hutch called a Morant hutch it lived in, one which gave it a small lawn of its own to nibble.
‘Mummy said I could name him, so I’ve called him Reginald after you, Grandad.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Wexford. ‘Does he ever get called Reg for short?’
Mary was shocked. ‘No, never.’
Dora went to look at his inbox just before they went to bed. ‘Two for you, Reg.’
‘You’ll have to call me Reginald now. After the rabbit.’
The first email was from Tom Ede, saying he hoped to see him on Tuesday. He had forgotten he had given Tom his email address, but of course he had, tentatively, along with his phone number. When Wexford saw the name ‘Jonathan Green’ he realised something. Minneapolis time would be six hours behind British Summer Time, which meant that when he sent his request it had been four o’clock in the morning there. Green had replied at nine-thirty his time. And what he said was that the only Edsel dealership he had ever heard of in Great Britain was Miracle Motors of Balham, London, but so far as he knew they had sold their last one in 2001. Wexford could try them. They might well know the location of all the Edsels in the United Kingdom.
He slept soundly that night and they set off back to London at nine next morning.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MIRACLE MOTORS WERE in the phone book. But he wouldn’t call them; he’d go there on Monday afternoon. He had paid visits to south London in the past but they had been rare. The Tube and the Northern Line were the obvious transport choice, for he had rejected the idea of driving through the traffic congestion. Miracle Motors was in the High Street, not far from Balham tube station.
By this time he had learnt quite a lot about Edsels from Wikipedia, because he had at first intended to present himself as an Edsel enthusiast. But he now saw the flaw in this, for such an expert might be expected to know more about the whereabouts of this Ford model than any salesman at the showroom. Instead, finding a girl of about twenty (something of a surprise, this) seated in a small glass-walled reception area, he simply told her the truth or half of it, that he was trying to trace an Edsel last seen in St John’s Wood about twelve years ago. Neither she nor the manager she fetched showed the least interest in what might prompt this investigation, though the manager appeared to think he was some sort of inquiry agent. In a way he was.
‘I’ve only been manager here for two years, but I can tell you we haven’t sold an Edsel for – oh, I’d say it’d be eight or nine years. Collectors buy and sell them online. This is one particular one you’re looking for, is it?’
‘It was a pale yellow colour or greenish-yellow. 1958 or 1959 – I’m guessing there. I don’t know if it was two- door or four-door. The owner or driver in 1998 seems to have been a very young man.’
The manager thought about it. ‘Your best bet may be to ask Mick.’
Wexford looked at him inquiringly.
‘Mick worked here for years. Mick Bestwood. He retired three years ago. But he knows all about Edsels. He’s even got a couple of them. He’s only just round the corner in Crowswood Road or I can give you a phone number. I’m sure he won’t mind.’
He would have found Mick Bestwood’s house without any directions. What had once been a front garden had been concreted over and become the parking place for an enormous car Wexford recognised from the Wikipedia pictures as an Edsel Citation convertible, probably of 1958. It was sky-blue, not a pale greenish-yellow and so large and long as to dwarf the already small house behind it and the garage joined on to it.
The front door was opened by a young woman in a pink tracksuit he took to be Bestwood’s daughter, but she turned out to be his wife. Bestwood was a small spry man, maybe sixty-five but because of his still dark hair looking much younger. The marriage appeared to be quite recent to judge by the way the woman he addressed as Cassandra kept flashing her wedding and engagement rings. Wexford wondered if marriage had assumed a special status it hadn’t had for thirty or forty years now that so many couples lived together without benefit of registrar.
Mick Bestwood showed not the least surprise that someone had come to inquire about Edsels. The first thing he asked was if Wexford had noticed his own in the front garden. Wexford didn’t say he could hardly help noticing it and that a more appropriate question would be had he noticed the house, but simply answered that it was a nice car and in perfect condition.
‘It is,’ said Bestwood, ‘and only ten years younger than me. Wished I looked as good.’
‘Oh, Mick,’ said Cassandra. ‘You look lovely, you know you do.’
Bestwood took hold of her ring-flashing hand and smiled. ‘I’ve got another one in the garage – not mine. I’m looking after it for a customer.’ He said like a doctor, ‘So how can I help you?’
Wexford repeated what he had said to the Miracle Motors man. The hand was dropped and Bestwood got up.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’ They went outside the way Wexford had come. ‘The chap was called Gray or Greig, can’t remember which but something like that. He had this Edsel, used to bring it to us for service and repairs. He worshipped that car. We heard he’d left it behind with his nephew and gone to live in Liphook, but when I say we heard it that was from the nephew, there was never a word out of Gray.’
Bestwood lifted up the up-and-over door on the garage. Inside, filling it, so that the first thing that struck Wexford was what skilful driving it must have taken to wedge it in there unscathed, was an enormous greenish- yellow car, streamlined and finned and spotlessly clean.
‘Where are the number plates?’
‘Are you asking me? Someone had nicked them before I ever set eyes on it.’ Bestwood gave the car a little pat as he might a beloved pet which had suffered some small injury. ‘Miracle Motors know very well it’s here, but that new manager’s got a head like a sieve, he said. ‘What happened was this. The nephew tried to sell it to us but we weren’t having that, not without the owner there or at least notification from him, not without the registration document. It was me told him to get his uncle to come in himself, but he never did and we never heard another word from him. Then one day – it would have been ’97 or ’98 and winter or autumn – I was in Notting Hill, passing through, I mean, on my way from Shepherds Bush, when I spotted this vehicle parked on a yellow line and plastered all over the front with parking tickets and without its number plates. I couldn’t stop then, but I went back later and had a good look. I talked to the then manager. We didn’t have an address for the nephew and all we had for Mr
