Classic Mistake (29 page)

It was all a long time ago, and yet in some ways it seemed only yesterday, now that as much of the truth as possible was known. Or was it?

‘Are you coping?’ I asked Keith at last.

‘Not quite. And you?’

‘Much easier for me. Can we talk about it?’

‘Yes, I need to.’

We walked on until we reached the new returfed site of King Egbert’s grave. ‘There’s a problem,’ I said. ‘I understand why your father wanted to bring the collection back to its rightful home, as he saw it, but if he did want to rebury it here in Egbert’s grave, why put Joannie’s body in it too? Wouldn’t that seem like defiling it?’

‘Yes. And where,’ Keith added drily, ‘
is
the collection?’

I grinned. ‘Didn’t like to mention that.’

He laughed, and all was well between us again. ‘I’m an archaeologist, Jack. It’s not a question that’s escaped my mind.’

‘Are you sure it’s not here? Perhaps just a few yards away?’

‘Ninety-nine per cent certain. This is on the ley line he worked out, and nothing comes up on the metal detectors or the rez machines or any other gadget that suggests buried metal in quantity.’

‘So as your father – we’re presuming – did bury Joannie here, what does that tell us? And what would he have done with the collection?’

Keith frowned. ‘I know this sounds weird, considering my father was almost certainly a murderer, but he was a man of the highest principles. He wouldn’t have lugged it back home – he’d have put it in Egbert’s grave and nowhere else.
Here.
’

We both stared at the ground which had nothing to show now but earth, grass and the odd clump of wild flowers of mud. Here in 673 a grave had been built for a Saxon king and his grave goods interred there, whether his earthly body was laid there in its entirety or just a token part of it.

I thought back over everything Keith had told me, and then something struck me. There seemed one last chance. ‘What about the earlier site he found when you were a child?’ I asked him.

He looked blank at first, but then saw my point. ‘He ruled that one out. He dug there with my mother, found nothing and realized they had made a mistake.’

I almost felt King Egbert was with me as I produced my nugget of gold. ‘Of course he wouldn’t have found anything, even if it
was
the right site.’

‘Explain?’ Keith looked at me as if my mind had gone AWOL. If it had, it was right back here now.

‘It was the early nineteen seventies when he dug there. The hoard was still at Crowshaw Manor, where it had lived ever since the grave goods were dug up by Sir John Martinford and carted back home.’

A short astounded silence, and then Keith let out a delighted whoop and punched the air. ‘It’s
there
,
Jack. That’s what he said to me. Not “it’s there” meaning a general it’s somewhere around. But, “It’s
there
!” I can still remember his saying it. He meant he was still convinced the grave was there. He found this other site hoping he was wrong, but it wasn’t the right one, and when he realized that the Crowshaw Collection must have been Egbert’s grave goods he knew he was right. After the quarrel, when he found he had a dead body on his hands, he wouldn’t have left her remains in the
real
site, so he opened up this one. Then he buried the grave goods in the original site.’

‘And where,’ I asked Keith quietly, ‘was that?’

He stared at me aghast. ‘I don’t know,’ he wailed. ‘I was only six years old.’

I had a horrible feeling I could see where this was going. ‘Did your father deliberately lead Tony Wilson to the wrong site?’

‘No,’ he said sadly, ‘he must just have forgotten where the original site was.’

There was nothing to be done. The Crowshaw Collection was somewhere unknown with King Egbert. As for Keith and myself, we downed several glasses in Eastry’s Five Bells pub and swore to remain chums for life.

Which left Daisy, Justin, Belinda and Melody. After the dust had settled, I invited them all (including Melody) to the May Tree Inn, which seemed a good fit. There were loose ends to consider. Melody looked wonderfully curvy as we waited for Belinda, who roared up in her wonderful Thunderbird. I took the Lagonda, to be equally sporty, and the three cars sat side by side by the green, where we could admire them as we lunched at one of the tables in front of the pub.

‘What are your plans now, Daisy?’ I asked.

‘I’ve given in my notice,’ she told me proudly. ‘It’s too dangerous working at the bakery.’

‘Afraid of being hit by a flying loaf?’

A scathing look. ‘Too dangerous for Melody. I don’t want her disappearing again, eh, Justie?’

He blushed. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

‘It was,’ I pointed out. ‘You decided to pinch her in the first place. How did Tony Wilson find her?’

‘Tony must have spotted her in the pub car park,’ Belinda replied. ‘He took her to jog Ambrose’s memory, but it didn’t work, so then he left her in that barn.’

I knew how it went from there. ‘Then I came along so it was time to lose her again, in case he’d left any fingerprints on her. He left her at Wormslea, because he didn’t want to keep incriminating evidence around; he knew it was Daisy’s car, but he didn’t know where she lived. My guess is that he decided to pinch her again after Ambrose’s death in the hope of pointing the finger of suspicion even more at Frank Watson. He even planted a lump of chalky mud in the car before dumping it outside Frank’s home. He’d already convinced Vic that Frank took the collection with him, and thought it would be a payback for Frank’s getting away scot free all that time.’

‘If he does,’ Belinda commented.

‘Not much evidence left against him now.’

Belinda looked puzzled. ‘But Tony thought that Carlos had run off with Joannie and the collection.’

‘He wouldn’t tell Vic that if he wanted to keep the lot, would he?’ Justin said brightly.

‘Hey, Justie,’ Daisy said admiringly, ‘that’s really cool. Fancy joining me for a trip in Melody?’

‘When? Now?’ Justin looked nervous.

‘I’m going on a long trip.’

‘Where?’ he asked.

‘Well, how about we start off and see where Melody wants to go?’

The look of dawning joy on Justin’s face was a pleasure to behold.

‘Better get a passport,’ Daisy added.

‘Got one.’

‘Then let’s go.’

‘Now?’ he asked again.

‘Now, baby. We’ll stop by home if you like and pick up a few things.’

Belinda and I watched with amusement. ‘Better get Len to tune Melody up first,’ I advised Daisy.

‘Oh.’ Her face fell.

‘Do it, Daisy. Melody needs it,’ Justin said firmly. ‘Then we’ll go. Tomorrow, maybe.’

She gave a beatific smile. ‘All right, Justie. If you say so. I’ll take her down now. OK by you, Jack?’

‘OK by me.’ I was going to say ‘tell Len I sent you’ but there was no point. He would do more for Daisy than me. He might even do it speedily.

The wink Daisy gave me as she obediently followed Justin was not altogether indicative of an entirely peaceful future, however.

With Melody’s welfare settled, I had Gran Fever all to myself.

‘And now, Belinda, we come to you,’ I said.

‘I rather thought we would.’

‘Who starts?’

‘I will. I did tell Josie that Melody was lost, so Tony might have kept his eyes open for her.’

‘And you began this whole farrago about Melody in the first place, didn’t you?’

She actually blushed. ‘I like Justin,’ she said defensively. ‘He’s right for Daisy but they’d never have got together if I hadn’t given things a push. So I might just have suggested he do something to show how bright he really is.’

‘Such as pretending to steal Melody. Very bright.’

‘I didn’t know it was going to end up in a crime scene! And I’d no idea Tony Wilson was looking out for a car like that. Betty had nothing to do with all this terrible business. She’s taken it very hard. Josie told me she’d taken that call from Carlos and that he’d wanted to speak to Ambrose. I did wonder what was going on, but I knew Ambrose couldn’t have killed Carlos and certainly
Josie
couldn’t have done so. She told her mother as well as the Charros about the call quite innocently, and Betty must have passed it on. Tony Wilson was a self-contained bastard. Maybe that’s what a fifteen-year-stretch does to you, or maybe he was like that all along. I reckon he rang Carlos, realizing that he was after Ambrose for cash but not knowing why. Betty didn’t know. She’s truly an innocent. She couldn’t believe her luck when her ex-boss came out of prison and married her, even though she knew she was wife number two and that Joannie still came first.’

‘Will she pull through?’

‘We’ll all help.’

‘We?’

‘The Charros, Jack. I’m sorry I had to keep mum about Frank Watson. I knew he hadn’t taken the collection – we none of us thought he had, even Betty, so we all kept quiet. She didn’t dare tell Tony he was still around because he kept his beliefs about Carlos to himself and nothing she could say would convince him that Frank didn’t have the collection or Joannie.’

‘So who did she think did take it?’

‘Joannie,’ Belinda said simply. ‘Betty thought she was a first-class bitch and had fooled everyone and gone off alone with the spoils. But Frank is a good man, Jack. He was divorced at the time of the raid and devoted to Neil.’

At last. ‘And how do you know that, Belinda?’

She could have wriggled out of it, but she didn’t. She looked me squarely in the face. ‘You win, Jack. Frank was my first husband. Neil was my son.’

I purred through the lanes in the Lagonda, relieved that the case was over. Eva was free, I had a wonderful daughter, and friends for life in Daisy, Keith – and, I hoped, Belinda. I had Len and Zoe and the Pits. This month I even had just enough money to pay the mortgage. And I had the Lagonda and the Gordon-Keeble. Who could ask for anything more? Except Louise, of course. I put her gently aside as I shifted to first gear and turned into Frogs Hill Lane.

T
he Jack Colby series was the result of a conversation during a long car journey with my car buff husband Jim, and his input then and in all Jack Colby’s cases since that time has been indispensable. For
Classic Mistake
, I also want to acknowledge the help of Dr Michael Snarey and his wife Zsuzsanna, who when Jim and I walked as complete strangers into St Mary’s Church in Eastry not only immediately welcomed us and answered questions, but gave me invaluable information on the village both then and subsequently. The fictional spin on its Anglo-Saxon history that I have built around this, including Egbert’s grave and the ley line, is my own, however. I have also to thank Lesley Feakes of the Lenham Archaeological Society, and Derek Palmer at TNL Engineering at Elstow, Bedford, who explained the intricacies of the Jowett Jupiter. I’m immensely grateful to all the above, and any mistakes would most certainly be down to me, not to the expert help I was given.

Among the written sources I have consulted are Martin Wainwright’s delightful
Morris Minor
,
William Thorne’s Chronicle of St Augustine’s Abbey Canterbury, Anglo Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, 1979, and the Archaeology of Kent to AD800,
edited by John H.Williams.

Severn House, my publishers, have as always been a pleasure to work with, and my agent Dorothy Lumley of the Dorian Literary Agency, to whom I owe so much, has once again been the rock that never fails me. Thank you both.

James Myers

Jack Colby’s daily driver: Alfa Romeo 156 Sportwagon

The 156 Sportwagon is a ‘lifestyle estate’, which means that it’s trendy, respectable to have on the drive, although it lacks the interior space of a traditional load-lugger. For those who value individuality, its subtle and pure styling gives it the edge over rivals such as the BMW 3-Series. It gives a lot of driving pleasure even with the smaller engines.

Jack Colby’s 1965 Gordon-Keeble

One hundred of these fabulous supercars were built between 1963 and 1966 with over ninety units surviving around the globe, mostly in the UK. Designed by John Gordon and Jim Keeble using current racing car principles, with the bodyshell designed by twenty-one-year-old Giorgetto Giugiaro at Bertone, the cars were an instant success but the company was ruined by supply-side industrial action with ultimately only ninety-nine units completed even after the company was relaunched in May 1965, as Keeble Cars Ltd. Final closure came in February 1966 when the factory at Sholing closed and Jim Keeble moved to Keewest. The hundredth car was completed in 1971 with leftover components. The Gordon-Keeble’s emblem is a yellow and green tortoise.

Jack Colby’s 1938 Lagonda V-12 Drophead

The Lagonda company won its attractive name from a creek near the home of the American-born founder Wilbur Gunn in Springfield, Ohio. The name given to it by the American Indians was Ough Ohonda. The V-12 drophead was a car to compete with the very best in the world, with a sporting twelve-cylinder engine which would power the two 1939 Le Mans cars. Its designer was the famous W.O. Bentley. Sadly many fine pre-war saloons have been cut down to look like Le Mans replicas. The V12 cars are very similar externally to the earlier six-cylinder versions; both types were available with open or closed bodywork in a number of different styles. The V-12 Drophead also featured in Jack’s earlier case,
Classic in the Barn.

Morris Minor 1000 post 1956

Like the VW Beetle was known in Mexico, the ‘Minor’ might have been nicknamed the ‘belly button’ because for quite a few years in Britain it seemed that ‘everyone had one’. The Minor (or ‘Moggie’ as it was affectionately known) was designed by a small team led by Alex Issigonis in the late forties. It was introduced in 1948 and soldiered on until 1971, by which time some 1.3 million had been built. Minors were available as two-door or four-door saloons, convertibles (tourers), a Traveller (wood panelled estate), and panel vans (a favourite with the GPO) as well as pick-up variants. Today, Minors are very sought after classics and are well catered for as to spare parts, restoration and even some specialist garages and dealers. The Morris Minor club is thriving, see
www.mmoc.org.uk