Classic in the Barn (15 page)

‘Gloria?'

‘Mum's cleaner.'

‘The one who heard the telephone call. Is she reliable?'

‘As the proverbial rock. Come and meet her, if you like. She's going to keep coming in three days a week, as she did before. Drives me mad, but she needs the money and it's company of a sort while I'm living there. Though that won't be longer than necessary. My Canterbury flat seems a haven compared with Greensand Farm. Gloria wouldn't be privy to Mum's inner heart though. Mum wasn't like that. Strict boundaries had Mum.'

I could believe it. In her private life too. ‘Is there any chance Lorna might have suspected an affair, even if there wasn't one?'

‘Highly possible, but my guess is that it's just Lorna being dramatic. Rupert came up every so often, bringing pictures and so on, and even though Lorna was rarely with him it's a far cry from that to having a full blooded affair. After all, she's never accused the woman who does Rupert's secretarial work down here, and she's quite a looker.'

‘Depends on the background,' I said, thinking this through.

‘I don't follow.' Bea looked so bewildered that I wanted to hug her and tell her everything was going to be all right, but I resisted the impulse. I'd have to leave that to Zoe.

‘I meant the Stacks were close friends with your father too. We don't know whether anything happened then that would lead Lorna to think there was an ongoing situation. Just speculation,' I added hastily. ‘You've made it clear how unlikely it is.'

‘It is,' Bea replied. ‘Besides, neither Rupert nor Lorna could have shot Mum.'

‘Why not?' I was shaken at this flat statement.

Her turn to look surprised. ‘They're weekenders. They always go back to London on Sunday nights. Rupert has to be in the art gallery next morning. Sometimes he leaves a bit early on Fridays to get here, but Mondays are always spent in London. That's one of the reasons Mum never opened on a Monday. Last week Rupert was hosting a big gathering of dealers on the Tuesday morning, so there's no way he could have been here. And it would be a bit odd if Lorna had stayed behind after the weekend. They were only here yesterday because it was Bank Holiday Monday.'

So that was that. It seemed I was making excellent negative progress on Polly's behalf – hardly the direction I needed to go.

TWELVE

It was hard to tell what kept me from sleeping soundly that Tuesday night, but I'm glad it did: perhaps it had been the glow of satisfaction that I had indeed helped Bea a little by removing her Lagonda from danger. More probably, however, it was my underlying fear that I was missing a trick. A big one. There just had to be something about that car that I wasn't getting. The raid on Bea's barn could hardly have been a straightforward theft. No dodgy car dealer worth his salt would steal a car that now had so much public awareness focused on it, yet it had to be someone who hadn't got the news of its new temporary home early enough to prevent a wasted journey to Bea's barn. Was that the someone who had killed Polly, or was it an opportunist thief, now that the police scene had been lifted? I couldn't discount that possibility. Indeed, I hoped it was the right explanation, because the alternative was not welcome.

There could have been another reason for my restless sleeping. There was no one sleeping with me, and my hopes about Polly fulfilling that role had been cruelly dashed. I remembered the days of Liz's comfortable self tucked in beside me and for a moment or two missed her, until I also remembered the downside. It was a long time since I'd had regular company; or indeed any company, and so it was hardly surprising that when I had drifted off it was to dream of Polly in a Lagonda.

No – she was in a police car screaming along the M25, round and round and round and on and on –
and on
.

I was fully awake. It wasn't a police car; it was the burglar alarms going full tilt and the security lights blazing. Then I was at the window pulling back curtains with one hand and struggling into cords and T-shirt with the other. The Pits' lights were full on, and it was from there that the alarms were blaring out. Not just burglar alarms, but the
fire
alarms – in the Pits. I could see nothing – but I could hear and smell something. I didn't stop to reach the landline, but grabbed my mobile. One bit of me was telling me it was a false alarm, but the major bit knew it wasn't. I was calling in the big battalions even as I ran like hell towards my barn.

This was no accident, and it didn't occur to me then that whoever had caused this was probably still there, waiting for me to arrive so that he could dot me on the head again. All I could see as I drew nearer was flames at the side window, which had no doubt been smashed, as the doors still looked intact. The windows were the most vulnerable point, and the flames seemed to be mocking me, daring me to think I could win any kind of battle over them.

The Pits barn is a mix of centuries. The farmhouse was built sometime in the nineteenth century, but the barn's construction is much earlier, at least in part. There has been a farmhouse on this site since the Domesday Book, and the barn's foundations go back at least to the fourteenth century. A doodlebug had taken three-quarters of it out in World War Two, leaving only one wall shakily standing and the other three down to a few feet high. After the war, it had been securely patched up with no regard to style, leaving it with modern brick walls, a couple of windows in the east wall, and a corrugated iron roof. Not beautiful, but eminently practical for its use.

Frogs Hill is so remote that it was going to take forever for the fire engines to arrive, so I dived into my pocket for the keys, wrestling the doors open regardless of the extra impetus I might give the fire raging within. Thank heavens we'd had the wit to fit an outdoor fire extinguisher, so at least I could go in armed.

And then I saw it. Fire everywhere. The place was like a floodlit stadium, but these lights were moving and the heat was blasting into my face. Clasping my fire extinguisher I felt like David with a very small pebble to sling at Goliath. Thank heavens, the fire was still, I realized, on the eastern side, and someone – Len, Zoe? – had miraculously moved the Lagonda to where the Porsche had been before: thankfully, that had been collected yesterday evening. I didn't ask myself how they had managed to move the Lagonda or why. All I agonized over was whether I could get her out alone. I had only one small extinguisher and no protective clothing or even a mask against fumes. I'd have been crazy to risk dashing in. It might be macho, but I knew I'd be more use to Bea alive than dead. Which I soon would be, I thought, if I didn't use my head.

So I used it. Well, partly. I stayed outside, remembered an outside tap, fixed a makeshift mask, and dashed in, praying hard that the extinguisher worked. Someone up there aloft heard me, because it did, and I sprayed it all round the Lagonda and threw myself outside again. I was lucky to get out. Fire assaults everything, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and it takes no prisoners. It kills by its fumes before it strikes. As I looked up, gasping for the night air, I could see the quiet sky above me, midnight blue and dotted with stars, and I wondered how we human beings could create such hell on this earth.

And then I heard the sound of an engine and bells ringing; help was on its way. Who otherwise would be driving along Frogs Lane at this time of night? Only the person who started this inferno, who was no doubt long vanished. As the sound grew closer, I could feel tears of relief, or perhaps they were of anger; with each second, more of my source of livelihood, and goodness know how much of the Pits, was succumbing to the ravages of the fire. We had other cars in there, tools . . . there was the insurance. I couldn't cope. Just let the Lagonda be safe, please, I asked the flames, the heavens, fate . . . anyone who might be listening.

My frustration at being virtually helpless sank into relief as two fire engines arrived, together with a police car, and the professionals took over. Figures leapt out of the two cabins, pipes were unrolled, water points established, a chain of command set up and I was answering the questions shot at me and not having to think for myself any more. It was out of my hands. I just directed them to this and that, and I waited, unable to waste their time by demanding to know if the Lagonda was safe, but equally unable to leave the scene until I knew. It was excruciating to watch what was happening, like a play being enacted before me in which I had no part.

And then Len appeared. He lives locally, but news travels fast in Piper's Green. Zoe was still sleeping at Greensand Farm, but then she, too, arrived, and Bea was with her. Both had that sleepy dishevelled look I love in women – and never more than at that moment.

Life seemed to take on a sort of normality with their arrival. Wasn't there usually a part of this procedure when tea and coffee were handed round? Zoe and Bea seemed to think so, because Zoe took one of my arms and Bea the other, and they frogmarched me into the farmhouse. I went like a lamb. It seemed perfectly normal for Bea to be handing out mugs of cocoa at two thirty in the morning.

She smiled at me. ‘Don't worry, Jack. It's only a car.'

The Lagonda? Only a car? Still dazed, I couldn't believe she meant it. It was surely just a placebo. Even Zoe remained silent. It wasn't ‘just a car' to us. Leaving Bea in charge of tea and comfort for whoever dropped in, Zoe and I went back to the scene. The professionals would clearly have preferred we stayed put, but we kept well back. I could see Len, who was obviously doing a good job liaising with the chief fireman and police, and I steeled myself to stay out of the way with Zoe. Neither of us spoke. What was there to say?

It took an hour before the fire was declared extinguished, and then the scene had to be assessed for safety and causes of fire. There seemed doubt about this – natural enough, I supposed, as Frogs Hill is a garage, but Len and I patiently explained that it was virtually impossible for any of the petrol in the tanks of the other two jobs we had in hand to have started this conflagration for us. That was finally agreed, when the seat of the fire was provisionally established – with the help of a sniffer dog, broken glass and charred woodwork – to have been by a side window. The police then started taking more interest. As they all finally trooped out to leave, the safety officer forbade us to enter, but Len, Zoe and I put on a united front. We had at least to peer in, we pointed out, so that we could contact the owners of any burnt-out vehicles (not a job I would relish).

The smell of extinguished fire is bad. It's depressing and somehow ominous, rather than a matter for rejoicing. We were allowed finally to stand at the doors and have a brief glimpse. The eastern side of the barn was gone, save for the fire-blackened walls. I could see the hulk of one of our two current jobs, an Austin 10. The other one didn't look too happy either. There were also all sorts of welding hoses, tanks and other tools and equipment in a charred mess. The workshop's centre had mostly disappeared too, and the roof looked as if it had taken a battering at least at the eastern end. But the west end had largely survived. The old brick wall had saved us, and it had saved the Lagonda. There she was, covered in what proved to be charred ash and made a paint job more of a priority than it had been. But she was safe.

Seldom had Frogs Hill had so many visitors: police, insurance, fire investigation officers, two furious car owners, Andy Wells, Dan Burgess, Liz Potter and Colin, and even a seemingly concerned Harry Prince. An endless stream trooped around in the hazy dawn and morning. Thoughtful though this was, all I wanted was time alone with Len and Zoe to sort ourselves out. We had genuine kind offers of workshop accommodation and help, so much that I left Len in charge of that side of things. Providentially, Frogs Hill did have a second barn, which was used chiefly to house Charlie and was completely unconverted for workshop use. But it had a roof. So our first job the next morning was to move the Lagonda there as secretly as possible – in-between visitors. That was vital. I didn't anyone spreading the word that the Lagonda was safe. If, and it seemed to me very probable, the car was the reason for this attack, then the fewer people who knew it had escaped the fire the better. So we swore Bea to secrecy and blandly lied to all (save the insurance assessor) that the Lagonda was a goner.

‘Gone?' Andy Wells asked, horrified.

‘Charred metal,' I told him.

‘Burnt?' asked Dan, when he arrived.

‘Charred metal.'

‘Scrap?' Harry looked as if he'd burst into tears as he paid his visit.

‘If anyone wants charred metal, yes.'

I took each of them as far as the Pits' doors only, claiming security problems, and pointed out the heaps of metal. No one was going to inspect such piles too closely. After suitable lamentations and offers of help they departed. Harry was the hardest to get rid of.

‘You can trust me, Jack.'

Could I hell. ‘Of course, Harry.'

‘You're in a spot, old chap.'

‘Agreed,' I said wryly.

‘Bring any old bangers to me. I'll give you space and facilities.'

‘Thanks, Harry. I'll see how things go.'

‘And tell you what –' a burst of generosity – ‘I won't charge you for a month.' He went off, no doubt chortling.

It wasn't until the late afternoon that Zoe, Len and I were able to pause. ‘Time,' I said.

The auxiliary barn is a fair distance from the Pits, and on the other side of the house, so it was well positioned to escape notice from those who don't know Frogs Hill well. Even though it was only used for storage and Charlie, the Lagonda looked quite at home in her new accommodation, as though being on an earth floor with bits of old straw still lying around and a battered low-loader for company suited her very well.