under the tyres, making the steering feel heavy and imprecise. Away to the right a group of people turned to see who the new arrival was.
I was in a courtyard, with the house facing me and outbuildings down the adjacent sides. The sun was out and I felt as if I’d wandered on to the set of Brideshead Revisited. Denver had reversed into his parking place, but I drove straight in, so my driver’s door was next to his. Why people reverse into parking places mystifies me, unless it’s so they can make a fast getaway. I climbed out and stretched upright. The little group of them — I counted six — were still looking towards me, over the roofs of the other cars in the line. Denver was there, and so was Prendergast, which was a surprise. I didn’t know the others.
I glanced down into Denver’s car and saw his mobile phone on the passenger seat, plugged into the cigar lighter to have its battery recharged. I also noticed that his keys were dangling from the ignition lock. It’s a funny thing about Fords. Because of the activities of some of the younger members of our society, they, along with all the other manufacturers, have spent millions of pounds trying to protect our beloved vehicles against theft. War, they say, brought about vast improvements in the field of aviation. Little scrotes like Jamie What’s-his-name initiated the development of the car alarm and immobiliser, thus creating thousands of jobs in the security market. Thanks to him and his friends, the key I held in my right hand had a minute electronic chip built into it. It would only open a lock that had a certain combination of signals, and there were two hundred and fifty thousand possible combinations. My mind boggled at the thought of it. A thief had a 1-in-250,000 chance of his key starting my car, which made the odds against him guessing my pin number and emptying my bank account, at a mere 1-in-9,999, look a good bet.
What they don’t tell you is that any Ford key will lock any Ford car. When it comes to locking the car, they’re all the same. It was Sparky’s sixteen-year-old son, Danny, that told me that. His dad had just bought an Escort, and Danny bet me a pound that his dad’s key would lock my car. I lost the bet. That’s what they teach them at school, these days.
The little group were still looking my way. Without taking my eyes off them I felt for the lock of Denver’s car with the tip of the key for mine. Years of practise, opening the car day after day, give you an instinct for it. The key slipped home and I turned it away from the steering wheel. I heard the whirr of electric motors and the chunk of the bolts slamming across as a glow of satisfaction welled up inside me. Denver was locked out, and that was the best quid I’d ever lost.
Two of them were TV people. Freelancers, armed with cameras and sound equipment and presumably hired by Denver. The other two were wearing blue overalls with Avecaster Motor Museum embroidered on the breast pocket. The taller of them had a gaunt face and was puffing on a cigarette stub, the other had a handlebar moustache and the complexion of an outdoor man who enjoys a tipple. The type who never hunts south of the Thames nor services the wife in the morning in case something better presents itself in the afternoon.
“Mr Burgess-Jones?” I asked.
“That’s right,” he replied. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure…”
“Detective Inspector Priest, of Heckley CID.” I looked beyond him. “And that,” I added, “is presumably the lady who brought us all here.”
It was the MG, standing there gleaming in the sun. Flame red, black and chrome, pampered and aloof, like a thoroughbred at Crufts or Ascot. She looked good.
“The police, did you say?” Burgess-Jones was asking.
“Yes Sir. I’m afraid you’ve been mixing with some bad company.” I turned to the others and pointed at Denver. “This gentleman here is under arrest for impersonating a police officer and interfering with an investigation. He also impersonates a journalist, but that’s not an offence. And this gentleman…” I looked at Prendergast, “…is a solicitor.”
Everybody spoke at once. Denver wanted to know why he was under arrest, Prendergast didn’t know why he had been invited and Burgess-Jones was completely bewildered. I raised a hand to silence them. “I don’t know what you were planning to do,” I told them, “but whatever it was, it’s off. That car is evidence in a murder investigation and I am seizing it.”
“Hey man,” one of the TV people said. “We still want paying, y’know.” He looked like one of the guitarists from Grateful Dead.
“The question is,” Denver stated, “what will you do with the car?”
“We’ll take it away and give it a thorough examination,” I replied.
“For holes in the bonnet,” he said, “where you say Silkstone fitted the Jaguar mascot?”
“That’s right.”
“In secret, and you’ll fix it to suit your own ends.”
“That’s not true. Everything will be done in the presence of independent witnesses.”
“Rubbish! You’ll rig it.”
I ignored him and turned to Burgess-Jones. “I’d be grateful, Sir,” I said, “if you could move the car back into its garage until I can arrange for it to be either collected or examined here. You’ll be fully compensated for any damage done to it.”
“Not my problem,” he replied. “Just sold it to Mr Denver for a very good price. It’s his, now.”
Denver smiled smugly. I resisted the urge to thump him and walked over to the MG. A Black and Decker angle grinder lay on the ground in front of it, ready to do business, with a bright orange cable snaking off into an outbuilding. I stooped to look inside the car and saw a thick photo album sitting on the passenger seat. “Is that a record of the restoration?” I shouted to Burgess-Jones.
“That’s right,” he replied, strolling towards me. “We do a full photographic history of the entire process.”
“You built this car from two others, I believe.”
“Yes. This one had a damaged front end, so we grafted the front of the other on to it.”
“Is it roadworthy?”
“I think our work would be frowned upon now, but at the time it was common practise. We’ve never tried to register it.”
“Do the pictures show the other car at all?”
“Oh yes. It’s all there.”
“Was the bonnet from the other car? It’s only the bonnet we’re interested in.”
“It looks like it. It was a green one, so we must have resprayed it. I vaguely remember, but not the details.”
“Will there be any evidence of the original colour still there?” I asked.
“I would imagine so,” he replied. “We’d fully strip all the top surfaces, but not underneath. The green paint should still be there, under the red, if it is the bonnet from the second car.” The paintwork was superb, glowing like rubies in the afternoon sun. He obviously employed a craftsman.
Denver had joined us. “So let’s do it,” he suggested.
Grateful Dead shouted: “Look, you guys. We appreciate being here, an’ all that, but we got places to go. Are we doing the fuckin’ shoot, or what?”
“What’s Prendergast doing here?” I asked Denver.
“I invited him.”
“Why?”
“Because I decided to. We’re not a police state yet, you know.”
“You mean because you’d also invited Silkstone.”
“So what. He’s a right to be here.”
“And it would have made a better story. Statements all round, from the injured party and his hot-shot lawyer. So where is he?”
“Don’t know. Should have arrived an hour ago. We thought you were him.”
“I’ll tell you where he is. Collecting whatever money you paid him and waiting for a ferry to warmer climes. The next time you see Silkstone he’ll have a coat over his head.”
“So let’s do it then, if you’re so sure.”
“We’re doing nothing. Go home. The show’s over.” I shouted it, for the benefit of everyone: “That’s it folks. Go home, the show’s over.”
“So what’ll happen to the car?” Denver demanded.
