To the hilt

by Дик Фрэнсис

  Obliquely she told me the truth, opening to my understanding her own long years of unhappy fear. She said, 'He would have given you anything you asked for.'

  'Ivan?'

  She nodded.

  I said, 'I would never have taken anything that was yours.'

  'I thought you would.' She paused. 'I did hate you.'

  She made no more admissions, nor any excuses, but in the garden she had called me her brother, and in the bank she had said, 'I'm sorry.' Perhaps, just perhaps, things had really changed.

  'I suppose,' she began, 'that it's too late…' She left the sentence unfinished, but it was a statement of acceptance, not a plea.

  'Call it quits,' I said, 'if you like.'

  When Himself and his countess arrived to keep my mother company, I went down to find out how things were going in the hospitality tent, and found that the mood, in spite of the brewery's troubles, was up-beat, alcoholic and forgiving.

  Margaret Morden greeted me with the sort of embrace that would have been over the top in any office but seemed appropriate to the abandon of a race day. Dressed in soft blue, with a reliable-looking husband by her side, she said she knew nothing about horses but would back Golden Malt.

  She followed my gaze across the tent to where Patsy, flanked not by Surtees but by the perfect lieutenant, Desmond Finch, was encouraging everyone's future.

  'You know,' I said to Margaret, 'Patsy will make a great success of running the brewery. She's a born manager. Better than her father. He was conscientious and a good man. She can bend and manipulate people to achieve her own ends… and I'd guess she'll lug the brewery out of the threat of bankruptcy faster than you can imagine.'

  'How can you possibly forgive her?'

  'I didn't say I forgave her. I said she would be a good manager.'

  'It was in your voice.'

  I smiled into the clever eyes. 'Find out for me,' I said, 'whether Oliver Grantchester suggested the embezzlement, or just stumbled across it and muscled in. Not that it really matters, I just wonder, that's all.'

  'I can tell you now. It was Grantchester's idea all along. Then Norman Quorn did some fancy footwork to keep the loot himself, and misjudged the strength and cruelty of his partner.'

  'How do you know?' I asked entranced.

  'That weasel Desmond Finch told me. I leaned on him the tiniest bit. I said that as deputy managing director he should have spotted irregularities in the finance department, and he fell over himself to tell me that Norman Quorn had practically cried on his shoulder. I think - and to be honest I don't see how we can prove it unless Grantchester confesses, which I can't see him doing…'

  'He's not the man he used to be,' I murmured.

  'I think,' Margaret said, not hearing, or at least not understanding, 'that Norman Quom must have said in all good faith to Ivan's trusted friend and lawyer Oliver, how easy it would be in these days of electronic transfers to make oneself seriously rich. I think they worked it out together, maybe even as an academic exercise to begin with, and then, when the trial run succeeded, they did it in earnest, and then Quorn tried at the last minute to back out.'

  'He did steal the money,' I said flatly. 'He tried to cut his partner out.'

  She agreed bleakly. 'They both did.'

  We drank champagne. Sweetish. Patsy was no spendthrift fool.

  I sighed. 'I wish Tobe could have been here today,' I said.

  Margaret hesitated. 'He couldn't bear that we hadn't been able to find the money with that list, when you suffered so much to bring it to us.'

  'Tell him not to be so soft.'

  She bent forward and unexpectedly kissed my cheek. 'Soft,' she said, 'is the last word I would apply to Alexander Kinloch.'

  Himself and I, as two of the executors in whose name the horse was running, stood by the saddling boxes and watched Emily fasten the racing-size saddle onto Golden Malt.

  Himself said to me conversationally, 'Word gets around, you know.'

  'What word?'

  'What Oliver Grantchester put you through in his garden.'

  'Forget it.'

  'If you say so. But it is rippling outward, and you can't stop it.'

  (He was right to the extent that a short while later I got a postcard from young Andrew at his prep school. 'Is it true you were lying fully clothed in a goldfish pond one cold night in October?' - and I sent him back a single-word answer, 'Yes.')

  Mad, weird Alexander. Who cared? Some have weirdness thrust upon them.

  'Al,' Himself said, 'would you have burned for the Kinloch hilt?'

  'It wasn't for the list,' I said.

  He smiled. He knew. He was the one person who wholly understood.

  We stood in the parade ring with Emily, watching Golden Malt stride round, led by his lad.

  Emily's jockey joined us, dressed in Ivan's racing colours of gold, green checks, gold cap.

  Emily was all business, no excitement obvious, a shortness of breath the only sign. She told the jockey to be handy in fourth place all the way, if he could, and make his move only after he'd rounded the last bend and straightened up for the uphill run to the winning post.

  'Don't forget,' she said, 'that he won't accelerate on a curve. Wait, even though it hurts. He'll deliver if you do. He's a great fighter uphill.'

  When the horses had gone out onto the track, Himself, Emily and I joined my mother up in the Sponsors' Box.

  My mother, in the black clothes she had worn to Ivan's funeral, and the black sweeping hat with the white rose, gazed out over the autumnal racecourse and yearned for her lost consort, for the steadfast man of no great fire who had been all she needed as a companion.

  It was Ivan's race. Ivan's day. Nothing would comfort her.

  Patsy arrived, with Surtees. Patsy's manner to her husband was impatient: she was looking at him with the fresh cold eyes of disillusion. I would give that marriage another year at most, I thought. The Surtees looks wouldn't for ever make up for the void inside.

  Golden Malt looked splendid on the turf, but he faced no easy task: the generous money prize alongside the prestige of taking home the King Alfred Gold Cup, even in replica, had drawn out the best. Of the nine provenly fast steeplechasers lining up, Golden Malt was generally counted only fourth or fifth in the hierarchy.

  White knuckle time. Emily watched the start through race-glasses without trembling. Probably no one else in the box could have managed it. Emily stood rock still for nearly all of the two miles.

  It was one of those races at Cheltenham when neither the fences nor the undulating curves sorted the runners out into a straggling line: all nine runners went round in a bunch, no one fell, the crowd on the grandstands yelled and drowned out the commentator, and Golden Malt came round the last bend in close fourth place and headed for glory up the hill.

  Emily put down her race-glasses and breathlessly watched.

  Himself was shouting with powerful lungs. My mother clasped her hands over her heart.

  Patsy murmured, 'Oh, come on…'

  Three horses crossed the line together.

  One couldn't tell by eye which head had nodded forward. We all went down to the unsaddling area for first, second and third, and none of the little group could disguise the agony of the wait for the photograph.

  When the result came it was in the impersonal voice of the course announcer.

  'First, number five.'

  Number five: Golden Malt.

  There was a lot of kissing. Patsy gave me an uncomplicated smile, with no acid. Emily's eyes outshone the stars.

  Patsy had ordained that the trophy should be presented to the winning owner by my mother, as Ivan's wife; so it happened that at the ceremony my mother presented the replica of the King Alfred Gold Cup to Emily, to universal cheers and a blaze of flashing cameras.

  Ivan would have loved it.

  When my mother and I were placidly breakfasting and reading congratulatory newspapers, my uncle Robert telephoned with a full-head of steam.

  'What
ever you're doing, stop doing it. I've had Jed on the line. He is more or less foaming at the mouth. The conservationists have invaded the bothy with spades and pickaxes and metal detectors, and are tearing everything apart. He has told them they are trespassing, but it makes no difference, they won't go away, and Zoл Lang is there, with the light of battle in her eyes as if she were on a crusade.'

  'Does Jed mean they are there now?'

  'Indeed he does,' he said. 'They intend to stay all day and they are digging up all the ground round the bothy. He begs me to fly up there at once.'

  'Do you want me to come with you?'

  'Of course I do,' he bellowed. 'Meet me at Heathrow, terminal one, as soon as you can.'

  I explained to my mother that I would have to go. Resignedly, she told me to finish my toast.

  I laughed and hugged her, and found a taxi which would go to Heathrow on a Sunday morning.

  Himself was striding up and down, an awesome sight. We caught a flight to Edinburgh where we were met by the helicopter pilot who had risked the bothy's plateau once before.

  Our arrival alarmed the crowd at the bothy who scattered outwards like ants under an insect-killing spray. When the rotor stopped, the ants came back, led by Jed but with Zoл Lang close on his heels.

  'How dare you?' Himself thundered to the fanatical lady.

  She straightened, as if she would add inches to her stature. 'This bothy,' she insisted, 'was given to the nation with the castle.'

  'It certainly was not,' my uncle said furiously. 'It comes under the heading of my private apartment.'

  Behind both of their backs, Jed raised his eyebrows to heaven.

  No doubt the courts would decide, I thought, but meanwhile the conservationists were making almost as much mess of my home as the four thugs had done in the first place. There were holes in the ground everywhere. Beside each hole lay a little heap of empty Coke cans and other metal debris.

  In the ruined section of bothy that housed the rubbish bins, the corner that held the old bread oven had been excavated to a depth of three feet and the oven left belly up. At the carport end, the earth had more or less been ploughed, revealing old spanners and ancient pieces of iron machinery.

  Staggered by the extent of the ruthless search, I left Himself arguing with Zoл Lang and went into my home to see what damage had been done inside.

  To my surprise and relief, very little. Jed had brought back my pipes. The place looked tidy. The picture, wrapped in its sheet, stood on the easel. It seemed the searchers had left the core of the search until last.

  I went out to protest to Zoл Lang about the work of her fanatical friends, about ten of whom were still digging holes in every direction, but as I approached her my mobile phone, which I by now carried around out of habit, buzzed weakly in my hand, demanding attention.

  Because of the bad reception in the mountains, and the whining noise of the metal detectors and yelling all around of the conservationists, I could hear nothing in the receiver but a crackle, with the faintest of voices in the background.

  To obliterate at least some of the noise, I carried the mobile phone into the bothy and closed the door.

  I said loudly into the receiver, 'Whoever you are, shout.'

  I heard an earful of crackle, and one word, 'Tobias.'

  I shouted, unbelieving, 'Tobias?'

  Crackle.

  His faint voice said, 'I've found it.'

  Another load of static.

  His voice said again, 'Al, I've found the money.'

  I couldn't believe it. His voice said, 'Are you there?'

  I bellowed, 'Yes. Where are you?'

  Crackle. Crackle. 'In Bogota. In Columbia.'

  I still couldn't believe it. There was a sudden clearing of the static and I could hear his voice plainly. 'The money is all here. I found it by accident. The account here had three names on it, not just one or two. A person's name and two corporate names. I put them ah1 on an application form by mistake, and it was like pressing a button, a door opened, and they are asking for my onward directions. The money will be back in Reading next week.'

  'I can't believe it. I thought you went away for the weekend.'

  He laughed. 'I went to Panama. We were getting nowhere electronically. I went to bang a fist… and the trail led to Bogota.'

  'Tobe…'

  'See you soon,' he said.

  The crackle came back. I switched off the telephone and felt my knees weakening as in the phrase 'weak at the knees' which I had never believed in before.

  After a while I took the wrapping sheet off the picture, and even to me the force of it filled the small room.

  I had thought I would need time's perspective to know what I'd done, but the power of the concept seemed to have taken over and made me its instrument. The picture might not comfort, but one wouldn't forget it.

  During the past few weeks I had painted that picture, the brewery's money had been found, and I'd discovered how far - how deep - I could go into myself.

  I had met Tobe and Margaret and Chris.

  I'd slept again with Emily and would stay married for as long as she wanted.

  I had come to a compact with Patsy.

  There wasn't a great deal I would undo.

  Shakily, I went out of the bothy and walked on the weak knees to where Himself and Zoл Lang were gesticulating in each other's air-space with none too gentlemanly fury.

  Himself stopped abruptly, alerted by whatever he saw in my face.

  'What is it?' he said.

  'The money is found.'

  'What money?' Zoл Lang demanded.

  Himself didn't answer her. He stared at me alone with the realisation that what had been paid for had been miraculously delivered.

  Zoл Lang, thinking that I had found some treasure or other within the bothy, strode off in that direction and disappeared inside.

  'Tobias found the money in Bogota,' I said.

  'Using the list?'

  'Yes.'

  Himself's rejoicing was like my own; unexpressed except in the eyes, a matter of central warmth rather than triumphal whoops.

  'Prince Charles Edward's hilt,' he said, 'is irrelevant.'

  We looked around at the determined searchers. None of them was now metal-detecting in the right place, but they might succeed if they went on long enough. The prize had been within their reach: they had dug quite near it.

  I thought ruefully that this lot wouldn't burn me to make me tell them where to look. Zoл Lang wouldn't strike a match. I wouldn't have wanted her to be Grantchester.

  'Will they find it, Al?' my uncle asked.

  'Would you mind it very much?'

  'Of course I would. That woman would crow.'

  I said, 'If she perseveres long enough… she will.'

  'No, Al,' he protested.

  'When I hid it,' I said, 'it was from burglars, not from a zealot with a mission. When her cohorts give up, that's when she'll start thinking. Up until now, I'd guess she believes she's dealing with simple minds, yours and mine. She suffers from the arrogance of the very brainy. She doesn't expect anyone to keep up with her on level terms.'

  'Your mind is far from simple.'

  'She doesn't know that. And my mind is simpler than hers. She will find the hilt. We could go away and not watch her gloat.'

  'Leave the battlefield?' He was outraged. 'Defeat may be unavoidable, but we will meet it with pride.'

  Spoken like a true Kinloch, I thought, and remembered briquettes flaming.

  Zoл Lang came out of the bothy and walked towards us still carrying a metal detector, basically a long black stick with a white control box near the top and a flat white plate at the bottom.

  When she reached us she ignored Himself and spoke directly and with penetration to me alone. 'You will tell me the truth,' she said in her old voice. 'I am sure you are a very good liar, but this time you will tell me the truth.'

  I made no reply. She took it as assent, which it was.

  She said, 'I
saw that picture. Did you paint it?'

  'Yes.'

  'Is it you who has hidden the Kinloch hilt?'

  'Yes.'

  'Is it here… in your bothy? And would I find it?'

  I said, after a pause, 'Yes… and yes.'

  My uncle's mouth opened in protest. Zoл Lang flicked him a glance and thrust the metal detector into his arms.

  'You can keep the hilt,' she said. 'I'll look for it no longer.'

  Himself watched in bewilderment while she told one of her helpers to round up the searchers, that they were leaving.

  'But, Dr Lang…' her helper objected.

  'The hilt isn't here,' she said. 'We are going home.'

  We watched while they picked up their spades and pickaxes and metal detectors and drifted across to their mini-van transport, and when they'd gone Zoл Lang said to Himself, 'Don't you understand?'

  'No, I frankly don't.'

  'He hasn't seen the picture,' I said.

  'Oh.' She blinked. 'What is it called? Does it have a name?'

  'Portrait of Zoл Lang.'

  A tear appeared in each of her eyes and ran down her wrinkled old cheeks, as Jed's wife Flora had foreseen.

  'I will not fight you,' she said to me. 'You have made me immortal.'

  Himself looked long at the picture when Zoл Lang had driven away in her small white car.

  'Immortal,' he said thoughtfully. 'Is it?'

  'Time will tell.'

  'Mad Alexander, who messes about with paints…'

  I smiled. 'One has to be slightly mad to do almost anything such as hiding a treasure.'

  'Yes,' he said. 'Where is it?'

  'Well,' I said, 'when you gave me the hilt to hide all those years ago, the first thing I thought about was metal detectors because those things find gold almost more easily than any other metal. So I had to think of a hiding place safe from metal detectors, which is actually almost impossible unless you dig down six feet or more… and under water is no good because water is no barrier.'

  He interrupted. 'How does a metal detector work?

  'Well,' I said, 'inside that flat white plate thing there is a coil of very thin wire. The batteries in that white box, when you switch them on, produce a high-frequency alternating current in the coil, which in turn produces an oscillating magnetic field which will induce a responding current in any metal near it, which will, in turn, excite the coil even more, whose increased activity can be interpreted as a whine - and that's putting it simply.'