Free Classic Mistake by Amy Myers Page A

Stupid really. Eva would never be low profile.
    ‘Oh yes. We all remember Eva Colby.’
    ‘Was she that much in evidence at the May Tree?’
    He considered this. ‘No, but when she was there she left an impression, shall we say. She oozed, if you’ll forgive me, trouble.’
    ‘Did she pick on Carlos or vice versa?’ I decided it would be prudent to leave my knowledge of Josie’s role out of it for the moment.
    ‘Difficult to say. Carlos fancied her, that was clear, but he liked money and I think he imagined she had more than she did. He was strapped for cash. The Charros were doing well but not well enough for him to create a new life for himself and Eva in the style to which they were both accustomed.’
    ‘He managed it somehow. Probably with the help of Eva’s relations. Incidentally, did she ring you to tell you she was back in Kent?’
    ‘No. Nor,’ he added, ‘did Carlos. I imagine that’s what you want to know, isn’t it?’ He looked at me ironically.
    ‘Is it so obvious?’
    ‘If it was my partner, even a former one, I’d do the same as you.’
    I liked that. ‘I’m rooting around trying to find a reason for Carlos’s death. The police think they have got the measure of Eva, but something drew Carlos back here.’
    ‘What you really mean is that you’re fishing around to see who might have killed Carlos if she didn’t.’ He said it lightly and, I think, without intending to give offence. He couldn’t do that, in fact, as it was true.
    ‘Yes,’ I answered him.
    ‘And you think the answer lies in the Charros?’
    ‘I amend that to Carlos’s past.’
    ‘Good. Well, you’re on fertile ground with our former band. None of us had any reason to love him for what he did to us. He left us with mud on our white Charro suits. How could a Mexican band work without a Mexican? No way. So we had to hang up our whites and do the best we could in other fields. It was a tough time.’
    I was aware that someone else had entered the room, and I looked round as Jonathan greeted him. ‘Hi, Clive. Friend to see us. Eva Colby’s husband. Clive was bass guitar, Jack.’
    Clive Miller was no smooth Jonathan. He was a burly man also in his forties, but with suspicious eyes and a closed-in look that warned me it would take some time to get on easy terms with him. ‘Once,’ he grunted. ‘Don’t play a note now. What are
you
here for?’
    The emphasis on the ‘you’ indicated he didn’t see me as a potential chum.
    ‘Because Eva’s been charged—’
    ‘With Mendez’s murder. That scum. He deserved all he got.’
    In my book very few people deserve to be murdered, and Carlos was not one of them, dislikable though he might have been.
    ‘He wasn’t top of my list of favourite people either,’ I replied, ‘and my marriage to Eva is history. But with her arrest and my daughter in a spin –’ (forgive me, Cara) – ‘I’m trying to gather all I can on Mendez’s background.’
    A long silence, then: ‘You’re with the police, aren’t you?’ Clive hurled at me.
    ‘Car theft is my line, not murder. I help out in cases where classic cars are nicked. Specialist area. I like the Bristol, Jonathan.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Jonathan said, perhaps too politely. I was aware that I was very much under scrutiny from both of them.
    Clive brushed the topic of cars aside, fixing me with a look that indicated his stocky barrel-like figure was ready for a punch-up and only Jonathan’s presence was stopping him. ‘So you thought you’d prefer to pin the murder on us? No way, mate, no way. That scumbag wouldn’t have dared to show his face to us, let alone meet us. We’d be the last people to whom he’d announce his arrival. We heard it through the grapevine. He knew what his reception would have been if he’d come to see us. If it hadn’t been for Jon here giving me a job I’d have been a complete washout. I did a spell in prison for drugs after he went and—’
    Jonathan quickly intervened. ‘Clive’s