by Dick Francis
‘I want to make guns,’ he said feverishly. ‘I’d make millions … I’d have power … The de Brescous are rich, the Nanterres never were … I want to be rich by world standards … to have power … I’ll give you a million pounds … more … if … you get Roland to sign … to make guns.’
‘No,’ I said flatly, and turned away again, showing him the starter.
‘All right, all right …’ He gave in completely, finally almost sobbing. ‘Put that thing down … put it down …’
I called up the mews, ‘Litsi.’
The other three stopped and came slowly back.
‘Mr Nanterre will sign,’ I said.
‘Put that thing down,’ Nanterre said again faintly, all the bullying megatones gone. ‘Put it down.’
I put the starter back in my pocket, which still frightened him.
‘It can’t go off by itself, can it?’ Litsi asked, not with nervousness, but out of caution.
I shook my head. ‘The switch needs firm pressure.’
I showed Nanterre the contracts more closely and saw the flicker of fury in his eyes when he saw the first page of each was the same sort of form he’d demanded that Roland should sign.
‘We need your signature four times,’ I said. ‘On each front page, and on each attached document. When you sign the attached documents, put your forefinger on the red seal beside your name. The three of us who are not in any way involved in the de Brescou et Nanterre business will sign under your name as witnesses.’
I put my pen into his shaking right hand and rested the first of the documents on top of my car.
Nanterre signed the French form. I turned to the last page of the longer contract and pointed to the space allotted to him. He signed again, and he put his finger on the seal.
With enormous internal relief, I produced the second set for a repeat performance. In silence, with sweat dripping off his cheeks, he signed appropriately again.
I put my name under his in all four places, followed each time by Thomas and Sammy.
‘That’s fine,’ I said, when all were completed. ‘Monsieur de Brescou’s lawyers will put the contracts into operation at once. One of these two contracts will be sent to you or your lawyers in France.’
I put the documents back into their envelope and handed it to Litsi, who put it inside his coat, hugging it to his chest.
‘Let me go,’ Nanterre said, almost whispering.
‘We’ll untie you from the mirror so that you can remove what you put in my car,’ I said. ‘After that, you can go.’
He shuddered, but it seemed not very difficult for him, in the end, to unfix the tampered-with wiring and remove what looked like, in size and shape, a bag of sugar. It was the detonator sticking out of it that he treated with delicate respect, unclipping and separating, and stowing the pieces away in several pockets. ‘Now let me go,’ he said, wiping sweat away from his face with the backs of his hands.
I said, ‘Remember we’ll always have the Bradbury messenger’s affidavit and the tape recording of your voice … and we all heard what you said. Stay away from the de Brescous, cause no more trouble.’
He gave me a sick, furious and defeated glare. Sammy didn’t try to undo his handywork but cut the nylon cord off Nanterre’s wrist with a pair of scissors.
‘Start the car,’ Litsi said, ‘to show him you weren’t fooling.’
‘Come away from it,’ I said.
We walked twenty paces up the mews, Nanterre among us, and I took out the starter and pressed the switch.
The engine fired safely, strong, smooth and powerful.
I looked directly at Nanterre, at the convinced droop of his mouth, at the unwilling acceptance that his campaign was lost. He gave us all a last comprehensive, unashamed, unrepentant stare, and with Thomas and Sammy stepping aside to let him pass, he walked away along the mews, that nose, that jaw, still strong, but the shoulders sagging.
We watched him in silence until he reached the end of the mews and turned into the street, not looking back.
Then Sammy let out a poltergeist ‘Youweee’ yell of uncomplicated victory, and went with jumping feet to fetch the pistol from where he’d hidden it.
He presented it to me with flourish, laying it flat onto my hands.
‘Spoils of war,’ he said, grinning.
TWENTY ONE
Litsi and I drank brandy in the sitting room to celebrate, having thanked Thomas and Sammy copiously for their support; and we telephoned to Danielle to tell her we weren’t lying in puddles of blood.
‘Thank goodness,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been able to think what I’m doing.’
‘I suppose what we did was thoroughly immoral,’ Litsi commented, after I’d put down the receiver.
‘Absolutely,’ I agreed equably. ‘We did exactly what Nanterre intended to do; extorted a signature under threat.’
‘We took the law into our own hands, I suppose.’
‘Justice,’ I said, ‘in our own hands.’
‘And like you said,’ he said, smiling, ‘there’s a difference.’
‘He’s free, unpunished and rich,’ I said, ‘and in a way that’s not justice. But he didn’t, and can’t, destroy Roland. It was a fair enough bargain.’
I waited up for Danielle after Litsi had gone yawning downstairs, and went to meet her when I heard her come in. She walked straight into my arms, smiling.
‘I didn’t think you’d go to bed without me,’ she said.
‘As seldom as possible for the rest of my life.’
We went quietly up to the bamboo room and, mindful of Beatrice next door, quietly to bed and quietly to love. Intensity, I thought, drowning in sensations, hadn’t any direct link to noise and could be exquisite in whispers; and if we were more inhibited than earlier in what we said, the silent rediscovery of each other grew into an increased dimension of passion.
We slept, embracing, and woke again before morning, hungry again after deep satisfaction.
‘You love me more,’ she said, murmuring in my ear.
‘I loved you always.’
‘Not like this.’
We slept again, languorously, and before seven she showered in my bathroom, put on yesterday’s clothes and went decorously down to her own room. Aunt Casilia, she said with composure, would expect her niece to make a pretence at least of having slept in her own bed.
‘Would she mind that you didn’t?’
‘Pretty much the reverse, I would think.’
Litsi and I were already drinking coffee in the morning room when Danielle reappeared, dressed by then in fresh blues and greens. She fetched juice and cereal and made me some toast, and Litsi watched us both with speculation and finally enlightenment.
‘Congratulations,’ he said to me dryly.
‘The wedding,’ Danielle said collectedly, ‘will take place.’
‘So I gathered,’ he said.
He and I, a while later, went up to see Roland de Brescou, to give him and the princess the completed contracts.
‘I was sure,’ Roland said weakly, ‘that Nanterre wouldn’t agree to dissolve the company. Without it, he can’t possibly make guns … can he?’
‘If ever he does,’ I said, ‘your name won’t be linked with it.’
Gascony, the name we’d given to the new public company, was the ancient name of the province in France where the Château de Brescou stood. Roland had been both pleased and saddened by the choice.
‘How did you persuade him, Kit?’ the princess asked, looking disbelievingly at the Nanterre signatures.
‘Um … tied him in knots.’
She gave me a brief glance. ‘Then I’d better not ask.’
‘He’s unhurt and unmarked.’
‘And the police?’ Roland asked.
‘No police,’ I said. ‘We had to promise no police to get him to sign.’
‘A bargain’s a bargain,’ Litsi nodded. ‘We have to let him go free.’
The princess and her husband understood all a
bout keeping one’s word, and when I left Roland’s room she followed me down to the sitting room, leaving Litsi behind.
‘No thanks are enough … How can we thank you?’ she asked with frustration.
‘You don’t need to. And … urn … Danielle and I will marry in June.’
‘I’m very pleased indeed,’ she said with evident pleasure, and kissed me warmly on one cheek and then the other. I thought of the times I’d wanted to hug her; and one day perhaps I would do it, though not on a racecourse.
‘I’m so sorry about your horses,’ I said.
‘Yes … When you next talk to Wykeham, ask him to start looking about for replacements. We can’t expect another Cotopaxi, but next year, perhaps, a runner anyway in the Grand National … And don’t forget, next week at Cheltenham, we still have Kinley.’
‘The Triumph Hurdle,’ I said.
I went to Folkestone races by train later that morning with a light heart but without Danielle, who had an appointment with the dentist.
I rode four races and won two, and felt fit, well, bursting with health and for the first time in weeks, carefree. It was a tremendous feeling, while it lasted.
Bunty Ireland, the Towncrier’s racing correspondent, gave me a large envelope from Lord Vaughnley: ‘Hot off the computers,’ Bunty said. The envelope again felt as if it contained very little, but I thanked him for it, and reflecting that I thankfully didn’t need the contents any more, I took it unopened with me back to London.
Dinner that evening was practically festive, although Danielle wasn’t there, having driven herself to work in her Ford.
‘I thought yesterday was her last night for working,’ Beatrice said, unsuspiciously.
‘They changed the schedules again,’ I explained.
‘Oh, how irritating.’
Beatrice had decided to return to Palm Beach the next day. Her darling dogs would be missing her, she said. The princess had apparently told her that Nanterre’s case was lost, which had subdued her querulousness amazingly.
I’d grown used to her ways: to her pale orange hair and round eyes, her knuckleduster rings and her Florida clothes. Life would be quite dull without the old bag; and moreover, once she had gone, I would soon have to leave also. How long, I wondered, would Litsi be staying …
Roland came down to dinner and offered champagne, raising his half-full glass to Litsi and to me in a toast. Beatrice scowled a little but blossomed like a sunflower when Roland said that perhaps, with all the extra capital generated by the sale of the business, he might consider increasing her trust fund. Too forgiving, I thought, yet without her we would very likely not have prevailed.
Roland, the princess and Beatrice retired fairly early, leaving Litsi and me passing the time in the sitting room. Quite late, I remembered Lord Vaughnley’s envelope which I’d put down on a side table on my return.
Litsi incuriously watched me open it and draw out the contents: one glossy black and white photograph, as before, and one short clipping from a newspaper column. Also a brief compliments slip from the Towncrier: ‘Regret nothing more re Nanterre.’
The picture showed Nanterre in evening dress surrounded by other people similarly clad, on the deck of a yacht. I handed it to Litsi and read the accompanying clipping.
‘Arms dealer Ahmed Fuad’s fiftieth birthday bash, held on his yacht Felissima in Monte Carlo harbour on Friday evening drew guests from as far as California, Peru and Darwin, Australia. With no expense spared, Fuad fed caviar and foie gras to jet-setting friends from his hobby worlds of backgammon, night clubs and horseracing.’
Litsi passed back the photograph and I gave him the clipping.
‘That’s what Nanterre wanted,’ I said. ‘To be the host on a yacht in the Mediterranean, dressed in a white dinner jacket, dispensing rich goodies, enjoying the adulation and the flattery. That’s what he wanted … those multi-millions, and that power.’
I turned the photograph over, reading the flimsy information strip stuck to the back: a list of names, and the date.
That’s odd,’ I said blankly.
‘What is?’
‘That party was held last Friday night.’
‘What of it? Nanterre must have jetted out there and back, like the others.’
‘On Friday night, Col was shot.’
Litsi stared at me.
‘Nanterre couldn’t have done it,’ I said. ‘He was in Monte Carlo.’
‘But he said he did. He boasted of it to Beatrice.’
I frowned. ‘Yes, he did.’
‘He must have got someone else to do it,’ Litsi said.
I shook my head. ‘He did everything himself. Threatened the princess, chased Danielle, set the trap for you, came to put the bomb in my car. He didn’t trust any of that to anyone else. He knows about horses, he wanted to see his own filly shot … he would have shot Col … but he didn’t.’
‘He confessed to all the horses,’ Litsi insisted.
‘Yes, but suppose … he read about them in the papers … read that their deaths were mysterious and no one knew who had killed them … He wanted ways to frighten Roland and the princess. Suppose he said he’d killed them, when he hadn’t?’
‘But in that case,’ Litsi said blankly, ‘who did? Who would want to kill her best horses, if not Nanterre?’
I rose slowly to my feet, feeling almost faint.
‘What’s the matter?’ Litsi said, alarmed. ‘You’ve gone as white as snow.’
‘He killed,’ I said with a mouth stickily dry, ‘the horse I might have won the Grand National on. The horse on which I might have won the Gold Cup.’
‘Kit …’ Litsi said.
‘There’s only one person,’ I said with difficulty, ‘who hates me enough to do that. Who couldn’t bear to see me win those races … who would take away the prizes I hold dearest, because I took away his prize …’
I felt breathless and dizzy.
‘Sit down,’ Litsi said, alarmed.
‘Kinley,’ I said.
I went jerkily to the telephone and got through to Wyke-ham.
‘I was just going to bed,’ he complained.
‘Did you stop the dog-patrols?’ I demanded.
‘Yes, of course. You told me this morning there was no more need for them.’
‘I think I was wrong. I can’t risk that I was wrong. I’m coming down to your stables now, tonight, and we’ll get the dog-patrols back again, stronger than ever, for tomorrow and every day until Cheltenham, and probably beyond.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘Have you taken your sleeping pill?’ I asked.
‘No, not yet.’
‘Don’t do it until I get down to you, will you? And where’s Kinley tonight?’
‘Back in his own box, of course. You said the danger was past.’
‘We’ll move him back into the corner box when I get down to you.’
‘Kit, no, not in the middle of the night.’
‘You want to keep him safe,’ I said; and there was no arguing with that.
We disconnected and Litsi said slowly, ‘Do you mean Maynard Allardeck?’
‘Yes, I do. He found out, about two weeks ago, that he’ll never get a knighthood because I sent the film I made of him to the Honours department. He’s wanted that knighthood since he was a child, when he told my grandfather that one day the Fieldings would have to bow down to him, because he’d be a lord. He knows horses better than Nanterre … he was brought up in his father’s racing stable and was his assistant trainer for years. He saw Cascade and Cotopaxi at Newbury, and they were distinctive horses … and Col at Ascot … unmistakable.’
I went to the door.
‘I’ll telephone in the morning,’ I said.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘You’d be up all night.’
‘Get going,’ he said. ‘You saved my family’s honour … let me pay some of their debt.’
I was grateful, indeed, for the c
ompany. We went round again to the dark mews where Litsi said, if I had the car-starter in my pocket, we might as well be sure: but Nanterre and his bombs hadn’t returned, and the Mercedes fired obligingly from a fifty-yard distance.
I drove towards Sussex, telephoning to Danielle on the way to tell her where and why we were going. She had no trouble believing anything bad of Maynard Allardeck, saying he’d looked perfectly crazy at Ascot and Sandown, glaring at me continuously in the way he had.
‘Curdling with hate,’ she said. ‘You could feel it like shock waves.’
‘We’ll be back for breakfast,’ I said, smiling. ‘Sleep well.’ And I could hear her laughing as she disconnected.
I told Litsi on the way about the firework bombs that had been used to decoy the dog-handler away from Col’s courtyard, and said, ‘You know, in the alley, when Nanterre said he hadn’t put a bomb in my car, I asked him if it was a firework. He looked totally blank … I didn’t think much of it then, but now I realise he simply didn’t know what I was talking about. He didn’t know about the fireworks at Wykeham’s because they didn’t get into the papers.’
Litsi made a ‘Huh’ sort of noise of appreciation and assent, and we came companionably in time into Wykeham’s village.
‘What are you going to do here?’ Litsi said.
I shrugged. ‘Walk round the stables.’ I explained about the many little courtyards. ‘It’s not an easy place to patrol.’
‘You do seriously think Allardeck will risk trying to kill another of Aunt Casilia’s horses?’
‘Yes. Kinley, particularly, her brilliant hurdler. I don’t seriously suppose he’ll try tonight rather than tomorrow or thereafter, but I’m not taking chances.’ I paused. ‘However am I going to apologise to Princess Casilia … to repay …’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Cascade and Cotopaxi and Col died because of the Fielding and Allardeck feud. Because of me.’
‘She won’t think of it that way.’
‘It’s the truth.’ I turned into Wykeham’s driveway. ‘I won’t let Kinley die.’
I stopped the car in the parking space, and we stepped out into the silence of midnight under a clear sky sparkling with diamond-like stars. The heights and depths of the universe: enough to humble the sweaty strivings of earth.