by Dick Francis
‘Yes.’
‘Mr York, I am not a violent man. Indeed, I dislike violence. I go out of my way to avoid it, Mr York. But sometimes it is thrust upon me, sometimes it is the only way to achieve results. Do you understand me, Mr York?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘If I were a violent man, Mr York, I would have sent you a rougher warning last week. And I’m giving you another chance, to show you how reluctant I am to harm you. Just mind your own business and stop asking foolish questions. That’s all. Just stop asking questions, and nothing will happen to you.’ There was a pause, then the soft voice went on, with a shade, a first tinge of menace, ‘Of course, if I find that violence is absolutely necessary, I always get someone else to apply it. So that I don’t have to watch. So that it is not too painful to me. You do understand me, I hope, Mr York?’
‘Yes,’ I said again. I thought of Sonny, his vicious grin, and his knife.
‘Good, then that’s all. I do so hope you will be sensible. Good morning, Mr York.’ There was a click as he broke the connection.
I jiggled the telephone rest to recall the operator. When she answered I asked if she could tell me where the call had come from.
‘One moment, please,’ she said. She suffered from enlarged adenoids. She came back. ‘It was routed through London,’ she said, ‘but I can’t trace it beyond there. So sorry.’
‘Never mind. Thank you very much,’ I said.
‘Pleasure, I’m sure,’ said the adenoids.
I put down the receiver and went back to my breakfast.
‘Who was that?’ asked Henry, spreading marmalade thickly on his toast.
‘Man about a dog,’ I said.
‘Or in other words,’ said Polly, ‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no thumping lies.’
Henry made a face at her and bit deeply into his toast. The marmalade oozed out of one corner of his mouth. He licked it.
‘Henry always wants to know who’s ringing up,’ said William.
‘Yes, darling,’ said Scilla absently, rubbing some egg off his jersey. ‘I wish you would lean over your plate when you eat, William.’ She kissed the top of his blond head.
I passed my cup to Joan for more coffee.
Henry said ‘Will you take us out to tea in Cheltenham, Alan? Can we have some of those squelchy cream things like last time, and ice-cream sodas with straws, and some peanuts for coming home?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said William, blissfully.
‘I’d love to,’ I said, ‘but I can’t, today. We’ll do it next week, perhaps.’ The day of my visit to Kate’s house had come at last. I was to stay there for two nights, and I planned to put in a day at the office on Monday.
Seeing the children’s disappointed faces I explained, ‘Today I’m going to stay with a friend. I won’t be back until Monday evening.’
‘What a bore,’ said Henry.
The Lotus ate up the miles between the Cotswolds and Sussex with the deep purr of a contented cat. I covered the fifty miles of good road from Cirencester to Newbury in fifty-three minutes, not because I was in a great hurry, but out of sheer pleasure in driving my car at the speed it was designed for. And I was going towards Kate. Eventually.
Newbury slowed me to a crawl, to a halt. Then I zipped briefly down the Basingstoke road, past the American air base at Greenham Common, and from the twisty village of Kingsclere onwards drove at a sedate pace which seldom rose above sixty.
Kate lived about four miles from Burgess Hill, in Sussex.
I arrived in Burgess Hill at twenty-past one, found my way to the railway station, and parked in a corner, tucked away behind a large shooting brake. I went into the station and bought a return ticket to Brighton. I didn’t care to reconnoitre in Brighton by car: the Lotus had already identified me into one mess, and I hesitated to show my hand by taking it where it could be spotted by a cruising taxi driven by Peaky, Sonny, Bert or the rest.
The journey took sixteen minutes. On the train I asked myself, for at least the hundredth time, what chance remark of mine had landed me in the horse-box hornets’ nest. Whom had I alarmed by not only revealing that I knew about the wire, but more especially by saying that I intended to find out who had put it there? I could think of only two possible answers; and one of them I didn’t like a bit.
I remembered saying to Clifford Tudor on the way from Plumpton to Brighton that a lot of questions would have to be answered about Bill’s death; which was as good as telling him straight out that I knew the fall hadn’t been an accident, and that I meant to do something about it.
And I had made the same thing quite clear to Kate. To Kate. To Kate. To Kate. The wheels of the train took up the refrain and mocked me.
Well, I hadn’t sworn her to secrecy, and I hadn’t seen any need to. She could have passed on what I had said to the whole of England, for all I knew. But she hadn’t had much time. It had been after midnight when she left me in London, and the horse-box had been waiting for me seventeen hours later.
The train slowed into Brighton station. I walked up the platform and through the gate in a cluster of fellow passengers, but hung back as we came through the booking hall and out towards the forecourt. There were about twelve taxis parked there, their drivers standing outside them, surveying the outpouring passengers for custom. I looked at all the drivers carefully, face by face.
They were all strangers. None of them had been at Plumpton.
Not unduly discouraged, I found a convenient corner with a clear view of arriving taxis and settled myself to wait, resolutely ignoring the cold draught blowing down my neck. Taxis came and went like busy bees, bringing passengers, taking them away. The trains from London attracted them like honey.
Gradually a pattern emerged. There were four distinct groups of them. One group had a broad green line painted down the wings, with the name Green Band on the doors. A second group had yellow shields on the doors, with small letters in black on the shields. A third group were bright cobalt blue all over. Into the fourth group I put the indeterminate taxis which did not belong to the other lines.
I waited for nearly two hours, growing stiffer and stiffer, and receiving more and more curious looks from the station staff. I looked at my watch. The last train I could catch and still arrive at Kate’s at the right time was due to leave in six minutes. I had begun to straighten up and massage my cold neck, ready to go and board it, when at last my patience was rewarded.
Empty taxis began to arrive and form a waiting line, which I now knew meant that another London train was due. The drivers got out of their cars and clustered in little groups, talking. Three dusty black taxis arrived in minor convoy and pulled up at the end of the line. They had faded yellow shields painted on the doors. The drivers got out.
One of them was the polite driver of the horse-box. A sensible, solid citizen, he looked. Middle-aged, unremarkable, calm. I did not know the others.
I had three minutes left. The black letters were tantalisingly small on the yellow shields. I couldn’t get close enough to read them without the polite driver seeing me, and I had not time to wait until he had gone. I went over to the ticket office, hovered impatiently while a woman argued about half fares for her teenage child, and asked a simple question.
‘What is the name of the taxis with yellow shields on the doors?’ The young man in the office gave me an uninterested glance.
‘Marconicars, sir. Radio cabs, they are.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, and sprinted for the platform.
Kate lived in a superbly proportioned Queen Anne house which generations of gothic-ruin-minded Victorians had left miraculously unspoilt. Its graceful symmetry, its creamy gravelled drive, its tidy lawns already mown in early spring, its air of solid serenity, all spoke of a social and financial security of such long standing that it was to be taken entirely for granted.
Inside, the house was charming, with just a saving touch of shabbiness about the furnishings, as if, though rich, the inhabitants saw no need to be e
ither ostentatious or extravagant.
Kate met me at the door and took my arm, and walked me across the hall.
‘Aunt Deb is waiting to give you tea,’ she said. ‘Tea is a bit of a ritual with Aunt Deb. You will be in her good graces for being punctual, thank goodness. She is very Edwardian, you’ll find. The times have moved without her in many ways.’ She sounded anxious and apologetic, which meant to me that she loved her aunt protectively, and wished me to make allowances. I squeezed her arm reassuringly, and said ‘Don’t worry.’
Kate opened one of the white panelled doors and we went into the drawing-room. It was a pleasant room, wood panelled and painted white, with a dark plum-coloured carpet, good Persian rugs, and flower patterned curtains. On a sofa at right angles to a glowing log fire sat a woman of about seventy. Beside her stood a low round table bearing a silver tray with Crown Derby cups and saucers and a Georgian silver teapot and cream jug. A dark brown dachshund lay asleep at her feet.
Kate walked across the room and said with some formality, ‘Aunt Deb, may I introduce Alan York?’
Aunt Deb extended to me her hand, palm downwards. I shook it, feeling that in her younger days it would have been kissed.
‘I am delighted to meet you, Mr York,’ said Aunt Deb. And I saw exactly what Dane meant about her chilly, well-bred manner. She had no warmth, no genuine welcome in her voice. She was still, for all her years, or even perhaps because of them, exceedingly good looking. Straight eyebrows, perfect nose, clearly outlined mouth. Grey hair cut and dressed by a first-class man. A slim, firm body, straight back, elegant legs crossed at the ankles. A fine silk shirt under a casual tweed suit, hand-made shoes of soft leather. She had everything. Everything except the inner fire which would make Kate at that age worth six of Aunt Deb.
She poured me some tea, and Kate handed it to me. There were pâté sandwiches and a home-made Madeira cake, and although tea was usually a meal I avoided if possible, I found my jinks in Brighton and no lunch had made me hungry. I ate and drank, and Aunt Deb talked.
‘Kate tells me you are a jockey, Mr York.’ She said it as if it were as dubious as a criminal record. ‘Of course I am sure you must find it very amusing, but when I was a gel it was not considered an acceptable occupation in acquaintances. But this is Kate’s home, and she may ask whoever she likes here, as she knows.’
I said mildly, ‘Surely Aubrey Hastings and Geoffrey Bennett were both jockeys and acceptable when you were—er—younger?’
She raised her eyebrows, surprised. ‘But they were gentlemen,’ she said.
I looked at Kate. She had stuffed the back of her hand against her mouth, but her eyes were laughing.
‘Yes,’ I said to Aunt Deb, with a straight face. ‘That makes a difference, of course.’
‘You may realise then,’ she said, looking at me a little less frigidly, ‘that I do not altogether approve of my niece’s new interests. It is one thing to own a racehorse, but quite another to make personal friends of the jockeys one employs to ride it. I am very fond of my niece. I do not wish her to make an undesirable… alliance. She is perhaps too young, and has led too sheltered a life, to understand what is acceptable and what is not. But I am sure you do, Mr York?’
Kate, blushing painfully, said ‘Aunt Deb!’ This was apparently worse than she was prepared for.
‘I understand you very well, Mrs Penn,’ I said, politely.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘In that case, I hope you will have an enjoyable stay with us. May I give you some more tea?’
Having firmly pointed out to me my place and having received what she took to be my acknowledgement of it, she was prepared to be a gracious hostess. She had the calm authority of one whose wishes had been law from the nursery. She began to talk pleasantly enough about the weather and her garden, and how the sunshine was bringing on the daffodils.
Then the door opened and a man came in. I stood up.
Kate said, ‘Uncle George, this is Alan York.’
He looked ten years younger than his wife. He had thick well-groomed grey hair and a scrubbed pink complexion with a fresh-from-the-bathroom moistness about it, and when he shook hands his palm was soft and moist also.
Aunt Deb said, without disapproval in her voice, ‘George, Mr York is one of Kate’s jockey friends.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, Kate told me you were coming. Glad to have you here.’
He watched Aunt Deb pour him a cup of tea, and took it from her, giving her a smile of remarkable fondness.
He was too fat for his height, but it was not a bloated-belly fatness. It was spread all over him as though he were padded. The total effect was of a jolly rotundity. He had the vaguely good-natured expression so often found on fat people, a certain bland, almost foolish, looseness of the facial muscles. And yet his fat-lidded eyes, appraising me over the rim of the teacup as he drank, were shrewd and unsmiling. He reminded me of so many businessmen I had met in my work, the slap-you-on-the-back, come-and-play-golf men who would ladle out the Krug ’49 and caviar with one hand while they tried to take over your contracts with the other.
He put down his cup and smiled, and the impression faded.
‘I am very interested to meet you, Mr York,’ he said, sitting down and gesturing to me to do the same. He looked me over carefully, inch by inch, while he asked me what I thought of Heavens Above. We discussed the horse’s possibilities with Kate, which meant that I did most of the talking, as Kate knew little more than she had at Plumpton, and Uncle George’s total information about racing seemed to be confined to Midday Sun’s having won the Derby in 1937.
‘He remembers it because of Mad Dogs and Englishmen,’ said Kate. ‘He hums it all the time. I don’t think he knows the name of a single other horse.’
‘Oh, yes I do,’ protested Uncle George. ‘Bucephalus, Pegasus and Black Bess.’
I laughed. ‘Then why did you give a racehorse to your niece?’ I asked.
Uncle George opened his mouth and shut it again. He blinked. Then he said, ‘I thought she should meet more people. She has no young company here with us, and I believe we may have given her too sheltered an upbringing.’
Aunt Deb, who had been bored into silence by the subject of horses, returned to the conversation at this point.
‘Nonsense,’ she said briskly. ‘She has been brought up as I was, which is the right way. Gels are given too much freedom nowadays, with the result that they lose their heads and elope with fortune hunters or men-about-town of unsavoury background. Gels need strictness and guidance if they are to behave as ladies, and make suitable, well-connected marriages.’
She at least had the grace to avoid looking directly at me while she spoke. She leaned over and patted the sleeping dachshund instead.
Uncle George changed the subject with an almost audible jolt, and asked me where I lived.
‘Southern Rhodesia,’ I said.
‘Indeed?’ said Aunt Deb. ‘How interesting. Do your parents plan to settle there permanently?’ It was a delicate, practised, social probe.
‘They were both born there,’ I answered.
‘And will they be coming to visit you in England?’ asked Uncle George.
‘My mother died when I was ten. My father might come some time if he is not too busy.’
‘Too busy doing what?’ asked Uncle George interestedly.
‘He’s a trader,’ I said, giving my usual usefully noncommital answer to this question. ‘Trader’ could cover anything from a rag-and-bone man to what he actually was, the head of the biggest general trading concern in the Federation. Both Uncle George and Aunt Deb looked unsatisfied by this reply, but I did not add to it. It would have embarrassed and angered Aunt Deb to have had my pedigree and prospects laid out before her after her little lecture on jockeys, and in any case for Dane’s sake I could not do it. He had faced Aunt Deb’s social snobbery without any of the defences I could muster if I wanted to, and I certainly felt myself no better man than he.
I made instead a remark admiring
an arrangement of rose prints on the white panelled walls, which pleased Aunt Deb but brought forth a sardonic glance from Uncle George.
‘We keep our ancestors in the dining-room,’ he said.
Kate stood up. ‘I’ll show Alan where he’s sleeping, and so on,’ she said.
‘Did you come by car?’ Uncle George asked. I nodded. He said to Kate, ‘Then ask Culbertson to put Mr York’s car in the garage, will you, my dear?’
‘Yes, Uncle George,’ said Kate, smiling at him.
As we crossed the hall again for me to fetch my suitcase from the car, Kate said, ‘Uncle George’s chauffeur’s name is not really Culbertson. It’s Higgins, or something like that. Uncle George began to call him Culbertson because he plays bridge, and soon we all did it. Culbertson seems quite resigned to it now. Trust Uncle George,’ said Kate, laughing, ‘to have a chauffeur who plays bridge.’
‘Does Uncle George play bridge?’
‘No, he doesn’t like cards, or games of any sort. He says there are too many rules to them. He says he doesn’t like learning rules and he can’t be bothered to keep them. I should think bridge with all those conventions would drive him dotty. Aunt Deb can play quite respectably, but she doesn’t make a thing of it.’
I lifted my suitcase out of the car, and we turned back.
Kate said, ‘Why didn’t you tell Aunt Deb you were an amateur rider and rich, and so on?’
‘Why didn’t you?’ I asked. ‘Before I came.’
She was taken aback. ‘I… I… er… because…’ She could not bring out the truthful answer, so I said it for her.
‘Because of Dane?’
‘Yes, because of Dane.’ She looked uncomfortable.
‘That’s quite all right by me,’ I said lightly. ‘And I like you for it.’ I kissed her cheek, and she laughed and turned away from me, and ran up the stairs in relief.
After luncheon—Aunt Deb gave the word three syllables—on Sunday I was given permission to take Kate out for a drive.
In the morning Aunt Deb had been to church with Kate and me in attendance. The church was a mile distant from the house, and Culbertson drove us there in a well polished Daimler. I, by Aunt Deb’s decree, sat beside him. She and Kate went in the back.