Break In

by Dick Francis

  ‘Hugh been bothering you with his troubles, has he?’ he said.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  I glanced at the grey eyes from where the blandness had flown and watchfulness taken over.

  ‘He said he had quarrelled with you and wanted to make it up.’

  ‘Hmph.’ An unforgiving noise from a compressed mouth. ‘As long as he didn’t bother you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Good. Then you’ll be wanting to talk to Princess Casilia, eh? Let me take your cup. Good of you to come up. Yes. Off you go, then. Can’t keep her waiting.’

  Short of rudeness I couldn’t have stayed, and rudeness at that point, I thought, would accomplish no good that I could think of. I went obediently along to the princess’s well-populated box and drank more tea and averted my stomach from another sandwich, and tried not to look too much at Danielle.

  ‘You’re abstracted,’ the princess said. ‘You are not here.’

  ‘I was thinking of Lord Vaughnley… I just came from his box.’

  ‘Such a nice man.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘And for Danielle, this evening, what are your plans?’

  I shut out the thoughts of what I would like. If I could read the princess’s mind, she could also on occasion read mine.

  ‘I expect we’ll talk, and eat, and I’ll bring her home.’

  She patted my arm. She set me to talk to her guests, most of whom I knew, and I worked my way round to Danielle scattering politeness like confetti.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Am I going back with Aunt Casilia, or what?’

  ‘Coming with me from here, if you will.’

  ‘OK.’

  We went out on to the balcony with everyone else to watch the sixth race, and afterwards said goodbye correctly to the princess and left.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Danielle asked.

  ‘For a walk, for a drink, for dinner. First of all we’re walking to Ascot town, where I left the car, so as not to be carved up again in the car park.’

  ‘You’re too much,’ she said.

  I collected my suitcase from the changing room and we walked down through the cheaper enclosures to the furthest gate, and from there again safely to the rented Mercedes.

  ‘I guess I never gave a thought to it happening again,’ she said.

  ‘And next time there would be no princess to the rescue.’

  ‘Do you seriously think they’d be lying in wait?’

  ‘I still have what they wanted.’ And I’d twisted their tail fiercely, besides. ‘I just go where they don’t know I’m going, and hope.’

  ‘Yes, but,’ she said faintly, ‘for how long?’

  ‘Um,’ I said, ‘I suppose Joe doesn’t work on Sundays?’

  ‘No. Not till Monday night, like me. Not week-ends. What’s that got to do with how long?’

  ‘Tuesday or Wednesday,’ I said.

  ‘You’re not making much sense.’

  ‘It’s because I don’t know for sure.’ We got into the car and I started the engine. ‘I feel like a juggler. Half a dozen clubs in the air and all likely to fall in a heap.’

  ‘With you underneath?’

  ‘Not,’ I said, ‘if I can help it.’

  I drove not very fast to Henley, and stopped near a telephone box to try to reach Rose Quince, who was out. She had an answering machine which invited me to give a number for her to call back. I would try later, I said.

  Henley-on-Thames was bright with lights and late Saturday afternoon shopping. Danielle and I left the car in a parking place and walked slowly along in the bustle.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘To buy you a present.’

  ‘What present?’

  ‘Anything you’d like.’

  She stopped walking. ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘No.’ We were outside a shop selling sports goods. ‘Tennis racket?’

  ‘I don’t play tennis.’

  I waved at the next shop along. ‘Piano?’

  ‘I can’t play a piano.’

  ‘Over there,’ I pointed at a flower shop. ‘Orchids?’

  ‘In their place, but not to pin on me.’

  ‘And over there, an antique chair?’

  She laughed, her eyes crinkling. ‘Tell me, too, what you like, and what you don’t.’

  ‘All right.’

  We walked along the shopfronts, looking and telling. She liked blues and pinks but not yellow, she liked things with flowers and birds on, not geometric patterns, she liked baskets and nylon-tipped pens and aquamarines and seedless grapes and books about Leonardo da Vinci. She would choose for me, she said, something simple. If I were giving her a present, I would have to have one as well.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Twenty minutes. Meet me back at the car. Here’s the key, in case you get there first.’

  ‘And not expensive,’ she said, ‘or I’m not playing.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘When I returned with my parcel she was sitting in the car already, and smiling.

  ‘You’ve been half an hour,’ she said. ‘You’re disqualified.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  I climbed into the car beside her and we sat looking at each other’s packages, mine to her in brown paper, hers to me flatter, in a carrier bag.

  ‘Guess,’ she said.

  I tried to, and nothing came. I said with regret, ‘I don’t know.’

  She eyed the brown-wrapped parcel in my hands. ‘Three books? Three pounds of chocolates? A jack-in-a-box?’

  ‘All wrong.’

  We exchanged the presents and began to unwrap them. ‘More fun than Christmas,’ she said. ‘Oh. How odd. I’d forgotten it was your name.’ She paused very briefly for thought and said it the other way round. ‘Christmas is more fun.’

  It sounded all right in American. I opened the paper carrier she’d given me and found that our walk along the street had taught her a good deal about me, too. I drew out a soft brown leather zipped-around case which looked as if it would hold a pad of writing paper and a few envelopes: and it had KIT stamped in gold on the top.

  ‘Go on, open it,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t resist it. And you like neat small things, the way I do.’

  I unzipped the case, opened it flat, and smiled with pure pleasure. It contained on one side a tool-kit and on the other pens, a pocket calculator and a notepad; all in slots, all of top quality, solidly made.

  ‘You do like it,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘I thought you would. It had your name on it, literally.’

  She finished taking off the brown paper and showed me that I had pleased her also, and as much. I’d given her a baby antique chest of drawers which smelled faintly of polish, had little brass handles, and ran smoothly as silk. Neat, small, well-crafted, useful, good-looking, efficient: like the kit.

  She looked long at the implications of the presents, and then at my face.

  ‘That,’ she said slowly, ‘really is amazing, that we should both get it right.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘And you broke the rules. That chest’s not cheap.’

  ‘So did you. Nor’s the kit.’

  ‘God bless credit cards.’

  I kissed her, the same way as before, the gifts still on our laps. ‘Thank you for mine.’

  ‘Thank you for mine.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, reaching over to put my tool-kit on the back seat. ‘By the time we get there, the pub might be open.’

  ‘What pub?’

  ‘Where we’re going.’

  ‘Anyone who wants to know what you’re not about to tell them,’ she said, ‘has a darned sticky time.’

  I drove in contentment to the French Horn at Sonning, where the food was legendary and floodlights shone on willow trees drooping over the Thames. We went inside and sat on a sofa, and watched ducks roast on a spit over an open fire, and drank champagne. I stretched and breathed deeply, and felt the tensions of the long week rela
x: and I’d got to phone Rose Quince.

  I went and phoned her. Answering machine again. I said, ‘Rose, Rose, I love you. Rose, I need you. If you come home before eleven, please, I beg you, ring me at the French Horn Hotel, the number is 0734 692204, tell them I’m in the restaurant having dinner.’

  I telephoned Wykeham. ‘Is the headache better?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. How’s the mare?’

  The mare was sore but eating, Mr Davis’s horse was exhausted, Inchcape hardly looked as if he’d had a race.

  ‘Icefall,’ I said.

  ‘What? I wish you wouldn’t ride him from so far in front.’

  ‘He liked it. And it worked.’

  ‘I was watching on TV. Can you come and school on Tuesday? We have no runners that day, I’m not sending any to Southwell.’

  ‘Yes, all right.’

  ‘Well done, today,’ he said with sincerity. ‘Very well done.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Yes. Er. Goodnight then, Paul.’

  ‘Goodnight, Wykeham,’ I said.

  I went back to Danielle and we spent the whole evening talking and later eating in the restaurant with silver and candlelight gleaming on the tables and a living vine growing over the ceiling; and at the last minute Rose Quince called me back.

  ‘It’s after eleven,’ she said, ‘but I just took a chance.’

  ‘You’re a dear.’

  ‘I sure am. So what is so urgent, buddy boy?’

  ‘Um,’ I said. ‘Does the name Saul Bradfield or Saul Bradley… something like that… mean anything to you?’

  ‘Saul Bradley? Of course it does. What’s so urgent about him?’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He used to be the sports editor of the Towncrier. He retired last year… everyone’s universal father-figure, an old friend or Bill’s.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘Good heavens. Wait while I think. Why do you want him?’

  ‘In the general area of demolishing our business friend of the tapes.’

  ‘Oh. Well, let’s see. He moved. He said he was taking his wife to live by the sea. I’d’ve thought it would drive him mad but no accounting for taste. Worthing, or somewhere. No. Selsey.’ Her voice strengthened. ‘I remember, Selsey, in Sussex.’

  ‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘And Lord Vaughnley. Where does he live?’

  ‘Mostly in Regent’s Park, in one of the Nash terraces. They’ve a place in Kent too, near Sevenoaks.’

  ‘Could you tell me exactly?’ I said. ‘I mean… I’d like to write to thank him for my Towncrier trophy, and for all his other help.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said easily, and told me both his addresses right down to the postal codes, tacking on the telephone numbers for good measure. ‘You might need those. They’re not in the directory.’

  ‘I’m back in your debt,’ I said, writing it all down.

  ‘Deep, deep, buddy boy.’

  I replaced the receiver feeling perfidious but unrepentant, and went to fetch Danielle to drive her home. It was midnight, more or less, when I pulled up in Eaton Square: and it wasn’t where I would have preferred to have taken her, but where it was best.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for a great day.’

  ‘What about tomorrow?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I don’t know what time,’ I said. ‘I’ve something to do first.’

  ‘Call me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  We sat in the car looking at each other, as if we hadn’t been doing that already for hours. I’ve known her since Tuesday, I thought. In five days she’d grown roots in my life. I kissed her with much more hunger than before, which didn’t seem to worry her, and I thought not long, not long… but not yet. When it was right, not before.

  We said goodnight again on the pavement, and I watched her go into the house, carrying her present and waving as she closed the door. Princess Casilia, I thought, you are severely inhibiting, but I said I’d bring your niece home, and I have; and I don’t even know what Danielle wanted, I can’t read her mind and she didn’t tell me in words, and tomorrow… tomorrow maybe I’d ask.

  Early in the morning I drove to Selsey on the South Coast and looked up Saul Bradley in the local telephone book, and there he was, address and all, 15 Sea View Lane.

  His house was on two floors and looked more suburban than seaside with mock-Tudor beams in its cream plastered gables. The mock-Tudor door, when I rang the bell, was opened by a grey-haired bespectacled motherly looking person in a flowered overall, and I could smell bacon frying.

  ‘Hugh?’ she said in reply to my question. ‘Yes, he’s still here, but he’s still in bed. You know what boys are.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ I said.

  ‘She looked doubtful.

  ‘I do very much want to see him,’ I said.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask my husband. I think he’s shaving, but he’ll be down soon.’

  She led me across the entrance hall into a smallish kitchen, all yellow and white tiles, with sunlight flooding in.

  ‘A friend of Hugh’s?’ she said.

  ‘Yes… I was talking to him yesterday.’

  She shook her head worriedly. ‘It’s all most upsetting. He shouldn’t have gone to the races. He was more miserable than ever when he came back.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I said, ‘to make things better.’

  She attended to the breakfast she was frying, pushing the bacon round with a spatula. ‘Did you say Fielding, your name was?’ She turned from the cooker, the spatula in the air, motion arrested. ‘Kit Fielding? The jockey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She didn’t know what to make of it, which wasn’t surprising. She said uncertainly, ‘I’m brewing some tea’, and I said I’d wait until after I’d seen her husband and Hugh.

  Her husband came enquiringly into the kitchen, hearing my voice, and he knew me immediately by sight. A sports editor would, I supposed. Bunty Ireland’s ex-boss was comfortably large with a bald head and shrewd eyes and a voice grown fruity, as from beer.

  My presence nonplussed him, as it had his wife.

  ‘You want to help Hugh? I suppose it’s all right. Bill Vaughnley was speaking highly of you a few days ago. I’ll go and get Hugh up. He’s not good in the mornings. Want some breakfast?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Like that, is it?’ He chuckled. ‘Starving and daren’t put on an ounce.’

  He went away into the house and presently returned, followed shortly by Hugh, tousle-haired, in jeans and a T-shirt, his eyes puffed from sleep

  ‘Hello,’ he said, bewildered. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘You told me where you were staying.’

  ‘Did I? I suppose I did. Er… sorry and all that, but what do you want?’

  I wanted, I said, to take him out for a drive, to talk things over and see what could be done to help him: and with no more persuasion, he came.

  He didn’t seem to realise that his father had made sure he didn’t speak to me further on the previous day. It had been done too skilfully for him to notice, especially in the anxiety he’d been suffering.

  ‘Your father made you come back here,’ I said, as we drove along Sea View Lane. ‘Wouldn’t let you go home?’

  ‘It’s so unfair.’ There was self-pity in his voice, and also acceptance. The exile had been earned, I thought, and Hugh knew it.

  ‘Tell me, then,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you know him. He’s your father-in-law. I mean, no, he’s your sister’s father-in-law.’

  I breathed deeply. ‘Maynard Allardeck.’

  ‘Yes. He caused it all. I’d kill him, if I could.’

  I glanced at the good-looking immature face, at the dimples. Even the word kill came oddly from that mouth.

  ‘I mean,’ he said in an aggrieved voice, ‘he’s a member of the Jockey Club. Respected. I thought it was all right. I mean, he and Dad are patrons of the sam
e charity. How was I to know? How was I?’

  ‘You weren’t,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He introduced me to his bookmaker.’

  Whatever I’d imagined he might say, it wasn’t that. I rolled the car to a halt in a parking place which at that time on a Sunday November morning was deserted. There was a distant glimpse of shingle banks and scrubby grass and sea glittering in the early sun, and nearby there was little but an acre of tarmac edged by a low brick wall, and a summer ice-cream stall firmly shut.

  ‘I’ve got a video camera,’ I said. ‘If you’d care to speak into that, I’ll show the tape to your father, get him to hear your side of things, see if I can persuade him to let you go home.’

  ‘Would you?’ he said, hopefully.

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  I stretched behind my seat for the bag with the camera. ‘Let’s sit on the wall,’ I said. ‘It might be a bit chilly, but we’d get a better picture than inside the car.’

  He made no objection, but came and sat on the wall, where I steadied the camera on one knee bent up, framed his face in the viewfinder and asked him to speak straight at the lens.

  ‘Say that again,’ I prompted, ‘about the bookmaker.’

  ‘I was at the races with my parents one day and having a bet, and a bookmaker was saying I wasn’t old enough and making a fuss, and Maynard Allardeck was there and he said not to worry, he would introduce me to his own bookmaker instead.’

  ‘How do you mean, he was there?’

  Hugh’s brow furrowed. ‘He was just standing there. I mean, I didn’t know who he was, but he explained he was a friend of my father.’

  ‘And how old were you, and when did this happen?’

  ‘That’s what’s so silly. I was twenty. I mean, you can bet on your eighteenth birthday. Do I look seventeen?’

  ‘No,’ I said truthfully. ‘You look twenty.’

  ‘I was twenty-one, actually, in August. It was right back in April when I met Maynard Allardeck.’

  ‘So you started betting with Maynard Allardeck’s bookmaker… regularly?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Hugh said unhappily. ‘He made it so easy, always so friendly, and he never seemed to worry when I didn’t pay his accounts.’

  ‘There isn’t a bookmaker born who doesn’t insist on his money.’

  ‘This one didn’t,’ Hugh said defensively. ‘I used to apologise. He’d say never mind, one day, I know you’ll pay when you can, and he used to joke… and let me bet again…’