Slay Ride

by Dick Francis

  ‘Are you coming, David?’ Arne said.

  ‘Yeah.’ I stopped looking around vaguely and followed him through the main doors into the booking hall. At the far end of the platform two men, by-passing the station buildings, had set off quickly in the general direction of the road to the bridge. One was big. The other, of the same build as my attacker in the flat. They were too far away for me to swear to it in court.

  But I was sure, just the same.

  The small booking ha” was scattered with prospective travellers wearing limbo expressions, waiting for time to pass. There were seats round the walls, doors to washrooms, a window for buying tickets: all the amenities in one central area. Arne said he wanted to make a telephone call before we set off to the meeting with our informer down the road.

  ‘Carry on,’ I said amiably.

  I watched him through the glass wall of the booth feeding money into the slot and talking earnestly into the mouthpiece. He talked for a good long time, and came out smiling.

  ‘All done. Let’s go,’ he said.

  ‘Arne…’ I hesitated. ‘I know this is going to sound silly, but I don’t want to go.’

  He looked dumbstruck. ‘But why not? This man might have seen who killed Bob Sherman.’

  ‘I know. But… I can’t explain it. I have… the weirdest feeling of premonition. I’ve had it before… I can’t… I can’t ignore it. Something tells me not to go. So I’m not going.’

  ‘But David,’ he said. ”That’s crazy.’

  ‘I can’t help it. I’m not going.’

  ‘But what about the man?’

  I said helplessly, ‘I don’t know.’

  Arne grew impatient. He tried insults. He tried persuasion. I wouldn’t budge.

  In the end he said, ‘Give me the newspaper. I’ll go and meet him myself.’

  ‘But,’ I objected, ‘if my premonition means there is some danger down that road, it must be dangerous for you as well. I had a premonition about a street once before… I wouldn’t go down it, and a few seconds later several tons of scaffolding collapsed on to where I would have been. Ever since then, when I’ve a strong feeling against doing something, I don’t do it.’

  He blinked at me earnestly. ‘If I see any scaffolding, I’ll keep away from it. But we must see this Johan Petersen and hear his story. Give me the newspaper.’

  Reluctantly I handed him the previous day’s Express.

  ‘I’ll wait for you here,’ I said.

  He nodded, still not pleased, and set off on his own. I chose a place to sit at one end of one of the bench seats, with solid wall at my back and on one side. On my other side sat a plump teenage girl in a shaggy sheepskin coat eating herring sandwiches noisily.

  A few people came. A train arrived and took most of them away, including my neighbour. Time passed very slowly.

  An hour and a half between our arrival and the train back to Oslo. An hour and a half to kill. Correction, I thought wryly. To stay alive. I wished I smoked or bit my nails or went in for yoga. I wished my heart wouldn’t jump every time people walked past the window in pairs. I wished I knew what views yellow eyes and brown eyes held on murdering in public, because if only I was sure they wouldn’t risk it I could save myself a lot of fretting. As it was I sat and waited and slowly sweated, hoping I’d judged their limit right.

  When passengers for the Oslo train started arriving and buying tickets I bought two myself for Arne and me. I asked particularly for the most public pair of seats in the carriage, as observed on the way up, and although I had difficulty explaining what I wanted as the ticket seller spoke little English, I got them.

  Back in my careful corner I found myself flanked by an elderly man with an ear-flapped cap topping cream coloured skin over an elongated skull. He had heard me speak English at the ticket window and was eager to tell me that he’d been in England the year before on holiday with his son and daughter-in-law. I encouraged him a bit, and got in return a minute by minute conducted tour from Tower Hill via Westminster Abbey to the National Gallery. By the time Arne came back, a quarter of an hour before train time, we were chatting away like old friends.

  Arne was looking anxious. I stood up to meet him, gesturing to the elderly man and saying, ‘We’ve been talking about London…’

  Arne glanced at the man without really seeing him and abruptly interrupted. ‘He didn’t come.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said.

  Arne shook his head. ‘I waited. I walked down to the bridge twice. I showed the newspaper. No one spoke to me. No one even walked past looking as if they were looking for anyone.’

  I made frustrated noises. ‘What a bloody nuisance. I’m so sorry, Arne, to have wasted a whole day for you… but he sounded so definite. Perhaps he was delayed and couldn’t help it. Perhaps we could telephone the timber yard…’

  ‘I did,’ he said. ‘They haven’t any Johan Petersen working there.’

  We stared at each other.

  I said depressedly, ‘I banked so much on his giving us some really vital information.’

  He looked at me uncertainly.

  ‘My premonition was all wrong then,’ I said.

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  He began to fish out his wallet.

  ‘I’ve got the tickets,’ I said, producing them. ‘Two seats together.’

  ‘Oh… good.’

  The train arrived, dark red and silver, and we climbed aboard. The seats were all I’d hoped, right down at one end, with their backs to the wardrobe end but facing every other seat in the coach. By a stroke of luck my elderly friend of the London holiday took his place on the aisle three seats down. He had a clear view of Arne and me, and waved and smiled. I told Arne how friendly he had been. Like all Norwegians, I said.

  Arne jerked a look over his shoulder. Only a row of hangers with coats; but he didn’t look happy.

  Two bright-eyed young girls came and sat in the two seats directly facing us. I moved my feet out of the way of theirs, and smiled at them. They smiled back and said something in their own language.

  ‘I’m English,’ I said, and they repeated ‘English’ and nodded and smiled again. ‘And this is my friend Arne Kristiansen.’ They put the introduction down to the eccentricity of foreigners, saying hello to him with giggles. Arne said hello back, but he was old enough to be their father and not interested in their girlish chat.

  The train started back towards Oslo. We talked for a while about the non-appearance of Johan Petersen and I said we would just have to hope that he would telephone again.

  ‘You’ll let me know if he does?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  The lady in blue overalls arrived, pushing her comforts trolley down the aisle. I said it was my turn to buy the coffee, and despite Arne’s protestations I did so. I also offered drinks to the two girls who thought it a great lark and went pink. They asked Arne to see if it was all right for them to have orangeade, as they didn’t like coffee. The lady in blue overalls patiently attended to all Arne’s translations and finally with a smile gave him my change.

  Arne began to wear the hunted look he often did in crowds.

  ‘Let’s go somewhere quieter,’ he said.

  ‘You go,’ I said. ‘But I rather like it here.’

  He shook his head, but he stayed.

  To his relief and my regret the two young girls got off at Hamar, giggling goodbye with backward glances. No one embarked to take their empty places, but after the train had started again my elderly friend got to his feet and came enquiringly towards us.

  ‘May I sit here with you?’ he said. ‘It is so interesting to talk about England.’

  Too much for Arne. He rose abruptly to his feet and dived through to the next carriage. The door banged behind him.

  ‘Have I upset your friend?’ asked the elderly man anxiously. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘He has problems,’ I said. ‘But not of your making.’

  Relieved, he launched into more
reminiscences which bored me to death but quite likely kept me alive. He was still there, talking inexhaustibly, as we drew into Oslo. And on the platform, flanked by Odin, stood Erik anxiously looking out for me, just as promised.

  There wasn’t much time left. If they were going to make an attempt now they were going to have to do it in the open.

  I stepped off the train and turned towards Erik. And there between us, looking sickeningly businesslike, stood the two men I least wanted to see.

  15

  Battle never commenced.

  Erik saw them at the same moment I did, and yelled ‘Police’ at the top of his lungs.

  Every person within earshot stopped to look.

  ‘Police,’ he yelled again, pointing at yellow eyes and brown eyes. ‘These are thieves. Fetch the police.’ And he repeated it in Norwegian, very loudly.

  It broke their nerve. They looked round at the growing circle staring at them wide-eyed, and suddenly made a bolt for the exit. No one made much effort to stop them, and the chief expression on every beholder’s face was astonishment.

  Erik strode up to me and pumped my hand.

  ‘Just putting your theory into practice,’ he said.

  I looked blank.

  He explained. ‘Knut told me you didn’t think they’d kill you while people were looking. So I just got a few people to look.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Call it quits,’ he said with a grin, and patted Odin.

  I discovered that the palms of my hands were wet and a lot of me was quietly shaking.

  ‘I need a telephone,’ I said.

  ‘You need a good stiff drink.’

  ‘That too.’

  I rang Knut. ‘I’m back at the terminus,’ I said.

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  I asked with some intensity, because I’d risked my skin for nearly seven shivery hours and no one could be entirely objective after that.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, but there was an odd note of reservation in his voice. ‘At least… ja.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘You had better come here, to the police station. It will be easier to explain.’

  ‘All right.’

  I stepped outside the box and almost fell over Odin who was lying across the door like a medieval page. He gave me a reproachful look, stood nonchalantly up, and yawned.

  I asked Erik, ‘Did you see Arne Kristiansen anywhere?’

  ‘Who?’

  I scanned the crowd without success. ‘Never mind. I expect he’s gone home.’

  In gathering dusk Erik drove sedately (only one near-miss) to the police building, where I went upstairs and found Knut sitting alone and chewing a pencil. He gestured me to the visitors’ chair and produced only the vestige of a smile.

  ‘Well… we did everything you suggested,’ he said. ‘We planted the chart in a locker at Fornebu and put the key loose in the helmet in your room at the Grand. We sprinkled anthracene dust over every surface an intruder would touch and we waited at Fornebu to see if anyone would come.’

  He rattled the pencil along his teeth.

  ‘Someone did come,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  He sighed. ‘You’d better come and see.’

  He led the way out of his meagre office and down an uncarpeted corridor, and stopped outside a cream painted door. Bright light from inside shone through a small glass panel let into the wood at viewing height.

  ‘Look,’ Knut said.

  I looked.

  The room was small and bare, containing only a simple table and three chairs. One chair was occupied by a young uniformed policeman looking stolid. On another, smoking quietly and as calm as if he were back in his own boardroom, sat Per Bjørn Sandvik.

  I pulled my head away from the glass and stared at Knut.

  ‘Come back to my office,’ he said.

  We went back and sat down as before.

  ‘He came to Fornebu and opened the locker,’ Knut said. That was at…’ he consulted a note-pad, ‘… fourteen thirty-five hours precisely. He removed the chart from the locker and put it in an inside pocket. I myself and two other officers went up to him as he was walking away from the lockers and asked him to accompany us to this police station. He seemed surprised but not… not deeply disturbed. I have arrested so many people… Per Bjom Sandvik did not behave like a guilty man.’

  He rubbed thumb and finger down his nose.

  ‘I don’t know what to make of him, David. He shrugged and said he would come with us if we liked, but he said almost nothing else until we got back here. He was completely calm. No sign of stress. None at all. He has been here now for about an hour and a half, and he has been calm and courteous the whole time.’

  ‘What explanation did he give?’

  ‘We went into that interview room and sat on the chairs, with a constable to take notes. Mr Sandvik offered me a cigarette. He said he had only been trying to help the investigation into Bob Sherman’s death. He said Arne Kristiansen had telephoned to say that you had found a key which might lead to useful information, so he went to the Grand Hotel to fetch the key, which he recognised as having come from Fornebu, as he has often used those lockers in the past. So he went to the airport… to see what Bob Sherman had left there. He said he thought it might have been the missing money, but it was only a paper. He hadn’t done more than glance at it when we stopped him.’

  ‘Did he give any reason for doing all this himself and not waiting for Arne or me to get back or enlisting the help of the police?’

  ‘Ja. He smiled a small tight smile to mock me. ‘He said Arne asked him to do it. Arne wanted to prove to the racecourse committee that he was worth his salary as an investigator, so he telephoned to Sandvik as a member of the racecourse committee to tell him about the key. Arne apparently said that if he and Mr Sandvik helped with the case, the committee would not be able to give all the praise to you.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He looked depressed. ‘Per Bjørn Sandvik is a leader of industry. He is much respected. He is being very reasonable, but if we keep him here much longer he will be angry.’

  ‘And your superiors will lean on you?’

  ‘Er… ja.’

  I thought.

  ‘Don’t worry, Knut,’ I said. ‘We’ve got the right man.’

  ‘But he is so confident.’

  I nodded. ‘He’s working on a false assumption.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He thinks I’m dead.’

  Per Bjørn Sandvik got a very nasty shock indeed when I walked into the interview room.

  Muscles round his eyes and mouth contracted sharply, and his pale skin went perceptibly paler. But his resilience was extraordinary. Within three seconds he was smiling pleasantly with the deceptive lack of agitation which was so confusing Knut.

  ‘David!’ he said as if in welcome, yet I could almost hear and certainly sense the alarm bells going at panic strength.

  ‘I’m afraid this isn’t the happiest of meetings,’ I said.

  He was making such an urgent reappraisal that the muscles round his eyes were moving in tiny rhythmical spasms: which booted out of me any hint of complacency, because people who could think as quickly and intently as that in such adverse circumstances had brains to beware of.

  Knut followed me into the room and told the young policeman to fetch another chair. While he went to get it I watched Per Bjørn finish reorganising his thoughts. Infinitesimally, he relaxed. Too soon, I reckoned: and I couldn’t afford to be wrong.

  The extra chair came, and we all sat down round the bare table as if to a simple business discussion.

  I said, ‘It must have occurred to you by now that there was no Johann Petersen at Lillehammer.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said pleasantly in his high distinct diction. ‘I thought we were talking about the locker key and Fornebu airport.’

  ‘We’re talking about Arne Kristianse
n,’ I said.

  A pause. I waited. But he was too cautious now to take any step without prospecting for quicksand, and after some time, when he said nothing, I invited him a little further along the path.

  ‘You shouldn’t rely on Arne,’ I said. ‘Arne is deep in, up to the neck.’

  No response.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ I said. ‘Up to his neck and over his head, considering the amount of swimming he’s done.’

  No reaction.

  ‘All that messing around in the fjord,’ I said. ‘There was me thinking Arne had drowned, while all the time he had a scuba suit on under his red anorak. Nice snug black rubber with yellow seams, fitting right up over his head to keep him warm.’ I’d seen the black-and-yellow under his anorak. It had taken me days to realise it had been rubber. But then that chug down the fjord happened before I’d begun to be sure that Arne was on the other side.

  ‘A strong swimmer, Arne,’ I said. ‘A tough all-round sportsman. So there he is standing up in the dinghy waving his arms about as if to warn the speedboat not to run us down while all the time signalling to it that yes, this was the dinghy it was supposed to be sinking. This dinghy, not some other poor innocent slob out on a fishing trip. Arne swam ashore, reported an accident, reported me drowned.’

  A pause.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Per Bjørn said, and patiently sighed.

  ‘I’m talking about Arne putting on his scuba suit and diving into the pond at Øvrevoll to get Bob Sherman out of it.’

  Silence.

  Arne had been sick when he saw the month-dead body. At night, when he’d fished Bob out and wrapped him in tarpaulin it couldn’t have seemed so bad: but in the light of a drizzly day it had hit him a bull’s-eye in the stomach.

  ‘I’m talking about Arne being the one person who could be sure no one saw him putting bodies into ponds, taking them out again, and later putting them back again. Arne was security officer. He could come and go on that racecourse as he pleased. No one would think it odd if he were on the racecourse first, last, and during the night. But he could also make sure that the night-watchman saw nothing he shouldn’t, because the night-watchman would carry out any attention-distracting task Arne gave him.’