by Dick Francis
‘Go and answer that, Mervyn,’ the man with the clipboard said, and his henchman with the marker went off to obey. Then the clipboard man frowned as if remembering something, looked sharply at his watch, and called out,’Mervyn, I’ll answer it. You go and shift those beer cases like the man says. Put them in store D. Wait outside until I tell you to come back. And tell those men not to bring in the next load until I’m off the ‘phone, right?’ His gaze flicked over me, scarcely reaching my face. ‘Your job, of course,’ he said. ‘You tell them.’
He strode away fast in the direction of the office leaving me flat-footed in his wake, and presently I could hear his voice answering the telephone and could see a portion of his backview through the glass.
‘Yes, speaking. Yes, yes. Go on.’
Before I’d consciously decided whether to retire or eavesdrop another and different voice spoke loudly from the passage outside, a voice accompanied by firm approaching footsteps.
‘Vernon? Are you there?’
He came straight through the doorway and veered immediately to his left towards the office: and to my startled eyes he was unmistakable.
Paul Young.
‘Vernon!’
‘Yes, look, I’ll be with you…’ Vernon of the clipboard put the palm of his hand over the telephone and began to turn towards the newcomer, and while neither of them was looking my way I stepped backwards out of their line of sight.
Paul Young.
My mind seemed stuck; my body of lead.
To reach the outside world I would have to go past the office section and with all that glass around Paul Young would be sure to see me. He might not have taken particular note of me on that Monday morning in the Silver Moondance Saloon but he’d certainly thought of me a good deal since. The assistant assistant would have told him who I was. He’d sent the thieves to my shop with his list. He must know how that sortie had ended. He must also know it hadn’t achieved its main purpose. I thought that if he saw me now he would know me, and the idea of that filled me with numbing, muscle-paralysing fright.
Neither Vernon nor Paul Young at that exact moment seemed to be moving, but impelled no doubt by the atavistic burrowing instincts of the hunted and trapped I sought in that brightly-lit warehouse for a dark place to hide.
There were no soft nooks or crannies, just solid blocks and columns of cases of drink. There were narrow spaces between some of the blocks into which I could squeeze… and where anyone glancing in as they walked past would easily see me.
Down the far end, I thought in panicky fashion. They might not go right down there.
But I’d have to get there, and at any second, any second… It was too far. Something else… something fast…
I climbed.
I climbed the highest and most extensive stack, which happened to be of non-vintage champagne. I lay flat on my stomach along the top of it, at the back against the wall. The ceiling was eighteen inches above my head. The cases stretched beyond my feet at one end and beyond my head at the other. I co aid see nothing but cardboard. No floor. No people. My heart bounced around like a rubber ball and I wanted to shut my eyes on the ostrich principle that if I didn’t look I wouldn’t be seen.
Consultancy did not include getting too close to Paul Young.
What a hollow bloody laugh.
If he found me on top of the champagne it would be a crocodile job for sure. Did he take plaster of Paris with him always in his Rolls?
Why hadn’t I run for it? If I’d run, he might not have caught me. I ought simply to have sprinted. It would have been better. There were people around… I’d have been safe. And now here I was, marooned eight feet up on a liquid mountain and feeling more frightened than I’d ever been in my life.
They left the office and came into the main storeroom. I clenched my teeth and sweated.
If they searched for me… if they knew I was there… they would certainly find me.
‘I’m not satisfied. I want to see for myself.’
It was Paul Young’s own hard voice, full of aggressive determination and so close that he might have been speaking to me directly. I tried not to tremble… not to rustle against the cardboard… not to breathe.
‘But I’ve told you…’ the clipboard man said.
‘I don’t give a sod what you’ve told me. You’re a twisty bastard, Vernon. You’d lie as soon as spit. I’ve warned you twice and I don’t trust you. By my reckoning you should still have twenty-four cases of scotch left here and I’ve written down on this list how much you should have under each label. And I’m telling you, Vernon, you’d better show me just that much because if I find you’ve been selling any more on your own account and pocketing the proceeds, you’re out.’
Vernon said sullenly, ‘Your list won’t be up to date. I sold a lot to that wine bar in Oxford.’
‘How many labels?’ Paul Young asked sharply.
‘Two.’
That’d better be right. You can show me the invoices.’
Vernon said combatively, ‘You make selling them too difficult, not letting more than two go to each place. No one ever says they’re the same. How many complaints have we had, tell me that? Your brother’s been selling all six for years and no one’s ever said they aren’t what’s on the labels.’
Paul Young said heavily, ‘Someone must have complained, otherwise why was that snooping wine-merchant there tasting everything and telling the police? I’m not risking all six together any more, not for anyone. If you want to stay in business, Vernon, you’ll do what I tell you and don’t you forget it. Now let’s check on the stocks, and you’d better not have been cheating me, Vernon, you’d better not.’
‘It’s all down the far end,’ Vernon said glumly, and their voices faded and became less distinct as they moved away down the long room.
At the far end… and I’d have gone down there to hide, if I’d had time. Great God Almighty…
I wondered if they would see my feet. I thought of escape but knew my first movement would alert them. I thought that if the worst came to the worst I could defend myself by throwing champagne bottles. Champagne bottles were reinforced because if they broke they were like mini-grenades exploding with gas into cutting knives of glass. Flying glass was lethal, which people tended to forget because of actors crashing out harmlessly through windows in television sagas: but that fictional glass was made of sugar to safeguard the stuntmen… and little children had been killed by dropping fizzy-drink bottles… and I’d fight with champagne if I had to.
They were down at the far end for several minutes, their voices still muffled. When they came back, nothing between them had improved.
‘You had all the Silver Moondance scotch back here,’ Paul Young said furiously. ‘I brought it myself. What have you done with it?’
Silence from Vernon.
‘I put a red circle on every box from there when Zarac and I loaded it. You didn’t notice that, I suppose? I didn’t trust you, Vernon. I was sodding right not to trust you. You’ve been useful to me, I’m not saying different. But youre not the only stores manager who can shuffle a bit of paper. You’re greedy and you’re not safe. The party’s over, Vernon. You’re short a total of twenty-eight cases by my reckoning and I won’t have people steal from me. You’ve had a fair cut. Very fair. But enough’s enough. We’re through. I’ll remove the rest of my stock tomorrow afternoon in one of the vans, and you’ll be here with the keys of this place to see to it.’
With defensive anger and no caution at all Vernon said explosively, ‘If you break with me I’ll see you regret it.’
There was a small intense silence, then in a deadly voice Paul Young said, ‘The last person who threatened me in that way was Zarac.’
Vernon made no reply. I felt my own hairs rising, my breath stifling, my skin chilling to cold.
I had heard too much.
If I’d been at risk before, it was now redoubled. And it wasn’t just the threat of death that terrified, but the manner of it… th
e nightmare of a soft white bandage over one’s nose and mouth, turning to rock, choking off breath… coming my way if Paul Young knew what I’d heard… or so it seemed to me, lying in fear, trying to prevent tremor or twitch from creaking through the unstable columns of boxes.
Vernon must have known what had become of Zarac. He made no reply at all, nor did Paul Young find it necessary to spell out his meaning at more length. I heard his strong gritty footsteps move away towards the doorway to the office, and after them, hesitant, shuffling, the footfalls of Vernon.
I heard Vernon’s voice saying loudly, angrily, ‘What are you doing? I told you not to bring that lot in until I was ready,’ and with the sublime disrespect for orders shown by a certain type of British workman the two men in brown overalls pushed their fork-lift truck resolutely past him into the warehouse.
I couldn’t see them, but I heard them plainly. One of them said truculently, ‘Time and a half or no time and a half, we knock off at twelve-thirty, and if this isn’t unloaded by then we’ll take it back with us. We can’t ponce about waiting for your private ‘phone calls.’
Vernon was flustered. I heard him outside calling, ‘Mervyn, Mervyn, get back here’; and when Mervyn returned it was with news that made my precarious position much worse.
‘Did you know Bakerton’s van’s here? They’ve brought fifty more cases of Pol Roger White Foil.’
Pol Roger White Foil was what I was lying on.
If they were busy with Pol Roger someone would be bound to see me. They could hardly avoid it. Delivery men wouldn’t exactly ignore a man lying on top of their boxes… they would for instance remark on it… who wouldn’t?
Vernon said disorganisedly, ‘Well if they’ve brought it… Go out and count what they unload, they left us short two cases last time… And you there with the gin, stack that lot separately, it’s not checked…’
Paul Young’s decisive voice cut through the hurrying orders. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, Vernon. Two o’clock sharp.’
Vernon’s reply was drowned as far as I was concerned by the gin handlers heating up an argument about football six paces from my toes. I could no longer hear Paul Young either. I heard too much about a questionable foul and the eyesight of the ref.
Staying on top of the champagne was hopeless, though the temptation to remain invisible was almost overwhelming. Discovery on my stomach, discovery on my feet… one or the other was inevitable.
There must be a safety of sorts, I thought, in the presence of all those delivery men.
On my feet, then.
I slithered backwards and dropped down into the narrow gap between the bulk of the Pol Roger and the smaller block of Krug beyond.
I was trembling. It wouldn’t do. I stepped from the champagne shelter numb with fright and went down to the men with the gin.
One of them broke off his denunciation of a deliberate kick at a knee cap and said/Blimey, where did you come from?’
‘Just checking,’ I said vaguely. ‘Have you finished?’
‘Near enough.’ They expertly off-loaded the last few cases. ‘That’s the lot. You want to sign our chit?’
One of them picked a yellow folded paper from his top overall pocket and held it out.
‘Er…’ I said, fishing for a pen. ‘Yes.’
I opened the yellow paper, leaned it against a case of gin, signed it illegibly in the space provided and gave it back to them.
‘Right. We’ll be off.’
They left the fork-lift truck where it was in the middle of the wide central aisle, and set off for the door. Almost without thought I grasped the truck’s handle and pushed it along in their wake, and it was in that way that I came face to face with Vernon.
There was sweat on his forehead. He looked harassed, small eyes anxious above a flourishing moustache, mouth open, breath hurried and heavy.
He gave me the smallest frown. He was accompanying an incoming load of white boxes. I let go of the truck I was pushing and walked past Vernon and the Pol Roger and was out nto the passage with no sign of Paul Young, no shouts, no scalding pursuit.
I followed the brown-overalled gin men round the turn into the main passage with only a short way to go to the free open air… and there he was, Paul Young, outside the green entrance, lit by daylight, standing as if waiting, solid, shortish, unremarkable, a man without pity.
I glanced back the way I’d come. Vernon had peeled off from the champagne and was advancing after me, appearing undecided, enquiring, on the verge of suspicious.
‘You, there,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see you come in.’
‘Maintenance,’ I said briskly. ‘Just checking.’
Vernon’s frown deepened. Paul Young remained at the outer door motionless and in plain sight, watching something outside.
I turned towards the only alternative, the long passage leading deep under the stands. Vernon glanced to where I’d been looking and saw Paul Young, and his mouth tightened. I gave him no more time to crystallise his suspicions of me but set off down the long passage as if every step of the way was familiar. When I looked back after about fifteen paces Vernon was still there, still staring after me. I gave him a wave. Beyond him Paul Young still filled the way out. I continued to walk onwards, trying to control a terrible urge to run. At all costs, I told myself, don’t look back again. Vernon would begin to follow.
Don’t look back.
Don’t actually run.
I went faster and deeper to I didn’t know where.
EIGHTEEN
The passage ended in kitchens: vast cavernous halls with stainless steel growing everywhere in monstrous mixing bowls and sink-like trays.
Empty, cold, clean, greyly gleaming: a deserted science-fiction landscape which on Tuesday must have been alive with warmth and smells and food and bustle. There were a few lights on, inadequate for the area, but no sign that anyone was working. I glanced back against all my good intentions as I turned away from the passage and saw that Vernon had indeed followed; that he was almost half way along.
I waved again as I stepped out of his sight, a brief and I hoped reassuring signal.
Vernon was not apparently reassured. I heard his voice shouting loudly from the distance, ‘Hey!’
He didn’t know who I was, but he was alarmed that I could have overheard what I had. His unease sprang from guilt and his persistence in following me from a wholly accurate instinct. If he thought I was a danger to him, he was right.
Damn him, I thought. He was a better prospect than Paul Young, but not much. I might be able to talk myself free of him with something like saying I was checking electric wiring… or I might not. Better by far to vanish as inexplicably as I’d appeared.
The ovens were big enough to crawl into… but they had glass doors… and gas jets inside… Where else?
Another way out… There had to be a way out for food. They wouldn’t push it along that passage out into possible rain. There would be a way into bars, into dining rooms. Exit doors, somewhere.
I sped round two corners. More stainless steel monsters. Sinks like bathtubs for dishwashing. Floor to ceiling stacks of trays. No doors out.
Nowhere to hide.
‘Are you there?’ Vernon’s voice shouted. ‘Hey you. Where are you?’ He was much nearer. He sounded determined now, and more belligerent. ‘Come out of there. Show yourself.’
I went desperately round the furthest possible corner into a small space which looked at first like a short blank corridor leading nowhere. I began to turn to go back the way I’d come, feverishly trying to remember electricians’ terms to flourish around like interrupted resistance and circuit overload and other such nonsense when I saw that one wall of the blank corridor wasn’t blank.
One wall contained a row of four small lifts, each about a yard high, a yard wide, a yard deep. Constructed without fronts, they were of the sort especially designed for transporting food upwards from downstairs cooks. Dumb waiters the Victorians had called them. Beside each lift, selector buttons:
1, 2, 3.
I scrambled into the nearest lift, pressed button 3, not by choice but because my unsteady ringers hit it first, and wondered what on earth I would say now if Vernon at that moment appeared.
He didn’t. I heard him still round a corner or two, calling angrily, ‘Hey, you. Answer me.’: and the food lift rose smoothly, quietly, taking me far upwards like a sandwich.
When it stopped I spilled hurriedly out, finding myself in a serving area high up in the stands. There was daylight from large windows and a row of food trolleys parked end to end along a wall.
No one about. No sound from below… but Vernon might have heard the lift’s electric hum and be on his way… he knew every cranny… he belonged there. Out of a muddled thought that if the lift returned to the kitchens before he saw it had gone he might not think I’d used it, I pressed the down button and saw it disappear as fast as I’d come up.
Then I scorched out of the serving area and at any other time might have laughed, because I was up on the level of Orkney Swayle’s box. Up where the waitresses had ferried the food whose origins I hadn’t imagined.
I ran at last: softly but with terrible fear still at my heels. Ran past the big passenger lifts that might go down from there to the ground floor, but would go slowly with flashing lights announcing their progress and which might deliver me to Vernon waiting in anticipation at the doors… Ran past them to Orkney’s box, because I knew it. Prayed the door wouldn’t be locked.
None of the boxes was locked.
Marvellous.
Orkney’s was ten or more along the glassed-in gallery, and I reached it at an Olympic sprint. I went in there and stood in the corner that couldn’t be seen from the passage because of the out-jutting serving section just inside the door, and I made my breathing shallow and almost silent, and couldn’t stop the noisy thump of my heart.
Nothing happened for a long long time.
Nothing at all.
There was no more voice shouting, ‘Hey…’
No Vernon appeared like Nemesis in the doorway.
I couldn’t bring myself to believe he’d given up. I thought that if I took a step into the gallery he would pounce on me. That somewhere, round a turning, he would be lying in wait. As in a childhood game I strained deep into a hiding place cringing from the heartstopping moment of capture… but this time for real, with a penalty beyond facing.