As in any emergency, everything was rapidly being organised to fit the new circumstances, and even given the grim situation, tea, coffee, and biscuits were proving popular. A smartly dressed middle-aged woman seemed to be in charge of transporting them from the main tent, now under police control, of course. First, I managed to insult this lady by assuming she owned the coffee stall now operating inside the police tent. She didn’t. Nor was she the major’s wife, my next try at being friendly. It transpired she was much more important than that. She was his secretary, and was only demeaning herself by serving refreshments as his wife was away. The lady’s name was Hilda, and from the body language, Johnnie Darling was busy chatting her up. I’ve never quite got the hang of Johnnie, but seeing him in action gave me a whole new view of him. I could see him fancying his chances with Bonnie.
Once Hilda had returned to the main tent, it was time for my go. “Sitting in the hot seat?” I asked him.
I didn’t warrant the same attention as Hilda. “What are you on about?”
“You were first in here this morning. You let the Cord in.”
“So what? He had the registration badge on the screen, plus,” he added meaningfully, “he had goggles, cap, and whatever on. It shot straight past and I never got a close look at him.”
“Easy enough.” It was with that car. He’d have been dazzled by the paint job.
“Yeah.” He gave me an inimical glare. “So if you’re asking me whether registrant number two-twenty-four had a corpse in the back, I didn’t look. I’m not a bloody customs officer. He’d got the badge, he was in. Anyway, I was looking at the car. Not often you see a Cord, and especially not one painted like that.”
“Too right,” I agreed again, and he began to look more friendly. “How well did you know Bonnie?”
Friendliness vanished. “Not that way. I fancied her, but when she found out I’d no money, she dumped me and moved on.”
No money? Pull the other one, I thought. Johnnie was comfortably off, and he drove an impeccably restored Porsche 356 Cabriolet.
“Who did she fancy?”
A laugh. “Went home with a different chap each time. That brother of hers brought her to the events, but she left under somebody else’s steam. Bloody pimp, he was.”
Pimp left an unwelcome taste in my mouth. “Was Mick Clyde her brother?”
“No idea. Assumed so. If they were an item, he’d have kept her in check. And he’d have taken her home with him. No, she was on the make and so was he. Always asking me who was booked up for the shows. So I told her flat, I run a car-show company, not a knocking shop.”
“Be charitable,” I said, nettled. “Maybe it was the cars interested her.”
“Yeah. But rich owners are good, too.”
Bonnie’s ghost stirred indignantly inside my mind. Johnnie seemed at great pains to separate himself from her. And having Hilda as a friend at court could be useful for Johnnie too. The more one knows about the local bigwigs, the better, especially the ones who own classics.
Which reminded me of the major, who I could see was still steaming, whether over his car or at the shock of finding Bonnie in it. He was stomping around the perimeter of the crime scene, talking to anyone inside it who came near him. I decided he could talk to me too, so I went over to him. He stopped stomping and took up a military “at ease” pose.
“Bad business,” I began casually.
He cast me a scathing look and didn’t bother to reply. “Why bring the poor girl’s body here?” I asked.
He did deign to reply to this. “Obvious, isn’t it?”
To me it wasn’t, so I just waited, guessing he’d be keen to tell me.
“That car’s rare. I’d reported the theft, so it would be recognised whatever colour some nincompoop had painted it. The VIN number would be checked right away. Whoever stole it couldn’t get rid of it and decided to dump it back here for me. Sheer spite.”
“And the body? Do you think Bonnie was the thief?”
“Can’t have been. She’s dead. Ghastly business.”
“That doesn’t rule out her being the thief,” I pressed on chattily. “They say her name’s Eva Crowley. She was probably working with an accomplice.”
“There you are, then. He dumped it back here, and her too.”
It was possible. But who was it? Mick? Johnnie? Or the major himself, although I couldn’t see his bad temper going as far as murder. As motives go, a desecrated car wouldn’t be worth risking that, however mad he was. Once he’d seen the car at the show, he would simply have called the police and forked out for the repaint with a lot of teeth-gnashing.
When I got back to the tent again, a newcomer had joined the company — someone I recognised. It was Mick Clyde himself, straight from a grilling by Dave, from all accounts. It turned out he’d checked in at the new site half an hour ago and immediately been whisked off courtesy of Dave, first to suffer Mulligan’s tender mercies, and then back to Dave’s. He was a good-looking young man of about thirty, but he had a sullen look about him as though life hadn’t been treating him fairly. It hadn’t, given that Bonnie must have been close to him, whatever their relationship had been. The sullenness had more to do with temperament, I thought, than with the shock he must be going through. Unless, of course, he was Bonnie’s killer.
“Bad time?” I asked sympathetically, as one interviewee to another. “That Mulligan makes you feel guilty even if you’re not.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “Johnnie Darling says you work with the cops.”
“I do, but that doesn’t make me a cop myself. Stolen cars are my line, not murder.”
He gave me a long hard look. “That why you’re here? Car stolen, was it?” He was making an effort to be casual.
“Yes. Certainly looks in need of restoration.” Mistake.
“So will you be if you don’t lay off me. Get it?”
I did, although this response seemed over the top. “Most amusing. Look, I’m really sorry about Bonnie.”
The sullenness lifted slightly. “Yeah. Only found out when I got here. The Old Bill pounced on me.”
“I’ve seen you arriving with Bonnie at shows.”
“If it’s anything to do with you, mate, which it isn’t, she was supposed to come with me today. Never turned up, so I thought she’d changed the plan. Bloody mobile was on voicemail so I waited awhile and then came along. I don’t trust her with that Johnnie Darling. Slimy bastard.”
Was this a case of the pot calling the kettle black, as the saying goes? Interesting, given Mick’s reactions to my fairly innocuous comments.
When we were finally released I drove home to Frogs Hill Farm in pensive mood. There’s nothing like a Gordon-Keeble for gliding peacefully along the road letting one’s blood pressure settle down. All sorts of ideas float through my mind, storing themselves up in a garage in my brain, until I’m ready to drive them out and examine them more closely. Today was no exception.
I live at Frogs Hill Farm on my own, but next morning the Frogs Hill Classic Car Restorations team would turn up for work. I wouldn’t dare refer to them as staff. Zoë Grant and Len Vickers are far too superior for that. To them I’m merely the apprentice in the workshop. Len and Zoë make a good partnership. Len’s been a car mechanic since the year dot and Zoë is a dedicated young worker bee. She has orange spiky hair, wears tattered old jeans and T-shirts, and thinks the inside of a car is paradise. She and Len operate with medical precision: Len the surgeon, Zoë his backup. Their diagnostic powers stretch to more than cars, as they are pumped full of knowledge about the automobile world.