by Dick Francis
It took four hours. Slowly, in that time, the screwed-tight wires of tension slackened to manageable if not to ease. At every stop, however illogical I might tell myself it was, dread resurfaced. Oversize wrenches could kill when one wasn’t looking.... Don’t be a fool, I thought. I’d bought a ticket from the train conductor between Runcom and Crewe, but every subsequent appearance of his dark uniform as he checked his customers bumped my heart muscles.
It grew dark. The train clanked and swayed into realms of night. Life felt suspended.
There were prosaically plenty of taxis at Reading. I traveled safely to Shelley Green and rang Archie Kirk’s bell.
He came himself to open the door.
“Hello,” I said.
He stood there staring, then said awkwardly, “We’d almost given you up.” He led the way into his sitting room. “He’s here,” he said.
There were four of them. Davis Tatum, Norman Picton, Archie himself, and Charles.
I paused inside the doorway. I had no idea what I looked like, but what I saw on their faces was shock.
“Sid,” Charles said, recovering first and standing up. “Good. Great. Come and sit down.”
The extent of his solicitude always measured the depth of his alarm. He insisted I take his place in a comfortable chair and himself perched on a hard one. He asked Archie if he had any brandy and secured for me a half-tumblerful of a raw-tasting own brand from a supermarket.
“Drink it,” he commanded, holding out the glass.
“Charles . . .”
“Drink it. Talk after.”
I gave in, drank a couple of mouthfuls and put the glass on a table beside me. He was a firm believer in the life-restoring properties of distilled wine, and I’d proved him right oftener than enough.
I remembered that I still wore the soft, stripey hat, and took it off; and its removal seemed to make my appearance more normal to them, and less disturbing.
“I went to Topline Foods,” I said.
I thought: I don’t feel well; what’s wrong with me?
“You’ve cut your face,” Norman Picton said.
I also ached more or less all over from the desperate exertions of the judo. My head felt heavy and my hand was swollen and sore from Ellis’s idea of entertainment. On the bright side, I was alive and home, safe ... and reaction was all very well but I was not at this point going to faint.
“Sid!” Charles said sharply, putting out a hand.
“Oh ... yes. Well, I went to Topline Foods.”
I drank some brandy. The weak feeling of sickness abated a bit. I shifted in my chair and took a grip on things.
Archie said, “Take your time,” but sounded as if he didn’t mean it.
I smiled. I said, “Owen Yorkshire was there. So was Lord Tilepit. So was Ellis Quint.”
“Quint!” Davis Tatum exclaimed.
“Mm. Well ... you asked me to find out if there was a heavyweight lumbering about behind the Quint business, and the answer is yes, but it is Ellis Quint himself.”
“But he’s a playboy,” Davis Tatum protested. “What about the big man, Yorkshire?” Tatum’s own bulk quivered. “He’s getting known. One hears his name.”
I nodded. “Owen Cliff Yorkshire is a heavyweight in the making.”
“What do you mean?”
I ached. I hadn’t really noticed the wear and tear until then. Win now, pay later.
“Megalomania,” I said. “Yorkshire’s on the edge. He has a violent, unpredictable temper and an uncontrolled desire to be a tycoon. I’d call it incipient megalomania because he’s spending far beyond sanity on self-aggrandizement. He’s built an office block fit for a major industry—and it’s mostly empty—before building the industry first. He’s publicity mad—he’s holding a reception for half of Liverpool on Monday. He has plans—a desire—to take over the whole horse-feed nuts industry. He employs at least two bodyguards who will murder to order because he fears his competitors will assassinate him ... which is paranoia.”
I paused, then said, “It’s difficult to describe the impression he gives. Half the time he sounds reasonable, and half the time you can see that he will simply get rid of anyone who stands in his way. And he is desperate ... desperate . . . to save Ellis Quint’s reputation.”
Archie asked “Why?” slowly.
“Because,” I said, “he has spent a colossal amount of money on an advertising campaign featuring Ellis, and if Ellis is found guilty of cutting off a horse’s foot, that campaign can’t be shown.”
“But a few advertisements can’t have cost that much,” Archie objected.
“With megalomania,” I said, “you don’t make a few economically priced advertisements. You really go to town. You engage an expensive, highly prestigious firm—in this case, Intramind Imaging of Manchester—and you travel the world.”
With clumsy fingers I took from my belt the folded copy of the paper in the “Quint” box file in Mrs. Dove’s office.
“This is a list of racecourses,” I said. “These racecourses are where they filmed the commercials. A thirty-second commercial gleaned from each place at phenomenal expense.”
Archie scanned the list uncomprehendingly and passed it to Charles, who read it aloud.
“Flemington, Germiston, Sha Tin, Churchill Downs, Woodbine, Longchamps, K. L., Fuchu ...”
There were fifteen altogether. Archie looked lost.
“Flemington,” I said, “is where they run the Melbourne Cup in Australia. Germiston is outside Johannesburg. Sha Tin is in Hong Kong. Churchill Downs is where they hold the Kentucky Derby. K. L. is Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Woodbine is in Canada, Longchamps is in Paris, Fuchu is where the Japan Cup is run in Tokyo.”
They all understood.
“Those commercials are reported to be brilliant,” I said, “and Ellis himself wants them shown as much as Yorkshire does.”
“Have you seen them?” Davis asked.
I explained about the box of Betacam tapes. “Making those special broadcast-quality tapes themselves must have been fearfully expensive—and they need special playing equipment, which I didn’t find at Topline Foods, so no, I haven’t seen them.”
Norman Picton, with his policeman’s mind, asked, “Where did you see the tapes? Where did you get that list of racecourses?”
I said without emotion, “In an office at Topline Foods.”
He gave me a narrow inspection.
“My car,” I told him, “is still somewhere in Frodsham. Could you get your pals up there to look out for it?” I gave him its registration number, which he wrote down.
“Why did you leave it?” he asked.
“Er ... I was running away at the time.” For all that I tried to say it lightly, the grim reality reached them.
“Well,” I sighed, “I’d invaded Yorkshire’s territory. He found me there. It gave him the opportunity to get rid of the person most likely to send Ellis to jail. I accepted that possibility when I went there but, like you, I wanted to know what was causing terrible trouble behind the scenes. And it is the millions spent on those ads.” I paused, and went on, “Yorkshire and Ellis set out originally, months ago, not to kill me but to discredit me so that nothing I said would get Ellis convicted. They used a figurehead, Topline Foods director Lord Tilepit, because he owned The Pump. They persuaded Tilepit that Ellis was innocent and that I was all that The Pump has maintained. I don’t think Tilepit believed Ellis guilty until today. I don’t think The Pump will say a word against me from now on.” I smiled briefly. “Lord Tilepit was duped by Ellis, and so, also, to some extent, was Owen Yorkshire himself.”
“How, Sid?” Davis asked.
“I think Yorkshire, too, believed in Ellis. Ellis dazzles people. Knowing Ellis, to Yorkshire, was a step up the ladder. Today they planned together to ... er ... wipe me out of the way. Yorkshire would have done it himself in reckless anger. Ellis stopped him, but left it to chance that the bodyguards might do it ... but I escaped them. Yorkshire now knows Ellis is gui
lty, but he doesn’t care. He cares only to be able to show that brilliant ad campaign, and make himself king of the horse nuts. And of course it’s not just horse nuts that it’s all about. They’re a stepping-stone. It’s about being the Big Man with the power to bring mayors to his doorstep. If Yorkshire isn’t stopped you’ll find him manipulating more than The Pump. He’s the sort of man you get in the kitchens of political clout.”
After a moment, Archie asked, “So how do we stop him?”
I shifted wearily in the chair and drank some brandy, and said, “I can, possibly, give you the tools.”
“What tools?”
“His secret files. His financial maneuverings. His debts. Details of bribes, I’d guess. Bargains struck. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Evidence of leverage. Details of all his dealings with Ellis, and all his dealings with Tilepit. I’ll give you the files. You can take it from there.”
“But,” Archie said blankly, “where are these files?”
“In my computer in London.”
I explained the Internet transfer and the need for password cracking. I couldn’t decide whether they were gladdened or horrified by what I’d done. A bit of both, I thought.
Charles looked the most shocked, Archie the least.
Archie said, “If I ask you, will you work for me another time?”
I looked into the knowing eyes, and smiled, and nodded.
“Good,” he said.
14
I went home to Aynsford with Charles.
It had been a long evening in Archie’s house. Archie, Davis, Norman and Charles had all wanted details, which I found as intolerable to describe as to live through. I skipped a lot.
I didn’t tell them about Ellis’s games with my hands. I didn’t know how to explain to them that, for a jockey, his hands were at the heart of his existence ... of his skill. One knew a horse by the feel of the bit on the reins, one listened to the messages, one interpreted the vibrations, one talked to a horse through one’s hands. Ellis understood more than most people what the loss of a hand had meant to me, and that day he’d been busy punishing me in the severest way he could think of for trying to strip him of what he himself now valued most, his universal acclaim.
I didn’t know how to make them understand that to Ellis the severing of a horse’s foot had become a drug more addictive than any substance invented, that the risk and the power were intoxicating; that I’d been lucky he’d had only a wrench to use on me.
I didn’t know how near he had come in his own mind to irrevocably destroying my right hand. I only knew that to me it had seemed possible that he would. I couldn’t tell them that I’d intensely lived my own nightmare and still shook from fear inside.
I told them only that an adjustable wrench in Yorkshire’s hands had cut my face.
I told them a little about the escape by judo, and all about the boy on Rollerblades and the ice cream cone and catching the bus within sight of Yorkshire and Ellis. I made it sound almost funny.
Archie understood that there was a lot I hadn’t said, but he didn’t press it. Charles, puzzled, asked, “But did they hurt you, Sid?” and I half laughed and told him part of the truth. “They scared me witless.”
Davis asked about Ellis’s Shropshire alibi. His colleague, the Crown Prosecutor, was increasingly concerned, he said, that Ellis’s powerful lawyers would prevent the trial from resuming.
I explained that I hadn’t had time to find out at what hour Ellis had arrived at the dance.
“Someone must know,” I said. “It’s a matter of asking the local people, the people who helped to park the cars.” I looked at Norman. “Any chance of the police doing it?”
“Not much,” he said.
“Round the pubs,” I suggested.
Norman shook his head.
“There isn’t much time,” Davis pointed out. “Sid, couldn’t you do it tomorrow?”
Tomorrow, Sunday. On Monday, the trial.
Archie said firmly, “No, Sid can’t. There’s a limit ... I’ll try and find someone else.”
“Chico would have done it,” Charles said.
Chico had undisputedly saved my pathetic skin that day. One could hardly ask more.
Archie’s wife, before she’d driven over to spend the evening with her sister-in-law Betty Bracken, had, it appeared, made a mound of sandwiches. Archie offered them diffidently. I found the tastes of cheese and of chicken strange, as if I’d come upon them new from another world. It was weird the difference that danger and the perception of mortality made to familiar things. Unreality persisted even as I accepted a paper napkin to wipe my fingers.
Archie’s doorbell rang. Archie went again to the summons and came back with a pinched, displeased expression, and he was followed by a boy that I saw with surprise to be Jonathan.
The rebel wings of hair were much shorter. The yellow streaks had all but grown out. There were no shaven areas of scalp.
“Hi,” he said, looking around the room and fastening his attention on my face. “I came over to see you. The aunts said you were here. Hey, man, you look different.”
“Three months older.” I nodded. “So do you.”
Jonathan helped himself to a sandwich, disregarding Archie’s disapproval.
“Hi,” he said nonchalantly to Norman. “How’s the boat?”
“Laid up for winter storage.”
Jonathan chewed and told me, “They won’t take me on an oil rig until I’m eighteen. They won’t take me in the navy. I’ve got good pecs. What do I do with them?”
“Pecs?” Charles asked, mystified.
“Pectoral muscles,” Norman explained. “He’s strong from weeks of water-skiing.”
“Oh.”
I said to Jonathan, “How did you get here from Combe Bassett?”
“Ran.”
He’d walked into Archie’s house not in the least out of breath.
“Can you ride a motorbike,” I asked, “now that you’re sixteen?”
“Do me a favor!”
“He hasn’t got one,” Archie said.
“He can hire one.”
“But ... what for?”
“To go to Shropshire,” I said.
I was predictably drowned by protests. I explained to Jonathan what was needed. “Find someone—anyone—who saw Ellis Quint arrive at the dance. Find the people who parked the cars.”
“He can’t go round the pubs,” Norman insisted. “He’s under-age.”
Jonathan gave me a dark look, which I steadfastly returned. At fifteen he’d bought gin for a truck driver’s wife.
“Hey,” he said. “Where do I go?”
I told him in detail. His uncle and everyone else disapproved. I took all the money I had left out of my belt and gave it to him. “I want receipts,” I said. “Bring me paper. A signed statement from a witness. It’s all got to be solid.”
“Is this,” he asked slowly, “some sort of test?”
“Yes.”
“OK.”
“Don’t stay longer than a day,” I said. “Don’t forget, you may be asked to give evidence this week at the trial.”
“As if I could forget.”
He took a bunch of sandwiches, gave me a wide smile, and without more words departed.
“You can‘t,” Archie said to me emphatically.
“What do you propose to do with him?”
“But ... he’s . . .”
“He’s bright,” I said. “He’s observant. He’s athletic. Let’s see how he does in Shropshire.”
“He’s only sixteen.”
“I need a new Chico.”
“But Jonathan steals cars.”
“He hasn’t stolen one all summer, has he?”
“That doesn’t mean ...”
“An ability to steal cars,” I said with humor, “is in my eyes an asset. Let’s see how he does tomorrow, with this alibi.”
Archie, still looking affronted, gave in.
“Too much depends on it,” Davis
said heavily, shaking his head.
I said, “If Jonathan learns nothing, I’ll go myself on Monday.”
“That will be too late,” Davis said.
“Not if you get your colleague to ask for one more day’s adjournment. Invent flu or something.”
Davis said doubtfully, “Are you totally committed to this trial? The Pump—or Ellis Quint—they haven’t got to you in any way, have they? I mean ... the hate campaign ... do you want to back out?”
Charles was offended on my behalf. “Of course he doesn‘t,” he said.
Such faith! I said plainly to Davis, “Don’t let your colleague back down. That’s the real danger. Tell him to insist on prosecuting, alibi or no alibi. Tell the prosecution service to dredge up some guts.”
“Sid!” He was taken aback. “They’re realists.”
“They’re shit-scared of Ellis’s lawyers. Well, I’m not. Ellis took the foot off Betty Bracken’s colt. I wish like hell that he hadn‘t, but he did. He has no alibi for that night. You get your colleague to tell Ellis’s lawyers that the Northampton colt was a copycat crime. If we can’t break Ellis’s alibi, copycat is our story and we’re sticking to it, and if you have any influence over your colleague the prosecutor, you make sure he gives me a chance in court to say so.”
Davis said faintly, “I must not instruct him to do anything like that.”
“Just manage to get it dripped into his mind.”
“So there you are, Davis,” Archie said dryly, “our boy shows no sign of the hate campaign having been successful. Rather the opposite, wouldn’t you say?”
“Our boy” stood up, feeling a shade fragile. It seemed to have been a long day. Archie came out into the hall with Charles and me and offered his hand in farewell. Charles shook warmly. Archie lifted my wrist and looked at the swelling and the deep bruising that was already crimson and black.
He said, “You’ve had difficulty holding your glass all evening.”
I shrugged a fraction, long resigned to occupational damage. My hand was still a hand, and that was all that mattered.
“No explanation?” Archie asked.
I shook my head.
“Stone walls tell more,” Charles informed him calmly.