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action. His assistant Zoe Grant is just as caring, and just as slow because she loves her jobs so much she can’t bear to finish them. She’s about twenty-five, well behind Len in the age stakes, and together they make an unbeatable team. In short, the only flaw in the Frogs Hill business is the mortgage on the whole property, caused by my late father’s addiction to purchasing every piece of interesting automobilia that he came across. Hence my involvement in police work to smooth the cash flow.
    The lane to Frogs Hill is so little used that it does not rate highly on the Council’s list of needed improvements and upkeep, and the drive to the Pits is of the same standard. Any car arriving is therefore well heralded. Len and Zoe know the sound of my Alfa though, so they usually don’t even bother to look up as I come in. This time they did. I’d already told them about the missing Auburn and they had been as struck as I had been over the audacity of the thief. They had therefore promised to tap into the local automobile grapevine.
    â€˜Any luck?’ I asked.
    â€˜Not a toot,’ Zoe said. Len just grunted. ‘How was it?’ Zoe added, meaning of course Stour Studios.
    â€˜Just short of paradise,’ I said smugly.
    Zoe looked at me quizzically. She knows me well. ‘I meant the car.’
    â€˜We’ve got six days from tomorrow to find it.’ I tried to sound casual as I quickly scanned the cast lists I’d been given. They did not inspire me with hope. I had forced myself to do some thinking on the way back in between meditating about Louise. If the Auburn had been stolen to order from overseas, it must have been out of the country so quickly that Dave’s team checked too late. The theft had only been discovered at shortly after 5.45 a.m. on the Friday morning when the studios opened, and Bill went to check on the car.
    Another possibility was that the Auburn was winging its way inside a lorry to a destination somewhere in Britain. This was unlikely since so few 1935 Auburn cars come on the market that each one would be scrutinized extremely thoroughly. Bill’s was left-hand drive too, which would help identify it in a trice. The third possibility was that it was indeed a practical joke and would turn up again on Monday. I just couldn’t see that happening, however. The fourth possibility, fast becoming a probability, was that it was linked to the other incidents and might
not
turn up again.
    Zoe had been mulling the problem over. ‘We need outside resources, Jack. Local ones. How about Harry Prince?’
    â€˜Are you crazy?’ I gazed at her in astonishment. Local car dealer and businessman Harry Prince’s dearest wish in life is to see Frogs Hill fail and to make me an offer for the farmhouse, the Pits and business that I can’t refuse. Or that he
thought
I couldn’t.
    â€˜All right then.’ She’d seen my reaction. ‘We’ll ask Rob.’
    I groaned. I liked the ‘we’ but Rob was almost as bad as Harry. He’s Zoe’s pet aristocratic layabout who unfortunately has a knack of picking up useful bits of information, provided it takes no effort. I still don’t know what he does for a living. I know how he lives though. Zoe cooks for him. What else she does, I don’t ask.
    â€˜If you must,’ I said. Any port in a storm, after all – and storms there would be if I did not find that Auburn.

THREE
    T he Glory Boot is where I do my best thinking – usually, that is. It’s an extension to the farmhouse and was built by my father to house his famous automobilia collection. I only have to walk through my living room with its comfortable old sofas and bookshelves, go through a sort of boot room-cum-general dump – and then open the door to Wonderland. It’s here that my dad has left his soul. The Pits has acquired its own heady mix of high-octane fumes from the petrolheads who