For Kicks

by Dick Francis

  ‘Now tell us what really happened.’

  ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘Not all that cloak and dagger stuff.’

  ‘Cable to Australia for a copy of the contract I signed when I took on the job.’ For the fourth time I repeated my solicitor’s address, and for the fourth time they didn’t write it down.

  ‘Who did you say engaged you?’

  ‘The Earl of October.’

  ‘And no doubt we can check with him too?’

  ‘He’s in Germany until Saturday.’

  ‘Too bad.’ They smiled nastily. They knew from Cass that I had worked in October’s stable. Cass had told them I was a slovenly stable lad, dishonest, easily frightened and not very bright. As he believed what he said, he had carried conviction.

  ‘You got into trouble with his Lordship’s daughter, didn’t you?’

  Damn Cass, I thought bitterly, damn Cass and his chattering tongue.

  ‘Getting your own back on him for sacking you, aren’t you, by dragging his name into this?’

  ‘Like you got your own back on Mr Humber for sacking you yesterday.’

  ‘No. I left because I had finished my job there.’

  ‘For beating you, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The head lad said you deserved it.’

  ‘Adams and Humber were running a crooked racing scheme. I found them out, and they tried to kill me.’ It seemed to me it was the tenth time that I had said that without making the slightest impression.

  ‘You resented being beaten. You went back to get even… It’s a common enough pattern.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You brooded over it and went back and attacked them. It was a shambles. Blood all over the place.’

  ‘It was my blood.’

  ‘We can group it.’

  ‘Do that. It’s my blood.’

  ‘From that little cut? Don’t be so stupid.’

  ‘It’s been stitched.’

  ‘Ah yes, that brings us back to Lady Elinor Tarren. Lord October’s daughter. Got her into trouble, did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In the family way…’

  ‘No. Check with the doctor.’

  ‘So she took sleeping pills…’

  ‘No. Adams poisoned her.’ I had told them twice about the bottle of phenobarbitone, and they must have found it when they had been at the stables, but they wouldn’t admit it.

  ‘You got the sack from her father for seducing her. She couldn’t stand the disgrace. She took sleeping pills.’

  ‘She had no reason to feel disgraced. It was not she, but her sister Patricia, who accused me of seducing her. Adams poisoned Elinor in gin and Campari. There are gin and Campari and phenobarbitone in the office and also in the sample from her stomach.’

  They took no notice. ‘She found you had deserted her on top of everything else. Mr Humber consoled her with a drink, but she went back to college and took sleeping pills.’

  ‘No.’

  They were sceptical, to put it mildly, about Adams’ use of the flame thrower.

  ‘You’ll find it in the shed.’

  ‘This shed, yes. Where did you say it was?’

  I told them again, exactly. ‘The field probably belongs to Adams. You could find out.’

  ‘It only exists in your imagination.’

  ‘Look and you’ll find it, and the flame thrower.’

  ‘That’s likely to be used for burning off the heath. Lots of farmers have them, round here.’

  They had let me make two telephone calls to try to find Colonel Beckett. His manservant in London said he had gone to stay with friends in Berkshire for Newbury races. The little local exchange in Berkshire was out of action, the operator said, because a water main had burst and flooded a cable. Engineers were working on it.

  Didn’t my wanting to talk to one of the top brass of steeplechasing convince them, I wanted to know?

  ‘Remember that chap we had in here once who’d strangled his wife? Nutty as a fruit cake. Insisted on ringing up Lord Bertrand Russell, didn’t he, to tell him he’d struck a blow for peace.’

  At around midnight one of them pointed out that even if (and, mind you, he didn’t himself believe it) even if all I had said about being employed to find out about Adams and Humber were against all probability true, that still didn’t give me the right to kill them.

  ‘Humber isn’t dead,’ I said.

  ‘Not yet.’

  My heart lurched. Dear God, I thought, not Humber too. Not Humber too.

  ‘You clubbed Adams with the walking stick then?’

  ‘No, I told you, with a green glass ball. I had it in my left hand and I hit him as hard as I could. I didn’t mean to kill him, just knock him out. I’m right handed… I couldn’t judge very well how hard I was hitting with my left.’

  ‘Why did you use your left hand then?’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘Tell us again.’

  I told them again.

  ‘And after your right arm was put out of action you got on a motor-cycle and rode ten miles to Durham? What sort of fools do you take us for?’

  ‘The fingerprints of both my hands are on that paperweight. The right ones from when I threw it at Humber, and the left ones on top, from where I hit Adams. You have only to check.’

  ‘Fingerprints, now,’ they said sarcastically.

  ‘And while you’re on the subject, you’ll also find the fingerprints of my left hand on the telephone. I tried to call you from the office. My left hand prints are on the tap in the washroom… and on the key, and on the door handle, both inside and out. Or at least, they were…’

  ‘All the same, you rode that motor-bike.’

  ‘The numbness had gone by then.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘It isn’t numb now either.’

  One of them came round beside me, picked up my right wrist, and pulled my arm up high. The hand-cuffs jerked and lifted my left arm as well. The bruises had all stiffened and were very sore. The policeman put my arm down again. There was a short silence.

  ‘That hurt,’ one of them said at last, grudgingly.

  ‘He’s putting it on.’

  ‘Maybe…’

  They had been drinking endless cups of tea all evening and had not given me any. I asked if I could have some then, and got it; only to find that the difficulty I had in lifting the cup was hardly worth it.

  They began again.

  ‘Granted Adams struck your arm, but he did it in self-defence. He saw you throw the paper-weight at your employer and realized you were going to attack him next. He was warding you off.’

  ‘He had already cut my forehead open… and hit me several times on the body, and once on the head.’

  ‘Most of that was yesterday, according to the head lad. That’s why you went back and attacked Mr Humber.’

  ‘Humber hit me only twice yesterday. I didn’t particularly resent it. The rest was today, and it was mostly done by Adams.’ I remembered something. ‘He took my crash helmet off when he had knocked me dizzy. His fingerprints must be on it.’

  ‘Fingerprints again.’

  ‘They spell it out,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s begin again at the beginning. How can we believe a yob like you?’

  Yob. One of the leather boys. Tearaway. Rocker. I knew all the words. I knew what I looked like. What a millstone of a handicap.

  I said despairingly, ‘There’s no point in pretending to be a disreputable, dishonest stable lad if you don’t look the part.’

  ‘You look the part all right,’ they said offensively. ‘Born to it, you were.’

  I looked at their stony faces, their hard, unimpressed eyes. Tough efficient policemen who were not going to be conned. I could read their thoughts like glass: if I convinced them and they later found out it was all a pack of lies, they’d never live it down. Their instincts were all dead against having to believe. My bad luck.

  The room grew stuffy and full of cig
arette smoke and I became too hot in my jerseys and jacket. I knew they took the sweat on my forehead to be guilt, not heat, not pain.

  I went on answering all their questions. They covered the ground twice more with undiminished zeal, setting traps, sometimes shouting, walking round me, never touching me again, but springing the questions from all directions. I was really much too tired for that sort of thing because apart from the wearing-out effect of the injuries I had not slept for the whole of the previous night. Towards two o’clock I could hardly speak from exhaustion, and after they had woken me from a sort of dazed sleep three times in half an hour, they gave it up.

  From the beginning I had known that there was only one logical end to that evening, and I had tried to shut it out of my mind, because I dreaded it. But there you are, you set off on a primrose path and if it leads to hell that’s just too bad.

  Two uniformed policemen, a sergeant and a constable, were detailed to put me away for the night, which I found involved a form of accommodation to make Humber’s dormitory seem a paradise.

  The cell was cubic, eight feet by eight by eight, built of glazed bricks, brown to shoulder height and white above that. There was a small barred window too high to see out of, a narrow slab of concrete for a bed, a bucket with a lid on it in a corner and a printed list of regulations on one wall. Nothing else. Bleak enough to shrink the guts; and I had never much cared for small enclosed spaces.

  The two policemen brusquely told me to sit on the concrete. They removed my boots and the belt from my jeans, and also found and unbuckled the money belt underneath. They took off the hand-cuffs. Then they went out, shut the door with a clang, and locked me in.

  The rest of that night was in every way rock bottom.

  Chapter 19

  It was cool and quiet in the corridors of Whitehall. A superbly mannered young man deferentially showed me the way and opened a mahogony door into an empty office.

  ‘Colonel Beckett will not be long sir. He has just gone to consult a colleague. He said I was to apologise if you arrived before he came back, and to ask if you would like a drink. And cigarettes are in this box, sir.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I smiled. ‘Would coffee be a nuisance?’

  ‘By no means. I’ll have some sent in straight away. If you’ll excuse me?’ He went out and quietly closed the door.

  It rather amused me to be called ‘sir’ again, especially by smooth civil servants barely younger than myself. Grinning, I sat down in the leather chair facing Beckett’s desk, crossed my elegantly trousered legs, and lazily settled to wait for him.

  I was in no hurry. It was eleven o’clock on Tuesday morning, and I had all day and nothing to do but buy a clockwork train for Jerry and book an air ticket back to Australia.

  No noise filtered into Beckett’s office. The room was square and high, and was painted a restful pale greenish grey colour, walls, door and ceiling alike. I supposed that here the furnishings went with rank; but if one were an outsider one would not know how much to be impressed by a large but threadbare carpet, an obviously personal lamp-shade, or leather, brass-studded chairs. One had to belong, for these things to matter.

  I wondered about Colonel Beckett’s job. He had given me the impression that he was retired, probably on a full disability pension since he looked so frail in health, yet here he was with a well established niche at the Ministry of Defence.

  October had told me that in the war Beckett had been the sort of supply officer who never sent all left boots or the wrong ammunition. Supply Officer. He had supplied me with Sparking Plug and the raw material containing the pointers to Adams and Humber. He’d had enough pull with the Army to despatch in a hurry eleven young officer cadets to dig up the past history of obscure steeplechasers. What, I wondered, did he supply nowadays, in the normal course of events?

  I suddenly remembered October saying, ‘We thought of planting a stable lad…’ not ‘I thought’, but ‘We’. And for some reason I was now sure that it had been Beckett, not October, who had originally suggested the plan; and that explained why October had been relieved when Beckett approved me at our first meeting.

  Unexcitedly turning these random thoughts over in my mind I watched two pigeons fluttering round the window sill and tranquilly waited to say goodbye to the man whose staff work had ensured the success of the idea.

  A pretty young woman knocked and came in with a tray on which stood a coffee pot, cream jug, and pale green cup and saucer. She smiled, asked if I needed anything else, and when I said not, gracefully went away.

  I was getting quite good at left-handedness. I poured the coffee and drank it black, and enjoyed the taste.

  Snatches of the past few days drifted idly in and out of my thoughts…

  Four nights and three days in a police cell trying to come to terms with the fact that I had killed Adams. It was odd, but although I had often considered the possibility of being killed, I had never once thought that I myself might kill. For that, as for so much else, I had been utterly unprepared; and to have caused another man’s death, however much he might have asked for it, needed a bit of getting over.

  Four nights and three days of gradually finding that even the various ignominies of being locked up were bearable if one took them quietly, and feeling almost like thanking Red-head for his advice.

  On the first morning, after a magistrate had agreed that I should stay where I was for seven days, a police doctor came and told me to strip. I couldn’t, and he had to help. He looked impassively at Adams’ and Humber’s widespread handiwork, asked a few questions, and examined my right arm, which was black from the wrist to well above the elbow. In spite of the protection of two jerseys and a leather jacket, the skin was broken where the chair leg had landed. The doctor helped me dress again and impersonally departed. I didn’t ask him for his opinion, and he didn’t give it.

  For most of the four nights and three days I just waited, hour after silent hour. Thinking about Adams: Adams alive and Adams dead. Worrying about Humber. Thinking of how I could have done things differently. Facing the thought that I might not get out without a trial… or not get out at all. Waiting for the soreness to fade from the bruises and failing to find a comfortable way of sleeping on concrete. Counting the number of bricks from the floor to the ceiling and multiplying by the length of the walls (subtract the door and window). Thinking about my stud farm and my sisters and brother, and about the rest of my life.

  On Monday morning there was the by then familiar scrape of the door being unlocked, but when it opened it was not as usual a policeman in uniform, but October.

  I was standing up, leaning against the wall. I had not seen him for three months. He stared at me for a long minute, taking in with obvious shock my extremely dishevelled appearance.

  ‘Daniel,’ he said. His voice was low and thick.

  I didn’t think I needed any sympathy. I hooked my left thumb into my pocket, struck a faint attitude, and raised a grin.

  ‘Hullo, Edward.’

  His face lightened, and he laughed.

  ‘You’re so bloody tough,’ he said. Well… let him think so.

  I said, ‘Could you possibly use your influence to get me a bath?’

  ‘You can have whatever you like as soon as you are out.’

  ‘Out? For good?’

  ‘For good,’ he nodded. ‘They are dropping the charge.’

  I couldn’t disguise my relief.

  He smiled sardonically. ‘They don’t think it would be worth wasting public funds on trying you. You’d be certain of getting an absolute discharge. Justifiable homicide, quite legitimate.’

  ‘I didn’t think they believed me.’

  ‘They’ve done a lot of checking up. Everything you told them on Thursday is now the official version.’

  ‘Is Humber… all right?’

  ‘He regained consciousness yesterday, I believe. But I understand he isn’t lucid enough yet to answer questions. Didn’t the police tell you that he was out of danger?’r />
  I shook my head. ‘They aren’t a very chatty lot, here. How is Elinor?’

  ‘She’s well. A bit weak, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sorry she got caught up in things. It was my fault.’

  ‘My dear chap, it was her own,’ he protested. ‘And Daniel… about Patty… and the things I said…’

  ‘Oh, nuts to that,’ I interrupted. ‘It was a long time ago. When you said “Out” did you mean “out” now, this minute?’

  He nodded. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then let’s not hang around in here any more, shall we? If you don’t mind?’

  He looked about him and involuntarily shivered. Meeting my eyes he said apologetically, ‘I didn’t foresee anything like this.’

  I grinned faintly. ‘Nor did I.’

  We went to London, by car up to Newcastle and then by train. Owing to some delay at the police station discussing the details of my return to attend Adams’ inquest, any cleaning up processes would have meant our missing the seats October had reserved on the non-stop Flying Scotsman, so I caught it as I was.

  October led the way into the dining car, but as I was about to sit down opposite him a waiter caught hold of my elbow.

  ‘Here you,’ he said roughly, ‘clear out. This is first-class only.’

  ‘I’ve got a first-class ticket,’ I said mildly.

  ‘Oh yes? Let’s see it, then.’

  I produced from my pocket the piece of white cardboard.

  He sniffed and gestured with his head towards the seat opposite October. ‘All right then.’ To October he said, ‘If he makes a nuisance of himself, just tell me, sir, and I’ll have him chucked out, ticket or no ticket.’ He went off, swaying to the motion of the accelerating train.

  Needless to say, everyone in the dining car had turned round to have a good view of the rumpus.