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure…”
“Detective Inspector Priest, of Heckley CID.” I looked beyond him. “And that,” I added, “is presumably the lady who brought us all here.”
It was the MG, standing there gleaming in the sun. Flame red, black and chrome, pampered and aloof, like a thoroughbred at Crufts or Ascot. She looked good.
“The police, did you say?” Burgess-Jones was asking.
“Yes Sir. I’m afraid you’ve been mixing with some bad company.” I turned to the others and pointed at Denver. “This gentleman here is under arrest for impersonating a police officer and interfering with an investigation. He also impersonates a journalist, but that’s not an offence. And this gentleman…” I looked at Prendergast, “…is a solicitor.”
Everybody spoke at once. Denver wanted to know why he was under arrest, Prendergast didn’t know why he had been invited and Burgess-Jones was completely bewildered. I raised a hand to silence them. “I don’t know what you were planning to do,” I told them, “but whatever it was, it’s off. That car is evidence in a murder investigation and I am seizing it.”
“Hey man,” one of the TV people said. “We still want paying, y’know.” He looked like one of the guitarists from Grateful Dead.
“The question is,” Denver stated, “what will you do with the car?”
“We’ll take it away and give it a thorough examination,” I replied.
“For holes in the bonnet,” he said, “where you say Silkstone fitted the Jaguar mascot?”
“That’s right.”
“In secret, and you’ll fix it to suit your own ends.”
“That’s not true. Everything will be done in the presence of independent witnesses.”
“Rubbish! You’ll rig it.”
I ignored him and turned to Burgess-Jones. “I’d be grateful, Sir,” I said, “if you could move the car back into its garage until I can arrange for it to be either collected or examined here. You’ll be fully compensated for any damage done to it.”
“Not my problem,” he replied. “Just sold it to Mr Denver for a very good price. It’s his, now.”
Denver smiled smugly. I resisted the urge to thump him and walked over to the MG. A Black and Decker angle grinder lay on the ground in front of it, ready to do business, with a bright orange cable snaking off into an outbuilding. I stooped to look inside the car and saw a thick photo album sitting on the passenger seat. “Is that a record of the restoration?” I shouted to Burgess-Jones.
“That’s right,” he replied, strolling towards me. “We do a full photographic history of the entire process.”
“You built this car from two others, I believe.”
“Yes. This one had a damaged front end, so we grafted the front of the other on to it.”
“Is it roadworthy?”
“I think our work would be frowned upon now, but at the time it was common practise. We’ve never tried to register it.”
“Do the pictures show the other car at all?”
“Oh yes. It’s all there.”
“Was the bonnet from the other car? It’s only the bonnet we’re interested in.”
“It looks like it. It was a green one, so we must have resprayed it. I vaguely remember, but not the details.”
“Will there be any evidence of the original colour still there?” I asked.
“I would imagine so,” he replied. “We’d fully strip all the top surfaces, but not underneath. The green paint should still be there, under the red, if it is the bonnet from the second car.” The paintwork was superb, glowing like rubies in the afternoon sun. He obviously employed a craftsman.
Denver had joined us. “So let’s do it,” he suggested.
Grateful Dead shouted: “Look, you guys. We appreciate being here, an’ all that, but we got places to go. Are we doing the fuckin’ shoot, or what?”
“What’s Prendergast doing here?” I asked Denver.
“I invited him.”
“Why?”
“Because I decided to. We’re not a police state yet, you know.”
“You mean because you’d also invited Silkstone.”
“So what. He’s a right to be here.”
“And it would have made a better story. Statements all round, from the injured party and his hot-shot lawyer. So where is he?”
“Don’t know. Should have arrived an hour ago. We thought you were him.”
“I’ll tell you where he is. Collecting whatever money you paid him and waiting for a ferry to warmer climes. The next time you see Silkstone he’ll have a coat over his head.”
“So let’s do it then, if you’re so sure.”
“We’re doing nothing. Go home. The show’s over.” I shouted it, for the benefit of everyone: “That’s it folks. Go home, the show’s over.”
“So what’ll happen to the car?” Denver demanded.
“I’ve told you. We’ll have it examined.”
“So why not do it now? You’ve got independent witnesses. There’s Mr Burgess-Jones, and Mr Prendergast. What more could you want? And the crew can film the whole thing. What are you scared of, Priest? The truth? That you’re hounding an innocent man? Or are you just scared that you won’t be able to fix it, like you did when you shot someone?”
“It’s the truth I’m after, Denver,” I told him. “I’m not interested in a media circus and all this the public’s right to know bullshit that you hide behind.”
“Then do it.”
“When we do it we’ll do it properly, in the presence of a magistrate.”
Burgess-Jones coughed and took a step forward. “Um, I’m a JP,” he announced. “Been on the bench twenty-three years, if it’s any help.”
The expression painted himself into a corner flashed up in my mind. Strange thing was, Denver was right. This was the perfect opportunity to put the hypothesis to the test. The big problem was that if I was wrong, it was in public. I wouldn’t have twisted the evidence in any way, but I’d have sneaked off like a defeated stag and licked my wounds in private. What was my chief concern: the truth about Silkstone and the car, or my reputation? I remembered Sophie, and how I’d been scared to ask the right questions because I’d doubted her. Was I doubting myself, now? Everybody was looking at me.
“OK,” I said. “We’ll do it.”