‘Hm.’ He gave her a look of amused scepticism. ‘So, it’s just out of general curiosity that you want to know how easy it is to sabotage the gearbox of a Triumph Tr6?’
‘Yes.’
‘From your well-known fascination with 1970s Triumphs?’
‘Of course.’
Her defiant response made Adrian’s grin spread wider. Carole looked away, or she would have found herself grinning too. Which would have been most unlike her.
‘All right,’ said Adrian. ‘How technical do you want me to be?’
‘As untechnical as possible, please. Pretend you’re talking to someone who knows nothing about cars and has no interest in them.’
‘“Pretend”?’ he echoed, and Carole could suppress her grin no longer. He continued, ‘All right, here we go. There would be slight differences according to the spec of the vehicle but I’m assuming you’re not particularly interested in that.’
‘You assume correctly.’
‘OK. One end of the gearbox is bolted on to the engine with six or maybe eight heavy-duty bolts. If those had all been removed, there’s no way someone in an inspection pit or under the vehicle on a ramp wouldn’t notice. So, I think it’s unlikely that would be the way it was done … if we are acting on the assumption that someone had sabotaged the car.’
‘For the purposes of this exercise, we are.’
‘Right. Now at the other end of the gearbox, which would probably have an overdrive attached, it’s held in place by two heavy-duty bolts, which also go through a rubber plate which acts as a kind of shock-absorber. Removing it under normal circumstances would involve setting up some harness or a small hydraulic lift to take the weight, undoing those two bolts, as well as the ones attaching it to the engine, and lowering the gearbox from the vehicle.
‘But, if I was thinking like a cold-blooded killer, wanting to booby-trap the car and use it as a murder weapon …’
‘Please think like that, Adrian.’
‘Very well. Then I would loosen one of those bolts – the ones that go through the rubber plate – completely, and the other one almost completely, so that the minute it’s touched, this whole heavy mass of metal comes crashing down on whoever is unfortunate enough to be underneath it.’ Adrian looked at her with a lopsided grin. ‘Is that too technical for you, Carole?’
‘No,’ she breathed with satisfaction. ‘It’s perfect. And would it require a lot of strength or advanced mechanical knowledge to do that?’
‘Not a lot of strength if you’ve got the right tools, which a garage like Shefford’s definitely would have. And not much advanced mechanical knowledge. Anyone who’d spent time working around cars would know how to do it.’
‘Ah.’
‘That was a very profound, sleuth-like “Ah”, Carole.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘I would. So now, I suppose, from my minimal reading of crime fiction, you make a list of suspects who might have had the technical expertise … and opportunity … to sabotage the Triumph Tr6 on top of Bill Shefford’s inspection pit.’
Carole felt a little taken aback. She was used to having such conversations with Jude and not with anyone else. And yet the idea of discussing the ‘case’ (as she found herself thinking of it) with Adrian Greenford was not without its attraction. Like her friendship with him, it felt exciting and slightly daring.
‘Well, I suppose we could do that,’ she conceded. ‘You start.’
‘I don’t know much about the opportunity side of it, who would have access to the garage, who’d have keys, so that they could set up the booby-trap when the premises were closed … which I guess is the way it would have been done.’
‘If it were done,’ Carole cautioned him.
‘If it were done,’ he repeated piously. ‘My guide in these matters is what I hear in the Crown and Anchor.’
‘A very unreliable source of information.’
‘I’m sure it is, Carole.’
‘In fact, for the engendering of fake news, Barney Poulton and his cronies could give both the Russian and American intelligence services a run for their money.’
‘Right.’ Adrian grinned. ‘From this very unreliable source then, two names emerge. One is obviously Billy Shefford. It’s common knowledge that he had had conflicts in the past with his father over the future of the garage. He sounded off in public on many occasions about how the old man was dragging his feet about making the changes that were needed in the business. Also – and this was from Barney Poulton, so is doubly suspect – there is a suggestion that Billy wanted his father out of the way before he had time to change his will in favour of his second wife.’
‘And do we know that was the case? What the provisions of his former will were and whether he had yet changed it?’
‘No, of course we don’t. As I said, the source of this suggestion is Barney Poulton, none of whose theories are ever backed up by the thinnest wisp of research. But let me say that, though there is a kind of logic that fingers Billy as chief suspect, it is not a suggestion that finds much support in the Crown and Anchor.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Billy’s a regular there. All the other regulars are his mates. And they’re not going to grass up one of their own. Besides, and this is a slightly more compelling argument, he’s been so public about his criticism of his father. Everyone in the Crown and Anchor has heard him whingeing on about the old boy. The general view is that someone planning to commit murder would be a little less vocal about the shortcomings of his proposed victim.’
‘That’s quite a good point. And the Crown and Anchor’s second suspect?’ Carole knew the answer, but she didn’t want to volunteer more names until she had heard in full the wisdom of the pub’s regulars.
‘Well, of course, it’s the new wife, isn’t it? Malee.’
‘Have you met her?’
‘Yes, I have. Yes. Very briefly.’ He seemed about to say more but changed his mind. ‘I’m afraid with someone like her, you don’t see the attitudes of an English country village at their best. From what I’ve observed, Fethering seems to distrust newcomers, even if they’ve only come from as far away as Fedborough. So, when you’ve got someone all the way from Thailand … and that someone marries a well-loved local, whose first wife Valerie was very popular in the village … Did you ever meet her, by the way, Carole?’
‘No. I think she must have died before I started living down here full-time.’
‘Ah. Well, anyway, in the Crown and Anchor’s favourite scenario, Bill Shefford had changed his will, leaving everything to Malee.’
‘This is based on the same amount of knowledge of the facts as supported the thesis that he hadn’t yet changed it?’
‘Identical. And that meant, of course, that she had the perfect motive to kill her husband … so that she would inherit everything … which was the only reason she married him in the first place.’
‘I see.’
‘But making Malee the prime suspect is not just racism and distrust of the outsider, though there’s plenty of that. The clincher for the Crown and Anchor Major Incident Team is that she had apparently been taking evening classes in car maintenance. I don’t know if that’s true …?’
‘It is.’
‘Ah. Case proved then. Why would Malee want to take evening classes in car maintenance except to learn how to sabotage a Triumph Tr6 so that its gearbox falls and kills her husband?’
‘I can think of a good few reasons.’
‘So can I. But we are perhaps a little less blinkered than the Crown and Anchor Major Incident Team. So far as they’re concerned, Malee did it and should be instantly arrested. End of story.’
‘Hm.’ Carole took a sip of her Americano. It had gone cold during their recent conversation. ‘And the Crown and Anchor aren’t considering any other suspects?’