by Dick Francis
‘What did you say to him?’ I asked, because if anyone could have tamed a terrorist with words, surely she could.
‘I don’t know. He didn’t listen. He just talked over the top of anything I tried to say, until in the end I wasn’t saying anything. It was useless. When I tried to stand up, he pushed me down. When I talked, he talked louder. He went on and on saying the same things over again … When you came into the box I was completely dazed.’
‘I should have stayed.’
‘No … much better that you didn’t.’
She looked at me calmly. Perhaps I would have had literally to fight him, I thought, and perhaps I would have lost, and certainly that would have been no help to anyone. All the same, I should have stayed.
Gerald Greening cleared his throat, put the clipboard down on a side table and went back to rocking on his heels against the wall behind my left shoulder.
‘Princess Casilia tells me,’ he said, jingling coins in his pockets, ‘that last November her jockey got the better of two villainous press barons, one villainous asset stripper and various villainous thugs.’
I turned my head and briefly met his glance, which was brightly empty of belief. A jokey man, I thought. Not what I would have chosen in a lawyer.
‘Things sort of fell into place,’ I said neutrally.
‘And are they all still after your blood?’ There was a teasing note in his voice, as if no one could take the princess’s story seriously.
‘Only the asset stripper, as far as I know,’ I said.
‘Maynard Allardeck?’
‘You’ve heard of him?’
‘I’ve met him,’ Greening said with minor triumph. ‘A sound and charming man, I would have said. Not a villain at all.’
I made no comment. I avoided talking about Maynard whenever possible, not least because any slanderous thing I might say might drift back to his litigious ears.
‘Anyway,’ Greening said, rocking on the edge of my vision, and with irony plain in his voice, ‘Princess Casilia would now like you to gallop to the rescue and try to rid Monsieur de Brescou of the obnoxious Nanterre.’
‘No, no,’ the princess protested, sitting straighter. ‘Gerald, I said no such thing.’
I stood slowly up and turned to face Greening directly, and I don’t know exactly what he saw, but he stopped rocking and took his hands out of his pockets and said with an abrupt change of tone, ‘That’s not what she said, but that’s undoubtedly what she wants. And I’ll admit that until this very moment I thought it all a bit of a joke.’ He looked at me uneasily. ‘Look, my dear chap, perhaps I got things wrong.’
‘Kit,’ the princess said behind me, ‘please sit down. I most certainly didn’t ask that. I wondered only … Oh, do sit down.’
I sat, leaning forward towards her and looking at her troubled eyes. ‘It is,’ I said with acceptance, ‘what you want. It has to be. I’ll do anything I can to help. But I’m still… a jockey.’
‘You’re a Fielding,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘That’s what Gerald has just seen. That something … Bobby told me you didn’t realise …’ She broke off in some confusion. She never in normal circumstances spoke to me in that way. ‘I wanted to ask you,’ she said, with a visible return to composure, ‘to do what you could to prevent any “accidents”. To think of what might happen, to warn us, advise us. We need someone like you, who can imagine …’
She stopped. I knew exactly what she meant, but I said, ‘Have you thought of enlisting the police?’
She nodded silently, and from behind me Gerald Greening said, ‘I telephoned them immediately Princess Casilia described to me what had happened. They said they had noted what I’d told them.’
‘No actual action?’ I suggested.
‘They say they are stretched with crimes that have actually happened, but they would put this house on their surveillance list.’
‘And you went pretty high up, of course?’
‘As high as I could get this evening.’
There was no possible way, I reflected, to guard anyone perpetually against assassination, but I doubted if Henry Nanterre meant to go that far, if only because he wouldn’t necessarily gain from it. Much more likely that he thought he could put the frighteners quite easily on a paralysed old man and an unworldly woman, and was currently underestimating both the princess’s courage and her husband’s inflexible honour. To a man with few scruples, the moral opposition he expected might have seemed a temporary dislodgeable obstinacy, not an immovably embedded barrier.
I doubted if he were actually at that moment planning accidents: he would be expecting the threats to be enough. How soon, I wondered, would he find out that they weren’t?
I said to the princess, ‘Did Nanterre give you any time scale? Did he say when and where he expected Monsieur to sign the form?’
‘I shall not sign it,’ Roland de Brescou murmured.
‘No, Monsieur, but Henri Nanterre doesn’t know that yet.’
‘He said,’ the princess answered weakly, ‘that a notary would have to witness my husband signing. He said he would arrange it, and he would tell us when.’
‘A notary? A French lawyer?’
‘I don’t know. He was speaking in English to my friends, but when they’d gone he started in French, and I told him to speak English. I do speak French, of course, but I prefer English, which is second nature to me, as you know.’
I nodded. Danielle had told me that as neither the princess nor her husband preferred to chat in the other’s native tongue, they both looked upon English as their chief language, and chose to live in England for that reason.
‘What do you suppose Nanterre will do,’ I asked Greening, ‘when he discovers four people have to sign the application form now, not just Monsieur?’
He stared at me with shiny eyes. Contact lenses, I thought inconsequentially. ‘Consequences,’ he said, ‘are your particular field, as I understand it.’
‘It depends then,’ I said, ‘on how rich he is, how greedy, how power-hungry, how determined and how criminal.’
‘Oh dear,’ the princess said faintly, ‘how very horrid this all is.’
I agreed with her. At least as much as she, I would have preferred to be out on a windy racetrack where the rogues had four legs and merely bit.
‘There’s a simple way,’ I said to him, ‘to keep all your family safe and to preserve your good name.’
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘How?’
‘Change the name of the company and sell your share.’
He blinked. The princess put a hand to her mouth, and I couldn’t see Greening’s reaction, as he was behind me.
‘Unfortunately,’ Roland de Brescou said eventually, ‘I cannot do either without Henri Nanterre’s agreement. The original partnership was set up in that way.’ He paused. ‘It is of course possible that he would agree to such changes if he could set up a consortium to acquire the whole, with himself to be at its head with a majority vote. He could then, if he wished, manufacture guns.’
‘It does seem a positive solution,’ Gerald Greening said judiciously from the rear. ‘You would be free of trouble, Monsieur. You would have capitalised. Yes … certainly a proposal to be considered.’
Roland de Brescou studied my face. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘would you personally follow that course?’
Would I, I thought. Would I, if I were old and paralysed? Would I if I knew the result would be a load of new guns in a world already awash with them? If I knew I was backing away from my principles? If I cared for my family’s safety?
‘I don’t know, Monsieur,’ I said.
He smiled faintly and turned his head towards the princess. ‘And you, my dear? Would you?’
Whatever answer she would have given him was interrupted by the buzz of the house’s intercom system, a recent installation that saved everyone a lot of walking. The princess picked up the handset, pressed a button, and said ‘Yes?’ She listened. ‘Just a minute.’ She looked at her husband, sayin
g, ‘Are you expecting visitors? Dawson says two men have called, saying they have an appointment. He’s shown them into the library.’
Roland de Brescou was shaking his head doubtfully when there was an audible squawk from the handset. ‘What?’ asked the princess, returning it to her ear. ‘What did you say, Dawson?’ She listened but seemed to hear nothing. ‘He’s gone,’ she said, puzzled. ‘What do you suppose has happened?’
‘I’ll go and see, if you like,’ I said.
‘Yes, Kit, please do.’
I rose and went as far as the door, but before I could touch it, it opened abruptly to reveal two men walking purposefully in. One unmistakably was Henri Nanterre: the other, a pace behind, a pale sharp-faced young man in a narrow black suit, carrying a briefcase.
Dawson, out of breath, appeared with a rush behind them, mouth open in horror at the unceremonious breaking of his defences.
‘Madam,’ he was saying helplessly, ‘they simply ran past me …’
Henri Nanterre rudely shut the door on his explanations and turned to face the roomful of people. He seemed disconcerted to find Gerald Greening there, and he took a second sharp look at me, remembering where he’d seen me before and not particularly liking that, either. I guessed that he had come expecting only the princess and her husband, reckoning he had softened them both up enough for his purpose.
His beaky nose looked somewhat diminished against the darker walls, nor did his aggression seem as concentrated as it had been in the smaller box, but he was still forceful, both in his loud voice and in the total rejection of the good manners he should have inherited.
He clicked his fingers to his companion, who removed a single beige-coloured sheet of paper from the briefcase and handed it to him, and then he said something long and clearly objectionable to Roland de Brescou in French. His target leaned backwards in his wheelchair as if to retreat from unpleasantness, and into the first available pause said testily, ‘Speak English.’
Henri Nanterre waved the paper and poured out another lengthy burst of French, drowning de Brescou’s attempts to interrupt him. The princess made a helpless gesture with her hand to me, indicating that that was exactly what had happened to her also.
‘Nanterre!’ Gerald Greening said peremptorily, and got a glance but no pause in the tirade. I went back to the armchair I’d occupied before and sat down there, crossing my legs and swinging my foot. The motion irritated Nanterre into breaking off and saying something to me which might have been ‘Et qui êtes vous?’, though I couldn’t be sure. My sketchy French had mostly been learned on the racecourses of Auteuil and Cagnes-sur-Mer, and chiefly consisted of words like courants (runners), hates (fences) and piste (track).
I stared mildly at Nanterre and went on swinging my foot.
Greening took the opportunity of the brief silence to say rather pompously, ‘Monsieur de Brescou has no power to sign any paper whatsoever.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Nanterre said, at last speaking English, which like many French businessmen, he proved to know fluently. ‘He has too much power. He is out of touch with the modern world, and his obstructive attitude must cease. I require him to make a decision that will bring new impetus and prosperity to a company that is ageing and suffering from out-of-date methods. The period of road-building is over. We must look to new markets. I have found such a market which is uniquely suited to the plastic materials we are accustomed to make use of, and no stupidly old-fashioned ideas shall stand in the way.’
‘Monsieur de Brescou has relinquished his power to make solo decisions,’ Greening said. ‘Four people besides yourself must now put their names to any change of company policy.’
‘That is absolutely untrue,’ Nanterre said loudly. ‘De Brescou has total command.’
‘No longer. He has signed it away.’
Nanterre looked flummoxed, and I began to think that Greening’s sandbags might actually hold against the flood when he made the stupid error of glancing smugly in the direction of the downturned clipboard. How could he be so damned silly, I thought, and had no sympathy for him when Nanterre followed the direction of his eyes and moved like lightning to the side table, reaching it first.
‘Put that down,’ Greening said furiously, but Nanterre was skimming the page and handing it briskly to his pale acolyte.
‘Is that legal?’ he demanded.
Gerald Greening was advancing to retrieve his property, the unintroduced Frenchman backing away while he read and holding the clipboard out of reach. ‘Oui,’ he said finally, ‘Yes. Legal.’
‘In that case …’ Nanterre snatched the clipboard out of his grasp, tore the handwritten pages off it and ripped them across and across. ‘The document no longer exists.’
‘Of course it exists,’ I said. ‘Even in pieces, it exists. It was signed and it was witnessed. Its intention remains a fact, and it can be written again.’
Nanterre’s gaze sharpened in my direction. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘A friend.’
‘Stop swinging that foot.’
I went on swinging it. ‘Why don’t you just face the fact that Monsieur de Brescou will never let his company sell arms?’ I said. ‘Why, if that’s what you want to do, don’t you agree to dissolve the existing company, and with your proceeds set up again on your own?’
He narrowed his eyes at me, everyone in the room waiting for an answer. When it came, it was grudging, but clearly the truth. Bad news, also for Roland de Brescou.
‘I was told,’ Nanterre said with cold anger, ‘that only if de Brescou applied personally would I be granted the facility. I was told it was essential to have the backing of his name.’
It struck me that perhaps someone in the French background didn’t want Nanterre to make guns, and was taking subtle steps to prevent it while avoiding making a flat and perhaps politically embarrassing refusal. To insist on a condition that wouldn’t be fulfilled would be to lay the failure of Nanterre’s plans solely and neatly at de Brescou’s feet.
‘Therefore,’ Nanterre went on ominously, ‘de Brescou will sign. With or without trouble.’ He looked at the torn pages he was still grasping and held them out to his assistant. ‘Go and find a bathroom,’ he said. ‘Get rid of these pieces. Then return.’
The pale young man nodded and went away. Gerald Greening made several protestations which had no effect on Nanterre. He was looking as though various thoughts were occurring to him which gave him no pleasure, and he interrupted Greening, saying loudly ‘Where are the people whose names were on the agreement?’
Greening, showing the first piece of lawyerly sense for a long time, said he had no idea.
‘Where are they?’ Nanterre demanded of Roland de Brescou. For answer, a gallic shrug.
He shouted the question at the princess, who gave a silent shake of the head, and at me, with the same result. ‘Where are they?’
They would be listening to the sweet chords of Chopin, I supposed, and wondered if they even knew of the agreement’s existence.
‘What are their names?’ Nanterre said.
No one answered. He went to the door and shouted loudly down the hallway. ‘Valery. Come here at once. Valery! Come here.’
The man Valery hurried back empty-handed. ‘The agreement is finished,’ he said reassuringly. ‘All gone down the drain.’
‘You read the names on it, didn’t you?’ Nanterre demanded. ‘You remember those names?’
Valery swallowed. ‘I didn’t er …’ he stuttered. ‘I didn’t study the names. Er … the first one was Princess Casilia …’
‘And the others?’
Valery shook his head, eyes wide. He as well as Nanterre saw too late that they had thrown away knowledge they might have used. Pressure couldn’t be applied to people one couldn’t identify. Bribes and blandishments could go nowhere.
Nanterre transmitted his frustration into an increase of aggression, thrusting the application form again towards Roland de Brescou and demanding he sign it.
/> Monsieur de Brescou didn’t even bother to shake his head. Nanterre was losing it, I thought, and would soon retire: and I was wrong.
He handed the form to Valery, put his right hand inside his jacket, and from a hidden holster produced a black and businesslike pistol. With a gliding step, he reached the princess and pressed the end of the barrel against her temple, standing behind her and holding her head firmly with his left hand under the chin.
‘Now,’ he said gratingly to de Brescou, ‘sign the form.’
FOUR
Into an electrified atmosphere, I said plainly, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Stop swinging that foot,’ Nanterre said furiously.
I stopped swinging it. There was a time for everything.
‘If you shoot Princess Casilia,’ I said calmly, ‘Monsieur de Brescou will not sign the form.’
The princess had her eyes shut and Roland de Brescou looked frail to fainting. Valery’s wide eyes risked popping out altogether and Gerald Greening, somewhere behind me, was saying ‘Oh my God,’ incredulously under his breath.
I said, my mouth drier than I liked, ‘If you shoot Princess Casilia, we are all witnesses. You would have to kill us all, including Valery.’
Valery moaned.
‘Monsieur de Brescou would not have signed the form,’ I said. ‘You would end up in jail for life. What would be the point?’
He stared at me with hot dark eyes, the princess’s head firm in his grip.
After a pause which lasted a couple of millennia, he gave the princess’s head a shake and let her go.
‘There are no bullets,’ he said. He shoved the gun back into its holster, holding his jacket open for the purpose. He gave me a bitter glance as if he would impress my face on his memory for ever and without another word walked out of the room.
Valery closed his eyes, opened them a slit, ducked his head and scuttled away in his master’s wake, looking as if he wished he were anywhere else.
The princess with a small sound of great distress slid out of her chair onto her knees beside the wheelchair and put her arms round her husband, her face turned to his neck, her shining dark hair against his cheek. He raised a thin hand to stroke her head, and looked at me with sombre eyes.