While still in Kingsmarkham he searched the London phone books he had for car sales, but all he could find were car body repairs, car accessory manufacturers and car hire. Then he tried ‘Edsel’ but nothing was listed. Most people these days, he thought, would investigate the Internet or go online, as they called it. Dora was better at this than he was. She told him she would Google Edsel and she did so with remarkable speed. He was surprised to find so many Edsels from 1958 to 1960 for sale. There were pictures, too, and for the first time he set eyes on one of these large – and in his eyes monstrous – vehicles, red ones, green ones, as well as a photograph of a chocolate brown leather interior. They were all for sale privately or from someone who apparently specialised in Edsels and offered them at prices ranging from $2,500 to $25,000. Prices were all in dollars and since those advertised gave their owners’ locations, the cars came from Tennessee, Georgia, Indiana and Virginia.
None of this was any use to him. None of this could help him find the identity of an Edsel owner twelve years ago. But he studied the pictures, the descriptions and the prices. These cars, for all their failure to corner the market back in the late Fifties and early Sixties, seemed to be cherished by those who owned them. One advertisement said ‘one owner, never in an accident, only 70,000 miles’ and another ‘garage kept, in perfect condition’. Unfortunately for him, you could only find out more by email. No phone numbers were given and really that was as well, considering he didn’t want to pay for God knows how many calls to the United States, and he would have to pay. He was no longer in a position to claim the cost of such calls.
But these pages of advertisements had taught him something. Edsels were valued, they had vintage standing. Back in the late Nineties the Edsel he was interested in would already have been about forty years old. Through those years someone had treasured it, kept it in a garage, nursed it, replaced spare parts and accessories. It seemed unlikely in these circumstances, very nearly impossible, that it would have ended up on a dump somewhere, to be crushed into a block of metal and disposed of. If the owner was poor, as Burton had himself suggested, he might try to sell it, he might have succeeded in selling it. It could even be one of those pictured on the site – but no, they were all in Canada and the United States. So was it still in this country? Was it still around, cherished and kept in a garage by some new owner?
After a good deal of fumbling around, losing the email page and then losing the Internet altogether, he told himself to take it slowly and be patient. Eventually he succeeded in enquiring about Edsel dealerships in the United Kingdom and asking for the name of some English expert who could help him, and when that was done, in sending his first ever email. Or he thought he had until one arrived to tell him that someone called the postmaster wanted him to know that delivery had failed. How to find out what had gone wrong? He clicked on ‘sent’ and the failed one appeared. No wonder it hadn’t gone to Jonathan Green of Minneapolis, master, apparently, of fifteen Edsels. Wexford had typed Jonathangrene@greenco.com. He tried again and this time it went.
No reply to his request could be expected, he told himself. What would this American Jonathan Green know about Edsel dealerships, if any, in England? What would he know about some English person Wexford could talk to personally rather than by encounters in cyberspace?
Sunday passed as Sundays do, quietly and emptily. Though with no commitment to churchgoing, Wexford and Dora were both affected by Sunday’s apathetic yet restless dormancy. You may phone your friends on Saturday, you won’t think twice about it, but phoning them on Sunday is an intrusion. Calling on neighbours without prior notice is an affront. Maybe even the sending of emails on a Sunday was ‘not done’. When Monday is to be all rush and activity because you have a job and a responsible one, Sunday can be appreciated as a day of rest. But what if Monday is likely to be much the same as Sunday? What then?
It might have been different, he thought, if Tom Ede had phoned. But there had been no word from him and now Wexford, who had never been in such a position before, was beginning to think it would be better for all concerned if he were to give Tom a call himself at midweek, and tell him that being his adviser wasn’t going to work out and thanks, but no thanks. During the day he looked twice at his inbox but there was nothing from Jonathan Green and he wasn’t surprised. Why would the man answer when there was no sale in it for him?
Sylvia came round in the late afternoon and brought Mary with her. Both Wexford’s grandsons were still in education, the elder away at university, the younger at school. Mary told him excitedly about her new rabbit and the hutch called a Morant hutch it lived in, one which gave it a small lawn of its own to nibble.
‘Mummy said I could name him, so I’ve called him Reginald after you, Grandad.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Wexford. ‘Does he ever get called Reg for short?’
Mary was shocked. ‘No, never.’
Dora went to look at his inbox just before they went to bed. ‘Two for you, Reg.’
‘You’ll have to call me Reginald now. After the rabbit.’
The first email was from Tom Ede, saying he hoped to see him on Tuesday. He had forgotten he had given Tom his email address, but of course he had, tentatively, along with his phone number. When Wexford saw the name ‘Jonathan Green’ he realised something. Minneapolis time would be six hours behind British Summer Time, which meant that when he sent his request it had been four o’clock in the morning there. Green had replied at nine-thirty his time. And what he said was that the only Edsel dealership he had ever heard of in Great Britain was Miracle Motors of Balham, London, but so far as he knew they had sold their last one in 2001. Wexford could try them. They might well know the location of all the Edsels in the United Kingdom.
He slept soundly that night and they set off back to London at nine next morning.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MIRACLE MOTORS WERE in the phone book. But he wouldn’t call them; he’d go there on Monday afternoon. He had paid visits to south London in the past but they had been rare. The Tube and the Northern Line were the obvious transport choice, for he had rejected the idea of driving through the traffic congestion. Miracle Motors was in the High Street, not far from Balham tube station.
By this time he had learnt quite a lot about Edsels from Wikipedia, because he had at first intended to present himself as an Edsel enthusiast. But he now saw the flaw in this, for such an expert might be expected to know more about the whereabouts of this Ford model than any salesman at the showroom. Instead, finding a girl of about twenty (something of a surprise, this) seated in a small glass-walled reception area, he simply told her the truth or half of it, that he was trying to trace an Edsel last seen in St John’s Wood about twelve years ago. Neither she nor the manager she fetched showed the least interest in what might prompt this investigation, though the manager appeared to think he was some sort of inquiry agent. In a way he was.
‘I’ve only been manager here for two years, but I can tell you we haven’t sold an Edsel for – oh, I’d say it’d be eight or nine years. Collectors buy and sell them online. This is one particular one you’re looking for, is it?’
‘It was a pale yellow colour or greenish-yellow. 1958 or 1959 – I’m guessing there. I don’t know if it was two-door or four-door. The owner or driver in 1998 seems to have been a very young man.’
The manager thought about it. ‘Your best bet may be to ask Mick.’
Wexford looked at him inquiringly.
‘Mick worked here for years. Mick Bestwood. He retired three years ago. But he knows all about Edsels. He’s even got a couple of them. He’s only just round the corner in Crowswood Road or I can give you a phone number. I’m sure he won’t mind.’