TWENTY-THREE

I woke up in hospital once again. The first time I came to, Bea was cooing over me. I think I smiled and passed out again. I must have repeated this procedure several times because I have vague memories of seeing Zoe, Len, Guy, Rupert, Lorna (I only pretended to fall asleep that time), and even Slugger. He brought my memory back with a vengeance, although not quite accurately, as I squeaked: ‘You can’t cosh me here.’

Slugger actually grinned. ‘Sorry, mate. Trent’s orders.’

I couldn’t make head or tail of this. Next time I woke up – after a poke in the ribs – I saw that damned chain round a swarthy neck again. Mason Trent was leering over me.

‘I’m not dead yet,’ I managed to say this time.

He, too, looked apologetically at me. ‘Sorry, Jack.’

Everyone seemed to be sorry. What for? Mason, it seemed, was only too happy to tell me. ‘Had a side deal going, see, with Mike, like you said. He reckoned Winter was taking too much of the cash, so we’d add a few bits and pieces to the shopping menu Winter issued us with. I’d drive the goods down to Kent, Mike would whip them across the Channel and we’d split the cash three ways: me, him, and the small fry who did the nicking. But Mike went a step too far, like I told you, so he went and got murdered. I never got my rights in the cash line, especially as Winter got me locked up, courtesy of my former chum Barry Pole. All because I’d had this sideline going with Mike, and Winter thought he was being left out in the cold. As if. So I had three years to think of a nice way to thank both Winter and Pole for grassing.’

‘Not my fault,’ I managed to say.

‘You got yourself interested in a Lagonda.’

‘Andy Wells told you,’ I said resignedly.

‘Andy’s a good guy,’ Mason said indignantly. ‘Real worried about you, he was. Him and Harry Prince look out for you.’

I decided silence was best.

‘Polly went to him,’ Mason continued, ‘about Mike’s death after your little escapade with the Lagonda. When she was hit, Andy got scared, knowing I had an interest, as they say. Quite right too. I reckoned that was where my cash might be stashed, and I didn’t want no busybodies like you sniffing around.’

‘So you coshed me.’

‘Sorry, Jack. Slugger feels bad about that.’

‘So did I.’

‘He made it up to you. Saved your life, didn’t he?’

‘And my barn?’ I managed to squeak.

‘Not me, mate. Winter hired one of Slugger’s mates because he didn’t want people nosing round that car and maybe seeing what it was used for. That’s what I reckon. He’s a right villain, Winter is.’

‘But you and Slugger have morals?’

Another leer. ‘Sure, Jack. Slugger was all for a nasty end for Winter over what he did to me. He’s my man, you see. Loyal. But I’m smarter. I thought of a scheme with no pain for us and a dozen years inside for Winter over the art jobs. So I sort of leaned on my former chum Pole to put Winter’s Merc on his list in April and get young Tomas to do the nicking. Tomas was one of Pole’s spotters.’

‘What did you want the Merc for?’

‘Patience, Jack lad, patience. You’re not a well man. It was like this: Winter was carrying on his business under a new team, but Barry’s still doing the getaways. So under one of my pink card names I’d promised Barry I’d do the cloning for the next big do at Talbot Place in May; persuaded him he needed two, not just one, clones on this job, and I drove the Merc meself. I took the stuff to begin with, and the lads switched over to number two with the stuff after a mile or two; I left the Merc nice and noticeable, with a drawing inside to show where it had been, and went back in the number two with the lads.’

‘So what was the plan?’ I murmured feebly.

A chuckle. ‘The car I drove there was Winter’s Merc, but I didn’t exactly clone it.’

‘You used his own plates?’ I began to see. Or did I? What message would that send the cops except that a stolen car had been used? It had been reported in April, and the art theft at Talbot Place was in May.

‘In a way, mate.’ Mason looked smug. ‘See, I nipped down here in April and paid young Tomas quite a bit of cash to get the identity details of Winter’s Lagonda while he was busy nicking the Merc for Pole. Then I used the Lagonda numbers for the Merc.’

I had to struggle with this. ‘You put the Lagonda DB plates on the Merc? Why?’

He shook his head sadly. ‘You disappoint me, Jack, you really do. And you calling yourself a car detective.’

I struggled some more. ‘So the police are left with the right car – VIN number checks out – but the wrong plates, all belonging to the same man.’ I began to see it, and it was clever. ‘So the Norfolk police think there’s something odd going on here. Car stolen in April, reappears weeks later cloned to his own second car number. They think: could be a nutter, could be something rather more interesting. Better look into this chap Peter Winter.’

I began to laugh. It hurt, but it was worth it.

‘Right, Jack.’ Mason looked pleased. ‘Then enter your chums: Dave Jennings on law and order for cars, Rupert Stack on the art side. Not a word to Winter though. Result: bingo, Peter Winter appears bang in the middle of the frame – just what he don’t want. He likes to keep even his own team at arm’s length. Works through a middle man, but suddenly, little does he know, but the whole of the Met plus the Kent car crime chaps are looking into him very carefully indeed. They’re just waiting for him to put a foot wrong.’

The laugh went on – until I realized that it was me who’d sprung the trap. ‘So I was the foot! Thanks a lot.’

Mason looked embarrassed. ‘Yeah. Well, wasn’t meant to happen like that. I was right suspicious of you, when you went shouting your head off about a Lagonda. I just made a little mistake like we all do, not knowing Polly still had her Lagonda. I thought you were asking round after mine.’

‘By which you mean Winter’s DB,’ I commented.

‘Yeah, and after Polly got knocked off I decided you were getting too interested in Mike Davis’s affairs. You might have done it, after all, and grabbed my cash into the bargain,’ Mason explained virtuously. ‘Still, I sorted it out after Slugger coshed you. Can’t blame me for giving you a bit of a hint that messing with me wasn’t wise.’

‘Sorry about that,’ I said sarcastically.

‘OK, Jack. That’s OK,’ he reassured me. ‘Mind you, I got a bit upset, like, when you told me Mike was bumped off. Hurried things along a bit.’

I remembered Polly, and Tomas too, and grew very quiet. ‘Winter killed Polly?’

‘I reckon so. She was asking too many questions about Mike. After Andy, she must have realized who done Mike in and went to see Winter. He couldn’t risk it. She might not have been able to prove he done Mike in, but she could prove he’d been running the art racket and probably still was. She’d kept that doctored Lagonda.’

Oh my brave Polly. I felt tears forming and could see Mason looking curiously at me. He didn’t say anything. He’s a good guy is Mason, I thought idiotically. ‘And Tomas?’ I managed to say. ‘Or was that you?’

‘Me? No, mate. I don’t do killings, unless I have to. That lad got a bit too big for his boots, I reckon, like Mike. You don’t do that with Peter Winter or Barry Pole, who isn’t such a nice gent as I am. When I popped down here and explained to young Tomas how he could earn a lot extra by adding on that Lagonda job for me, he went round boasting to the likes of Andy and Harry that he was working for me. They knew nothing about Winter, but they did know about me. I’ve got a bit of a reputation – don’t know why. I’m a gentle sort of chap, as you know. The kid must have wormed the story about me and Mike and Winter out of Pole, put two and two together over the Lagonda in the Davises’ barn, and went shouting the odds at Winter asking for a cut and banging on about the missing cash. Winter then would have hired young Tomas to look for it, but no way would he take a kid like that as a partner, so he would have arranged to meet him and shot the poor blighter.’ He eyed me thoughtfully. ‘Funny choosing the barn though. Almost as though my cash was really there.’

I made a strategic decision to close my eyes.

A day or two later I got much the same story from Dave, who seemed to be handing out pats on the back – apparently, he got one himself from the Met over the way he’d cooperated to trap Peter Winter. He had the grace to blush. ‘We were all waiting there,’ he assured me anxiously. ‘Rupert was waiting for his boss to get there, but he was worried about you. Told his wife Lorna to stick with you throughout.’

I groaned.

‘Sorry, Jack. Couldn’t put you right in the picture.’

‘What about Brandon?’

‘He’s waiting outside. Thinks he’s got some kind of DNA match to nail Winter for Kasek and for Polly.’

‘And Mike?’

‘So far as the record’s concerned, you’re raving. He died of a heart attack. Too many cappuccinos.’

And my Gordon Keeble? That took a lot longer to repair than I did, but it’s now safely retired to a special barn at Frogs Farm. I don’t drive it any more, because it’s fragile after its brush with the criminal world.

So what do I drive on special occasions? What makes me the pride of the car shows? What gives me a glow every time I climb into it?

Bea’s present to me: the 1938 drophead Lagonda.

‘It’s my thank you, Jack,’ she told me, handing me the keys after Rupert Stack’s art chaps from the Met had finished crawling over it for trace evidence. And then she kissed me. A real kiss, not a thank-you kiss, but one with sadness in it. For our different reasons we were bidding our farewells to what might-have-been and saying hello to friendship.

I watched Bea drive out of Frogs Hill Farm and turned back to my Lagonda. And just for one glorious moment, by some trick of the light on the front passenger seat, I thought I saw Polly smiling.