Tinplate Read online

  The Colombe D’Or food lived up to its art collection, and I never got to the topless on the Croisette at Cannes, even though they were only twenty minutes away. Except for a quick trip to the bank in Nice, I stayed in St Paul de Vence, where the sight of toasted breasts seemed to be relegated to its proper ranking in the list of the world’s most pressing priorities. Not that the Quink in the Colombe D’Or pool did not attract a few beautiful nymphs. There were five while I was there. Four were aged about sixteen or seventeen years, but their German parents never let them out of their sight. One formal father never went anywhere without his binoculars, and made a Prussian general look like a CND supporter. It was the fifth who fascinated me: tall, tanned and leggy, blonde streaks in her hair, and a look in her eye, the kind of girl the Beach Boys used to sing about. Only she wasn’t from California, as I heard her speak Roedean English to the waiter. And she seemed to be alone, which, somehow, seemed insane in this world.

  I don’t want to lead you on. I didn’t get anywhere with her.

  The Colombe D’Or isn’t the kind of place where you saunter up to a girl and say, ‘Gee, honey, you look swell. How about a … ?’ I tried to get a sunbed next to hers, but they were always taken. When she dived into the pool, by the time I had gingerly lowered myself in, she was getting out. And we were sat at least three Picassos, a Modigliani and a Matisse away from each other at dinner. C’est la vie, sod it. And the rotten thing is, I know she had her eyes on me. Nothing else, unfortunately but, definitely, her gorgeous eyes.

  I got up at five-thirty the second morning so that I could make an early start home. I aimed to get back without stopping anywhere for the night. I was getting worried about the responsibility of those irreplaceable items, now carefully packed into two separate boxes that would fit in my Beetle, one smaller one, for under the bonnet, the other to fit in the back behind the front seats. Stopping somewhere for the night seemed asking for trouble.

  Autoroutes are tedious, but magically fast. In no time at all, I was at the Marseilles junction, where my road swung north towards Paris. I was just thinking of breaking for a coffee at a petrol station, when I saw a red Ferrari in my rear-view mirror. Now it wasn’t the car that grabbed my attention — red Ferraris are a sou a dozen along the Cote D’Azur — it was the shape behind the wheel. Or rather, its head. It looked uncannily like my Quink girl. At first it didn’t bother me one way or the other. After all, it might not be her. Secondly, if it was her, why shouldn’t she be motoring back the same day I was anyway? Even the French don’t have a law against that.

  So I fantasized my way to the next Fina station and filled up the tank. I spotted the attendant noting the wider wheels. Maybe he had recognized the Porsche sound as I drew up. Certainly he cleaned my windscreen better than most. I pulled over to the coffee shop, and downed a cup and a croissant among the squabbling Gallic families.

  When I came back to the Beetle, I was surprised to see the Ferrari — or what I took to be the same car — hidden behind the souvenir shop. And she didn’t look the souvenir type, unless it had diamonds in it. I checked the packages were still there, and went on my way, now a little more conscious of what I might see in my rear-view mirror.

  For ten miles or so I saw nothing — that is, millions of Peugeots, Citroens, even a ‘Maigret’ type Light Fifteen, but no Ferraris. Then as I crested a long incline, I saw it about a dozen cars behind me. It was beginning to bug me, so over the rise I slowed right down and a cluster of cars went by. I could see the Ferrari had too much acceleration on its side to slow in time and as it, too, went past, I saw for certain it was my south of France superdream at the wheel. She didn’t throw me a glance, clever girl.

  And she was clever too for the next fifty miles or so, for I saw neither gorgeous hide nor blonde hair of her. But around Beaune she was back behind me, after, no doubt, a judiciously timed pit-stop to let me go by. I was beginning to wish now that I was taking the toys back in an armoured car. It’s amazing how vulnerable you can feel on a motorway, for I had the modesty to figure it might not be my virile body and slightly less virile mind she was after. And I had a strong feeling she might have friends somewhere up ahead — the kind that feel kinky enough about ladies’ stockings to wear them over their heads.

  I tried to keep in a bunch of traffic as much as I could, and never get left alone. It’s curious how difficult that is mile after mile. There’s always someone who doesn’t twig what’s going on, and breaks up the pack. And that red menace was never far behind. I began wondering what Clint Eastwood would do in a predicament like this. Then I realized I didn’t have a stand-in, and would be a nervous wreck by Calais.

  As we approached Paris, I began to feel a little easier. Surely no one would try to hijack my cargo with so many autos around? I started to think clearly again, and realized that young Quinky could be just playing a game with me — you know, man-and-woman type game, and I’d been too uptight to see what she was really getting at. Just as I was kicking myself for not taking her up on what could well be a most rewarding form of steering wheel seduction, I saw her peel off (in her car, I mean) down the Orly Airport exit, and disappear. And that was that. For you don’t U-turn on a French motorway, unless you’ve always had a hankering for the Foreign Legion. So Peter Marklin had done it again — panicked his way out of a proposition.

  The rest of the trip to Calais was uneventful. I grabbed a hamburger at another service station so as not to waste time. And though I kept a wary eye out, Quinky was nowhere to be seen. I was lucky at the ferry terminal: there was a boat in fifteen minutes. I bought some booze for Gus to thank him for looking after my shop and feeding Bing, then drove the Beetle on board. Though there seemed to be only eight cars and two container trucks on the ferry, a spotty seaman, enjoying his only power, made me park within a gnat’s whisker of the truck-like bumpers of a Volvo estate. Behind me, he invited a Chevrolet to go up my exhaust pipe. I took down their numbers just in case. Before I got out to join the brown ale brigade I could already hear making for the bar, I threw a travelling rug over the large package laying across the rear seat and footwells and locked the car. At least no one could see the other one in the boot under the bonnet. Mind you, the rug hardly looked natural, but there was little else I could do to disguise the package. A Beetle is hardly a pantechnicon. I decided to drop down to the car deck every now and again to check things out, then went up to the passenger level. I hoped the crossing would be fairly smooth, as water is not actually one of my favourite things. I tend to take Qwells to have a bath.

  *

  I was back sitting in my car ten minutes before we arrived at Dover. The tartan shrouded mountain was still behind my seat, and the package secure in the front boot. And besides the ferry food, I had experienced no reason to feel queasy. My only delay now would be at Customs, where they would no doubt go into a huddle as to what duty, if any, I would have to pay on a load of old toys. I had a receipt from Monsieur Vincent for £850 in full payment for eleven items. He was loath to sign a lie, but realized the need for it in the end. I hated making him do it, but knew Chalmers would hate me more if I didn’t. After all, £22,000 needs the extra import duty like a hole in the head.

  It seemed to take ages before they would let us off, and contrary to their manufacturer’s advertising, the Volvo ahead of me would not start; so Spotty and his mates had to push it off to one side before I could leave. My headlights picked their way to the Customs building, where I pulled up in the fourth lane down the line.

  ‘Anything to declare, sir? Drink, cigarettes, perfume … ?’

  ‘These two bottles of wine,’ I replied, holding up a clinking carrier bag that had been lying in the front passenger footwell. ‘And a few old toys and things I picked up in France.’ I indicated the tartan mountain behind me.

  ‘Ah, I see, sir,’ came the measured reply. ‘Would you mind stepping out so that I can take a look at them?’

  I got out and the rather seedy-looking Customs officer, who looked as if h
e hadn’t smiled since the last car had fallen into the dock, got in and knelt on my seat. He pulled the rug off. ‘Do you mind if I undo the string, or would you like the honour sir?’ I nodded that he could go ahead. ‘Toys, you say, sir? Old toys.’ The string fell away, and he slowly and deliberately opened the lid.

  ‘Please be careful. They’re all individually wrapped up. Easily damaged …’ I stopped and smiled at him, in case my concern led him to believe they were more valuable than my receipt said they were.

  I heard his hands disturbing and rustling paper, and then there was a curious silence, and he backed off out of the car.

  ‘This one of them, sir?’ He held up a cheap plastic model of a 1980 Camaro.

  Three

  ‘You look terrible. You should go back to bed again.’ I looked at Gus, who did not, quite, ooze the sympathy I had been counting on.

  ‘How can anyone sleep when the whole world is falling apart around him?’ I complained bitterly.

  ‘Churchill did during the war. Cat-napped his way to victory.’ Gus got up and pulled himself another can of beer. ‘Worrying’s no good. Never solved nothing, worrying.’

  I exploded. ‘It’s all very well for you, Gus. It’s not you who owes £22,000 to an irate and frustrated multi-millionaire, who can ruin your chances of ever making an honest bob out of toys again.’

  ‘You can always fall back on advertising,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Advertising’s not exactly a thing to fall back on. It’s more likely to fall back on you. Anyway, I gave all that up over two years ago, with Deborah and all her neurotic hangers-on.’

  He took a long, slow draught of his beer. ‘Well then, we’ll have to find the toys, won’t we?’

  I breathed a sigh of relief, and Gus smiled. I knew then what he was doing, and he was right. I was just too tired to think straight. So would you be if you had, one, had the shock of finding a fabulous collection of unique vintage toys replaced by eleven plastic Camaros made in Macao. Two, an hour-long fight with Customs officials and officers from the ferry to energize a search of the ship. Three, searched the ship with them for over an hour, knowing damn well the toys had probably been taken off before I had even reached Customs myself. And, four, all the time been not quite certain that the packages had not been interfered with either just before leaving St Paul de Vence or on a coffee or hamburger break on the long journey. The real toys might never had embarked on the ferry at all. And the whole dreadful disaster came on top of being knackered from a hard nine-hundred-mile drive. Meanwhile, Gus had been minding the store and feeding the cat. I could be calm with such onerous responsibilities.

  ‘What did his voice sound like?’

  ‘Whose voice?’ I asked irritably.

  ‘Chalmers — on the phone.’

  ‘Cross. What did you expect?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. Did he sound genuine?’

  I suddenly twigged what he meant. I thought for a minute. ‘I think he did, but I don’t often hear cross multi-millionaires. But I know what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Well?’ Gus looked at me from under the tangle of his eyebrows.

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think he would steal his own toys. There would be no point.’

  ‘Put you in his power, though, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘No point in that either. He knows I don’t have £22,000 hanging about.’

  ‘What about your own toy collection?’

  ‘Not worth more than about £10,000, I reckon. And he’s seen them, so he would know that.’

  ‘Nothing specially he wants in it?’

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought so. He’s got most models. Anyway, I don’t think he’s the sort of man …’

  Gus laughed. ‘Well, it’s got to be a collector of some sort, hasn’t it?’

  I had another beer while I brewed on it. Gus was right again: it had to be a collector, and one who knew I was going to the south of France, and why I was going there. And I hadn’t told anyone except Gus. I tried to tread carefully.

  ‘Gus, there’s no question it has to be another collector. But he would have had to have known about my trip, wouldn’t he?’ I let the thought filter through the Heineken.

  ‘Yeah. He’d have had to have known.’

  ‘And only Chalmers, you and I knew about it.’

  Gus thought for a second. ‘And that bloke in the south of France you bought them from.’

  I had forgotten about Monsieur Vincent. ‘Yes, and him.’

  I realized the oblique approach was getting me nowhere with Gus, so I came out with it.

  ‘Did you mention it to anyone, Gus?’

  He didn’t seem at all concerned but took a sip of his beer, and made a church with his hands. ‘Didn’t try to keep it a secret. I might have done.’

  My heart sank.

  ‘Think, Gus, think. Whom did you tell?’

  ‘Can’t remember. Nobody special.’

  ‘What do you mean — “Nobody special”?’

  ‘Well, nobody in particular. I just mentioned it in the Black Lion, that’s all.’

  ‘When, for goodness’ sake?’

  ‘The day Chalmers first rang you with the suggestion.’

  I groaned and put my head in my hands. ‘And you said it was to get vintage toys?’

  ‘Of course. I thought that was the funny bit — old toys being worth all that lot.’

  ‘Who was in there?’

  Gus put down his beer. ‘I can’t remember now. It was quite full that night and I seem to think I drank a fair bit.’

  I knew I wouldn’t get any more out of him.

  ‘Should have been insured,’ Gus grumbled in some sort of self-defence.

  ‘I know. But it would have taken ages to set it all up. Any insurance company would have had to bring in an expert to see them first. Monsieur Vincent would never have stomached that, let alone Chalmers who wanted the whole thing kept as quiet as possible.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Gus mumbled.

  I leaned across and patted his hand, and Bing looked most annoyed as I had disturbed his paw on my lap.

  ‘Don’t be,’ I said, with the nearest to a smile my face could muster. ‘In a funny way, you may have helped a little.’

  ‘Can’t see that myself. I shouldn’t let drink do the talking.’

  ‘Forget it, Gus. Regrets won’t bring the toys back either. What I mean is this: there are about twenty collectors in this country with that kind of determination to get exactly what they want, whatever the price, and I’ve dealt with most of them. But only a very few, I think, would stoop to stealing. Now, say half of that twenty would. That’s a list of ten suspects I know of, though there may be more. That’s supposing the culprit is someone from this country and not a foreigner.’

  ‘Don’t trust any foreigner,’ muttered Gus.

  ‘Shut up a minute, Gus, and listen.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see how my blurting out about your trip in the pub has been any help,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Well, it might have because it’s probably narrowed down our field to this particular area. Of those ten, only three live within a hundred miles of here, so those are the three we should start with. If we don’t get anywhere, we’ll have to think all over again.’

  ‘Who are they then? If I’m going to help, I’d better know their names.’

  ‘I’ll have to double check in my address book. But the three I can think of are Mr Gerald Rankin at Blandford Forum, Chalmers, of course, at his country place near Bridport, and Vivian Stone from Bournemouth.’

  ‘What are you going to do — ring ’em all up and ask them if they’ve stolen any toys recently?’

  I felt like wringing his neck, because he had realized the predicament. I got up and went to the door. ‘I’m going to take your advice: I’m going to sleep on it.’

  *

  To my surprise, I slept like a top and woke up feeling fairly chipper for a man who had a sudden debt of £22,000 and the sword of Damocles hanging over his means o
f making any money. For a moment or two I missed Deborah — but only for a moment or two.

  I made Bing and myself some breakfast, then went through the post I hadn’t had the courage to open when I got back. Besides one of the usual from the Inland Revenue, a water rate final demand and an electricity bill, the rest was about par for that many days away: two letters protesting that the shop was closed too often, three offering ‘playworn’ Dinky toys that they, no doubt, expected the earth for but which wouldn’t fetch a penny from a serious collector, and one from a school teacher in Fyfe, who had been given my name by a cousin of his in Dorchester. He was after any Minics I might have for sale. I only had about three left for sale, as I was a keen collector of the small clockwork cars, buses and lorries myself. I scribbled a reply, and went out to post it.

  When I got back, I took a quick glance at the local paper, which had just arrived. This was a big mistake, for amongst the myriad other bits of local news, it carried quite lengthy coverage of the Spitfire debate at St Sebastian’s Church Hall, and my chipperness rating plummetted to zero again. I needed reminding of Mr Treasure like Lynmouth needs memories of flood waters. To make matters worse, the phone then rang. It was Chalmers without any charm. Just an ultimatum: find the toys in the next four weeks or come up with the money instead. There was a little extra inducement as well, if I didn’t find the toys — something about ‘never being able to deal again’. Bing got out of the way smartly as I grabbed my address book, and went out to the car. Old blue eyes knew what he was doing — which was more than I did.

  *

  I took the road to Blandford Forum. It’s a pretty road, but I didn’t see much of the scenery — just the end of the line. Gerald Rankin’s house was bigger than I had imagined it, even with a name like Purbeck Hall, and you could have run the British Grand Prix on its driveway. Even when I had pulled the bell handle, I had no idea what I was going to say when someone answered the sepulchral dinging.

  A woman I took to be a maid answered the door. I introduced myself as a fellow toy collector, and could I please see Mr Rankin? She went away, and a moment later, led me into a drawing-room, that could have housed the mammoth Howard Hughes flying boat with acres to spare. Mr Rankin was not as I remembered from his visits to my shop. Relaxed in his own home, he seemed twice as nice and ten times more unlikely to have robbed a cross-Channel ferry. And what’s more, he had an impressive tan, on which his greying military moustache seemed to sit a little incongruously.