by Dick Francis
At breakfast time I’d knocked on the doors of the other three tenants, the one in the basement, the one above me, and the one above that, and asked them if they’d seen my visitor on the stairs or let him in through the front door. I got negatives all round, but as one of them said, we were hardly a matey lot, and if the visitor entered boldly while one of the tenants was leaving, no one would have stopped him. None of them remembered him, but the basement man observed that as the laundry van had called that day, a stranger could easily have walked in with the man who collected and delivered the boxes from the hall.
There had been nothing suspicious or memorable about my visitor’s appearance. His face was a face: hair brown, skin sallow, eyes dark. Age, about thirty. Clothes, dark grey trousers, navy close-fitting sweater, neat shirt and tie showing at the neck. Entirely the right rig for the neighbourhood. Even a little formal.
B.E.A. landed on time at Fornebu and I took a taxi straight out to the racecourse. Nothing much had changed in the two and a half weeks I’d been away, not even the weather or the runners in the races, and within the first half hour I had spotted all the same faces, among them Gunnar Holth, Paddy O’Flaherty, Per Bjørn Sandvik, Rolf Torp and Lars Baltzersen. Arne greeted me with a beaming smile and an invitation to spend as much time with Kari and himself as I could.
I walked around with him for most of the afternoon, partly from choice, partly because Baltzersen was busy being Chairman. Arne said that whereas he personally was pleased to see me, many of the racecourse committee had opposed Baltzersen in the matter of bringing me back.
‘Lars told us at the Tuesday committee meeting that you were definitely coming today, and that caused quite a row. You should have heard it. Lars said that the racecourse would be paying your fare and expenses like last time, and half of them said it was unjustifiable to spend so much.’
He broke off rather suddenly as if he had decided not to repeat what had actually been said.
‘I could easily have been persuaded to stay at home,’ I said. But by words, I reflected. Not knives.
‘Several of the committee said Lars had no right to act without taking a vote.’
‘And Lars?’
Arne shrugged. ‘He wants Bob Sherman’s death explained. Most of them just want to forget.”
‘And you?’ I asked.
He blinked. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I would give up more easily than Lars or you. Which is no doubt why,’ he grinned, ‘Lars is Chairman and you are the chief investigator, and I am only a security officer who lets the racecourse takings be stolen from under his nose.’
I smiled. ‘No one blames you.’
‘Perhaps they should.’
I thought in my intolerant way that they definitely should, but I shook my head and changed the subject.
‘Did Lars tell you all about the attack on Emma Sherman, and about ner losing her baby?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Poor girl.’ There was more lip-service in his voice than genuine regret. I supposed that no one who hadn’t seen her as I had could properly understand all that she’d suffered; and I knew that it was in great part because of Emma that I was back in Norway. No one should be allowed to inflict such hurt on another human being, and get away with it. The fact that the same agency had murdered Bob and tried to see me off was in a curious way secondary: it was possible future victims who had to be saved. If you don’t dig ground elder out of the flower beds it can strangle the garden.
Rolf Torp was striding about in a bad temper. His horse, he said, had knocked itself that morning and his trainer had omitted to tell him it couldn’t run. He had taken the afternoon off from his mining office, which he wouldn’t have done if he’d known, on account of being indispensable and nothing constructive ever being achieved in his absence.
After he had delivered himself of that little lot he adjusted his sights more specifically on me.
‘I was against bringing you back. I’ll tell you that myself. I told the committee. It is a waste of our money.’
His name was on the list Emma had given me of the contributors to the solidly worthwhile cheque the Norwegian owners had sent. If he thought that any available cash should only be spent on the living, perhaps it was a valid point of view; but he wasn’t paying my expenses out of his own private pocket.
He was a man of less than average height and more than average aggressiveness: a little bull of a man with a large black moustache that was more a statement than an adornment. Difficult to please and difficult to like, I thought, but sharp of eye and brain as well as tongue.
His voice boomed as heavily as a bittern in the reed beds, and although his English was as comprehensive as most well-educated Norwegians’, he spoke it unlovingly, as if he didn’t care too much for the taste.
I said without heat, ‘As a miner, you’ll understand that surveys are a legitimate expense even when they don’t strike ore. ’
He gave me a hard look. ‘As a miner I understand that I would not finance a survey to find slime.’
Klonk. One over the head for D. Cleveland. I grinned appreciatively, and slowly, unwillingly, the corners of his mouth twitched.
I made the most of it. ‘May I come and see you in your office?’ I asked. ‘Just for a few questions. I might as well try my best to earn what you’re paying me, now that I’m here.’
‘Nothing I can tell you will be of any help,’ he said, as if believing made it so.
‘Still…’
The vestiges of smile disappeared, but finally, grudgingly, he nodded.
‘Very well. Tomorrow afternoon. Four o’clock.’ And he went so far as to tell me how to find him.
As he walked away Arne said, ‘What are you going to ask him?’
‘Don’t know yet. I just want to see his background. You can’t tell what people are really like if you only meet them at the races.’
‘But,’ he said, blinking furiously, ‘why Rolf Torp?’
‘Not especially Rolf Torp,’ I said. ‘Everyone who knew Bob Sherman.’
‘David!’ He looked staggered. ‘It will take you months.’
I shook my head. ‘Several days, that’s all. Bob didn’t know so many people here as all that.’
‘But he could have been killed by a total stranger. I mean, if he saw someone stealing the money and didn’t know him…’
‘It’s possible,’ I said, and asked him if he had ever heard Bob talking about bringing any sort of package from England to Norway.
Arne wrinkled his forehead and darted a compulsive look over his shoulder. No one there, of course.
‘Lars mentioned this mysterious package on Tuesday night. No one knew anything about it.’
‘What did Lars actually ask?’
‘Just said you wanted to know if anyone had received a package from Bob Sherman.’
‘And no one had?’
‘No one who was there, anyway.’
‘Could you write me a list of those who were there?’
‘Yes,’ he said with surprise. ‘If you want it. But I can’t see what it could possibly have to do with Bob’s death.’
‘I’m a great one for collecting useless, information,’ I said smiling, and Arne gave me a look which said oh yeah, plain as plain.
The races proceeded the same as before, except that the watching crowd were a good deal thinner than on Grand National day. The birch trees had dropped most of their yellow leaves and looked silver, the daylight was colder and greyer than ever, and a sharp wind whipped round every corner. But this time I had come prepared with a skiing cap with ear flaps and only my nose, like everyone else’s, was turning blue.
Gunnar Holth saddled two for the hurdle race, hurrying busily from one to the other and juggling both sets of owners with anxious dexterity. One of his runners was the dappled mare with the uncertain temper, whose owner, Sven Wangen, was on Emma’s list. Arne confirmed that the big young man assiduously hopping out of the way every time the mare presented her heels was indeed Sven Wangen, and added that t
he brunette sneering at him from a safe distance was his wife.
The jockey mounted warily and the mare bucked and kicked every inch to the start. Arne said that like all mean bad tempered females she would get her own way in the end, and went off to invest a little something on the Tote.
Wise move. She won. Arne beamed and said what did I tell you, when she comes here bitching she always wins. Was she ever docile? I asked, and Arne said sure, but those were her off days. We watched her being unsaddled in the winner’s enclosure, with Gunnar Holth and Sven Wangen both tangoing smartly out of her way.
I told Arne I would like to meet Sven Wangen because Bob had ridden a winner for him on that last day. Arne showed reservations, so I asked him why.
He pursed his mouth. ‘I don’t like him. That’s why.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Too much money,’ Arne said reprovingly. ‘He behaves as if everyone ought to go on their knees when they talk to him. He has done nothing himself. The money was his father’s. His father was a rich man. Too rich.’
‘In what way too rich?’
Arne raised his eyebrows at what evidently seemed to him a nonsensical question, because from the tone of his reply it seemed he held great wealth to be morally wrong.
‘He was a millionaire.’
‘Don’t you have millionaires in Norway?’
‘Very few. They are not popular.’
I persuaded him, however, to introduce me to the unpopular Sven Wangen, whose father had made a million out of ships: and I saw at once why Arne didn’t like him.
Perhaps two inches taller than I, he looked down his nose as if from a great height: and it was clear that this was no accidental mannerism but the manifestation of deep self-importance. Still probably in his twenties, he was bulky to the point of fatness and used his weight for throwing about. I didn’t take to his manner, his small mouth, or his unfriendly light amber eyes: nor, in fact, to his wife, who looked as if she could beat the difficult mare’s temper by a couple of lengths.
Arne introduced me, and Sven Wangen saw no reason at all why I should call upon him at any time to ask him questions. He had heavy rust-brown hair growing long over his ears, and a small flat cap which made his big head look bigger.
I said I understood he was a member of the racecourse committee which had asked me to come.
‘Lars Baltzersen asked you,’ he said brusquely. ‘I was against it. I said so on Tuesday.’
‘The sooner I get the questions answered, the sooner I’ll go home,’ I said. ‘But not until.’
He looked at me with intense disfavour. ‘What do you want, then?’
‘Half an hour in your house,’ I said. ‘Any time that would suit you except for tomorrow afternoon.’
He settled in irritation for Sunday morning. His elegantly thin wife manufactured a yawn and they turned away without any pretence of politeness.
‘See what I mean?’ Arne said.
‘I do indeed. Very unusual, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Unusual?’
‘The rich don’t usually behave like that.’
‘Do you know so many rich people?’ Arne asked with a touch of sarcasm.
‘Meet them every day of the week,’ I said. ‘They own racehorses.’
Arne conceded that the rich weren’t necessarily all beastly and went off on some official tasks. I tracked down Paddy O’Flaherty and found him with five minutes to spare between races.
‘Brown envelope of blue pictures?’ he repeated. ‘He never said a dicky bird to me, now, about any blue pictures.’ He grinned, and then an uncertain memory floated back. ‘Wait now, I tell a lie. Back in the summer, now, he told me he had a good little tickle going for him, do you see? Always one for a chance at easy money, so he was. And there was this day, he winked at me like, and showed me the corner of an envelope in his overnight bag, and he said it would make our hair curl, so it would. So then I asked him for a look, do you see, but he said it was sealed some way so he couldn’t steam it. I remember that, sure now I do.’
‘The last time he came, did he say anything about bringing an envelope?’
Paddy shook his head. ‘Like I said. Not a word.’
I thought. ‘Did he come straight to your stable from the airport? Did he arrive on time, for instance?’
‘I’ll tell you something now. No, he didn’t.’ He concentrated. ‘He was that late I thought he’d missed the flight and would come in the morning. Then, sure, a taxi rolls up and out he hops, large as life. He’d bought a bottle of brandy on the plane and there wasn’t much left of that, now, before we went to bed.’
‘What did he talk about?’
‘Bejasus, how do I know, after all this time?’
‘You must have thought often about that night.’
‘Well, so I have, then.’ He sighed at my perseverance, but thought some more. ‘Horses, of course. We talked about horses. I don’t remember him saying why he was late, or anything like that. And sure now I’d have thought it was the flight that was late, that was all.’
‘I’ll check,’ I said.
‘Look now, there was only one thing he said… Late on, when we’d maybe had a skinful, he said ‘Paddy, I think I’ve been conned.’ That’s what he said now. ‘Paddy I think I’ve been conned.’ So I asked him what he meant, but he didn’t tell me.’
‘How insistently did you ask?’
‘Insist..? Bejasus, of course I didn’t. Uh… there he was putting his finger over his mouth and nodding… he was a bit tight, do you see? So I just put my finger over my mouth like him and I nodded just the same. Well now, it seemed sensible enough at the time do you see?’
I did see. It was a miracle Paddy remembered that evening at all.
The afternoon ambled on. Gunnar Holth won the steeplechase with Per Bjørn Sandvik’s Whitefire, which displeased Rolf Torp, who was second. Per Bjørn, it appeared, had not come to the meeting: he rarely did on Thursdays, because it showed a bad example to his staff.
It was Lars Baltzersen who told me this, with warm approval in his voice. He himself, he said, had to leave his work only because he was Chairman, and all his employees understood. As one who had played lifelong truant at the drop of a starter’s flag I found such noble standards a bit stifling, but one had to admire them.
Lars and I crossed the track and climbed the tower and looked down at the pond below. With its surface ruffled by the breeze it was far less peaceful than when I’d first seen it and just as brownly muddy as the day it gave up its dead. The swans and the ducks had gone.
‘It will freeze soon,’ Lars said. ‘And snow will cover the racecourse for three or four months.’
‘Bob Sherman is being buried today,’ I said. ‘In England.’
He nodded. ‘We have sent a letter of regret to Mrs Sherman.’
‘And a cheque,’ I said: because his name too was on the list. He made a disclaiming movement with his hands but seemed genuinely pleased when I told him how much Emma had appreciated their kindness.
‘I’m afraid we were all a little annoyed with her while she was here. She was so persistent. But perhaps it was partly because of her that we asked you to come. Anyway, I am glad she is not bitter about the way we tried to avoid her continual questions. She would have a right to be.’
‘She isn’t that sort of person.’
He turned his head to look at me. ‘Do you know her well?’ he asked.
‘Only since all this started.’
‘I regret the way we treated her,’ he said. ‘I think of it often. Giving her money does not buy us off.’
I agreed with him and offered no comfort. He looked away down the racecourse and I wondered if it was his guilty conscience that had driven him to persuade me back.
After the next race, a long distance flat race, we walked across together to the weighing room.
I said, ‘You were in the officials’ room that day when Bob Sherman poked his head in and could have seen the money lying on the fl
oor.’
‘That’s right,’ Lars said.
‘Well… what was the question?’
He was puzzled. ‘What question?’
‘Everyone’s statement to the police was the same. You all said ”Bob Sherman came to the door asking some question or other”. So… what was the question?’
He looked deeply surprised. ‘It can’t have had anything to do with his disappearance.’
‘What was it?’
‘I can’t remember. Nothing of the slightest importance, I assure you, or of course we would have told the police.’
We rejoined Arne, and Lars asked him if he by any chance remembered what Bob had wanted. Arne looked just as surprised and said he had no idea, he’d been busy anyway and probably hadn’t even heard. The racecourse manager however knew that he had known once, because it was he who had answered.
‘Let me think,’ he said, frowning. ‘He came in… not his feet, just his head and shoulders. He looked down at the money, which was lying in front of him. I remember that distinctly. I told the police. But the question… it was nothing.’
I shrugged. ‘Tell me if you ever remember?’
He said he would as if he thought it unlikely, but an hour later he sought me out.
‘Bob Sherman asked if Mikkel Sandvik had already gone home, and I said I didn’t know.’
‘Oh.’
He laughed. ‘Well, we did tell you it was nothing important.’
‘And you were right.’ I sighed resignedly. ‘It was just a chance.’
At the end of the afternoon Lars took me up to his Chairman’s room to give me the copies the police had provided of their Bob Sherman file. He stood in front of the big stove, a neat substantial figure in his heavy dark blue overcoat and ear-flapped astrakhan hat, blowing on his fingers.
‘Cold today,’ he said.
I thought I probably knew him better than anyone I’d met in Norway, but all the same I said, ‘May I call to see you in your office?’
He’d heard about my appointments and smiled wryly at being included. ‘Saturday, if you like. I’ll be there until noon.’