Classic at Bay Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by Amy Myers From Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Jack Colby’s List of Those Involved in His Latest Case:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Car’s the Star

  Recent Titles by Amy Myers from Severn House

  The Jack Colby, Car Detective, Series

  CLASSIC IN THE BARN

  CLASSIC CALLS THE SHOTS

  CLASSIC IN THE CLOUDS

  CLASSIC MISTAKE

  CLASSIC IN THE PITS

  CLASSIC CASHES IN

  CLASSIC IN THE DOCK

  CLASSIC AT BAY

  The Marsh and Daughter Mysteries

  THE WICKENHAM MURDERS

  MURDER IN FRIDAY STREET

  MURDER IN HELL’S CORNER

  MURDER AND THE GOLDEN GOBLET

  MURDER IN THE MIST

  MURDER TAKES THE STAGE

  MURDER ON THE OLD ROAD

  MURDER IN ABBOT’S FOLLY

  CLASSIC AT BAY

  A case for Jack Colby, Car Detective

  Amy Myers

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2016

  in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published 2016 in Great

  Britain and the USA by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2016 by Amy Myers.

  The right of Amy Myers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the Biritsh Library

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8608-8 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-711-1 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-772-1 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described

  for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are

  fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  Author’s Note

  Jack Colby has been working for the fictitious Kent Car Crime Unit for several years now, and Classic at Bay is his eighth recorded case. He operates at Frogs Hill near Pluckley, the former being fictitious, of course, but the latter very much the opposite. The Three Parrots club and some other locations mentioned in the story are also fictitious, but the general area of the North Downs and Greensand Ridge remain as glorious today as they were thousands of years ago.

  My thanks go to my husband, James, who both encouraged me along the way in writing this novel and runs Jack Colby’s blog for him (www.jackcolby.co.uk). I would also like to thank Adrian Turner and William Pettet for their help, and I remember with affection the late Peter Gladstone Smith, whose book The Crime Explosion was helpful in setting the scene for sixties Soho.

  The bedrock for the publication, however, is my incomparable agent Sara Keane of Keane Kataria Literary Agency, together with the wonderful team at Severn House, including Piers Tilbury, whose cover designs flag Jack’s cases off the starting grid so splendidly.

  Jack Colby’s list of those involved in his latest case:

  Jack Colby: myself, the proud owner of Frogs Hill farmhouse and classic car restoration business

  Louise: my partner in love

  Len Vickers: irreplaceable crusty car mechanic in charge of the Pits, the barn we use for car restoration

  Zoe Grant: Len’s equally irreplaceable number two

  Rob Lane: her come-and-go partner in love (not too sure about the love angle)

  Dave Jennings: head of the Kent Car Crime Unit for whom I work (on and off)

  DCI Brandon: of the Kent Police and Serious Crime Directorate

  Adora Ferne: cabaret star of the fifties and sixties

  Danny Carter: manager of her Jaguar collection

  Diane Carter and Sam: Danny’s estranged wife and son

  Sir Rex Hargreaves: former husband of Adora Ferne and Three Parrots club member

  Simon Hargreaves: son of Rex Hargreaves and Adora Ferne

  Alice and Michael Hargreaves: Simon’s daughter and son

  Charlie Dane: former husband of Adora Ferne and son of the owner of the Three Parrots club

  Melinda Dane Wilson: daughter of Charlie Dane and Adora Ferne

  Harry Gale: former husband of Adora Ferne and hopeful prospective husband

  Noel Brandon-Wright: former member of the Three Parrots club, now in a care home

  Gabriel Allyn (now Earl of Storrington): former member of the Three Parrots club

  Valentine Paston: former member of the Three Parrots club, now in a care home

  Montague Greene: actor and former member of the Three Parrots club

  Fred Fox: former gardener to and ‘admirer’ of Adora Ferne

  Blake Bishop: former ‘admirer’ of Adora Ferne

  Alan Reeve: former ‘admirer’ of Adora Ferne

  Doubler: king of the Kent car crime underworld

  ONE

  ‘Don’t go there!’

  ‘Why not?’ I had seen no earthly reason why Louise should warn me against driving over to Sussex to Downe Place. After all, it was in the interests of a paid commission to buy a classic Jaguar that personally I would drool over. So why should my beloved partner be so aghast at the idea?

  I was beginning to realize I should have paid more attention, however. Louise hadn’t been the only one to warn me. Zoe had backed her up.

  ‘Forget it,’ she had snorted. Zoe is number two to Len Vickers who runs the Pits – that’s our name for the converted barn at Frogs Hill Farm in Kent, where our classic car restorations are carried out in loving detail. The business is owned by yours truly, Jack Colby, but it’s easy to get the wrong impression, such is the single-minded devotion paid by Len and Zoe to their work.

  ‘Why?’ I had asked these two female pillars of my existence mildly as they exchanged meaningful looks.

  ‘Adora Ferne.’

  They had spoken in unison and so solemnly that I’d laughed and driven on my merry way. After all, I wasn’t dealing with that notorious lady herself but with Danny Carter, the manager of Miss Ferne’s car collection and an entirely different proposition. He was not quite so enticing perhaps, but certainly down to earth where my commission was concerned. My task would be to persuade the Right Honourable Earl of Storrington to sell his classic and rare 1937 SS 100 2.5 litre Jaguar sports car to my client. Price no object. ‘Run it by me first,’ Carter had said, ‘but there’s no ceiling. We’ve got to get it. It’s the thirteenth car.’

  Mine not to reason why, but to charge right ahead. Easy, I had thought. Now, at Downe Place, I could see there was a problem.

  ‘My answer is no,’ His Lordship told me courteously – almost anxiously, as though he were genuinely sorry to disappoint me. With a venerable classic car owner such as he to deal with courtesy was to be expected, especially as he must be nearly eighty, but there was an extra element here that seemed strange. For a start, if he was adamantly against selling the car, why had he agreed to see me?

  ‘I can understand that,’ I replied sympathetically – and honestly. The SS 100 Jaguar is a very special car, the most stylish of the pre-war models and, judging by the earl’s dwelling at Riverdowne, a hamlet near the small town of Storrington, the cash value of the car – great though it was – could hardly be a factor. Besides that, the sordid matter of money had not even arisen between us.

  I had another try. ‘Although the buyer wishes to remain anonymous, there’s a very good price on offer.’

  ‘Of that I have no doubt,’ he replied, ‘but my answer is, and always will be, no. You may tell Mr Carter that.’ A pause. ‘And Miss Ferne,’ he added.

  It was not entirely to my surprise that he either knew or had guessed correctly who was behind the offer, and I wasn’t going to fence with him. It was time to build a bridge. I longed to ask whether he knew Miss Ferne bu
t that wouldn’t be my best route. Cars would be, however. ‘Do you have other classic Jaguars, Lord Storrington?’

  ‘I do not.’

  The attempted bridge had been quietly rejected. I’d come all this way and hadn’t even seen the car. True, when I had asked Danny Carter why I couldn’t simply ring the earl, I’d been told I would be paid both expenses and time, but even so, failure is never pleasant. We were taking coffee and some very tasty biscuits in what must once have been a splendidly impressive withdrawing room in a splendidly impressive Jacobean mansion. It was still impressive, but had been adapted for comfort, and this room was a relaxed mix of antique furniture and paintings, bookcases, a small writing desk and family photographs. In one corner stood a grand piano – an old Steinway at first guess.

  Pleasant though this was, I was stumped. Should I gracefully retreat since it seemed clear that His Lordship was not going to change his mind? On the other hand, I reasoned, I had nothing to lose by prowling round this impenetrable fortress of a man, who didn’t seem antagonistic towards me personally, only to my mission. That, at least, was a relief.

  Impenetrable or not, his eyes were the gentlest I could remember seeing for a long while. Although he wasn’t a tall man, his slim, wiry figure and composure gave him a commanding presence. I had checked him out online and learned with great interest that in his younger days he was judged to be a fine poet. He had published two volumes of his work under the name of Gabriel Allyn: Private View and Shout at the Sunset. He was then a viscount as his father was the current earl, but his rank did not seem to be something on which he had traded. Most references were to Gabriel Allyn and those under his current title were mundane. I could trace nothing under the name of Allyn later than the mid-sixties, however, and I wondered what might have happened to stop the poetry. Perhaps nothing, save added responsibilities, and yet it seemed to me that the man before me would have taken those in his stride and, even if his poetry had taken a different turn, it would not have died.

  I decided to try one last shot. ‘Was the SS 100 your first car?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘First cars have emotional value all one’s life. I can understand—’

  ‘I doubt that,’ he interrupted quietly.

  The stone wall was firmly in place and it was clear I would get no further, even though His Lordship was eyeing me with a slight air of amusement. When I had arrived and pulled the bell rope at the front door of his home, he had opened the door himself, otherwise I would have wondered whether he was surreptitiously ringing bells for a butler to escort me off the premises. Instead there was an unexpected olive branch.

  ‘Would you care to see the car?’ he enquired.

  He was indeed gracious in victory, and I warmed to him. ‘I would, very much.’

  That was the understatement of the year on my part. Although there had been tentative forays into the field, the SS 100 was the SS Cars Ltd’s first triumphant production for the sports car world of the future. Correction, the SS 90 – ten miles an hour slower – had been its predecessor, but the 100 had trodden so smartly on its heels with all the small flaws ironed out and other refinements that it was reckoned the first major achievement. The year was 1937, and although Jaguar had not yet become the company name it was catching on as the name of the cars themselves. William Lyons, later knighted for his transformation of the British car scene, was hovering on the threshold of his and the company’s future starred careers.

  Not only, I reasoned happily, would I get to see this fantastic rarity, but I might get an inkling of why the earl was quite so opposed to selling it. It could be that I was overestimating the strength of his opposition and he was playing a waiting game so I would up the price before I had even mentioned one. Somehow I did not think so, however.

  The earl escorted me along a corridor that reeked of past centuries and ancestors, but our destination proved to be a very modern rear door to a paved terrace overlooking the gardens beyond, clad in all their late April, spring finery. No gardens for us, however. We were heading past them to a group of outbuildings to one side of the mansion, obviously the former stables.

  I was right. The stables and tack rooms set around the courtyard now accommodated a Land Rover, an old Bentley and a small BMW where once perhaps two carriages and half-a-dozen horses might have lived. There was no sign of the SS 100, but I was conducted to a red-brick building standing by itself beyond the courtyard with access through it. It had small windows along one side (too small for burglars lusting after any charms within). We went in the stately way through the door, however.

  And there was Danny Carter’s thirteenth car.

  Why the emphasis on that number? I wondered. Carter had seemed to attach a lot of importance to it, but the look on his face had invited no questions and I had asked none. I’d presumed that it was some whimsy about the number thirteen. Now, faced with this wondrous sight, I wished I’d pressed him, especially in view of the earl’s refusal to part with it. No reason I shouldn’t ask now, however – with care.

  Before me was a beauty with attitude for all it was nearly eighty years old. Glowing in its British racing car green, it was in perfect condition, looking as though one had only to open the door and slide in to drive into dreamland. Its forerunner, the SS 90, had disparagingly been dubbed by some ‘the poor man’s Bentley’. No such disparagement for the SS 100 when its position was consolidated by victories in the Monte Carlo Rally, club races and the International Alpine trials. Jaguar cars were here to stay.

  ‘Did you drive it a lot?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘When this car left the factory I was only just born. When I bought it second-hand I was twenty-two and so was the car. At that time the enthusiasm for what we now call classic cars had not yet spread. To us they were merely used cars, no matter how splendid they looked. In 1958 I was far from rich and bought it because I liked the look of it and I liked its age. I drove it’ – he hesitated – ‘very often.’

  ‘And since then?’

  ‘Not at all, save to keep it in good health.’

  He offered no explanation of why this should be, and I decided to save my ammunition a while longer and take the mundane approach. ‘It’s for your family to treasure,’ I said. I’d read that he was a widower, but that he had children.

  ‘I doubt they will. My son has no eye for cars. Nor my daughters.’

  With anybody else I would suspect he was putting me off, but the earl struck me as speaking nothing but the truth. His refusal to sell was therefore even more mysterious. I had to press on, however, if I was to honour my commission.

  ‘You’re resolved not to sell the car and it is indeed a beauty. So why,’ I asked, preparing to be rebuffed, ‘did you agree to see me?’

  A long pause now. ‘You come from Kent, Mr Colby. That confirmed for me who your hopeful buyer is.’

  At least he’d replied. ‘That makes a difference? Would you sell it to someone else?’ I asked.

  ‘Please tell Miss Ferne that I will never sell this car to her or anyone else. Not now, nor after my death. I am leaving instructions for it to be destroyed.’ He spoke in such a matter-of-fact way that I was jerked into protest.

  ‘Destroy it?’ That would be sheer vandalism. How could anyone do that, let alone this otherwise reasonable and intelligent man? ‘Could you not bequeath it to a museum?’

  ‘Not even that.’

  I had to suppress my rising anger. ‘Then why agree to see me and why have you kept the car for so long?’

  As he did not reply, I shot an arrow into the dark. ‘You do realize it’s the thirteenth car?’ It was a savage attack and it hit a target.

  He winced. ‘All the more reason for my refusing to sell it,’ he nevertheless replied.

  I was none the wiser but even more convinced that this car had a story behind it. Whether that story was a happy or unhappy one was not clear. What seemed to be clear was that the notorious Adora Ferne must be part of it.

  I had never met Adora Ferne and perhaps her name was not as widely known as once it was, as she would be in her eighties. To me she was famous for being notorious and yet I didn’t know a great deal about her. I knew she had been the queen of singers on the London nightclub scene in the late nineteen fifties and sixties, considered the British Edith Piaf with her own take on songs such as ‘Milord’ and ‘La Vie en Rose’, but with an astonishing range of voice and repertoire that took in ‘Hit the Road, Jack’ and ‘Are you Lonesome Tonight’, plus many of her own hits. She was also an exotic dancer and beloved of the gossip columns.