by Dick Francis
We found, Bobby and I, a man standing at the bottom of a ladder, looking upwards. He wore no mask, no hood, simply an ordinary suit – incongruous as a burglar kit.
He was not Jermyn Graves, and he was not the nephew, Jasper.
He was under forty, dark haired, and a stranger.
He didn’t see us at all until we were near him, so firmly fixed upwards was his attention, and when I said loudly, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he jumped a foot.
Bobby made a flying rugby tackle at his knees and I took hold of the ladder and pushed it sideways. There was a yell from above and a good deal of clattering, and a second stranger tumbled down from the eaves and fell with a thud on to an uninhabited flower bed.
I pounced on that one and pushed his face down into the November mud and with one hand tried to search his pockets for a weapon, with him heaving and threshing about beneath me, and then when I found no weapon, for some sort of identification, for a diary or a letter, for anything. People who came to burgle dressed as for going to the office might not have taken all suitable precautions.
I couldn’t get into his pockets – it was too dark and there was too much movement – but somehow I found myself grasping the collar of his jacket, and I pulled it backwards and downwards with both hands, temporarily fastening his arms to his sides. He plunged and kicked and managed to throw my weight off his back, but I held fiercely on to the jacket, which was entangling his arms and driving him frantic.
To get loose he slid right out of the jacket, leaving it in my hands, and before I could do anything he was up from his knees to his feet, and running.
Instead of chasing him I turned towards Bobby, who was rolling on the ground exchanging short jabbing blows and breathless grunts with the man who’d been holding the ladder. Throwing the jacket into the deep shadow against the house wall I went to Bobby’s help, and between the two of us we managed to pin the intruder face down on to the grass, Bobby astride his legs and I with a foot on his neck. Bobby delivered several meaningful blows to the kidneys, designed to hurt.
‘Something to tie him with,’ he said.
I bent down, gripped the collar of that jacket also, and pulled it as before backwards over the burglar’s shoulders, pinning his arms, and then yanking it right off, I took my foot off the neck and said to Bobby, ‘That’s enough.’
‘What? Don’t be stupid.’
The intruder rolled under him still full of fight. Bobby punched him wickedly on the ear and again in the small of his back.
I shoved a hand into an inside pocket of the jacket and drew out a wallet.
‘See,’ I said to Bobby, pushing it under his nose. He shook his head, ignoring it, not wanting to be deterred.
I put the wallet back into the jacket and threw that jacket too into the shadows, and for a second watched Bobby and the now shirt-sleeved intruder tearing at each other and punching again, half standing, half falling, the one trying to cling on and hit, the other to escape.
Bobby was tall and strong and angry at having his house attacked, and no doubt erupting also with the suppressed and helpless fury of the past traumatic days: in any case he was hitting his adversary with tangible hatred and very hard, and I thought with spurting sudden alarm that it was too much, he was beating the man viciously and murderously and not merely capturing a burglar.
I caught Bobby’s raised wrist and pulled his bunched fist backwards, upsetting his balance, and his victim twisted out of his grasp and half fell on his knees, coughing, retching, clutching his stomach.
Bobby shouted ‘You bugger’ bitterly and hit me instead, and the intruder got unsteadily to his feet and staggered towards the gate.
Bobby tried to follow and when I grasped at him to stop him he jabbed his fist solidly into my ribs, calling me a bloody Fielding, a bloody sod, a fucking bastard.
‘Bobby… Let him go.’
I got a frightful cuff on the head and another clout in the ribs along with some more obscene opinions of my character and ancestors, and he didn’t calm down, he kicked my shin and shoved me off him, tearing himself away with another direct hit to my head which rattled my teeth.
I caught him again in a couple of strides and he swung at me, swearing and increasingly violent, and I said to him, ‘For God’s sake, Bobby…’ and just tried to hang on to his lethal fists and parry them and survive until the fireball had spent itself.
The generations were all there in his intent face: Allardecks and Fieldings fighting with guns and swords and bare knuckles in malice and perpetuity. He had transferred the intruder-born fury on to the older enemy and all rational restraints had vanished. It was me, his blood’s foe, that he was at that point trying to smash, I the focus of his anger and fear and despair.
Locked in this futile archaic struggle we traversed the lawn all the way to the gate; and it was there, when I was wedged against the heavy post and finally in serious trouble, that the killing rage went out of his hands from one second to the next, and he let them fall, the passion dying, the manic strength draining away.
He gave me a blank look, his eyes like glass reflecting the moonlight, and he said ‘Bastard’, but without much force, and he turned and walked away along the path to the yard.
I said ‘God Almighty’ aloud, and took a few deep breaths of rueful and shaky relief, standing for a while to let my hammering heart settle before shoving off the gatepost to go and fetch the burglars’ coats. Bobby’s fists hadn’t had the same weight as the hurdlers’ hooves, but I could well have done without them. Heigh ho, I thought, in about twelve hours I would ride three tricky jumpers at Newbury.
The coats lay where I had thrown them, in the angle of the empty flower bed and the brick wall of the house. I picked them up and stood there looking at the silvery ladder which had reached high up the wall, and then at the wall itself, which stretched in that section right to the roof, smooth and unbroken.
No windows.
Why would burglars try to break into a house at a point where there were no windows?
I frowned, tipping my head back, looking upwards. Beyond the line of the roof, above it, rising like a silhouette against the night sky, there was a sturdy brick chimney, surmounted by a pair of antique pots. It was, I worked out, the chimney from the fireplace in the drawing room. The fireplace was right through the wall from where I stood.
Irresolutely I looked from the ladder to the chimney pots and shivered in the wind. Then, shrugging, I put the jackets back into the shadow, propped the ladder up against the eaves, rooted its feet firmly in the flower bed, and climbed.
The ladder was aluminium, made in telescopic sections. I hoped none of them would collapse.
I didn’t much like heights. Halfway up I regretted the whole enterprise. What on earth was I doing climbing an unsteady ladder in the dark? I could fall and hurt myself and not be able to race. It was madness, the whole thing. Crazy.
I reached the roof. The top of the ladder extended beyond that, four or five more rungs going right up to the chimney. On the tiles of the roof lay an opened tool-kit, a sort of cloth roll with spanners, screwdrivers, pliers and so on, all held in stitched pockets. Beside it lay a coil of what looked like dark cord, with one end leading upwards to a bracket on the chimney.
I looked more closely at the chimney and almost laughed. One takes so many things for granted, sees certain objects day by day and never consciously sees them at all. Fixed to the chimney was the bracket and mounted on the bracket were the two terminals of the telephone wires leading to Bobby’s house. I had seen them a hundred times and never noticed they were fixed to the chimney.
The wire itself stretched away into darkness, going across the telephone pole out on the road; the old above-ground wiring system of all but modern housing.
Attached to the telephone bracket, at the end of the dark cord leading from the coil, there appeared to be a small square object about the size of a sugar cube, with a thin rod about the length of a finger extending downwards.
I stretched out a hand precariously to touch it and found it wobbled as if only half attached.
The moon seemed to be going down just when I needed it most. I fumbled around the small cube and came to what felt like a half-undone screw. I couldn’t see it, but it turned easily anti-clockwise and in a few moments slipped out into my hand.
The cube and the rod fell straight off the bracket, and I would have lost them in the night if it hadn’t been for the coil of stiff cord attached to them. Some of the cord unwound before I caught it, but not a great deal, and I put the coil, the cube and the rod on to the row of tools and rolled up the canvas kit and fastened it with its buckle.
The flower bed, I thought, wouldn’t hurt the tool-kit, so I dropped the rolled bundle straight below, and went down the ladder as slowly as I’d gone up, careful to balance and not to fall. There was no doubt I felt more at home on horses.
Retrieving the jackets and the tool-kit but leaving the ladder, I went out of the garden and walked along the path and round to the kitchen door. Holly in a dressing gown and with wide frightened eyes was standing there, shivering with cold and anxiety.
‘Thank goodness,’ she said when I appeared. ‘Where’s Bobby?’
‘I don’t know. Come on in. Let’s make a hot drink.’
We went into the kitchen where it was always warmest and I put the kettle on while Holly looked out of the window for her missing husband.
‘He’ll come soon,’ I said. ‘He’s all right.’
‘I saw two men running…’
‘Where did they go?’
‘Over the fence into the paddock. One first, then the other a bit later. The second one was… well… groaning.’
‘Mm,’ I said. ‘Bobby hit him.’
‘Did he?’ She sounded proud. ‘Who were they? They weren’t Jermyn. Did they come for his horses?’
‘Which do you want,’ I asked, ‘coffee, tea or chocolate?’
‘Chocolate.’
I made chocolate for her and tea for myself and brought the steaming cups to the table.
‘Come and sit down,’ I said. ‘He’ll be back.’
She came reluctantly and then watched with awakening curiosity while I unbuckled and unrolled the tool-kit.
‘See that?’ I said. ‘That tiny little box with its rod and its coil of cord? I’ll bet anything that that’s what’s been listening to your telephone.’
‘But it’s minute.’
‘Yes. I wish I knew more. Tomorrow we’ll find out just how it works.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Today, I suppose one should say.’ I told her where I’d found the bug, and about Bobby and me disturbing the intruders.
She frowned. ‘These two men… Were they fixing this to our telephone?’
‘Taking it away, perhaps. Or changing its battery.’
She reflected. ‘I did say to you this evening on the telephone that the telephone people were coming tomorrow to look for bugs.’
‘So you did.’
‘So perhaps if they heard that, they thought… those two men… that if they took their bug away first, there wouldn’t be anything to find, and we’d never know for sure.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think you’re right.’ I picked up the first of the jackets and went through the pockets methodically, laying the contents on the table.
Holly, watching in amazement, said, ‘They surely didn’t leave their coats?’
‘They didn’t have much choice.’
‘But all those things… ’
‘Dead careless,’ I said. ‘Amateurs.’
The first jacket produced a notepad, three pens, a diary, a handkerchief, two toothpicks and the wallet I had shown to Bobby in the garden. The wallet contained a moderate amount of money, five credit cards, a photograph of a young woman, and a reminder to go to the dentist. The name on the credit cards was Owen Watts. The diary not only gave the same name but also an address (home) and telephone number (office). The pages were filled with appointments and memos, and spoke of a busy and orderly life.
‘Why are you purring like a cat with cream?’ Holly said.
‘Take a look.’
I pushed Owen Watts’s belongings over to her and emptied the pockets of the second jacket. These revealed another notepad, more pens, a comb, cigarettes, throwaway lighter, two letters and a chequebook. There was also, tucked into the outside breast pocket, a small plastic folder containing a gold-coloured card announcing that Mr Jay Erskine was member number 609 of The Press Club, London EC4A 3JB; and Mr Jay Erskine’s signature and address were on the back.
Just as well to make absolutely certain, I thought.
I telephoned to Owen Watts’s office number, and a man’s voice answered immediately.
‘Daily Flag,’ he said.
Satisfied, I put the receiver down without speaking.
‘No answer?’ Holly said. ‘Not surprising, at this hour.’
‘The Daily Flag neither slumbers nor sleeps. The switchboard, anyway, was awake.’
‘So those two really are… those pigs.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘They work for the Flag. One can’t say if they actually wrote those pieces. Not tonight. We’ll find out in the morning.’
‘I’d like to smash their faces.’
I shook my head. ‘You want to smash the face of whoever sent them.’
‘Him too.’ She stood up restlessly. ‘Where is Bobby? What’s he doing?’
‘Probably making sure that everything’s secure.’
‘You don’t think those men came back?’ she said, alarmed.
‘No, I don’t. Bobby will come in when he’s ready.’
She was worried, however, and went to the outside door and called him, but the wind snatched her voice away so that one could scarcely have heard her from across the yard.
‘Go and look for him, will you?’ she said anxiously. ‘He’s been out there so long.’
‘All right.’ I collected the bugging device, the tools and the pressmen’s things together on the table. ‘Could you find a box for these, and put them somewhere safe.’
She nodded and began to look vaguely about, and I went out into the yard on the unwelcome errand. Wherever Bobby was, I was probably the last person he wanted to have come after him. I thought that I would simply set about rigging the alarm bell again, and if he wanted to be found, he would appear.
I rigged the bell and got back some night vision, and came across him down by the gate into the garden. He had brought the ladder out so that it lay along the path, and he was simply standing by the gatepost, doing nothing.
‘Holly’s wondering where you’ve got to,’ I said easily.
He didn’t answer.
‘Do you think you can hear the bell from here?’ I said. ‘Would you climb up someone’s house if you’d heard an alarm bell?’
Bobby said nothing. He watched in flat calm while I found the string and shut the gate, fastening everything as before so that the bell would fall on the far side of the house if the gate was opened.
Bobby watched but did nothing. Shrugging, I opened the gate.
One could hear the bell if one was listening for it. On a still night it would have been alarming, but in the breeze the intruders had ignored it.
‘Let’s go in,’ I said. ‘Holly’s anxious.’
I turned away to walk up the path.
‘Kit,’ he said stiffly.
I turned back.
‘Did you tell her?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Come on in. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes, it does matter.’ He paused. ‘I couldn’t help it. That makes it worse.’
‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘let’s go in out of this bloody cold wind. My legs are freezing. If you want to talk, we’ll talk tomorrow. But it’s OK. Come on in, you old bugger, it’s OK.’
I put the journalists’ belongings under my bed for safety before I went achingly back to sleep, but their owners seemed to make no atte
mpt to break in to get them back. I derived a great deal of yawning pleasure from picturing their joint states of mind and body, and thought that anything that had happened to them served them very well right.
Owen Watts and Jay Erskine. Jay Erskine, Owen Watts.
They were going to be, I decided hazily, trying to find an unbruised area to lie on, the lever with which to shift the world. Careless, sneaky, callous Owen Watts, battered half unconscious by Bobby, and stupid, snooping, flint-hearted Jay Erskine, fallen off his ladder with his face pressed into the mud. Served them bloody well right.
I dreamed of being run over by a tractor and felt like it a bit when I woke up. The morning after falls like the day before’s were always a bore.
It was nearly nine when I made it to the kitchen, but although the lights were on against the grey morning, there was no one else there. I heated myself some coffee and began to read Bobby’s daily paper, which was the Towncrier, not the Flag.
On page seven, which was wholly devoted to the Wednesday comments and opinions of a leading and immensely influential lady columnist, the central headline read:
WHAT PRICE FATHERLY LOVE?
And underneath, in a long spread unmissable by any Towncrier reader, came an outline of Maynard Allardeck’s upwardly thrusting career.
He had journeyed from commodity broker, she said, to multi-storey magnate, sucking in other people’s enterprises and spitting out the husks.
His modus operandi, she explained, was to advance smilingly towards an over-extended business with offers of loans of life-saving cash. Easy terms, pay when you can, glad to help. His new partners, the journalist said, welcomed him with open arms and spoke enthusiastically of their benefactor. But oh, the disillusionment! Once the business was running smoothly, Maynard would very pleasantly ask for his money back. Consternation! Disaster! Impossible to pay him without selling up and closing. The workforce redundant. Personal tragedies abounding. Can’t have that, Maynard agreed genially. He would take the business instead of the money, how was that? Everyone still had their job. Except, hard luck, the proprietor and the managing director. Maynard presently would sell his now financially stable newly acquired business at a comfortable profit to any big fish looking out for manageable minnows: and so back, one might say, to the start, with Maynard appreciably richer.