Forfeit

by Dick Francis

  ‘Sure, if you want Paddington.’

  ‘I do.’ I wanted anywhere he was going.

  ‘Hop in, then.’

  I hopped in, and after he was loaded he drove briskly out of the garage, one indistinguishable van among a procession. I stayed with him to Paddington, thanked him, and back tracked home on the underground, as certain as I could be that no one had followed.

  I beat Mrs Woodward to six by two minutes but had no heart for the game.

  From six-thirty to seven I sat in the armchair holding a glass of whisky and looking at Elizabeth, trying to make up a beleaguered mind.

  ‘Something worrying you, Ty,’ she said, with her ultra-sensitive feeling for trouble.

  ‘No, honey.’

  The hands galloped round the clock. At seven o’clock precisely I sat absolutely still and did nothing at all. At five past I found I had clenched my teeth so hard that I was grinding them. I imagined the telephone box in Piccadilly Circus, with Homburg Hat or Raincoat or the chauffeur waiting inside it. Tiddely Pom was nothing compared with Elizabeth’s peace of mind, and yet I didn’t pick up the receiver. From seven onwards the clock hands crawled.

  At half-past Elizabeth said again, with detectable fear, ‘Ty, there is something wrong. You never look so … so bleak.’

  I made a great effort to smile at her as usual, but she wasn’t convinced. I looked down at my hands and said with hopeless pain. ‘Honey, how much would it hurt you if I went … and slept with a girl?’

  There was no answer. After an unbearable interval I dragged my head up to look at her. Tears were running down her cheeks. She was swallowing, trying to speak.

  From long, long habit I pulled a tissue out of the box and wiped her eyes, which she couldn’t do for herself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said uselessly. ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘Ty …’ She never had enough breath for weeping. Her mouth strained open in her need for more air.

  ‘Honey, don’t cry. Don’t cry. Forget I said it. You know I love you, I’d never leave you. Elizabeth, honey, dear Elizabeth, don’t cry …’

  I wiped her eyes again and cursed the whim which had sent me down to the Huntersons for Tally. I could have managed without Gail. Without anyone. I had managed without for most of eleven years.

  ‘Ty.’ The tears had stopped. Her face looked less strained. ‘Ty.’ She gulped, fighting for more breath. ‘I can’t bear to think about it.’

  I stood beside her, holding the tissue, wishing she didn’t have to.

  ‘We never talk about sex,’ she said. The Spirashell heaved up her chest, let it drop, rythmically. ‘I don’t want it any more … you know that … but sometimes I remember … how you taught me to like it …’ Two more tears welled up. I wiped them away. She said, ‘I haven’t ever asked you … about girls … I couldn’t, somehow.’

  ‘No,’ I said slowly.

  ‘I’ve wondered sometimes … if you ever have, I mean … but I didn’t really want to know … I know I would be too jealous … I decided I’d never ask you … because I wouldn’t want you to say yes … and yet I know that’s selfish … I’ve always been told men are different, they need women more … is it true?’

  ‘Elizabeth,’ I said helplessly.

  ‘I didn’t expect you ever to say anything … after all these years … yes, I would be hurt, if I knew … I couldn’t help it … Why did you ask me? I wish you hadn’t.’

  ‘I would never have said anything,’ I said with regret, ‘but someone is trying to blackmail me.’

  ‘Then … you have …?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Oh.’ She shut her eyes. ‘I see.’

  I waited, hating myself. The tears were over. She never cried for long. She physically couldn’t. If she progressed into one of her rare bursts of rebellious anger she would utterly exhaust herself. Most wives could scream or throw things. Elizabeth’s furies were the worse for being impotent. It must have been touch and go, because when she spoke her voice was low, thick, and deadly quiet.

  ‘I suppose you couldn’t afford to be blackmailed.’

  ‘No one can.’

  ‘I know it’s unreasonable of me to wish you hadn’t told me. To wish you hadn’t done it at all. Any man who stays with a paralysed wife ought to have something … So many of them pack up and leave altogether … I know you say you never will and I do mostly believe it, but I must be such an unbearable burden to you …’

  ‘That,’ I said truthfully, ‘is just not true.’

  ‘It must be. Don’t tell me … about the girl.’

  ‘If I don’t, the blackmailer will.’

  ‘All right … get it over quickly …’

  I got it over quickly. Briefly. No details. Hated myself for having to tell her, and knew that if I hadn’t, Homburg Hat wouldn’t have stopped his leverage with the whereabouts of Tiddely Pom. Blackmailers never did. Don’t sell your soul, Bert Checkov said. Don’t sell your column. Sacrifice your wife’s peace instead.

  ‘Will you see her again?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or … anyone else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I expect you will,’ she said. ‘Only if you do … don’t tell me … Unless of course someone tries to blackmail you again …’

  I winced at the bitterness in her voice. Reason might tell her that total lifelong celibacy was a lot to demand, but emotion had practically nothing to do with reason, and the tearing emotions of any ordinary wife on finding her husband unfaithful hadn’t atrophied along with her muscles. I hadn’t expected much else. She would have to have been a saint or a cynic to have laughed it off without a pang, and she was neither of those things, just a normal human being trapped in an abnormal situation. I wondered how suspicious she would be in future of my most innocent absences; how much she would suffer when I was away. Reassurance, always tricky, was going to be doubly difficult.

  She was very quiet and depressed all evening. She wouldn’t have any supper, wouldn’t eat the apple cake. When I washed her and did the rubs and the other intimate jobs I could almost feel her thinking about the other body my hands had touched. Hands, and much else. She looked sick and strained, and for almost the first time since her illness, embarrassed. If she could have done without me that evening, she would have.

  I said, meaning it, ‘I’m sorry, honey.’

  ‘Yes.’ She shut her eyes. ‘Life’s just bloody, isn’t it.’

  11

  The uncomfortable coolness between Elizabeth and myself persisted in the morning. I couldn’t go on begging for a forgiveness she didn’t feel. At ten I said I was going out, and saw her make the first heart-rending effort not to ask where.

  ‘Hire Cars Lucullus’ hung out in a small plushy office in Stratton Street, off Piccadilly. Royal blue wilton carpet, executive type acre of polished desk, tasteful prints of vintage cars on dove grey walls. Along one side, a wide gold upholstered bench for wide gold, upholstered clients. Behind the desk, a deferential young man with Uriah Heep eyes.

  For him I adopted a languid voice and my best imitation of the homburg hat manners. I had, I explained, left some property in one of his firm’s cars, and I hoped he could help me get it back.

  We established gradually that no, I had not hired one of their cars, and no, I did not know the name of the man who had, he had merely been so kind as to give me a lift. Yesterday.

  Ah. Then had I any idea which car …?

  A Rolls-Royce, a Silver Wraith.

  They had four of those. He briefly checked a ledger, though I suspected he didn’t need to. All four had been out on hire yesterday. Could I describe the man who had given me a lift? ‘Certainly. Tallish, blondish, wearing a black homburg. Not English. Possibly South African.’

  ‘Ah. Yes.’ He had no need to consult the ledger this time. He put his spread finger tips carefully down on the desk. ‘I regret, sir, I cannot give you his name.’

  ‘But surely you keep records?’

  ‘Th
is gentleman puts great store on privacy. We have been instructed not to give his name and address to anyone.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit odd?’ I said, raising eyebrows.

  He considered judicially. ‘He is a regular customer. We would, of course, give him any service he asked for, without question.’

  ‘I suppose it wouldn’t be possible to … um … purchase the information?’

  He tried to work some shock into his deference. It was barely skin deep.

  ‘Was your lost property very valuable?’ he asked.

  Tally and apple cake. ‘Very,’ I said.

  ‘Then I am sure our client will return it to us. If you would let us have your own name and address, perhaps we could let you know?’

  I said the first name I thought of, which nearly came out as Kempton Park. ‘Kempton Jones. 31 Cornwall Street.’

  He wrote it down carefully on a scratch pad. When he had finished, I waited. We both waited.

  After a decent interval he said, ‘Of course, if it is really important, you could ask in the garage … they would let you know as soon as the car comes in, whether your property is still in it.’

  ‘And the garage is where?’ The only listed number and address of the Lucullus Cars had been the office in Stratton Street.

  He studied his finger tips. I produced my wallet and resignedly sorted out two fivers. The twenty-five for the bookmaker’s clerk’s information about Charlie Boston’s boys I had put down to expenses and the Blaze had paid. This time I could be on my own. Ten pounds represented six weeks’ whisky, a month’s electricity, three and a half days of Mrs Woodward, one and a half weeks’ rent.

  He took it greedily, nodded, gave me a hypocritical obsequious smile, and said ‘Radnor Mews, Lancaster Gate.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You do understand, sir, that it’s more than my job is worth to give you our client’s name?’

  ‘I understand,’ I said. ‘Principles are pretty things.’

  Principles were luckily not so strongly held in Radnor Mews. The foreman sized me up and another tenner changed hands. Better value for money this time.

  ‘The chauffeur comes here to collect the car, see? We never deliver it or supply a driver. Unusual, that. Still, the client is always right, as long as he pays for it, I always say. This foreigner, see, he likes to travel in style when he comes over here. ’Course, most of our trade is like that. Americans mostly. They hire a car and a driver for a week, two weeks, maybe three. We drive them all over, see, Stratford, Broadway, the Cotswold run most often, and Scotland a good deal too. Never have all the cars in here at once, there’d hardly be room, see, four Silver Wraiths for a start, and then two Austin Princesses, and three Bentleys and a couple of large Wolseleys.’

  I brought him back gently to the Silver Wraith in question.

  ‘I’m telling you, aren’t I?’ he protested. ‘This foreign chap, he takes a car, always a Rolls mind you, though of course not always the same one, whenever he’s over here. Started coming just over a year ago, I’d say. Been back several times, usually just for three or four days. Longer this time, I’d say. Let’s see, the chauffeur came for a car last week. I could look it up … Wednesday. Yes, that’s right. What they do, see, is, the chauffeur flies over first, picks up the car and then drives out to Heathrow to fetch his gent off the next flight. Neat, that. Shows money, that does.’

  ‘Do you know where they fly from?’

  ‘From? Which country? Not exactly. Mind, I think it varies. I know once it was Germany. But usually further than that, from somewhere hot. The chauffeur isn’t exactly chatty, but he’s always complaining how cold it is here.’

  ‘What is the client’s name?’ I asked patiently.

  ‘Oh sure, hang on a minute. We always put the booking in the chauffeur’s name, see, it’s easier, being Ross. His gent’s name is something chronic. I’ll have to look back.’

  He went into his little boarded cubicle of an office and looked back. It took him nearly twenty minutes, by which time he was growing restive. I waited, making it plain I would wait all day. For ten pounds he could keep on looking. He was almost as relieved as I was when he found it.

  ‘Here it is, look.’ He showed me a page in a ledger, pointing to a name with a black rimmed finger nail. ‘That one.’

  There was a pronunciation problem, as he’d said.

  Vjoersterod.

  ‘Ross is easier,’ the foreman repeated. ‘We always put Ross.’

  ‘Much easier,’ I agreed. ‘Do you know where I could find them, or where they keep the car while they’re in England?’

  He sniffed meditatively, shutting the ledger with his finger in the page.

  ‘Can’t say as I do, really. Always a pretty fair mileage on the clock, though. Goes a fair way in the three or four days, see? But then that’s regular with our cars, most times. Mind you, I wouldn’t say that this Ross and his gent go up to Scotland, not as far as that.’

  ‘Birmingham?’ I suggested.

  ‘Easily. Could be, easily. Always comes back immaculate, I’ll say that for Ross. Always clean as a whistle. Why don’t you ask in the front office, if you want to find them?’

  ‘They said they couldn’t help me.’

  ‘That smarmy crumb,’ he said disgustedly, ‘I’ll bet he knows, though. Give him his due, he’s good at that job, but he’d sell his grandmother if the price was right.’

  I started to walk in the general direction of Fleet Street, thinking. Vjoersterod had to be the real name of Homburg Hat. Too weird to be an alias. Also, the first time he had hired a Silver Wraith from Hire Cars Lucullus he would have had to produce cast iron references and a passport at least. The smarmy crumb was no fool. He wouldn’t let five thousand pounds’ worth of machinery be driven away without being certain he would get it back.

  Vjoersterod. South African of Afrikaner stock.

  Nothing like Fleet Street if one wanted information. The only trouble was, the man who might have heard of Vjoersterod worked on the racing page of a deadly rival to the Blaze. I turned into the first telephone box and rang his office. Sure, he agreed cautiously, he would meet me in the Devereux for a pint and a sandwich. He coped manfully with stifling any too open speculation about what I wanted. I smiled, and crossed the road to catch a bus. A case of who pumped who. He would be trying to find out what story I was working on, and Luke-John would be slightly displeased if he were successful and scooped the Blaze.

  Luke-John and Derry were both among the crowd in the Devereux. Not so, Mike de Jong. I drank a half-pint while Luke-John asked me what I planned to write for Sunday.

  ‘An account of the Lamplighter, I suppose.’

  ‘Derry can do that.’

  I lowered my glass, shrugging. ‘If you like.’

  ‘Then you,’ said Luke-John, ‘can do another follow-up to the Tiddely Pom business. Whether he wins or loses, I mean. Give us a puff for getting him to the starting gate.’

  ‘He isn’t there yet,’ I pointed out.

  Luke-John sniffed impatiently. ‘There hasn’t been a vestige of trouble. No reaction at all. We’ve frightened them off, that’s what’s happened.’

  I shook my head, wishing we had. Asked about the reports on Tiddely Pom and the Roncey children.

  ‘All O.K.,’ said Derry cheerfully. ‘Everything going smoothly.’

  Mike de Jong appeared in the doorway, a quick, dark, intense man with double strength glasses and a fringe of black beard outlining his jaw. Caution rolled over him like a sea mist when he saw who I was with, and most of the purposefulness drained out of his stride. It took too much manoeuvring to get Luke-John and Derry to go into the further bar to eat without me, and Luke-John left looking back over his shoulder with smouldering suspicion, wanting to know why.

  Mike joined me, his sharp face alight with appreciation.

  ‘Keeping secrets from the boss, eh?’

  ‘Sometimes he’s butter-fingered with other people’s T.N.T.’

  Mike laugh
ed. The cogs whirred round in his high-speed brain. ‘So what you want is private? Not for the Blaze?’

  I dodged a direct answer. ‘What I want is very simple. Just anything you may have heard about a fellow countryman of yours.’

  ‘Who?’ His accent was a carbon copy, clipped and flat.

  ‘A man called Vjoersterod.’

  There was a tiny pause while the name sank in, and then he choked on his beer. Recovered, and pretended someone had jogged his elbow. Made a playing-for-time fuss about brushing six scattered drops off his trouser leg. Finally he ran out of alibis and looked back at my face.

  ‘Vjoersterod?’ His pronunciation was subtly different from mine. The real thing.

  ‘That’s right,’ I agreed.

  ‘Yes … well, Ty … why do you ask me about him?’

  ‘Just curiosity.’

  He was silent for thirty seconds. Then he said carefully again, ‘Why are you asking about him?’ Who pumped who.

  ‘Oh come on,’ I said in exasperation. ‘What’s the big mystery? All I want is a bit of gen on a harmless chap who goes racing occasionally …’

  ‘Harmless. You must be mad.’

  ‘Why?’ I sounded innocently puzzled.

  ‘Because he’s …’ He hesitated, decided I wasn’t on to a story, and turned thoroughly helpful. ‘Look here, Ty, I’ll give you a tip, free, gratis and for nothing. Just steer clear of anything to do with that man. He’s poison.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He’s a bookmaker, back home. Very big business, with branches in all the big cities and a whole group of them round Johannesburg. Respectable enough on the surface. Thousands of perfectly ordinary people bet with him. But there have been some dreadful rumours …’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Oh … blackmail, extortion, general high powered thuggery. Believe me, he is not good news.’

  ‘Then why don’t the police …?’ I suggested tentatively.

  ‘Why don’t they? Don’t be so naive, Ty. They can’t find anyone to give evidence against him, of course.’

  I sighed. ‘He seemed so charming.’

  Mike’s mouth fell open and his expression became acutely anxious.