Classic Mistake (28 page)

Only Brandon’s brief words to me had helped: ‘Thanks, Jack. This might lead somewhere.’

A step forward in our relationship, I felt. Only two things seemed certain to me: Ambrose’s involvement, and that there had been a third party present at that recent dig. In the world I chiefly move in, cars, all the pieces fit. I only wished this case was the same. Here I was the assembly line, and the engine had been Ambrose. And still there were missing pieces.

It took two weeks to identify the skeleton as Joannie’s, even though Tony had identified the wedding ring. All I had to do was to juggle the missing Crowshaw Collection with three murders. Eva was still in prison, and the weeks were marching on towards autumn and the fifteenth of January.

‘What’s niggling you?’ Cara asked, no doubt tired of my gloomy face as she was just off to drive back to the farm. ‘Still the case?’

‘Ambrose Fairbourne.’

‘You should go after that son of his,’ she declared in dictatorial mood. ‘Something odd there.’

‘Keith would hardly dig up a site in order to reveal his father’s involvement with a murder.’

‘Why not, if he wanted you to find it?’

I glared at her, and she hastily added, ‘This Josie then. Carlos spoke to
her
on the phone, and she spread the word to the Charros.’

‘Who spread it to Frank Watson,’ I finished crossly. ‘Been there, done that …’

‘I’m trying to
help
,’ she shouted at me. ‘Start again.’

‘With Frank Watson?’ I yelled back.

‘No. Go to Wychwood.’ And she marched out.

Wychwood House seemed to be contemplating me with its evil eye as I drove up. I’d taken the Gordon-Keeble for luck, as I was beginning seriously to hate this place. Even in the sun it looked eerie and on a day such as this, which was definitely not sunny, it looked downright sinister. By referring to Wychwood, Cara had perhaps been thinking still of Ambrose, but seeing it before me I realized it had a wider scope. Could it be housing the Crowshaw Collection somewhere, whatever Keith claimed? I faced the fact that he could have been lying when he said he’d searched. I couldn’t take that theory seriously though. Had it been hidden by Ambrose so carefully that Keith had missed it? No again. Whether this was in the house or at Eastry, had he confided the hiding place to somebody else, such as Keith or Josie or—

Matt Wright?

The Charro whose life had been ruined by Carlos, the man in the background who did odd jobs in Wychwood House itself as well as the garden. The man whom no one noticed very much – Chesterton’s postman again. The man who was interested in Ambrose’s archaeological collections.

My assembly line did a ninety degree turn so quickly I felt almost physically sick – and even sicker as the Gordon-Keeble purred gently to a halt outside Wychwood House. I parked it right next to Matt Wright’s van, and there was no sign of Josie’s Polo.

The murders were linked, and Matt was the murderer. It was glaringly obvious now that Frank Watson was out of the picture. Matt had good reason to kill Carlos when he heard he was back. He would know when Josie’s day off was and, having concocted a plan to steal a Morris Minor to take Ambrose to Eastry, he had dug at the place to which Ambrose took him, King Egbert’s grave. But when he found no golden goblets, no ornate belt-mounts, no golden buckles or state helmets, what then? Or
had
he found them?

The evil eye of Wychwood seemed almost to wink at me. Its message seemed to me: what now, Jack?

I had three options: find Matt Wright, possibly hunting in the house for the collection, having got Josie out of the way; call Brandon; go home. Option three was out, and so was option two. Brandon wouldn’t believe me, so I had to be on surer ground. Which left option one.

I was only armed with an iPhone, so all I had was bravado with which to burst cheerily in upon a double murderer. Easy – in theory, at least. I pressed the bell and heard it ring in the dark corridors of Wychwood House. I rang again when no one answered, and again no one came. The house had that empty look about it. Next, the garden. Matt might be looking for Ambrose’s hoard there, buried in the earth or under a shed. I walked round the side of the house and saw windows open but no sign of movement inside the house. Nor in the garden either. The flowers waved merrily at me in the breeze, but no human being stirred.

The garage? I thought. Or, better still, that old barn. If Matt Wright had used it for Melody, perhaps he had for the Crowshaw Collection too. If he returned with it from his expedition in Melody with Ambrose, he might have buried it there. I walked up the track, thinking of my last trip along it, and the memory was not pleasant.

The barn door was not padlocked, and I opened the door half fearing what I might find. There was nothing here, however. No dead body, no Matt, no trunk marked ‘King Egbert’s Property’, no sign of where anything could conceivably be hidden. Relieved, I walked into the barn to double-check.

And then I turned and saw the gun in Tony Wilson’s hand.

‘You would come, wouldn’t you?’ he said as I stared at it in disbelief. ‘You should have left well alone, Jack. I’m too old to go back inside now. They’ve taken DNA from Joannie’s family. No use my saying it wasn’t her ring. It was. I brought this shooter to dump here, and so now I’ll have to dump you with it. You’re in the way. You know about Carlos and Joannie.’

‘Do I? Blind panic was all I knew until I took command of myself. I had to. I would be dead otherwise. Not Matt Wright at all. Tony Wilson – with as much access to Wychwood as Matt, and he was going to kill me. At least I now knew why none of the Charros gang had betrayed Frank Watson. It hadn’t been Frank whom Tony had been hunting, much as he had tried to direct us otherwise. It had been Carlos.

‘You thought Carlos had run off with Joannie and the Crowshaw Collection,’ I said matter-of-factly.

‘Yeah, but he told me down at the lock I was wrong about the stuff. Said Ambrose had taken it. He saw him taking it out of Joannie’s car and loading it into his bloody little Morris Minor. I believed him.’

‘So why did you kill Carlos?’ Daft as it sounded in my situation, I really wanted to know why Eva had had to go through this nightmare.

‘He went off with her and wouldn’t tell me where she was. Kept saying he didn’t know. I loved that woman, I did. Killed him for Joannie’s sake. I told him this story about a boat being moored round the bend in the river just a bit along the towpath, and I went prepared to give him the frights if he didn’t come clean. He smirked all over his greasy face, telling me he’d done well out of the May Tree, what with the woman he’d run off with and screwed and then blackmailing Ambrose. Then when I found that skeleton in that hole and knew Ambrose had done it, not bloody Carlos, I went spare. The stuff wasn’t in the hole, only my Joannie – so I brought him back here to at least get the gold from him. No joy there either. I came here today to turn the place over, but there’s no sign of it. He got his comeuppance all right.’

I felt very cold ‘That was
my
wife Carlos said he’d run off with. In 1991, not after the shoot-out.’

For a moment Tony faltered and the gun shook slightly, but it didn’t drop. ‘When I saw her skeleton … Well, I loved her, Jack. Still do. That creep Fairbourne. It was me took him out to bloody Eastry expecting he’d at least remember where he buried the stuff. He went straight to that hole, and I dug it like crazy for him. Until I got to the skeleton and saw that ring. I choked. Knew it was Joannie’s right away. So he had to go. No choice. He must have killed her right after the shoot-out. Why?’

‘It was the Crowshaw Collection,’ I said. ‘Joannie must have argued with him, so he killed her. He thought the collection should be returned to King Egbert’s grave.’

‘There was no stuff there,’ Tony said savagely. ‘It was only Joannie’s grave. But the old fool’s gone now, and so’s the gold. You too, Jack. You should have known Joannie, then you’d understand.’

There were tears in his eyes, but whenever I made a move his grip on the gun tightened.

‘You really think killing me is the way out?’

‘You know the whole story. There’s no way out for any of us now, except Betty. She’s a survivor. Didn’t know anything about this deal. Believes any rubbish I tell her. But I’m not going back inside. Not at my age. Not without Joannie. Or you, mate.’

He raised the gun, turned it on himself and pulled the trigger.

The sound cannoned through me as though I were the victim not him. As I looked at the bloody mess on the ground, as I saw his blood spattered on my clothes, I seemed to be standing apart looking at myself, a lifeless lump of flesh. Then I felt my lips trembling and gradually my body and knew I was alive. I got my phone out and dialled 999.

I walked to the tree trunk where Josie and I had sat not so very long ago and hoped that she and Matt – if they were together – would not return until the police had arrived. The barn was once again a crime scene, and this time I was not just a witness, I was part of it. Prints, DNA, the machine would go into action and it had to be endured.

Death spreads ripples in its wake and they depart only slowly. During the next few weeks, the police unearthed sufficient forensic evidence in Tony’s car (parked well out of view of the house) and home, which, coupled with the gun and my statements, gave the CPS enough to drop all charges against Eva.

There was only one downside to that. The last ripple. Eva herself.

Cara had returned to Suffolk, but now she came back to take charge of Eva when she was released – although thank heavens they weren’t staying at Frogs Hill. But one benighted morning I was in the Pits as Cara’s car drew up. It contained not only Cara but Eva too.

‘Sorry, Jack. I had no warning,’ Cara called over to me.

‘Jack, thank you, my darling.’ A thud as Eva hit my body with her own, arms flung round my neck so tightly that I fought for breath. She smelled of her favourite French scent – at least, it had been her favourite during our marriage. It seemed out of place in a Kentish farmyard, especially one that usually smells of petrol with that indefinable whiff in the air that announces classic cars are around. And so was Eva. I took them into the farmhouse, glad I had Cara as back-up. I took advantage of Eva’s absence in the bathroom to ask Cara what her plans were.

‘I’m taking a few more weeks off,’ she told me. ‘Harry’s OK with it.’

‘Why?’ I asked with foreboding as Eva swept back into the room earlier than I had hoped.

‘Darling, don’t be too sad,’ Eva said grandly. ‘I came here because Cara said I should and because I love you.’

Instant panic. I gave Cara a furious glare, and she looked innocently back at me.

‘I must care for you,’ Eva kindly explained.

My life was in crisis. ‘Darling,’ I spluttered, ‘you can’t sacrifice yourself for me. We’ll sort something out for you.’ A desperate glance at Cara, but she merely looked amused.

‘My dear one, I know I belong here,’ Eva began.

‘But it would not be possible, Eva, much as I—’

‘It would, beloved, but—’

‘You’d hate it in the country,’ I babbled. ‘You always did.’

She wasn’t listening. ‘Without my Carlos,’ she continued, ‘how can I live at all? You look after me—’

‘No,’ I howled, and even Eva looked surprised.

‘Darling.’ Her hand went to her brow. ‘I know how hard this is for you. But you must be brave.’

‘No,’ I moaned.

‘You must,’ she said firmly. ‘I go now with Cara.’

I heard only the magic word ‘go’.

‘To fetch your luggage?’ I asked cautiously.

‘Is in Cara’s car. She drive me to Southampton and then on boat—’

‘You’re not staying here?’ There was hope yet. Cara was looking demure.

‘We go to Cartagena,’ Eva explained.

‘
What
?’

‘Where my darling Sandro lives. He love me. He worship me. He say go live with him. Cara will take me, so, darling, I must leave you.’ Another heavy thud as she hurled herself at me again. ‘Try to be brave, my darling.’

‘I will,’ I managed to gurgle. ‘I will—’ A little more fervently.

‘I will come to see you often, my darling.’

‘It is better not.’ I was getting into the swing of the drama now and could see how this might run. ‘I could not bear to think of you in another’s arms if you came here to visit me. It would be cruel of you. The torture.’

‘Darling.’ Eva looked pleased. ‘Perhaps—’ She cast a glance at Cara, who came to my rescue as I panicked all over again.

‘No, Eva,’ Cara said firmly. ‘Sandro deserves your love now.’

‘So he do. He do.’ She beamed. ‘And I shall reward him.’

‘And what of you, Cara?’ I asked her quietly as Eva mopped her eyes – not too hard, I noticed, in case she removed her make-up.

‘A few more weeks won’t hurt Harry while I do my own thing. The magazine’s closing down so it’s a perfect opportunity. I’ll see how things stand after that. You never know, I might fall in love with a Spaniard. Not,’ she added, ‘anywhere near Eva and Sandro.’

To my relief, Keith had agreed we would pay a last visit to Eastry together, now it was no longer a crime scene. We climbed the hill together in companionable silence. If he still blamed me for the discovery of Joannie’s remains, with its inevitable conclusion that his father had killed her, he did not say so. My view of that tragedy was that Ambrose had taken not all, but part of the collection with him when he left the May Tree – Joannie sounded too canny a lady to let him take the lot. Whether she thought they were running away together, or that he was going to help her sell the collection, or whether it was a genuine misunderstanding as to what should become of the collection, I had no way of knowing. I suspected the third, and that they had agreed to meet at Eastry, Joannie thinking they would be joining forces there for the Channel crossing. Perhaps she thought he was arranging a secure temporary hiding place for the collection, as all the ports would be too closely watched for a while. Whatever the reason, they must have quarrelled after he discovered their plans for the collection differed, and he’d killed her, whether by accident or design, and buried her. He’d have had to have driven her car to Dover, but it wouldn’t have been an impossible task, if he’d driven it halfway, returned to his own on foot, then repeated the procedure for the second half of the journey. Dover was not that far away.