White Lies (25 page)

“I don’t know. Let’s ask him shall we?” He gave an upward nod toward a truck turning into the road.

The driver pulled the tow truck into the curb and backed up with a rumble of the engine and several lungfuls of diesel fumes. A man climbed from the cab and introduced himself as Nick Boardman. His handshake was so firm Meinwen felt it was a display of dominance on his part. He slapped the officer’s back. “Wotcha, Keith.” He pronounced it “Keef.”

Meinwen brushed the dirt from the back of her skirt. “You two know each other then?”

“PC Bent here is my brother-in-law, ain’t you mate?” Nick mock-thumped the officer’s arm. He was a beefy man who could have played Rugby in his underwear and come to no harm. His head grew straight out of his shoulders with neither room nor need for neck and his arms and legs were caricatures of giant exclamation marks.

“I see.” Meinwen smiled, her teeth clamped so tight it made her jaw ache.

Dafydd grimaced. “I’m guessing this isn’t the guy you were talking about?”

“No.” Meinwen looked at the van, then back at Nick. “What’s your estimate then? For towing my friend’s truck to your garage and repairing the damage?”

“Ooh. Let’s have a look.” Nick pulled out a pad to make notes. “Front panel. Indicator unit. Radiator.” He sucked air through his teeth. “Oil leak, nearside wheel, rim and tire, nearside rear wing. Plus parts and labor. You’re looking at about two grand, assuming I can get the parts. They don’t make these any more, you know.”

“Two grand?” Meinwen’s heart sank, her future with an ice-cream van on her front yard solidifying.

Dafydd’s face fell. “I can’t afford that.”

“The insurance will cover it, surely?”

“I’ve only got fire and theft.”

Nick laughed. “Want me to torch it?”

“Wait until I’m off duty, won’t you?” PC Bent grinned but the humor didn’t extend to his eyes.

“No, thanks. “Dafydd stood in front of the van and stroked the line of the bonnet. “What’s it’s scrap value?”

“Whatever you can get.” Nick shook his head. “I could tow it to the scrap yard in Offley but they’ll only give you base weight for it. I’ll still have to charge you the towing fee as well.”

“This is so unfair. It wasn’t my fault. Why am I being penalized for not running someone over? If I hadn’t swerved it’d just be a case of making a statement and being on my way.”

“And washing the blood off the radiator grill.” Nick laughed. “That’s assuming you had a witness, which you don’t.”

“Yes. He does. I was in the van.”

“But you’re a woman.” Nick pulled a packet of gum from his pocket, unwrapped a stick and popped it in his mouth. He put the packet away without offering it around. “Women are notoriously unreliable witnesses. Everybody knows that.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever. It’s in the Bible, innit?”

“Good grief.” Meinwen pulled out her phone and began scrolling through numbers. It was an old phone and it took much of her concentration. She found the number, dialed and walked a few paces away from the men while it rang.

“Winston?”

“Yeah. What? Who’s this?”

“This is Meinwen Jones. From the pagan shop on Knifesmith’s Gate?”

“Yeah, right. What can I do for you?”

“A friend of mine has had an accident and his van is stuck on Cherry Tree Road with crumpled wings and indicators and a broken radiator. How much to tow it to your garage and fix it?”

“I’ll tow it for the price of an hour’s labor. What sort of van?”

Meinwen looked back at Dafydd. “What sort of van is it?”

“It’s an ice-cream van, innit?” Both Nick and PC Bent laughed.

Dafydd scowled at the other men. “It’s a seventy-seven Bedford.”

“Wait a minute.” Meinwen relayed the information to her friend.

“Classic van, but still pretty common. Shouldn’t be too difficult.” Meinwen could hear Winston hissing as he totted up the price of parts. “Eight hundred plus labor? Cheaper if there’s no rush on the repair.”

“Brilliant.” She held the phone to her chest as she called to Dafydd. “He says eight hundred plus labor.”

“Magic.” Dafydd gave her a double thumbs-up sign. “Looks like we won’t be requiring your services after all, Mr. Boardman.”

“Your loss, mate.” Nick headed back to his truck. “Your friend might do cheaper work but I do quality.” He climbed in and moments later the truck belched diesel fumes and pulled away.

“You’ve got until nightfall to get this shifted before it’s impounded, sir.” PC Bent handed Dafydd a slip of paper as Meinwen rejoined them. “If you’ll drop in at the station to complete an incident report any time in the next fourteen days, we can get your case sorted out with the minimum of fuss.”

Dafydd glanced at the sheet. “What do you mean, ‘my case’?”

“Get you in front of the judge, sir. Then you can plead your case and take your punishment.”

“Not that you’ve already assumed me guilty.”

“Of dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention and driving in a manner likely to cause an accident? Of course not, sir. Heaven forbid.” He nodded to them. “Have a good day.”

Chapter 22

“Are you still seeing Penny?” Meinwen leaned back against the desk after checking the edge wasn’t covered in oil, a mug of tea the color and texture of coal tar between her hands. Despite the sunshine it was generally cold and sitting on the side of the road had warmed her not at all. At least the rain stopped while they’d been at the Larches.

“Penny?” Winston grinned, his teeth gleaming against his dark skin. “Nah. Haven’t seen her for over a year, actually. I don’t think she’s even in Laverstone any more.” He opened the filing cabinet and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. “Want some?”

Meinwen shook her head. “No thanks.”

“I will.” Dafydd held out his cup. He shrugged at Meinwen’s stare. “What? It’s not like I’ll be driving anywhere, is it?”

“I suppose not.” She looked through the grimy window into the workshop beyond, where a vintage Rolls Royce sat amongst the oil and filth like a Princess of Wales in Calcutta. “What do you reckon to the van then?”

“It’s fixable. It’ll take a week or two to get the parts together but it’s not as bad as it looks.” He slapped Dafydd’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry, mate. I’ll keep the costs down. You’ll soon be back to your blue-skinned people.”

“That’s Scotland, Winston.” Meinwen couldn’t help the smile. “Dafydd’s from Aberdovey.”

“Ah! The land of sheep and real fires.” Winston straddled his desk and booted up the laptop there. “We’ll get you on the road looking for little kiddies again in no time.”

“Thanks.” Dafydd motioned to the workshop with his mug. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Roller in a workshop before.”

“No? I’m not surprised. They like to keep them in-house. I’m an awful lot cheaper, though they keep a tight fist on the parts for them.”

“Who does it belong to? Waterman?” Meinwen rolled her eyes and mouthed, “Lord of the Manor” to Dafydd.

“No actually.” Winston peered over the top of the screen. “Richard Godwin, or it did.”

“Did?”

“It belongs to the finance company now. They’re collecting it next week. He defaulted on the payments and I was just repairing a few scuffmarks and the ding he put in the bumper last week to get it back into tip-top condition. It just needs the golf leaf reapplying and it’ll be ready to go.”

Meinwen shook her head. The Richard she knew would never have been so careless with money. What had happened to the man? She was glad she hadn’t taken up his offer to be her Dominant. If he treated his cars this badly, how did he treat his submissives?

“Gold leaf? Real gold leaf?”

“Sure.” Winston tapped a few keys. “Richard rubbed it off the nearside wing. It’ll be a couple of hours work to replace.”

“And you can do that, can you?”

“Yeah. It’s not hard if you know what you’re doing. There aren’t many coach painters about any more. It’s all done by lasers and robots now.”

“Didn’t old Tom used to do that? The gravedigger?”

“‘Used to’ being the operative phrase. He can hardly hold a brush these days with his arthritis.” Winston made a series of rapid taps on the laptop keys. “He taught me the skill while he still could and I give him a cut of any business he sends my way.” He closed the laptop. “Right. That’s the panels, indicators and lights for your van ordered. They’ll need painting to match, though, so I need to take some photographs of the originals before I rip them off.” He grabbed a fairly expensive-looking camera from a shelf and headed outside.

Meinwen and Dafydd followed him. “Did you say Richard was in debt?”

“I don’t think so.” Winston stopped at the van and turned the camera on, taking pictures of both sides, the bonnet and the back, where there was a picture of a large lady with a lollipop that declared Stop! Children! “What I said was he’d defaulted on the payments. I didn’t say nothing about him being in debt. Whether he does or doesn’t keep up payments on his cars is none of my business.”

“Cars? He had more than one?”

“Sure. He had a Merc too, though I haven’t seen it for a few months. Maybe he got rid of that too.”

“Do you have the information on it? Registration number, that sort of thing.”

“Yes. Why?” Winston lowered his camera and turned to face them. “Why are you so interested in Richard Godwin? I thought you and he weren’t an item?”

“Winston.” Meinwen laid a hand on the mechanic’s ark. “Richard’s dead. He was murdered last night in the graveyard at St. Pity’s.”

“Dead? You’re serious? Shit.” He shook his head and turned away, but not before Meinwen saw the glint of tears in his eyes. “He was just a kid.”

“He was in his twenties, managing a substantial house and investment portfolio. I’m guessing he’d trodden on a few fingers in the last few years.”

“And he was murdered? In cold blood?”

“Yes. Rather brutally, too, from what the inspector said.”

“So the police know about it? That’s something, at least.” Winston sank down onto a stack of tires. “Do they know who did it?”

“Not yet. People are being a bit tight-mouthed. You know what he was into. It doesn’t exactly make his friends and family want to talk to the police. That’s why Inspector White asked me to put some feelers out. See if we can find out who’d want him dead.” Inspector White had said no such thing but she was sure he wouldn’t mind, as long as she informed him of any information she gathered.

He put the camera down on the wing of a Morris Minor. “And who would?”

Meinwen shrugged. “You tell me. As far as I can make out, everybody loved him.”

Dafydd gave a half laugh. “Apart from his wife.”

“Catherine?” Meinwen shook her head. “She wouldn’t want him dead. What purpose would that serve. She’d already got the divorce settlement.”

“Divorce? They weren’t divorced.” Winston shook his head. “Uh-huh. She cleared off all right and took most of the money with her but they never actually got divorced. Someone needs to get in touch with her because everything will be hers now. Everything except the Roller.”

“She’s very lucky. “ Meinwen nodded. “Unless there’s another will.”

Chapter 23

Meinwen pulled her bag from the table as Sergeant Peters carried the tray over. Joe’s burger van in St. Marple’s indoor market wasn’t the most discrete place to meet the police but it did serve good food, at least according to Detective-inspector White.

He took a tea and a bacon butty from the tray, arranging it in almost a military fashion on the table while Peters, Meinwen and Dafydd each took their order, then motioned Peters to dispose of the tray. “Right. You’ve been meddling, I take it?” He watched Peters stretch to put the tray on the next table, then turned his gaze on Meinwen.

“Meddling? Investigating more like, as you knew I would.” She levered the plastic lid from her tea and sniffed at the ocher brew. It smelled of tannin.

“I knew no such thing.” White leaned forward, one forearm resting on the table. “It would not be conducive to a police investigation to have interfering old busybodies poking their nose into the circumstances of a murder.”