Classic at Bay Read online

  Danny took this dismissive statement amiss. ‘A high-class club, it was. Madam’s second home. She made it famous.’

  ‘Do any of the cars here stem from those days?’ I guessed that several did.

  ‘If you’re thinking that their owners are planning to pop over here and torch the place, most of them are over eighty now. Not likely, is it?’ he said in tones that indicated the matter was closed.

  I decided to wind him up again. ‘There were such things as gangs around then that took on commissions like that.’

  ‘You telling me there aren’t no gangs now?’

  ‘No.’ I thought of Doubler, the car crime king around these parts with whom I’d clashed on one occasion. Still, I saw Danny’s point, although the idea of the Earl of Storrington or any other fifties’ revellers contacting Doubler or any other villain to burn down the Lair was farfetched, as was their taking a spin over to Kent to murder a former sweetheart. Nevertheless, someone had it in for both Adora and the Lair, so I wasn’t going to dismiss the notion out of hand.

  ‘Which of the Jags are from Miss Ferne’s former husbands?’ I asked him.

  He didn’t have a chance to answer even if he’d been willing to, because to my surprise I heard the Land Rover drawing up outside and shortly after Adora appeared through the doorway, her flamboyant dancing skirt twirling with each step. Harry was hot on her heels.

  ‘I changed my mind,’ she said happily. ‘I decided I wanted to talk to you again, dear Jack. Have you finished the tour? I do hope not.’

  Harry lumbered menacingly up to us, as though I were going to whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

  ‘No, madam. Just about to begin,’ Danny told her.

  ‘Excellent. So I’ll take over. Look, Jack, at this XK 150. Darling Rex gave me this. Sweet of him. A divorce present in 1969.’

  The silver two-seater sports coupé was a 1957 model and I could see the red badge commemorating Jaguar’s success at Le Mans. I could also see the photo of a lean-faced, watchful Rex holding on possessively to a younger Adora at what looked like a theatre premiere. This car was a favourite of Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable, so maybe he was hoping he could work the same magic.

  ‘Rex was my first real husband,’ she continued.

  ‘Real?’ I queried, hooked by this notion that husbands could also be unreal.

  ‘I told you the first passed out of my life so speedily he didn’t count.’

  Count for what? I wondered. Even Danny looked disapproving at this rapid disposal of spouses.

  ‘He’s Sir Rex Hargreaves now, of course,’ Adora continued. ‘We were married for five years. What a time we had of it in this entrancing little car. Only a two-seater so it wasn’t good for everything, of course. When Rex lets his hair down he’s quite a lad. We had all sorts of capers in this sweet little Jaguar. That’s why I wanted it – to remind me of a picnic at Broadstairs. Such fun with the wind in our hair.’

  ‘A rotter,’ Harry muttered savagely to me.

  Rotter enough to threaten to kill her? I wondered. I looked at the photo of Rex’s patrician face and a young and sexy Adora.

  ‘Such fun,’ Adora repeated. ‘I was so wretched when he divorced me, all because of a stupid misunderstanding over my feelings for Patrick. I would never have left dear Rex. He is the father of my son, after all. At least I think he was, although Patrick always maintained …’ Her brow wrinkled in thought. ‘But there, that’s past now. Poor Patrick, long departed from us. That’s him over there.’

  ‘Him?’ I thought we had a ghost with us until I realized it was his car to which she was referring – a magnificent Mark II saloon. 1959, I thought.

  She laughed merrily at my mistake. ‘That’s the car he so sweetly gave me when we parted. Dear Patrick. He was Irish. We had a wonderful time in the Mark II. So comfortable.’ She gave me a meaningful look. ‘He took me to Valentia Island once.’

  ‘He was your second husband then?’ I was getting confused.

  ‘Good gracious me, no. I would never have married Patrick. He was far too happy-go-lucky. Wonderful lover, though.’ She caught sight of my mesmerized face. ‘You do know that these cars were gifts from my husbands or lovers, usually on parting?’

  ‘I’d heard that rumoured, but—’

  ‘You didn’t believe it? Why not? It seems perfectly sensible to me.’

  ‘It seems unusual to receive such gifts from someone from whom one has parted with some rancour.’

  Adora looked shocked. ‘No, Jack. Never with me. They all love me, you see.’

  I glanced at Danny’s wooden face and Harry’s blank stare and wondered if they could tell a different story.

  ‘Does Sir Rex still live in Kent?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. Nothing would make Rex move far from me. Or indeed any of my husbands. Would it, Harry, dear?’

  I turned to ‘Harry, dear’. ‘You married Miss Ferne after her divorce from Sir Rex?’

  ‘No such luck.’ Harry oozed what he thought was charm. ‘That was Charlie.’

  ‘My dear Charlie,’ Adora explained. ‘He kindly gave me the XJ 6 saloon. I did so love that walnut woodwork on it. Charlie followed Rex as my husband three years after the divorce.’

  He must have been a generous man to give a car like that away, I thought. The last word in luxury, it handled beautifully and had won the Car of the Year Award for 1969. ‘Does he live near here too?’ My head was spinning already and I had only accounted for three of these cars.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Adora replied. ‘I was married to Charlie for ten whole years. I married him in 1972. He’d always loved me, of course, right from the Three Parrots days, and he was most annoyed when I married Rex instead. He even objected to Blake, although we were married by then.’

  ‘Married to Blake?’ I asked weakly.

  ‘Goodness, no. He’s far too boring. We had a brief affair but Charlie still can’t stand him. Blake and I had the most marvellous trip to the Lake District and made love on the shores of Lake Windermere. His car is that 1970s’ E-type.’ She pointed to a gleaming silver sports car.

  So much for Blake then. ‘Was Charlie a member of the Three Parrots?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, no. Charlie’s father ran it and Charlie worked there too.’ Adora looked at me anxiously. ‘I suppose this does sound a trifle strange, doesn’t it? But it was all such fun at the time.’

  ‘What was Charlie’s line of business?’

  ‘He’s some sort of car dealer, I think. Officially retired but he never does really.’

  ‘Not Charlie Dane?’ I exclaimed. Not the biggest magnate in Kent to whom even Harry Prince kowtows – Harry’s my bête noire who owns a string of garages and aims to add Frogs Hill to it.

  ‘Yes,’ Adora beamed. ‘Charlie and I are great friends now. He was my husband when we first moved to Crockendene. He didn’t begrudge giving me the farm and the car. After all, he is the father of my darling daughter. You met Melinda, Jack, didn’t you? She loves Crockendene as much as I do. She was brought up here so it’s a family home.’

  Met was hardly the word, and nor from what I saw of Melinda was ‘darling’ a fitting description of their relationship, although one meeting wasn’t much to judge by.

  I couldn’t imagine Charlie Dane being happy about handing over the farm and his daughter to Adora, particularly if there had been a gentleman called Blake in the picture. From what I’d heard in the trade, Charlie was tough but straight, and a good businessman for all his outward show, perhaps taking after his father, Tony – although the closing of the Three Parrots didn’t sound as though it had been a profitable business even if straight.

  I looked round this exotic parlour of cars. ‘What about Blake?’ I asked. ‘Didn’t you want to marry him after Charlie?’

  ‘Oh, no. He’d gone long ago. Alan Reeve fitted in sometime around then. Such a dear man. We had a romantic parting, though, and Charlie still can’t stand the sight of him any more than he can Blake. Alan insisted on giving me the other E-type sports car. 1975. Nice, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nice’ seemed an inadequate word for this glorious maroon-painted gift. Henry Moore once described Jaguars as ‘sculpture in motion’, and here it was before me. Twelve of them, all belonging to Adora Ferne. What a lady! Two lovers at least still alive, plus at least three husbands and perhaps another lover or two. Plenty of room, I thought, for harbouring malicious thoughts towards Adora. I wasn’t going to forget that death threat to her.

  Adora looked pensive. ‘Let me see, Harry, dear,’ she continued. ‘I had quite a period of being single – single in a way, at least, until you swept me off my feet. I can’t quite recall when we married, though.’

  ‘In 2003,’ he grunted.

  ‘Oh, yes. Four years, I believe, before you spotted that pretty little girl who worked at the pub.’

  So the pussy cat had claws. Harry flushed. ‘Didn’t know what I was doing, babe. Come to my senses now. Only you – wonderful you.’

  Adora just smiled. ‘Such fun we shall have,’ she said vaguely, ‘in your XJ 8, darling.’

  Of course. As an ex-husband he would probably have a car here. ‘Is this yours?’ I asked. There was little doubt as he was defending it aggressively from my inspection.

  It was Adora who replied. ‘Yes, it is. We had some splendid times in it, didn’t we, dear? I was so pleased I bought it for you and you so kindly gave it back.’

  He was, unsurprisingly, looking uncomfortable, and I decided to help him out by distracting Adora. ‘Do you drive all these cars in turn?’ I asked her.

  ‘Of course not. I take whichever gentleman I feel like remembering on that day. Much more fun.’

  It was clear that I needed a list from Danny of all the owners who had crossed Adora’s golden path. That’s if I took this job, I reminded myself, aware that everything was crying out that I should avoid it like the plague.

  For once I listened to my own misgivings and when the opportunity arose acted on them. ‘Any of these owners could have sent you those letters, Adora, and it’s too wide a canvas for me to take the job on. You need the police to sort out the threat to your life. The letters could just be a matter of spite.’

  A shadow crossed Adora’s face which I couldn’t interpret. ‘But I will sniff around,’ I added on impulse, ‘free of charge. That would be a pleasure.’

  Would it? Seeing the Lair again, yes, but stepping into the unknown? Usually this was a challenge I welcomed, but there was something about this case that smelled of more than petrol.

  THREE

  I left the Lair feeling as though I were on the losing side of an unwinnable duel – at least until I had worked out what was going on in this place. The name Crockendene Farm suggested a buzzing agricultural business but so far its activities seemed to be rooted in the past rather than looking forward to future growth. Certainly there was no sign of any farming going on. Fair enough, as the farm’s owner was in her eighties, but the situation seemed more complicated than that. For a start, Danny, not Adora Ferne, considered himself in control of this kingdom, even if he did superficially show due deference to his employer.

  It was blatantly obvious that Danny did not want anyone muscling in on his patch. He wanted no interference from me, the police or quite possibly Adora and her family too. If that was indeed the case, it could well mean that Adora was more worried than she appeared to be about the threat to herself, and that her calling me in was a gesture of independence, maybe even a declaration of war on Danny.

  Walking through the silent woodland on my way back to the courtyard where I had left my car, however, it was easy to believe that there was more at stake than Adora trying to get one over Danny. From the death threat she received she could be genuinely worried that she was the ultimate target if the burning down of the Lair was merely a preliminary. Neither she nor Danny had so far been prepared to admit that this might be the case or to voice suspicion of anyone. Making a half-hearted offer to me to hunt down the culprit was as far as it had gone. The donors of the Jaguars remained for the most part just names; her family were shadowy figures merging into the general landscape. Not one letter was available, not one name stood out and Danny had been unenthusiastic about letting me have the list I asked for – until Adora insisted. I could swear there was something sinister going on here in which the letters had a role. Death threats on social media are common in our anonymous society but letters sent by post are a different matter.

  It was strange that Danny’s devotion to the Jaguars went no further than the Lair itself. Did he never speculate on why Adora Ferne had apparently attracted gentleman friends of varying degrees of affluence in her long life and why they were all so willing to bestow such gifts on her? And as they were mementoes of her past life with the said gentlemen, why were they all Jaguars and not some other classic car? Did none of them prefer Bentleys or Rolls-Royces or Austin-Healeys? To me it was interesting that although she was offering to pay handsomely for the thirteenth car, all the others had apparently been gifts, save perhaps for darling Harry’s. Had she in fact bought some of the others? And if so, why? Happy memories of one’s past tend to go only so far when it comes to forking out hard cash. Adora had not struck me as a fervent car lover and so why had she wanted them? Trophies? But if so, what had been the game behind them?

  Unwillingly I came back to the unwelcome theory that gentle blackmail might have played a part. Husbands with new families to consider and past lovers with their pasts to conceal might prefer not to be reminded of follies long since committed. There was a hitch in this theory, however. If the threatening letters were from one of the donors, such follies could well go back as far as fifty years or more. Was it likely that past loves would still be burning as brightly? Then I thought of Gabriel Allyn, Earl of Storrington. Perhaps some flames among those twelve – thirteen – names had never died.

  I wasn’t happy about my impulsive offer to sniff around. I could be walking into a situation that not only needed disentangling in itself but which could have numerous tentacles reaching out in unforeseeable directions. It might not take much to extend one of them to carrying out that death threat that Adora seemed to regard so lightly.

  This decided me. Sniff around I would, but I had been right to turn down a paid job. This was one for, first, Dave Jennings, and through him DCI Brandon. DCI Dave Jennings is the head of the Kent Car Crime Unit and the man who hires me for freelance jobs when he has a mind and the cash to do so. Brandon, who works in the same police HQ at Charing, is in the Serious Crime Directorate, and after a chequered beginning our relationship was rather more formal than with Dave. On the other hand, Brandon, like Dave, has been known to sign me up for jobs where my expertise might help. Whether Adora Ferne reported that death threat to her or not, I decided I should check in with Dave at least. There was, to my mind, a situation brewing and it wasn’t looking good.

  And then it became a whole lot worse.

  I’d been walking along a footpath that I assumed would be a shortcut back to the farm courtyard. Instead it led me straight to the rear garden gate of a sizeable old house. Fortunately as I drew nearer I spotted a branch path which would take me round the house to what looked like a tarmacked drive beyond. Reaching the house, which bore the name Crockendene Cottage, I could see a Ford Focus ST parked in front of it. I registered where I had seen it before – and to whom it belonged. Just then its owner emerged from the house.

  I was locked into a face-to-face situation with Rob Lane, Zoe’s partner, and waving him farewell was the prettiest young woman I had seen in a long while. Although this incident could be entirely innocent, I guessed it wasn’t. When he saw me, Rob looked as guilty as though I’d caught him climbing out of a bedroom window.

  ‘Jack. Good to see you,’ he cried out unconvincingly. ‘What brings you here?’

  He hastily exited through the gate, caught me up and encouraged me into a brisk march away from the house. Without waiting for my reply, he burbled on, ‘Just dropped in here to leave a message for Simon Hargreaves. Know him, do you?’

  ‘Afraid not, but Zoe told me he’s Adora Ferne’s son.’

  ‘Did she?’ Rob squealed at this unfair shot of mine.

  ‘She did,’ I said. Rob was so intent on removing me from the vicinity of Crockendene Cottage that I thought a gentle reminder was in order. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ I added.

  ‘What’s that?’ He was completely thrown now.

  ‘Your car.’

  He went an even more interesting shade of brick red. ‘Oh, yes, good Lord, so I have.’ Light laugh. ‘Actually, I’m only walking over to the farmhouse for a moment then going back to pick it up.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll come with you to pay my respects to Adora,’ I told him cheerily.

  He capitulated. ‘Look here, Jack, fancy a pint in the King’s Arms? Know it? On the A20. I take it you’ve a car here. I’ll get mine and see you there.’

  ‘Sure,’ I agreed. ‘Zoe’s not expecting me back for a while.’

  This unsubtle hint of mine was meant to convince him that it would be wise to turn up at our rendezvous. It worked, because fifteen minutes later we were both in the pub. He joined me at a window table, clutching a half of bitter as though it were a lifeline. Rob’s a chameleon – he changes colour depending on who he’s with, where and why. I noted that his face was still red. The chameleon aspect is helped by his being neither fat nor thin, neither good looking nor unattractive and neither tall nor short. He nearly always wears designer clothes which match his usual self-confident bearings but make him an ill-assorted partner for Zoe when they are together. She specializes in old jeans and tank tops.

  I let Rob down gently by chatting about Jaguars until he rediscovered what was left of his nerve. ‘Look here, Jack,’ he broke into my chat, ‘I’d rather you didn’t mention this meeting to Zoe.’

  ‘Which meeting would that be?’

  ‘With Alice.’ He spelled it out through gritted teeth. ‘Simon’s daughter. Friend of mine.’

  ‘Ah. The dancer. Is it serious with her?’