‘Thank you, anyway, Herr Pussett,’ says the policeman, clearly frustrated by the lack of help I can give him. ‘I hope you recover soon.’
He stands up and put his notebook away in his tunic.
Almost as a parting gesture, he turns back to me as he is leaving, to ask one last question. ‘Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt you?’
Ronnie and Reggie? The Fenton twins?
But did they really want to hurt me to the extent of placing a bag of cement in my way when I was travelling at eighty miles per hour?
Maybe they didn’t appreciate the danger.
Or maybe they did, and simply didn’t care.
‘I was threatened last night.’ I say it very slowly but it has a galvanising effect on the officer, who instantly returns to his seat, again removing his notebook.
‘Who by?’ he asks, making a note.
I tell him of my encounter with Declan and Justin Fenton in the backstreets, and how I am convinced that, without the timely arrival of two local gentlemen, I’d have been beaten up.
‘What is this “beaten up”?’ he asks in confusion.
‘Hurt. Punched, or kicked. Probably both.’
His eyes open wider, as if things like that just don’t happen in the tranquil streets of St Moritz, not on his watch.
‘The twins were unhappy that their grandmother’s horse did not win the big race at White Turf yesterday. They believed that I had something to do with it.’
‘And did you?’
‘No. I did not. It simply didn’t win because it wasn’t fast enough.’
And that, in turn, was because it was carrying an extra stone in weight. But I don’t mention that. I feel it would complicate the issue too much. And I still need to hear what Jerry has to say about it before I tell anyone.
‘I think I had better go and speak to these Fenton men,’ says the policeman, standing up again. ‘Thank you, Herr Pussett. I will keep you informed of any progress in my investigation.’
‘Do I get any protection?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean?’
‘If the Fenton twins did this to me on purpose they might come back and have another go.’
‘I think that is most unlikely. There would be too many witnesses.’
Unlikely or not, do I want to take the chance?
The policeman tells me that he will advise the hospital to take extra care, but I’m not sure it’s enough.
He departs and I lie my head back on the pillow.
I have a feeling that Ronnie and Reggie are not going to be very happy when the Swiss police come a-calling, asking awkward questions.
I will still need to watch my back, and my front.
* * *
On Monday afternoon, just after getting back from Lincoln and settling in at the Dickinsons’, my uncle called to tell me that my grandfather’s funeral was fixed for the coming Thursday at two o’clock in their local village church.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there.’
I felt I owed it to my grandfather, and also to my grandmother, to send the old boy off properly. They had, after all, taken me in and given me a home after my mum died. But it would be another hugely sad affair, with lots of tears, and I wasn’t at all sure if that was the best thing for me right now.
‘Of course you must go,’ Sabrina said when I told her later. ‘I’ll fix it with Jerry. Will you drive up?’
I thought back to when I’d last driven back from Yorkshire, how I had searched all the way for a motorway bridge to crash into.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll go by train. My uncle will pick me up from Malton.’
Thank goodness, I thought, that the funeral was during the week rather than on a Sunday, so the trains should be better.
Hence, on Thursday morning, dressed in a white shirt, black tie and my only suit, I travelled to Malton, arriving at half past midday.
One of the stops on the way was at Newark, and I had to take some deep breaths and tell myself to remain calm as the train remained in the station for three long minutes. But, with the help of a couple of hefty shots from the on-board buffet, I was fine, and my uncle collected me from Malton for the last ten miles to the tiny church of St Hilda’s in Ellerburn, the same venue where my mother’s funeral had been held four and a half years previously.
‘How’s Grannie bearing up?’ I asked in the car.
‘OK, I suppose,’ my uncle replied. ‘She obviously misses him. She keeps talking to him as if he’s still there in the house. It’s very strange.’
I couldn’t understand why he thought that was strange. I still sometimes spoke out loud to my father and he’d been gone for years.
In spite of its small size, the church was nowhere near full as my grandfather’s coffin was carried in by the undertaker’s men and placed in front of the altar. My uncle supported his mother’s arm as they followed it and I, in turn, walked behind them.
My uncle read a short passage from St John’s Gospel, something about God’s house having many rooms and one being prepared for my grandfather. Then the vicar gave a short address, but it was clear to everyone that he’d never even met the person in the coffin about whom he was speaking. And that was about it, other than ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’ sung badly by the meagre congregation to pre-recorded organ music.
My grandfather wouldn’t have cared. If it had been up to him, there probably wouldn’t have been a religious service at all. He had regularly and persistently declared that he didn’t believe in God or an afterlife, and he was proud of the fact that he’d only ever been to church for weddings and funerals, plus the odd christening, such as mine. So I suppose it was apt.
The whole thing was over in less than twenty minutes and I spent much of that time wondering why I had come all this way north just for this.
‘Thank you. Lovely service,’ we all said to the vicar at the church door as we exited, lying through our teeth.
And then we were off in a big car, following the hearse and coffin to the East Riding Crematorium for a quick committal and a rapid shunt into the fiery furnace, before going back to the farmhouse for some cheap sherry and a piece of chocolate cake.
Only then did my uncle approach me about the farm, as I knew he would eventually.
‘Why should you have half the farm when it’s been me that’s lived and worked on it all my life? It’s my home. And I intend to make damn sure it stays that way.’
He stormed off outside so, having said goodbye to my grandmother, I called a taxi to take me back to Malton train station. The thought of being alone in a car with my uncle at the moment was almost as bad as being in one with Jerry.
Maybe worse. And I needed another drink, one that was stronger than sherry.
* * *
Whatever Jerry might have said about things being back to normal, life certainly did not return to normal for me in Lambourn.
Perhaps there was no such thing as normality in my life. True, it was good to be finally rid of my sadistic housemates, but I discovered that living in the Dickinson household severely limited my privacy and, in particular, my ability to have a drink when I wanted one.
I took to smuggling in bottles of vodka beneath my coat and hiding them under my clothes in the chest of drawers. But it was fraught with danger, not least because of the eagle-eyed cleaner who came in every day to make my bed after I’d gone to work.
But why was I worried? I was over eighteen. It was legal for me to drink alcohol if I wanted to. So why was I so afraid of being found out? The very thought of it made me angry – angry with the prying cleaner, angry with the Dickinsons, even angry with the world for being so unfair to me. But, mostly, I was angry with myself both for the predicament I found myself in and for not standing up like a ‘man’ and getting over it.
The degree of anger surging inside me was both a surprise and a worry. I had never been an angry child yet here I was suddenly grinding my teeth and clenching my fists with rage.
And there were other probl
ems too.
Sabrina took it upon herself not only to provide a roof over my head but also to put food for me on her table.
Gone were my three low-calorie microwavable curries a week, replaced with twice-daily wholesome meals made with fresh ingredients.
Of course, they were delicious and, although I begged her to give me small portions, my weight started to creep up alarmingly even after only one week.
I warned Jerry that, at this rate, when jump racing restarted again after its summer break, I would be unlikely to be able to ride anything that was to carry less than ten-stone-six.
He was furious, yet again, but he should have blamed his wife not me. She was feeding me too much. But he would also blame the booze, I thought, if only he knew about it.
Far too many liquid calories were still passing down my throat, late at night, under the bedcovers. But I needed them. I was still having the brick-lorry nightmares and the vodka helped me sleep.
‘Have you been to the surgery?’ Sabrina asked me at breakfast on Monday morning, a full week after she’d collected me from Lincoln.
‘Not yet,’ I said, biting back the urge to tell her that it was none of her business. ‘I’ve been too busy, what with my grandpa’s funeral.’
She gave me a disapproving look as if that was not a good enough excuse. ‘Then you must go today. I’ll run you down there, if you like.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I can walk.’
‘I’m going anyway. I have to pick up a prescription.’
Hence, half an hour later, I found myself suppressing another bout of anger as I was chaperoned by Sabrina into the Lambourn surgery.
‘Please can I have a form to register as a new patient?’ I asked the lady behind the reception desk.
She pulled a sheet of paper out of a filing cabinet and handed it over, together with a pen.
‘Do you have your NHS number?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t even know if I have one.’
‘You get allocated one as a baby and you keep it for the rest of your life. Never mind. I’m sure we can get it from your previous surgery. Make sure you put their details on the form. And do you have any ID with you? A driving licence will do, provided it’s got your current address on it.’
It didn’t, but who was going to worry about a few hundred yards’ difference?
I filled out the form, using the shared house as my current address, and handed it back to the lady along with my driving licence for her to check my details. All seemed to be in order.
‘Can I also make an appointment to see a doctor?’
‘Not today,’ she said. ‘We’re already full.’
‘Soon then, please.’
I forced a smile at her as she tapped the computer keyboard on her desk.
‘We’ve had a cancellation, so I have one free slot tomorrow afternoon at two-thirty, with Dr Rasheed. Will that do?’
‘Perfect. Thank you.’
Sabrina drove me back to her house. ‘All set?’
‘I’m seeing a doctor tomorrow afternoon.’
24
The next people allowed in to see me at the Upper Engadin hospital are the president of the Cresta Run and the tobogganing club secretary. Both look haggard and worried. Perhaps they think I will sue.
‘My dear Miles,’ says the president. ‘We are so very sorry. We cannot see how this could have happened. We are still asking ourselves how a bag of cement could have ended up on the run.’
‘How about the men stationed along the track?’ I reply. ‘Didn’t any of them spot it?’
He sighs. ‘As you know, the men are there to maintain the ice and help fallen riders. They therefore position themselves at the corners. It’s where most damage is done to the ice and also where riders come off. They don’t expect trouble on the straights.’
‘How about the CCTV images? They must show something.’
‘At that point of the run the cameras are actually attached to the bridge, one looking up and, on the other side, one facing down. They don’t show the bridge at all. And the cameras that do are so far away it is impossible to discern anything. We’ve been looking hard at the images to see if we can see if the bag fell off a truck or something as it went over the bridge.’
I look at them. ‘I had a policeman in here just now who seems to believe that it was done on purpose.’
This is clearly not a surprise to either of them. He must have told them the same thing, even if they don’t want to believe it.
They clearly haven’t met Ronnie and Reggie.
As I’ve lain here, I’ve come to the conclusion it is just the sort of thing the twins would do. Anything for a laugh, in their warped minds.
‘They also think it may have been done to target me personally.’
Now my two visitors are surprised.
‘But how could anyone be sure it was you who was coming down? We all look the same in our sliding suits and helmets, especially at speed.’
‘Miles Pussett to the box.’ I imitate the Tannoy call. ‘It plays over the speakers all the way down the run. Everybody knows who’s riding next.’
They both nod in agreement. ‘Of course.’
‘What bothers me, though,’ I said, ‘is where anyone would get a bag of cement from in the first place.’
‘Ah, well,’ says the club secretary, ‘we believe they have the answer to that. Some construction work is going on right next to the bridge, the rebuilding of a retaining wall, and there’s a stack of similar bags by the side of the road. Twenty-five kilos each. The police seem to think that someone may have simply picked one up, lifted it over the bridge parapet and dropped it onto the run.’ He shakes his head, not in a way that indicates he necessarily disagrees with the police, but simply because he can’t understand why anyone would do such a thing.
Nor can I.
‘But surely they’d have been seen?’
‘Not necessarily,’ says the president. ‘The construction team were not working this morning and that road is always very quiet in the winter. And no one was watching the run from there because today was only for practice. Not like on Saturday for the Grand National when there were lots of spectators on that bridge.’
‘And you’re sure the CCTV shows nothing?’ I still couldn’t believe it.
‘Positive. There is one point on the footage when something moves rapidly down past the up-facing camera. It’s only fleeting and you probably wouldn’t notice it without looking carefully. It must have been the bag being dropped. And, the very next instant, you appear in the shot coming onto Bledisloe Straight. There would have been no time to do anything about it even if we had seen it.’
Is he trying to convince me, or himself?
‘So is the run going to open again tomorrow?’
‘That’s up to the police but, if it does, we will have a man standing guard on every bridge to make sure the same thing can’t happen again.’
Stable doors and bolting horses once more comes to mind.
* * *
Dr Rasheed kept me waiting for nearly twenty minutes at the Lambourn surgery, during which time the angry bile rose again in my throat and I nearly did a runner. As it was, I’d had to stop at the convenience store to buy myself a small bottle of liquid courage in order to make it there in the first place.
What would I say to the doctor?
Did I really need his advice?
I just needed some pills to give me a bit more undisturbed sleep every night. Then everything would surely be better, much better.
During one of my lengthy wakeful periods in the course of Monday night, I’d called the emergency department of Lincoln County Hospital. I found the telephone number online and dialled it several times, except for the last digit, before losing my nerve and hanging up.
What would I say even if she were there?
Finally, I pushed the last digit too, and it started to ring. Even so, I was about to disconnect again when someone answered.
‘A & E, can
I help?’ said a male voice with an Australian accent.
‘Can I speak to Nurse Valentine?’ I said it quickly before I lost my nerve.
‘Sorry, mate,’ said the Australian, ‘she’s not here at present.’
‘Could you please give her a message?’
‘Sure thing. Fire away.’
‘Please tell her that Miles Pussett called. I’m the jockey she helped last week after I had a panic attack in Newark. She might just remember me. I want to thank her for all her help and also to tell her that I’m going to see a doctor about my problems later today.’
‘No worries.’
‘Can you also give her my number?’ I read it out as he wrote it down.
‘I’ll pass the message on, but she might not get it for a few days. She’s off sick this week.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope.’
‘Chickenpox. Very infectious. One of the kids has got it.’
Kids?
Of course. Why had I thought anything different? Not with my luck.
‘Please give her the message when you can.’
‘Will do.’
He’d hung up and I’d sat there for quite a while holding my phone, feeling particularly low.
‘Miles Pussett,’ someone called.
It instantly brought me back to the Lambourn surgery waiting room. ‘Come on in,’ Dr Rasheed said, leading me through the door of his consulting room. ‘What seems to be the matter?’
‘Panic attacks,’ I blurted out, sitting down and almost having another one on the spot. ‘The mental health team in Lincoln told me I need to get my GP to refer me for what they called a full psychiatric assessment. They think I might have something called PTSD.’
He smiled at me. ‘And when was this?’
‘When was what?’
‘When you were seen in Lincoln?’
‘A week ago yesterday, at Lincoln County Hospital. I was taken there by ambulance from Newark.’
Did he not believe me?
‘And what were you doing in Newark?’
Did it matter? I could feel myself getting angry again.
‘I was having a panic attack,’ I said. ‘I was found lying in the street at midnight by two policemen.’
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