STRAIGHT

 

 

 

 

 

MY thanks especially to

 

JOSEPH and DANIELLE ZERGER

- of ZARLENE IMPORTS

dealers in semi-precious stones

 

and also to

 

MARY BROMILEYÄankle specialist

 

BARRY PARK - veterinary surgeon

 

JEREMY THOMPSONÄdoctor, pharmacologist

 

ANDREW HEWSONÄliterary agent

 

and as always to

 

MERRICK and FELIX, our sons

 

All the people in this story are imaginary.

All the gadgets exist.

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

I inherited my brother's life~ Inherited his desk, his business,

his gadgets, his enemies, his horses and his mistress

I inherited my brother's life, and it nearly killed

me.

 

I was thirty-four at the time and walking about on

elbow crutches owing to a serious disagreement with

the last fence in a steeplechase at Cheltenham. If you've

never felt your ankle explode, don't try it. As usual it

hadn't been the high-speed tumble that had done the

damage but the half-ton of one of the other runners

coming over the fence after me, his forefoot~landing

squarely on my boot on the baked earth of an Indian

summer. The hoof mark was imprinted on the leather.

The doctor who cut the boot off handed it to me as

a souvenir. Medical minds have a macabre sense of

humour.

 

Two days after this occurrence, while I was reluctantly

coming to terms with the fact that I was going to

miss at least six weeks of the steeplechasing season

and with them possibly my last chance of making it to

champion again (the middle thirties being the beginning

of the end for jump jockeys), I answered the telephone

for about the tenth time that morning and found it was

not another friend ringing to commiserate.

 

'Could I speak,, a female voice asked, 'to Derek

Franklin?'

 

'I'm Derek Franklin,' I said.

 

'Right.' She was both brisk and hesitant, and one

could understand why. 'We have you listed,' she said, 'as

your brother Greville's next of kin.'

 

Those three words, I thought with an accelerating

heart, must be among the most ominous in the

language.

 

I said slowly, not wanting to know, 'What's

happened?'

 

'I'm speaking from St Catherine's Hospital, Ipswich.

Your brother is here, in the intensive care unit . . .'

 

At least he was alive, I thought numbly.

 

'. . . and the doctors think you should be told.'

 

'How is he?'

 

'I'm sorry I haven't seen him. This is the almoner's

office. But I understand that his condition is very

serious.'

 

'What's the matter with him?'

 

'He was involved in an accident,' she said. 'He has

multiple injuries and is on life support.'

 

'I'll come,' I said.

 

'Yes. It might be best.'

 

I thanked her, not knowing exactly what for, and put

down the receiver, taking the shock physically in lightheadedness

and a constricted throat.

 

He would be all right, I told myself Intensive care

meant simply that he was being carefully looked after.

He would recover, of course.

 

I shut out the anxiety to work prosaically instead on

the practicalities of getting from Hungerford in Berkshire,

where I lived, to Ipswich in Suffolk, about a

hundred and fifty miles across country, with a crunched

ankle. It was fortunately the left ankle, which meant I

would soon be able to drive my automatic gears without

trouble, but it was on that particular day at peak discomfort

and even with painkillers and icepacks was hot,

swollen and throbbing. I couldn't move it without holding

my breath, and that was partly my own fault.

 

Owing to my hatred - not to say phobia - about the

damaging immobility of plaster of Paris I had spent a

good deal of the previous day persuading a long-suffering

orthopaedic surgeon to give me the support of a

plain crepe bandage instead of imprisonment in a cast.

He was himself a plate-and-screw man by preference

and had grumbled as usual at my request. Such a bandage

as I was demanding might be better iN the end for

one's muscles, but it gave no protection against knocks,

as he had reminded me on other occasions, and it would

be more painful, he said.

 

'I'll be racing much quicker with a bandage.'

 

'It's time you stopped breaking your bones,' he said,

giving in with a shrug and a sigh and obligingly winding

the crepe on tightly. 'One of these days you'LL crack

something serious.'

 

'I don't actually like breaking them.'

 

'At least I haven't had to pin anything this time,' he

said. 'And you're mad.'

 

'Yes. Thanks very much.'

 

'Go home and rest it. Give those ligaments a chance.'

 

The ligaments took their chance along the back seat

of my car while Brad, an unemployed welder, drove it

to IpswiTCh. Brad, taciturn and obstinate, was unemployed

by habit and choice but made a scratchy living

doing odd jobs in the neighbourhood for anyone willing

to endure his moods. As I much preferred his long

silences to his infrequent conversation, we got along

fine. He looked forty, hadn't reached thirty, and lived

with his mother.

 

He found St Catherine's Hospital without much

trouble and at the door helped me out and handed me

the crutches, saying he would park and sit inside the

reception area and I could take my time. He had waited

for me similarly for hours--the day before, expressing

neither impatience nor sympathy but simply being restfully

and neutrally morose.

 

The intensive care unit proved to be guarded by brisk

nurses who looked at the crutches and said I'd come to

-the wrong department, but once I'd persuaded them of

my identity they kitted me sympathetically with a mask

and gown and let me in to see Greville.

 

I had vaguely expected Intensive Care to involve a

lot of bright lights and clanging bustle, but I found that

it didn't, or at least not in that room in that hospital. The

light was dim, the atmosphere peaceful, the noise level,

once my ears adjusted to it, just above silence but lower

than identification.

 

Greville lay alone in the room on a high bed with

wires and tubes all over the place. He was naked except

for a strip of sheeting Lying loosely across his loins and

they had shaved half the hair off his head. Other evidences

of surgery marched like centipede tracks across

his abdomen and down one thigh, and there were darkening

bruises everywhere.

 

Behind his bed a bank of screens showed blank rectangular

faces, as the information from the electrodes

fed into other screens in a room directly outside. He

didn't need, they said, an attendant constantly beside

him, but they kept an eye on his reactions all the time.

 

He was unconscious, his face pale and calm; his head

turned slightly towards the door as if expecting visitors.

Decompression procedures had been performed on his

skull, and that wound was covered by a large padded

dressing which seemed more like a pillow to support

him.

 

Greville Saxony Franklin, my brother. Nineteen

 

years my senior: not expected to live. It had to be faced.

To be accepted.

 

'Hi, guy,' I said.

 

It was an Americanism he himself used often, but it

produced no response. I touched his hand, which was

warm and relaxed, the nails, as always, clean and cared

for. He had a pulse, he had circulation: his heart beat by

electrical stimulus. Air went in and out of his lungs

mechanically through a tube in his throat. Inside his

head the synapses were shutting down. Where was

his soul, I wondered: where was the intelligent, persistent,

energetic spirit? Did he know that he was dying?

 

I didn't want just to leave him. No one should die

alone. I went outside and said so.

 

A doctor in a green overall replied that when all the

remaining brain activity had ceased, they would ask

my consent before switching off the machines. I was

welcome to be with my brother at this crisis point as

well as before. 'But death,' he said austerely, 'will be for

him an infinitesimal process, not a definitive moment.'

He paused. 'There is a waiting room along the hall, with

coffee and things.'

 

pathos and drama, I thought: his everyday life. I

crutched all the way down to the general reception area,

found Brad, gave him an update and told him I might be

a long time. All night, perhaps.

 

He waved a permissive hand. He would be around,

he said, or he would leave a message at the desk. Either

way, I could reach him. I nodded and went back

upstairs, and found the waiting room already occupied

by a very young couple engulfed in grief, whose baby

was hanging on to life by threads not much stronger

than Greville's.

 

The room itself was bright, comfortable and impersonal,

and I listened to the mother's slow sobs and

thought of the misery that soaked daily into those walls.

Life has a way of kicking one along like a football, or

so I've found. Fate had never dealt me personally a

particularly easy time, but that was OK, that was

normal. Most people, it seemed to me, took their turn to

be football. Most survived. Some didn't.

 

Greville had simply been in the wrong place at the

wrong time. From the scrappy information known to

the hospital, I gleaned that he had been walking down

Ipswich High Street when some scaffolding that was

being dismantled had fallen on him from a considerable

height. One of the construction workers had been

killed, and a second had been taken to hospital with a

broken hip.

 

I had been given my brother's clinical details. One

metal bar had pierced his stomach, another had torn

into his leg, something heavy had fallen on his head and

caused brain damage with massive cerebral bleeding. It

had happened late the previous afternoon, he had been

deeply unconscious from the moment of the impact and

he hadn't been identified until workmen dealing with

the rubble in the morning had found his diary and given

it to the police.

 

'Wallet?' I asked.

 

No, no wallet. Just the diary with, neatly filled in

on the first page, next of kin, Derek Franklin, brother;

telephone number supplied. Before that, they had no

clue except the initials G.S.F. embroidered above the

pocket of his toRN and blood-stained shirt.

 

'A sILk shirt,' a nurse added disapprovingly, as if

monogrammed silk shirts were somehow immoral.

 

'Nothing else in his pockets?' I asked.

 

'A bunch of keys and a handkerchief. That was all.

You'll be given them, of course, along with the diary

and his watch and signet ring.'

 

I nodded. No need to ask when.

 

The afteRNoon stretched out, strange and unreal, a

time-warped limbo. I went again to spend some time

with Greville, but he lay unmoving, oblivious in his

dwindling twilight, already subtly not himself. If Wordsworth

were right about immortality, it was the sleep and

the forgetting that were slipping away and reawakening

that lay ahead, and maybe I should be glad for him, not

grieve.

 

I thought of him as he had been, and of our lives as

brothers We had never lived together in a family unit

because, by the time I was born, he was aWay at university,

building a life of his own. By the time I was SIX, he

had married, by the time I was ten, he'd divorced. For

years he was a semi-stranger whOm I met briefly at

family gatherings, celebrations which grew less and less

frequent as our parents aged and died, and which

stopped altogether when the two sisters who bridged

the gap between Greville and me both emigrated, one

to Australia and one to Japan.

 

It wasn't until I'd reached twenty-eight myself that

after a long Christmas-and-birthday-card politeness

we'd met unexpectedly on a railway platform and

during the journey ahead had become friends. Not close

time-sharing friends even then, but positive enough for

telephoning each other sporadically and exchanging

restaurant dinners and feeling good about it.

 

We had been brought up in different environments,

Greville in the Regency London house which went with

our father's job as manager of one of the great landowning

estates, I in the comfortable country cottage of his

retirement. Greville had been taken by our mother to

museums, art galleries and the theatre: I had been given

ponies.

 

We didn't even look much alike. Greville, like our

father, was six feet tall, I three inches shorter. Greville's

hair, now greying, had been light brown and straight,

mine darker brown and curly. We had both inherited

amber eyes and good teeth from our mother and a

tendency to leanness from our father, but our faces,

though both tidy enough, were quite different.

 

Greville best remembered our parents' vigorous

years; I'd been with them through their illnesses and

deaths. Our father had himself been twenty years older

than our mother, and she had died first, which had

seemed monstrously unfair. The old man and I had lived

briefly together after that in tolerant mutual noncomprehension,

though I had no doubt that he'd loved

me, in his way. He had been sixty-two when I was born

and he died on my eighteenth birthday, leaving me a

fund for my continued education and a letter of admonitions

and instructions, some of which I'd carried out.

 

Greville's stillness was absolute. I shifted uncomfortably

on the crutches and thought of asking for a chair. I

wouldn't see him smile again, I thought: not the lightening

of the eyes and the gleam of teeth, the quick

appreciation of the black humour of life, the awareness

of his own power.

 

He was a magistrate, a justice of the peace, and he

imported and sold semi-precious stones Beyond these

bare facts I kdew few details of his day-to-day existence,

as whenever we met it seemed that he was always more

interested in my doings than his own. He had himself

owned horses from the day he telephoned to ask my

opinion: someone who owed him money had offered his

racehorse to settle the debt. What did I think? I told

him I'd phone back, looked up the horse, thought it was

a bargain and told Greville to go right ahead if he felt

like it.

 

'Don't see why not,' he'd said. 'Will you fix the

paperwork?'

 

I'd said yes, of course. It wasn't hard for anyone to

say yes to my brother Greville: much harder to say no.

 

The horse had won handsomely and given him a taste

for future ownership, though he seldom went to see

his horses run, which wasn't particularly unusual in an

owner but always to me mystifying. He refused absolutely

to own jumpers on the grounds that he might buy

something that would kill me. I was too big for Flat

races; he'd felt safe with those. I couldn't persuade him

that I would like to ride for him and in the end I stopped

trying. When Greville made up his mind he was

unshakable.

 

Every ten minutes or so a nurse would come quietly

into the room to stand for a short while beside the bed,

checking that all the electrodes and tubes were still in

order. She gave me brief smiles and commented once

that my brother was unaware of my presence and could

not be comforted by my being there.

 

'It's as much for me as for him,' I said.

 

She nodded and went away, and I stayed for a couple

more hours, leaning against a wall and reflecting that it

was ironic that it was he who should meet death by

chance when it was I who actively risked it half the days

of the year.

 

Strange to reflect also, looking back now to that

lengthening evening, that I gave no thought to the

consequences of his death. The present was vividly alive

still in the silent diminishing hours, and all I saw in the

future was a pretty dreary programme of form-filling

and funeral arrangements, which I didn't bother to

think about in any detail. I would have to telephone the

sisters, I vaguely supposed, and there might be a little

long-distance grief, but I knew they would say, 'You can

see to it, can't you? Whatever you decide will be all

right with us,' and they wouldn't come back halfway

round the world to stand in mournful drizzle at the

graveside of a brother they'd seen perhaps twice in ten

years

 

Beyond that, I considered nothing. The tie of

common blood was all that truly linked Greville and

me, and once it was undone there would be nothing left

of him but memory. WIth regret I watched the pulse that

flickered in his throat. When it was gone I would go

back to my own life and think of him warmly sometimes,

and remember this night with overall sorrow, but

no more.

 

I went alOng to the waiting room for a while to rest

my legs. The desperate young parents were still there,

hollow-eyed and entwined, but presently a sombre

nurse came to fetch them, and in the distance, shortly

after, I heard the rising wail of the mother's agonized

loss. I felt my own tears prickle for her, a stranger. A

dead baby, a dying brother, a universal uniting misery. I

grieved for Greville most intensely then because of the

death of the child, and realized I had been wrong about

the sorrow level. I would miss him very much.

 

I put my ankle up on a chair and fitfully dozed, and

sometime before daybreak the same nurse with the

same expression came to fetch me in my turn.

 

I followed her along the passage and into Greville's

room. There was much more light in there this time,

and more people, and the bank of monitoring screens

behind the bed had been switched on. Pale greenish

lines moved across them, some in regular spasms, some

uncompromisingly straight.

I didn't need to be told, but they explained all the

same. The straight lines were the sum of the activity in

Greville's brain. None at all.

 

There was no private goodbye. There was no point. I

was there, and that was enough. They asked for, and

received, my agreement to the disconnection of the

machines, and presently the pulsing lines straightened

out also, and whatever had been in the quiet body was

there no longer.

 

It took a long time to get anything done in the morning

because it turned out to be Sunday.

 

I thought back, having lost count of time. Thursday

when I broke my ankle, Friday when the scaffolding fell

on Greville, Saturday when Brad drove me to Ipswich.

It all seemed a cosmos away: relativity in action.

 

There was the possibility, it seemed, of the scaffolding

constructors being liable for damages. It Was suggested

that I should consult a solicitor.

 

Plodding through the paperwork, trying to make

decisions, I realized that I didn't know what Greville

would want. If he'd left a will somewhere, maybe he had

given instructions that I ought to carry out. Maybe no

one but I, I thought with a jolt, actually knew he was

dead. There had to be people I should notify, and I

didn't know who.

 

I asked if I could have the diary the police had found

in the rubble, and presently I was given not only the

diary but everything else my brother had had with him:

keys, watch, handkerchief, signet ring, a small amount

of change, shoes, socks, jacket. The rest of his clothes,

torn and drenched with blood, had been incinerated, it

appeared. I was required to sign for what I was taking,

putting a tick against each item.

 

Everything had been tipped out of the large brown

plastic baG in which they had been stored. The bag said

'St Catherine's Hospital' in white on the sides. I put the

shoes, socks, handkerchief and jacket back into the bag

and pulled the strings tight again, then I shovelled the

large bunch of keys into my own trouser pocket, along

with the watch, the ring and the money, and finally

consulted the diary.

 

On the front page he had entered his name, his

London home telephone number and his office number,

but no addresses. It was near the bottom, where there

was a space headed 'In case of accident please notify',

that he had written 'Derek Franklin, brother, next of

kin.'

 

The diary itself was one I had sent him at Christmas:

the racing diary put out by the Jockeys' Association

and the Injured Jockeys' Fund. That he should have

chosen to use that particular diary when he must

have been given several others I found unexpectedly

moving. That he had put my name in it made me

wonder what he had really thought of me; whether

there was much we might have been to each other, and

 

had missed.

With regret I put the diary into my other trouser

pocket. The next morning, I supposed, I would have

to telephone his offIce with the dire news. I couLdn't

forewarn anyone as I didn't know the names, let alone

the phone numbers, of the people who worked for him.

I knew only that he had no partners, as he had said

several times that the only way he could run his business

was by himself. Partners too often came to blows, he

said, and he would have none of it.

 

When all the signing was completed, I looped the

strings of the plastic bag a couple of times round my

wrist and took it and myself on the crutches down to the

reception area, which was more or less deserted on that

early Sunday morning. Brad wasn't there, nor was there

any message from him at the desk, so I simply sat down

and waited. I had no doubt he would come back in his

own good time, glowering as usual, and eventually he

did, slouching in through the door with no sign of haste.

 

He saw me across the acreage, came to within ten

feet, and said, 'Shall I fetch the car, then?' and when I

nodded, wheeled away and departed. A man of very

few words, Brad. I followed slowly in his wake, the

plastic bag bumping against the crutch. If I'd thought

faster I would have given it to Brad to carry, but I didn't

seem to be thinking fast in any way.

 

Outside, the October sun was bright and warm. I

breathed the sweet air, took a few steps away from the

door and patiently waited some more, and was totally

unprepared to be savagely mugged.

 

I scarcely saw who did it. One moment I was upright,

leaning without concentration on the crutches, the next

I'd received a battering-ram shove in the back and was

sprawling face forward onto the hard black surface of

the entrance drive. To try to save myself, I put my left

foot down instinctively and it twisted beneath me, which

was excruciating and useless. I fell flat down on my

stomach in a haze and I hardly cared when someone

kicked one of the fallen crutches away along the ground

and tugged at the bag around my wrist.

 

He. . . it had to be a he, I thought, from the speed

and strength . . thumped a foot down on my back and

put his weight on it. He yanked my arm up and back

roughly, and cut through the plastic with a slash that

took some of my skin with it. I scarcely felt it. The

messages from my ankle obliterated all else.

 

A voice approached saying, 'Hey! Hey!' urgently,

and my attacker lifted himself off me as fast as he'd

arrived and sped away.

 

It was Brad who had come to my rescue. On any

other day there might have been people constantly

coming and going, but not on Sunday morning. No one

else seemed to be around to notice a thing. No one but

Brad had come running.

 

'Friggin' hell,' Brad said from above me. 'Are you all

right?'

 

Far from it, I thought.

 

He went to fetch the scattered crutch and brought it

back. 'Your hand's bleeding,' he said with disbelief.

'Don't you want to stand up?'

 

I wasn't too sure that I did, but it seemed the only

thing to do. When I'd made it to a moderately vertical

position he looked impassively at my face and gave it as

his opinion that we ought to go back into the hospital.

As I didn't feel liKe arguing, that's what we did.

 

I sat on the end of one of the empty rows of seats and

waited for the tide of woe to recede, and when I had

more command of things I went across to the desk and

explained what had happened.

 

The woman behind the reception window was

horrified.

 

'Someone stole your plastic bag!' she said, roundeyed. '

I mean, everyone around here knows what those

bags signify, they're always used for the belongings of

people who've died or come here after accidents. I

mean, everyone knows they can contain wallets and

jewellery and so on, but I've never heard of one being

snatched. How awful! How much did you lose? You'd

better report it to the police.'

 

The futility of it shook me with weariness Some

punk had taken a chance that the dead man's effects

would be worth the risk, and the police would take

notes and chalk it up among the majority of unsolved

muggings. I reckoned I'd fallen into the ultra-vulnerable

bracket which included little old ladies, and however

much I might wince at the thought, I on my crutches

had looked and been a pushover, literally.

I shuffled painfully into the washroom and ran cold

water over my slowly bleeding hand, and found that the

cut was more extensive than deep and could sensibly be

classified as a scratch. With a sigh, I dabbed a paper

towel on the scarleq oozing spots and unwound the cutoff

pieces of white and brown plastic which were still

wrapped tightly round my wrist, throwing them in the

bin. What a bloody stupid anti-climactic postscript, I

thought tiredly, to the accident that had taken my

brother.

 

When I went outside Brad said with a certain amount

of anxieTY, 'You going to the police, then?' and he

relaxed visibly when I shook my head and said, 'Not

unless you can give them a detailed description of whoever

attacked me.'

 

I couldn't tell from his expression whether he could

or not. I thought I might ask him later, on the way

home, but when I did' all that he said was, 'He had jeans

on, and one of them woolly hat, And he had a knife. I

didn't see his face, he sort of had his back turned my

way, but the sun flashed on the knife, see? It all went

down so fast. I did think you were a goner. Then he ran

off with the bag. You were dead lucky, I'd say.'

 

I didn't feel lucky, but all things were relative.

 

Brad, having contributed what was for him a long

speech, relapsed into his more normal silence, and I

wondered what the mugger would think of the worthless

haul of shoes, socKs, handkerchief and jacket whose

loss hadn't been realistically worth reporting. Whatever

of value Greville had set out with would have been in

his wallet, which had fallen to an earlier predator.

 

I had been wearing, was still wearing, a shirt, tie and

sweater, but no jacket. A sweater was better with the

crutches than a jacket. It was pointless to wonder

whether the thief would have dipped into my trouser

pockets if Brad hadn't shouted. Pointless to wonder if

he would have put his blade through my ribs. There was

no way of knowing. I did know I couldn't have stopped

him, but his prize in any case would have been meagre.

Apart from Greville's things I was carrying only a credit

card and a few notes in a small folder, from a habit of

travelling light.

 

I stopped thinking about it and instead, to take my

mind off the ankle, wondered what Greville had been

doing in Ipswich.

 

Wondered if, ever since Friday, anyone had been

waiting for him to arrive. Wondered how he had got

there. Wondered if he had parked his car somewhere

there and, if so, how I would find it, considering I didn't

know its number and wasn't even sure if he still had a

Porsche. Someone else would know, I thought easily.

His office, his local garage, a friend. It wasn't really my

worry.

 

By the time we reached Hungerford three hours

later, Brad had said, in addition, only that the car was

running out of juice (which we remedied) and, half an

hour from home, that if I wanted him to go on driving

me during the following week, he would be willing.

'Seven-thirty tomorrow morning?' I suggested,

reflecting, and he said 'Yerss' on a growl which I took to

mean assent.

 

He drove me to my door, helped me out as before,

handed me the crutches, locked the car and put the keys

into my hand all without speaking.

 

'Thanks,' I said.

 

He ducked his head, not meeting my eyes, and turned

and shambled off on foot towards his mother's house. I

watched him go; a shy difficult man with no social skills

who had possibly that morning saved my life.

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

I had for three years rented the ground floor of an old

house in a turning off the main road through the ancient

country town. There was a bedroom and bathroom

facing the street and the sunrise, and a large all-purpose

room to the rear into which the sunset flooded. Beyond

that, a small stream-bordered garden which I shared

with the owners of the house, an elderly couple upstairs.

 

Brad's mother had cooked and cleaned for them for

years; Brad mended, painted and chopped when he felt

like it. Soon after I'd moved in, mother and son had

casually extended their services to me, which suited me

well. It was all in all an easy uncluttered existence, but if

home was where the heart was, I really lived out on the

windy Downs and in stable yards and on the raucous

racetracks where I worked.

 

I let myself into the quiet rooms and sat with icepacks

along a sofa, watching the sun go down on the far

side of the stream and thinking I might have done better

to stay in the Ipswich hospital. From the knee down my

left leg was hurting abominably, and it was still getting

clearer by the minute that falling had intensified

Thursday's damage disastrously. My own surgeon had

been going off to Wales for the weekend, but I doubted

that he would have done very much except say 'I told

you so', so in the end I simply took another Distalgesic

and changed the icepacks and worked out the time

zones in Tokyo and Sydney.

 

At midnight I telephoned to those cities where it was

already morning and by good luck reached both of the

sisters. 'Poor Greville,' they said sadly, and, 'Do whatever

you think best.' 'Send some flowers for us.' 'Let us

know how iT goes.'

 

I would, I said. Poor Greville, they repeated, meaning

it, and said they would love to see me in Tokyo, in

Sydney, whenever. Their children, they said, were all

fine. Their husbands were fine. Was I fine? Poor, poor

Greville.

 

I put the receiver down ruefully. Families did scatter,

and some scattered more than most. I knew the sisters

by that time only through the photographs they sometimes

sent at Christmas. They hadn't recognized my

voice.

 

Taking things slowly in the morning, as nothing was

much better, I dressed for the day in shirt, tie and

sweater as before, with a shoe on the right foot, sock

alone on the left, and was ready when Brad arrived five

minutes early.

'We're going to London,' I said. 'Here's a map with

the place marked. Do you think you can find it?'

 

'Got a tongue in my head,' he said, peering at the

maze of roads. 'Reckon so.'

 

'Give it a go, then.'

 

He nodded, helped me inch onto the back seat, and

drove seventy miles through the heavy morning traffic

in silence. Then, by dint of shouting at street vendors via

the driver's window, he zig-zagged across Holborn, took

a couple of wrong turns, righted himself, and drew up

with a jerk in a busy street round the corner from

Hatton Garden.

 

'That's it,' he said, pointing. 'Number fifty-six. That

office block.'

 

'Brilliant.'

 

He helped me out, gave me the crutches, and came

with me to hold open the heavy glass entrance door.

Inside, behind a desk, was a man in a peaked cap personifying

security who asked me forbiddingly what floor

I wanted.

 

'Saxony Franklin,' I said.

 

'Name?' he asked, consulting a list.

 

'Franklin.'

 

'Your name, I mean.'

 

I explained who I was. He raised his eyebrows,

picked up a telephone, pressed a button and said, 'A Mr

Franklin is on his way up.'

 

Brad asked where he could park the car and was told

there was a yard round the back. He would wait for me,

he said. No hurry. No problem.

 

The office building, which was modeRN, had been

built rubbing shoulders to the sixth floor with Victorian

curlicued neighbours, soaring free to the tenth with a

severe lot of glass

 

Saxony Franklin was on the eighth floor, it appeared.

I went up in a smooth lift and elbowed my way through

some heavy double doors into a lobby fuRNished with a

reception desk, several aRmchairs for waiting in and two

policemen.

 

Behind the policemen was a middle-aged woman

who looked definitely flustered.

 

I thought immediately that news of Greville's death

had already arrived and that I probably hadn't needed

to come, but it seemed the Force was there for a different

reason entirely.

 

The flustered lady gave me a blank stare and said,

'That's not Mr Franklin. The guard said Mr Franklin

was on his way up.'

 

I allayed the police suspicions a little by saying again

that I was Greville Franklin's brother.

 

'Oh,' said the woman. 'Yes, he does have a brother.'

 

They all swept their gaze over my comparative

immobility.

 

'Mr Franklin isn't here yet,' the woman told me.

 

'Er . . .' I said, 'what's going on?'

 

They all looked disinclined to explain. I said to her,

'I'm afraid I don't know your name.'

 

'Adams,' she said distractedly. 'Annette AdamS I'm

your brother's personal assistant.'

 

'I'm sorry,' I said slowly, 'but my brother won't be

coming at all today. He was involved in an accident.'

 

Annette Adams heard the bad news in my voice. She

put a hand over her heart in the classic gesture as if to

hold it still in her chest and with anxiety said, 'What sort

of accident? A car crash? Is he hurt?'

 

She saw the answer clearly in my expression and with

her free hand felt for one of the armchairs, buckling into

it with shock.

 

'He died in hospital yesterday moRNing,' I said to her

and to the policemen, 'after some scaffolding fell on

him last Friday. I was with him in the hospital.'

 

One of the policemen pointed at my dangling foot.

'You were injured at the same time, sir?'

 

'No. This was diFFerent. I didn't see his accident. I

meant, I was there when he died. The hospital sent for

me.'

 

The two policemen consulted each other's eyes and

decided after all to say why they were there.

 

'These offices were broken into during the weekend,

sir. Mrs Adams here discovered it when she arrived

early for work, and she called us in.'

 

'What does it matter? It doesn't matter now,' the lady

said, growing paler.

 

'There's a-good deal of mess,' the policeman went on,

'and Mrs Adams doesn't know what's been stolen. We

were waiting for your brother to tell uS.'

 

'Oh dear, oh dear,' said Annette, gulping.

 

'Is there anyone else here?' I asked her. 'Someone

who could get you a cup of tea?' Before you faint, I

thought, but didn't say it.

 

She nodded a fraction, glancing at a door behind the

desk, and I swung over there and tried to open it. It

wouldn't open: the knob wouldn't turn.

 

'It's electronic,' Annette said weakly. 'You have to

put in the right numbers . . .' She flopped her head back

against the chair and said she couldn't remember what

today's number was; it was changed often. She and the

policemen had come through it, it seemed, and let it

swing shut behind them.

 

One of the policemen came over and pounded on the

door with his fist, shouting 'Police' very positively which

had the desired effect like a reflex. Without finesse he

told the much younger woman who stood there framed

in the doorway that her boss was dead and that Mrs

Adams was about to pass out and was needing some

strong hot sweet tea, love, like five minutes ago.

 

Wild-eyed, the young woman retreated to spread

more consternation behind the scenes and the policeman

nullified the firm's defences by wedging the electronic

door open, using the chair from behind the

reception desk.

 

I took in a few more details of the surroundings,

beyond my first impression of grey. On the light

greenish-grey of the carpet stood the armchairs in charcoal

and the desk in matt black unpainted and unpolished

wood. The walls, palest grey, were hung with a

series of framed geological maps, the frames black and

narrow and uniform in size. The propped-open door,

and another similar door to one side, still closed, were

painted the same colour as the walls The total effect,

lit by recessed spotlights in the ceiling, looked both

straightforward and immensely sophisticated, a true

representation of my brother.

 

Mrs Annette Adams, still flaccid from too many

unpleasant surprises on a Monday morning, wore a

cream shirt, a charcoal grey skirt and a string of knobbly

pearls. She was dark haired, in her late forties, perhaps,

and from the starkness in her eyes, just beginning to

realize, I guessed, that the upheaval of the present

would be permanent.

 

The younger woman returned effectively with a scarlet

steaming mug and Annette Adams sipped from it

obediently for a while, listening to the policemen telling

me that the intruder had not come in this way up the

front lift, which was for visitors, but up another lift at

the rear of the building which was used by the staff of

all floors of offices, and for freight. That lift went down

into a rear lobby which, in its turn, led out to the yard

where cars and vans were parked: where Brad was presumably

waiting at that moment.

 

The intruder had apparently ridden to the tenth

floor, climbed some service stairs to the roof, and by

some means had come down outside the building to the

eighth floor, where he had smashed a window to let

himself in.

 

'What sort of means?' I asked.

 

'We don't know, sir. Whatever it was, he took it with

him Maybe a rope.' He shrugged. 'We've had only a

quick preliminary look around up there. We wanted to

know what's been stolen before we... er... See, we

don't want to waste our time for nothing.'

 

I nodded. Like Greville's stolen shoes, I thought.

 

'This whole area round Hatton Garden is packed

with the jeWel trade. We get break-ins, or attempted

break-ins, all the time.'

 

The other policeman said, 'This place here is loaded

with stones, of course, but the vault's still shut and Mrs

Adams says nothing seems to be missing from the other

stock-rooms. Only Mr Franklin has a key to the vault

which is where their more valuable faceted stones are

kept.'

 

Mr Franklin had no keys at all. Mr Franklin's keys

were in my own pocket. There was no harm, I supposed,

in producing them.

 

The sight of what must have been a familiar bunch

brought tears to Annette Adams's eyes. She put down

the mug, searched around for a tissue and cried, 'He

really is dead, then,' as if she hadn't thoroughly believed

it before.

 

When she'd recovered a little I asked her to point

out the vault key, which proved to be the longest and

slenderest of the lot, and shortly afterwards we were all

walking through the propped-open door and down a

central corridor with spacious offices opening to either

side. Faces showing shock looked out at our passing. We

stopped at an ordinary-looking door which might have

been mistaken for a cupboard and certainly looked

nothing like a vault.

 

'That's it,' Annette Adams insisted, nodding; so I slid

the narrow key into the small ordinary keyhole, and

found that it turned unexpectedly anti-clockwise. The

thick and heavy door swung inwards to the right under

pressure and a light came on automatically, shining in

what did indeed seem exactly like a large walk-in cupboard,

with rows of white cardboard boxes on several

plain white-painted shelves stretching away along the

left-hand wall.

 

Everyone looked in silence. Nothing seemed to have

been disturbed.

 

'Who knows what should be in the boxes?' I asked,

and got the expected answer: my brother.

 

I took a step into the vault and took the lid off one

of the nearest boxes which bore a sticky label saying

MgA12O4, Burma. Inside the box there were about a

dozen glossy white envelopes, each taking up the whole

width. I lifted one out to open it.

 

'Be careful!' Annette Adams exclaimed, fearful of

my clumsiness as I balanced on the crutches. 'The packets

unfold.'

 

I handed to her the one I held, and she unfolded it

carefully on the palm of her hand. Inside, cushioned by

white tissue, lay two large red translucent stones, cut

and polished, oblong in shape, almost pulsing with

intense colour under the lights.

 

'Are they rubies?' I asked, impressed.

 

Annette Adams smiled indulgently. 'No, they're

spinel. Very fine specimens. We rarely deal in rubies.'

 

'Are there any diamonds in here?' one of the policemen

asked.

 

'NO we don't deal in diamonds. Almost never.'

 

I asked her to look into some of the other boxes,

which she did, first carefully folding the two red stones

into their packet and restoring them to their right place.

We watched her stretch and bend, tipping up random

lids on several shelves to take out a white packet here

and there for inspection, but there were clearly no dismaying

surprises, and at the end she shook her head and

said that nothing at aLL was missing, as far as she could

see.

 

'The real value of these stones is in quantity,' she

said. 'Each individual stone isn't worth a fortune. We

sell stones in tens and hundreds . . .' Her voice trailed

off into a sort of forlornness. 'I don't know what to do,'

she said, 'about the orders.'

 

The policemen weren't affected by the problem. If

nothing was missing, they had other burglaries to look

into, and they would put in a report, but goodbye for

now, or words to that effect.

 

When they'd gone, Annette Adams and I stood in

the passage and looked at each other.

 

'What do I do?' she said. 'Are we still in business?'

 

I didn't like to tell her that I hadn't the foggiest

notion. I said, 'Did Greville have an office?'

 

'That's where most of the mess is,' she said, turning

away and retracing her steps to a large corner room

near the entrance lobby. 'In here.'

 

I followed her and saw what she meant about mess.

The contents of every wide-open drawer seemed to be

out on the floor, most of it paper. Pictures had been

removed from the walls and dropped. One filing cabinet

lay on its side like a fallen soldier. The desk top was a

shambles.

 

'The police said the burglar was looking behind the

pictures for a safe. But there isn't one . . . just the vault.'

She sighed unhappily. 'It's all so pointless.'

 

I looked around. 'How many people work here

altogether?' I said.

 

'Six of us. And Mr Franklin, of course.' She

swallowed. 'Oh dear.' .;

 

'Mm,' I agreed. 'Is there anywhere I can meet

everyone?'

 

She nodded mutely and led the way into another

large office where three of the others were already gathered,

wide-eyed and rudderless. Another two came

when called; four women and two men, all worried and

uncertain and looking to me for decisions.

 

Greville, I perceived, hadn't chosen potential leaders

 

to work around him. Annette Adams herself was no

aggressive waiting-in-the-wings manager but a true

second-in-command, skilled at carrying out orders,

incapable of initiating them. Not so good, all things

considered.

 

I introduced myself and described what had happened

to Greville.

 

They had liked him, I was glad to see. There were

tears on his behalf I said that I needed their help

because there were people I ought to notify about his

death, like his solicitor and his accountant, for instance,

and his closest friends, and I didn't know who they were.

I would like, I said, to make a list, and sat beside one of

the desks, armIng myself with paper and pen.

 

Annette said she would fetch Greville's address book

from his office but after a while reTuRNed in frustration:

in all the mess she couldn't find it.

 

'There must be other records,' I said. 'What about

that computer?' I pointed across the room. 'Do you

have addresses on that?'

 

The girl who had brought the tea brightened a good

deal and informed me that this was the stock control

room, and the computer in question was programmed

to record 'stock in, stock out', statements, invoices and

accounts But, she said encouragingly, in her other

domain across the corridor there was another computer

which she used for letters She was out of the door by

the end of the sentence and Annette remarked that

June was a whirlwind always

 

June, blonde, long-legged, flat-chEsted, came back

with a fast print-out of Greville's ten most frequent

correspondents (ignoring customers) which included

not only the lawyers and the accountants but also the

bank, a stockbroker and an insurance company.

 

'Terrific,' I said. 'And could one of you get through to

the big credit card companies, and see if Greville was a

customer of theirs and say his cards have been stolen,

and he's dead.' Annette agreed mouRNfully that she

would do it at once.

 

I then asked if any of them knew the make and

number of Greville's car. They all did. It seemed they

saw it every day in the yard. He came to work in a tenyear-

old Rover 3500 without radio or cassette player

because the Porsche he'd owned before had been

broken into twice and finally stolen altogether.

 

'The old car's still bursting with gadgets, though,' the

younger of the two men said, 'but he keeps them all

locked in the boot.'

 

Greville had always been a sucker for gadgets, full of

enthusiasm for the latest fidgety way of performing an

ordinary task. He'd told me more about those toys of

his, when we'd met, than ever about his own human

relationships

 

'Why did you ask about his car?' the young man said.

He had rows of badges attached to a black leather

jacket and orange spiky hair set with gel. A need to

prove he existed, I supposed.

 

'It may be outside his front door,' I said. 'Or it may

be parked somewhere in Ipswich.'

 

'Yeah,' he said thoughtfully. 'See what you mean.'

The telephone rang on the desk beside me, and

Annette after a moment's hesitation came and picked

up the receiver. She listened with a worried expression

and then, covering the mouthpiece, asked me, 'What

shall I do? It's a customer who wants to give an order.'

 

'Have you got what he wants?' I asked.

 

'Yes, we're sure to have.'

 

'Then say it's OK.'

 

'But do I tell him about Mr Franklin?'

 

'No,' I said instinctively, 'just take the oRder.'

 

She seemed glad of the direction and wrote down the

list, and when She'd disconnected I suggested to them

all that for that day at least they should take and send

out orders in the normal way, and just say if asked

that Mr Franklin was out of the offIce and couldn't be

reached. We wouldn't start telling people he was dead

until after I'd talked to his lawyers, accountants, bank

and the rest, and found out our legal position. They

were relieved and agreed without demur, and the older

man asked if I would soon get the broken window fixed,

as it was in the packing and despatch room, where he

worked.

 

With a feeling of being sucked feet first into quicksand

I said I would try. I felt I didn't belong in that place

or in those people's lives, and all I knew about the

jewellery business was where to find two red stones in a

box marked MgA12O4, Burma.

 

At the fourth try among the Yellow Pages I got a

promise of instant action on the window and after that,

with office procedure beginning to tick over again all

around me, I put a call through to the lawyers.

 

They were grave, they were sympathetic, they were

at my service. I asked if by any chance Greville had

made a will, as specifically I wanted to know if he

had left any instructions about cremation or burial, and

if he hadn't, did they know of anyone I should consult,

or should I make whatever arrangements I thought

best.

 

There was a certain amount of clearing of throats and

a promise to look up files and call back, and they kept

their word almost immediately, to my surprise.

 

My brother had indeed left a will: they had drawn it

up for him themselves three years earlier. They couldn't

swear it was his last will, but it was the only one they

had. They had consulted it. Greville, they said, pedantically,

had expressed no preference as to the disposal of

his remains

 

'Shall I just . . . go ahead, then?'

 

'Certainly,' they said. 'You are in fact named as your

brother's sole executor. It is your duty to make the

decisions.'

 

Hell, I thought, and I asked for a list of the beneficiaries

so that I could notify them of the death and invite

them to the funeral.

 

After a pause they said they didn't normally give out

that information on the telephone. Could I not come to

their office? It was just across the City, at Temple.

 

'I've broken an ankle,' I said, apologetically. 'It takes

me all my time to cross the room.'

 

Dear, dear, they said. They consulted among themselves

in guarded whispers and finally said they supposed

there was no harm in my knowing. Greville's

will was extremely simple; he had left everything he

possessed to Derek Saxony Franklin, his brother. To my

good self, in fact.

 

'What?' I said stupidly. 'He can't have.'

 

He had written his will in a hurry, they said, because

he had been flying off to a dangerous country to buy

stones. He had been persuaded by the lawyers not to go

intestate, and he had given in to them, and as far as they

knew, that was the only will he had ever made.

 

'He can't have meant it to be his last,' I said blankly.

 

Perhaps not, they agreed: few men in good health

expected to die at fifty-three. They then discussed probate

procedures discreetly and asked for my instructions,

and I felt the quicksands rising above my knees.

 

'Is it legal,' I asked, 'for this business to go on running,

for the time being?'

 

They saw no impediment in law. Subject to probate,

and in the absence of any later will, the business would

be mine. If I wanted to sell it in due course, it would be

in my own interest to keep it running. As my brother's

executor it wouLD also be my duty to do my best for the

estate. An interesting situation, they said with humour.

 

Not wholeheartedly appreciating the subtlety, I

asked how long probate would take.

 

Always difficult to forecast, was the answer. Anything

between six months or two years, depending on

the complexity of Greville's affairs.

 

'Two years!'

 

More probably six months, they murmured soothingly.

The speed would depend on the accountants and

the Inland Revenue, who could seldom be hurried. It

was in the lap of the gods.

 

I mentioned that there might be work to do over

claiming damages for the accident. Happy to see to it,

they said, and promised to contact the Ipswich police.

Meanwhile, good luck.

 

I put the receiver down in sinking dismay. This business,

like any other, might run on its own impetus for

two weeks, maybe even for four, but after that . . . After

that I would be back on horses, trying to get fit again to

race.

 

I would have to get a manager, I thought vaguely,

and had no idea where to start looking. Annette Adams

with furrows of anxiety across her forehead asked if it

would be all right to begin clearing up Mr Franklin's

office, and I said yes, and thought that her lack of drive

could sink the ship.

 

Please would someone, I asked the world in general,

mind going down to the yard and telling the man in my

car that I wouldn't be leaving for two or three hours;

and June with her bright face whisked out of the door

again and soon returned to relate that my man would

lock the car, go on foot for lunch, and be back in good

time to wait for me.

 

'Did he say all that?' I asked curiously.

 

June laughed. 'Actually he said, "Right. Bite to eat,"

and off he stomped.'

 

She asked if I would like her to bring me a sandwich

when she went out for her own lunch and, surprised and

grateful, I accepted.

 

'Your foot hurts, doesn't it?' she said judiciously.

 

'Mm.'

 

'You should put it up on a chair.'

 

She fetched one without ado and placed it in front of

me, watching with a motherly air of approVal as I lifted

my leg into place. She must have been all of twenty, I

thought.

 

A telephone rang beside the computer on the far side

of the room and she went to answer it.

 

'Yes, sir, we have everything in stock. Yes, sir, what

size and how many? A hundred twelve-by-ten millimetre

ovals . . . yes . . . yes . . . yes.'

 

She tapped the lengthy order rapidly straight on to

the computer, not writing in longhand as Annette had

done.

 

'Yes sir, they will go off today. Usual terms, sir, of

course.' She put the phone down, printed a copy of the

order and laid it in a shallow wire tray. A fax machine

simultaneously clicked on and whined away and

switched off with little shrieks, and she tore off the

emergent sheet and tapped its information also into

the computer, making a print-out and putting it into the

tray.

 

'Do you fill all the orders the day they come in?' I

asked.

 

'Oh, sure, if we can. Within twenty-four hours without

fail. Mr Franklin says speed is the essence of good

business I've known him stay here all evening by himself

packing parcels when we're swamped.'

 

She remembered with a rush that he would never

come back. It did take a bit of getting used to. Tears

welled in her uncontrollably as they had earlier, and she

stared at me through them, which made her blue eyes

look huge.

 

'You couldn't help liking him,' she said. 'Working

with him, I mean.'

 

I felt almost jealous that she'd known Greville better

than I had; yet I could have known him better if I'd

tried. Regret stabbed in again, a needle of grief.

 

Annette came to announce that Mr Franklin's room

was at least partially clear so I transferred myself into

there to make more phone calls in comparative privacy.

I sat in Greville's black leather swivelling chunk of

luxury and put my foot on the typist's chair June carried

in after me, and I surveyed the opulent carpet, deep

armchairs and framed maps as in the lobby, and

smoothed a hand over the grainy black expanse of the

oversized desk, and felt like a jockey, not a tycoon.

 

Annette had picked up from the floor and assembled

at one end of the desk some of the army of gadgets,

most of them matt black and small, as if miniaturization

were part of the attraction. Easily identifiable at a

glance were battery-operated things like pencil sharpener,

hand-held copier, printing calculator, dictionarythesaurus,

but most needed investigation. I stretched

out a hand to the nearest and found that it was a casing

with a dial face, plus a head like a microphone on a lead.

 

'What's this?' I asked Annette who was picking up a

stack of paper from the far reaches of the floor. 'Some

sort of meter?'

 

She flashed a look at it. 'A Geiger counter,' she said

matter-of-factly, as if everyone kept a Geiger counter

routinely among their pens and pencils.

 

I flipped the switch from off to on, but apart from a

couple of ticks, nothing happened.

 

Annette paused, sitting back on her heels as she

knelt among the remaining clutter.

 

'A lot of stones change colour for the better under

gamma radiation,' she said. 'They're not radioactive

afterwards, but Mr Franklin was once accidentally sent

a batch of topaz from Brazil that had been irradiated

in a nuclear reactor and the stones were bordering on

dangerous. A hundred of them. There was a terrible lot

of trouble because, apart from being unsaleable, they

had come in without a radioactivity import licence, or

something like that, but it wasn't Mr Franklin's fault, of

course. But he got the Geiger counter then.' She

paused. 'He had an amazing flair for stones, you know.

He just felt there was something wrong with that topaz.

Such a beautiful deep blue they'd made it, when it must

have been almost colourless to begin with. So he sent a

few of them to a lab for testing.' She paused again. 'He'd

just been reading about some old diamonds that had

been exposed to radium and turned green, and were as

radioactive as anything . . .'

 

Her face crumpled and she blinked her eyes rapidly,

turning away from me and looking down to the floor so

that I shouldn't see her distress. She made a great fuss

among the papers and finally, with a sniff or two, said

indistinctly, 'Here's his desk diary,' and then, more

slowly, 'That's odd.'

 

'What's odd?'

 

'October's missing.'

 

She stood up and brought me the desk diary, which

proved to be a largish appointments calendar showing a

week at a glance. The month on current display was

November, with a few of the daily spaces filled in but

most of them empty. I flipped back the page and came

next to September.

 

'I expect October's still on the floor, torn off,' I said.

 

She shook her head doubtfully, and in fact couldn't

find it.

 

'Has the address book turned up?' I asked.

 

'No.' She was puzzled. 'It hasn't.'

 

'Is anything else missing?'

 

'I'm not really sure.'

 

It seemed bizarre that anyone should risk breaking

in via the roof simply to steal an address book and

some pages from a desk diary. Something else had to be

missing.

 

Ihe Yellow-Pages glaziers arrived at that point, putting

a stop to my speculation. I went along with them to

the packing room and saw the efficient hole that had

been smashed in the six-by-four-foot window. All the

glass that must have been scattered over every surface

had been collected and swept into a pile of dagger-sharp

glittering triangles, and a chill breeze ruffled papers in

clipboards.

 

'You don't break glass this quality by tapping it with

a fingernail,' ane of the workmen said knowledgeably,

picking up a piece. 'They must have swung a weight

against it, like a wrecking ball.'

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

While the workmen measured the window frame, I

watched the oldest of Greville's employees take transparent

bags of beads from one cardboard box, insert

them into bubble-plastic sleeves and stack them in

another brown cardboard box. When all was transferred

he put a list of contents on top, crossed the flaps

and stuck the whole box around with wide reinforced

tape.

 

'Where do the beads come from?' I asked.

 

'Taiwan, I dare say,' he said briefly, fixing a large

address label on the top.

 

'No . . . I meant, where do you keep them here?'

 

He looked at me in pitying astonishment, a whitehaired

grandfatherly figure in storemen's brown overalls. '

In the stock-rooms, of course.'

 

'Of course.'

 

'Down the hall,' he said.

 

I went back to Greville's office and in the interests of

good public relations asked Annette if she would show

me the stock-rooms. Her heavyish face lightened with

pleasure and she led the way to the far end of the

corridor.

 

'In here,' she said with obvious pride, passing through

a central doorway into a small inner lobby, 'there are

four rooms.' She pointed through open doorways. 'In

there, mineral cabochons, oval and round; in there,

beads; in there, oddities, and in there, organics.'

 

'What are organics?' I asked.

 

She beckoned me forward into the room in question,

and I walked into a windowless space lined from floor

to shoulder height with column after column of narrow

grey metal drawers, each presenting a face to the world

of about the size of a side of a shoebox. Each drawer,

above a handle, bore a label identifying what it contained.

 

'

Organics are things that grow,' Annette said

patiently, and I reflected I should have worked that

out for myself. 'Coral, for instance.' She pulled open a

nearby drawer which proved to extend lengthily backwards,

and showed me the contents: clear plastic bags,

each packed with many strings of bright red twiglets.

'Italian,' she said. 'The best coral comes from the Mediterranean.'

She closed that drawer, walked a few paces,

pulled open another. 'Abalone, from abalone shells.'

Another: 'Ivory. We still have a little, but we can't sell

it now.' Another: 'Mother of pearl. We sell tons of it.'

'Pink mussel.' 'Freshwater pearls.' Finally, 'Imitation

pearls. Cultured pearls are in the vault.'

 

Everything, it seemed, came in dozens of shapes and

sizes. Annette smiled at my bemused expression and

invited me into the room next door.

 

Floor to shoulder height metal drawers, as before,

not only lining the walls this time but filling the centre

space with aisles, as in a supermarket.

 

'Cabochons, for setting into rings, and so on,'

Annette said. 'They're in alphabetical order.'

 

Amethyst to turquoise via garnet, jade, lapis lazuli

and onyx, with dozens of others I'd only half heard

of. 'Semi-precious,' Annette said briefly. 'All genuine

stones. Mr Franklin doesn't touch glass or plastic.' She

stopped abruptly. Let five seconds lengthen. 'He didn't

touch them,' she said lamely.

 

His presence was there strongly, I felt. It was almost

as if he would walk through the door, all energy, saying

'Hello, Derek, what brings you here?' and if he seemed

alive to me, who had seen him dead, how much more

physical he must still be to Annette and June.

 

And to Lily too, I supposed. Lily was in tjhe third

stock-room pushing a brown cardboard box around on

a thing like a tea-trolley, collecting bags of strings of

beads and checking them against a list. With her centreparted

hair drawn back into a slide at her neck, with her

small pale mouth and rounded cheeks, Lily looked like

a Charlotte Bronte governess and dressed as if immolation

were her personal choice. The sort to love the

master in painful silence, I thought, and wondered what

she'd felt for Greville.

 

Whatever it was, she wasn't letting it show. She raised

downcast eyes briefly to my face and at Annette's

prompting told me she was putting together a consignment

of rhodonite, jasper, aventurine and tiger eye, for

one of the largest firms of jewellery manufacturers.

 

'We import the stones,' Annette said. 'We're wholesalers.

We sell to about three thousand jewellers, maybe

more. Some are big businesses. Many are small ones.

We're at the top of the semi-precious trade. Highly

regarded.' She swallowed. 'People trust us.'

 

Greville, I knew, had travelled the world to buy the

stones. When we'd met he'd often been on the point of

departing for Arizona or Hong Kong or had just

returned from Israel, but he'd never told me more than

the destinations. I at last understood what he'd been

doing, and realized he couldn't easily be replaced.

 

Depressed, I went back to his office and telephoned

to his accountant and his bank.

 

They were shocked and they were helpful, impressively

so. The bank manager said I would need to call on

him in the morning, but Saxony Franklin, as a limited

company, could go straight on functioning. I could take

over without trouble. All he would want was confirmation

from my brother's lawyers that his will was as I

said.

 

'Thank you very much,' I said, slightly surprised, and

he told me warmly he was glad to be of service.

Greville's affairs, I thought with a smile, must be amazingly

healthy.

 

To the insurance company, also, my brother's death

seemed scarcely a hiccup. A limited company's

insurance went marching steadily on, it seemed: it was

the company that was insured, not my brother. I said I

would like to claim for a smashed window. No problem.

They would send a form.

 

After that I telephoned to the Ipswich undertakers

who had been engaged to remove Greville's body from

the hospital, and arranged that he should be cremated.

They said they had 'a slot' at two o'clock on Friday:

would that do? 'Yes,' I said, sighing. 'I'll be there.' they

gave me the address of the crematorium in a hushed

obsequious voice, and I wondered what it must be like

to do business always with the bereaved. Happier by

far to sell glittering baubles to the living or to ride jumpracing

horses at thirty miles an hour, win, lose or break

your bones.

 

I made yet another phone call, this time to the orthopaedic

surgeon, and as usual came up against the barrier

of his receptionist. He wasn't in his own private consulting

rooms, she announced, but at the hospital. j

 

I said,'Could you ask him to leave me a prescription

somewhere, because I've fallen on my ankle and twisted

it. and I'm running out of Distalgesic.'

 

Hold on,' she said, and I held until she returned.

'I've spoken to trim,' she said. 'He'll be back here later.

He says can you be here at five?'

 

I said gratefully that I could, and reckoned that I'd

have to leave soon after two-thirty to be sure of making

it. I told Annette, and asked what they did about locking

up.

 

'Mr Franklin usually gets here first and leaves last.'

She stopped, confused. 'I mean . .

 

'I know,' I said. 'It's all right. I think of him in the

present tense too. So go on.'

 

'Well, the double front doors bolt on the inside. Then

the door from the lobby to the offices has an electronic

bolt, as you know. So does the door from the corridor to

the stock-rooms. So does the rear door, where we all

come in and out. Mr Franklin changes. .. changed. . .

the numbers at least every week. And there's another

electronic lock, of course, on the door from the lobby to

the showroom, and from the corridor into the

showroom. . .' She paused. 'It does seem a lot, I know,

but the electronic locks are very simple, really. You only

have to remember three digits. Last Friday they were

five, three, two. They're easy to work. Mr Franklin

installed them so that we shouldn't have too many keys

lying around. He and I both have a key, though, that will

unlock all the electronic locks manually, if we need to.'

 

'So you've remembered the numbers?-I asked.

 

'Oh, yes. It was just, this morning, with everything . . .

they went out of my head.'

 

'And the vault,' I said. 'Does that have any electronics?'

 

'

No, but it has an intricate locking system in that

heavy door, though it looks so simple from the outside.

Mr Franklin always locks . . . Iocked . . . the vault before

he left. When he went away on long trips, he made the

key available to me.'

 

I wondered fleetingly about the awkward phrase, but

didn't pursue it. I asked her instead about the showroom,

which I hadn't seen and, again with pride, she

went into the corridor, programmed a shining brass

doorknob with the open sesame numbers, and ushered

me into a windowed room that looked much like a shop,

with glass-topped display counters and the firm's overall

ambience of wealth.

 

Annette switched on powerful lights and the place

came to life. She moved contentedly behind the counters,

pointing out to me the contents now bright with

illumination.

 

'In here are examples of everything we stock, except

not all the sizes, of course, and not the faceted stones in

the vault. We don't really use the showroom a great

deal, only for new customers mostly, but I like being in

here. I love the stones. They're fascinating. Mr Franklin

says stones are the only things the human race takes

from the earth and makes more beautiful.' Sfie lifted a

face heavy with loss. 'What will happen without him?'

 

'I don't know yet,' I said, 'but in the short term we fill

the orders and despatch them, and order more stock

from where you usually get it. We keep to all the old

routines and practices. OK?'

 

She nodded, relieved at least for the present.

 

'Except,' I added, 'that it will be you who arrives first

and leaves last, if you don't mind.'

'That's all right. I always do when Mr Franklin's

away.'

 

We stared briefly at each other, not putting words to

the obviou$ then she switched off the showroom lights

almost as if it were a symbolic act, and as we left pulled

the self-locking door shut behind us.

 

Back in Greville's office I wrote down for her my

own address and telephone number and said that if she

felt insecure, or wanted to talk, I would be at home all

evening.

 

'I'll come back here tomorrow morning, after I've

seen the bank manager,' I said. 'Will you be all right

until then?'

 

She nodded shakily. 'What do we call you? We can't

call you Mr Franklin, it wouldn't seem right.'

 

'How about Derek?'

 

'Oh no.' She was instinctively against it. 'Would you

mind, say . . . Mr Derek?'

 

'If you prefer it.' It sounded quaintly old-fashioned

to me, but she was happy with it and said she would tell

the others.

 

'About the others,' I said, 'sort everyone out for me,

with their jobs There's you, June, Lily . . .'

 

'June works the computers and the stock control,'

she said. 'Lily fills the orders. Tina, she's a general assistant,

she helps Lily and does some of the secretarial

work. So does June. So do I, actually. We all do what's

needed, really. There are few hard and fast divisions

Except that Alfie doesn't do much except pack up the

orders. It takes him all his time.'

 

'And that younger guy with the spiky orange halo?'

 

'Jason? Don't worry about the hair, he's harmless.

He's our muscles The stones are very heavy in bulk,

you know. Jason shifts boxes fills the stock-rooms, does

odd jobs and hoovers the carpets. He helps Alfie sometimes,

or Lily, if we're busy. Like I said, we all do anything,

whatever's needed. Mr Franklin has never let

anyone mark out a territory.'

 

'His words?'

 

'Yes, of course.'

 

Collective responsibility, I thought. I bowed to my

brother's wisdom. If it worked, it worked. And from the

look of everything in the place, it did indeed work, and I

wouldn't disturb it.

 

I closed and locked the vault door with Greville's key

and asked Annette which of his large bunch overrode

the electronic locks That one, she said, pointing, separating

it. i

 

'What are all the others do you know?'

 

She looked blank. 'I've no idea.'

 

Car, house, whatever. I supposed I might eventually

sort them out. I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring

smile, sketched a goodbye to some of the others and

rode down in the service lift to find Brad out in the yard.

 

'Swindon,' I said. 'The medical centre where we were

on Friday. Would you mind?,

 

'Course not.' positively radiant, I thought.

 

It was an eighty-mile journey, ten miles beyond

home. Brad managed it without further communication

and I spent the time thinking of all the things I hadn't

yet done, like seeing to Greville's house and stopping

delivery of his daily paper, wherever it might come

from, and telling the post office to divert his letters . . .

To hell with it, I thought wearily, why did the damned

man have to die?

 

The orthopod X-rayed and unwrapped my ankle and

tut-tutted. From toes to shin it looked hard, black

and swollen, the skin almost shiny from the stretching.

 

'I advised you to rest it,' he said, a touch crossly.

 

'My brother died . . .' and I explained about the mugging,

and also about having to see to Greville's affairs.

 

He listened carefully, a strong sensible man with

prematurely white hair. I didn't know a jockey who

didn't trust him. He understood our needs and our

imperatives, because he treated a good many of us who

lived in or near the training centre of Lambourn.

 

'As I told you the other day,' he said when I'd

finished, 'you've fractured the lower end of the fibula,

and where the tibia and fibula should be joined, they've

sprung apart. Today, they are further apart. They're now

providing no support at all for the talus, the heel bone.

You've now completely ripped the lateral ligament

which normally binds the ankle together. The whole

joint is insecure and coming apart inside, like a mortise

joint in a piece of furniture when the glue's given way.'

 

'So how long will it take?' I asked.

 

He smiled briefly. 'In a crepe bandage it will hurt for

about another ten days, and after that you can walk on

it. You could be back on a horse in three weeks from

now, if you don't mind the stirrup hurting you, which it

will. About another three weeks after that, the ankle

might be strong enough for racing.'

 

'Good,' I said, relieved. 'Not much worse than

before, then.'

 

'It's worse, but it won't take much longer to mend.'

 

'Fine.'

 

He looked down at the depressing sight. 'If you're

going to be doing all this travelling about, you'd be

much more comfortable in a rigid cast. You could put

your weight on it in a couple of days. You'd have almost

no pain.'

 

'And wear it for six weeks? And get atrophied

muscles?' r

 

'Atrophy is a strong word.' He knew all the same that

jump jockeys needed strong leg muscles above all else,

and the way to keep them strong was to keep them

moving. Inside plaster they couldn't move at all and

weakened rapidly. If movement cost a few twinges, it

was worth it.

 

'Delta-cast is lightweight,' he said persuasively. 'It's a

polymer, not like the old plaster of Paris. It's porous, so

air circulates, and you don't get skin problems. It's good.

And I could make you a cast with a zip in it so you could

take it off for physiotherapy.'

 

'How long before I was racing?'

 

'Nine or ten weeks.'

 

I didn't say anything for a moment or two and he looked

up fast, his eyes bright and quizzical.

 

'A cast, thee?' he said.

 

'No.'

 

He smiled and picked up a roll of crepe bandage. 'Don't fall

on it again in the next month, or you'll be back to square one.'

 

'I'll try not to.'

 

He bandaged it all tight again from just below the knee

down to my toes and back, and gave me another prescription

for Distalgesic. 'No more than eight tablets in twenty-four

hours and not with alcohol.' He said it every time.

 

'Right.'

 

He considered me thoughtfully for a moment and then

rose and went over to a cabinet where he kept packets and

bottles of drugs. He came back tucking a small plastic bag

into an envelope which he held out to me.

 

'I'm giving you something known as DF 1-1 - s. Rather

appropriate, as they're your own initials! I've given you three

of them. They are serious painkillers, and I don't want you to

use them unless something like yesterday happens again.'

OK,' I said, putting the envelope in my pocket. 'Thanks.'

 

'If you take one, you won't feel a thing.' He smiled. 'If you

take two at once, you'll be spaced out, high as a kite. If you

take all three at once, you'll be unconscious. So be warned.'

He paused. 'They are a last resort.'

 

'I won't forget,' I said, 'and I truly am grateful.'

 

Brad drove to a chemist's, took my prescription in, waited for

it to be dispensed, and finished the ten miles home, parking

outside my door.

 

'Same time tomorrow morning?' I asked. 'Back to London.'

 

'Yerss.'

 

'I'd be in trouble without you,' I said, climbing out with his

help. He gave me a brief haunted glance and handed me the

crutches 'You drive great,' I said.

 

He was embarrassed, but also pleased. Nowhere near a

smile, of course, but a definite twitch in the cheeks. He

turned away, ducking my gaze, and set off doggedly towards

his mother.

 

I let myself into the house and regretted the embargo on a

large scotch. Instead, with June's lunchtime sandwich a

distant memory, I refuelled with sardines on toast and icecream

after, which more or less reflected my habitual laziness

about cooking.

 

Then, aligned with icepacks along the sofa, I

telephoned the man in Newmarket who trained

Greville's two racehorses.

 

He picked up the receiver as if he'd been waiting for

it to ring.

 

'Yes?' he said. 'What are they offering?'

 

'I've no idea,' I said. 'Is that Nicholas Loder?'

 

'What? Who are you?' He was brusque and

impatient, then took a second look at things and with

more honey said, 'I beg your pardon, I was expecting

someone else. I'm Loder, yes, who am I talking to?'

 

'Greville Franklin's brother.'

 

'Oh yes?'

 

It meant nothing to him immediately. I pictured him

as I knew him, more by sight than face to face, a big

light-haired man in his forties with enormous presence

and self-esteem to match. Undoubtedly a good-to-great

trainer, but in television interviews occasionally overbearing

and condescending to the interviewer, as I'd

heard he could be also to his owners. Greville kept his

horses with him because the original horse he'd taken as

a bad debt had been in that stable. Nicholas Loder

had bought Greville all his subsequent horses and done

notably well with them, and Greville had assured me

that he got on well with the man by telephone, and that

he was perfectly friendly.

 

The last time I'd spoken to Greville myself on the

telephone he'd been talking of buying another twoyear-

old, saying that Loder would get him one at the

October sales, perhaps.

I explained to Loder that Greville had died and after

the first sympathetic exclamations of dismay he reacted

as I would have expected, not as if missing a close friend

but on a practical business level.

 

'It won't affect the running of his horses,' he said.

'They're owned in any case by the Saxony Franklin

company, not by Greville himself. I can run the horses

still in the company name. I have the company's

Authority to Act. There should be no problem.'

 

'I'm afraid there may be,' I began.

 

'No, no. Dozen Roses runs on Saturday at York. In

with a great chance. I informed Greville of it only a few

days ago. He always wanted to know when they were

running, though he never went to see them.'

 

'The problem is,' I said, 'about my being his brother.

He has left the Saxony Franklin company to me.'

 

The size of the problem suddenly revealed itself to

him forcibly. 'You're not his brother Derek Franklin?

That brother? The jockey?'

 

'Yes. So... could you find out from Weatherby's

whether the horses can still run while the estate is subject

to probate?'

 

'My God,' he said weakly.

 

Professional jockeys, as we both knew well, were not

allowed to own runners in races. They could own other

horses such as brood mares, foals, stallions, hacks, hunters,

show-jumpers, anything in horseshoes; they could

even own racehorses, but they couldn't run them.'

 

'Can you find out?' I asked again.

'I will.' He sounded exasperated. 'Dozen Roses

should trot up on Saturday.'

 

Dozen Roses was currently the better of Greville's

two horses whose fortunes I followed regularly in the

newspapers and on television. A triple winner as a

three-year-old, he had been disappointing at four, but in

the current year, as a five-year-old, he had regained all

his old form and had scored three times in the past

few weeks. A 'trot-up' on Saturday was a reasonabb

expectation.

 

Loder said, 'If Weatherby's give the thumbs down to

the horse running, will you sell it? I'll find a buyer by

Saturday, among my owners.'

 

I listened to the urgency in his voice and wondered

whether Dozen Roses was more than just another trot- r

up, of which season by season he had many. He sounded

 

a lot more fussed than seemed normal.

 

'I don't know whether I can sell before probate,' I

said. 'You'd better find that out, too.'

 

'But if you can, will you?'

 

'I don't know,' I said, puzzled. 'Let's wait and see,

first.'

 

'You won't be able to hang on to him, you know,' he

said, forcefully. 'He's got another season in him. He's

still worth a good bit. But unless you do something like

turn in your licence, you won't be able to run him, and

he's not worth turning in your licence for. It's not as if

he were favourite for the Derby.'

 

'I'll decide during the week.'

 

'But you're not thinking of turning in your licence,

are you?' He sounded almost alarmed. 'Didn't I read in

the paper that you re on the injured list but hope to be

back racing well before Christmas?'

 

'You did read that, yes'

 

'Well, then.' The relief was as indefinable as the

alarm, but came clear down the wires. I didn't understand

any of it. He shouldn't have been so worried.

 

'Perhaps Saxony Franklin could lease the horse to

someone,' I said.

 

'Oh. Ah. To me?' He sounded as if it were the perfect

solution.

 

'I don't know,' I said cautiously. 'We'll have to find

out.'

 

I realized that I didn't totally trust him, and it wasn't

a doubt I'd have felt before the phone call. He was

one of the top five Flat race trainers in the country,

automatically held to be reliable because of his rocksolid

success.

 

'When Greville came to see his horses,' I asked, 'did

he ever bring anyone with him? I'm trying to reach

people he knew, to tell them of his death.'

 

'He never came here to see his horses. I hardly knew

him personally myself, except on the telephone.'

 

'Well, his funeral is on Friday at Ipswich,' I said.

'What if I called in at Newmarket that day, as I'll be

over your way, to see you and the horses and complete

any paperwork that's necessary?'

 

'No,' he said instantly. Then, softening it, 'I always

discourage owners from visiting. They disrupt the stable

routine. I can't make any exceptions If I need you to

sign anything I'll arrange it another way.'

 

'All right,' I agreed mildly, not crowding him into

corners 'I'll wait to hear from you about what Weatherby'

s decide.'

 

He said he would get in touch and abruptly disconnected,

leaving me thinking that on the subject of his

behaviour I didn't know the questions let alone the

answers.

 

Perhaps I had been imagining things: but I knew I

hadn't. One could often hear more nuances in someone'

s voice on the telephone than one could face to

face. When people were relaxed, the lower vibrations of

their voices came over the wires undisturbed; under

stress, the lower vibrations disappeared because the

vocal cords involuntarily tightened. After Loder had

discovered I would be inheriting Dozen Roses, there

had been no lower vibrations at all.

 

Shelving the enigma I pondered the persisting difficulty

of informing Greville's friends. They had to exist, no

one lived in a vacuum; but if it had been the other way

round, I supposed that Greville would have had the

same trouble. He hadn't known my friends either. Our

worlds had scarcely touched except briefly when we

met, and then we had talked a bit about horses, a bit

about gadgets, a bit about the world in general and any

interesting current events

 

He'd lived alone, as I did. He'd told me nothing about

any love life. He'd said merely, 'Bad luck' when three

years earlier I'd remarked that my live-in girlfriend had

gone to live-in somewhere else. It didn't matter, I said.

It had been a mutual agreement, a natural ending. I'd

asked him once about his long-ago divorced wife. 'She

remarried. Haven't seen her since,' was all he'd said.

 

If it had been I that had died, I thought, he would

have told the world I worked in: he'd have told, perhaps,

the trainer I mostly rode for and maybe the racing

papers So I should tell his world: tell the semi-precious

stone fraternity. Annette could do it, regardless of the

absence of Greville's address book, because of June's

computer. The computer made more and more nonsense

of the break-in. I came back to the same conviction:

something else had been stolen, and I didn't know

what.

 

I remembered at about that point that I did have

Greville's pocket diary, even if his desk diary had lost

October, so I went and fetched it from the bedroom

where I'd left it the night before. I thought I might find

friends' names and phone numbers in the addresses

section at the back, but he had been frugal in that

department as everywhere in the slim brown book. I

turned the pages, which were mostly unused, seeing

only short entries like 'R arrives from Brazil' and 'B in

Paris' and 'Buy citrine for P'.

In March I was brought up short. Because it was a

racing diary, the race-meetings to be held on each day

of the year were listed under the day's date. I came to

Thursday 16 March which listed 'Cheltenham'. The

word Cheltenham had been ringed with a ball-point

pen, and Greville had written 'Gold Cup' in the day's

space; and then, with a different pen, he had added the

words 'Derek won it!!'

 

It brought me to sudden tears. I couldn't help it.

 

I longed for him to be alive so I could get to know

him better. I wept for the lost opportunities, the time

wasted. I longed to know the brother who had cared

what I did, who had noted in his almost empty diary

that I'd won one of the top races of the year.

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

There were only three telephone numbers in the

addresses section at the back, all identified merely by

initials. One, NL, was Nicholas Loder's. I tried the other

two, which were London numbers, and got no reply.

 

Scattered through the rest of the diary were three

more numbers. Two of them proved to be restaurants

in full evening flood, and I wrote down their names,

recognizing one of them as the place I'd last dined with

Greville, two or three months back. On 25 July, presumably,

as that was the date on which he'd written the

number. It had been an Indian restaurant, I remembered,

and we had eaten ultra-hot curry.

 

Sighing, I turned the pages and tried a number occurring

on 2 September, about five weeks earlier. It wasn't

a London number, but I didn't recognize the code. I

listened to the bell ringing continuously at the other

end and had resigned myself to another blank when

someone lifted the distant receiver and in a low breathy

voice said, 'Hello?'

'Hello,' I replied. 'I'm ringing on behalf of Greville

Franklin.'

 

'Who?'

 

'Greville Franklin.' I spoke the words slowly and

clearly.

 

'Just a moment.'

 

There was a long uninformative silence and then

someone else clattered on sharp heels up to the receiver

and decisively spoke, her voice high and angry.

 

'How dare you!' she said. 'Don't ever do this again. I

will not have your name spoken in this house.'

 

She put the receiver down with a crash before I could

utter a word, and I sat bemusedly looking at my own

telephone and feeling as if I'd swallowed a wasp.

 

Whoever she was, I thought wryly, she wouldn't want

to send flowers to the funeral, though she might have

been gladdened by the death. I wondered what on earth

Greville could have done to raise such a storm, but that

was the trouble, I didn't know him well enough to make

a good guess

 

Thankful on the whole that there weren't any more

numbers to be tried I looked again at what few entries

he had made, more out of curiosity than looking for

helpful facts.

 

He had noted the days on which his horses had run,

again only with initials. DR, Dozen Roses, appeared

most, each time with a number following, like 300 at 8s,

which I took to mean the amounts he'd wagered at what

odds. Below the numbers he had put each time another

number inside a circle which, when I compared them

with the form book, were revealed as the placings of the

horse at the finish. Its last three appearances, all with 5

in the circle, seemed to have netted Greville respectively

500 at 14s, 500 at Ss, 1000 at 6/4. The trot-up scheduled

for Saturday, I thought, would be likely to be at

odds-on.

 

Greville's second horse, Gemstones appearing

simply as G, had run six times, winning only once but

profitably: 500 at 100/6.

 

All in all, I thought, a moderate betting pattern for

an owner. He had made, I calculated, a useful profit

overall, more than most owners achieved. With his prize

money in addition to offset both the training fees and

the capital cost of buying the horses in the first place, I

guessed that he had come out comfortably ahead, and it

was in the business sense, I supposed, that owning

horses had chiefly pleased him.

 

I flicked casually forward to the end of the book and

in the last few pages headed 'NOTES' came across a lot of

doodling and then a list of numbers.

 

The doodling was the sort one does while listening

on the telephone, a lot of boxes and zig-zags, haphazard

and cries-crossed with lines of shading. On the page

facing, there was an equation: CZ=C x 1.7. I supposed

it had been of sparkling clarity to Greville, but of no use

to me.

 

Overleaf I found the sort of numbers list I kept in my

own diary: passport, bank account, national insurance.

After those, in small capital letters further down the

page, was the single word DEREK. Another jolt, seeing

it again in his writing.

 

I wondered briefly whether, from its placing, Greville

had used my name as some sort of mnemonic, or

whether it was just another doodle: there was no way of

telling. With a sigh I riffled back through the pages

and came to something I'd looked at before, a lightlypencilled

entry for the day before his death. Second

time around, it meant just as little.

 

Koningin Beatrix? he had written. Just the two words

and the question mark. I wondered idly if it were the

name of a hbrse, if he'd been considering buying it; my

mind tended to work that way. Then I thought that

perhaps he'd written the last name first, such as Smith,

Jane, and that maybe he'd been going to Ipswich to

meet a Beatrix Koningin.

 

I returned to the horse theory and got through to the

trainer I rode for, Milo Shandy, who enquired breezily

about the ankle and said would I please waste no time

in coming back.

 

'I could ride out in a couple of weeks,' I said.

 

'At least that's something, I suppose. Get some

massage.'

 

The mere thought of it was painful. I said I would,

not meaning it, and asked about Koningin Beatrix,

spelling it out.

 

'Don't know of any horse called that, but I can find

out for you in the morning. I'll ask Weatherby's if the

name's available, and if they say yes, it means there isn't

a horse called that registered for racing.'

 

'Thanks a lot.'

 

'Think nothing of it. I heard your brother died. Bad

luck.'

 

'Yes . . . How did you know?'

 

'Nicholas Loder rang me just now, explaining your

dilemma and wanting me to persuade you to lease him

Dozen Roses.'

 

'But that's crazy. His ringing you, I mean.'

 

He chuckled. 'I told him so. I told him I could bend

you like a block of teak. He didn't seem to take it in.

Anyway, I don't think leasing would solve anything.

Jockeys aren't allowed to own racing horses, period. If

you lease a horse, you still own it.'

 

'I'm sure you're right.'

 

'Put your shirt on it.'

 

'Loafer bets, doesn't he?' I asked. 'In large amounts?'

 

'So I've heard.'

 

'He said Dozen Roses would trot up at York on

Saturday.'

 

'In that case, do you want me to put a bit on for you?'

 

Besides not being allowed to run horses in races,

jockeys also were banned from betting, but there were

always ways round that, like helpful friends

 

'I don't think so, not this time,' I said, 'but thanks

anyway.'

 

'You won't mind if I do?'

 

'Be my guest. If Weatherby's let it run, that is.'

 

i

'A nice little puzzle,' he said appreciatively. 'Come

over soon for a drink. Come for evening stables.'

 

I would, I said.

 

'Take care.'

 

I put down the phone, smiling at his easy farewell

colloquialism. Jump jockeys were paid not to take care,

on the whole. Not too much care.

 

Milo would be horrified if I obeyed him.

 

In the morning, Brad drove me to Saxony Franklin's

bank to see the manager who was young and bright

and spoke with deliberate slowness, as if waiting for his

clients' intelligence to catch up. Was there something

about crutches, I wondered, that intensified the habit?

It took him five minutes to suspect that I wasn't a

moron. After that he told me Greville had borrowed

a sizeable chunk of the bank's money, and he would be

looking to me to repay it. 'One point five million United

States dollars in cash, as a matter of fact.'

 

'One point five million collars,' I repeated, trying not

to show that he had punched most of the breath out of

me. 'Whatfor?'

 

'For buying diamonds. Diamonds from the DTC of

the CSO are, of course, normally paid for in cash, in

dollars.'

 

Bank managers around Hatton Garden, it seemed,

saw nothing extraordinary in such an exercise.

 

'He doesn't . . . didn't deal in diamonds,' I protested.

'He had decided to expand and, of course, we made

the funds available. Your brother dealt with us for many

years and as you'll know was a careful and conscientious

businessman. A valued client. We have several times

advanced him money for expansion and each time we

have been repaid without difficulty. Punctiliously, in

fact.' He cleared his throat. 'The present loan, taken out

three months ago, is due for repayment progressively

over a period of five years, and of course as the loan was

made to the company, not to your brother personally,

the terms of the loan will be unchanged by his death.'

 

'Yes,' I said.

 

'I understood from what you said yesterday that you

propose to run the business yourself?' He seemed

happy enough where I might have expected a shade of

anxiety. So why no anxiety? What wasn't I grasping?

 

'Do you hold security for the loan?' I asked.

 

'An agreement. We lent the money against the stock

of Saxony Franklin.'

 

'All the stones?'

 

'As many as would satisfy the debt. But,our best

security has always been your brother's integrity and his

business ability.'

 

I said, 'I'm not a gemmologist. I'll probably sell the

business after probate.'

 

He nodded comfortably. 'That might be the best

course. We would expect the Saxony Franklin loan to be

repaid on schedule, but we would welcome a dialogue

with the purchasers.'

He produced papers for me to sign and asked for

extra specimen signatures so that I could put my name

to Saxony Franklin cheques. He didn't ask what experience

I'd had in running a business. Instead, he wished

me luck.

 

I rose to my crutches and shook his hand, thinking of

the things I hadn't said.

 

I hadn't told him I was a jockey, which might have

caused a panic in Hatton Garden. And I hadn't told

him that, if Greville had bought one and a half million

dollars' worth of diamonds, I didn't know where they

were.

 

'Diamonds?' Annette said. 'No. I told you. We never

deal in diamonds.'

 

'The bank manager believes that Greville bought

some recently. From something called the DTC of the

CSO.'

 

'The Central Selling Organization? That's De Beers.

The DTC is their diamond trading company. No, no.'

She looked anxiously at my face. 'He can't have done.

He never said anything about it.'

 

'Well, has the stock-buying here increased over the

past three months?'

 

'It usually does,' she said, nodding. 'The business

always grows. Mr Franklin comes back from world trips

with new stones all the time. Beautiful stones. He can't

resist them. He sells most of the special ones to a jewellery

designer who has several boutiques in places like

Knightsbridge and Bond Street. Gorgeous costume

jewellery, but with real stones. Many of his pieces are

one-offs, designed for a single stone. He has a great

name. People prize some of his pieces like Faberge's.'

 

'Who is he?'

 

'Prospero Jenks,' she said, expecting my awe at least.

 

I hadn't heard of him, but I nodded all the same.

 

'Does he set the stones with diamonds?' I asked.

 

'Yes, sometimes. But he doesn't buy those from

Saxony Franklin.'

 

We were in Greville's office, I sitting in his swivel

chair behind the vast expanse of desk, Annette sorting

yesterday's roughly heaped higgledy-piggledy papers

back into the drawers and files that had earlier contained

them.

 

'You don't think Greville would ever have kept diamonds

in this actual office, do you?' I asked.

 

'Certainly nos.' The idea shocked her. 'He was always

very careful about security.'

 

'So no one who broke in here would expect to find

anything valuable lying about?'

 

She paused with a sheaf of papers in one hand, her

brow wrinkling.

 

'It's odd, isn't it? They wouldn t expect to find anything

valuable lying about in an office if they knew

anything about the jewellery trade. And if they didn't

know anything about the jewellery trade, why pick this

office?'

 

The same old unanswerable question.

 

June with her incongroous motherliness brought in

the typist's chair again for me to put my foot on. I

thanked her and asked if her stock control computer

kept day-to-day tabs on the number and value of all the

polished pebbles in the place.

 

'Goodness, yes,' she said with amusement. 'Dates

and amounts in, dates and amounts out. Prices in, prices

out, profit margin, VAT, tax, you name it, the computer

will tell you what we've got, what it's worth, what sells

slowly, what sells fast, what's been hanging around here

wasting space for two years or more, which isn't much.'

 

'The stone's in the vault as well?'

 

'Sure.'

 

'But no diamonds?'

 

'No, we don't deal in them.' She gave me a bright

incurious smile and swiftly departed, saying over her

shoulder that the Christmas rush was still going strong

and they'd been bombarded by fax orders overnight.

 

'Who reorders what you sell?' I asked Annette.

 

'I do for ordinary stock. June tells me what we need.

Mr Franklin himself ordered the &ceted stones and

anything unusual.'

 

She went on sorting the papers, basically unconcerned

because her responsibility ended on her way

home. She was wearing that day the charcoal skirt of the

day before but topped with a black sweater, perhaps out

of respect for Greville. Solid in body, but not large, she

had good legs in black tights and a settled, well

groomed, middle-aged air. I couldn't imagine her being

as buoyant as June even in her youth.

 

I asked her if she could lay her hands on the company'

s insurance policy and she said as it happened she

had just refiled it. I read its terms with misgivings and

then telephoned the insurance company. Had my

brother, I asked, recently increased the insurance? Had

he increased it to cover diamonds to the value of one

point five million dollars? He had not. It had been discussed

only. My brother had said the premium asked

was too high, and he had decided against it. The voice

explained that the premium had been high because the

stones would be often in transit, which made them vulnerable.

He didn't know if Mr Franklin had gone ahead

with buying the diamonds It had been an enquiry only,

he thought, three or four months ago. I thanked him

numbly and put down the receiver.

 

The telephone rang again immedi?tely and as

Annette seemed to be waiting for me to do so, I

answered it.

 

'Hello?' I said. j

 

A male voice said, 'Is that Mr Franklin? I want to

speak to Mr Franklin, please.'

 

'Er . . . could I help? I'm his brother.'

 

'Perhaps you can,' he said. 'This is the clerk of the

West London Magistrates Court. Your brother was due

here twenty minutes ago and it is unlike him to be late.

Could you tell me when to expect him?'

 

'Just a minute.' I put my hand over the mouthpiece

and told Annette what I'd just heard. Her eyes widened

and she showed signs of horrified memory.

 

'It's his day for the Bench! Alternate lbesdays. I'd

clean forgotten.'

 

I returned to the phone and explained the situation.

 

'Oh. Oh. How dreadfully upsetting.' He did indeed

sound upset, but also a shade impatient. 'It really would

have been more helpful if you could have alerted me in

advance. It's very short notice to have to find a

replacement.'

 

'Yes,' I agreed,'but this office was broken into during

the weekend. My brother's appointments diary was

stolen, and iA fact we cannot alert anybody not to

expect him.'

 

'How extremely inconvenient.' It didn't seem an

inappropriate statement to him. I thought Greville

might find it inconvenient to be dead. Maybe it wasn't

the best time for black humour.

 

'If my brother had personal friends among the magistrates,'

I said, 'I would be happy for them to get in touch

with me here. If you wouldn't mind telling them.'

 

'I'll do that, certainly.' He hesitated. 'Mr Franklin sits

on the licensing committee. Do you want me to inform

the chairman?'

 

'Yes, please. Tell anyone you can.'

 

He said goodbye with all the cares of the world on his

shoulders and I sighed to Annette that we had better

begin telling everyone else as soon as possible, but the

trade was to expect business as usual.

'What about the papers?' she asked. 'Shall we put it

in The Dmes and so on?'

 

'Good idea. Can you do it?'

 

She said she could, but in fact showed me the paragraph

she'd written before phoning the papers. 'Suddenly,

as the result of an accident, Greville Saxony

Franklin JP, son of . . .' She'd left a space after 'son of'

which I filled in for her: 'the late Lt. Col. and Mrs Miles

Franklin'. I changed 'brother of Derek' to 'brother of

Susan, Miranda and Derek', and I added a few final

words, 'Cremation, Ipswich, Friday'.

 

'Have you any idea,' I asked Annette, 'what he could

have been doing in Ipswich?'

 

She shook her head. 'I've never heard him mention

the place. But then he didn't ever tell me very much

that wasn't business.' She paused. 'He wasn't exactly

secretive, but he never chatted about his private life.'

She hesitated. 'He never talked about you.'

 

I thought of all the times he'd been good company

and told me virtually nothing, and I understood very

well what she meant.

 

'He used to say that the best security was a still

tongue,' she said. 'He asked us not to talk too much

about our jobs to total strangers, and we all know it's

safer not to, even though we don't have precious stones

here. All the people in the trade are security mad and

the diamantaires can be paranoid.'

 

'What,' I said, 'are diamantaires?'

 

'Not what, who,' she said. 'They're dealers in rough

diamonds. They get the stones cut and polished and sell

them to manufacturing jewellers. Mr Franklin always

said diamonds were a world of their own, quite separate

from other gemstones. There was a ridiculous boom

and a terrible crash in world diamond prices during the

eighties and a lot of the diamantaires lost fortunes and

went bankrupt and Mr Franklin was often saying that

they must have been mad to over-extend the way they

had.' She paused. 'You couldn't help but know what was

happening all round us in this area, where every second

business is in gemstones. No one in the pubs and restaurants

talked of much else. So you see, I'm sure the

bank manager must be wrong. Mr Franklin would never

buy diamonds.'

 

If he hadn't bought diamonds, I thought, what the

hell had he done with one point five million dollars in

cash?

 

Bought diamonds. He had to have done. Either that

or the money was still lying around somewhere,

undoubtedly carefully hidden. Either the money or diamonds

to the value were lying around uninsured, and if

my semi-secretive ultra-security-conscious brother had

left a treasure-island map with X marking the precious

spot, I hadn't yet found it. Much more likely, I feared,

that the knowledge had died under the scaffolding. If it

had, the firm would be forfeited to the bank, the last

thing Greville would have wanted.

 

If it had, a major part of the inheritance he'd left me

had vanished like morning mist.

He should have stuck to his old beliefs, I thought

gloomily, and let diamonds strictly alone.

 

The telephone on the desk rang again and this time

Annette answered it, as she was beside it.

 

'Saxony Franklin, can I help you?' she said, and listened. '

No, I'm very sorry, you won't be able to talk to

Mr Franklin personally... Could I have your name,

please?' She listened. 'Well, Mrs Williams, we must

most unhappily inform you that Mr Franklin died as a

result of an accident over the weekend. We are however

continuing in business. Can I help you at all?'

 

She listened for a moment or two in increasing

puzzlement, then said, 'Are you there? Mrs Williams,

can you hear me?' But it seemed as though there was no

reply, and in a while she put the receiver down, frowning. '

Whoever it was hung up.'

 

'Do I gather you don't know Mrs Williams?'

 

'No, I don't.' She hesitated. 'But I think she rang

yesterday, too. I think I told her yesterday that Mr

Franklin wasn't expected in the office all day, like I told

everyone. I didn't ask for her name yesterday. But she

has a voice you don't forget.'

 

'Why not?'

 

'Cut glass,' she said succinctly. 'Like Mr Franklin, but

more so. Like you too, a bit.'

 

I was amused. She herself spoke what I thought of

as unaccented English, though I supposed any way of

speaking sounded like an accent to someone else. I

wondered briefly about the cut-glass Mrs Williams who

had received the news of the accident in silence and

hadn't asked where, or how, or when.

 

Annette went off to her own office to get through to

the newspapers and I picked Greville's diary out of my

trouser pocket and tried the numbers that had been

unreachable the night before. The two at the back of the

book turned out to be first his bookmaker and second

his barber, both of whom sounded sorry to be losing his

custom, though the bookmaker less so because of Greville'

s habit of winning.

 

My ankle heavily ached; the result, I dared say, of

general depression as much as aggrieved bones and

muscle. Depression because whatever decisions I'd

made to that point had been merely common sense, but

there would come a stage ahead when I could make

awful mistakes through ignorance. I'd never before

handled finances bigger than my own bank balance and

the only business I knew anything about was the training

of racehorses, and that only from observation, not

from hands-on experience. I knew what I was doing

around horses: I could tell the spinel from the ruby. In

Greville's world, I could be taken for a ride and never

know it. I could-lose badly before I'd learned even the

elementary rules of the game.

 

Greville's great black desk stretched away to each

side of me, the wide knee-hole flanked to right and left

by twin stacks of drawers, four stacks in all. Most of

them now contained what they had before the break-in,

and I began desultorily to investigate the nearest on the

left, looking vaguely for anything that would prompt me

as to what I'd overlooked or hadn't known was necessary

to be done.

 

I first found not tasks but the toys: the small black

gadgets now tidied away into serried ranks. The Geiger

counter was there, also the hand-held copier and a

variety of calculators, and I picked out a small black

contraption about the size of a paperback book and,

turning it over curiously, couldn't think what it could be

used for.

 

'That's an electric measurer,' June said, coming

breezily into the office with her hands full of paper.

'Want to see how it works?'

 

I nodded and she put it flat on its back on the desk.

'It'll tell you how far it is from the desk to the ceiling,'

she said, pressing knobs. 'There you are, seven feet five

and a half inches. In metres,' she pressed another knob,

'two metres twenty-six centimetres.'

 

'I don't really need to know how far it is to the

celling,' I said.

 

She laughed. 'If you hold it flat against a wall, it

measures how far it is to the opposite wall. Does it in a

flash, as you saw. You don't need to mess around with

tape measures. Mr Franklin got it when he was redesigning

the stock-rooms. And he worked out how much

carpet we'd need, and how much paint for the walls.

This gadget tells you all that.'

 

'You like computers, don't you?' I said.

 

'Love them. All shapes, all sizes.' She peered into the

open drawer. 'Mr Franklin was always buying the tiny

ones.' She picked out a small grey leather slip-cover the

size of a pack of cards and slid the contents onto her

palm. 'This little dilly is a travel guide. It tells you things

like phone numbers for taxis, airlines, tourist information,

the weather, embassies, American Express.' She

demonstrated, pushing buttons happily. 'It's an American

gadget, it even tells you the TV channels and radio

frequencies for about a hundred cities in the US, including

lucson, Arizona, where they hold the biggest gem

fair every February. It helps you with fifty other cities

round the world, places like Tel Aviv and Hong Kong

and Taipei where Mr Greville was always going.'

 

She put the travel guide down and picked up something

else. 'This little round number is a sort of telescope,

but it also tells you how far you are away from

things. It's for golfers. It tells you how far you are away

from the flag on the green, Mr Franklin said, so that you

know which club to use.'

 

'How often did he play golf?' I said. Iooking through

the less than four-inch-long telescope and seeing inside

a scale marked GREEN on the lowest line with diminishing

numbers above, from 200 yards at the bottom to 40

yards at the top. 'He never talked about it much.'

 

'He sometimes played at weekends, I think,' June

said doubtfully. 'You line up the word oREEN with the

actual green, and then the flag stick is always eight feet

high. I think, so wherever the top of the stick is on the

scale, that's how far away you are. He said it was a

good gadget for amateurs like him. He said never to be

ashamed of landing in life's bunkers if you'd tried your

best shot.' She blinked a bit. 'He always used to show

these things to me when he bought them. He knew I

liked them too.' She fished for a tissue and without

apology wiped her eyes.

 

'Where did he get them all from?' I asked.

 

iMail order catalogues, mostly.'

 

I was faintly surprised. Mail order and Greville didn't

seem to go together, somehow, but I was wrong about

that, as I promptly found out.

 

'Would you like to see our own new catalogue?' dune

asked, and was out of the door and back again before I

could remember if I'd ever seen an old one and decide

I hadn't. 'Fresh from the printers,' she said. 'I was just

unpacking them.'

 

I turned the glossy pages of the 50-page booklet,

seeing in faithful colours all the polished goodies I'd

met in the stock-rooms and also a great many of lesser

breeding. Amulets, heart shapes, hoops and butterflies:

there seemed to be no end to the possibilities of adornment.

When I murmured derogatorily that they were a

load of junk, June came fast and strongly to their

defence, a mother-hen whose chickens had been

snubbed.

 

'Not everyone can afford diamonds,' she said sharply,

'and, anyway, these things are pretty and we sell them in

thousands, and they wind up in hundreds of High Street

shops and department stores and I often see people

buying the odd shapes we've had through here. People

do like them, even if they're not your taste.'

 

'Sorry,' I said.

 

ùSome of her fire subsided. 'I suppose I shouldn't

speak to you like that,' she said uncertainly, 'but you're

not Mr Franklin . . .' She stopped with a frown.

 

'It's OK,' I said. 'I am, but I'm not. I know what you

mean.'

 

'Alfie says,' she said slowly, 'that there's a steeplechase

jockey called Derek Franklin.' She looked at my

foot as if with new understanding. 'Champion jockey

one year, he said. Always in the top ten. Is that . . . you?'

 

I said neutrally, 'Yes.'

 

'I had to ask you,' she said. 'The others didn't want

 

'Why not?'

 

'Annette didn't think you could be a jockey. You're

too tall. She said Mr Franklin never said anything about

you being one. All she knew was that he had a brother

he saw a few times a year. She said she was going to

ignore what Alfie thought, because it was most

unlikely.' She paused. 'Alfie mentioned it yesterday,

after you'd gone. Then he said . . . they all said. . . they

didn't see how a jockey could run a business of this sort.

If you were one, that is. They didn't want it to be true, so

they didn't want to ask.'

 

'You tell Alfie and the others that if the jockey

doesn't run the business their jobs will be down the

tubes and they'll be out in the cold before the week's

over.'

 

Her blue eyes widened. 'You sound just like Mr

Franklin!'

 

'And you don't need to mention my profession to the

customers, in case I get the same vote of no confidence

I've got from the staff.'

 

Her lips shaped the word 'Wow' but she didn't quite

say it. She disappeared fast from the room and presently

returned, followed by all the others who were only too

clearly in a renewed state of anxiety.

 

Not one of them a leader. What a pity.

 

I said,'You all look as if the ship's been wrecked and

the lifeboat's leaking. Well, we've lost the captain, and I

agree we're in trouble. My job is with horses and not in

an office. But, like I said yesterday, this business is going

to stay open and thrive. One way or another, I'll see that

it does. So if you'll all go on working normally and

keep the customers happy, you'll be doing yourselves a

favour because if we get through safely you'll all be due

for a bonus. I'm not my brother, but I'm not a fool

either, and I'm a pretty fast learner. So just let's get on

with the orders, and, er, cheer up.'

 

Lily, the Charlotte Bronte lookalike, said meekly,

'We don't really doubt your ability . . .'

 

'Of course we do,' interrupted Jason. He stared at me

with half a snigger, with a suggestion of curling lip. 'Give

us a tip for the three-thirty, then.'

I listened to the street-smart bravado which went

with the spiky orange hair. He thought me easy game.

 

I said, 'When you are personally able to ride the

winner of any three-thirty, you'll be entitled to your

jeer. Until then, work or leave, it's up to you.'

 

There was a resounding silence. Alfie almost smiled.

Jason looked merely sullen. Annette took a deep

breath, and June's eyes were shining with laughter.

 

They all drifted away still wordless and I couldn't tell

to what extent they'd been reassured, if at all. I listened

to the echo of my own voice saying I wasn't a fool,

and wondering ruefully if it were true: but until the

diamonds wEre found or I'd lost all hope of finding

them, I thought it more essential than ever that Saxony

Franklin Ltd should stay shakily afloat. All hands, I

thought, to the pumps.

 

June came back and said tentatively, 'The pep talk

seems to be working.'

 

'Good.'

 

'Alfie gave Jason a proper ticking off, and Jason's

staying.'

 

'Right.'

 

'What can I do to help?'

 

I looked at her thin alert face with its fair eyelashes

and blonde-to-invisible eyebrows and realized that

without her the save-the-firm enterprise would be a

non-starter. She, more than her computer, was at the

heart of things She more than Annette, I thought.

 

'How long have you worked here?' I asked.

'Three years. Since I left school. Don't ask if I like

the job, I love it. What can I do?'

 

'Look up in your computer's memory any reference

to diamonds,' I said.

 

She was briefly impatient. 'I told you, we don't deal

in diamonds.'

 

'All the same, would you?'

 

She shrugged and was gone. I got to my feet - foot and

followed her, and watched while she expertly

tapped her keys.

 

'Nothing at all under diamonds,' she said finally.

'Nothing. I told you.

 

'Yes.' I thought about the boxes in the vault with the

mineral information on the labels 'Do you happen to

know the chemical formula for diamonds?'

 

'Yes, I do,' she said instantly. 'It's C. Diamonds are

pure carbon.'

 

'Could you try again, then, under C?'

 

She tried. There was no file for C.

 

'Did my brother know how to use this computer?' I

asked.

 

'He knew how to work all computers. Given five

minutes or so to read the instructions.'

 

I pondered, staring at the blank unhelpful screen.

 

'Are there,' I asked eventually, 'any secret files in

 

this?'

 

She stared. 'We never use secret files.'

 

'But you could do?'

 

'Of course. Yes. But we don't need to.'

 

'If,' I said, 'there were any secret files, would you

know that they were there?'

 

She nodded briefly. 'I wouldn't know, but I could find

out.'

 

'How?' I asked. 'I mean, please would you?'

 

'What am I looking for? I don't understand.'

 

'Diamonds'

 

'But I told you, we don't .

 

'I know,' I said, 'but my brother said he was going to

buy diamonds and I need to know if he did. If there's

any chance he made a private entry on this computer

some day when he was first or last in this office, I need

to find it.'

 

OK

 

She shook her head but tapped away obligingly,

bringing what she called menus to the screen. It seemed

a fairly lengthy business but finally, frowning, she found

something that gave her pause. Then her concentration

increased abruptly until the screen was showing the

word 'Password?' as before.

 

'I don't understand,' she said. 'We gave this computer

a general password which is Saxony, though we almost

never use it. But you can put in any password you like

on any particular document to supersede Saxony. This

entry was made only a month ago. The date is on the

menu. But whoever made it didn't use Saxony as

the password. So the password could be anything. Literally

any word in the world.'

 

I said, By documen' you mean file?'

 

'Yes, file. Every entry has a document name, like. say,

"oriental cultured pearls". If I load "oriental cultured

pearls" onto the screen I can review our whole stock. I

do it all the time. But this document with an unknown

password is listed under pearl in the singular, not pearls

in the plural, and I don't understand it. I didn't put it

there.' She glanced at me. 'At any rate, it doesn't say

diamonds.'

 

'Have another try to guess the password.'

 

She tried Franklin and Greville without result. 'It

could be anything,' she said helplessly.

 

'Try Dozen Roses.'

 

'Why Dozen Roses?' She thought it extraordinary.

 

'Greville owned a horse - a racehorse - with that

name.'

 

'Really? He never said. He was so nice, and awfully

private.'

 

'He owned another horse called Gemstones.'

 

With visible doubt she tried 'Dozen Roses' and then

'Gemstones'. Nothing happened except another insistent

demand for the password.

 

'Try "diamonds", then,' I said.

 

She Tried 'diamonds'. Nothing changed.

 

'You knew him,' I said. 'Why would he enter something

under "pearl"?'

 

'No idea.' She sat hunched over the keys, drumming

her fingers on her mouth. 'Pearl. Pearl. Why pearl?'

 

'What is a pearl?' I said. 'Does it have a formula?'

 

'Oh.' She suddenly sat up straight. 'It's a birthstone.'

 

She typed in 'birthstone', and nothing happened.

Then she blushed slightly.

 

'It's one of the birthstones for the month of June,' she

said. 'I could try it, anyway.'

 

She typed 'June', and the screen flashed and gave up

its secrets.

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

We hadn't found the diamonds.

The screen said:

 

June, if you are reading this, come straight into my

office for a rise. You are worth your weight in your

birthstone, but I'm only offering to increase your

salary by twenty per cent. Regards, Greville

Franklin.

 

'Oh!' She sat transfixed. 'So that's what he meant.'

'explain,' I said.

 

'One morning . . .' She stopped, her mouth screwing

up in an effort not to cry. It took her a while to be able

to continue, then she said, 'One morning he told me

he'd invented a little puzzle for me and he would give

me six months to solve it. After six months it would selfdestruct.

He was smiling so much.' She swallowed. 'I

asked him what sort of puzzle and he wouldn't tell me.

He just said he hoped I would find it.'

 

'Did you look?' I asked.

 

'Of course I did. I looked everywhere in the office,

though I didn't know what I was looking for. I even

looked for a new document in the computer, but I just

never gave a thought to its being filed as a secret, and

my eyes just slid over the word "pearl", as I see it so

often. Silly of me. Stupid.'

 

I said,'I don't think you're stupid, and I'll honour my

brother's promise.'

 

She gave me a swift look of pleasure but shook her

head a little and said, 'I didn't find it. I'd never have

solved it except for you.' She hesitated. 'How about ten

per cent?'

 

'Twenty,'] said firmly. 'I'm going to need your help

and your knowledge, and if Annette is Personal Assistant,

as it says on the door of her office, you can be

Deputy Personal Assistant, with the new salary to go

with the job.'

 

She turned a deeper shade of rose and busied herself

with making a print-out of Greville's instruction, which

she folded and put in her handbag.

 

'I'll leave the secret in the computer,' she said with

misty fondness. 'No one else will ever find it.' She

pressed a few buttons and the screen went blank, and I

wondered how many times in private she would call up

the magic words that Greville had left her.

 

I wondered if they would really self-destruct: if one

could programme something on a computer to erase

itself on a given date. I didn't see why not, but I thought

Greville might have given her strong clues before the

six months were out.

 

I asked her if she would print out first a list of everything

currently in the vault and then as many things as

she thought would help me understand the business

better, like the volume and value of a day's, a week's, a

month's sales; like which items were most popular, and

which least.

 

'I can tell you that what's very popular just now is

black onyx. Fifty years ago they say it was all amber,

now no one buys it. Jewellery goes in and out of fashion

like everything else.' She began tapping keys. 'Give me

a little while and I'll print you a crash course.'

 

'Thanks.' I smiled, and waited while the printer spat

out a gargantuan mouthful of glittering facets. Then I

took the list in search of Annette, who was alone in the

stock-rooms, and asked her to give me a quick canter

round the vault.

 

'There aren't any diamonds there,' she said positively.

 

'

I'd better learn what is.'

 

'You don't seem like a jockey,' she said.

 

'How many do you know?'

 

She stared. 'None, except you.'

 

'On the whole,' I said mildly, 'jockeys are like anyone

else. Would you feel I was better able to manage here if

I were, say, a piano tuner? Or an actor? Or a

clergyman?'

 

She said faintly, 'No.'

 

'OK, then. We're stuck with a jockey. Twist of fate.

Do your best for the poor fellow.'

 

She involuntarily smiled a genuine smile which lightened

her heavy face miraculously. 'All right.' She

paused. 'You're really like Mr Franklin in some ways.

The way you say things. Deal with honour, he said, and

sleep at night.'

 

'You all remember what he said, don't you?'

 

'Of course.'

 

He would have been glad, I supposed, to have left so

positive a legacy. So many precepts. So much wisdom.

But so few signposts to his personal life. No visible

signpost to thE diamonds.

 

In the vault Annette showed me that, besides its

chemical formula, each label bore a number: if I looked

at that number on the list June had printed, I would see

the formula again, but also the normal names of the

stones, with colours, shapes and sizes and country of

origin.

 

'Why did he label them like this?' I asked. 'It just

makes it difficult to find things.'

 

'I believe that was his purpose,' she answered. 'I told

you, he was very security conscious. We had a secretary

working here once who managed to steal a lot of our

most valuable turquoise out of the vault. The labels

read "turquoise" then, which made it easy, but now they

don't.'

 

'What do they say?'

 

She smiled and pointed to a row of boxes. I looked

at the labels and read CuAI6(PO4)4(0H)~ =5(H2O) on

each of them.

 

'Enough to put anyone off for life,' I said.

 

'Exactly. That's the point. Mr Franklin could read

formulas as easily as words, and I've got used to them

myself now. No one but he and I handle these stones in

here. We pack them into boxes ourselves and seal them

before they go to Alfie for despatch.' She looked along

the rows of labels and did her best to educate me. 'We

sell these stones at so much per carat. A carat weighs

two hundred milligrams, which means five carats to a

gram, a hundred and forty-two carats to an ounce and

five thousand carats to the kilo.'

 

'Stop right there,' I begged.

 

'You said you learned fast.'

 

'Give me a day or two.'

 

She nodded and said if I didn't need her any more

she had better get on with the ledgers.

 

Ledgers, I thought, wilting internally. I hadn't even

started on those. I thought of the joy with which I'd

left Lancaster University with a degree in IndePendent

Studies, swearing never again to pore dutifully over

books and heading straight (against my father's written

wishes) to the steeplechase stable where I'd been spending

truant days as an amateur. It was true that at college

I'd LeaRNed fast, because I'd had to, and learned all night

often enough, keeping faith with at least the first half of

my father's letter. He'd hoped I would grow out of the

lure he knew I felt for race-riding, but it was all I'd ever

wanted and I couldn't have settled to anything else.

tHere was no long-term future in it, he'd written,

besides a complete lack of financial security along with

a constant risk of disablement. I ask you to be sensible,

he'd said, to think it through and decide against.

 

Fat chance.

 

I sighed for the simplicity of the certainty I'd felt in

those dayS yet, given a second beginning, I wouldn't

have lived any differently. I had been deeply fulfilled in

racing and grown old in spirit only because of the way

life worked in general. Disappointments, injustices,

small betrayalS they were everyone's lot. I no longer

expected everything to go right, but enough had gone

right to leave me at least in a balance of content.

 

With no feeling that the world owed me anything, I

applied myself to the present boring task of opening

every packet in every box in the quest for little bits of

pure carbon. It wasn't that I expected to find the diamonds

there: it was just that it would be so stupid not to

look, in case they were.

 

I worked methodically, putting the boxes one at a

time on the wide shelf which ran along the right-hand

wall, unfolding the stiff white papers with the soft inner

linings and looking at hundreds of thousands of peridots,

chrysoberylS garnets and aquamarines until my

head spun. I stopped in fact when I'd done only a third

of the stock because apart from the airlessness of the

vault it was physically tiring standing on one leg all

the time, and the crutches got in the way as much as

they helped. I refolded the last of the

XY3Z6[(0,0H,F)4(BO3)3Si6O~3] (tourmaline) and gave

it best.

 

'What did you learn?' Annette asked when I reappeared

in Greville's office. She was in there, replacing

yet more papers in their proper files, a task apparently

nearing completion.

 

'Enough to look at jewellery differently,' I said.

 

She smiled. 'When I read magazines I don't look at

the clothes, I look at the jewellery.'

 

I could see that she would. I thought that I might

also, despite myself, from then on. I might even develop

an affinity with black onyx cufflinks.

 

It was by that time four o'clock in the afternoon of

what seemed a very long day. I looked up the racing

programme in Greville's diary, decided that Nicholas

Loder might well have passed over going to Redcar,

Warwick and Folkestone, and dialled his number. His

secretary answered, and yes, Mr Loder was at home,

and yes, he would speak to me.

 

He came on the line with almost none of the previous

evening's agitation, bass resonances positively throbbing

down the wire.

 

'I've been talking to Weatherby's and the Jockey

Club,' he said easily, 'and there's fortunately no problem.

They agree that before probate the horses belong

to Saxony Franklin Limited and not to you, and they

will not bar them from racing in that name.'

 

'Good,' I said, and was faintly surprised.

 

'They say of course that there has to be at least one

registered agent appointed by the company to be responsible

for the horses, such appointment to be sealed

with the company's seal and registered at Weatherby's.

Your brother appointed both himself and myself as

registered agents, and although he has died I remain

a registered agent as before and can act for the company

on my own.'

 

'Ah,' I said.

 

'Which being so,' Loder said happily, 'Dozen Roses

runs at York as planned.'

 

'And trot, up?'

 

He chuckled. 'Let's hope so.'

 

That chuckle, I thought, was the ultimate in confidence.

 

'

I'd be grateful if you could let Saxony Franklin know

whenever the horses are due to run in the future,' I said.

 

'I used to speak to your brother personally at his

home number. I can hardly do that with you, as you

don't own the horse.'

 

'No,' I agreed. 'I meant, please will you tell the company?

I'll give you the number. And would you ask

for Mrs Annette Adams? She was Greville's second-incommand.'

 

 

He could hardly say he wouldn't, so I read out the

number and he repeated it as he wrote it down.

 

'Don't forget though that there's only a month left of

the Flat season,' he said. 'They'll probably run only once

more each. Two at the very most. Then I'll sell them for

you, that would be best. No problem. Leave it to me.'

 

He was right, logically, but I still illogically disliked

his haste.

 

'As executor, I'd have to approve any sale,' I said,

hoping I was right. 'In advance.'

 

'Yes, yes, of course.' Reassuring heartiness. 'Your

injury,' he said, 'what exactly is it?'

 

'Busted ankle.'

 

'Ah. Bad luck. Getting on well, I hope?' The sympathy

sounded more like relief to me than anything else,

and again I couldn't think why.

 

'Getting on,' I said.

 

'Good, good. Goodbye then. The York race should

be on the television on Saturday. I expect you'll watch

it?'

 

'I expect so.'

 

'Fine.' He put down the receiver in great good

humour and left me wondering what I'd missed.

 

Greville's telephone rang again immediately, and it

was Brad to tell me that he had returned from his day's

visit to an obscure aunt in Walthamstow and was downstairs

in the front hall: all he actually said was, 'I'm

back.'

 

'Great. I won't be long.'

 

I got a click in reply. End of conversation.

 

I did mean to leave almost at once but there were

two more phone calls in fairly quick succession. The first

was from a man introducing himself as Elliot lielawney,

a colleague of Greville's from the West London Magistrates

Court. He was extremely sorry, he said, to hear

about his death, and he truly sounded it. A positive

voice, used to attention: a touch of plummy accent.

 

'Also,' he said, 'I'd like to talk to you about some

projects Greville and I were working on. I'd like to have

his notes.'

 

I said rather blankly, 'What projects? What notes?'

 

'I could explain better face to face,' he said. 'Could I

ask you to meet me? Say tomorrow, early evening, over

a drink? You know that pub just round the corner from

Greville's hoUse? The Rook and Castle? There. He and

I often met there. Five-thirty, six, either of those suit

you?'

 

'Five-thirty,' I said obligingly.

 

'How shall I know you?'

 

'By my crutches.'

 

It silenced him momentarily. I let him off embarrassment.

 

'

They're temporary,' I said.

 

'Er, fine, then. Until tomorrow.'

 

He cut himself-off, and I asked Annette if she knew

him, Elliot Trelawney? She shook her head. She

couldn't honestly say she knew anyone outside the

office who was known to Greville personally. Unless

you counted Prospero Jenks, she said doubtfully. And

even then, she herself had never really met him, only

talked to him frequently on the telephone.

 

'Prospero Jenks . . . alias Faberge?'

'That's The .one.'

 

I thougHt a bit. 'Would you mind phoning him now?'

I said. 'TeLL hiM about Greville and ask if I can go to see

him to disCUSS the future. Just say I'm Greville's brother,

nothing eLSE.'

 

She grinned. 'No horses? Pas de gee-gees?'

 

Annettt I thought in amusement, was definitely

loosening Up.

 

'No hoRSes,- I agreed.

 

She made the call but without results. Prospero Jenks

wouldn't Be Reachable until morning. She would try

then. she Said.

 

I levered myself upright and said I'd see her tomorrow.

She NOdded, taking it for granted that I would be

there. ThE quicksands were winning, I thought. I was

less and leSs able to get out.

 

Going DOWN the passage I stopped to look in on Alfie

whose day's work stood in columns of loaded cardboard

boxes waiting to be entrusted to the post.

 

How Many do you send out every day?' I asked,

gesturing To tHem.

 

He LOOked up briefly from stretching sticky tape

round yet another parcel. 'About twenty, twenty-five

regular, bUt more from August to Christmas.' He cut off

the tape eXpertly and stuck an address label deftly on

the box to, `twenty-eight so far today.'

 

Do YOu bet, Alfie?' I asked. 'Read the racing

 

papers?'

 

He glaNced at me with a mixture of defensiveness

and defiance, neither of which feeling was necessary. 'I

knew you was him,' he said. 'The others said you

couldn't be.'

 

'You know Dozen Roses too?'

 

A tinge of craftiness took over in his expression.

'Started winning again, didn't he? I missed him the first

time, but yes, I've had a little tickle since.'

 

'He runs on Saturday at York, but he'll be odds-on,' I

said.

 

'Will he win, though? Will they be trying with him? I

wouldn't put my shirt on that.'

 

'Nicholas Loder says he'll trot up.'

 

He knew who Nicholas Loder was: didn't need to

ask. With cynicism, he put his just-finished box on some

sturdy scales and wrote the result on the cardboard with

a thick black pen. He must have been well into his

sixties, I thought, with deep lines from his nose to the

corners of his mouth and pale sagging skin everywhere

from which most of the elasticity had vanished. His

hands, with the veins of age beginning to show dark

blue, were nimble and strong however, and he bent to

pick up another heavy box with a supple back. A tough

old customer, I thought, and essentially more in touch

with street awareness than the exaggerated Jason.

 

'Mr Franklin's horses run in and out,' he said pointedly. '

And as a jock you'd know about that.'

 

Before I could decide whether or not he was intentionally

insulting me, Annette came hurrying down the

passage calling my name.

'Derek . . . Oh there you are. Still here, good. There's

another phone call for you.' She about-turned and went

back towards Greville's office, and I followed her, noticing

with interest that she'd dropped the Mister from my

name. Yesterday's unthinkable was today's natural, now

that I was established as a jockey, which was OK as far

as it went, as long as it didn't go too far.

 

I picked up the receiver which was Lying on the black

desk and said,'Hello? Derek Franklin speaking.'

 

A familiar voice said, 'Thank God for that. I've been

trying your Hungerford number all day. Then I remembered

about your brother. . .' He spoke loudly, driven

by urgency.

 

Milo Shandy, the trainer I'd ridden most for during

the past three seasons: a perpetual optimist in the face

of world evidence of corruption, greed and lies.

 

'I've a crisis on my hands,' he bellowed, 'and can you

come over? Will you pull out all stops to come over first

thing in the morning?'

 

'Er, what for?' .

 

'You know the Ostermeyers? They've flown over

from Pittsburgh for some affair in London and they

phoned me and I told them Datepalm is for sale. And

you know that if they buy him I can keep him here,

otherwise I'll lose him because he'll have to go to auction.

And they want you here when they see him work

on the Downs and they can only manage first lot tomorrow.

and they think the sun twinkles out of your backside,

so for God's sake come.'

 

Interpreting the agitation was easy. Datepalm was

the horse on which I'd won the Gold Cup: a seven-yearold

gelding still near the beginning of what with luck

would be a notable jumping career. Its owner had

recently dropped the bombshell of telling Milo she was

leaving England to marry an Australian, and if he could

sell Datepalm to one of his other owners for the astronomical

figure she named, she wouldn't send it to public

auction and out of his yard.

 

Milo had been in a panic most of the time since then

because none of his other owners had so far thought the

horse worth the price, his Gold Cup success having been

judged lucky in the absence through coughing of a

couple of more established stars. Both Milo and I

thought Datepalm better than his press, and I had as

strong a motive as Milo for wanting him to stay in the

stable.

 

'Calm down,' I assured him. 'I'll be there.'

 

He let out a lot of breath in a rush. 'Tell the

Ostermeyers he's a really good horse.'

 

'He is,' I said, 'and I will.'

 

'Thanks, Derek.' His voice dropped to normal decibels. '

Oh, and by the way, there's no horse called

Koningin Beatrix, and not likely to be. Weatherby's

say Koningin Beatrix means Queen Beatrix, as in

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, and they frown on

people naming racehorses after royal persons.'

 

'Oh,' I said. 'Well, thanks for finding out.'

 

'Any time. See you in the morning. For God's sake

don't be late. You know the Ostermeyers get up before

larks.'

 

'What I need,' I said to Annette, putting down the

receiver, 'is an appointments book, so as not to forget

where I've said I'll be.'

 

She began looking in the drawerful of gadgets.

 

'Mr Franklin had an electric memory thing he used

to put appointments in. You could use that for now.' She

sorted through the black collection, but without result.

'Stay here a minute,' she said, closing the drawer, 'while

I ask June if she knows where it is.'

 

She went away busily and I thought about how to

convince the Ostermeyers, who could afford anything

they set their hearts on, that Datepalm would bring

them glory if not necessarily repay their bucks. They

had had steeplechasers with Milo from time to time, but

not for almost a year at the moment. I'd do a great deal,

I thought, to persuade them it was time to come back.

 

An alarm like a digital watch alarm sounded faintly,

muffled, and to begin with I paid it no attentiOn, but as

it persisted I opened the gadget drawer to investigate

and, of course, as I did so it immediately stopped.

Shrugging, I closed the drawer again, and Annette came

back bearing a sheet of paper but no gadget.

 

'June doesn't know where the Wizard is, so I'll make

out a rough calendar on plain paper.'

 

'What's the Wizard?' I asked.

 

'The calculator. Baby computer. June says it does

everything but boil eggs.'

 

'Why do you call it the WIzard?' I asked.

 

'It has that name on it. It's about the size of a paperback

book and it was Mr Franklin's favourite object. He

took it everywhere.' She frowned. 'Maybe it's in his car,

wherever that is'

 

The car. Another problem. 'I'll find the car,' I said,

with more confidence than I felt. Somehow or other I

would have to find the car. 'Maybe the Wizard was

stolen out of this office in the break-in,' I said.

 

She stared at me with widely opening eyes. 'The thief

would have to have known what it was It folds up flat.

You can't see any buttons'

 

'All the gadgets were out on the floor, weren't they?'

 

'Yes' It troubled her. 'Why the address book? Why

the engagements for October? Why the Wizard?'

 

Because of diamonds, I thought instinctively, but

couldn't rationalize it. Someone had perhaps been looking,

as i waS for the treasure map marked X. Perhaps

they'd known it existed. Perhaps they'd found it.

 

'I'll get here a couple of hours later tomorrow,' I said

to Annette. 'And I must leave by five to meet Elliot

Trelawney at five-thirty. So if you reach Prospero Jenks,

ask him if I could go to see him in between. Or failing

that, any time Thursday. Write off Friday because of the

funeral.'

 

Greville died only the day before yesterday, I

thought. It already seemed half a lifetime.

 

Annette said, 'Yes, Mr Franklin,' and bit her lip in

dismay.

 

I half smiled at her. 'Call me Derek. Just plain Derek.

And invest it with whatever you feel.'

 

'It's confusing,' she said weakly, 'from minute to

minute.'

 

'YeS I know.'

 

With a certain relief I rode down in the service lift

and swung across to Brad in the car. He hopped out of

the front seat and shovelled me into the back, tucking

the crutches in beside me and waiting while I lifted my

leg along the padded leather and wedged myself into

the corner for the most comfortable angle of ride.

 

'Home?' he said.

 

'No. Like I told you on the way up, we'll stop in

Kensington for a while, if you don't mind.'

 

He gave the tiniest of nods. I'd provided him in the

morning with a detailed large-scale map of West

London, asking him to work out how to get to the road

where Greville had lived, and I hoped to hell he had

done it, because I was feeling more drained than I cared

to admit and not ready to ride in irritating trafficclogged

circles

 

'Look out for a pub called The Rook and Castle,

would you?' I asked, as we neared the area. 'Tomorrow

at five-thirty I have to meet someone there.'

 

Brad nodded and with the unerring instinct of the

beer drinker quickly found it, merely pointing vigorously

to tell me.

 

'Great,' I said, and he acknowledged that with a

 

wiggle of the shoulders.

 

He drew up so confidently outside Greville's address

that I wondered if he had reconnoitred earlier in the

day, except that his aunt lived theoretically in the

opposite direction. In any case, he handed me the

crutches, opened the gate of the small front garden and

said loquaciously, 'I'll wait in the car.'

 

'I might be an hour or more. Would you mind having

a quick recce up and down this street and those nearby

to see if you can find an old Rover with this number?' I

gave him a card with it on. 'My brother's car,' I said.

 

He gave me a brief nod and turned away, and I

looked up at the tall townhouse that Greville had

moved into about three months previously, and which

I'd never visited. It was creamy-grey, gracefully proportioned,

with balustraded steps leading up to the

black front door, and businesslike but decorative metal

grilles showing behind the glass in every window from

semi-basement to rooF.

 

I crossed the grassy front garden and went up the

steps, and found there were three locks on the front door.

Cursing slightly I yanked out Greville's half-ton of keys

and by trial and error found the way into his fortress.

 

Late afternoon sun slanted yellowly into a long main

drawing room which was on the left of the entrance hall,

throwing the pattern of the grilles in shadows on the

greyish-brown carpet. The walls, pale salmon, were

adorned with vivid paintings of stained-glass cathedral

windows, and the fabric covering sofa and armchairs

was of a large broken herringbone pattern in dark

brown and white, confusing to the eye. I reflected ruefully

that I didn't know whether it all represented

Greville's own taste or whether he'd taken it over from

the past owner. I knew only his taste in clothes, food,

gadgets and horses. Not very much. Not enough.

 

The drawing room was dustless and tidy; unlived in. I

returned to the front hall from where stairs led up and

down, but before tackling those I went through a door

at the rear which opened into a much smaller room

filled with a homely clutter of books, newspapers, magazines,

black leather chairs, clocks, chrysanthemums in

pots, a tray of booze and framed medieval brass rubbings

on deep green walls. This was all Greville, I

thought. This was home.

 

I left it for the moment and hopped down the stairs

to the semi-basement, where there was a bedroom,

unused, a small bathroom and decorator-style dining

room looking out through grilles to a rear garden, with

a narrow spotless kitchen alongside.

 

Fixed to the fridge by a magnetic strawberry was a

note.

 

Dear Mr Franklin,

I didn't know you'd be away this weekend. I

 

brought in the papers, they're in the back room.

 

You didn't leave your laundry out, so I haven't

taken it. Thanks for the money. I'll be back next

 

Tuesday as usual.

 

Mrs P

 

 

I looked around for a pencil, found a ball-point,

pulled the note from its clip and wrote on the back,

asking Mrs P to call the following number (Saxony

Franklin's) and speak to Derek or Annette. I didn't sign

it, but put it back under the strawberry where I supposed

it would stay for another week, a sorry message

in waiting.

 

I looked in the fridge which contained little but

milk, butter, grapes, a pork pie and two bottles of

champagne.

 

Diamonds in the ice cubes? I didn't think he would

have put them anywhere so chancy: besides, he was

security conscious not paranoid.

 

I hauled myself upstairs to the hall again and then

went on up to the next floor where there was a bedroom

and bathroom suite in self-conscious black and white.

Greville had slept there: the built-in cupboards and

drawers held his clothes, the bathroom closet his privacy.

He had been sparing in his possessions, leaving a

single row of shoes several white shirts on hangers six

assorted suits and a rack of silk ties The drawers were

tidy with sweaters, sports shirts underclothes socks

Our mother, I thought with a smile, would have been

proud of him. She'd tried hard and unsuccessfully to

instil tidiness into both of us as children, and it looked

as if we'd both got better with age.

 

There was little else to see. The drawer in the bedside

table revealed indigestion tablets, a torch and a paperback,

John D. MacDonald. No gadgets and no treasure

maps.

 

With a sigh I went into the only other room on that

floor and found it unfurnished and papered with garish

metallic silvery roses which had been half ripped off at

one point. So much for the decorator.

 

There was another flight of stairs going upwards, but

I didn't climb them. There would only be, by the looks

of things, unused rooms to find there, and I thought I

would go and look later when stairs weren't such a

sweat. Anything deeply interesting in that house

seemed likely to be found in the small back sitting

room, so it was to there that I returned.

 

I sat for a while in the chair that was clearly Greville's

favourite, from where he could see the television

and the view over the garden. Places that people

had left for ever should be seen through their eyes I

thought. His presence was strong in that room, and in

me.

 

Beside his chair there was a small antique table with,

on its polished top, a telephone and an aNSwering

machine. A red light for messages received was

shining on the machine, so after a while I pressed a

button marked 'rewind', followed by another marked

'play'.

 

A woman's voice spoke without preamble.

 

'Darling, where are you? Do ring me.'

 

There was a series of between-message clicks, then

the same voice again, this time packed with anxiety.

'Darling, please please ring. i'm very worried. Where

are you, darling? Please ring. I love you.'

 

Again the clicks, but no more messages.

 

Poor lady, I thought. Grief and tears waiting in the

wings.

 

I got up and explored the room more fully, pausing

by two drawers in a table beside the window. They

contained two small black unidentified gadgets which

baffled me and which I stowed in my pockets, and also a

slotted tray containing a rather nice collection of small

bears, polished and carved from shaded pink, brown

and charcoaL stone. I laid the tray on top of the table

beside some chrysanthemums and came next to a box

made of greenish stone, also polished and which, true to

Greville's habit, was firmly locked. Thinking perhaps

that one of the keys fitted it I brought out the bunch

again and began to try the smallest.

 

I was facing the window with my back to the room,

balancing on one foot and leaning a thigh against the

table, my arms out of the crutches, intent on what I was

doing and disastrously unheeding. The first I knew of

anyone else in the house was a muffled exclamation

behind me, and I turned to see a dark-haired woman

coming through the doorway, her wild glance rigidly

fixed on the green stone box. Without pause she came

fast towards me, pulling out of a pocket a black object

like a long fat cigar.

 

I opened my mouth to speak but she brought her

hand round in a strong swinging arc, and in that travel

the short black cylinder more than doubled its length

into a thick silvery flexible stick which crashed with

shattering force against my left upper arm, enough to

stop a heavyweight in round one.

For a moment it didn't seem to reach her. I said

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

My fingers went numb and dropped the box. I swayed

and Spun on the force of the impact and overbalanced,

toppling, thinking sharply that I mustn't this time put

My foot on the ground. I dropped the bunch of keys and

grabbed at the back of an upright black leather chair

With my right hand to save myself, but it turned over

Under mY weight and came down on top of me onto the

carpet in a tangle of chair legs, table legs and crutches,

tHe green box underneath and digging into my back.

 

In a spitting fury I tried to orientate myself and

finally got enough breath for one single choice, charming

and heartfelt word.

 

'BitCh.'

 

She gave me a baleful glare and picked up the telePhone,

pressing three fast buttons.

 

'Police.' she said, and in as short a time as it took the

eMergenCy service to connect her, 'Police, I want to

repOrt a burglary. I've caught a burglar.'

 

'I'm Greville's brother,' I said thickly, from the floor.

again, more loudly, 'I'm Greville's brother.'

 

'What?' she said vaguely.

 

'For Christ's sake, are you deaf? I'm not a burglar,

I'm Greville Franklin's brother.' I gingerly sat up into

an L-shape and found no strength anywhere.

 

She put the phone down. 'Why didn't you say so?'

she demanded.

 

'What chance did you give me? And who the hell

are you, walking into my brother's house and belting

people?'

 

She held at the ready the fearsome thing she'd hit me

with, looking as if she thought I'd attack her in my turn,

which I certainly felt like. In the last six days I'd been

crunched by a horse, a mugger and a woman. All I

needed was a toddler to amble up with a coup de grace.

I pressed the fingers of my right hand on my forehead

and the palm against my mouth and considered the

blackness of life in general.

 

'What's the matter with you?' she said after A pause.

 

I slid the hand away and drawled, 'Absolutely bloody

nothing.'

 

'I only tapped you,' she said with criticism.

 

'Shall I give you a hefty clip with that thing so you

can feel what it's like?'

 

'You're angry.' She sounded surprised.

 

'Dead right.'

 

I struggled up off the floor, straightened the fallen

chair and sat on it. 'Who are you?' I repeated. But I

knew who she was: the woman on the answering

machine. The same voice. The cut-crystal accent. Darling,

where are you? I love you.

 

'Did you ring his office?' I said. 'Are you Mrs

WIlliams?'

 

She seemed to tremble and crumple inwardly and

she walked past me to the window to stare out into the

garden.

 

'Is he really dead?' she said.

 

'Yes.'

 

She was forty, I thought. Perhaps more. Nearly my

height. In no way tiny or delicate. A woman of decision

and power, sorely troubled.

 

She wore a leather-belted raincoat, though it hadn't

rained for weeks, and plain black businesslike court

shoes. Her hair, thick and dark, was combed smoothly

back from her forehead to curl under on her collar, a

cool groomed look achieved only by expert cutting.

There was no visible jewellery, little remaining lipstick,

no trace of scent.

 

'How?' she said eventually.

 

I had a strong impulse to deny her the information,

to punish her for her precipitous attack, to hurt her and

get even. But there was no point in it, and I knew I

would end up with more shame than satisfaction, so

after a struggle I explained briefly about the scaffolding.

 

'Friday afternoon,' I said. 'He was unconscious at

once. He died early on Sunday.'

 

She turned her head slowly to look at me directly.

'Are you Derek?' she said.

 

'Yes.'

 

'I'm Clarissa Williams'

 

Neither of us made any attempt to shake hands. It

would have been incongruous, I thought.

 

'I came to fetch some things of mine,' she said. 'I

didn't expect anyone to be here.'

 

It was an apology of sorts, I supposed: and if I had

indeed been a burglar she would have saved the bric-abrac.

 

'

What things?' I asked.

 

She hesitated, but in the end said, 'A few letters,

that's all.' Her gaze strayed to the answering machine

and there was a definite tightening of muscles round her

eyes.

 

'I played the messages,' I said.

 

'Oh God.'

 

'Why should it worry you?'

 

She had her reasons, it seemed, but she wasn't going

to tell me what they were: or not then, at any rate.

 

'I want to wipe them off,' she said. 'It was one of the

purposes of coming.'

 

She glanced at me, but I couldn't think of any urgent

reason why she shouldn't, so I didn't say anything. Tentatively,

as if asking my forbearance every step of the

way, she walked jerkily to the machine, rewound the

 

tape and pressed the record button, recording silence

over what had gone before. After a while she rewound

the tape again and played it, and there were no desperate

appeals any more.

 

'Did anyone else hear . . .?'

 

'I don't think so. Not unless the cleaner was in the

habit of listening. She came today, I think.'

 

'Oh God.'

 

'You left no name.' Why the hell was I reassuring her,

I wondered. I still had no strength in my fingers. I could

still feel that awful blow like a shudder.

 

'Do you want a drink?' she said abruptly. 'I've had a

dreadful day.' She went over to the tray of bottles and

poured vodka into a heavy tumbler. 'What do you

want?'

 

'Water,' I said. 'Make it a double.'

 

She tightened her mouth and put down the vodka

bottle with a clink. 'Soda or tonic?' she asked starchily.

 

'Soda.'

 

She poured soda into a glass for me and tonic into

her own, diluting the spirit by not very much. Ice was

downstairs in the kitchen. No one mentioned it.

 

I noticed she'd left her lethal weapon Lying harmlessly

beside the answering machine. Presumably I no

longer represented any threat. As if avoiding personal

contact, she set my soda water formally on the table

beside me between the little stone bears and the chrysanthemums

and drank deeply from her own glass.

Better than tranquillizers, I thought. Alcohol loosened

the stress, calmed the mental pain. The world's first

anaesthetic. I could have done with some myself.

 

'Where are your letters?' I asked.

 

She switched on a table light. The on-creeping dusk

in the garden deepened abruptly towards night and I

wished she would hurry up because I wanted to go

home.

 

She looked at a bookcase which covered a good deal

of one wall.

 

'In there, I think. In a book.'

 

'Do start looking, then. It could take all night.'

 

'You don't need to wait.'

 

'I think I will,' I said.

 

'Don't you trust me?' she demanded.

 

'No.'

 

She stared at me hard. 'Why not?'

 

I didn't say that because of the diamonds I didn't

trust anyone. I didn't know who I could safely ask to

look out for them, or who would search to steal them, if

they knew they might be found.

 

'I don't know you,' I said neutrally.

 

'But I...' She stopped and shrugged. 'I suppose I

don't know you either.' She went over to the bookshelves. '

Some of these books are hollow,' she said.

 

Oh Greville, I thought. How would I ever find anything

he had hidden? I liked straight paths. He'd had a

mind like a labyrinth.

 

She began pulling out books from the lower shelves

and opening the front covers. Not methodically book by

book along any row but always, it seemed to me, those

with predominantly blue spines. After a while, on her

knees, she found a hollow one which she laid open on

the floor with careful sarcasm, so that I could see she

wasn't concealing anything.

 

The interior of the book was in effect a blue velvet

box with a close-fitting lid that could be pulled out by a

tab. When she pulled the lid out, the shallow blue

velvet-lined space beneath was revealed as being

entirely empty.

 

Shrugging, she replaced the lid and closed the book,

which immediately looked like any other book, and

returned it to the shelves: and a few seconds later found

another hollow one, this time with red velvet interiors.

Inside this one lay an envelope.

 

She looked at it without touching it, and then at me.

'It's not my letters,' she said. 'Not my writing paper.'

 

I said, 'Greville made a will leaving everything he

possessed to me.'

 

She didn't seem to find it extraordinary, although I

did: he had done it that way for simplicity when he was

in a hurry, and he would certainly have changed it, given

time.

 

'You'd better see what's in here, then,' she said

calmly, and she picked the envelope out and stretched

across to hand it to me.

 

The envelope, which hadn't been stuck down, contained

a single ornate key, about four inches long, the

top flattened and pierced like metal lace, the business

end narrow with small but intricate teeth. I laid it on my

palm and showed it to her, asking her if she knew what

it unlocked.

 

She shook her head. 'I haven't seen it before.' She

paused. 'He was a man of secrets,' she said.

 

I listened to the wistfulness in her voice. She might

be strongly controlled at that moment, but she hadn't

been before Annette told her Greville was dead. There

had been raw panicky emotion on the tape. Annette

had simply confirmed her frightful fears and put what I

imagined was a false calmness in place of escalating

despair. A man of secrets... Greville had apparently

not opened his mind to her much more than he had to

me.

 

I put the key back in its envelope and handed it

across.

 

'It had better stay in the book for now,' I said, 'until I

find a keyhole it fits.'

 

She put the key in the book and returned it to the

shelves, and shortly afterwards found her letters. They

were fastened not with romantic ribbons but held

together by a prosaic rubber band; not a great many of

them by the look of things but carefully kept.

 

She stared at me from her knees. 'I don't want you to

read them,' she said. 'Whatever Greville left you,

they're mine, not yours.'

 

I wondered why she needed so urgently to remove

all traces of herself from the house. Out of curiosity I'd

have read the letters with interest if I'd found them

myself, but I could hardly demand now to see her love

letters . . . if they were love letters.

 

'Show me just a short page,' I said.

 

She looked bitter. 'You really don't trust me, do you?

I'd like to know why.'

 

'Someone broke into Greville's office over the weekend,'

I said, 'and I'm not quite sure what they were

looking for.'

 

'Not my Letters,' she said positively.

 

'Show me just a page,' I said, 'so I know they're what

you say.'

 

I thought she would refuse altogether, but after a

moment's thought she slid the rubber band off the letters

and fingered through them, finally, with all

expression repressed, handing me one small sheet.

 

It said:

 

. . . and until next Monday my life will be a desert.

 

What am I to do? After your touch I shrink from

 

him. It's dreadful. I am running out of headaches.

 

I adore you.

 

C.

 

I handed the page back in silence, embarrassed at

having intruded.

 

'Take them,' I said.

 

She blinked a few times, snapped the rubber band

back round the small collection, and put them into a

plain black leather handbag which lay beside her on the

carpet.

 

I felt down onto the floor, collected the crutches and

stood up, concentrating on at least holding the hand

support of the left one, even if not putting much weight

on it. Clarissa Williams watched me go over towards

Greville's chair with a touch of awkwardness.

 

'Look,' she said, 'I didn't realize. . . I mean, when I

came in here and saw you stealing things I thought you

were stealing things . . . I didn't notice the crutches.'

 

I supposed that was the truth. Bona fide burglars

didn't go around peg-legged, and I'd laid the supports

aside at the time she'd come storming in. She'd been too

fired up to ask questions: propelled no doubt by grief,

anxiety and fear of the intruder. None of which lessened

my contrary feeling that she damned well ought to have

asked questions before waging war.

 

I wondered how she would have explained her presence

to the police, if they had arrived, when she was

urgent to remove all traces of herself from the house.

Perhaps she would have realized her mistake and

simply departed, leaving the incapacitated burglar on

the floor.

 

I went over to the telephone table and picked up the

brutal little man-tamer. The heavy handle, a black cigarshaped

cylinder, knurled for a good grip, was under an

inch in diameter and about seven inches long. Protruding

beyond that was a short length of solidly thick chromium-

plated closely-coiled spring, with a similar but

narrower spring extending beyond that, the whole

tipped with a black metal knob, fifteen or sixteen inches

overall. A kick as hard as a horse.

 

'What is this?' I said, holding it, feeling its weight.

 

'Greville gave it to me. He said the streets aren't safe.

He wanted me to carry it always ready. He said all

women should carry them because of muggers and

rapists ... as a magistrate he heard so much about

women being attacked ... he said one blow would

render the toughest man helpless and give me time to

escape.'

 

I hadn't much difficulty in believing it. I bent the

black knob to one side and watched the close heavy

spring flex and straighten fast when I let it go. She got to

her feet and said, 'I'm sorry. I've never used it before,

not in anger. Greville showed me how . . . he just said to

swing as hard as I could so that the springs would shoot

out and do the maximum damage.'

 

My dear brother, I thought. Thank you very much.

 

'Does it go back into its shell?' I asked.

 

She nodded. 'Twist the bigger spring clockwise...

it'll come loose and slide into the casing.' I did that, but

the smaller spring with the black knob still stuck out.

'You have to give the knob a bang against something,

then it will slide in.'

 

I banged the knob against the wall, and like a meek

lamb the narrower spring slid smoothly into the wider,

and the end of the knob became the harmless-looking

end of yet another gadget.

'What makes it work?' I asked, but she didn't know.

 

I found that the end opposite the knob unscrewed if

one tried, so I unscrewed it about twenty turns until

the inch-long piece came off, and I discovered that the

whole end section was a very strong magnet.

 

Simple, I thought. Ordinarily the magnet held the

heavy springs inside the cylinder. Make a strong flicking

arc, in effect throw the springs out, and the magnet

couldn't hold them, but let them go, letting loose the full

whipping strength of the thing.

 

I screwed back the cap, held the cylinder, swung it

hard. The springs shot out, flexible, shining, horrific.

 

Wordlessly, I closed the thing up again and offered it

to her.

 

'It's called a kiyoga,' she said.

 

I didn't care what it was called. I didn't care if I

never saw it again. She put it familiarly into her raincoat

pocket, every woman's ultimate reply to footpads, maniacs

and assorted misogynists.

 

She looked unhappily and uncertainly at my face. 'I

suppose I can't ask you to forget I came here?' she

said.

 

'It would be impossible.'

 

'Could you just . . . not speak of it?'

 

If I'd met her in another way I suppose I might

have liked her. She had generous eyes that would have

looked better smiling, and an air of basic good humour

which persisted despite her jumbling emotions.

 

With an effort she said, 'Please.'

'Don't beg,' I said sharply. It made me uncomfortable

and it didn't suit her.

 

She swallowed. 'Greville told me about you. I

guess . . . I'll have to trust to his judgement.'

 

She felt in the opposite pocket to the one with the

kiyoga and brought out a plain keyring with three keys

on it.

 

'You'd better have these,' she said. 'I won't be using

them any more.' She put them down by the answering

machine and in her eyes I saw the shininess of sudden

tears.

 

'He died in Ipswich,' I said. 'He'll be cremated there

on Friday aftErnoon. Two o'clock.'

 

She nodded speechlessly in acknowledgement, not

looking at me, and went past me, through the doorway

and down the hall and out of the front door, closing it

with a quiet finality behind her.

 

With a sigh, I looked round the room. The book-box

that had contained her letters still lay open on the floor

and I bent down, picked it up, and restored it to the

shelves. I wondered just how many books were hollow.

Tomorrow evening, I thought, after Elliot Trelawney, I

would come and look.

 

Meanwhile I picked up the fallen green stone box

and put it on the table by the chrysanthemums, reflecting

that the oRNate key in the red-lined book-box was

far too large to fit its tiny lock. Greville's bunch of keys

was down on the carpet also. I returned to what I'd been

doing before being so violently interrupted, but found

that the smallest of the bunch was still too big for the

green stone.

 

A whole load of no progress, I thought moodily.

 

I drank the soda water, which had lost its fizz.

 

I rubbed my arm, which didn't make it much better.

 

I wondered what judgement Greville had passed on

me, that could be trusted.

 

There was a polished cupboard that I hadn't investigated

underneath the television set and, not expecting

much, I bent down and pulled one of the doors open by

its brass ring handle. The other door opened of its own

accord and the contents of the cupboard slid outwards

as a unit; a video machine on top with, on two shelves

below, rows of black boxes holding recording tapes.

There were small uniform labEls on the boxes bearing,

not formulas this Time, but dates.

 

I pulled one of the boxes out at random and was

stunned to see the larger label stuck to its front: 'Race

Video Club', it said in heavy print, and underneath, in

typing,'July 7th, Sandown Park, Dozen Roses.'

 

The Race Video Club, as I knew well, sold tapes of

races to owners, trainers and anyone else interested.

Greville, I thought in growing amazement as I looked

further, must have given them a standing order: every

race his horses had run in for the past two years,

 

judged, was there on his shelves to be watched.

 

He'd told me once, when I asked why he didn't go to

see his runners, that he saw them enough on television;

and I'd thought he meant on the ordinary scheduled

programmes, live from the racetracks in the afternoons.

 

The front doorbell rang, jarring and unexpected. I

went along and looked through a small peephole and

found Brad standing on the doorstep, blinking and

blinded by two spotlights shining on his face. The lights

came from above the door and lit up the whole path and

the gate. I opened the door as he shielded his eyes with

his arm.

 

'Hello,' I said. 'Are you all right?'

 

'Turn the lights off. Can't see.'

 

I looked for a switch beside the front door, found

several, and by pressing them all upwards indiscriminately,

put out the blaze.

 

'Came to see you were OK,' Brad explained. 'Those

lights just went on.'

 

Of their own accord, I realized. Another manifestation

of Greville's security, no doubt. Anyone who

came up the path after dark would get illuminated for

his pains.

 

'Sorry I've been so long,' I said. 'Now you're here,

would you carry a few things?'

 

He nodded as if he'd let out enough words already

to last the evening, and followed me silently, when I

beckoned him, towards the small sitting room.

 

'I'm taking that green stone box and as many of those

video tapes as you can carry, starting from that end,' I

said, and he obligingly picked up about ten recent tapes,

balancing the box on top.

I found a hall light, switched that on, and turned off

the lamp in the sitting room. It promptly turned itself on

again, unasked.

 

'Cor,' Brad said.

 

I thought that maybe it was time to leave before I

tripped any other alarms wired direct after dark to the

local constabulary. I closed the sitting-room door and

we went along the hall to the outer world. Before leaving

I pressed all the switches beside the front door

downwards, and maybe I turned more on than I'd

turned off: the spotlights didn't go on, but a dog started

barking noisily behind us.

 

'StrUth,' Brad said, whirling round and clutching

the video tapes to his chest as if they would defend him.

 

There was no dog. There was a loudspeaker like a

bull horn on a low hall table emitting the deep-throated

growls and barks of a determined Alsatian.

 

'Bleeding hell,' Brad said.

 

'Let's go,' I said in amusement, and he cOUld hardly

wait.

 

The barking stopped of its own accord as we stepped

out into the air. I pulled the door shut, and we set off to

go down the steps and along the path, and we'd gone

barely three paces when the spotlights blazed on again.

 

'Keep going,' I said to Brad. 'I daresay they'll turn

themselves off in time.'

 

It was fine by him. He'd parked the car round the

corner, and I spent the swift journey to Hungerford

wondering about Clarissa WILliams; her life, love and

adultery.

 

During the evening I failed both to open the green

stone box and to understand the gadgets.

 

Shaking the box gave me no impression of contents

and I supposed it could well be empty. A cigarette box,

I thought, though I couldn't remember ever seeing Greville

smoking. Perhaps a box to hold twin packs of cards.

Perhaps a box for jewellery. Its tiny keyhole remained

impervious to probes from nail scissors, suitcase keys

and a piece of wire, and in the end I surrendered and

laid it aside.

 

Neither of the gadgets opened or shut. One was a

small black cylindrical object about the size of a thumb

with one end narrowly ridged, like a coin. Turning the

ridged end a quarter-turn clockwise, its full extent of

travel, produced a thin faint high-pitched whine which

proved to be the unexciting sum of the thing's activity.

Shrugging, I switched the whine off again and stood the

small tube upright on the green box.

 

The second gadget didn't even produce a whine. It

was a flat black plastic container about the size of a pack

of cards with a single square red button placed centrally

on the front. I pressed the button: no results. A round

chromiumed knob set into one of the sides of the cover

revealed itself on further inspection as the end of a

telescopic aerial. I pulled it out as far as it would go,

about ten inches, and was rewarded with what I presumed

was a small transmitter which transmitted I

didn't know what to I didn't know where.

 

Sighing, I pushed the aerial back into its socket and

added the transmitter to the top of the green box,

and after that I fed Greville's tapes one by one into my

video machine and watched the races.

 

Alfie's comment about in-and-out running had

interested me more than I would have wanted him to

know. Dozen Roses, from my own reading of the results,

had had a long doldrum period followed by a burst

of success, suggestive of the classic 'cheating' pattern of

running a horse to lose and go on losing until he was low

in the handicap and unbacked, then setting him off to

win at long odds in a race below his latent abilities and

wheeling away the winnings in a barrow.

 

All trainers did that in a mild way sometimes, whatever

the rules might say about always running flat out.

Young and inexperienced horses could be RUINEd by

being pressed too hard too soon: one had to give them a

chance to enjoy themselves, to let their racing instinct

develop fully.

 

That said, there was a point beyond which no modern

trainer dared go. In the bad old days before universal

camera coverage, it had been harder to prove a horse

hadn't been trying: many jockeys had been artists at

waving their whips while hauling on the reins. Under

the eagle lenses and fierce discipline of the current

scene, even natural and unforeseen fluctuations in a

horse's form could find the trainer yanked in before the

Stewards for an explanation, and if the trainer couldn't

explain why his short-priced favourite had turned

leaden footed it could cost him a depressing fine.

 

. No trainer, however industrious, was safe from suspicion,

yet I'd never read or heard of Nicholas Loder

getting himself into that sort of trouble. Maybe Alfie,

I thought dryly, knew something the Stewards didn't.

Maybe Alfie could tell me why Loder had all but

panicked when he'd feared Dozen Roses might not run

on Saturday next.

 

Brad had picked up the six most recent outings of

Dozen Roses, interspersed by four of Gemstones's. I

played all six of Dozen Roses's first, starting with the

earliest, back in May, checking the details with what

Greville had written in his diary.

 

On the screen there were shots of the runners walking

round the parade ring and going down to the start,

with Greville's pink and orange colours bright and easy

to see. The May race was a ten-furlong handicap for

three-year-olds and upwards, run at Newmarket on a

Friday. Eighteen runners. Dozen Roses ridden by a

second-string jockey because Loder's chief retained

jockey was riding the stable's other runner which

started favourite.

 

Down at the start there was some sort of fracas

involving Dozen Roses. I rewound the tape and played

it through in slow motion and couldn't help laughing.

Dozen Roses, his mind far from racing, had been showing

unseemly interest in a mare.

 

I remembered Greville saying once that he thought it

a shame and unfair to curb a colt's enthusiasm: no horse

of his would ever be gelded. I remembered him vividly,

leaning across a small table and saying it over a glass of

brandy with a gleam in which I'd seen his own enjoyment

of sex. So many glimpses of him in my mind, I

thought. Too few, also. I couldn't really believe I would

never eat with him again, whatever my senses said.

 

Trainers didn't normally run mares that had come

into season, but sometimes one couldn't tell early on.

Horses knew, though. Dozen Roses had been aroused.

The mare was loaded into the stalls in a hurry and

Dozen Roses had been walked around until the last

minute to cool his ardour. After that, he had run without

sparkle and finished mid-field, the mare to the rear

of him trailing in last. Loder's other runner, the favourite,

had won by a length.

 

Too bad, I thought, smiling, and watched Dozen

Roses's next attempt three weeks later.

 

No distracting attractions this time. The horse had

behaved quietly, sleepily almost, and had turned in the

sort of moderate performance which set owners wondering

if the game was worth it. The next race was much

the same, and if I'd been Greville I would have decided

it was time to sell.

 

Greville, it seemed, had had more faith. After seven

weeks' rest Dozen Roses had gone bouncing down to

the start, raced full of zest and zoomed over the finishing

line in front, netting 14/1 for anyone ignorant

enough to have backed him. Like Greville, of course.

 

Watching the sequence of tapes I did indeed wonder

why the Stewards hadn't made a fuss, but Greville

hadn't mentioned anything except his pleasure in the

horse's return to his three-year-old form.

 

Dozen Roses had next produced two further copybook

performances of stamina and determination,

which brought us up to date. I rewound and removed

the last tape and could see why Loder thought it would

be another trot-up on Saturday.

 

Gemstones's tapes weren't as interesting. Despite his

name he wasn't of much value, and the one race he'd

won looked more like a fluke than constructive engineering.

I would sell them both, I decided, as Loder

wanted.

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

Brad came early on Wednesday and drove me to LambouRN '{

The ankle was sore in spite of Distalgesics but

lEss of a constant drag that morning and I could have

driven the car myself if I'd put my mind to it. Having

Brad around, I reflected on the way, was a luxury I was

all too easily getting used to.

 

Clarissa Williams's attentions had worn off completely

except for a little stiffness and a blackening

bruise like a bar midway between shoulder and elbow.

That didn't matter. For much of the year I had bruises

somewhere or other, result of the law of averages

operating in steeplechasing. Falls occurred about once

every fourteen races, sometimes oftener, and while a

few of the jockeys had bodies that hardly seemed to

bruise at all, mine always did. On the other hand I

healed everywhere fast, bones, skin and optimism.

 

Milo Shandy, striding about in his stable yard as if

incapable of standing still, came over to my car as it

rolled to a stop and yanked open the driver's door. The

words he was about to say didn't come out as he stared

first at Brad, then at me on the back seat, and what he

eventually said was, 'A chauffeur, by God. Coddling

yourself, aren't you?'

 

Brad got out of the car, gave Milo a neanderthal look

and handed me the crutches as usual.

 

Milo, dark, short and squarely built, watched the proceedings

with disgust.

 

'I want you to ride Datepalm,' he said.

 

'Well, I can't.'

 

'The Ostermeyers will want it. I told them you'd be

here.'

 

'Gerry rides Datepalm perfectly well,' I said, Gerry

being the lad Who rode the horse at exercise as a matter

of course most days of the week.

 

'Gerry isn't you.'

 

'He's better than me with a groggy ankle.'

 

Milo glared. 'Do you want to keep the horse here or

don't you?'

 

I did.

 

Milo and I spent a fair amount of time arguing at the

best of times. He was pugnacious by nature, mercurial

by temperament, full of instant opinions that could be

reversed the next day, didactic, dynamic and outspoken.

He believed absolutely in his own judgement and was

sure that everything would turn out all right in the end.

He was moderately tactful to the owners, hard on his

work-force and full of swearwords for his horses, which

he produced as winners by the dozen.

 

I'd been outraged by the way he'd often spoken to

me when I first started to ride for him three years

earlier, but one day I lost my temper and yelled back at

him, and he burst out laughing and told me we would

get along just fine, which in fact we did, though seldom

on the surface.

 

I knew people thought ours an unlikely alliance, I

neat and quiet, he restless and flamboyant, but in fact

I liked the way he trained horses and they seemed to

run well for him, and we had both prospered.

 

The Ostermeyers arrived at that point and they too

had a chauffeur, which Milo took for granted. The bullishness

at once disappeared from his manner to be

replaced by the jocular charm that had owners regularly

mesmerized, that morning being no exception. The

Ostermeyers responded immediately, she with a roguish

wiggle of the hips, he with a big handshake and a wide

smile.

 

They were not so delighted about my crutches.

 

'Oh dear,' Martha Ostermeyer exclaimed in dismay.

'What have you done? Don't say you can't ride Datepalm.

We only came, you know, because dear Milo said

you'd be here to ride it.'

 

'He'll ride it,' Milo said before I had a chance of

answering, and Martha Ostermeyer clapped her small

gloved hands with relief.

 

'If we're going to buy him,' she said, smiling, 'we

want to see him with his real jockey up, not some exercise

rider.'

 

Harley Ostermeyer nodded in agreement, benignly.

Not really my week, I thought.

 

The Ostermeyers were all sweetness and light while

people were pleasing them, and I'd never had any

trouble liking them, but I'd also seen Harley Ostermeyer's

underlying streak of ruthless viciousness once in

a racecourse car-park where he'd verbally reduced to

rubble an attendant who had allowed someone to park

behind him, closing him in. He had had to wait half

an hour. The attendant had looked genuinely scared.

'Goodnight, Derek,' he'd croaked as I went past, and

Ostermeyer had whirled round and cooled his temper

fifty per cent, inviting my sympathy in his trouble.

Harley Ostermeyer liked to be thought a good guy,

most of the time. He was the boss, as I understood it, of

a giant supermarket chain. Martha Ostermeyer was also

rich, a fourth-generation multi-millionaire in banking.

I'd ridden for them often in the past years and been well

rewarded, because generosity was one of their

pleasures.

 

Milo drove them and me up to the Downs where

Datepalm and the other horses were already circling,

having walked up earlier. The day was bright and chilly,

the Downs rolling away to the horizon, the sky clear, the

horses' coats glossy in the sun. A perfect day for buying

a champion chaser.

 

Milo sent three other horses down to the bottom of

the gallop to work fast so that the Ostermeyers would

know where to look and what to expect when Datepalm

came up and passed them. They stood out on the grass,

looking where Milo pointed, intent and happy.

 

Milo had brought a spare helmet with us in the bigwheeled

vehicle that rolled over the mud and ruts on

the Downs, and with an inward sigh I put it on. The

enterprise was stupid really, as my leg wasn't strong

enough and if anything wild happened to upset Datepalm,

he might get loose and injure himself and we'd

lose him surely one way or another.

 

On the other hand, I'd ridden races now and then

with cracked bones, not just exercise gallops, and I knew

one jockey who in the past had broken three bones in

his foot and won races with it, sitting with it in an ice

bucket in the changing room betweentimes and literally

hopping out to the parade ring, supported by friends.

The authorities had later brought in strict medical rules

to stop that sort of thing as being unfair to the betting

public, but one could still get away with it sometimes.

 

Milo saw me slide out of the vehicle with the helmet

on and came over happily and said, 'I knew you would.'

 

'Mm,' I said. 'When you give me a leg up, put both

hands round my knee and be careful, because if you

twist my foot there'll be no sale.'

 

'You're such a wimp,' he said.

 

Nevertheless, he was circumspect and I landed in the

saddle with little trouble. I was wearing jeans, and that

morning for the first time I'd managed to get a shoe on,

or rather one of the wide soft black leather moccasins I

used as bedroom slippers. Milo threaded the stirrup

over the moccasin with unexpected gentleness and I

wondered if he were having last-minute doubts about

the wisdom of all this.

 

One look at the Ostermeyers' faces dispelled both

his doubts and mine. They were beaming at Datepalm

already with proprietary pride.

 

Certainly he looked good. He filled the eye, as they

say. A bay with black points, excellent head, short

sturdy legs with plenty of bone. The Ostermeyers

always preferred handsome animals, perhaps because

they were handsome themselves, and Datepalm was

well-mannered besides, which made him a peach of a

ride.

 

He and I and two others from the rest of the string

set off at a walk towards the far end of the gallop but

were presently trotting, which I achieved by standing in

the stirrups with all my weight on my right foot while

cursing Milo imaginatively for the sensations in my left.

Datepalm, who knew how horses should be ridden,

which was not lopsided like this, did a good deal of head

and tail shaking but otherwise seemed willing to trust

me. He and I knew each other well as I'd ridden him in

all his races for the past three years. Horses had no

direct way of expressing recognition, but occasionally

he would turn his head to look at me when he heard my

voice, and I also thought he might know me by scent as

he would put his muzzle against my neck sometimes and

make small whiffling movements of his nostrils. In any

case we did have a definite rapport and that morning it

stood us in good stead.

 

At the far end the two lads and I sorted out our three

horses ready to set off at a working gallop back towards

Milo and the Ostermeyers, a pace fast enough to be

interesting but not flat out like racing.

 

There wasn't much finesse in riding a gallop to please

customers, one simply saw to it that one was on their

side of the accompanying horses, to give them a clear

view of the merchandise, and that one finished in front

to persuade them that that's what would happen in

future.

 

Walking him around to get in position I chatted

quietly as I often did to Datepalm, because in common

with many racehorses he was always reassured by a

calm human voice, sensing from one's tone that all was

well. Maybe horses heard the lower resonances: one

never knew.

 

'Just go up there like a pro,' I told him, 'because I

don't want to lose you, you old bugger. I want us to win

the National one day, so shine, boy. Dazzle. Do your

bloody best.'

 

I shook up the reins as we got the horses going, and

in fact Datepalm put up one of his smoothest performances,

staying with his companions for most of the journey,

lengthening his stride when I gave him the signal,

coming away alone and then sweeping collectedly past

the Ostermeyers with fluid power; and if the jockey

found it an acutely stabbing discomfort all the way, it

was a fair price for the result. Even before I'd pulled up,

the Ostermeyers had bought the horse and shaken

hands on the deal.

 

'Subject to a veterinarian's report, of course,' Harley

was saying as I walked Datepalm back to join them.

'Otherwise, he's superb.'

 

Milo's smile looked as if it would split his face. He

held the reins while Martha excitedly patted the new

acquisition, and went on holding them while I took my

feet out of the stirrups and lowered myself very carefully

to the ground, hopping a couple of steps to where

the crutches lay on the grass.

 

'What did you do to your foot?' Martha asked

unworriedly.

 

'Wrenched it,' I said, slipping the arm cuffs on with

relief. 'Very boring.'

 

She smiled, nodded and patted my arm. 'Milo said it

was nothing much.'

 

Milo gave me a gruesome look, handed Datepalm

back to his lad, Gerry, and helped the Ostermeyers into

the big-wheeled vehicle for the drive home. We bumped

down the tracks and I took off the helmet and ran

my fingers through my hair, reflecting that although I

wouldn't care to ride gallops like that every day of the

week, I would do it again for as good an outcome.

 

We all went into Milo's house for breakfast, a ritual

there as in many other racing stables, and over coffee,

toast and scrambled eggs Milo and the Ostermeyers

planned Datepalm's future programme, including all

the top races with of course another crack at the Gold

Cup.

 

'What about the Grand National?' Martha said, her

eyes like stars.

 

'Well, now, we'll have to see,' Milo said, but his

dreams too were as visible as searchlights. First thing on

our return, he'd telephoned to Datepalm's former

owner and got confirmation that she agreed to the sale

and was pleased by it, and since then one had almost

needed to pull him down from the ceiling with a string

like a helium-filled balloon. My own feelings weren't

actually much lower. Datepalm really was a horse to

build dreams on.

 

After the food and a dozen repetitions of the horse's

virtues, Milo told the Ostermeyers about my inheriting

Dozen Roses and about the probate saga, which seemed

to fascinate them. Martha sat up straighter and

exclaimed, 'Did you say York?'

 

Milo nodded.

 

'Do you mean this Saturday? Why, Harley and I are

going to York races on Saturday, aren't we, HarLEy?'

 

Harley agreed that they were. 'Our dear friends Lord

and Lady Knightwood have asked us to lunch.'

 

Martha said, 'Why don't we give Derek a ride up

there to see his horse run? What do you say, Harley?'

 

'Be glad to have you along,' Harley said to me genuinely. '

Don't give us no for an answer.'

 

I looked at their kind insistent faces and said lamely,

'I thought of going by train, if I went at all.'

'No, no,' Martha said. 'Come to London by train and

we'll go up together. Do say you will.'

 

Milo was looking at me anxiously: pleasing the

Ostermeyers was still an absolute priority. I said I'd

be glad to accept their kindness and Martha, mixing

gratification with sudden alarm, said she hoped the

inheritance wouldn't persuade me to stop riding races.

 

'No,' I said.

 

'That's positive enough.' Harley was pleased. 'You're

part of the package, fella. You and Datepalm together.'

 

Brad and I went on to London, and I was very glad to

have him drive.

 

'Office?' he asked, and I said, 'Yes,' and we travelled

there in silent harmony.

 

He'd told me the evening before that Greville's car

wasn't parked anywhere near Greville's house: or

rather he'd handed me back the piece of paper with the

car's number on it and said, 'Couldn't find it.' I thought

I'd better get on to the police and other towers-away

in Ipswich, and I'd better start learning the company's

finances and Greville's as well, and I had two-thirds of

the vault still to check and I could feel the suction of the

quicksands inexorably.

 

I took the two baffling little gadgets from Greville's

sitting room upstairs to Greville's office and showed

them to June.

 

'That one,' she said immediately, pointing to the

thumb-sized tube with the whine, 'is a device to discourage

mosquitoes. Mr Franklin said it's the noise of a male

mosquito, and it frightens the blood-sucking females

away.' She laughed. 'He said every man should have

one.'

 

She picked up the other gadget and frowned at it,

pressing the red button with no results.

 

'It has an aerial,' I said.

 

'Oh yes.' She pulled it out to its full extent. 'I

think...' She paused. 'He used to have a transmitter

which started his car from a distance, so he could warm

the engine up in cold weather before he left his house,

but the receiver bit got stolen with his Porsche. Then he

bought the old Rover, and he said a car-starter wouldn't

work on it because it only worked with direct transmission

or fuel injection, or something, which the Rover

doesn't have.'

 

'So this is the car-starter?'

 

'Well... no. This one doesn't do so much. The carstarter

had buttons that would also switcH on the headlights

so that you could see where your car was, if you'd

left it in a dark car-park.' She pushed the aerial down

again. 'I think this one only switches the lights on, or

makes the car whistle, if I remember right. He was

awfully pleased with it when he got it, but I haven't seen

it for ages. He had so many gadgets, he couldn't take

them all in his pockets and I think he'd got a bit tired of

carrying them about. He used to leave them in his desk,

mostly.'

'You just earned your twenty per cent all over again,'

I said.

 

'What?'

 

'Let's just check that the batteries work,' I said.

 

She opened the battery compartment and discovered

it was empty. As if it were routine, she then pulled

open a drawer in one of the other tiers of the desk

and revealed a large open box containing packet after

packet of new batteries in every possible size. She

pulled out a packet, opened it and fed the necessary

power packs into the slots, and although pressing the

red button still provided no visible results, I was pretty

confident wE were in business.

 

June said suddenly, 'You're going to take this to

Ipswich, aren't you? To find his car? Isn't that what you

mean?'

 

I nodded. 'Let's hope it works.'

 

'Oh, it must.'

 

'It's quite a big town, and the car could be anywhere.'

 

'Yes,' she said, 'but it must be somewhere. I'm sure

you'll find it.'

 

'Mm.' I looked at her bright, intelligent face. 'June,' I

said slowly, 'don't tell anyone else about this gadget.'

 

'Why ever not?'

 

'Because,' I said, 'someone broke into this office

looking for something and we don't know if they found

it. If they didn't, and it is by any chance in the car, I

don't want anyone to realize that the car is still lost.'

I paused. 'I'd much rather you said nothing.'

'Not even to Annette?'

 

'Not to anyone.'

 

'But that means you think . . . you think . . .'

 

'I don't really think anything. It's just for security.'

 

Security was all right with her. She looked less

troubled and agreed to keep quiet about the car-finder;

and I hadn't needed to tell her about the mugger who

had knocked me down to steal Greville's bag of clothes,

which to me, in hindsight, was looking less and less a

random hit and more and more a shot at a target.

 

Someone must have known Greville was dying, I

thought. Someone who had organized or executed a

mugging. I hadn't the faintest idea who could have done

either, but it did seem to me possible that one of Greville's

staff might have unwittingly chattered within earshot

of receptive ears. Yet what could they have said?

Greville hadn't told any of them he was buying diamonds.

And why hadn't he? Secretive as he was, gems

were his business.

 

The useless thoughts squirrelled around anD got me

nowhere. The gloomiest of them was that someone

could have gone looking for Greville's car at any time

since the scaffolding fell, and although I might find the

engine and the wheels, the essential cupboard would be

bare.

 

Annette came into the office carrying a fistful of

papers which she said had come in the morning post and

needed to be dealt with - by me, her manner inferred.

 

'Sit down, then,' I said, 'and tell me what they all

mean.'

 

There were letters from insurance people, fund raisers,

dissatisfied customers, gemmology forecasters, and

a cable from a supplier in Hong Kong saying he didn't

have enough African 12 mm amethyst AA quality

round beads to fill our order and would we take Brazilian

amethyst to make it up.

 

'What's the difference?' I asked. 'Does it matter?'

 

Annette developed worry lines over my ignorance.

'The best amethyst is found in Africa,' she said. 'Then it

goes to HoNg Kong or Taiwan for cutting and polishing

into beads, then comes here. The amethyst from BraziL

isn't such a good deep colour. Do you want me to order

the Brazilian amethyst or wait until he has more of the

African?'

 

'What do you think?' I said.

 

'Mr Franklin always decided.'

 

She looked at me anxiously. It's hopeless, I thought.

The simplest decision was impossible without

knowledge.

 

'Would the customers take the Brazilian instead?' I

asked.

 

'Some would, some wouldn't. It's much cheaper. We

sell a lot of the Brazilian anyway, in all sizes.'

 

'Well,' I said, 'if we run out of the African beads,

offer the customers Brazilian. Or offer a different size

of African. Cable the Chinese supplier to send just the

African AA 12 mm he's got now and the rest as soon as

he can.'

 

She looked relieved. 'That's what I'd have said.'

 

Then why didn't you, I thought, but it was no use

being angry. If she gave me bad advice I'd probably

blame her for it: it was safer from her viewpoint, I

supposed, not to stick her neck out.

 

'Incidentally,' she said, 'I did reach Prospero Jenks.

He said he'd be in his Knightsbridge shop at two-thirty

today, if you wanted to see him.'

 

'Great.'

 

She smiled. 'I didn't mention horses.'

 

I smiled back. 'Fine.'

 

She took the letters off to her own office to answer

them, and I went from department to department on a

round trip to the vault, watching everyone at work, all

of them capable, willing and beginning to settle obligingly

into the change of regime, keeping their inner

reservations to themselves. I asked if one of them would

go down and tell Brad I'd need him at two, not before:

June went and returned like a boomerang.

 

I unlocked the vault and started on topaz: thousands

of brilliant translucent slippery stones in a rainbow of

colours, some bigger than acorns, some like peas.

 

No diamonds.

 

After that, every imaginable shape and size of garnet

which could be yellow and green, I found, as well as red,

and boxes of citrine.

Two and a half hours of unfolding and folding glossy

white packets, and no diamonds.

 

June swirled in and out at one point with a long order

for faceted stones which she handed to me without comment,

and I remembered that only Greville and

Annette packed orders from the vault. I went in search

of Annette and asked if I might watch while she worked

down the list, found what was needed from twenty or

more boxes and assembled the total on the shelf. She

was quick and sure, knowing exactly where to find

everything. It was quite easy, she said, reassuring me. I

would soon get the hang of it. God help me, I thought.

 

At two, after another of June's sandwich lunches, I

went down to the car and gave Prospero Jenks's address

to Brad. 'It's a shop somewhere near Harrods,' I said,

climbing in.

 

He nodded, drove through the traffic, found the

shop.

 

'Great,' I said. 'Now this time you'll have to answer

the car phone whether you like it or not, because there's

nowhere here to park.'

 

He shook his head. He'd resisted the suggestion

several times before.

 

'Yes,' I said. 'It's very easy. I'll switch it on for you

now. When it rings pick it up and press this button,

SND, and you'll be able to hear me. OK? I'll ring when

I'm ready to leave, then you just come back here and

pick me up.'

He looked at the telephone as if it were contaminated.

 

 

It was a totally portable phone, not a fixture in the

car, and it didn't receive calls unless one switched it on,

which I quite often forgot to do and sometimes didn't

do on purpose. I put the phone ready on the passenger

seat beside him, to make it easy, and hoped for the best.

 

Prospero Jenks's shop window glittered with the sort

of intense lighting that makes jewellery sparkle, but the

lettering of his name over the window was neat and

plain, as if ostentation there would have been

superfluous.

 

I looked at the window with a curiosity I would never

have felt a week earlier and found it filled not with

conventional displays of rings and wristwatches but

with joyous toys: model cars, aeroplanes, skiing figures,

racing yachts, pheasants and horses, all gold and enamel

and shining with gems. Almost every passer-by, I

noticed, paused to look.

 

Pushing awkwardly through the heavy glass front

door I stepped into a deep-carpeted area with chairs at

the ready before every counter. Apart from the plushness,

it was basically an ordinary shop, not very big,

quiet in decor, all the excitement in the baubles.

 

There was no one but me in there and I swung over

to one of the counters to see what was on display. Rings,

I found, but not simple little circles. These were huge,

often asymmetric, all colourful eyecatchers supreme.

 

'Can I help you?' a voice said.

 

A neutral man, middle-aged, in a black suit, coming

from a doorway at the rear.

 

'My name's Franklin,' I said. 'Came to see Prospero

Jenks.'

 

'A minute.'

 

He retreated, returned with a half-smile and invited

me through the doorway to the privacies beyond.

Shielded from customers' view by a screening partition

lay a much longer space which doubled as office and

workroom and contained a fearsome-looking safe and

several tiers of little drawers like the ones in Saxony

Franklin. On one wall a large framed sign read: 'NEVER

 

TURN YOUR BACK TO CUSTOMERS. ALWAYS WATCH THEIR

HANDS.' A fine statement of no trust, I thought in

amusement.

 

Sitting on a stool by a workbench, a jeweller's lens

screwed into one eye, was a hunched man in pale pink

and white striped shirtsleeveS fiddling intently with a

small gold object fixed into a vice. Patience and expert

workmanship were much on view, all of it calm and

painstaking.

 

He removed the lens with a sigh and rose to his feet,

turning to inspect me from crown to crutches to toecaps

with growing surprise. Whatever he'd been expecting, I

was not it.

 

The feeling, I supposed, was mutual. He was maybe

fifty but looked younger in a Peter Pan sort of way; a

boyish face with intense bright blue eyes and a lot of

lines developing across the forehead. Fairish hair, no

beard, no moustache, no personal display. I had

expected someone fancier, more extravagant, temperamental.

 

'

GreV's brother?' he said. 'What a turn-up. There I

waS thinking you'd be his age, his height.' He narrowed

his eyes. 'He never said he had a brother. How do I

know you're legit?'

 

'His assistant, Annette Adams, made the

appointment.'

 

'Yes, so she did. Fair enough. Told me Grev was dead,

long live the King. Said his brother was running the

shop, life would go on. But I'll tell you, unless you know

as much as Grev, I'm in trouble.'

 

'I came to talk to you about that.'

 

'It don't look like tidings of great joy,' he said,

watching me judiciously. 'Want a seat?' He pointed at

an office chair for me and took his place on the stool.

His voice was a long way from cut-glass More like East

End London tidied up for West; the sort that came from

 

nowhere with no privileges and made it to the top

from sheer undeniable talent. He had the confident

manner of long success, a creative spirit who was also a

tradesman, an original artist without airs.

 

'I'm just learning the business,' I said cautiously. 'I'll

do what I can.'

 

'GreV was a geniuS' he said explosively. 'No one like

him with stones. He'd bring me oddities, one-offs from

all over the world, and I've made pieces . . .' He stopped

and spread his arms out. 'They're in palaceS' he said,

'and museums and mansions in Palm Beach. Well, I'm

in business. I sell them to wherever the money's coming

from. I've got my pride, but it's in the pieces. They're

good, I'm expensive, it works a treat.'

 

'Do you make everything you sell?' I asked.

 

He laughed. 'No, not myself personally, I couldn't. I

design everything, don't get me wrong, but I have a

workshop making them. I just make the special pieces

myself, the unique ones. In between, I invent for the

general market. Grev said he had some decent spinel,

have you still got it?'

 

'Er,' I said, 'red?'

 

'Red,' he affirmed. 'Three, four or five carats. I'll take

all you've got.'

 

'We'll send it tomorrow.'

 

'By messenger,' he said. 'Not post.'

 

'All right.'

 

'And a stab of rock crystal like the Eiger. Grev

showed me a photo. I've got a commission for a

fantasy . . . Send the crystal too.'

 

'All right,' I said again, and hid my doubts. I hadn't

seen any slab of rock crystal. Annette would know, I

thought.

 

He said casually,'What about the diamonds?'

 

I let the breath out and into my lungs with conscious

control.

 

'What about them?' I said.

 

'GreV was getting me some. He'd got them, in fact.

 

He told me. He'd sent a batch off to be cut. Are they

back yet?'

 

'Not yeT,' I said, hoping I wasn't croaking. 'Are those

the diamonds he bought a couple of months ago from

the Central Selling Organization that you're talking

about?'

 

'Sure. He bought a share in a sight from a sightholder.

I asked him to. I'm still running the big chunky

rings and necklaces I made my name in, but I'm setting

some of them now with bigger diamonds, making more

profit per item since the market will stand it, and I

wanted Grev to get them because I trust him. Trust is

like gold dust in this business, even though diamonds

weren't his thing really. You wouldn't want to buy two-to

three-carat stones from just anyone, even if they're

not D or E flawless, right?'

 

'Er, right.'

 

'So he bought the share of the sight and he's having

them cut in Antwerp as I require them, as I expect you

know.'

 

I nodded. I did know, but only since he'd just told me.

 

'I'm going to make stars of some of them to shine

from the rock crystal...' He broke off, gave a selfdeprecating

shrug of the shoulders, and said, 'And I'm

making a mobile, with diamonds on gold trembler wires

that move in the lightest air. It's to hang by a window

and flash fire in the sunlight.' Again the self-deprecation,

this time in a smile. 'Diamonds are ravishing

in sunlight, they're at their best in it, and all the social

snobs in this city scream that it's so frightfully vulgar,

darling, to wear diamond earrings or bracelets in the

daytime. It makes me sick, to be honest. Such a waste.'

 

I had never thought about diamonds in sunlight

before, though I suppose I would in future. Vistas

opened could never be closed, as maybe Greville would

have said.

 

'I haven't caught up with everything yet,' I said,

which was the understatement of the century. 'Have any

of the diamonds been delivered to you so far?'

 

He shook His head. 'I haven't been in a hurry for

them before.'

 

'And . . .  . . . how many are involved?'

 

'About a hundred. Like I said, not the very best

colour in the accepted way of things but they can look

warmer with gold sometimes if they're not ultra bluewhite.

I work with gold mostly. i like the feel.'

 

'How much,' I said slowly, doing sums, 'will your rock

crystal fantasy sell for?'

 

'Trade secret. But then, I guess you're trade. It's commissioned,

I've got a contract for a quarter of a million

if they like it. If they don't like it, I get it back, sell it

somewhere else, dismantle it, whatever. In the worst

event I'd lose nothing but my time in making it, but

don't you worry, they'll like it.'

 

His certainty was absolute, built on experience.

 

I said, 'Do you happen to know the name of the

Antwerp cutter Greville sent the diamonds to? I mean,

it's bound to be on file in the office, but if I know who to

look for. ..' I paused. 'I could try to hurry him up for

you, if you like.'

 

'I'd like you to, but I don't know who Grev knew

there, exactly.'

 

I shrugged. 'I'll look it up, then.'

 

Exactly where was I going to look it up, I wondered?

Not in the missing address book, for sure.

 

'Do you know the name of the sightholder?' I asked.

 

'Nope.'

 

'There's a ton of paper in the office,' I said in explanation. '

I'm going through it as fast as I can.'

 

'GreV never said a word he didn't have to,' Jenks said

unexpectedly. 'I'd talk, he listened. We got on fine. He

understood what I do better than anybody.'

 

The sadness of his voice was my brother's universal

accolade, I thought. He'd been liked. He'd been trusted.

He would be missed.

 

I stood up and said, 'Thank you, Mr Jenks.'

 

'Call me Pross,' he said easily. 'Everyone does.'

 

'My name's Derek.'

 

'Right,' he said, smiling. 'Now I'll keep on dealing

with you, I won't say I won't, but I'm going to have to

find me another traveller like Grev, with an eye like

his. . . He's been supplying me ever since I started on

my own, he gave me credit when the banks wouldn't, he

had faith in what I could do... Near the beginning

he brought me two rare sticks of watermelon tourmaline

that were each over two inches long and were half

pink, half green mixed all the way up and transparent

with the light shining through them and changing while

you watched. It would have been a sin to cut them for

jewellery. I mounted them in gold and platinum to hang

and twist in sunlight.' He smiled his deprecating smile.

'I like gemstones to have life. I didn't have to pay Grev

for that tourmaline ever. It made my name for me, the

pieCe was reviewed in the papers and won prizes, and he

said the trade we'd do together would be his reward.'

He clicked his mouth. 'I do go on a bit.'

 

'I like to hear it,' I said. I looked down the room to

his workbench and said, 'Where did you learn all this?

How does one start?'

 

'I started in metalwork classes at the local comprehensive,'

he said frankly. 'Then I stuck bits of glass in

gold-plated wire to give to my mum. Then her friends

wanted some. So when I left school I took some of those

things to show to a jewellery manufacturer and asked

for a job. Costume jewellery, they made. I was soon

designing for them, and I never looked back.'

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

I borrowed Prospero's telephone to get Brad, but

although I could hear the ringing tone in the car, he

didn't answer. Cursing slightly, I asked Pross for a

second call and got through to Annette.

 

'Please keep on trying this number,' I said, giving it

to her. 'When Brad answers, tell him I'm ready to go.'

 

'Are you coming back here?' she asked.

 

I looked at my watch. It wasn't worth going back as I

had to return to Kensington by five-thirty. I said no,

I wasn't.

 

'Well, there are one or two things . .

 

'I can't really tie this phone up,' I said. 'I'll go to my

brother's house and ring you from there. Just keep

trying Brad.'

 

I thanked Pross again for the calls. Any time, he said

vaguely. He was sitting again in front of his vice, thinking

and tinkering, producing his marvels.

 

There were customers in the shop being attended to

by the black-suited salesman. He glanced up very

briefly in acknowledgement as I went through and

immediately returned to watching the customers' hands

A business without trust; much worse than racing. But

then, it was probably impossible to slip a racehorse into

a pocket when the trainer wasn't looking.

 

I stood on the pavement and wondered pessimistically

how long it would take Brad to answer the telephone

but in the event he surprised me by arriving

within a very few minutes When I opened the car door,

the phone was ringing.

 

'Why don't you answer it?' I asked, wriggling my way

into the seat.

 

'Forgot which button.'

 

'But you came,' I said.

 

'Yerss'

 

I picked up the phone myself and talked to Annette.

'Brad apparently reckoned that if the phone rang it

meant I was ready, so he saw no need to answer it.'

 

Brad gave a silent nod.

 

'So now we're setting off to Kensington.' I paused.

'Annette, whatts a sightholder, and what's a sight?'

 

'You're back to diamonds again!'

 

'Yes Do you know?'

 

'Of course I do. A sightholder is someone who is

permitted to buy rough diamonds from the CSO. There

aren't so many sightholders, only about a hundred and

fifty world-wide, I think. They sell the diamonds then to

other people. A sight is what they call the sales CSO

hold every five weekS and a sight-box is a packet of

stones they sell, though that's often called a sight too.'

'Is a sightholder the same as a diamantaire?' I asked.

'All sightholders are diamantaires, but all diamantaires

are not sightholders. Diamantaires buy from the

sightholders or share in a sight, or buy somewhere else,

not from De Beers.'

 

Ask a simple question, I thought.

 

Annette said, 'A consignment of cultured pearls has

come from Japan. Where shall I put them?'

 

'Um... Do you mean where because the vault is

locked?'

 

'Yes'

 

'Where did you put things when my brother was

travelling?'

 

She said doubtfully, 'He always said to put them in

the stock-room under "miscellaneous beads".'

 

'Put them in there, then.'

 

'But the drawer is full with some things that came

last week. I wouldn't want the responsibility of putting

the pearls anywhere Mr Franklin hadn't approved.' I

couldn't believe she needed direction over the simplest

thing, but apparently she did. 'The pearls are valuable,'

she said. 'Mr Franklin would never leave them out in

plain view.'

 

'Aren't there any empty drawers?'

 

'Well, I . . .'

 

'Find an empty drawer or a nearby empty drawer

 

and put them there. We'll see to them properly in the

morning.'

 

'Yes, all right.'

 

She seemed happy with it and said everything else

could wait until I came back. I switched off the telephone

feeling absolutely swamped by the prospect she'd

opened up: if Greville hid precious things under 'miscellaneous

beads', where else might he not have hidden

them? Would I find a hundred diamonds stuffed in at

the back of rhodocrosite or jasper, if I looked?

 

The vault alone was taking too long. The four big

stock-rooms promised a nightmare.

 

Brad miraculously found a parking space right outside

Greville's house, which seemed obscurely to disappoint

him.

 

'TWenty past five,' he said, 'for the pub?'

 

'If you wouldn't mind. And . . . er . . . would you just

stand there now while I take a look-see?' I had grown

cautious, I found.

 

He ducked his head in assent and watched me

manoeuvre the few steps up to the front door. No

floodlights came on and no dog barked, presumably

because it was daylight. I opened the three locks and

pushed the door.

 

The house was still. No movements of air. I propped

the door open with a bronze horse clearly Lying around

for the purpose and went down the passage to the small

sitting room.

 

No intruders. No mess No amazons waving riot

sticks, no wrecking balls trying to get past the grilles

on the windows If anyone had attempted to penetrate

Greville's fortress, they hadn't succeeded.

 

I returned to the front door. Brad was still standing

beside the car, looking towards the house. I gave him a

thumbs-up sign, and he climbed into the driver's seat

while I closed the heavy door, and in the little sitting

room, started taking all of the books off the shelves

methodically, riffling the pages and putting each back

where I found it.

 

There were ten hollow books altogether, mostly with

titles like Tales of the Outback and With a Mule in Patagonia.

Four were empty, including the one which had

held Clarissa Williams's letters. One held the big ornate

key. One held an expensive-looking gold watch, the

hands pointing to the correct time.

 

The watch Greville had been wearing in Ipswich was

one of those affairs with more knobs than instructions.

It lay now beside my bed in Hungerford emitting bleeps

at odd intervals and telling me which way was north.

The slim gold elegance in the hollow box was for a

different mood, a different man, and when I turned it

over on my palm I found the inscription on the back: G

my love C.

 

She couldn't have known it was there, I thought. She

hadn't looked for it. She'd looked only for the letters,

and by chance had come to them first. I put the watch

back into the box and back on the shelf. There was no

way I could return it to her, and perhaps she wouldn't

want it, not with that inscription.

 

Two of the remaining boxes contained large keys,

again unspecified, and one contained a folded

instruction leaflet detailing how to set a safe in a concrete

nest. The last revealed two very small plastic cases

containing baby recording tapes, each adorned with the

printed legend 'microcassette'. The cassette cases were

all of two inches long by one and a half wide, the

featherweight tapes inside a fraction smaller.

 

I tossed one in my hand indecisively. Nowhere

among Greville's tidy belongings had I so far found a

microcassette player, which didn't mean I wouldn't in

time. Sufficient to the day I thought in the end, and left

the tiny tapes in the book.

 

With the scintillating titles and their secrets all back

on the shelves I stared at them gloomily. Not a diamond

in the lot.

 

Instructions for concrete nests were all very well, but

where was the safe? Tapes were OK, but where was the

player? Keys were fine, but where were the keyholes?

The most frustrating thing about it was that Greville

hadn't meant to leave such puzzleS For him, the

answers were part of his fabric.

 

I'd noticed on my way in and out of the house that

mail was accumulating in the wire container fixed inside

the letter-box on the front door, so to fill in the time

before I was due at the pub I took the letters along to

the sitting room and began opening the envelopes

 

It seemed all wrong. I kept telling myself it was

necessary but I still felt as if I were trespassing on

ground Greville had surrounded with keep-out fences.

There were bills, requests from charities, a bank statement

for his private account, a gemmology magazine

and two invitations. No letters from sightholders, diamantaires

or cutters in Antwerp. I put the letters into

the gemmology magazine's large envelope and added to

them some similar unfinished business that I'd found in

the drawer under the telephone, and reflected ruefully,

putting it all ready to take to Hungerford, that I loathed

paperwork at the best of times. My own had a habit of

mounting up into increasingly urgent heaps. Perhaps

having to do Greville's would teach me some sense.

 

Brad whisked us round to The Rook and Castle at

five-thirty and pointed to the phone to let me know how

I could call him when I'd finished, and I saw from his

twitch of a smile that he found it a satisfactory

amusement.

 

The Rook and Castle was old fashioned inside as well

as out, an oasis of drinking peace without a juke-box.

There was a lot of dark wood and tiffany lampshades

and small tables with beer mats. A clientele of mostly

business-suited men was beginning to trickle in and I

paused inside the door both to get accustomeid to the

comparative darkness and to give anyone who was

interested a plain view of the crutches.

 

The interest level being nil, I judged Elliot Trelawney

to be absent. I went over to the bar, ordered some

Perrier and swallowed a Distalgesic, as it was time. The

morning's gallop had done no good to the ankle department

but it wasn't to be regretted.

 

A bulky man of about fifty came into the place as if

familiar with his surroundings and looked purposefully

around, sharpening his gaze on the crutches and coming

without hesitation to the bar.

 

'Mr Franklin?'

 

I shook his offered hand.

 

'What are you drinking?' he said briskly, eyeing my

glass.

 

'Perrier. That's temporary also.'

 

He smiled swiftly, showing white teeth. 'You won't

mind if I have a double Glenlivet? Greville and I drank

many of them together here. I'm going to miss him

abominably. Tell me what happened.'

 

I told him. He listened intently, but at the end he said

merely, 'You look very uncomfortable propped against

that stool. Why don't we move to a table?' And without

more ado he picked up my glass along with the one the

bartender had fixed for him, and carried them over to

two wooden armchairs under a multicoloured lampshade

by the wall.

 

'That's better,' he said, taking a sip and eyeing me

over the glass. 'So you're the brother he talked about.

You're Derek.'

 

'I'm Derek. His only brother, actually. I didn't know

he talked about me.'

 

'Oh, yes. Now and then.'

 

Elliot Trelawney was big, almost bald, with halfmoon

glasses and a face that was fleshy but healthy

looking. He had thin lips but laugh lines around his

eyes, and I'd have said on a snap judgement that he was

a realist with a sense of humour.

 

'He was proud of you,' he said.

 

'proud?' I was surprised.

 

He glimmered. 'We often played golf together on

Saturday mornings and sometimes he would be wanting

to finish before the two o'clock race at Sandown or

somewhere, and it would be because you were riding

and it was on the box. He liked to watch you. He liked

you to win.'

 

'He never told me,' I said regretfully.

 

'He wouldn't, would he? I watched with him a couple

of times and all he said after you'd won was, "That's all

right then." '

 

'And when I lost?'

 

'When you lost?' He smiled. 'Nothing at all. Once

you had a crashing fall and he said he'd be glad on the

whole when you retired, as race-riding was so dangerous.

Ironic, isn't it?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'By God, I'll miss trim.' His voice was deep. 'We were

friends for twenty years.'

 

I envied him. I wanted intolerably what it was too

late to have, and the more I listened to people remembering

Greville the worse it got.

 

'Are you a magistrate?' I asked.

 

He nodded. 'We often sat together. Greville intro

 

duced me to it, but I've never had quite his gift. He

seemed to know the truth of things by instinct. He said

goodness was visible, therefore in its absence one

sought for answers.'

 

'What sort of cases did . . . do you try?'

 

'All sorts.' He smiled again briefly. 'Shoplifters. Vagrants.

Possession of drugs TV licence fee evaders. Sex

offenders. . . that's prostitution, rape, sex with minors,

kerb crawlers. Greville always seemed to know infallibly

when those were lying.'

 

'Go on,' I said, when he stopped. 'Anything else?'

 

'Well, there are a lot of diplomats in West London, in

all the embassies. You'd be astonished what they get

away with by claiming diplomatic immunity. Greville

hated diplomatic immunity, but we have to grant it.

Then we have a lot of small businessmen who "forget"

to pay the road tax on the company vehicles, and there

are TDAs by the hundred - that's Taking and Driving

Away cars. Other motoring offences, speeding and so

on, are dealt with separately, like domestic offences and

juveniles. And then occasionally we get the preliminary

hearings in a murder case, but of course we have to

refer those to the Crown Court.'

 

'Does it all ever depress you?' I said.

 

He took a sip and considered me. 'It makes you sad,'

he said eventually. 'We see as much inadequacy and

stupidity as downright villainy. Some of it makes you

laugh. I wouldn't say it's depressing, but one learns to

see the world from underneath, so to speak. To see the

dirt and the delusions, to see through the offenders'

eyes and understand their weird logic. But one's disillusion

is sporadic because we don't have a bench every

day. Twice a month, in Greville's and my cases, plus a

little committee work. And that's what I really want

from you: the notes Greville was making on the licensing

of a new-style gambling club. He said he'd learned

disturbing allegations against one of the organizers and

he was going to advise turning down the application at

the next committee meeting even though it was a project

we'd formerly looked on favourably.'

 

'I'm afraid,' I said, 'that I haven't so far found any

notes like that.'

 

'Damn . . . Where would he have put them?'

 

'I don't know. I'll look for them, though.' No harm in

keeping an eye open for notes while I searched for C.

 

Elliot Trelawney reached into an inner jacket pocket

and brought out two flat black objects, one a notebook,

the other a folded black case a bit like a cigarette case.

 

'These were Greville's,' he said. 'I brought them for

you.' He put them on the small table and moved them

towards me with plump and deliberate fingers. 'He lent

me that one,' he pointed, 'and the notebook he left on

the table after a committee meeting last week.'

 

'Thank you,' I said. I picked up the folded case and

opened it and found inside a miniature electronic chess

set, the sort that challenged a player to beat it. I looked

up. Trelawney's expression, unguarded, was intensely

sorrowful. 'Would you like it?' I said. 'I know it's not

much, but would you like to keep it?'

 

'If you mean it.'

I nodded and he put the chess set back in his pocket.

'Greville and I used to play. . . dammit. . .' he finished

explosively. 'Why should such a futile thing happen?'

 

No answer was possible. I regretfully picked up the

black notebook and opened it at random.

 

'The bad scorn the good,' I read aloud, 'and the

crooked despise the straight.'

 

'The thoughts of Chairman Mao,' Trelawney said

dryly, recovering himself. 'I used to tease him... he

said it was a habit he'd had from university when he'd

learned to clarify his thoughts by writing them down.

When I knew he was dead I read that notebook from

cover to covet. I've copied down some of the things in

it, I hope you won't mind.' He smiled. 'You'll find parts

of it especially interesting.'

 

'About his horses?'

 

'Those too.'

 

I stowed the notebook in a trouser pocket which was

already pretty full and brought out from there the

racing diary, struck by a thought. I explained what

the diary was, showing it to Trelawney.

 

'I phoned that number,' I said, turning pages and

pointing, 'and mentioned Greville's name, and a woman

told me in no uncertain terms never to telephone again

as she wouldn't have the name Greville Franklin spoken

in her house.'

 

Elliot Trelawney blinked. 'Greville? Doesn't sound

like Greville.'

 

'I didn't think so, either. So would it have had something

to do with one of your cases? Someone he found

guilty of something?'

 

'Hah. Perhaps' He considered. 'I could probably find

out whose number it is, if you like. Strange he would

have had it in his diary, though. Do you want to follow it

up?'

 

'It just seemed so odd,' I said.

 

'Quite right.' He unclipped a gold pencil from

another inner pocket and in a slim notebook of black

leather with gold corners wrote down the number.

 

'Do you make enemies much, because of the court?'

I asked.

 

He looked up and shrugged. 'We get cursed now

and then. Screamed at, one might say. But usually not.

Mostly they plead guilty because it's so obvious they

are. The only real enemy Greville might have had is

the gambling club organizer who's not going to get his

licence. A drugs baron is what Greville called him. A

man suspected of murder but not tried through lack of

evidence. He might have had very hard feelings.' He

hesitated. 'When I heard Greville was dead, I even

wondered about VaccarQ But it seems clear the scaffolding

was a sheer accident . . . wasn't it?'

 

'Yes, it was The scaffolding broke high up. One man

working on it fell three storeys to his death. Pieces just

rained down on Greville. A minute earlier, a minute

later...' I sighed. 'Is Vaccaro the gambling-licence

man?'

 

'He is He appeared before the committee and

seemed perfectly straightforward. Subject to screening,

we said. And then someone contacted Greville and

uncovered the muck. But we don't ourselves have any

details, so we need his notes.'

 

'I'll look for them,' I promised again. I turned more

pages in the diary. 'Does Koningin Beatrix mean anything

to you?' I showed him the entry. 'Or CZ = C x

1.7i'

 

C, I thought, looking at it again, stood for diamond.

 

'Nothing,' Elliot Trelawney said. 'But as you know,

Greville could be as obscure as he was clear-headed.

And these were private notes to himself, after all. Same

as his notebook. It was never for public consumption.'

 

I nodded and put away the diary and paid for Elliot

Trelawney's repeat Glenlivet but felt waterlogged

myselL He stayed for a while, seeming to be glad to talk

about Greville, as I was content to listen. We parted

eventually on friendly terms, he giving me his card with

his phone number for when I found Greville's notes

 

If, I silently thought. If I find them.

 

When he'd gone I used the pub's telephone to ring

the car, and after five unanswered brr-brrs disconnected

and went outside, and Brad with almost a grin reappeared

to pick me up.

 

'Home,' I said, and he said, 'Yerss,' and that was that.

 

On the way I read bits of Greville's notebook, pausing

often to digest the passing thoughts which had

clearly been chiefly prompted by the flotsam drifting

through the West London Magistrates Court.

'Goodness is sickening to the evil,' he wrote, 'as evil

is sickening to the good. Both the evil and the good may

be complacent.'

 

'In all income groups you find your average regulation

slob who sniggers at anarchy but calls the police

indignantly to his burglarized home, who is actively

anti-authority until he needs to be saved from someone

with a gun.'

 

'The palm outstretched for a hand-out can turn in a

flash into a cursing fist. A nation's palm, a nation's fist.'

 

'Crime to many is not crime but simply a way of life.

If laws are inconvenient, ignore them, they don't apply

to you.'

 

'Infinite sadness is not to trust an old friend.'

 

'Historically, more people have died of religion than

cancer.'

 

'I hate rapists. I imagine being anally assaulted

myself, and the anger overwhelms me. It's essential to

make my judgement cold.'

 

Further on I came unexpectedly to what Elliot Trelawney

must have meant.

 

Greville had written, 'Derek came to dinner very stiff

with broken ribs. I asked him how he managed to live

with all those injuries "Forget the pain and get on with

the party," he said. So we drank fizz.'

 

I stopped reading and stared out at the autumn

countryside which was darkening now, lights going on.

I remembered that evening very well, up to a point.

Greville had been good fun. I'd got pretty high on

the cocktail of champagne and painkillers and I hadn't

felt a thing until I'd woken in the morning. I'd driven

myself seventy miles home and forgotten it, which

frightening fact was roughly why I was currently and

obediently sticking to water.

 

It was almost too dark to read more, but I flicked

overtone more page and came to what amounted to a

prayer, so private and impassioned that I felt my mouth

go dry. Alone on the page were three brief lines:

 

May I deal with honour.

May I act with courage.

May I achieve humility.

 

I felt as if I shouldn't have read it; knew he hadn't meant

it to be read. May I achieve humility . . . that prayer was

for saints.

 

When we reached my house I told Brad I would go to

London the next day by train, and he looked

devastated.

 

'I'll drive you for nowt,' he said, hoarsely.

 

'It isn't the money.' I was surprised by the strength of

his feelings. 'I just thought you'd be tired of all the

waiting about.'

 

He shook his head vigorously, his eyes positively

pleading.

'All right, then,' I said. 'London tomorrow, Ipswich

on Friday. OK?'

 

'Yerss,' he said with obvious relief.

 

'And I'll pay you, of course.'

 

He looked at me dumbly for a moment, then ducked

his head into the car to fetch the big brown envelope

from Greville's house, and he waited while I unlocked

my door and made sure that there were no unwelcome

visitors lurking.

 

Everything was quiet, everything orderly. Brad

nodded at my all-clear, gave me the envelope and loped

off into the night more tongue-tied than ever. I'd never

wondered very much about his thoughts during all the

silent hours; had never tried, I supposed, to understand

him. I wasn't sure that I wanted to. It was restful the

way things were.

 

I ate a microwaved chicken pie from the freezer and

made an unenthusiastic start on Greville's letters,

paying his bills for him, closing his accoun›$ declining

his invitations, saying sorry, sorry, very sorry.

 

After that, in spite of good resolutions, I did not

attack my own backlog but read right through Greville's

notebook looking for diamonds. Maybe there were

some solid gold nuggets, maybe some pearls of wisdom,

but no helpful instructions like turn right at the fourth

apple tree, walk five paces and dig.

 

I did however find the answer to one small mystery,

which I read with wry amusement.

The green soapstone box pleases me as an exercise

in misdirection and deviousness. The keyhole

has no key because it has no lock. It's impossible

to unlock men's minds with keys, but guile and

 

pressure will do it, as with the box.

 

Even with the plain instruction to be guileful and devious

it took me ages to find the secret. I tried pressing

each of the two hinges, pressing the lock, twisting, pressing

everything again with the box upside down. The

green stone stayed stubbornly shut.

 

Misdirection, I thought. If the keYHole wasn't a lock,

maybe the hinges weren't hinges. Maybe the lid wasn't a

lid. Maybe the whole thing was solid.

 

I tried the box upside down again, put my thumbs on

its bottom surface with firm pressure and tried to push it

out endways, like a slide. Nothing happened. I reversed

it and pushed the other way and as if with a sigh for the

length of my stupidity the bottom of the box slid out

reluctantly to halfway, and stopped.

 

It was beautifully made, I thought. When it was shut

one couldn't see the bottom edges weren't solid stone,

so closely did they fit. I looked with great curiosity to

see what Greville had hidden in his ingenious hiding

place, not really expecting diamonds, and brought out

two well-worn chamois leather pouches with drawstrings,

the sort jewellers use, with the name of the

jeweller indistinctly stamped on the front.

 

Both of the pouches were empty, to my great disappointment.

I stuffed them back into the hole and shut

the box, and it sat on the table beside the telephone all

evening, an enigma solved but useless.

 

It wasn't until I'd decided to go to bed that some

switch or other clicked in my brain and a word half-seen

became suddenly a conscious thought. Van Ekeren,

stamped in gold. Perhaps the jeweller's name stamped

on the chamois pouches was worth another look.

 

I opened the box and pulled the pouches out again

and in the rubbed and faded lettering read the full

name and address.

 

Jacob van Ekeren

 

Pelikanstraat 70

Antwerp

 

There had to be, I thought, about ten thousand jewellers

in Antwerp. The pouches were far from new, certainly

not only a few weeks old. All the same . . . better find

out.

 

I took one and left one, closing the box again, and in

the morning bore the crumpled trophy to London and

through international telephone enquiries found Jacob

van Ekeren's number.

 

The voice that answered from Antwerp spoke either

Dutch or Flemish, so I tried in French, 'Je veux parler

avec Monsieurlacob van Ekeren, s'il vous plaa.'

 

'Ne quittez pas.'

 

I held on as instructed until another voice spoke, this

time in French, of which I knew far too little.

 

'Monsieur van Ekeren n'est pas ici maintenant,

monsieur.'

 

'Parlez vous anglais?' I asked. 'I'm speaking from

England.'

 

'Attendez.'

 

I waited again and was rewarded with an extremely

English voice asking if he could help.

 

I explained that I was speaking from Saxony Franklin

Ltd, gemstone importers in London.

 

'How can I help you?' He was courteous and noncommittal.

 

'

Do you,' I said baldly, 'cut and polish rough

diamonds?'

 

'Yes of course,' he answered. 'But before we do business

with any new client we need introductions and

references'

 

'Um,' I said. 'Wouldn't Saxony Franklin Ltd be a

client of yours already? Or Greville Saxony Franklin,

maybe? Or just Greville Franklin? It's really important.'

 

'May I have your name?'

 

'Derek Franklin. Greville's brother.'

 

'One moment.' He returned after a while and said he

would call me back shortly with an answer.

 

'Thank you very much,' I said.

 

'Pas du tout.' Bilingual besides.

 

I put down the phone and asked both Annette and

June, who were busily moving around, if they could find

Jacob van Ekeren anywhere in Greville's files 'See if

you can find any mention of Antwerp in the computer,'

I added to June.

 

'Diamonds again!'

 

'Yup. The van Ekeren address is 70 Pelikanstraat.'

 

Annette wrinkled her brow. 'That's the Belgian

equivalent of Hatton Garden,' she said.

 

It disrupted their normal work and they weren't

keen, but Annette was very soon able to say she had no

record of any Jacob van Ekeren, but the files were kept

in the office for only six years, and any contact before

that would be in storage in the basement. June whisked

in to confirm that she couldn't find van Ekeren or Pelikanstraat

or Antwerp in the computer.

 

It wasn't exactly surprising. If Greville had wanted

his diamond transaction to be common knowledge in

the office he would have conducted it out in the open.

Very odd, I thought, that he hadn't. If it had been

anyone but Greville one would have suspected him of

something underhand, but as far as I knew hpe always

had dealt with honour, as he'd prayed.

 

The telephone rang and Annette answered it.

'Saxony Franklin, can I help you?' She listened. 'Derek

Franklin? Yes, just a moment.' She handed me the

receiver and I found it was the return of the smooth

French-English voice from Belgium. I knew as well as

he did that he had spent the time between the two calls

 

getting our number from international enquiries so that

he could check back and be sure I was who I'd said.

Merely prudent. I'd have done the same.

 

'Mr Jacob van Ekeren has retired,' he said. 'I am his

nephew Hans. I can tell you now after our researches

that we have done no business with your firm within the

past six or seven years, but I can't speak for the time

before that, when my uncle was in charge.'

 

'I see,' I said. 'Could you, er, ask your uncle?'

 

'I will if you like,' he said civiUy. 'I did telephone his

house, but I understand that he and my aunt will be

away from home until Monday, and their maid doesn't

seem to know where they went.' He paused. 'Could I

ask what all this is about?'

 

I explained that my brother had died suddenly, leaving

a good deal of unfinished business which I was trying

to sort out. 'I came across the name and address of your

firm. I'm foUowing up everything I can.'

 

'Ah,' he said sympathetically. 'I will certainly ask my

uncle on Monday, and let you know.'

 

'I'm most grateful.'

 

'Not at aU.'

 

The uncle, I thought morosely, was a dead-end.

 

I went along and opened the vault, telling Annette

that Prospero Jenks wanted all the spinel. 'And he says

we have a piece of rock crystal like the Eiger.'

 

'The what?'

 

'Sharp mountain. Like Mont Blanc.'

 

'Oh.' She moved down the rows of boxes and chose a

heavy one from near the bottom at the far end. 'This is

it,' she said, humping it on to the shelf and opening the

lid. 'Beautiful.'

 

The Eiger, filling the box, was Lying on its side and

had a knobbly base so that it wouldn't stand up, but I

supposed one could see in the lucent faces and angled

planes that, studded with diamond stars and given the

Jenks's sunlight treatment, it could make the basis of a

fantasy worthy of the name.

 

'Do we have a price for it?' I asked.

 

'Double what it cost,' she said cheerfully. 'Plus VAT,

plus packing and transport.'

 

'He wants everything sent by messenger.'

 

She nodded. 'He always does. Jason takes them in a

taxi. Leave it to me, I'LL see to it.'

 

'And we'd better put the pearls away that came yesterday.'

 

'

Oh, yes.'

 

She went off to fetch them and I moved down to

where I'd given up the day before, feeling certain that

the search was futile but committed to it all the same.

Annette returned with the pearls, which were at least in

plastic bags on strings, not in the awkward open envelopes,

so while she counted and stored the new intake, I

checked my way through the old.

 

Boxes of pearls, all sizes. No diamonds.

 

'Does CZ mean anything to you?' I asked Annette

idly.

 

'CZ is cubic zirconia,' she said promptly. 'We sell a

fair amount of it.'

 

'Isn't that, um, imitation diamond?'

 

'It's a manufactured crystal very like diamond,' she

said, 'but about ten thousand times cheaper. If it's in a

ring, you can't tell the difference.'

 

'Can't anyone?' I asked. 'They must do.'

 

'Mr Franklin said that most high-street jewellers

can't at a glance. The best way to tell the difference, he

said, is to take the stones out of their setting and weigh

them.'

 

'Weigh them?'

 

'Yes. Cubic zirconia's much heavier than diamond, so

one carat of cubic zirconia is smaller than a one-carat

diamond.'

 

'CZ equals C times one point seven,' I said slowly.

 

'That's right,' she said, surprised. 'How did you

know?'

 

 

CHAPTER NINE

 

From noon on, when I closed the last box-lid unproductively

on the softly changing colours of rainbow opal

from Oregon, I sat in Greville's office reading June's

print-out of a crash course in business studies, beginning

to see the pattern of a cash flow that ended on the side

of the angels. Annette, who as a matter of routine had

been banking the receipts daily, produced a sheaf of

cheques for me to sign, which I did, feeling that it was

the wrong name on the line, and she brought the day's

post for decisions, which I strugglingly made.

 

Several people in the jewellery business telephoned

in response to the notices of Greville's death which had

appeared in the papers that morning. Annette, reassuring

them that the show would go on, sounded more

confident than she looked. 'They all say Ipswich is too

far, but they'll be there in spirit,' she reported.

 

At four there was a phone call from Elliot Trelawney,

who said he'd cracked the number of the lady who

didn't want Greville's name spoken in her house.

 

'It's sad, really,' he said with a chuckle. 'I suppose I

shouldn't laugh. That lady can't and won't forgive Greville

because he sent her upper-crust daughter to jail for

three months for selling cocaine to a friend. The mother

was in court, I remember her, and she talked to the

press afterwards. She couldn't believe that selling

cocaine to a friend was an offence. Drug peddlers were

despicable, of course, but that wasn't the same as selling

to a friend.'

'

If a law is inconvenient, ignore it, it doesn't apply to

you.'

 

'What?'

 

'Something Greville wrote in his notebook.'

 

'Oh yes. IT seems Greville got the mother's phone

number to suggest ways of rehabilitation for the daughter,

but mother wouldn't listen. Look,' he hesitated.

'Keep in touch now and then, would you? Have a drink

in The Rook and Castle occasionally?'

 

'All right.'

 

'And let me know as soon as you find those notes.'

 

'Sure,' I said.

 

'We want to stop Vaccaro, you know.'

 

'I'll look everywhere,' I promised.

 

When I put the phone down I asked Annette.

 

'Notes about his cases?' she said. 'Oh no, he never

brought those to the office.'

 

Like he never bought diamonds, I thought dryly. And

there wasn't a trace of them in the spreadsheets or the

ledgers.

 

The small insistent alarm went off again, muffLed

inside the desk. Twenty past four, my watch said. I

reached over and pulled open the drawer and the alarm

stopped, as it had before.

 

'Looking for something?' June said, breezing in.

 

'Something with an alarm like a digital watch.'

 

'It's bound to be the world clock,' she said. 'Mr

Franklin used to set it to remind himself to phone suppliers

in Tokyo, and so on.'

 

I reflected that as I wouldn't know what to say to

suppliers in Tokyo I hardly needed the alarm.

 

'Do you want me to send a fax to Tokyo to say the

pearls arrived OK?' she said.

 

'Do you usually?'

 

She nodded. 'They worry.'

 

'Then please do.'

 

When she'd gone Jason with his orange hair

appeared through the doorway and without any trace of

insolence told me he'd taken the stuff to Prospero Jenks

and brought back a cheque, which he'd given to

Annette.

 

'Thank you,' I said neutrally.

 

He gave me an unreadable glance, said, 'Annette said

to tell you,' and took himself off. An amazing improvement,

I thought.

 

I stayed behind that evening after they'd all left and

went slowly round Greville's domain looking for hiding

places that were guileful and devious and full of misdirection.

 

 

It was impossible to search the hundreds of shallow

drawers in the stock-rooms and I concluded he wouldn't

have used them because Lily or any of the others might

easily have found what they weren't meant to. That was

the trouble with the whole place, I decided in the end.

Greville's own policy of not encouraging private territories

had extended also to himself, as all of his staff

seemed to pop in and out of his office familiarly whenever

the need arose.

 

Hovering always was the uncomfortable thought that

if any pointer to the diamonds' whereabouts had been

left by Greville in his office, it could have vanished with

the break-in "artist, leaving nothing for me to find; and

indeed I found nothing of any use. After a fruitless hour

I locked everything that locked and went down to the

yard to find Brad and go home.

 

The day of Greville's funeral dawned cold and clear and

we were heading east when the sun came up. The run to

Ipswich taking three hours altogether, we came into the

town with generous time to search for Greville's car.

 

Enquiries from the police had been negative. They

hadn't towed, clamped or ticketed any ancient Rover.

They hadn't spotted its number in any public road or

car-park, but that wasn't conclusive, they'd assured me.

FINding the car had no priority with them as it hadn't

been stolen but they would let me know if, if.

 

I explained the car-finder to Brad en route, producing

a street map to go with it.

'Apparently when you press this red button the car's

lights switch on and a whistle blows,' I said. 'So you

drive and I'll press, OK?'

 

He nodded, seeming amused, and we began to search

in this slightly bizarre fashion, starting in the town

centre near to where Greville had died and very slowly

rolling up and down the streets, first to the north, then

to the south, checking them off on the map. In many of

the residential streets there were cars parked nose to

tail outside houses, but nowhere did we get a whistle.

There were public car-parks and shop car-parks and the

station car-park, but nowhere did we turn lights on.

Rover 3500s in any case were sparse: when we saw one

we stopped to look at the plates, even if the paint wasn't

grey, but none of them was Greville's

 

Disappointment settled heavily. I'd seriously

intended to find that car. As lunchtime dragged towards

two o'clock I began to believe that I shouldn't have left

it so long, that I should have started looking as soon as

Greville died. But last Sunday, I thought, I hadn't been

in any shape to, and anyway it wasn't until Tuesday that

I knew there was anything valuable to look for. Even

now I was sure that he wouldn't have left the diamonds

themselves vulnerable, but some reason for being in

Ipswich at all . . . given luck, why not?

 

The crematorium was set in a garden with neatly

planted rose trees: Brad dropped me at the door and

drove away to find some food. I was met by two

blacksuited men, both with suitable expressions, who

introduced themselves as the undertaker I'd engaged and

one of the crematorium's officials. A lot of flowers had

arrived, they said, and which did I want on the coffin.

 

In some bemusement I let them show me where the

flowers were, which was in a long covered cloister

beside the building, where one or two weeping groups

were Looking at wreaths of their own.

 

'These are Mr Franklin's,' the offIcial said, indicating

two long rows of bright bouquets blazing with colourful

life in that place of death.

 

'All of these?' I said, astonished.

 

'They've been arriving all morning. Which do you

want inside, on the cofffin?'

 

There were cards on the bunches, I saw.

 

'I sent some from myself and our sisters,' I said

doubtfully. 'The card has Susan, Miranda and Derek on

it. I'll have that.'

 

The official and the undertaker took pity on the

crutches and helped me find the right flowers; and I

came first not to the card I was looking for but to

another that shortened my breath.

 

'I will think of you every day at four-twenty. Love, C.'

 

The flowers that went with it were velvety red roses

arranged with ferns in a dark green bowl. Twelve sweetsmelling

blooms. Dozen Roses, I thought. Heavens

above.

 

'I've found them,' the undertaker called, picking up a

large display of pink and bronze chrysanthemums.

'Here you are.'

'Great. Well, we'll have these roses as well, and this

wreath next to them, which is from the staff in his office.

Is that all right?'

 

It appeared to be. Annette and June had decided on

all-white flowers after agonizing and phoning from the

office, and they'd made me promise to notice and tell

them that they were pretty. We had decided that all the

staff should stay behind and keep the office open as

trade was so heavy, though I'd thought from her downcast

expression that June would have liked to have

made the journey.

 

I asked the official where all the other flowers had

come from: from businesses, he said, and he would collect

all the cards afterwards and give them to me.

 

I supposed for the first time that perhaps I should

have taken Greville back to London to be seen off by

colleagues and friends, but during the very quiet halfhour

that followed had no single regret. The clergyman

engaged by the undertakers asked if I wanted the whole

service read as I appeared to be the only mourner, and I

said yes, go ahead, it was fitting.

 

His voice droned a bit. I half listened and half

watched the way the sunshine fell onto the flowers on

the coffin from the high windows along one wall and

thought mostly not of Greville as he'd been alive but

what he had become to me during the past week.

 

His life had settled on my shoulders like a mantle.

Through Monday, TUesday, Wednesday and Thursday

I'd learned enough of his business never to forget it.

People who'd relied on him had transferred their

reliance onto me, including in a way his friend Elliot

Trelawney who wanted me as a Greville substitute to

drink with. Clarissa Williams had sent her flowers

knowing I would see them, wanting me to be aware of

her, as if I weren't already. Nicholas Loder aimed to

manipulate me for his own stable's ends. Prospero Jenks

would soon be pressing hard for the diamonds for his

fantasy, and the bank loan hung like a thundercloud in

my mind.

 

Greville, Lying cold in the coffin, hadn't meant any of

it to happen.

 

A man of Honour, I thought. I mentally repeated his

own prayer for him, as it seemed a good time for it. May

I deal with honour. May I act with courage. May I

achieve humility. I didn't know if he'd managed that last

one; I knew that I couldn't.

 

The clergyman droned to a halt. The official removed

the three lots of flowers from the coffin tO put them

on the floor and, with a whirring and creaking of

machinery that sounded loud in the silence, the coffin

slid away forward, out of sight, heading for fire.

 

Goodbye, pal, I said silently. Goodbye, except that

you are with me now more than ever before.

 

I went outside into the cold fresh air and thanked

everyone and paid them and arranged for all of the

flowers to go to St Catherine's Hospital, which seemed

to be no problem. The official gave me the severed cards

and asked what I wanted to do with my brother's ashes,

and I had a ridiculous urge to laugh, which I saw from

his hushed face would be wildly inappropriate. The

business of ashes had always seemed to me an embarrassment.

 

 

He waited patiently for a decision. 'If you have any

tall red rose trees,' I said finally, 'I daresay that would

do, if you plant one along there with the others. Put the

ashes there.'

 

I paid for the rose tree and thanked him again, and

waited for a while for Brad to return, which he did

looking smug and sporting a definite grin.

 

'I found it,' he said.

 

'What?' I was still thinking of Greville.

 

'Your brother's wheels'

 

'You didn't!'

 

He nodded, highly pleased with himself.

 

'Where?'

 

He wouldn't say. He waited for me to sit and drove

off in triumph into the centre of town, drawing up

barely three hundred yards from where the scaffolding

had fallen. Then, with his normal economy, he pointed

to the forecourt of a used car sales business where under

strips of fluttering pennants rows of offerings stood with

large white prices painted on their windscreens.

 

'One of those?' I asked in disbelief.

 

Brad gurgled; no other word for the delight in his

throat. 'Round the back,' he said.

 

He drove into the forecourt, then along behind the

cars, and TuRNed a corner, and we found ourselves

outside the wide-open doors of a garage advertising

repairs, oil changes, MOT tests and Ladies and Gents.

Brad held the car-finder out of his open window and

pressed the red button, and somewhere in the shadowy

depths of the garage a pair of headlights began flashing

on and off and a piercing whistle shrieked.

 

A. cross-looking mechanic in oily overalls came hurrying

out. He told me he was the foreman in charge and

he'd be glad to see the back of the Rover 3500, and I

owed him a week's parking besides the cleaning of the

sparking plugs of the V.8 engine, plus a surcharge for

inconvenience.

 

'What inconvenience?'

 

tTaking up space for a week when it was meant to be

for an hour, and having that whistle blast my eardrums

three times today.'

 

'Three times?' I said, surprised.

 

'Once this morning, twice this afternoon. This man

Came here earlier, you know. He said he'd bring the

Rover's new owner.'

 

Brad gave me a bright glance. The car-finder had

done its best for us early on in the morning, it seemed: it

was our own eyes and ears that had missed it, out of

sight as the car had been.

 

I asked the foreman to make out a bill and, getting

out of my own car, swung over to Greville's. The

Rover's doors would open, I found, but the boot was

locked.

 

'Here,' said the foreman, coming over with the

account and the ignition keys. 'The boot won't open.

Some sort of fancy lock. Custom made. It's been a

bloody nuisance.'

 

I mollifyingly gave him a credit card in settlement

and he took it off to his cubby-hole of an office.

 

I looked at the Rover. 'Can you drive that?' I asked

Brad.

 

'Yerss,' he said gloomily.

 

I smiled and pulled Greville's keys out of my pocket

to see if any of them would unlock the boot; and one

did, to my relief, though not a key one would normally

have associated with cars. More like the keys to a safe, I

thought; and the lock revealed was intricate and steel.

Its installation was typically Greville, ultra security-conscious

after his experiences with the Porsche.

 

The treasure so well guarded included an expensivelooking

set of golf clubs, with a trolley and a new box of

golf balls, a large brown envelope, an overnight bag with

pyjamas, clean shirt, toothbrush and a scarlet can of

shaving cream, a portable telephone like my own, a

personal computer, a portable fax machine, aN opened

carton of spare fax paper, a polished wooden box containing

a beautiful set of brass scales with featherlight

weights, an anti-thief device for locking onto the steering

wheel, a huge torch, and a heavy complicatedlooking

orange metal contraption that I recognized

from Greville'S enthusiastic description as a device for

sliding under flat tyres so that one could drive to a

garage on it instead of changing a wheel by the roadside.

'Cor,' Bred said, looking at the haul, and the foreman

too, returning with the paperwork, was brought to an

understanding of the need for the defences

 

I shut the boot and locked it again, which seemed a

very Greville-like thing to do, and took a quick look

round inside the body of the car, seeing the-sort of

minor clutter which defies the tidiest habit: matchbooks,

time-clock parking slips, blue sunglasses, and a cellophane

packet of tissues In the door pocket on the

driver's side, jammed in untidily, a map.

 

I picked it out. It was a road map of East Anglia, the

route from London to Ipswich drawn heavily in black

with, written,Jown one side, the numbers of the roads

to be followed. The marked route, I saw with interest,

didn't stop at Ipswich but went on beyond, to Harwich.

 

Harwich, on the North Sea, was a ferry port. Harwich

to the Hook of Holland; the route of one of the

historic crossings like Dover to Calais Folkestone to

Ostend. I didn't know if the Harwich ferries still ran,

and I thought that if Greville had been going to Holland

he would certainly have gone by air. All the same he

had, presumably, been going to Harwich.

 

I said abruptly to the foreman, who was showing

impatience for our departure, 'Is there a travel agent

near here?'

 

'Three doors along,' he said, pointing, 'and you can't

park here while you go there.'

 

I gave him a tip big enough to change his mind, and

left Brad keeping watch over the cars while I peg-legged

along the street. Right on schedule the travel agents

came up, and I went in to enquire about ferries for the

Hook of Holland.

 

'Sure,' said an obliging girl. 'They run every day and

every night. Sealink operate them. When do you want

to go?'

 

'I don't know, exactly.'

 

She thought me feeble. 'Well, the St Nicholas goes

over to Holland every morning, and the Koningin

Beatrix every night.'

 

I must have looked as stunned as I felt. I closed my

open mouth.

 

'What's the master?' she said.

 

'Nothing at all. Thank you very much.'

 

She shrugged as if the lunacies of the travelling

public were past comprehension, and I shunted back to

the garage with my chunk of new knowledge which had

solved one little conundrum but posed another, such as

 

what was Greville doing with Queen Beatrix, not a

horse but a boat.

 

.

 

Brad drove the Rover to London and I drove my own

car, the pace throughout enough to make a snail weep.

Whatever the Ipswich garage had done to Greville's

plugs hadn't cured any trouble, the V.8 running more

like a V.4 or even a V.1~/2 as far as I could see. Brad

stopped fairly soon after we'd left the town and, cursing,

cleaned the plugs again himself, but to no avail.

'Needs new ones,' he said.

 

I used the time to search thoroughly through the golf

bag, the box of golf balls, the overnight bag and all the

gadgets.

 

No diamonds.

 

We set off again, the Rover going precariously slowly

in very low gear up hills, with me staying on its tail in

case it petered out altogether. I didn't much mind the

slow progress except that resting my left foot on the

floor sent frequent jabs up my leg and eventually

reawoke the overall ache in the ankle, but in comparison

with the ride home from Ipswich five days earlier it

was chickenfeed. I still mended fast, I thought gratefully.

By TUesday at the latest I'd be walking. Well,

limping, maybe, like Greville's car.

 

There was no joy in reflecting, as I did, that if the

sparking plugs had been efficient he wouldn't have

stopped to have them fixed and he wouldn't have been

walking along a street in Ipswich at the wrong moment.

If one could foresee the future, accidents wouldn't

happen. 'If only' were wretched words.

 

We reached Greville's road eventually and found two

spaces to park, though not outside the house. I'd told

Brad in the morning that I would sleep in London that

night to be handy for going to York with the Ostermeyers

the next day. I'd planned originally that if we found

the Rover he would take it on the orbital route direct to

Hungerford and I would drive into London and go on

home from there after I got back from York. The plugs

having changed that plan near Ipswich, it was now Brad

who would go to Hungerford in my car, and I would

finish the journey by train. Greville's car, ruin that it

was, could decorate the street.

 

We transferred all the gear from Greville's boot into

the back of my car, or rather Brad did the transferring

while I mostly watched. Then, Brad carrying the big

brown envelope from the Rover and my own overnight

grip, we went up the path to the house in the dark and

set off the lights and the barking. No one in the houses

around paid any attention. I undid the three locks and

went in cautiously but, as before, once I'd switched the

dog off the house was quiet and deserted. Brad, declining

food and drink, went home to his mum, and I, sitting

in Greville's chair, opened the big brown envelope and

read all about Vaccaro who had been a very bad boy

indeed.

 

Most of the envelope's contents were a copy of Vaccaro's

detailed application, but on an attached sheet in

abbreviated prose Greville had hand-written:

 

Rambn Vaccaro, wanted for drug-running,

Florida, USA.

 

Suspected of several murders, victims mostly

pilots, wanting out from flying drug crates. Vaccaro

leaves no mouths alive to chatter. My info

from scared-to-death pilot's widow. She won't

come to the committee meeting but gave enough

insider details for me to believe her.

Vaccaro seduced private pilots with a big payoff'

then when they'd done one run to Colombia

and got away with it, they'd be hooked and do it

again and again until they finally got rich enough

to have cold feet. Then the poor sods would die

from being shot on their own doorsteps from passing

cars, no sounds because of silencers, no witnesses

and no clues. But all were pilots owning

their own small planes, too many for coincidence.

Widow says her husband scared stiff but left it

too late. She's remarried, lives in London, always

wanted revenge, couldn't believe it was the same

man when she saw local newspaper snippet, Vaccaro's

Family Gaming, with his photo. Family! She

went to Town Hall anonymously, they put her on

to me.

 

We don't have to find Vaccaro guilty. We just

don't give him a gaming licence. Widow says not

to let him know who turned his application down,

 

- he's dangerous and vengeful, but how can he

silence a whole committee? The Florida police

might like to know his whereabouts Extradition?

 

I telephoned Elliot Trelawney at his weekend home,

told him I'd found the red-hot notes and read them to

 

him, which brought forth a whistle and a groan.

'But Vaccaro didn't kill Greville,' I said.

'No.' He sighed. 'How did the funeral go?'

'Fine. Thank you for your flowers.'

'Just sorry I couldn't get there - but on a working

day, and so far . . .'

 

'It was fine,' I said again, and it had been. I'd been

relieved, on the whole, to be alone.

 

'Would you mind,' he said, diffidently, 'if I arranged a

memorial service for him? Sometime soon. Within

a month?'

 

'Go right ahead,' I said warmly. 'A great idea.'

 

He hoped I would send the Vaccaro notes by messenger

on Monday to the Magistrates Court, and he asked

if I played golf.

 

In the morning, after a dream-filled night in Greville's

black and white bed, I took a taxi to the Ostermeyers'

hotel, meeting them in the foyer as arranged on the

telephone the evening before.

 

They were in very good form, Martha resplendent in

a red wool tailored dress with a mink jacket, Harley

with a new English-looking hat over his easy grin, binoculars

and racing paper ready. Both of them seemed

determined to enjoy whatever the day brought forth

and Harley's occasional ill-humour was far out of sight.

 

The driver, a different one from Wednesday, brought

a huge super-comfortable Daimler to the front door

exactly on time, and with all auspices pointing to felicity,

the Ostermeyers arranged themselves on the rear seaT, I

sitting in front of them beside the chauffeur.

 

The chauffeur, who announced his name as Simms.

kindly stowed my crutches in the boot and said it was no

trouble at all, sir, when I thanked him. The crutches

themselves seemed to be the only tiny cloud on Martha's

horizon, bringing a brief frown to the proceedings.

 

'Is that foot still bothering you? Milo said it was

nothing to worry about.'

 

'No, it isn't, and it's much beTter,' I said truthfully.

 

'Oh, good. Just as long as it doesn't stop you riding

Datepalm.'

 

'Of course not,' I assured her.

 

'We're so pleased to have him. He's just darling.'

 

I made some nice noises about Datepalm, which

wasn't very difficult, as we nosed through the traffic to

go north on the M1.

 

Harley said, 'Milo says Datepalm might go for the

Charisma 'Chase at Kempton next Saturday. What do

you think?'

 

'A good race for him,' I said calmly. I would kill Milo,

I thought. A dicey gallop was one thing, but no medic

on earth was going to sign my card in one week to say I

was fit; and I wouldn't be, because half a ton of horse

over jumps at thirty-plus miles an hour was no puffball

matter.

 

'Milo might prefer to save him for the Mackeson at

Cheltenham next month,' I said judiciously, sowing the

idea. 'Or of course for the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup

two weeks later.' I'd definitely be fit for the Hennessy,

six weeks ahead. The Mackeson, at four weeks, was a

toss-up.

 

'Then there's that big race the day after Christmas,'

Martha sighed happily. 'It's all so exciting. Harley promises

we can come back to see him run.'

 

They talked about horses for another half hour and

then asked if I knew anything about a Dick TUrpin.

 

'Oh, sure.'

 

'Some guy said he was riding to York. I didn't understand

any part of it.'

 

I laughed. 'It happened a couple of centuries ago.

Dick Turpin was a highwayman, a real villain, who rode

his mare Black Bess north to escape the law. They

caught him in York and flung him in gaol and for a

fortnight he held a sort of riotous court in his cell,

making jokes and drinking with all the notables of the

city who came to see the famous thief in his chains. Then

they took him out and hanged him on a piece of land

called the Knavesmire, which is now the racecourse.'

 

'Oh, my,' Martha said, ghoulishly diverted. 'How perfectly

grisly.'

 

In time we left the M1 and travelled north-east to the

difficult old A1, and I thought that no one in their

senses would drive from London to York when they

could go by train. The Ostermeyers, of course, weren't

doing the driving.

 

Harley said as we neared the city, 'You're expected

at lunch with us, Derek.'

 

Expected, in Ostermeyer speech, meant invited. I

protested mildly that it wasn't so.

 

'It sure is. I talked with Lord Knightwood yesterday

evening, told him we'd have you with us. He said right

away to have you join us for lunch. They're giving their

name to one of the races, it'll be a big party.'

 

'Which race?' I asked with curiosity. Knightwood

wasn't a name I knew.

 

'Here it is.' Harley rustled the racing newspaper. 'The

University of York Trophy. Lord Knightwood is the

University's top man, president or goveRNor, some kind

of figurehead. A Yorkshire VIP. Anyway, you're

expected'

 

I thanked him. There wasn't much else to do, though

a sponsor's lunch on top of no exercise could give me

weight problems if I wasn't careful. However, I could

almost hear Milo's agitated voice in my ear: 'Whatever

the Ostermeyers want, for Christ's sake give it to them.'

 

'There's also the York Minster Cup,' Harley said,

reading his paper, 'and the Civic Pride Challenge. Your

horse Dozen Roses is in the York Castle Champions.'

 

'My brother's horse,' I said.

 

Harley chuckled. 'We won't forget.'

 

Simms dropped us neatly at the Club entrance. One

could get addicted to chauffeurs, I thought, accepting

the crutches gravely offered. No parking problems.

Someone to drive one home on crunch days. But no

spontaneity, no real privacy... No thanks, not even

long-term Brad.

 

Back the first horse you see, they say. Or the first

jockey. Or the first trainer.

 

The first trainer we saw was Nicholas Loder. He

looked truly furious and, I thought in surprise, alarmed

when I came face to face with him after he'd watched

our emergence from the Daimler.

 

'What are you doing here?' he demanded brusquely.

'You've no business here.'

 

'Do you know Mr and Mrs Ostermeyer?' I asked

politely, introducing them. 'They've just bought Datepalm.

I'm their guest today.'

 

He glared; there wasn't any other word for it. He had

been waiting for a man, perhaps one of his owners, to

collect a Club badge from the allotted window and, the

transaction achieved, the two of them marched off into

the racecourse without another word.

 

'well!' Martha said, outraged. 'If Milo ever behaved

like that we'd whisk our horses out of his yard before he

could say goodbye.'

 

'It isn't my horse,' I pointed out. 'Not yet.'

 

'When it is, what will you do?'

 

'The same as you, I think, though I didn't mean to.'

 

'Good,' Martha said emphatically.

 

I didn't really understand Loder's attitude or reaction.

If he wanted a favour from me, which was that I'd

let him sell Dozen Roses and Gemstones to others of

his owners either for the commission or to keep them

in his yard, he should at least have shown an echo of

Milo's feelings for the Ostermeyers.

 

If Dozen Roses had been cleared by the authorities

to run, why was Loder scared that I was there to watch

it?

 

.:

 

Crazy, I thought. The only thing I'd wholly learned

was that Loder's ability to dissimulate was underdeveloped

for a leading trainer.

 

Harley Ostermeyer said the York University's lunch

was to be held at one end of the Club members' dining

room in the grandstand, so I showed the way there,

reflecting that it was lucky I'd decided on a decent suit

for that day, not just a sweater. I might have been a lastminute

addition to the party but I was happy not to

look it.

 

There was already a small crowd of people, glasses in

hand, chatting away inside a temporary white-latticefenced

area, a long buffet set out behind them with

tables and chairs to sit at for eating.

 

'There are the Knightwoods,' said the Ostermeyers,

clucking contentedly, and I found myself being introduced

presently to a tall white-haired kindly-looking

man who had benevolence shining from every perhaps

seventy-year-old wrinkle. He shook my hand amicably

as a friend of the Ostermeyers with whom, it seemed, he

had dined on a reciprocal visit to Harley's alma mater,

the University of Pennsylvania. Harley was endowing a

Chair there. Harley was a VIP in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania.

 

I made the right faces and listened to the way the

world went round, and said I thought it was great of

the city of York to support its industry on the turf.

 

'Have you met my wife?' Lord Knightwood said

vaguely. 'My dear,' he touched the arm of a woman

with her back to us, 'you remember Harley and Martha

Ostermeyer? And this is their friend Derek Franklin

that I told you about.'

 

She turned to the Ostermeyers smiling and greeting

them readily, and she held out a hand for me to shake,

saying, 'How do you do. So glad you could come.'

 

'How do you do, Lady Knightwood,' I said politely.

She gave me a very small smile, in command of herself.

 

Clarissa Williams was Lord Knightwood's wife.

 

.~

CHAPTER TEN

 

She had known I would be there, it was clear, and if she

hadn't wanted me to find out who she was she could

have developed a strategic illness in plenty of time.

 

She was saying graciously, 'Didn't I see you on television

winning the Gold Cup?' and I thought of her

speed with that frightful kiyoga and the tumult of

her feelings on TUesday, four days ago. She seemed to

have no fear that I would give her away, and indeed,

what could I say? Lord Knightwood, my brother was

your wife's lover? Just the right sort of thing to get the

happy party off to a good start.

 

The said Lord was introducing the Ostermeyers to a

professor of physics who with twinkles said that as he

was the only true aficionado of horse-racing among the

teaching academics he had been pressed into service to

carry the flag, although there were about fifty undergraduates

out on the course ready to bet their socks off

in the cause.

 

'Derek has a degree,' Martha said brightly, making

conversation.

The professorial eyeballs swivelled my way speculatively. '

What university?'

 

'Lancaster,' I said dryly, which raised a laugh. Lancaster

and York had fought battles of the red and white

roses for many a long year.

 

'And subject?'

 

'Independent Studies.'

 

His desultory attention sharpened-abruptly.

 

'What are Independent Studies?' Harley asked,

seeing his interest.

 

'The student designs his own course and invents his

own final subject,' the professor said. 'Lancaster is the

only university offering such a course and they let only

about eight students a year do it. It's not for the weakwilled

or the feeble-minded.'

 

The Knightwoods and the Ostermeyers listened in

silence and I felt embarrassed. I had been young then, I

thought.

 

'What did you choose as your subject?' asked the

professor, intent now on an answer. 'Horses? in some

way?'

 

I shook my head. 'No. . . en . . "Roots and Results of

War".'

 

'My dear chap,' Lord Knightwood said heartily, 'sit

next to the professor at lunch.' He moved away

benignly, taking his wife and the Ostermeyers with him,

and the professor, left behind, asked what I fancied for

the races.

 

Clarissa, by accident or design, remained out of

talking distance throughout the meal and I didn't try to

approach her. The party broke up during and after the

first race, although everyone was invited to return for

tea, and I spent most of the afternoon, as I'd spent so

many others, watching horses stretch and surge and run

as their individual natures dictated. The will to win was

born and bred in them all, but some cared more than

others: it was those with the implacable impulse to lead

a wild herd who fought hardest and oftenest won.

Sports writers tended to call it courage but it went

deeper than that, right down into the gene pool, into

instinct, into the primordial soup on the same evolutionary

level as the belligerence so easily aroused in

Homo sapiens, that was the taproot of water.

 

I was no stranger to the thought that I sought battle

on the turf because, though the instinct to fight and

conquer ran strong, I was averse to guns. Sublimation.

the pundits would no doubt call it. Datepalm and I both,

on the same primitive plane, wanted to win.

 

'What are you thinking'?' someone asked at my

shoulder.

 

I would have known her voice anywhere, I thought. I

turned to see her half-calm half-anxious expression, the

Lady Knightwood social poise exPlicit in the smooth

hair, the patrician bones and the tailoring of her clothes,

the passionate woman merely a hint in the eyes.

 

'Thinking about horses,' I said.

 

'I suppose you're wondering why I came today, after

I learned last night that you'd not only be at the races,

which I expected you might be anyway because of

Dozen Roses, but actually be coming to our lunch. . .'

She stopped, sounding uncertain.

 

'I'm not Greville,' I said. 'Don't think of me as

Greville.'

 

Her eyelids flickered. 'You're too damned perceptive.'

She did a bit of introspection. 'Yes, all right, I

wanted to be near you. It's a sort of comfort.'

 

We were standing by the rails of the parade ring

watching the runners for the next race walk round, led

by their lads. It was the race before the University

Trophy, two races before that of Dozen Roses, a period

without urgency for either of us. There were crowd

noises all around and the clip-crop of horses walking by,

and we could speak quietly as in an oasis of private

space without being overheard.

 

'Are you still angry with me for hitting you?' she said

a shade bitterly, as I'd made no comment after her last

remark.

 

I half smiled. 'No.'

 

'I did think you were a burglar.'

 

'And what would you have explained to the police, if

they'd come?'

 

She said ruefully, 'I hope I would have come to my

senses and done a bunk before they got there.' She

sighed. 'Greville said if I ever had to use the kiyoga in

earnest to escape at once and not worry what I'd done

to my attacker, but he never thought of a burglar in his

own house.'

'I'm surprised he gave you a weapon like that,' I said

mildly. 'Aren't they illegal? And him a magistrate.'

 

'I'm a magistrate too,' she said unexpectedly. 'That's

how we originally met, at a magistrates' conference.

I've not enquired into the legality of kiyogas. If I were

prosecuted for carrying and using an offensive weapon,

well; that would be much preferable to being a victim of

the appalling assaults that come before us every week.'

 

'Where did he get it?' I asked curiously.

 

'America.'

 

'Do you have it with you here?'

 

She nodded and touched her handbag. 'It's second

nature, now.'

 

She must have been thirty years younger than her

husband, I thought inconsequentially, and I knew what

she felt about him. I didn't know whether or not I liked

her, but I did recognize there was a weird sort of intimacy

between us and that I didn't resent it.

 

The jockeys came out and stood around the owners

in little groups. Nicholas Loder was there with the man

he'd come in with, a thickset powerful-looking man in a

dark suit, the pink cardboard Club badge fluttering

from his lapel.

 

'Dozen Roses,' I said, watching Loder talking to the

owner and his jockey, 'was he named for you?'

 

'Oh, God,' she said, disconcerted. 'How ever . . .?'

 

I said, 'I put your roses on the coffin for the service.'

 

'Oh...' she murmured with difficulty, her throat

closing, her mouth twisting,'I . . . can't . . .'

 

'Tell me how York University came to be putting its

name to a race.' I made it sound conversational, to give

her composure time.

 

She swallowed, fighting for control, steadying her

breathing. 'I'm sorry. It's just that I can't even mourn

for him except inside; can't let it show to anyone except

you, and it sweeps over me, I can't help it.' She paused

and answered my unimportant question. 'The Clerk of

the Course wanted to involve the city. Some of the

bigwigs of the University were against joining in, but

Henry persuaded them. He and I have always come

here to meetings now and then. We both like it, for a

day out with friends.'

 

'Your husband doesn't actually lecture at the University,

does he?'

 

'Oh, no, he's just a figurehead. He's chairman of a

fair number of things in York. A public figure here.'

 

Vulnerable to scandal, I thought: as she was herself,

and Greville also. She and he must have been unwaveringly

discreet.

 

'How long since you first met Greville?' I asked noncommittally.

 

'

Four years.' She paused. 'Four marvellous years. Not

enough.'

 

The jockeys swung up onto the horses and moved

away to go out onto the course. Nicholas Loder and his

owner, busily talking, went off to the stands.

 

'May I watch the race with you?' Clarissa said. 'Do

you mind?'

 

'I was going to watch from the grass.' I glanced down

apologetically at the crutches. 'It's easier.'

 

'I don't mind the grass.'

 

So we stood side by side on the grass in front-of

the grandstand and she said, 'Whenever we could be

together, he bought twelve red roses. It just . . . well . . .'

She stopped) swallowing again hard.

 

'Mm,' I said. I thought of the ashes and the red rose

tree and decided to tell heR about that another time. It

had been for him, anyway, not for her.

 

Nicholas Loder's two-year-old won the sprint at a

convincing clip and I caught a glimpse of the owner

afterwards looking heavily satisfied but unsmiling.

Hardly a jolly character, I thought.

 

Clarissa went off to join her husband for the University

race and after that, during their speeches and presentations,

I went in search of Dozen Roses who was

being led round in the pre-parade ring before being

taken into a box or a stall to have his saddle put on.

 

Dozen Roses looked docile to dozy, I thought. An

unremarkable bay, he had none of the looks or presence

of Datepalm, nor the chaser's alert interest in his surroundings.

He was a good performer, of that there was

no question, but he didn't at that moment give an

impression of going to be a 'trot-up' within half an hour,

and he was vaguely not what I'd expected. Was this the

colt that on the video tapes had won his last three races

full of verve? Was this the young buck who had tried to

mount a filly at the starting gate at Newmarket?

No, I saw with a sense of shock, he was not. I peered

under his belly more closely, as it was sometimes difficult

to tell, but there seemed to be no doubt that he had

lost the essential tackle; that he had in fact been gelded.

 

I was stunned, and I didn't know whether to laugh or

be furious. It explained so much: the loss of form when

he had his mind on procreation rather than racing, and

the return to speed once the temptation was removed.

It explained why the Stewards hadn't called Loder in to

justify the difference in running: horses very often did

better after the operation.

 

I unfolded my racecard at Dozen Roses's race, and

there, sure enough, against his name stood not c for colt

or h for horse, but g for gelding.

 

Nicholas Loder's voice, vibrating with fury, spoke

from not far behind me, 'That horse is not your horse.

Keep away from him.'

 

I turned. Loder was advancing fast with Dozen

Roses's saddle over his arm and full-blown rage in his

face. The heavily unjoyful owner, still for soME reason

in tow, was watching the proceedings with puzzlement.

 

'Mine or not, I'm entitled to look at him,' I said. 'And

look at him I darned well have, and either he is not

Dozen Roses or you have gelded him against my

brother's express wishes.'

 

His mouth opened and snapped shut.

 

'What's the matter, Nick?' the owner said. 'Who is

this?'

 

Loder failed to introduce us. Instead he said to me

vehemently, 'You can't do anything about it. I have an

AuthoriTY to Act. I am the registered agent for this

horse and what I decide is none of your business.'

 

'My brother refused to have any of his horses gelded.

You knew it well. You disobeyed him because you were

sure he wouldn't find out, as he never went to the races'

 

He glared at me. He was aware that if I lodged a

foRmal complaint he would be in a good deal of trouble,

and I thought he was certainly afraid that as my

brother's executor I could and quite likely would do just

that. Even if I only talked about it to others, it could do

him damage',,it was the sort of titbit the hungry racing

press would pounce on for a giggle, and the owners of

all the princely colts in his prestigious stable would get

cold feet that the same might happen to their own property

without their knowledge or consent.

 

He had understood all that, I thought, in the moment

I'd told him on the telephone that it was I who would be

inheriting Dozen Roses. He'd known that if I ever saw

the horse I would realize at once what had been done.

No wonder he'd lost his lower resonances.

 

'Greville was a fool,' he said angrily. 'The horse has

done much better since he was cut.'

 

'That's true,' I agreed, 'but it's not the point.'

 

'How much do you want, then?' he demanded

roughly.

 

My own tuRN, I thought, to gape like a fish. I said

feebly, 'It's not a matter of money.'

 

'Everything is,' he declared. 'Name your price and

get out of my way.'

 

I glanced at the attendant owner who looked more

phlegmatic than riveted, but might remember and

repeat this conversation, and I said merely, 'We'll discuss

it later, OK?' and hitched myself away from them

without aggression.

 

Behind me the owner was saying, 'What was that all

about, Nick?' and I heard Loder reply, 'Nothing, Rollo.

Don't worry about it,' and when I looked back a few

seconds later I saw both of them stalking off towards

the saddling boxes followed by Dozen Roses in the

grasp of his lad.

 

Despite Nicholas Loder's anxious rage, or maybe

because of it, I came down on the side of amusement. I

would myself have had the horse gelded several months

before the trainer had done it out of no doubt unbearable

frustration: Greville had been pigheaded on the

subject from both misplaced sympathy and noS knowing

enough about horses. I thought I would make peace

with Loder that evening on the telephone, whatever the

outcome of the race, as I certainly didn't want a fight on

my hands for so rocky a cause. Talk about the roots of

war, I thought wryly: there had been sillier reasons for

bloody strife in history than the castration of a

thoroughbred.

 

At York some of the saddling boxes were open to

public view, some were furnished with doors. Nicholas

Loder seemed to favour the privacy and took Dozen

Roses inside away from my eyes.

 

Harley and Martha Ostermeyer, coming to see the

horses saddle, were full of beaming anticipation. They

had backed the winner of the University Trophy and

had wagered all the proceeds on my, that was to say, my

brother's horse.

 

'You won't get much return,' I warned them. 'It's

favourite.'

 

'We know that, dear,' Martha said happily, looking

around. 'WhEre is he? Which one?'

 

'He's inside that box,' I pointed, 'being saddled.'

 

'Harley and I have had a marvellous idea,' she said

sweetly, her eyes sparkling.

 

'Now, Martha,' Harley said. He sounded faintly

alaRMed as if Martha's marvellous ideas weren't always

the best possible news.

 

'We wAnt you to dine with us when we get back to

London,' she finished.

 

Harley relaxed, relieved. 'Yes Hope you can.' He

clearly meant that this particular marvellous idea was

passable, even welcome. 'London at weekends is a

graveyard.'

 

With a twitching of an inward grin I accepted my role

as graveyard alleviator and, in the general good cause

of cementing Ostermeyer-Shandy-Franklin relations,

said I would be very pleased to stay to dinner. Martha

and Harley expressed such gratification as to make me

wonder whether when they were alone they bored each

other to silence.

 

Dozen Roses emerged from his box with his saddle

on and was led along towards the parade ring. He

walked well, I thought, his good straight hocks encouraging

lengthy strides, and he also seemed to have woken

up a good deal, now that the excitement was at hand.

 

In the horse's wake hurried Nicholas Loder and his

friend Rollo, and it was because they were crowding

him, I thought, that Dozen Roses swung round on his

leading rein and pulled backwards from his lad, and in

straightening up again hit the Rollo man a hefty buffet

with his rump and knocked him to his knees.

 

Martha with instinctive kindness rushed forward to

help him, but he floundered to his feet with a curse that

made her blink. All the same she bent and picked up a

thing like a blue rubber ball which had fallen out of his

jacket and held it towards him, saying, 'You dropped

this I think.'

 

He ungraciously snatched it from her, gave her an

unnecessarily fierce stare as if she'd frightened the horse

into knocking him over, which she certainly hadn't, and

hurried into the parade ring after Nicholas Loder. He,

looKing back and seeing me still there. reacted with

 

another show of fury.

 

'What perfectly horrid people,' Martha said, making

a face. 'Did you hear what that man said? Disgusting!

Fancy saying it aloud!'

 

Dear Martha. I thought, that word was everyday

coinage on racecourses. The nicest people used it: it

made no one a villain. She was brushing dust off her

gloves fastidiously as if getting rid of contamination and

I half expected her to go up to Rollo and in the tradition

of the indomitable American female to tell him to wash

his mouth out with soap.

 

Harley had meanwhile picked something else up off

the grass and was looking at it helplessly. 'He dropped

this too,' he said. 'I think.'

 

Martha peered at his hands and took the object out

of them.

 

'Oh, yes,'she said with recognition, 'that's the other

half of the baster. You'd better have it, Derek, then you

can give it back to that obnoxious friend of your trainer,

if you want to.'

 

I frowned at what she'd given me, which was a rigid

plastic tube, semi-transparent, about an inch in diameter,

nine inches long, open at one end and narrowing to

half the width at the other.

 

'A baster,' Martha said again. 'For basting meat when

it's roasting. You know them, don't you? You press the

bulb thing and release it to suck up the juices which you

then squirt over the meat.'

 

I nodded. I knew what a baster was.

 

'What an extraordinary thing to take to the races,'

Martha said wonderingly.

 

'Mm,' I agreed. 'He seems an odd sort of man altogether.'

I tucked the plastic tube into an inside jacket

pocket, from which its nozzle end protruded a couple of

inches, and we went first to see Dozen Roses joined

with his jockey in the parade ring and then up onto the

stands to watch him race.

 

The jockey was Loder's chief stable jockey, as able as

any, as honest as most. The stable money was definitely

on the horse, I thought, watching the forecast odds on

the information board change from 2/1 on to Sl2 on.

When a gambling stable didn't put its money up front,

the whisper went round and the price eased dramatically.

The whisper where it mattered that day had to be

saying that Loder was in earnest about the 'trot-up', and

Alfie's base imputation would have to wait for another

occasion.

 

Perhaps as a result of his year-by-year successes,

Loder's stable always, it was well-known in the racing

world, attracted as owners serious gamblers whose satisfaction

was more in winning money than in winning

races: and that wasn't the truism it seemed, because in

steeplechasing the owners tended to want to win the

races more than the money. Steeplechasing owners only

occasionally made a profit overall and realistically

expected to have to pay for their pleasure.

 

Wondering if the Rollo man was one of the big Loder

gamblers, I flicked back the pages of the racecard and

looked up his name beside the horse of his that had won

the sprint. Owner, Mr T. Rollway, the card read. Rollo

for short to his friends. Never heard of him, I thought,

and wondered if Greville had.

 

Dozen Roses cantered down to the start with at least

as much energy and enthusiasm as any of the seven

other runners and was fed into the stalls without fuss.

He'd been striding out well, I thought, and taking a

good hold of the bit. An old hand at the game by now,

of course, as I was also, I thought dryly.

 

I'd ridden in several Flat races in my teens as an

amateur, learning that the hardest and most surprising

thing about the unrelenting Flat race crouch over the

withers was the way it cramped one's lungs and affected

one's breathing. The first few times I'd almost fallen off

at the finish from lack of oxygen. A long time ago, I

thought, watching the gates fly open in the distance and

the colours spill out, long ago when I was young and it

all lay ahead.

 

If I could find Greville's diamonds, I thought, I would

in due course be able to buy a good big yard in Lambourn

and start training free of a mortgage and on a

decent scale, providing of course I could get owners to

send me horses, and I had no longer any doubt that one

of these years, when my body packed up mending fast,

as everyone's did in the end, I would be content with

the new life, even though the consuming passion I still

felt for race-riding couldn't be replaced by anything

tamer.

 

- Dozen Roses was running with the pack. all seven

bunched after the first three furlongs, flying along the

far side of the track at more than cruising speed but

with acceleration still in reserve.

 

If I didn't find Greville's diamonds, I thought, I

would just scrape together whatever I could and borrow

the rest, and still buy a place and set my hand to the

future. But not yet, not yet.

 

Dozen Roses and the others swung left-handed into

the long bend round the far end of the track, the bunch

coming apart as the curve element hit them. llurning

into the straight five furlongs from the winning post

Dozen Roses was in fourth place and making not much

progress. I wanted him quite suddenly to win and was

surprised by the strength of the feeling; I wanted him to

win for Greville, who wouldn't care anyway, and perhaps

also for Clarissa, who would. Sentimental fool, I

told myselL Anyway, when the crowd started yelling

home their fancy I yelled for mine also, and I'd never

done that before as far as I could remember.

 

There was not going to be a trot-up, whatever Nicholas

Loder might have thought. Dozen Roses was visibly

struggling as he took second place at a searing speed a

furlong from home and he wouldn't have got the race at

all if the horse half a length in front, equally extended

and equally exhausted, hadn't veered from a straight

line at the last moment and bumped into him.

 

'Oh dear,' Martha exclaimed sadly, as the two horses

passed the winning post. 'Second. Oh well, never mind.'

 

'He'll get the race on an objection,' I said. 'Which I

suppose is better than nothing. Your winnings are safe.'

 

'Are you sure?'

 

'Certain,' I said, and almost immediately the loudspeakers

were announcing 'Stewards' enquiry'.

More slowly than I would have liked to be able to

manage, the three of us descended to the area outside

the weighing room where the horse that was not my

horse stood in the place for the unsaddling of the

second, a net rug over his back and steam flowing from

his sweating skin. He was moving about restlessly, as

horses often do after an all-out effort, and his lad was

holding tight to the reins, trying to calm him.

 

'He ran a great race,' I said to Martha, and she said,

'Did he, dear?'

 

'He didn't give up. That's really what matters.'

 

Of Nicholas Loder there was no sign: probably inside

the Stewards' room putting forward his complaint. The

Stewards would show themselves the views from the

side camera and the head-on camera, and at any

moment now . . .

 

'Result of Stewards' enquiry,' said the loudspeakers.

'Placing of first and second reversed.' Hardly justice, but

inevitable: the faster horse had lost. Nicholas Loder

came out of the weighing room and saw me standing

with the Ostermeyers, but before I could utter even the

first conciliatory words like, 'Well done,' he'd given me

a sick look and hurried off in the opposite direction. No

Rollo in his shadow, I noticed.

 

Martha, Harley and I returned to the luncheon room

for the University's tea where the Knightwoods were

being gracious hosts and Clarissa, at the sight of me,

developed renewed trouble with the tear glands. I left

the Ostermeyers taking cups and saucers from a waitress

and drifted across to her side.

 

'So silly,' she said crossly, blinking hard as she offered

me a sandwich. 'But wasn't he great?'

 

'He was.'

 

'I wish. . .' She stopped. I wished it too. No need at

all to put it into words. But Greville never went to the

races.

 

'I go to London fairly often,' she said. 'May I phone

you when I'm there?'

 

'Yes, if you like.' I wrote my home number on my

racecard and handed it to her. 'I live in Berkshire,' I

said,'not in Greville's house.'

 

She met my eyes, hers full of confusion.

 

'I'm not Greville,'I said.

 

'My dear chap,' said her husband boomingly, coming

to a halt beside us, 'delighted your horse finally won.

Though, of course, not technically your horse, what?'

 

'No, sir.'

 

He was shrewd enough, I thought, lookiNg at the

intelligent eyes amid the bonhomie. Not easy to fool. I

wondered fleetingly if he'd ever suspected his wife had a

lover, even if he hadn't known who. I thought that if he

had known who, he wouldn't have asked me to lunch.

 

He chuckled. 'The professor says you tipped him

three winners.'

 

'A miracle.'

 

'He's very impressed.' He looked at me benignly.

'Join us at any time, my dear chap.' It was the sort of

vague invitation, not meant to be accepted, that was a

mild seal of approval, in its way.

 

'Thank you,' I said, and he nodded, knowing he'd

been understood.

 

Martha Ostermeyer gushed up to say how marvellous

the whole day had been, and gradually from then

on, as such things always do, the University party evaporated.

 

 

I shook Clarissa's outstretched hand- in farewell, and

also her husband's who stood beside her. They looked

good togethER and settled, a fine couple on the surface.

 

'We'll see you again,' she said to me, and I wondered

if it were only I who could hear her smothered desperation.

 

'

Yes,' I said positively. 'Of course.'

 

'My dear chap,' her husband said. 'Any time.'

 

Harley, Martha and I left the racecourse and climbed

into the Daimler, Simms following Brad's routine of

stowing the crutches.

 

Martha said reproachfully, 'Your ankle's broken, not

twisted. One of the guests told us. I said you'd ridden a

gallop for us on Wednesday and they couldn't believe

it.'

 

'It's practically mended,' I said weakly.

 

'But you won't be able to ride Datepalm in that race

next Saturday, will you?'

 

'Not really. No.'

 

She sighed. 'You're very naughty. We'll simply have

to wait until you're ready.'

I gave her a fast smile of intense gratitude. There

weren't many owners who would have dreamed of waiting.

No trainer would; they couldn't afford to. Milo was

currently putting up one of my arch-rivals on the horses

I usually rode, and I just hoped I would get all of them

back once I was fit. That was the main trouble with

injuries, not the injury itself but losing one's mounts to

other jockeys. Permanently, sometimes, if they won.

 

'And now,' Martha said as we set off south towards

London, 'I have had another simply marvellous idea,

and Harley agrees with me.'

 

I glanced back to Harley who was sitting behind

Simms. He was nodding indulgently. No aNxiety this

time.

 

'We think,' she said happily, 'that we'll buy Dozen

Roses and send him to Milo to train for jumping. That

is,' she laughed, 'if your brother's executor will sell him

to us.'

 

'Martha!' I was dumbstruck and used her first name

without thinking, though I'd called her Mrs Ostermeyer

before, when I'd called her anything.

 

'There,' she said, gratified at my reaction, 'I told you

it was a marvellous idea. What do you say?'

 

'My brother's executor is speechless.'

 

'But you will sell him?'

 

'I certainly will.'

 

'Then let's use the car phone to call Milo and tell

 

him.' She was full of high good spirits and in no mood

for waiting, but when she reached Milo he apparently

didn't immediately catch fire. She handed the phone to

me with a frown, saying, 'He wants to talk to you.'

 

'Milo,' I said, 'what's the trouble?'

 

'That horse is an entire. They don't jump well.'

 

'He's a gelding,' I assured him.

 

'You told me your brother wouldn't ever have it

done.'

 

'Nicholas Loder did it without permission.'

 

'You're kidding!'

 

'No,' I said. 'Anyway the horse got the race today on

a Stewards' enquiry but he ran gamely, and he's fit.'

 

'Has he ever jumped?'

 

'I shouldt't think so. But I'll teach him.'

 

'All right then. Put me back to Martha.'

 

'Don't go away when she's finished. I want another

word.'

 

I handed the phone to Martha who listened and

spoke with a return to enthusiasm, and eventually I

talked to Milo again.

 

'Why,' I asked, 'would one of Nicholas Loder's

owners carry a baster about at the races?'

 

'A what?'

 

'Baster. Thing that's really for cooking. You've got

one. You use it as a nebuliser.'

 

'Simple and effective.'

 

He used it, I reflected, on the rare occasions when it

was the best way to give some sort of medication to a

horse. One dissolved or diluted the medicine in water

and filled the rubber bulb of the baster with it. Then one

fitted the tube onto that, slid the tube up the horse's

nostril, and squeezed the bulb sharply. The liquid came

out in a vigorous spray straight onto the mucous membranes

and from there passed immediately into the

bloodstream. One could puff out dry powder with

the same result. It was the fastest way of getting some

drugs to act.

 

'At the races?' Milo was saying. 'An owner?'

 

'That's right. His horse won the five-furlong sprint.'

 

'He'd have to be mad. They dope-test two horses in

every race, as you know. Nearly always the winner, and

another at random. No owner is going to pump drugs

into his horse at the races.'

 

'I don't know that he did. He had a baster with him,

that's all.'

 

'Did you tell the Stewards?'

 

'No, I didn't. Nicholas Loder was with his owner and

he would have exploded as he was angry with me

already for spotting Dozen Roses's alteration.'

 

Milo laughed. 'So that was what all the heat was

about this past week?'

 

'You've got it.'

 

'Will you kick up a storm?'

 

'Probably not.'

 

'You're too soft,' he said, 'and oh yes, I almost forgot.

There was a phone message for you. Wait a tick. I wrote

it down.' He went away for a bit and returned. 'Here

you are. Something about your brother's diamonds.' He

sounded doubtful. 'Is that right?'

'Yes. What about them?'

 

He must have heard the urgency in my voice because

he said, 'It's nothing much. Just that someone had been

trying to ring you last night and all day today, but I said

you'd slept in London and gone to York.'

 

'Who was it?'

 

'He didn't say. Just said that he had some info for

you: Then he hummed and hatred and said if I talked

to you would I tell you he would telephone your

brother's house, in case you went there, at about ten

tonight, or later. Or it might have been a she. Difficult

to tell. One of those middle-range voices. I said I didn't

know if you Would be speaking to me, but I'd tell you if

I could.'

 

'Well, thanks.'

 

'I'm not a message service,' he said testily. 'Why don't

you switch on your answer phone like everyone else?'

 

'I do sometimes.'

 

'Not enough.'

 

I switched off the phone with a smile and wondered

who'd been trying to reach me. It had to be someone

who knew Greville had bought diamonds. It might even

be Annette, I thought: her voice had a mid-range

quality.

 

I would have liked to have gone to Greville's house

as soon as we got back to London, but I couldn't exactly

renege on the dinner after Martha's truly marvellous

idea, so the three of us ate together as planned and I

tried to please them as much as they'd pleased me.

Martha announced yet another marvellous idea

during dinner. She and Harley would get Simms or

another of the car firm's chauffeurs to drive us all down

to Lambourn the next day to take Milo out to lunch, so

that they could see Datepalm again before they went

back to the States on TUesday. They could drop me at

my house afterwards, and then go on to visit a castle in

Dorset they'd missed last time around. Harley looked

resigned. It was Martha, I saw, who always made the

decisions, which was maybe why the repressed side of

him needed to lash out sometimes at car-park attendants

who boxed him in.

 

Milo, again on the telephone, told me he'd do practically

anything to please the Ostermeyers, definitely

including Sunday lunch. He also said that my informant

had rung again and he had told him/her that I'd got the

message.

 

'Thanks,' I said.

 

'See you tomorrow.'

 

I thanked the Ostermeyers inadequately for everything

and went to Greville's house by taxi. I did think

of asking the taxi driver to stay, like Brad, until I'd

reconnoitred, but the house was quiet and dark behind

the impregnable grilles, and I thought the taxi driver

would think me a fool or a coward or both, so I paid him

off and, fishing out the keys, opened the gate in the

hedge and went up the path until the lights blazed on

and the dog started barking.

 

Everyone can make mistakes.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

I didn't get as far as the steps up to the front door. A

dark figure, dimly glimpsed in the floodlight's glare,

came launching itself at me from behind in a cannonball

rugger tackle and when I reached the ground something

very hard hit my head.

 

I had no sensation of blacking out or of time passing.

One moment I was awake, and the next moment I was

awake also, or so it seemed, but I knew in a dim way

that there had been an interval.

 

I didn't know where I was except that I was Lying face

down on grass. I'd woken up concussed on grass several

times in my life, but never before in the dark. They

couldn't have all gone home from the races, I thought,

and left me alone out on the course all night.

 

The memory of where I was drifted back quietly. In

Greville's front garden. Alive. Hooray for small

mercies.

 

I knew from experience that the best way to deal

with being knocked out was not to hurry. On the other

hand, this time I hadn't come off a horse, not on

Greville's pocket handkerchief turf. There might be

urgent reasons for getting up quickly, if I could think of

them.

 

I remembered a lot of things in a rush and groaned

slightly, rolling up onto my knees, wincing and groping

about for the crutches. I felt stupid and went on behaving

stupidly, acting on fifty per cent brainpower. Looking

back afterwards, I thought that what I ought to have

done was slither silently away through the gate to go

to any neighbouring house and call the police. What I

actually did was to start towards Greville's front door,

and of course the lights flashed on again and the dog

started barking and I stood rooted to the spot expecting

another attack, swaying unsteadily on the crutches,

absolutely dim and pathetic.

 

The door was ajar, I saw, with lights on in the hall,

and while I stood dithering it was pulled wide open

from inside and the cannonball figure shot out.

 

The cannonball was a motor-cycle helmet, shiny and

black, its transparent visor pulled down over the face.

Behind the visor the face also seemed to be black, but a

black balaclava, I thought, not black skin. There was an

impression of jeans, denim jacket, gloves, black running

shoes, all moving fast. He turned his head a fraction and

must have seen me standing there insecurely, but he

didn't stop to give me another unbalancing shove. He

vaulted the gate and set off at a run down the street and

I simply stood where I was in the garden waiting for my

head to clear a bit more and start working.

When that happened to some extent, I went up the

short flight of steps and in through the front door. The

keys, I found, were still in the lowest of the locks; the

small bunch of three keys that Clarissa had had, which

I'd been using instead of Greville's larger bunch as they

were easier. I'd made things simple for the intruder, I

thought, by having them ready in my hand.

 

With a spurt of alarm I felt my trouser pocket to find

if Greville's main bunch had been stolen, but to my

relief they were still there, clinking.

 

I switched off the floodlights and the dog and in the

sudden silence closed the front door. GrevilLe's small

sitting room, when I reached it, looked like the path of a

hurricane. I surveyed the mess in fury rather than

horror and picked the tumbled phone off the floor to

call the police. A burglary, I said. The burglar had gone.

 

Then I sat in Greville's chair with my head in my

hands and said 'ShIt' aloud with heartfelt rage and gingerly

felt the sore bump swelling on my scalp. A bloody

pushover, I thought. Like last Sunday. Too like last

Sunday to be a coincidence. The cannonball had known

both times that I wouldn't be able to stand upright

against a sudden unexpected rush. I supposed I should

be grateful he hadn't smashed my head in altogether

this time while he had the chance. No knife, this time,

either.

 

After a bit I looked wearily round the room. The

pictures were off the walls, most of the glass smashed.

The drawers had been yanked out of the tables and the

tables themselves overturned. The little pink and brown

stone bears lay scattered on the floor, the chrysanthemum

plant and its dirt were trampled into the carpet,

the chrysanthemum pot itself was embedded in the

smashed screen of the television, the video recorder had

been torn from from its unit and dropped, the video

cassettes of the races lay pulled out in yards of ruined

tape. The violence of it all angered me as much as my

own sense of failure in letting it happen.

 

Many of the books were out of the bookshelves, but I

saw with grim satisfaction that none of them lay open.

Even if none of the hollow books had contained diamonds,

at least the burglar hadn't known the books

were hollow. A poor consolation, I thought.

 

The police arrived eventually, one in uniform, one

not. I went along the hall when they rang the doorbell,

checked through the peep-hole and let them in, explaining

who I was and why I was there. They were both of

about my own age and they'd seen a great many breakINS.

 

Looking without emotion at Greville's wrecked

room, they produced notebooks and took down an

account of the assault in the garden. (Did I want a

doctor for the bump? No, I didn't.) They knew of this

house, they said. The new owner, my brother, had

installed all the window grilles and had them wired on a

direct alarm to the police station so that if anyone tried

to enter that way they would be nicked. Police specialists

had given their advice over the defences and had

considered the house as secure as was possible, up to

now: but shouldn't there have been active floodlights

and a dog alarm? They'd worked well, I said, but before

they came I'd turned them ofF

 

'Well, sir,' they said, not caring much, 'what's been

stolen?'

 

I didn't know. Nothing large, I said, because the burglar

had had both hands free, when he vaulted the gate.

 

Small enough to go in a pocket, they wrote.

 

What about the rest of the house? Was it in the same

state?

 

I said I hadn't looked yet. Crutches. Bang on head.

That sort of thing. They asked about the crutches.

Broken ankle, I said. Paining me, perhaps? Just a bit.

 

I went with them on a tour of the house and found

the tornado had blown through all of it. The long drawing

room on the ground floor was missing all the pictures

from the walls and all the drawers from chests and

tables.

 

'Looking for a safe,' one of the policemen said, turning

over a ruined picture. 'Did your brother have one

here, do you know?'

 

'I haven't seen one,' I said.

 

They nodded and we went upstairs. The black and

white bedroom had been ransacked in the same fashion

and the bathroom also. Clothes were scattered everywhere.

In the bathroom, aspirins and other pills were

scattered on the floor. A toothpaste tube had been

squeezed flat by a shoe. A can of shaving cream lay in

the wash basin, with some of the contents squirted out

in loops on the mirror. They commented that as there

was no graffiti and no excrement smeared over everything,

I had got off lightly.

 

'Looking for something small,' the non-uniformed

man said. 'Your brother was a gem merchant, wasn't

he?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'Have you found any jewels here yourself?'

 

'No, I haven't.'

 

They looked into the empty bedroom on that floor,

still empty, and went up the stairs to look round above,

but coming down reported nothing to see but space. It's

one big attic room, they explained, when I said I hadn't

been up there. Might have been a studio once, perhaps.

 

We all descended to the semi-basement where the

mess in the kitchen was indescribable. Every packet of

cereal had been poured out, sugar and flour had been

emptied and apparently sieved in a strainer. The fridge's

door hung open with the contents gutted. AlL liquids

had been poured down the sinks, the cartons and bottles

either standing empty or smashed by the draining

boards. The ice cubes I'd wondered about were missing,

presumably melted. Half of the floor of carpet tiles had

been pulled up from the concrete beneath.

 

The policemen went phlegmatically round looking at

things but touching little, leaving a few footprints in the

floury dust.

I said uncertainly, 'How long was I unconscious? If

he did all this . . .'

 

'Twenty minutes, I'd say,' one said, and the other

nodded. 'He was working fast, you can see. He was

probably longest down here. I'd say he was pulling up

these tiles looking for a floor safe when you set the

alarms off again. I'd reckon he panicked then, he'd been

here long enough. And also, if it's any use to you, I'd

guess that if he was looking for anything particular, he

didn't find it.'

 

'Good news, is that?' asked the other, shrewdly,

watching me.

 

'Yes, of cOUrse.' I explained about the Saxony Franklin

office being broken into the previous weekend. 'We

weren't sure what had been stolen, apart from an

address book. In view of this,' I gestured to the shambles,'

probably nothing was.'

 

'Reasonable assumption,' one said.

 

'When you come back here another time in the dark,'

the other advised,'shine a good big torch all around the

garden before you come through the gate. Sounds as if

he was waiting there for you, hiding in the shadow of

the hedge, out of range of the body-heat detecting

mechanism of the lights.'

 

'Thank you,' I said.

 

'And switch all the alarms on again, when we leave.'

 

'Yes.'

 

'And draw all the curtains. Burglars sometimes wait

about outside, if they haven't found what they're after,

hoping that the householders, when they come home,

will go straight to the valuables to check if they're there.

Then they come rampaging back to steal them.'

 

'I'll draw the curtains,' I said.

 

They looked around in the garden on the way out

and found half a brick Lying on the grass near wheRe I'd

woken up. They showed it to me. Robbery with violence,

that made it.

 

'If you catch the robber,' I said.

 

They shrugged. They were unlikely to, as things

stood. I thanked them for coming and they said they'd

be putting iN- a report, which I could refer to for

insurance purposes when I made a claim. Then they

retreated to the police car doubled-parked outside the

gate and presently drove away, and I shut the front

door, switched on the alarms, and felt depressed and

stupid and without energy, none of which states was

normal.

 

The policemen had left lights on behind them everywhere.

I went slowly down the stairs to the kitchen

meaning merely to turn them off, but when I got there I

stood for a while contemplating the mess and the reason

for it.

 

Whoever had come had come because the diamonds

were still somewhere to be found. I supposed I should

be grateful at least for that information; and I was also

inclined to believe the policeman who said the burglar

hadn't found what he was looking for. But could I find

it, if I looked harder?

I hadn't particularly noticed on my first trip downstairs

that the kitchen's red carpet was in fact carpet

tiles, washable squares that were silent and warmer

underfoot than conventional tiles. I'd been brought up

on such flooring in our parents' house.

 

The big tiles, Lying flat and fitting snugly, weren't

stuck to the hard surface beneath, and the intruder had

had no trouble in pulling them up. The intruder hadn't

been certain there was a safe, I thought, or he wouldn't

have sieved the sugar. And if he'd been successful and

found a safe, what then? He hadn't given himself time

to do anythin' about it. He hadn't killed me. Hadn't

tied me. Must have known I would wake up.

 

All it added up to, I thought, was a frantic and rather

unintelligent search, which didn't make the bump on

my head or my again knocked-about ankle any less

sore. Mincing machines had no brains either. Nor, I

thought dispiritedly, had the mince.

 

I drew the curtains as advised and bent down and

pulled up another of the red tiles, thinking about Greville's

security complex. It would be just like him to build a

safe into the solid base of the house and cover it with

something deceptive. Setting a safe in concrete, as the

pamphlet had said. People tended to think of safes as

being built into walls: floors were less obvious and more

secure, but far less convenient. i pulled up a few

more tiles, doubting my conclusions, doubting my

sanity.

 

The same sort of feeling as in the vaults kept me

going. I didn't expect to find anything but it would be

stupid not to make sure, just in case. This time it took

half an hour, not three days, and in the end the whole

area was up except for a piece under a serving table on

wheels. Under that carpet square, when I'd moved the

table, I found a flat circular piece of silvery metal flush

with the hard base floor, with a recessed ring in it for

lifting.

 

Amazed and suddenly unbearably hopeful I knelt

and pulled the ring up and tugged, and the flat piece of

metal came away and off like the lid of a biscuit-tin,

revealing another layer of metal beneath: an extremely

solid-looking circular metal plate the size of a dinner

plate in which there was a single keyhole and another

handle for lifting.

 

I pulled the second handle. As well try to pull up the

house by its roots. I tried all of Greville's bunch of keys

in the keyhole but none of them came near to fitting.

 

Even Greville, I thought, must have kept the key

reasonably handy, but the prospect of searching anew

for anything at all filled me with weariness. Greville's

affairs were a maze with more blind alleys than

Hampton Court.

 

There were keys in the hollow books, I remembered.

Might as well start with those. I shifted upstairs and dug

out With a Mule in Patagonia and the others, rediscovering

the two businesslike keys and also the decorative

one which looked too flamboyant for sensible use. True

to Greville's mind, however, it was that one whose

wards slid easily into the keyhole of the safe and under

pressure TuRNed the mechanism inside.

 

Even then the circular lid wouldn't pull out. Seesawing

between hope and frustration I found that, if one

turned instead of pulling, the whole top of the safe went

round like a wheel until it came against stops; and at

that point it finally gave up the struggle and came up

loose in my grasp.

 

The space below was big enough to hold a case of

champagne but to my acute disappointment it contained

no nest-egg, only a clutch of business-like brown

envelopes. Sighing deeply I took out the top two and

found the first contained the freehold deeds of the

house and the second the paperwork involved in raising

a mortgage to buy it. I read the latter with resignation.

Greville's house belonged in essence to a finance company,

not to me.

 

Another of the envelopes contained a copy of his

will, which was as simple as the lawyers had said, and in

another there was his birth certificate and our parents'

birth and marriage certificates. Another yielded an

endowment insurance policy taken out long ago to provide

him with an income at sixty-five: but inflation had

eaten away its worth and he had apparently not bothered

to increase it. Instead, I realized, remembering

what I'd learned of his company's finances, he had

ploughed back his profits into expanding his business

which would itself ride on the tide of inflation and proviDe

him with a munificent income when he retired and

sold.

 

A good plan, I thought, until he'd knocked the props

out by throwing one point five million dollars to the

winds. Only he hadn't, of course. He'd had a sensible

plan for a sober profit. Deal with honour . . . He'd made

a good income, lived a comfortable life and run his

racehorses, but he had stacked away no great personal

fortune. His wealth, whichever way one looked at it,

was in the stones.

 

Hell and damnation, I thought. If I couldn't find the

damned diamonds I'd be failing him as much as myself.

He would long for me to find them, but where the

bloody hell had he put them?

 

I stuffed most of the envelopes back into their private

basement, keeping out only the insurance policy,

and replaced the heavy circular lid. Turned it, turned

the key, replaced the upper piece of metal and laid a

carpet tile on top. Fireproof the hiding place undoubtedly

was, and thieFproof it had proved, and I couldn't

imagine why Greville hadn't used it for jewels.

 

Feeling defeated, I climbed at length to the bedroom

where I found my own overnight bag had, along with

everything else, been tipped up and emptied. It hardly

seemed to matter. I picked up my sleeping shorts and

changed into them and went into the bathroom. The

mirror was still half covered with shaving cream and by

the time I'd wiped that off with a face cloth and swallowed

a Distalgesic and brushed my teeth and swept a

lot of the crunching underfoot junk to one side with

a towel, I had used up that day's ration of stamina pretty

thoroughly.

 

Even then, though it was long past midnight; I

couldn't sleep. Bangs on the head were odd, I thought.

There had been one time when I'd dozed for a week

afterwards, going to sleep in mid-sentence as often as

not. Another time I'd apparently walked and talked

rationally to a doctor but hadn't any recollection of it

half an hour later. This time, in Greville's bed, I felt

shivery and unsettled, and thought that-that had probably

as much to do with being attacked as concussed.

 

I lay still aNd let the hours pass, thinking of bad and

good and of why things happened, and by morning felt

calm and much better. Sitting on the lid of the loo in

the bathroom I unwrapped the crepe bandage and by

hopping and holding on to things took a long, luxurious

and much needed shower, washing my hair, letting the

dust and debris and the mental tensions of the week run

away in the soft bombardment of water. After that,

loin-clothed in a bath towel, I sat on the black and White

bed and more closely surveyed the ankle scenery.

 

It was better than six days earlier, one could confidently

say that. On the other hand, it was still black, still

fairly swollen and still sore to the touch. Still vulnerable

to knocks. I flexed my calf and foot muscles several

times: the bones and ligaments still violently protested,

but none of it could be helped. To stay strong, the

muscles had to move, and that was that. I kneaded

the calf muscle a bit to give it some encouragement and

thought about borrowing an apparatus called Electrovet

which Milo had tucked away somewhere, which he

used on his horses' legs to give their muscles electrical

stimuli to bring down swelling and get them fit again.

What worked on horses should work on me, I reckoned.

 

Eventually I wound the bandage on again, not as

neatly as the surgeon, but I hoped as effectively. Then I

dressed, borrowing one of Greville's clean white shirts

and, down in the forlorn little sitting room, telephoned

to Nicholas Loder.

 

He didn't sound pleased to hear my voice.

 

'Well done with Dozen Roses,' I said.

 

He grunted.

 

'To solve the question of who owns him,' I continued,

'I've found a buyer for him.'

 

'Now look here!' he began angrily. 'IÄ'

 

'Yes, I know,' I interrupted, 'you'd ideally like to sell

him to one of your own owners and keep him in your

yard, and I do sympathize with that, but MR and Mrs

Ostermeyer, the people I was with yesterday at York,

they've told me they would like the horse themselves'

 

'I strongly protest,' he said.

 

'They want to send him to Milo Shandy to be trained

for jumping.'

 

'You owe it to me to leave him here,' he said obstinately. '

Four wins in a row . . . it's downright dishonourable

to take him away.'

 

'He's suitable for jumping, now that he's been

gelded.' I said it without threat, but he knew he was in

an awkward position. He'd had no right to geld the

horse. In addition, there was in fact nothing to stop

Greville's executor selling the horse to whomever he

pleased, as Milo had discovered for me, and which

Nicholas Loder had no doubt discovered for himself,

and in the racing world in general the sale to the Ostermeyers

would make exquisite sense as I would get to

ride the horse even if I couldn't own him.

 

Into Loder's continued silence I said, 'If you find a

buyer for Gemstones, though, I'll give my approval.'

 

'He's not as Good.'

 

'No, but not useless. No doubt you'd take a commission,

I wouldn't object to that.'

 

He grunted again, which I took to mean assent, but

he also said grittily, 'Don't expect any favours from me,

ever.'

 

'I've done one for you,' I pointed out, 'in not lodging

a complaint. Anyway, I'm lunching with the Ostermeyers

at Milo's today and we'll do the paperwork of the

sale. So Milo should be sending a box to collect Dozen

Roses sometime this week. No doubt he'll fix a day with

you.'

 

'Rot you,' he said.

 

'I don't want to quarrel.'

 

'You're having a damn good try.' He slammed down

his receiver and left me feeling perplexed as much as

anything else by his constant rudeness. All trainers lost

horses regularly when owners sold them and, as he'd

said himself, it wasn't as if Dozen Roses were a Derby

hope. Nicholas Loder's stable held far better prospects

than a five-year-old gelding, prolific winner though he

might be.

 

Shrugging, I picked up my overnight bag and felt

vaguely guilty at turning my back on so much chaos in

the house. I'd done minimum tidying upstairs, hanging

up Greville's suits and shirts and so on, and I'd left my

own suit and some other things with them because it

seemed I might spend more nights there, but the rest

was physically difficult and would have to wait for the

anonymous Mrs P, poor woman, who was going to get

an atrocious shock.

 

I went by taxi to the Ostermeyers' hotel and again

found them in champagne spirits, and it was again

Simms, fonyish, with a moustache, who turned up as

chauffeur. When I commented on his working Sunday

as well as Saturday he smiled faintly and said he was

glad of the opportunity to earn extra; Monday to Friday

he developed films in the dark.

 

'Films?' Martha asked. 'Do you mean movies?'

 

'Family snapshots, madam, in a one-hour photo

shop.'

 

'Oh.? Martha sounded as if she couldn't envisage

such a life. 'How interesting.'

 

'Not very, madam,' Simms said resignedly, and set off

smoothly into the sparse Sunday traffic. He asked me

for directions as we neared Lambourn and we arrived

without delay at Milo's door, where Milo himself

greeted me with the news that Nicholas Loder wanted

me to phone him at once.

 

'It sounded to me,' Milo said, 'like a great deal of

agitation pretending to be casual.'

 

'I don't understand him.'

 

'He doesn't want me to have Dozen Roses, for some

reason.'

 

'Oh, but,' Martha said to him anxiously, overhearing,

'you are going to, aren't you?'

 

'Of course, yes, don't worry. Derek, get it over with

while we go and look at Datepalm.' He bore the Ostermeyers

away, dazzling them with twinkling charm, and

I went into His kitchen and phoned Nicholas Loder,

wondering why I was bothering.

 

'Look,' he said, sounding persuasive. 'I've an owner

who's very interested in Dozen Roses. He says he'll top

whatever your Ostermeyers are offering. What do you

say?'

 

I didn't answer immediately, and he said forcefully,

'You'll make a good clear profit that way. There's no

guarantee the horse will be able to jump. You can't ask

a high price for him, because of that. My owner will top

their offer and add a cash bonus for you personally.

Name your figure.'

 

'Um,' I said slowly, 'this owner wouldn't be yourself,

would it?'

 

He said sharply, 'No, certainly not.'

 

'The horse that ran at York yesterday,' I said even

more slowly, 'does he fit Dozen Roses's passport?'

'[bat's slanderous!'

 

'It's a question.'

 

'The answer is yes. The horse is Dozen Roses. Is that

good enough for you?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'Well, then,' he sounded relieved, 'name your figure.'

 

I hadn't yet discussed any figure at all with Martha

and Harley and I'd been going to ask a bloodstock agent

friend for a snap valuation. I said as much to Nicholas

Loder who, sounding exasperated, repeated that his

owner would offer more, plus a tax-free sweetener for

myselF.

 

I had every firm intention of selling Dozen Roses to

the Ostermeyers and no so-called sweetener that I

could think of would have persuaded me otherwise.

 

'Please tell your owner I'm sorry,' I said, 'but the

Ostermeyers have Bought Datepalm, as I told you, and

I am obligated to them, and loyalty to them comes first.

I'm sure you'll find your owner another horse as good

as Dozen Roses.'

 

'What if he offered double what you'd take from the

Ostermeyers?

 

'It's not a matter of money.'

 

'Everyone can be bought,' he said.

 

'Well, no. I'm sorry, but no.'

 

'Think it over,' he said, and slammed the receiver

 

down again. I wondered in amusement how often he

broke them. But he hadn't in fact been amusing, and the

situation as a whole held no joy. I was going to have to

meet him on racecourses for ever once I was a trainer

myself, and I had no appetite for chronic feuds.

 

I went out into the yard where, seeing me, Milo

broke away from the Ostermeyers who were feasting

their eyes as Datepalm was being led round on the

gravel to delight them.

 

'What did Loder want?' Milo demanded, coming

towards me.

 

'He offered double whatever I was asking the Ostermeyers

to pay for Dozen Roses.'

 

Milo stared. 'Double! Without knowing what it

was?' ,,

 

'That's right.'

 

'What are you going to do?'

 

'What do you think?' I asked.

 

'If you've accepted, I'll flatten you.'

 

I laughed. Too many people that past week had

flattened me and no doubt Milo coulD do it with the

best.

 

'well?' he said belligerently.

 

'I told him to stuff it.'

 

'Good.'

 

'Mm, perhaps. But you'd better arrange to fetch the

horse here at once. Like tomorrow morning, as we don't

want him having a nasty accident and ending up at the

knackers, dO you think?'

 

'Christ"' He was appalled. 'He wouldn't! Not Nicholas

Loder.'

'One wouldn't think so. But no harm in removing the

temptation.'

 

'No.' He looked at me attentively. 'Are you all right?'

he asked suddenly. 'You don't look too well.'

 

I told him briefly about being knocked out in Greville's

garden. 'Those phone calls you took,' I said, 'were

designed to make sure I turned up in the right place at

the right time. So I walked straight into an ambush and,

if you want to know, I feel a fool.'

 

'Derek!' He was dumbfounded, but also of course

practical. 'It's not going to delay your getting back on a

horse?'

 

'No, don't worry.'

 

'Did you tell the Ostermeyers?'

 

'No, don't bother them. They don't like me being

unfit.'

 

He nodded in complete understanding. To Martha,

and to Harley to a lesser but still considerable extent, it

seemed that proprietorship in the jockey was as important

as in the horse. I'd met that feeling a few times

before and never undervalued it: they were the best

owners to ride for, even if often the most demanding.

The quasi-love relationship could however turn to dust

and damaging rejection if one ever put them second,

which was why I would never jeopardize my place on

Datepalm for a profit on Dozen Roses. It was hard to

explain to more rational people, but I rode races, as

every jump jockey did, from a different impetus than

 

DICK FRANCIS

 

making money, though the money was nice enough and

thoroughly earned besides.

 

When Martha and Harley at length ran out of

-questions and admiration of Datepalm we all returned

to the house, where over drinks in Milo's comfortable

sitting room we telephoned to the bloodstock agent for

an opinion and then agreed on a price which was less

than he'd suggested. Milo beamed. Martha clapped her

hands together with pleasure. Harley drew out his

chequebook and wrote in it carefully, 'Saxony Franklin

Ltd.'

 

'Subject to a vet's certificate,' I said.

 

'Oh yes, dear.' Martha agreed, smiling. 'As if you

would ever sell us a lemon.'

 

Milo produced the 'Change of Ownership' forms

which Martha and Harley and I all signed. and Milo

said he would register the new arrangements with

Weatherby's in the morning.

 

'Is Dozen Roses ours, now?' Martha asked, shiny-eyed.

 

'

indeed he is,' Milo said, 'subject to his being alive

and in good condition when he arrives here. If he

isn't the sale is void and he still belongs to Saxony

Franklin.'

 

I wondered briefly if he were insured. Didn't want to

find out the hard way.

 

With business concluded, Milo drove us all out

to lunch at a nearby restaurant which as usual was

crammed with Lambourn people: Martha and Harley

held splendid court as the new owners of Gold Cup

winner Datepalm and were pink with gratification

over the compliments to their purchase. I watched

their stimulated faces, hers rounded and still

pretty under the blonde-rinsed grey hair, his heavily

handsome, the square jaw showing the beginning of

jowls. Both now looking sixty, they still displayed

enthusiasms and enjoyments that were almost childlike

in their simplicity, which did no harm in the weary old

world.

 

Milo drove us back to rejoin the Daimler and Simms,

who'd eaten his lunch in a village pub, and Martha in

farewell gave Milo a kiss with flirtation but also real

affection. Milo had bound the Ostermeyers to his stable

with hoops of charm and all we needed now was for the

two horses to carry on winning.

 

Milo said 'Thanks' to me briefly as we got into the

car, but in truth I wanted what he wanted, and securing

the Ostermeyers had been a joint venture. We drove out

of the yard with Martha waving and then settling back

into her seat with murmurs and soft remarks of

pleasure.

 

I told Simms the way to Hungerford so that he could

drop me off there, and the big car purred along with

 

Sunday afternoon somnolence.

 

Martha said something I didn't quite catch and I

turned my face back between the headrests, looking

towards her and asking her to say it again. I saw a flash

of raw horror begin on Harley's face, and then with a

crash and a bang the car rocketed out of control across

the road towards a wall and there was blood and shredded

glass everywhere and we careered off the wall back

onto the road and into the path of a fifty-seater touring

coach which had been behind us and was now bearing

down on us like a runaway cliff.

 

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

In a split second before the front of the bus hit the

side of the car where I was sitting, in the freeze-frame

awareness of the tons of bright metal thundering

inexorably towards us, I totally believed I would be

mangled to pulp within a breath.

 

There was no time for regrets or anger or any other

emotion. The bus plunged into the Daimler and turned

it again forwards and both vehicles screeched along the

road together, monstrously joined wheel to wheel,

the white front wing of the coach buried deep in the

black Daimler's engine, the noise and buffeting too

much for thinking, the speed of everything truly terrifying

and the nearness of death an inevitability merely

postponed.

 

Inertia dragged the two vehicles towards a halt, but

they were blocking the whole width of the road.

Towards us, round the bend, came a family car travelling

too fast to stop in the space available. The driver in

a frenzy braked so hard that his rear end swung round

and hit the front of the Daimler broadside with a

sickening jolt and a crunching bang and behind us,

somewhere, another car ran into the back of the bus.

 

About that time I stopped being clear about the

sequence of events Against all catastrophe probability,

I was still alive and that seemed enough. After the first

stunned moments of silence when the tearing of metal

had stopped, there were voices shouting everywhere,

and people screaming and a sharp petrifying smell of

raw petrol.

 

The whole thing was going to burn, I thought.

Explode. FIreballs coming. Greville had burned two

days ago Greville had at least been dead at the time.

Talk about delirious I had half a car in my lap and in my

head the warmed-up leftovers of yesterday's conCUSSIOn.

 

The heat of the dead engine filled the cracked-open

body of the car, forewarning of worse. There would be

oil dripping out of it. There were electrical circuits. . .

sparks . . . there was dread and despair and a vision of

hell.

 

I couldn't escape. The glass had gone from the

window beside me and from the windscreen, and what

might have been part of the frame of the door had bent

somehow across my chest, pinning me deep against the

seat. What had been the fascia and the glove compartment

seemed to be digging into my waist. What had

been ample room for a dicky ankle was now as constricting

as any cast. The car seemed to have wrapped

itself around me in an iron-maiden embrace and the

only parts free to move at all were my head and the arm

nearest Simms. There was intense pressure rather than

active agony, but what I felt most was fear.

 

Almost automatically, as if logic had gone on

working on its own, I stretched as far as I could, got my

fingers on the keys, twisted and pulled them out of

the ignition. At least, no more sparks. At most, I was

breathing.

 

Martha, too, was alive, her thoughts probably as

abysmal as my own. I could hear her whimpering

behind me, a small moaning without words. Simms and

Harley were silent; and it was Simms's blood that had

spurted over everything, scarlet and sticky. I could smell

it under the smell of petrol; it was on my arm and face

and clothes and in my hair.

 

The side of the car where I sat was jammed tight

against the bus. People came in time to the opposite side

and-tried to open the doors, but they were immovably

buckled. Dazed people emerged from the family car in

front, the children weeping. People from the coach

spread along the roadside, all of them elderly, most of

them, it seemed to me, with their mouths open. I wanted

to tell them all to keep away, to go further to safety, far

from what was going to be a conflagration at any

second, but I didn't seem to be able to shout, and the

croak I achieved got no further than six inches.

 

Behind me Martha stopped moaning. I thought

 

wretchedly that she was dying, but it seemed to be the

opposite. In a quavery small voice she said, 'Derek?'

'Yes.' Another croak.

 

'I'm frightened.'

 

So was I, by God. I said futilely, hoarsely, 'Don't

worry.'

 

She scarcely listened. She was saying 'Harley?

Harley, honey?' in alarm and awakening anguish. 'Oh,

get us out, please, someone get us out.'

 

I turned my head as far as I could and looked back

sideways at Harley. He was cold to the world but his

eyes were closed, which was a hopeful sign on the

whole.

 

Simms's eYes were half open and would never blink

again. Simms, poor man, had developed his last onehour

photo. Simms wouldn't feel any flames.

 

'Oh God, honey. Honey, wake up.' Her voice

cracked, high with rising panic. 'Derek, get us out of

here, can't you smell the gas?'

 

'People will come,' I said, knowing it was of little

comfort. Comfort seemed impossible, out of reach.

 

People and comfort came, however, in the shape of a

works foreman-type of man, used to getting things

done. He peered through the window beside Harley and

was presently yelling to Martha that he was going to

break the rear window to get her out and she should

cover her face in case of flying glass.

 

Martha hid her face against Harley's chest, calling to

him and weeping, and the rear window gave way

to determination and a metal bar.

 

'Come on, Missis,' encouraged the best of British

workmen. 'Climb up on the seat, we'll have you out of

there in no time.'

 

'My husband . . .' she wailed.

 

'Him too. No trouble. Come on, now.'

 

It appeared that strong arms hauled Martha out

bodily. Almost at once her rescuer was himself inside

the car, lifting the still unconscious Harley far enough to

be raised by other hands outside. Then he put his head

forward near to mine, and took a look at me and Simms.

 

'ChrisT,' he said.

 

He was smallish, with a moustache and bright brown

eyes.

 

'Can you slide out of there?' he asked.

 

'No.'

 

He tried to pull me, but we could both see it was

hopeless.

 

'They'll have to cut you out,' he said, and I nodded.

He wrinkled his nose. 'The smell of petrol's very strong

in here. Much worse than outside.'

 

'It's vapour,' I said. 'It ignites.'

 

He knew that, but it hadn't seemed to worry him

until then.

 

'Clear all those people further away,' I said. I raised

perhaps a twitch of a smile. 'Ask them not to smoke.'

 

He gave me a sick look and retreated through the

 

rear window, and soon I saw him outside delivering a

warning which must have been the quickest crowd control

measure on record.

 

Perhaps because with more of the glass missing there

was a through current of air, the smell of petrol did

begin to abate, but there was still, I imagined, a severed

fuel line somewhere beneath me, with freshly-released

vapour continually seeping through the cracks. How

much liquid bonfire, I wondered numbly, did a Daimler's

tank hold?

 

There were a great many more cars now ahead in the

road, all stopped, their occupants out and crash-gazing.

No doubt to the rear it would be the same thing. Sunday

afternoon entertainment at its worst.

 

Simms and I sat on in our silent immobility and I

thought of the old joke about worrying, that there was

no point in it. If one worried that things would get bad

and they didn't, there was no point in worrying. If they

got bad and one worried they would get worse, and

they didn't, there was no point in worrying. If they got

worse and one worried that one might die, and one

didn't, there was no point in worrying, and if one died

one could no longer worry, so why worry?

 

For worry read fear, I thought; but the theory didn't

work. I went straight on being scared silly.

 

It was odd, I thought, that for all the risks I took, I

very seldom felt any fear of death. I thought about

physical pain, as indeed one often had to in a trade like

mine, and remembered things I'd endured, and I didn't

know why the imagined pain of burning should fill me

with a terror hard to control. I swallowed and felt

lonely, and hoped that if it came it would be over

quickly.

There were sirens at length in the distance and the

best sight in the world, as far as I was concerned, was

the red fire-engine which slowly forced its way forward,

scattering spectator cars to either side of the road.

There was room, just, for three cars abreast; a wall on

one side of the road, a row of trees on the other. Behind

the fire-engine I could see the flashing blue light of a

police car and beyond that another flashing light which

might betoken an ambulance.

 

figures in authority uniforms appeared from the

vehicles, the best being in flameproof suits lugging a

hose. They stopped in front of the Daimler, seeing the

bus wedged into one side of it and the family car on

the other and one of them shouted to me through the

space where the windscreen should have been.

 

'There's petrol running from these vehicles,' he said.

'Can't you get out?'

 

What a damn silly question, I thought. I said, 'No.'

 

'We're going to spray the road underneath you. Shut

your eyes and hold something over your Mouth and

nose.'

 

I nodded and did as I was bid, managing to shield my

face inside the neck of my jersey. I listened to the long

whooshing of the spray and thought no sound could

be sweeter. Incineration faded progressively from near

certainty to diminishing probability to unlikely outcome,

and the release from fear was almost as hard to

manage as the fear itself. I wiped blood and sweat off

my face and felt shaky.

After a while some of the firemen brought up metalcutting

gear and more or less tore out of its frame the

buckled door next to where Harley had been sitting.

Into this new entrance edged a policeman who took a

preliminary look at Simms and me and then perched on

the rear seat where he could see my head. I turned it as

far as I could towards him, seeing a serious face under

the peaked cap: about my own age, I judged, and full of

strain.

 

'A doctor's coming,' he said, offering crumbs. 'He'll

deal with your wounds.'

 

'I don't thInk I'm bleeding,' I said. 'It's Simms's blood

that's on me.'

 

'Ah.' He drew out a notebook and consulted it. 'Did

you see what caused this . . . all this?'

 

'No,' I said, thinking it faintly surprising that

he should be asking at this point. 'I was looking back

at Mr and Mrs Ostermeyer, who were sitting where you

are now. The car just seemed to go out of control.' I

thought back, remembering. 'I think Harley... Mr

Ostermeyer . . . may have seen something. For a second

he looked horrified... then we hit the wall and

rebounded into the path of the bus.'

 

He nodded, making a note.

 

'Mr Ostermeyer is now conscious,' he said, sounding

carefully noncommittal. 'He says you were shot.'

 

'We were what?'

 

'Shot. Not all of you. You, personally.'

'No.' I must have sounded as bewildered as I felt. 'Of

course not.'

 

'Mr and Mrs Ostermeyer are very distressed but he is

quite clear he saw a gun. He says the chauffeur had just

pulled out to pass a car that had been in front of you for

some way, and the driver of that car had the window

down and was pointing a gun out of it. He says the gun

was pointing at you, and you were shot. Twice at least,

he says. He saw the spurts of flame.'

 

I looked from the policeman to Simms, and at the

chauffeur's blood over everything and at the solidly

scarlet congealed mess below his jaw.

 

'No,' I protested, not wanting to believe it. 'It can't

be right.'

 

'Mrs Ostermeyer is intensely worried that you are

sitting here bleeding to death.'

 

'I feel squeezed, not punctured.'

 

'Can you feel your feet?'

 

I moved my toes, one foot after another. There

wasn't the slightest doubt, particularly about the left.

 

'Good,' he said. 'Well, sir, we are treating THis from

now on as a possible murder enquiry, and apart from

that I'm afraid the firemen say it may be some time

before they can get you loose. They need more gear.

Can you be patient?' He didn't wait for a reply, and

went on, 'As I said, a doctor is here and will come to

you, but if you aren't in urgent need of him there are

two other people back there in a very bad way, and I

hope you can be patient about that also.'

 

I nodded slightly. I could be patient for hours if I

wasn't going to burn.

 

'Why,' I asked, 'would anyone shoot at us?'

 

'Have you no idea?'

 

'None at all.'

 

'Unfortunately,' he said, 'there isn't always an understandable

reason.'

 

I met his eyes. 'I live in Hungerford,'I said.

 

'Yes, sir, so I've been told.' He nodded and slithered

out of the car, and left me thinking about the time in

Hungerford when a berserk man had gunned down

many innocent people, including some in cars, and

turned the quiet country town into a place of horror. No

one who lived in Hungerford would ever discount the

possibility of being randomly slaughtered.

 

The bullet that had torn into Simms would have gone

through my own neck or head, I thought, if I hadn't

turned round to talk to Martha. I'd put my head

between the headrests, the better to see her. I tried to

sort out what had happened next, but I hadn't seen

Simms hit. I'd heard only the bang and crash of the

window breaking and felt the hot spray of the blood

that had fountained out of his smashed main artery in

the time it had taken him to die. He had been dead, I

thought, before anyone had started screaming: the jet of

blood had stopped by then.

 

The steering wheel was now rammed hard against his

chest with the instrument panel slanting down across

his knees, higher my end than his. The edge of it pressed

uncomfortably into my stomach, and I could see that if

it had travelled back another six inches, it would have

cut me in halF.

 

A good many people arrived looking official with

measuring tapes and cameras, taking photographs of

Simms particularly and consulting in low tones. A police

surgeon solemnly put a stethoscope to Simms's chest

and declared him dead, and without bothering with the

stethoscope declared me alive.

 

How bad was the compression, he wanted to know.

Uncomfortable, I said.

 

'I know you, don't I?' he said, considering me.

'Aren't you one of the local jockeys? The jumping

boys?'

 

'Mm.'

 

'Then you know enough about being injured to give

me an assessment of your state.'

 

I said that my toes, fingers and lungs were OK and

that I had cramp in my legs, the trapped arm was aching

and the instrument panel was inhibiting the digestion of

a good Sunday lunch.

 

'Do you want an injection?' he asked, listening.

 

'Not unless it gets worse.'

 

He nodded, allowed himself a small smile and wriggled

his way out onto the road. It struck me that there

was much less leg-room for the back seat than there had

been when we set out. A miracle Martha's and Harley's

legs hadn't been broken. Three of us, I thought, had

been incredibly lucky.

Simms and I went on sitting quietly side-by side for

what seemed several more ages but finally the extra

gear to free us appeared in the form of winches, cranes

and an acetylene torch, which I hoped they would use

around me with discretion.

 

Large mechanics scratched their heads over the

problems. They couldn't get to me from my side of

the car because it was tight against the bus They

decided that if they tried to cut through the support

under the front seats and pull them backwards they

might upset the tricky equilibrium of the engine and

instead of freeing my trapped legs bring the whole

weight of the front of the car down to crush them. I was

against the idea, and said so.

 

In the end, working from inside the car in fireproof

suits and with thick foam pumped all around, using a

well-sheltered but still scorching hot acetylene flame,

which roared and threw terrifying sparks around like

matches, they cut away most of the driver's side, and

after that, because he couldn't feel or protest, they

forcefully pulled Simms's stiffening body out and laid it

on a stretcher. I wondered greyly if he had a wife, who

wouldn't know yet.

 

, With Simms gone, the mechanics began fixing chains

and operating jacks and I sat and waited without bothering

them with questions. From time to time they said,

'You all right, mate?' and I answered 'Yes,' and was

grateful to them.

 

After a while they fastened chains and a winch to the

family car still impacted broadside on the Daimler's

wing and with inching care began to pull it away. There

was almost instantly a fearful shudder through the

Daimler's crushed body and also through mine, and

the pulling stopped immediately. A little more headscratching

went on, and one of them explained to me

that their crane couldn't get a good enough stabilizing

purchase on the Daimler because the family car was in

the way, and they would have to try something else. Was

I all right? Yes, I said.

 

One of them began calling me Derek. 'Seen you in

Hungerford, haven't I,' he said, 'and on the telly?' He

told the others, who made jolly remarks like, 'Don't

worry, we'll have you out in time for the three-thirty

tomorrow. Sure to.' One of them seriously told me that

it sometimes did take hours to free people because of

the dangers of getting it wrong. Lucky, he said, that it

was a Daimler I was in, with its tank-like strength. In

anything less I would have been history.

 

They decided to rethink the rear approach.They

wouldn't disturb the seat anchorages from their pushedback

position: the seats were off their runners, they said,

and had dug into the floor. Also the recliner-mechanism

had jammed and broken. However they were going to

cut off the back of Simms's seat to give themselves more

room to work. They were then going to extract the

padding and springs from under my bottom and see if

they could get rid of the back of my seat also, and

draw me out backwards so that they wouldn't have to

manoeuvre me out sideways past the steering column,

which they didn't want to remove as it was the anchor

for one of the chief stabilizing chains. Did I understand?

Yes, I did.

 

They more or less followed this plan, although they

had to dismantle the back of my seat before the cushion,

the lowering effect of having the first spring removed

from under me having jammed me even tighter against

the fascia and made breathing difficult. They yanked

padding out from behind me to relieve that, and then

with a hacksaw took the back of the seat off near the

roots; and, finally, with one of them supporting my

shoulders, another pulled out handfuls of springs and

other seat innards, the bear-hug pressure on my abdomen

and arm and legs lessened and went away, and i

had only blessed pins and needles instead.

 

Even then the big car was loath to let me go. With

my top half free the two men began to pull me backwards.

and I grunted and stiffened, and they stopped at

once.

 

'What's the maTter?' one asked anxiously.

 

'Well, nothing. Pull again.'

 

In truth, the pulling hurt the left ankle but I'd sat

there long enough. It was at least an old, recognizable

pain, nothing threateningly new. Reassured, my rescuers

hooked their arms under my armpits and used

a bit of strength, and at last extracted me from the

car's crushing embrace like a breeched calf from

a cow.

Relief was an inadequate word. They gave me a

minute's rest on the back seat, and sat each side of me,

all three of us breathing deeply.

 

'Thanks,' I said briefly.

 

'Think nothing of it.'

 

I guessed they knew the depths of my gratitude, as I

knew the thought and care they'd expended. Thanks,

think nothing of it: it was enough.

 

One by one we edged out onto the road, and I was

astonished to find that after all that time there was still a

small crowd standing around waiting: policemen, firemen,

mechanics, ambulance men and assorted civilians,

many with cameras. There was a small cheer and

applause as I stood up free, and I smiled and moved my

head in a gesture of both embarrassment and thanksgiving.

 

 

I was offered a stretcher but said I'd much rather

have the crutches that might still be in the boot, and

that caused a bit of general consternation, but someone

brought them out unharmed, about the only thing

still unbent in the whole mess. I stood for a bit with

their support simply looking at all the intertwined

wreckage; at the bus and the family car and above all

at the Daimler's buckled-up roof, at its sheared-off

bonnet, its dislodged engine awry at a tilted angle,

its gleaming black paintwork now unrecognizable

scrap, its former shape mangled and compressed like

a stamped-on toy. I thought it incredible that I'd sat

where I'd sat and lived. I reckoned that I'd used up a

lifetime's luck.

 

The Ostermeyers had been taken to Swindon Hospital

and treated for shock, bruises and concussion. From

there, recovering a little, they had telephoned Milo and

told him what had happened and he, reacting I guessed

with spontaneous generosity but also with strong business

sense, had told them they must stay with him for

the night and he would collect them. All three were

on the point of leaving when I in my turn arrived.

 

There was a predictable amount of fussing from

Martha over my rescue, but she herself looked as

exhausted as I felt and she was pliably content to be

supported on Harley's arm on their way to the door.

 

Milo, coming back a step, said, 'Come as well, if you

like. There's always a bed.'

 

'Thanks, I'll let you know.'

 

He stared at me. 'Is it true Simms was shot?'

 

'Mm.'

 

'It could have been you.'

 

'Nearly was'

 

'The police took statements here from Martha and

Harley, it seems.' He paused, looking towards them as they

reached the door. 'I'll have to go. How's the ankle?'

 

'Be back racing as scheduled.'

 

'Good.'

 

He bustled off and I went through the paperwork

routines, but there was nothing wrong with me that a

small application of time wouldn't fix and I got myself

discharged pretty fast as a patient and was invited

instead to give a more detailed statement to the police.

I couldn't add much more than I'd told them in the

first place, but some of their questions were in the end

disturbing.

 

Could we have been shot at for any purpose?

 

I knew of no purpose.

 

How long had the car driven by the man with the

gun been in front of us?

 

I couldn't remember: hadn't noticed.

 

Could anyone have known we would be on that

road at that time? I stared at the policeman. Anyone,

perhaps, who had been in the restaurant for lunch.

Anyone there could have followed us from there to

Milo's house, perhaps, and waited for us to leave, and

passed us, allowing us then to pass again. But why ever

should they?

 

Who else might know?

 

Perhaps the car company who employed Simms.

 

Who else?

 

Milo Shandy, and he'd have been as likely to shoot

himself as the Ostermeyers.

 

Mr Ostermeyer said the gun was pointing at you,

sIR

 

With all due respect to Mr Ostermeyer, he was looking

through the car and both cars were moving, and at

different speeds presumably, and I didn't think one

could be certain.

 

Could I think of any reason why anyone should want

to kill me?

 

Me, personally? No . . . I couldn't.

 

They pounced on the hesitation I could hear in my

own voice, and I told them I'd been attacked and

knocked out the previous evening. I explained about

Greville's death. I told them he had been dealing in

precious stones as he was a gem merchant and I thought

my attacker had been trying to find and steal part of

the stock. BUT I had no idea why the would-be thief

should want to shoot me today when he could easily

have bashed my head in yesterday.

 

They wrote it down without comment. Had I any

idea who had attacked me the previous evening?

 

No, I hadn't.

 

They didn't say they didn't believe me, but something

in their manner gave me the impression they

thought anyone attacked twice in two days had to know

who was after him.

 

I would have liked very much to be able to tell them.

It had just occurred to me, if not to them, that there

might be more to come.

 

I'd better find out soon, I thought.

 

I'd better not find out too late.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

I didn't go to Milo's house nor to my own bed, but

stayed in an anonymous hotel in Swindon wherE

unknown enemies wouldn't find me.

 

The urge simply to go home was strong, as if one

could retreat to safety into one's den, but I thought I

would probably be alarmed and wakeful all night there,

when what I most wanted was sleep. All in all it had

been a rough ten days, and however easily my body

usually shook off bumps and bangs, the accumulation

was making an insistent demand for rest.

 

RICE, I thought wryly, RICE being the acronym of

the best way to treat sports injuries: rest, ice, compression,

elevation. I rarely seemed to be managing all

of them at the same time, though all, in one way or

another, separately. With elevation in place, I phoned

Milo from the hotel to say I wouldn't be coming and

asked how Martha and Harley were doing.

 

'They're quavery. It must have been some crash.

Martha keeps crying. It seems a car ran into the back of

the bus and two people in the car were terribly injured.

She saw them, and it's upsetting her almost as much as

knowing Simms was shot. Can't you come and comfort

her?'

 

'You and Harley can do it better.'

 

'She thought you were dying too. She's badly

shocked. You'd better come.'

 

'They gave her a sedative at the hospital, didn't

they?'

 

'Yes,' he agreed grudgingly. 'Harley too.'

 

'Look... persuade them to sleep. I'll come in the

morning and pick them up and take them back to their

hotel in London. Will that do?'

 

He said unwillingly that he supposed so.

 

'Say goodnight to them from me,' I said. 'Tell them I

think they're terrific.'

 

'Do you?' He sounded surprised.

 

'It does no harm to say it.'

 

'Cynic.'

 

'Seriously,' I said, 'they'll feel better if you tell them.'

 

'All right then. See you at breakfast.'

 

I put down the receiver and on reflection a few

minutes later got through to Brad.

 

'Cor,'he said, 'you were in that crash.'

 

'How did you hear about it?' I asked, surprised.

 

'Down the pub. Talk of Hungerford. Another

madman. It's shook everyone up. My mum won't go

out.'

 

It had shaken his tongue loose, I thought in amusement. '

Have you still got my car?' I said.

'Yerss.' He sounded anxious. 'You said keep it

here.'

 

'Yes. I meant keep it there.'

 

'I walked down your house earlier. There weren't no

one there then.'

 

'I'm not there now,' I said. 'Do you still want to go on

driving?'

 

'Yerss.' Very positive. 'Now?'

 

'In the morning.' I said I would meet him at eight

outside the hotel near the railway station at Swindon,

and we would be going to London. 'OK?'

 

'Yerss,' he said, signing off, and it sounded like a cat

purring over the resumption of milk.

 

Smiling and yawning, a jaw-cracking combination, I

ran a bath, took off my clothes and the bandage and lay

gratefully in hot water, letting it soak away the fatigue

along with Simms's blood. Then, my overnight bag

having survived unharmed along with the crutches, I

scrubbed my teeth, put on sleeping shorts, rewrapped

the ankle, hung a 'Do not disturb' card outside my door

and was in bed by nine and slept and dreamed of

crashes and fire and hovering unidentified threats

 

Brad came on the dot in the morning and we went first

 

to my place in a necessary quest for clean clothes. His

mum, Brad agreed, would wash the things I'd worn in

the crash.

 

My rooms were still quiet and unransacked and no

dangers lurked outside in daylight. I changed uneventfully

and repacked the travelling bag and we drove in

good order to Lambourn, I sitting beside Brad and

thinking I could have done the driving myself, except

that I found his presence reassuring and I'd come to

grief on both of the days he hadn't been with me.

 

'If a car passes us and sits in front of us,' I said, 'don't

pass it. Fall right back and turn up a side road.'

 

'Why?'

 

I told him that the police thought we'd been caught

in a deliberate moving ambush. Neither the Ostermeyers

nor I, I pointed out, would be happy to repeat

the experience, and Brad wouldn't be wanting to double

for Simms. He grinned, an unnerving sight, and gave

me to understand with a nod that he would follow the

instruction.

 

The usual road to Lambourn turned out to be still

blocked off, and I wondered briefly, as we detoured,

whether it was because of the murder enquiry or simply

technical difficulties in disentangling the omelette.

 

Martha and Harley were still shaking over breakfast,

the coffee cups trembling against their lips. Milo with

relief shifted the burden of their reliance smartly from

himself to me, telling them that now Derek was here,

they'd be safe. I wasn't so sure about that, particularly if

both Harley and the police were right about me personally

being yesterday's target. Neither Martha nor

Harley seemed to suffer such qualms and gave me the

instant status of surrogate son/nephew, the one to be

naturally leaned on, psychologically if not physically, for

succour and support.

 

I looked at them with affection. Martha had retained

enough spirit to put on lipstick. Harley was making light

of a sticking plaster on his temple. They couldn't help

their nervous systems' reaction to mental trauma, and I

hoped it wouldn't be long before their habitual preference

for enjoyment resurfaced.

 

'The only good thing about yesterday,' Martha said

with a sigh, 'was buying Dozen Roses. Milo says he's

already sent a van for him.'

 

I'd forgotten about Dozen Roses Nicholas Loder

and his tizzies seemed a long way off and unimportant. I

said I was glad they were glad, and that in about a week

or so, when he'd settled down in his new quarters I

would start teaching him to jump.

 

'I'm sure he'll be brilliant,' Martha said bravely,

trying hard to make normal conversation. 'Won't he?'

 

'Some horses take to it better than others,' I said

neutrally. 'Like humans.'

 

'I'll believe he'll be brilliant.'

 

Averagely good, I thought, would be good enough

for me: but most racehorses could jump if started

patiently over low obstacles like logs.

 

Milo offered fresh coffee and more toast, but they

were ready to leave and in a short while we were on the

road to London. No one passed us and slowed, no one

ambushed or shot us, and Brad drew up with a flourish

outside their hotel, at least the equal of Simms.

gOOdbye, and I mrS Harley Sffkissed my cbeek in

 

y Would come ~ack SOon tb Y. hook my hand.

 

sure glad to be going Id but tbey were

 

go hakily into tbe b~th : iwatched them

thøUghts, k h ought n

th glory for thePm andatDPa~m Would c CømP6Cated

 

CøUldjump.Roses also, once be

 

ges r tto Brad, and he nodded a d

~ 'øVard5 tbe envir

I d

Derek,' as , ', Goo if

they d been used t d morning,;

 

Annette s 0 me for

 

whiCb ne dai~d there we~e letters left over f years and.

 

papers wbs the funera)?, she asked sadl 1         7

 

yeary ago, I iet,' I said.

ere good. ~oUn top of bis

 

She looked pleased n

Others' a d rece~ved tb aPe Saibd sbe would tell tbo

~ Wer ~I

cO~Peered at tbe

 

mUCh. Jus '' I ~ 1 ~ d ~

ked ljk ' urth idn t use it

She pu' ù~`n thmgs rha~

 

nthe let ers

 

Martha with a shine of tears kissed my cheek in

goodbye, and I hers: Harley gruffly shook my hand.

They would come back soon, they said, but they were

sure glad to be going home tomorrow. I watched them

go shakily into the hotel and thought uncomplicated

thoughts, like hoping Datepalm would cover himself

with glory for them, and Dozen Roses also, once he

could jump.

 

'Office?' I suggested to Brad, and he nodded, and

made the now familiar turns towards the environs of

Hatton Garden.

 

Little in Saxony Franklin appeared to have changed.

It seemed eXtraordinary that it was only a week since

I'd walked in there for the first time, so familiar did it

feel on going back. The staff said, 'Good morning,

Derek,' as if they'd been used to me for years, and

Annette said there were letters left over from Friday

which needed decisions.

 

'How was the funeral?' she asked sadly, laying out

papers on the desk.

 

A thousand light years ago, I thought. 'Quiet,' I said.

'Good. Your flowers were good. They were on top of his

coffin.'

 

She looked pleased and said she would tell the

others, and received the news that there would be a

memorial service with obvious satisfaction. 'It didn't

seem right, not being at his funeral, not on Friday. We

had a minute's silence here at two o'clock. I suppose

you'll think us silly.'

'Far from it.' I was moved and let her see it. She

smiled sweetly in her heavy way and went off to relay to

the others and leave me floundering in the old treacle of

deciding things on a basis of no knowledge.

 

June whisked in looking happy with a pink glow on

both cheeks and told me we were low in blue lace agate

chips and snowflake obsidian and amazonite beads.

 

'Order some more, same as before.'

 

'Yes, right.'

 

She turned and was on her way out again when I

called her back and asked her if there was an alarm

clock among all the gadgets. I pulled open the deep

drawer and pointed downwards.

 

'An alarm clock?' She was doubtful and peered at the

assorted black objects. 'Telescopes, dictionaries, Geiger

counter, calculators, spy juice . . .'

 

'What's spy juice?' I asked, intrigued.

 

'Oh, this.' She reached in and extracted an aerosol

can. 'That's just my name for it. You squirt this stuff on

anyone's envelopes and it makes the paper transparent

so you can read the private letters inside.' She LoOked at

my face and laughed. 'Banks have got round it by printing

patterns all over the insides of their envelopes. If

you spray their envelopes, all you see is the pattern.'

 

'Whatever did Greville use it for?'

 

'Someone gave it to him, I think. He didn't use it

much, just to check if it was worth opening things that

looked like advertisements.'

 

She put a plain sheet of paper over one of the letters

Lying on the desk and squirted a little liquid over it. The

plain paper immediately became transparent so that

one could read the letter through it, and then slowly

went opaque again as it dried.

 

'Sneaky,' she said, 'isn't it?'

 

'Very.'

 

She was about to replace the can in the drawer but I

said to put it on top of the desk, and I brought out all

the other gadgets and stood them around in plain sight.

None of them, as far as I could see, had an alarm

function.

 

'You meNtioned something about a world clock,' I

said, 'but there isn't one here.'

 

'I've a clock with an alarm in my room,' she said

helpfully. 'Would you like me to bring that?'

 

'Um, yes, perhaps. Could you set it to four-fifteen?'

 

'Sure, anything you like.'

 

She vanished and returned fiddling with a tiny thing

like a black credit card which turned out to be a highly

versatile timepiece.

 

'There you-are,' she said. 'Four-fifteen - pm, I suppose

you mean.' She put the clock on the desk.

 

'This afternoon, yes. There's an alarm somewhere

here that goes off every day at four-twenty. I thought I

might find it.'

 

Her eyes widened. 'Oh, but that's Mr Franklin's

watch.'

 

'Which one?' I asked.

'He only ever wore one. It's a computer itself, a calendar

and a compass.'

 

That watch, I reflected, was beside my bed in

Hungerford.

 

'I think,' I said, 'that he may have had more than one

alarm set to four-twenty.'

 

The fair eyebrows lifted. 'I did sometimes wonder

why,' she said. 'I mean, why four-twenty? If he was in

the stock-room and his watch alarm went off he would

stop doing whatever it was for a few moments. I sort of

asked him once, but he didn't really answer, he said it

was a convenient time for communication, or something

like that. I didn't understand what he meant, but that

was all right, he didn't mean me to.'

 

She spoke without resentment and with regret. I

thought that Greville must have enjoyed having June

around him as much as I did. All that bright intelligence

and unspoiled good humour and common sense. He'd

liked her enough to make puzzles for her and let her

share his toys.

 

'What's this one?' I asked, picking up a small grey

contraption with black ear sponges on a headband with

a cord like a walkabout cassette player, but with no

provision for cassettes in what might have been a

holder.

 

'That's a sound-enhancer. It's for deaf people, really,

but Mr Franklin took it away from someone who was

using it to listen to a private conversation he was having

with another gem merchant. In Tucson, it was. He said

he was so furious at the time that he just snatched the

amplifier and headphones off the man who was listeNING

and walked away with them uttering threats about commercial

espionage, and he said the man hadn't even

tried to get them back.' She paused. 'Put the earphones

on. You can hear everything everyone's saying anywhere

in the office. It's pretty powerful. Uncanny,

really.'

 

I put on the ultra-light earphones and pressed the

ON switch on the cigarette-packet-sized amplifier and

sure enough I could straightaway hear Annette across

the hallway talking to Lily about remembering to ask

Derek for time off for the dentist.

 

I removed the earphones and looked at June.

 

'What did you hear?' she asked. 'Secrets?'

 

'Not that time, no.'

 

'Scary, though?,

 

'As you say.'

 

The sound quality was in fact excellent, astonishingly

sensitive- for so small a microphone and amplifier. Some

of Greville's toys, I thought, were decidedly unfriendly.

 

'Mr Franklin was telling me that there's a voice transformer

that you can fix on the telephone that can

change the pitch of your voice and make a woman

sound like a man. He said he thought it was excellent

for women living alone so that they wouldn't be bothered

by obscene phone calls and no one would think

they were alone and vulnerable.'

I smiled. 'It might disconcert a bona fide boyfriend

innocently ringing up.'

 

'Well, you'd have to warn them,' she agreed. 'Mr

Franklin was very keen on women taking precautions.'

 

'Mm,' I said wryly.

 

'He said the jungle came into his court.'

 

'Did you get a voice changer?' I asked.

 

'No. We were only talking about it just before...'

She stopped. 'Well . . . anyway, do you want a sandwich

for lunch?'

 

'Yes, please.'

 

She nodded and was gone. I sighed and tried to apply

myself to the tricky letters and was relieved at the interruption

when the telephone rang.

 

It was Elliot Trelawney on the line, asking if I would

messenger round the Vaccaro notes at once if I wouldn't

mind as they had a committee meeting that afternoon.

 

'Vaccaro notes,' I repeated. I'd clean forgotten about

them. I couldn't remember, for a moment, where they

were.

 

'You said you would send them this morning,'

Trelawney said with a tinge of civilized reproach. 'Do

you remember?'

 

'Yes.' I did, vaguely.

 

Where the hell were they? Oh yes, in Greville's sitting

room. Somewhere in all that mess. Somewhere

there, unless the thief had taken them.

 

I apologized. I didn't actually say I'd-come near to

 

being killed twice since I'd last spoken to him and it was

playing tricks with my concentration. I said things had

cropped up. I was truly sorry. I would try to get them to

the court by . . . when?

 

'The committee meets at two and Vaccaro is first on

the agenda,' he said.

 

'The notes are still in Greville's house,' I replied, 'but

I'll get them to you.'

 

'Awfully good of you.' He was affable again. 'It's

frightfulLy important we tuRN this application down.'

 

'Yes, I know.'

 

Vaccaro, I thought uncomfortably, replacing the

receiver, wAs alleged to have had his wanting-out

cocaine-smuggling pilots murdered by shots from

moving cars.

 

I stared into space. There was no reason on earth for

Vaccaro to shoot me, even supposing he knew I existed.

I wasn't Greville, and I had no power to stand in the

way of his plans All I had, or probably had, were

the notes on his transgressions, and how could he know

that? And how could he know I would be in a car

between Lambourn and Hungerford on Sunday afternoon?

And couldn't the notes be gathered again by

someone else besides Greville, even if they were now

lost?

 

I shook myself out of the horrors and went down to

the yard to see if Brad was sitting in the car, which he

was, reading a magazine about fishing.

 

Fishing? 'I didn't know you fished,' I said.

 

'I don't.'

 

End of conversation.

 

Laughing inwardly I invited him to go on the journey.

I gave him the simple keyring of three keys and

explained about the upheaval he would find. I described

the Vaccaro notes in and out of their envelope and

wrote down Elliot Trelawney's name and the address of

the court.

 

'Can you do it?' I asked, a shade doubtfully.

 

'Yerss' He seemed to be slighted by my tone and

took the paper with the address with brusqueness

 

'Sorry,' I said.

 

He nodded without looking at me and started the

car, and by the time I'd reached the rear entrance to

the offIces he was driving out of the yard.

 

Upstairs Annette said there had just been a phone

call from Antwerp and she had written down the

number for me to ring back.

 

Antwerp.

 

With an effort I thought back to Thursday's distant

conversations What was it I should remember about

Antwerp?

 

Van Ekeren. Jacob. His nephew, Hans

 

I got through to the Belgian town and was rewarded

with the smooth bilingual voice telling me that he had

been able now to speak to his uncle on my behalf.

 

'You're very kind,' I said.

 

'I'm not sure that we will be of much help. My uncle

 

says he knew your brother for a long time, but not

very well. However, about six months ago your brother

telephoned my uncle for advice about a sightholder.' He

paused. 'It seems your brother was considering buying

diamonds and trusted my uncle's judgement.'

 

'Ah,' I said hopefully. 'Did your uncle recommend

anyone?'

 

'Your brother suggested three or four possible

names. My uncle said they were all trustworthy. He told

your brother to go ahead with any of them.'

 

I sighed. 'Does he possibly remember who they

were?'

 

Hans said, 'He knows one of them was Guy Servi

here in Antwerp, because we ourselves do business with

him often. He can't remember the others. He doesn't

know which one your brother decided on, or if he did

business at all.'

 

'Well, thank you, anyway.'

 

'My uncle wishes to express his condolences.'

 

'Very kind.'

 

He disconnected with politeness, having dictated to

me carefully the name, address and telephone number

of Guy Servi, the one sightholder Greville had asked

about that his uncle remembered.

 

I dialled the number immediately and again went

through the rigmarole of being handed from voice to

voice until I reached someone who had both the language

and the information.

 

Mr Greville Saxony Franklin, now deceased, had

been my brother? They would consult their files and call

me back.

I waited without much patience while they went

through whatever security checks they considered

necessary but finally, after a long hour, they came back

on the line.

 

What was my problem, they wanted to know.

 

'My problem is that our offices were ransacked and a

lot of paperwork is missing. I've taken over since Greville's

death, and I'm trying to sort out his affairs. Could

you please tell me if it was your firm who bought diamonds

for him?'

 

'Yes,' the voice said matter-of-factly. 'We did.'

 

Wow, I thought. I quietened my breath and I tried

not to sound eager.

 

'Could you, er, give me the details?' I asked.

 

'Certainly. Your brother wanted colour H diamonds

of approximately three carats each. We bought a normal

sight-box of mixed diamonds at the July sight at the

CSO in London and from it and from our stocks chose

one hundred colour H stones, total weight three

hundred and twenty carats, which we delivered to your

brother.'

 

'He . . . er . . . paid for them in advance didn't he?'

 

'Certainly. One point five million United States

dollars in cash. You don't need to worry abouT that.'

 

'Thank you,' I said, suppressing irony. 'Um, when

you delivered them, did you send any sort of, er, packing

note?'

 

It seemed he found the plebeian words 'packing

 

note' faintly shocking.

'We sent the diamonds by personal messenger,' he

said austerely. 'Our man took them to your brother at

his private residence in London. As is our custom, your

brother inspected the merchandise in our messenger's

presence and weighed it, and when he was satisfied he

signed a release certificate. He would have the carbon

copy of that release. There was no other - uh - packing

note.'

 

'Unfortunately I can't find the carbon copy.'

 

'I assure you, sir . .

 

'I don't doubt it,' I said hastily. 'It's just that the tax

people have a habit of wanting documentation.'

 

'Ah.' His hurt feelings subsided. 'Yes, of course.'

 

I thought a bit and asked, 'When you delivered the

stones to him, were they rough or faceted?'

 

'Rough, of course. He was going to get them cut

and polished over a few months, as he needed them, I

believe, but it was more convenient for us and for him

to buy them all at once.'

 

'You don't happen to know who he was getting to

polish them?'

 

'I understood they were to be cut for one special

client who had his own requirements, but no, he didn't

say who would be cutting them.'

 

I sighed. 'Well, thank you anyway.'

 

'We'll be happy to send you copies of the paperwork

of the transaction, if it would be of any use?'

 

'Yes, please,' I said. 'It would be most helpful.'

 

'We'll put them in the post this afternoon.'

I put the receiver down slowly. I might now know

where the diamonds had come FRom but was no nearer

knowing where they'd gone to. I began to hope that they

were safely sitting somewhere with a cutter who would

kindly write to tell me they were ready for delivery. Not

an impossible dream, really. But if Greville had sent

them to a cutter, why was there no record?

 

Perhaps there had been a record, now stolen. But if

the record had been stolen the thief would know the

diamonds were with a cutter, and there would be no

point in searching Greville's house. Unprofitable

thoughts, chasing their own tails.

 

I straightened my neck and back and eased a few of

the muscles which had developed small aches since the

crash.

 

June came in and said, 'You look fair knackered,' and

then put her hand to her mouth in horror and said, 'I'd

never have said that to Mr Franklin.'

 

'I'm not him.'

 

'No, but . . . you're the boss.'

 

,

 

'Then think of someone who could supply a list of

cutters and polishers of diamonds, particularly those

specializing in unusual requirements, starting with

Antwerp. What we want is a sort of Yellow Pages directory.

After Antwerp, New York, Tel Aviv and Bombay,

isn't that right? Aren't those the four main centres?' I'd

been reading his books.

 

'But we don't dealÄ'

 

'Don't say it,' I said. 'We do. Greville bought some

for Prospero Jenks who wants them cut to suit his sculptures

or fantasy pieces or whatever one calls them.'

 

Oh.' She looked first blank and then interested. 'Yes,

all right, I'm sure I can do that. Do you want me to do it

now?'

 

'Yes, please.'

 

She went as far as the door and looked back with a

smile. 'You still look fair . . .'

 

'Mm. Go and get on with it.'

 

I watched her back view disappear. Grey skirt, white

shirt. Blonde hair held back with combs behind the ears.

Long legs Flat shoes Exit June.

 

The day wore on. I assembled three orders in the

vault by myself and got Annette to check they were all

right, which it seemed they were. I made a slow tour of

the whole place, calling in to see Alfie pack his parcels,

watching Lily with her squashed governess air move

endlessly from drawer to little drawer collecting orders,

seeing Jason manhandle heavy boxes of newly arrived

stock, stopping for a moment beside strong-looking

Tina, whom I knew least, as she checked the new intake

against the packing list and sorted it into trays.

 

None of them paid me great attention. I was already

wallpaper. Alfie made no more innuendoes about

Dozen Roses and Jason, though giving me a dark sideways

look, again kept his cracks to himself. Lily said,

'Yes, Derek,' meekly, Annette looked anxious, June was

busy. I returned to Greville's office and made another

effort with the letters.

By four o'clock, in between her normal work with

the stock movements on the computer, June had

received answers to her 'feelers', as she described them,

in the shape of a long list of Antwerp cutters and a

shorter one so far for New York. Tel Aviv was 'coming'

but had language difficulties and she had nothing for

Bombay, though she didn't think Mr Franklin would

have sent anything to Bombay because with Antwerp

so close there was no point. She put the lists down and

departed.

 

At the rate all the cautious diamond-dealers worked,

I thought, picking up the roll call, it would take a week

just to get yes or no answers from the Antwerp list.

Maybe it would be worth trying. I was down to straws

One of the letters was from the bank, reminding me

that interest on the loan was now due.

 

June's tiny alarm clock suddenly began bleeping. All

the other mute gadgets on top of the desk remained

unmoved. June returned through my doorway at high

speed and paid them vivid attention.

 

'Five minutes to go,' I said calmingly. 'Is every single

gadget in sight?'

 

She checked all the drawers swiftly and peered into

filing cabinets, leaving everything wide open, as I asked.

 

'Can't find any more,' she said. 'Why does it matter?'

 

'I don't know,' I said. 'I try everything.'

 

She stared. I smiled lopsidedly.

 

'Greville left me a puzzle too,' I said. 'I try to solve it,

though I don't know where to look.'

'Oh.' It made a sort of sense to her, even without

more explanation. 'Like my rise?'

 

I nodded. 'Something like that.' But not so positive, I

thought. Not so certain. He had at least assured her that

the solution was there to find.

 

The minutes ticked away and at four-twenty by

June's clock the little alarm duly sounded. Very distant,

not at all loud. Insistent. June looked rather wildly at

the assembled gadgets and put her ear down to them.

 

'I will think of you every day at four-twenty.'

 

Clarissa had written it on her card-at the funeral.

Greville had apparently done it every day in the office.

It had been tHeir own private language, a long way from

diamonds. I acknowledged with regret that I would

learn nothing from whatever he'd used to jog his awareness

of loving and being loved.

 

The muffled alarm stopped. June raised her head,

frowning.

 

'It wasn't any of these,' she said.

 

'No. It was still inside the desk.'

 

'But it can't have been.' She was mystified. 'I've

taken everything out.'

 

'There must be another drawer.'

 

She shook her head, but it was the only reasonable

explanation.

 

'Ask Annette,' I suggested.

 

Annette, consulted, said with a worried frown that

she knew nothing at all about another drawer. The three

of us looked at the uninformative three-inch-deep slab

of black grainy wood that formed the enormous top

surface. There was no way it could be a drawer, but

there wasn't any other possibility.

 

I thought back to the green stone box. To the keyhole

that wasn't a keyhole, to the sliding base.

 

To the astonishment of Annette and June I lowered

myself to the floor and looked upwards at the desk from

under the knee-hole part. The wood from there looked

just as solid, but in the centre, three inches in from the

front, there was what looked like a sliding switch. With

satisfaction I regained the black leather chair and felt

under the desk top for the switch. It moved away from

one under pressure, I found. I pressed it, and absolutely

nothing happened.

 

Something had to have happened, I reasoned. The

switch wasn't there for nothing. Nothing about Greville

was for nothing. I pressed it back hard again and tried

to raise, slide or otherwise move anything else I could

reach. Nothing happened. I banged my fist with frustration

down on the desk top, and a section of  the front

edge of the solid-looking slab fell off in my lap.

 

Annette and June gasped. The piece that had come

off was like a strip of veneer furnished with metal clips

for fastening it in place. Behind it was more wood, but

this time with a keyhole in it. Watched breathlessly by

Annette and June, I brought out Greville's bunch of

keys and tried those that looked the right size: and one

of them turned obligingly with hardly a click. I pulled

the key, still in the hole, towards me, and like silk a wide

shallow drawer slid out.

 

We all looked at the contents. Passport. Little flat

black gadgets, four or five of them.

 

No diamonds.

 

June was delighted. 'That's the Wizard,' she said.

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

'Which is the Wizard?' I asked.

 

'That one.'

 

She pointed at a black rectangle a good deal smaller

than a paperback, and when I picked it up and turned it

over, sure enough, it had WIZARD written on it in

gold. I handed it to June who opened it like a book,

laying it flat on the desk. The right-hand panel was

covered with buttons and looked like an ultra-versatile

calculator. The left-hand side had a small screen at the

top and a touch panel at the bottom with headings

like 'expense record', 'time accounting', 'reports' and

'reference'.

 

'It does everything,' June said. 'It's a diary, a phone

directory, a memo pad, an appointments calendar, an

accounts keeper . . . a world clock.'

 

'And does it have an alarm system set to fourtwenty?'

 

 

She switched the thing on, pressed three keys and

showed me the screen. Daily alarm, it announced. 4.20

pm, set.

'Fair enough.'

 

For Annette the excitement seemed to be over.

There were things she needed to see to, she said, and

went away. June suggested she should tidy away all the

gadgets and close all the doors, and while she did that I

investigated further the contents of the one drawer we

left open.

 

I frowned a bit over the passport. I'd assumed that in

going to Harwich, Greville had meant to catch the ferry.

The Koningin Beatrix sailed every night . .

 

If one looked at it the other way round, the Koningin

Beatrix must sail from Holland to Harwich every day. If

he hadn't taken the passport with him, perhaps he'd

been going to meet the Koningin Beatrix, not leave on

her.

 

Meet who?

 

I looked at his photograph which, like all passport

photographs, wasn't very good but good enough to

bring him vividly into the office; his office, where I sat in

his chair.

 

June looked over my shoulder and said, 'Oh,' in a

small voice. 'I do miss him, you know.'

 

'Yes.'

 

I put the passport with regret back into the drawer

and took out a flat square object hardly larger than the

Wizard, that had a narrow curl of paper coming out of it.

 

'That's the priNTer,' dune said.

 

'A printer? So small?'

 

'It'll print everything stored in the Wizard.'

She plugged the printer's short cord into a slot in the

side of the Wizard and dexterously pressed a few keys.

With a whirr the tiny machine went into action and

began printing out a strip of half the telephone directory,

or so it seemed.

 

'Lovely, isn't it?' June said, pressing another button

to stop it. 'When he was away on trips, Mr Franklin

would enter all his expenses on here and we would print

them out when he got home, or sometimes transfer

them from the Wizard to our main computer through an

interface... oh, dear.' She smothered the uprush of

emotion and with an attempt at controlling her voice

said, 'He would note down in there a lot of things he

wanted to remember when he got home. Things like

who had offered him unusual stones. Then he'd tell

Prospero Jenks, and quite often I'd be writing to the

addresses to have the stones sent.'

 

I looked at the small black electronic marvel. So

much information quiescent in its circuits.

 

'Is there an instruction manual?' I asked.

 

'Of course. All the instruction manuals for everything

are in this drawer.' She opened one on the outer

right-hand stack. 'So are the warranty cards, and everything.'

She sorted through a rank of booklets. 'Here you

are. One for the Wizard, one for the printer, one for the

expenses organizer.'

 

'I'll borrow them,' I said.

 

'They're yours now,' she replied blankly. 'Aren't

they?'

'I can't get used to it any more than you can.'

 

I laid the manuals on top of the desk next to the

Wizard and the printer and took a third black object out

of the secret drawer.

 

This one needed no explanation. This was the microcassette

recorder that went with the tiny tapes I'd found

in the hollowed-out books.

 

'That's voice activated,' June said, looking at it. 'It

will sit quietly around doing nothing for hours, then

when anyone speaks it will record what's said. Mr

Franklin used it sometimes for dictating-letters or notes

because it let him say a bit, think a bit, and say a bit

more, without using up masses of tape. I used to listen

to the tapes and type straight onto the word processor.'

 

Worth her weight in pearls, Greville had judged. I

wouldn't quarrel with that.

 

I put the microcassette player beside the other things

and brought out the last two gadgets. One was a tiny

Minolta camera which June said Greville used quite

often for pictures of unusual stones for Prospero Jenks,

and the last was a grey thing one could hold in one's

hand that had an on/off switch but no obvious purpose.

 

'That's to frighten dogs away,' june said with a smile.

'Mr Franklin didn't like dogs, but I think he was

ashamed of not liking them, because at first he didn't

want to tell me what that was, when I asked him.'

 

I hadn't known Greville didn't like dogs. I fiercely

wanted him back, if only to tease him about it. The real

trouble with death was what it left unsaid: and knowing

that that thought was a more or less universal regret

made it no less sharp.

 

I put the dog frightener back beside the passport and

also the baby camera, which had no film in it. Then I

closed and locked the shallow drawer and fitted the

piece of veneer back in place, pushing it home with a

click. The vast top again looked wholly solid, and I

wondered if Greville had bought that desk simply

because of the drawer's existence, or whether he'd had

the whole piece especially made.

 

'You'd never know that drawer was there,' June said.

'I wonder how many fortunes have been lost by people

getting rid of hiding places they didn't suspect?'

 

'I read a story about that once. Something about

money stuffed in an old armchair that was left to someone.'

I couldn't remember the details: but Greville had

left me more than an old armchair, and more than one

place to look, and I too could get rid of the treasure

from not suspecting the right hiding place, if there were

one at all to find.

 

Meanwhile there was the problem of staying healthy

while I searched. There was the worse problem of sorting

out ways of taking the war to the enemy, if I could

identify the enemy in the first place.

 

I asked June if she could find something I could carry

the Wizard and the other things in and she was back in a

flash with a soft plastic bag with handles. It reminded

me fleetingly of the bag I'd had snatched at Ipswich but

this time, I thought, when I carried the booty to the car,

I would take with me an invincible bodyguard, a longlegged

flat-chested twenty-one-year-old blonde half in

love with my brother.

 

The telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and

said, 'Saxony Franklin' out of newly acquired habit.

 

'Derek? Is that you?'

 

'Yes, Milo, it is.'

 

'I'm not satisfied with this horse.' He sounded aggressive,

which wasn't unusual, and also apologetic, which

was.

 

'Which horse?' I asked.

 

'Dozen Roses, of course. What else?'

 

'Oh.' ,,

 

'What do you mean, oh? You knew damn well I

was fetching it today. The damn thing's half asleep. I'm

getting the vet round at once and I'll want urine and

blood tests. The damn thing looks doped.'

 

'Maybe they gave him a tranquillizer for the journey.'

 

'They've no right to, you know that. If they have, I'll

have Nicholas Loder's head on a platter, like you

should, if you had any sense. The man does what he

damn well likes. Anyway, if the horse doesn't pass my

vet he's going straight back, Ostermeyers or no Ostermeyers.

It's not fair on them if I accept shoddy goods.'

 

'Um,' I said calmingly, 'perhaps Nicholas Loder

wants you to do just that.'

 

'What? What do you mean?'

 

'Wants you to send him straight back.'

 

'Oh.'

'And,' I said, 'Dozen Roses was the property of

Saxony Franklin Ltd, not Nicholas Loder, and if you

think it's fair to the Ostermeyers to void the sale, so be

it, but my brother's executor will direct you to send the

horse anywhere else but back to Loder.' ,

 

There was a silence. Then he said with a smothered

laugh, 'You always were a bright tricky bastard.'

 

'Thanks.'

 

'But get down here, will you? Take a look at him.

Talk to the vet. How soon can you get here?'

 

'Couple of hours. Maybe more.'

 

'No, come on, Derek.'

 

'It's a long way to lipperary,' I said. 'It never gets any

nearer.'

 

'You're delirious.'

 

'I shouldn't wonder.'

 

'Soon as you can, then,' he said. 'See you.'

 

I put down the receiver with an inward groan. I did

not want to go belting down to Lambourn to a crisis,

however easily resolved. I wanted to let my aches

unwind.

 

I telephoned the car and heard the ringing tone, but

Brad, wherever he was, didn't answer. Then, as the first

 

step towards leaving, I went along and locked the vault.

Alfie in the packing room was stretching his back, his

day's load finished. Lily, standing idle, gave me a

repressed look from under her lashes. Jason goosed

Tma in the doorway to the stock-rooms, which she

didn't seem to mind. There was a feeling of afternoon

ending, of abeyance in the offing, of corporate activity

drifting to suspense. Like the last race on an October

card.

 

Saying goodnights and collecting the plastic bag I

went down to the yard and found Brad there waiting.

 

'Did you find those papers OK?' I asked him, climbing

in beside him after storing the crutches on the back

seat.

 

'Yerss,' he said.

 

'And delivered them?'

 

'Yerss.'

 

'Thanks Great. How long have you been back?'

 

He shrugged. I left it. It wasn't important.

 

'Lambourn,' I said, as we turned out of the yard.

'But on the way, back to my brother's house to collect

something else. OK?'

 

He nodded and drove to Greville's house skilfully,

but slowed just before we reached it and pointed to

Greville's car, still standing by the kerb.

 

'See?' he said. 'It's been broken into.'

 

He found a parking place and we went back to look.

The heavily locked boot had been jemmied open and

now wouldn't close again.

 

'Good job we took the things out,' I said. 'I suppose

they are still in my car.'

 

He shook his head. 'In our house, under the stairs.

Our Mum said to do it, with your car outside our door

all night. Dodgy neighbourhood, round our part.'

 

'Very thoughtful,' I said.

He nodded. 'Smart, our Mum.'

 

He came with me into Greville's garden, holding the

gate open.

 

'They done this place over proper,' he said, producing

the three keys from his pocket. 'Want me to?'

 

He didn't wait for particular assent but went up the

steps and undid the locks. Daylight: no floods, no dog.

 

He waited in the hall while I went along to the little

sitting room to collect the tapes. It all looked forlorn in

there, a terrible mess made no better by time. I put the

featherweight cassettes in my pocket and left again,

thinking that tidying up was a long way down my

urgency list. When the ankle had altogether stopped

hurting; maybe then. When the insurance people had

seen it, if they wanted to.

 

I had brought with me a note which I left prominently

on the lowest step of the staircase, where anyone

coming into the house would see it.

 

'Dear Mrs P. I'm afraid there is bad news for you.

Don't clean the house. Telephone Saxony Franklin Ltd

instead.'

 

I'd added the number in case she didn't know it by

heart, and I'd warned Annette to go gently with anyone

 

ringing. Nothing else I could do to cushion the shock.

 

Brad locked the front door and we set off again to

Lambourn. He had done enough talking for the whole

journey and we travelled in customary silence, easy if

not comrades.

 

Milo was striding about in the yard, expending

energy to no purpose. He yanked the passenger side

door of my car open and scowled in at Brad, more as a

reflection of his general state of mind, I gathered, than

from any particular animosity.

 

I retrieved the crutches and stood up, and he told me

it was high time I threw them away.

 

'Calm down,' I said.

 

'Don't patronize me.'

 

'Is Phil here?'

 

Phil was Phil Urquhart, veterinary surgeon, pill

pusher to the stable.

 

'No, he isn't,' Milo said crossly, 'but he's coming back.

The damned horse won't give a sample. And for a start,

you can tell me whether it is or isn't Dozen Roses. His

passport matches, but I'd like to be sure.'

 

He strode away towards a box in one corner of the

yard and I followed and looked where he looked, over

the bottom half of the door.

 

Inside the box were an obstinate-looking horse and a

furious red-faced lad. The lad held a pole which had on

one end of it an open plastic bag on a ring, like a shrimping

net. The plastic bag was clean and empty.

 

I chuckled.

 

'It's all right for you,' Milo said sharply. 'Youhaven't

been waiting for more than two hours for the damned

animal to stale.'

 

On Singapore racecourse, one time,' I said, 'they got

a sample with nicotine in it. The horse didn't smoke, but

the lad did. He got tired of waiting for the horse and just

supplied the sample himself.'

 

Very funny,' Milo said repressively.

 

'This often takes hours, though, so why the rage?'

 

It sounded always so simple, of course, to take a

regulation urine sample from two horses after every

race, one nearly always from the winner. In practice, it

meant waiting around for the horses to oblige. After

two hours of non-performance, blood samples were

taken instead, but blood wasn't as easy to come by.

Many tempers were regularly lost while the horses

made up their minds.

 

Come away,' I said, 'he'll do it in the end. And he's

definitely the horse that ran at York. Dozen Roses without

doubt.'

 

He followed me away reluctantly and we went into

the kitchen where Milo switched lights on and asked me

if I'd like a drink.

 

'Wouldn't mind some tea,' I said.

 

'Tea? At this hour? Well, help yourself.' He watched

me fill the kettle and set it to boil. 'Are you off booze for

ever?'

 

'No.'

 

'Thank God.'

 

Phil Urquhart's car scrunched into the yard and

pulled up outside the window, and he came breezing

into the kitchen asking if there were any results. He

read Milo's scowl aright and laughed.

 

'Do you think the horse is doped?' I asked him.

'Me? No, not really. Hard to tell. Milo thinks so.'

 

He was small and sandy-haired, and about thirty, the

grandson of a three-generation family practice, and to

my mind the best of them. I caught myself thinking that

when I in the future trained here in Lambourn, I would

want him for my horses. An odd thought. The future

planning itself behind my back.

 

'I hear we're lucky you're still with us,' he said. 'An

impressive crunch, so they say.' He looked at me assessingly

with friendly professional eyes 'You've a few

rough edges, one can see.'

 

'Nothing that will stop him racing,' Milo said crisply.

 

Phil smiled. 'I detect more alarm than sympathy.'

 

'Alarm?'

 

'You've trained more winners since he came here.'

 

'Rubbish,' Milo said.

 

He poured drinks for himself and Phil, and I made

my tea; and Phil assured me that if the urine passed all

tests he would give the thumbs up to Dozen Roses.

 

'He may just be showing the effects of the hard race

he had at York,' he said. 'It might be that he's always

like this. Some horses are, and we don't know how much

weight he lost.'

 

'What will you get the urine tested for?' I asked.

 

He raised his eyebrows. 'Barbiturates, in this case.'

 

'At York,' I said thoughtfully, 'one of Nicholas

Loder's owners was walking around with a nebulizer in

his pocket. A kitchen baster, to be precise.'

 

'An owner?' Phil asked, surprised.

 

'Yes He owned the winner of the five-furlong sprint.

He was also in the saddling box with Dozen Roses'

 

Phil frowned. 'What are you implying?'

 

'Nothing. Merely observing. I can't believe he interfered

with the horse. Nicholas Loder wouldn't have let

him. The stable money was definitely on. They wanted

to win, and they knew if it won it would be tested. So

the only question is, what could you give a horse that

wouldn't disqualify it? Give it via a nebulizer just before

a race?'

 

'Nothing that would make it go faster. They test for

all stimulants'

 

'What if you gave it, say, sugar? Glucose? Or

adrenalin?'

 

'You've a criminal mind!'

 

'I just wondered.'

 

'Glucose would give energy, as to human athletes

It wouldn't increase speed, though. Adrenalin is more

tricky. If it's given by injection you can see it, because

the hairs stand up all round the puncture. But straight

into the mucous membranes ... well, I suppose it's

 

possible.'

 

'And no trace.'

 

He agreed. 'Adrenalin pours into a horse's bloodstream

naturally anyway, if he's excited. If he wants to

win. If he feels the whip. Who's to say how much? If you

suspected a booster, you'd have to take a blood sample in

the winner's enclosure, practically, and even then you'd

have a hard job proving any reading was excessive.

Adrenalin levels vary too much. You'd even have a hard

job proving extra adrenalin made any difference at all.'

He paused and considered me soberly. 'You do realize

that you're saying that if anything was done, Nicholas

Loder condoned it?'

 

'Doesn't seem likely, does it?'

 

'No, it doesn't,' he said. 'If he were some tin-pot little

crook, well then, maybe, but not Nicholas Loder with

his Classic winners and everything to lose.'

 

'Mm.' I thought a bit. 'If I asked, I could get some of

the urine sample that was taken from Dozen Roses at

York. They always make it available to owners for private

checks. To my brother's company, that is to say, in

this instance.' I thought a bit more. 'When Nicholas

Loder's friend dropped his baster, Martha Ostermeyer

handed the bulb part back to him, but then Harley

Ostermeyer picked up the tube part and gave it to me.

But it was clean. No trace of liquid. No adrenalin. So I

suppose it's possible he might have used it on his own

horse and still had it in his pocket, but did nothing to

Dozen Roses.'

 

They considered it.

 

'You could get into a lot of trouble making

unfounded accusations,' Phil said.

 

'So Nicholas Loder told me.'

 

'Did he? I'd think twice, then, before I did. It

wouldn't do you much good generally in the racing

world, I shouldn't think.'

'Wisdom from babes,' I said, but he echoed my

thoughts.

 

'Yes, old man.'

 

'I kept the baster tube,' I said, shrugging, 'but I guess

I'll do just what I did at the races, which was nothing.'

 

'As long as Dozen Roses tests clean both at York and

here, that's likely best,' Phil said, and Milo, for all his

earlier pugnaciousness, agreed.

 

A commotion in the darkening yard heralded the

success of the urine mission and Phil went outside to

unclip the special bag and close its patented seal. He

wrote and attached the label giving the horse's name,

the location, date and time and signed his name.

 

'Right,' he said, 'I'll be off. Take care.' He loaded

himself, the sample and his gear into his car and with

economy of movement scrunched away. I followed soon

after with Brad still driving, but decided again not to go

home.

 

'You saw the mess in London,' I said. 'I got knocked

out by whoever did that. I don't want to be in if they

come to Hungerford. So let's go to Newbury instead,

and try The Chequers.'

 

Brad slowed, his mouth open.

 

'A week ago yesterday,' I said, 'you saved me from a

man with a knife. Yesterday someone shot at the car I

was in and killed the chauffeur. It may not have been

your regulation madman. So last night I slept in Swindon,

tonight in Newbury.'

 

'Yerss,'he said, understanding.

'If you'd rather not drive me any more, I wouldn't

blame you.'

 

After a pause, with a good deal of stalwart resolution,

he made a statement. 'You need me.'

 

'Yes,' I said. 'Until I can walk properly, I do.'

 

'I'll drive you, then.'

 

'Thanks,' I said, and meant it wholeheartedly, and he

could hear that, because he nodded twice to himself

emphatically and seemed even pleased.

 

The Chequers Hotel having a room free, I booked in

for the night. Brad took himself home in my car, and I

spent most of the evening sitting in an armchair upstairs

learning my way round the Wizard.

 

Computers weren't my natural habitat like they were

Greville's and I hadn't the same appetite for them. The

Wizard's instructions seemed to take it for granted that

everyone reading them would be computer-literate, so

it probably took me longer than it might have done to

get results

 

What was quite clear was that Greville had used the

gadget extensively. There were three separate telephone

and address lists, the world-time clock, a system

for entering daily appointments, a prompt for anniversaries,

a calendar flashing with the day's date, and

provision for storing oddments of information. By

plugging in the printer, and after a few false starts I

ended with long printed lists of everything held listed

under all the headings, and read them with growing

frustration.

None of the addresses or telephone numbers seemed

to have anything to do with Antwerp or with diamonds,

though the 'Business Overseas' list contained many gem

merchants' names from all round the world. None of

the appointments scheduled, which stretched back six

weeks or more, seemed to be relevant, and there were

no entries at all for the Friday he'd gone to Ipswich.

There was no reference to Koningin Beatrix.

 

I thought of my question to June the day she'd found

her way to 'pearl': what if it were all in there, but stored

in secret?

 

The Wizard's instruction manual, two hundred pages

long, certainly did give lessons in how to lock things

away. Entries marked 'secret' could only be retrieved

by knowing the password which could be any combination

of numbers and letters up to seven in all. Forgetting

the password meant bidding farewell to the entries:

they could never be seen again. They could be deleted

unseen, but not printed or brought to the screen.

 

One could tell if secret files were present, the book

said, by the small symbol s, which could be found on the

lower right-hand side of the screen. I consulted Greville's

screen and found the s there, sure enough.

 

It would be, I thought. It would have been totally

unlike him to have had the wherewithal for secrecy and

not used it.

 

Any combination of numbers or letters up to

seven . . .

 

The book suggested 1234, but once I'd sorted out the

opening moves for unlocking and entered 1234 in

the space headed 'Secret Off', all I got was a quick

dusty answer,'Incorrect Password'.

 

Damn him, I thought, wearily defeated. Why

couldn't he make any of it easy?

 

I tried every combination of letters and numbers I

thought he might have used but got absolutely nowhere.

Clarissa was too long, 12Roses should have been right

but wasn't. To be right, the password had to be entered

exactly as it had been set, whether in capital letters or

lower case. It all took time. In the end I was ready

to throw the confounded Wizard across the room, and

stared at its perpetual 'Incorrect Password' with hatred.

 

I finally laid it aside and played the tiny tape recorder

instead. There was a lot of office chat on the tapes and I

couldn't think why Greville should have bothered to

take them home and hide them. Long before I reached

the end of the fourth side, I was asleep.

 

I woke stiffly after a while, unsure for a second

where I was. I rubbed my face, looked at my watch,

thought about all the constructive thinking I was supposed

to be doing and wasn't, and rewound the second

of the baby tapes to listen to what I'd missed. Greville's

voice, talking business to Annette.

 

The most interesting thing, the only interesting thing

about those tapes, I thought, was Greville's voice. The

only way I would ever hear him again.

 

_

 

'. . . going out to lunch,' he was saying. 'I'll be back by

two-thirty.'

Annette's voice said, 'Yes, Mr Franklin.'

 

A click sounded on the tape.

 

Almost immediately, because of the concertina-in"

of time by the voice-activated mechanism, a different

voice said, 'I'm in his office now and I can't find them.

He hides everything, he's security mad, you know that.'

Click. 'I can't ask. He'd never tell me, and I don't think

he trusts me.' Click. 'Po-faced Annette doesn't sneeze

unless he tells her to. She'd never tell me anything.'

Click. 'I'll try. I'll have to go, he doesn't like me using

this phone, he'll be back from lunch any second.' Click.

 

End of tape.

 

Bloody hell, I thought. I rewound the end of the

tape and listened to it again. I knew the voice, as Greville

must have done. He'd left the recorder on, I

guessed by mistake, and he'd come back and listened,

with I supposed sadness, to treachery. It opened up a

whole new world of questions and I went slowly to bed

groping towards answers.

 

I lay a long time awake. When I slept, I dreamed the

usual surrealist muddle and found it no help, but around

dawn, awake again and thinking of Greville, it occurred

to me that there was one password I hadn't tried

because I hadn't thought of his using it.

 

The Wizard was across the room by the armchair.

Impelled by curiosity I turned on the light, rolled out of

bed and hopped over to fetch it. Taking it back with me,

I switched it on, pressed the buttons, found 'Secret Off'

and into the offered space typed the word Greville had

written on the last page of his racing diary, below the

numbers of his passport and national insurance.

 

DEREK, all in capital letters.

 

I typed DEREK and pressed Enter, and the Wizard

with resignation let me into its data.

 

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

I began printing out everything in the secret files as it

seemed from the manual that, particularly as regarded

the expense organizer, it was the best way to get at the

full information stored there.

 

Each category had to be printed separately, the baby

printer clicking away line by line and not very fast. I

watched its steady output with fascination, hoping the

small roll of paper would last to the end, as I hadn't any

more.

 

From the Memo section, which I printed first, came a

terse note,'Check, don't trust.'

 

Next came a long list of days and dates which seemed

to bear no relation to anything. Monday, 30 January,

Wednesday, 8 March ... Mystified I watched the

sequence lengthen, noticing only that most of them

were Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays, five or six

weeks apart, sometimes less, sometimes longer. The list

ended five weeks before his death, and it began... It

began, I thought blankly, four years earlier. Four years

ago; when he first met Clarissa.

I felt unbearable sadness for him. He'd fallen in love

with a woman who wouldn't leave home for him, whom

he hadn't wanted to compromise: he'd kept a record, I

was certain, of every snatched day they'd spent

together. and hidden it away as he had hidden so much

else. A whole lot of roses, I thought.

 

The Schedule section, consulted next, contained

appointments not hinted at earlier, including the delivery

of the diamonds to his London house. For the day of

his death there were two entries: the first, 'Ipswich.

Orwell Hotel, P. 3.30 pm', and the second, 'Meet

Koningin Beatrix 6.30 pm, Harwich.' For the following

Monday he had noted, 'Meet C King's Cross 12.10

Lunch Luigi's.'

 

Meet C at King's Cross . . . He hadn't turned up, and

she'd telephoned his house, and left a message on his

answering machine, and sometime in the afternoon

she'd telephoned his office to ask for him. Poor Clarissa.

By Monday night she'd left the ultra-anxious second

message. and on Tuesday she had learned he was dead.

 

The printer whirred and produced another entry, for

the Saturday after. 'C and Dozen Roses both at York!

Could I go? Not wise. Check TV.'

 

The printer stopped, as Greville's life had done. No

more appointments on record.

 

Next I printed the Telephone sections, Private, Business

and Business Overseas. Private contained only

Knightwood. Business was altogether empty, but from

Business Overseas I watched with widening eyes the

emergence of five numbers and addresses in Antwerp.

One was van Ekeren, one was Guy Servi: three were so

far unknown to me. I breathed almost painfully with

exultation, unable to believe Greville had entered them

there for no purpose.

 

I printed the Expense Manager's secret section last

as it was the most complicated and looked the least

promising, but the first item that emerged was galvanic.

 

Antwerp say 5 of the first

batch of rough are CZ.

Don't want to believe it.

Infinite sadness.

Priority 1.

Arrange meetings. Ipswich?

Undecided. Damnation!

 

I wished he had been more explicit, more specific, but

he'd seen no need to be. It was surprising he'd written

so much. His feelings must have been strong to have

been entered at all. No other entries afterwards held

any comment but were short records of money spent on

courier services with a firm called Euro-Securo, telephone

number supplied. In the middle of those the

paper ran out. I brought the rest of the stored information

up on to the screen and scrolled through it, but

there was nothing else disturbing.

 

I switched off both baby machines and reread the

long curling strip of printing from the beginning, afterwards

flattening it out and folding it to fit a shirt pocket.

Then I dressed, packed, breakfasted, waited for Brad

and travelled to London hopefully.

 

The telephone calls to Antwerp had to be done from

the Saxony Franklin premises because of the precautionary

checking back. I would have preferred more

privacy than Greville's office but couldn't achieve it,

and one of the first things I asked Annette that morning

was whether my brother had had one of those gadgets

that warned you if someone was listening to your conversation

on an extension. The office phones were all

interlinked.

 

'No, he didn't,' she said, troubled.

 

'He could have done with one,' I said.

 

'Are you implying that we listened when he didn't

mean us to?'

 

'Not you,' I assured her, seeing her resentment of the

suggestion. 'But yes, I'd think it happened. Anyway, at

some point this morning, I want to make sure of not

being overheard, so when that call comes through perhaps

you'll all go into the stock-room and sing Rule

Britannia.'

 

Annette never made jokes I had to explain I didn't

mean sing literally. She rather huffily agreed that when

I wanted it, she would go round the extensions checking

against eavesdroppers.

 

I asked her why Greville hadn't had a private line in

any case, and she said he had had one earlier but they

now used that for the fax machine.

'If he wanted to be private,' she said, 'he went down

to the yard and telephoned from his car.'

 

There, I supposed, he would have been safe also from

people with sensitive listening devices, if he'd suspected

their use. He had been conscious of betrayal, that was

for sure.

 

I sat at Greville's desk with the door closed and

matched the three unknown Antwerp names from the

Wizard with the full list June had provided, and found

that all three were there.

 

The first and second produced no results, but from

the third, once I explained who I was I got the customary

response about checking the files and calling back.

They did call back, but the amorphous voice on the far

end was cautious to the point of repression.

 

'We at Maarten-Pagnier cannot discuss anything at

all with you, monsieur,' he said. 'Monsieur Franklin

gave express orders that we were not to communicate

with anyone in his office except himself.'

 

'My brother is dead,' I said.

 

'So you say, monsieur. But he warned us to beware of

any attempt to gain information about his affairs and

we cannot discuss them.'

 

'Then please will you telephone to his lawyers and

get their assurance that he's dead and that I am now

managing his business?'

 

After a pause the voice said austerely, 'Very well,

monsieur. Give us the name of his lawyers.'

 

I did that and waited for ages during which time

three customers telephoned with long orders which I

wrote down, trying not to get them wrong from lack of

concentration.

 

Then there was a frantic call from a nearly incoherent

woman who wanted to speak to Mr Franklin

urgently.

 

'Mrs P?' I asked tentatively.

 

Mrs P it was. Mrs Patterson, she said. I gave her the

abysmal news and listened to her telling me what a fine

nice gentleman my brother had been, and oh dear, she

felt faint, had I seen the mess in the sitting room?

 

I warned her that the whole house was the same.

'Just leave it,' I said. 'I'll clean it up later. Then if you

could come after that to hoover and dust, I'd be very

grateful.'

 

Calming a little, she gave me her phone number. 'Let

me know, then,' she said. 'Oh dear, oh dear.'

 

Finally the Antwerp voice returned and, begging him

to hold on, I hopped over to the door, called Annette,

handed her the customers' orders and said this was

the moment for securing the defences. She gave me a

disapproving look as I again closed the door.

 

Back in Greville's chair I said to the voice, 'Please,

monsieur, tell me if my brother had any dealings with

you. I am trying to sort out his office but he has left too

few records.'

 

'He asked us particularly not to send any records of

the work we were doing for him to his office.'

 

'He, er, what?' I said.

'He said he could not trust everyone in his office as

he would like. Instead, he wished us to send anything

necessary to the fax machine in his car, but only when

he telephoned from there to arrange it.'

 

'Um,' I said, blinking, 'I found the fax machine in his

car but there were no statements or invoices or anything

from you.'

 

'I believe if you ask his accountants, you may find

them there.'

 

'Good grief.'

 

'I beg your pardon, monsieur?'

 

'I didn't think of asking his accountants,' I said

blankly.

 

'He said for tax purposes . . .'

 

Yes, I see.' I hesitated. 'What exactly were you doing

for him?'

 

'Monsieur?'

 

'Did he,' I asked a shade breathlessly, 'send you a

hundred diamonds, colour H, average uncut weight

three point two carats, to be cut and polished?'

 

'No, monsieur.'

 

'Oh.' My disappointment must have been audible.

 

'He sent twenty-five stones, monsieur, but five of

them were not diamonds.'

 

'Cubic zirconia,' I said, enlightened.

 

'Yes, monsieur. We told Monsieur Franklin as soon

as we discovered it. He said we were wrong, but we

were not, monsieur.'

'No,' I agreed. 'He did leave a note saying five of the

first batch were CZ.'

 

'Yes, monsieur. He was extremely upset. We made

several enquiries for him, but he had bought the stones

from a sightholder of impeccable honour and he had

himself measured and weighed the stones when they

were delivered to his London house. He sent them to us

in a sealed Euro-Securo courier package. We assured

him that the mistake could not have been made here by

us. and it was then, soon after that, that he asked us not

to send or give any information to anyone in his...

your. . . office.' He paused. 'He made arrangements to

receive the finished stones from us, but he didn't meet

our messenger.'

 

'Your messenger?'

 

One of our partners, to be accurate. We wished to

deliver the stones to him ourselves because of the five

disputed items, and Monsieur Franklin thought it an

excellent idea. Our partner dislikes flying, so it was

agreed he should cross by boat and return the same way.

when Monsieur Franklin failed to meet him he came

back here. He is elderly and had made no provision to

stay away. He was. . . displeased. . . at having made a

tiring journey for nothing. He said we should wait to

hear from Monsieur Franklin. Wait for fresh instructions.

We have been waiting, but we've been puzzled.

We didn't try to reach Monsieur Franklin at his office as

he had forbidden us to do that, but we were considering

asking someone else to try on our behalf. We are very

sorry to hear of his death. It explains everything, of

course.'

 

I said, 'Did your partner travel to Harwich on the

Koningin Beatrix?'

 

'That's right, monsieur.'

 

'He brought the diamonds with him?'

 

'That's right, monsieur. And he brought them back.

We will now wait your instructions instead.'

 

I took a deep breath. Twenty of the diamonds at

least were safe. Five were missing. Seventy-five were . . .

where?

 

The Antwerp voice said, 'It's to be regretted that

Monsieur Franklin didn't see the polished stones. They

cul very well. Twelve tear drops of great brilliance,

remarkable for that colour. Eight were not suitable for

tear drops, as we told Monsieur Franklin, but they look

handsome as stars. What shall we do with them,

monsieur?'

 

'When I've talked to the jeweller they were cut for,

I'll let you know.'

 

'Very good, monsieur. And our account? Where shall

we send that?' He mentioned considerately how much

it would be.

 

'To this office,' I said. sighing at the prospect. 'Send it

to me marked ``Personal".'

 

Very good, monsieur.'

 

And thank you,' I said. 'You've been very helpful.'

 

At your service, monsieur.'

 

I put the receiver down slowly. richer by twelve

glittering tear drops destined to hang and flash in sunlight,

and by eight handsome stars that might twinkle in

a fantasy of rock crystal. Better than nothing, but not

enough to save the firm.

 

Using the crutches, I went in search of Annette and

asked her if she would please find Prospero Jenks, wherever

he was, and make another appointment for me,

that afternoon if possible. Then I went down to the yard,

taking a tip from Greville, and on the telephone in my

car put a call through to his accountants.

 

Brad, reading a golfing magazine, paid no attention.

 

Did he play golf, I asked?

 

No, he didn't.

 

The accountants helpfully confirmed that they had

received envelopes both from my brother and from

Antwerp, and were holding them unopened, as

requested, pending further instructions.

 

'You'll need them for the general accounts,' I said.

'So would you please just keep them?'

 

Absolutely no problem.

 

'On second thoughts,' I said, 'please open all the

envelopes and tell me who all the letters from Antwerp

have come from.'

 

Again no problem: but the letters were all either

from Guy Servi, the sightholder, or from MaartenPagnier,

the cutters. No other firms. No other safe

havens for seventy-five rocks.

 

I thanked them, watched Brad embark on a learned

comparison of Ballesteros and Faldo, and thought about

disloyalty and the decay of friendship.

 

It was restful in the car, I decided. Brad went on

reading. I thought of robbery with violence and violence

without robbery, of being laid out with a brick and

watching Simms die of a bullet meant for me, and I

wondered whether, if I were dead, anyone could find

what I was looking for, or whether they reckoned they

now couldn't find it if I were alive.

 

I stirred and fished in a pocket and gave Brad a

cheque I'd written out for him upstairs.

 

'What's this?' he said, peering at it.

 

I usually paid him in cash, but I explained I hadn't

enough for what I owed him, and cash dispensers

wouldn't disgorge enough all at once and we hadn't

recently been in Hungerford when the banks were

open, as he might have noticed.

 

'Give me cash later,' he said, holding the cheque out

to me. 'And you paid me double.'

 

'For last week and this week,' I nodded. 'When we

get to the bank I'll swap it for cash. Otherwise, you

could bring it back here. It's a company cheque. They'd

see you got cash for it.'

 

He gave me a long look.

 

'Is this because of guns and such? In case you never

get to the bank?'

 

I shrugged. 'You might say so.'

 

He looked at the cheque, folded it deliberately and

stowed it away. Then he picked up the magazine and

stared blindly at a page he'd just read. I was grateful for

the absence of comment or protest, and in a while said

matter-of-factly that I was going upstairs for a bit, and

why didn't he get some lunch.

 

He nodded.

 

'Have you got enough money for lunch?'

 

'Yerss.'

 

'You might make a list of what you've spent. I've

enough cash for that.'

 

He nodded again.

 

'OK, thee,' I said. 'See you.'

 

Upstairs,,Annette said she had opened the day's post

and put it ready for my attention, and she'd found Prospero

Jenks and he would be expecting me in the

Knightsbridge shop any time between three and six.

 

'Great.'

 

She frowned. 'Mr Jenks wanted to know if you were

taking him the goods Mr Franklin bought for him. Grev

- he always calls Mr Franklin, Grev. I do wish he

wouldn't - I asked what he meant about goods and

he said you would know.'

 

'He's talking about diamonds,' I said.

 

'But we haven't . . .' She stopped and then went on

with a sort of desperate vehemence. 'I wish Mr Franklin

was here. Nothing's the same without him.'

 

She gave me a look full of her insecurity and doubt

of my ability and plodded off into her own domain and

I thought that with what lay ahead I'd have preferred a

vote of confidence: and I too, with all my heart, wished

Greville back.

 

The police from Hungerford telephoned, given my

number by Milo's secretary. They wanted to know if I

had remembered anything more about the car driven by

the gunman. They had asked the family in the family car

if they had noticed the make and colour of the last

car they'd seen coming towards them before they

rounded the bend and crashed into the Daimler, and

one of the children, a boy, had given them a description.

They had also, while the firemen and others were trying

to free me, walked down the row of spectator cars

asking them about the last car they'd seen coming

towards them. Only the first two drivers had seen a car

at all, that they could remember, and they had no helpful

information. Had I any recollection, however vague,

as they were trying to piece together all the impressions

they'd been given?

 

'I wish I could help,' I said, 'but I was talking to Mr

and Mrs Ostermeyer, not concentrating on the road. It

winds a bit, as you know, and I think Simms had been

waiting for a place where he could pass the car in front,

but all I can tell you, as on Sunday, is that it was a

greyish colour and fairly large. Maybe a Mercedes. It's

only an impression.'

 

'The child in the family car says it was a grey Volvo

travelling fast. The bus driver says the car in question

was travelling slowly before the Daimler tried to pass it,

and he was aiming to pass also at that point, and was

accelerating to do so, which was why he rammed the

Daimler so hard. He says the car was silver grey and

accelerated away at high speed, which matched what

the child says.'

 

'Did the bus driver,' I asked, 'see the gun or the

shots?'

 

'No, sir. He was looking at the road ahead and at the

Daimler, not at the car he intended to pass. Then

the Daimler veered sharply, and bounded off the wall

straight into his path. He couldn't avoid hitting it, he

said. Do you confirm that, sir?'

 

'Yes. It happened so fast. He hadn't a chance.'

 

'We are asking in the neighbourhood for anyone to

come forward who saw a grey four-door saloon, possibly

a Volvo, on that road on Sunday afternoon, but so

far we have heard nothing new. If you remember anything

else, however minor, let us know.'

 

I would, I said.

 

I put the phone down wondering if Vaccaro's shotdown

pilots had seen the make of car from which their

deaths had come spitting. Anyone seeing those murders

would, I supposed, have been gazing with uncomprehending

horror at the falling victims, not dashing into

the road to peer at a fast disappearing number plate.

 

No one had heard any shots on Sunday. No one had

heard the shots, the widow had told Greville, when her

husband was killed. A silencer on a gun in a moving

car . . . a swift pmt . . . curtains.

 

It couldn't have been Vaccaro who shot Simms. Vaccaro

didn't make sense. Someone with the same antisocial

habits, as in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. A

copycat. Plenty of precedent.

 

Milo's secretary had been busy and given my London

number also to Phil Urquhart who came on the line to

tell me that Dozen Roses had tested clean for barbiturates

and he would give a certificate of soundness for

the sale.

 

'Fine, I said.

 

'I've been lO examine the horse again this morning.

He s still very docile. It seems to be his natural state.

 

'Mm.'

 

'Do I hear doubt?'

 

'He's excited enough every time cantering down to

the start.'

 

'Natural adrenalin,' Phil said.

 

If it was anyone but Nicholas Loder . . .

 

'He would never risk it,' Phil said, agreeing with me.

'But look . . . there are things that potentiate adrenalin,

like caffeine. Some of them are never tested for in

racing, as they are not judged to be stimulants. It's your

money that's being spent on the tests I've done for you.

We have some more of that sample of urine. Do

you want me to get different tests done, for things not

usually looked for? I mean, do you really think Nicholas

 

Loder gave the horse something, and if you do, do you

want to know about it?'

 

'It was his owner, a man called Rollway, who had the

baster, not Loder himself.'

 

DICK FRANCIS

 

'Same decision. Do you want to spend more, or not

bother? It may be money down the drain, anyway. And

if you get any results, what then? You don't want to get

the horse disqualified, that wouldn't make sense.'

 

'No . . . it wouldn't.'

 

'What's your problem?' he asked. 'I can hear it in

your voice.'

 

'Fear,' I said. 'Nicholas Loder was afraid.'

 

'Oh.' He was briefly silent. 'I could get the tests done

anonymously, of course.'

 

'Yes. Get them done, then. I particularly don't want

to sell the Ostermeyers a lemon, as she would say. If

Dozen Roses can't win on his own merits, I'll talk them

out of the idea of owning him.'

 

'So you'll pay for negative results?'

 

'I will indeed.'

 

'While I was at Milo's this morning,' he said, 'he was

talking to the Ostermeyers in London, asking how they

were and wishing them a good journey. They were still a

bit wobbly from the crash, it seems.'

 

'Surprising if they weren't.'

 

'They're coming back to England though to see

Datepalm run in the Hennessy. How's your ankle?'

 

'Good as new by then.'

 

'Bye then.' I could hear his smile. 'Take care.'

 

He disconnected and left me thinking that there still

were good things in the world, like the Ostermeyers'

faith and riding Datepalm in the Hennessy, and I stood

up and put my left foot flat on the floor for a progress

report.

 

It wasn't so bad if I didn't lean any weight on it,

but there were still jabbingly painful protests against

attempts to walk. Oh well. I thought, sitting down again,

give it another day or two. It hadn't exactly had a therapeutic

week and was no doubt doing its best against

odds. On Thursday, I thought, I would get rid of the

crutches. By Friday, definitely. Any day after that I'd be

running. Ever optimistic. It was the belief that cured.

 

The ever-busy telephone rang again, and I answered

it with 'Saxony Franklin?' as routine.

 

Derek?'

 

'Yes,' I said.

 

Clarissa's unmistakable voice said, 'I'm in London.

Could we meet?'

 

I hadn't expected her so soon, I thought. I said, 'Yes,

of course. Where?'

 

'I thought... perhaps... Luigi's. Do you know

Luigi's bar and restaurant?'

 

'I don't,' I said slowly, 'but I can find it.'

 

'It's in Swallow Street near Piccadilly Circus. Would

you mind coming at seven, for a drink?'

 

'And dinner?'

 

'Well . . .'

 

'And dinner,' I said.

 

I heard her sigh, 'Yes. All right,' as she disconnected,

and I was left with a vivid understanding both of her

compulsion to put me where she had been going to

meet Greville and of her awareness that perhaps she

ought not to.

 

I could have said no, I thought. I could have, but

hadn't. A little introspection revealed ambiguities in rny

response to her also, like did I want to give comfort, or

to take it.

 

By three-thirty I'd finished the paperwork and filled

an order for pearls and another for turquoise and

relocked the vault and got Annette to smile again, even

if faintly. At four, Brad pulled up outside Prospero

Jenks's shop in Knightsbridge and I put the telephone

ready to let him know when to collect me.

 

Prospero Jenks was where I'd found him before, sitting

in shirtsleeves at his workbench. The discreet darksuited

man, serving customers in the shop, nodded me

through.

 

'He's expecting you, Mr Franklin.'

 

Pross stood up with a smile on his young-old Peter

Pan face and held out his hand, but let it fall again as I

waggled a crutch handle at him instead.

 

'Glad to see you,' he said, offering a chair, waiting

while I sat. 'Have you brought my diamonds?' He sat

down again on his own stool.

 

'No. Afraid not.'

 

He was disappointed. 'I thought that was what you

were coming for.'

 

'No, not really.'

 

I looked at his long efficient workroom with its little

drawers full of unset stones and thought of the marvels

he produced. The big notice on the wall still read 'NEVER

TURN YOUR BACK TO CUSTOMERS. ALWAYS WATCH THEIR

 

HANDS.

 

I said, 'Greville sent twenty-five rough stones to

Antwerp to be cut for you.'

 

'That's right.'

 

'Five of them were cubic zirconia.'

 

'No, no.'

 

'Did you,' I asked neutrally,'swap them over?'

 

The half-smile died out of his face, which grew stiff

and expressionless. The bright blue eyes stared at me

and the lines deepened across his forehead.

 

'lllat's rubbish,' he said. 'I'd never do anything

stupid like that.'

 

I didn't say anything immediately and it seemed to

give him force.

 

'You can't come in here making wild accusations. Go

on, get out, you'd better leave.' He half-rose to his feet.

 

I said, not moving, 'When the cutters told Greville

five of the stones were cubic zirconia, he was devastated.

Very upset.'

 

I reached into my shirt pocket and drew out the

 

print-out from the Wizard.

 

'Do you want to see?' I asked. 'Read there.'

 

After a hesitation he took the paper, sat back on the

stool and read the entry:

 

Antwerp say 5 of the first

batch of rough are CZ.

Don't want to believe it.

Infinite sadness

Priority 1.

Arrange meetings Ipswich?

Undecided. Damnation!

 

'Greville used to write his thoughts in a notebook,' I

said. 'In there it says, "Infinite sadness is not to trust an

old friend." '

 

'So what?'

 

'Since Greville died,' I said, 'someone has been

trying to find his diamonds to steal them from me. That

someone had to be someone who knew they were there

to be found. Greville kept the fact that he'd bought

them very quiet for security reasons. He didn't tell even

his staff. But of course you yourself knew, as it was for

you he bought them.'

 

He said again,'So what?'

 

'If you remember,' I said, still conversationally,

'someone broke into Greville's office after he died and

stole things like an address book and an appointments

diary. I began to think the thief had also stolen any

other papers which might point to where the diamonds

were, like letters or invoices But I know now there

weren't any such papers to be found there, because

Greville was full of distrust. lKlis distrust dated from the

day the Antwerp cutters fold him five of his stones were

cubic zirconia, which was about three weeks before he

died.'

Pross Greville's friend, said nothing.

 

'Greville bought the diamonds' I went on, 'from a

sightholder based in Antwerp who sent them by messenger

to his London house. There he measured them

and weighed them and signed for them. Then it would

be reasonable to suppose that he showed them to you,

his customer. Or showed you twenty-five of them, perhaps

Then he sent that twenty-five back to Antwerp by

the Euro-Securo couriers Five diamonds had mysteriously

become cubic zirconia, and yes it was an entirely

stupid thing to do, because the substitution was bound

to be discovered almost at once, and you knew it would

be. Had to be. I'd think you reckoned Greville would

never believe it of you, but would swear the five stones

had to have been swapped by someone in the couriers

or the cutters in Antwerp, and he would collect the

insurance in due course, and that would be that. You

would be five diamonds to the good, and he would have

lost nothing.'

 

'You can't prove it,' he said flatly.

 

'No, I can't prove it. But Greville was full of sorrow

and distrust, and why should he be if he thought his

stones had been taken by strangers?'

 

I looked with some of Greville's own sadness at Prospero

Jenks. A likeable, entertaining genius whose feelings

for my brother had been strong and long-lasting,

whose regret at his death had been real.

 

'I'd think.' I said, 'that after your long friendship,

after all the treasures he'd brought you, after the pink

and green tourmaline, after your tremendous success,

that he could hardly bear your treachery.'

 

'Stop it,' he said sharply. 'It's bad enough . . .

 

, .

 

He shut his mouth tight and shook his head, and

seemed to sag internally.

 

'He forgave me,' he said.

 

He must have thought I didn't believe him.

 

He said wretchedly, 'I wished I hadn't done it almost

from the beginning, if you want to know. It was just an

impulse. He left the diamonds here while he went off to

do a bit of shopping, and I happened to have some

rough CZ th;, right size in those drawers, as I often do,

waiting for when I want special cutting, and I just...

exchanged them. Like you said. I didn't think he'd lose

by it.'

 

'He knew, though,' I said. 'He knew you, and he

knew a lot about thieves, being a magistrate. Another of

the things he wrote was, "If laws are inconvenient,

ignore them, they don't apply to you." '

 

'Stop it. Stop it. He forgave me.'

 

'When?'

 

'In Ipswich. I went to meet him there.'

 

I lifted my head. 'Ipswich. Orwell Hotel, P. 3.30 pm,'

I said.

 

'What? Yes.' He seemed unsurprised that I should

know. He seemed to be looking inwards to an unendurable

landscape.

 

'I saw him die,' he said.

 

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

'I saw the scaffolding fall on him,' he said.

 

He'd stunned me to silence.

 

'We talked in the hotel. In the lounge there. It was

almost empty... then we walked down the street to

where I'd left my car. We said goodbye. He crossed the

road and walked on, and I watched him. I wanted him

to look back and wave . . . but he didn't.'

 

Forgiveness was one thing, I thought, but friendship

had gone. What did he expect? Absolution and comfort?

Perhaps Greville in time would have given those

too, but I couldn't.

 

Prospero Jenks with painful memory said, 'Grey

never knew what happened . . . There wasn't any warning.

Just a clanging noise and metal fa,'ling and men with

it. Crashing down fast. It buried him. I couldn't see

him... I ran across the road to pull him and there

were bodies . . . and he . . . he . . . I thought he was dead

already. His head was bleeding . . . there was a metal bar

in his stomach and another had ripped into his leg . . . it

was . . . I can't . . . I try to forget but I see it all the time.'

I waited and in a while he went on.

 

'I didn't move him. Couldn't. There was so much

blood . . . and a man lying over his legs . . . and another

man groaning. People came running... then the

police . . . it was just chaos . . .'

 

He stopped again. and I said,'When the police came,

why didn't you stay with Greville and help him? Why

didn't you identify him to them, even?'

 

His genuine sorrow was flooded with a shaft of

alarm. The dismay was momentary, and he shrugged it

off.

 

'You knovw how it is.' He gave me a little-boy shamefaced

look, muth the same as when he'd admitted to

changing the stones. 'Don't get involved. I didn't want

to be dragged in . . . I thought he was dead.'

 

Somewhere along the line, I thought, he was lying to

me. Not about seeing the accident: his description of

Greville's injuries had been piercingly accurate.

 

'Did you simply . . . drive off?' I asked bleakly.

 

'No, I couldn't. Not for ages. The police cordoned off

the street and took endless statements. Something

about criminal responsibility and insurance claims. But

I couldn't help them. I didn't see why the scaffolding

fell. I felt sick because of the blood . . . I sat in my car

till they let us drive out. They'd taken Grev off in an

ambulance before that . . . and the bar was still sticking

out of his stomach . . .'

 

The memory was powerfully reviving his nausea.

 

'You knew by then that he was still alive,' I said.

 

He was shocked. 'How? How could I have known?'

 

'Ihey hadn't covered his face.'

 

'He was dying. Anyone could see. His head was

dented . . . and bleeding . . .'

 

Dead men don't bleed, I thought, but didn't say it.

Prospero Jenks already looked about to throw up, and I

wondered how many times he actually had, in the past

eleven days.

 

Instead, I said, 'What did you talk about in the

Orwell Hotel?'

 

He blinked. 'You know what.'

 

'He accused you of changing the stones.'

 

'Yes.' He swallowed. 'Well, I apologized. Said I was

sorry. Which I was. He could see that. He said why did I

do it when I was bound to be found out, but when I did

it, it was an impulse, and I didn't think I'd be found out,

like I told you.'

 

'What did he say?'

 

'He shook his head as if I were a baby. He was sad

more than angry. I said I would give the diamonds back,

of course, and I begged him to forgive me.'

 

'Which he did?'

 

'Yes, I told you. I asked if we could go on trading

together. I mean, no one was as good as Grev at finding

marvellous stones, and he always loved the things I

made. It was good for both of us. I wanted to go back to

that.'

 

Going back was one of life's impossibilities, I

thought. Nothing was ever the same.

'Did Greville agree?' I asked.

 

'Yes. He said he had the diamonds with him but he

had arrangements to make. He didn't say what. He said

he would come here to the shop at the beginning of the

week and I would give him his five stones and pay for

the tear drops and stars. He wanted cash for them, and

he was giving me a day or two to find the money.'

 

'He didn't usually want cash for things, did he? You

sent a cheque for the spinel and rock crystal.'

 

'Yes, well...' Again the quick look of shame, 'He

said cash in future, as he couldn't trust me. But you

didn't know that.'

 

Greville certainly hadn't trusted him, and it sounded

as if he'd said he had the diamonds with him when he

knew they were at that moment on a boat crossing

the North Sea. Had he said that, I wondered? Perhaps

Prospero Jenks had misheard or misunderstood, but

he'd definitely believed Greville had had the diamonds

with him.

 

'If I give you those diamonds now, then that will be

the end of it?' he said. 'I mean, as Grev had forgiven

me, you won't go back on that and make a fuss, will

you? Not the police... Grev wouldn't have wanted

that, you know he wouldn't.'

 

I didn't answer. Greville would have to have balanced

his betrayed old friendship against his respect for

the law, and I supposed he wouldn't have had Prospero

prosecuted, not for a first offence, admitted and

regretted.

Prospero Jenks gave my silence a hopeful look, rose

from his stool and crossed to the ranks of little drawers.

He pulled one open, took out several apparently unimportant

packets and felt deep inside with a searching

hand. He brought out a twist of white gauze fastened

with a band of sticky tape and held it out for me.

 

'Five diamonds,' he said. 'Yours.'

 

I took the unimpressive little parcel which most

resembled the muslin bag of herbs cooks put in stews,

and weighed it in my hand. I certainly couldn't myself

tell CZ from C and he could see the doubt in my face.

 

'Have them appraised,' he said with unjustified bitterness,

and I said we would weigh them right there and

then and he would write out the weight and sign it.

 

'Grey didn't . . .'

 

'More fool he. He should have done. But he trusted

you. I don't.'

 

'Come on, Derek.' He was cajoling; but I was not

Greville.

 

'No. Weigh them,' I said.

 

With a sigh and an exaggerated shrug he cut open the

little bag when I handed it back to him, and on small

fine scales weighed the contents.

 

It was the first time I'd actually seen what I'd been

searching for, and they were unimposing, to say the

least. Five dull-looking greyish pieces of crystal the size

of large misshapen peas without a hint of the fire waiting

within. I watched the weighing carefully and took

them myself off the scales, wrapping them in a fresh

square of gauze which Prospero handed me and fastening

them safely with sticky tape.

 

'Satisfied?' he said with a touch of sarcasm, watching

me stow the bouquet garni in my trouser pocket.

 

'No. Not really.'

 

'They're the genuine article,' he protested. He signed

the p.aper on which he'd written their combined weight,

and gave it to me. 'I wouldn't make that mistake again.'

He studied me. 'You're much harder than Grev.'

 

'I've reason to be.'

 

'What reason?'

 

'Several attempts at theft. Sundry assaults.'

 

His mouth opened.

 

'Who else?' I said.

 

'But I've never... I didn't...' He wanted me to

believe him. He leaned forward with earnestness. 'I

don't know what you're talking about.'

 

I sighed slightly. 'Greville hid the letters and invoices

dealing with the diamonds because he distrusted someone

in his office. Someone that he guessed was running

to you with little snippets of information. Someone who

would spy for you.'

 

'Nonsense.' His mouth seemed dry, however.

 

I pulled out of a pocket the microcassette recorder

and laid it on his workbench.

 

'This is voice activated,' I said. 'Greville left it

switched on one day when he went to lunch, and this is

what he found on the tape when he returned.' I pressed

the switch and the voice that was familiar to both of us

spoke revealing forth:

 

'I'm in his office now and I can't find them. He hides

everything, he's security mad, you know that. I can't

ask. He'd never tell me, and I don't think he trusts

me. Po-faced Annette doesn't sneeze unless he tells her

to . . .'

 

Jason's voice, full of the cocky street-smart

aggression that went with the orange spiky hair, clicked

off eventually into silence. Prospero Jenks worked some

saliva into his mouth and carefully made sure the

recorder was not still alive and listening.

 

'Jason wasn't talking to me,' he said unconvincingly.

'He was talking to someone else.'

 

'Jason was the regular messenger between you and

Greville,' I said. 'I sent him round here myself last week.

Jason wouldn't take much seducing to bring you information

along with the merchandise. But Greville found

out. It compounded his sense of betrayal. So when you

and he were talking in the Orwell at Ipswich, what was

his opinion of Jason?'

 

He made a gesture of half-suppressed fury.

 

'I don't know how you know all this,' he said.

 

It had taken nine days and a lot of searching and a

good deal of guessing at possibilities and probabilities,

but the pattern was now a reliable path through at least

part of the maze, and no other interpretation that I

could think of explained the facts.

 

I said again, 'What did he say about Jason?'

Prospero Jenks capitulated. 'He said he'd have to

leave Saxony Franklin. He said it was a condition of us

ever doing business again. He said I was to tell Jason

not to turn up for work on the Monday.'

 

'But you didn't do that,' I said.

 

'Well, no.'

 

'Because when Greville died, you decided to try to

steat not only five stones but the lot.'

 

The blue eyes almost smiled. 'Seemed logical, didn't

it?' he said. 'Grey wouldn't know. The insurance would

pay. No one would lose.'

 

Except the underwriters, I thought. But I said, 'The

diamonds weren't insured. Are not now insured. You

were stealing them directly from Greville.'

 

He was almost astounded, but not quite.

 

'Greville told you that, didn't he?' I guessed.

 

Again the little-boy shame. 'Well, yes, he did.'

 

'In the Orwell?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'Pross,' I said, 'did you ever grow up?'

 

'You don't know what growing up is. Growing up is

being ahead of the game.'

 

'Stealing without being found out?'

 

'Of course. Everyone does it. You have to make what

you can.'

 

'But you have this marvellous talent,' I said.

 

'Sure. But I make things for money. I make what

people like. I take their bread, whatever they'll pay.

Sure, I get a buzz when what I've made is brilliant, but I

wouldn't starve in a garret for art's sake. Stones sing to

me. I give them life. Gold is my paintbrush. All that,

sure. But I'll laugh behind people's backs. They're gullible.

The day I understood all customers are suckers is

the day I grew up.'

 

I said, 'I'll bet you never said all that to Greville.'

 

'Do me a favour. Grev was a saint, near enough. The

only truly good person through and through I've ever

known. I wish I hadn't cheated him. I regret it something

rotten.'

 

I listened to the sincerity in his voice and believed

him, but his remorse had been barely skin deep, and

nowhere had it altered his soul.

 

'Jason,' I said, 'knocked me down outside St Catherine's

Hospital and stole the bag containing Greville's

clothes.'

 

'No.' The Jenks' denial was automatic, but his eyes

were full of shock.

 

I said, 'I thought at the time it was an ordinary mugging.

The attacker was quick and strong. A friend who

was with me said the mugger wore jeans and a woolly

hat, but neither of us saw his face. I didn't bother to

report it to the police because there was nothing of

value in the bag.'

 

'So how can you say it was Jason?'

 

I answered his question obliquely.

 

'When I went to Greville's firm to tell them he was

dead,' I said, 'I found his office had been ransacked. As

you know. The next day I discovered that Greville had

    bought diamonds. I began looking for them, but there

was no paperwork, no address book, no desk diary, no

reference to or appointments with diamond dealers. I

couldn't physically find the diamonds either. I spent

three days searching in the vault, with Annette and

June, her assistant, telling me that there never were any

diamonds in the office, Greville was far too securityconscious.

You yourself told me the diamonds were

intended for you, which I didn't know until I came here.

Everyone in the office knew I was looking for diamonds,

and at that point Jason must have told you I was looking

for them, which informed you that I didn't know where

they were.'

 

He watched my face with his mouth slightly open, no

longer denying, showing only the stunned disbelief of

the profoundly found out.

 

'The office staff grew to know I was a jockey,' I said,

'and Jason behaved to me with an insolence I thought

inappropriate, but I now think his arrogance was the

result of his having had me face down on the ground

under his foot. He couldn't crow about that, but his

belief in his superiority was stamped all over him. I

asked the office staff not to unsettle the customers by

telling them that they were now trading with a jockey

not a gemmologist' but I think it's certain that Jason

told you.'

 

What makes you think that?' He didn't say it hadn't

happened.

 

'You couldn t get into Greville's house to search it,' I

said, 'because it's a fortress. You couldn't swing any sort

of wrecking ball against the windows because the grilles

inside made it pointless, and anyway they're wired on a

direct alarm to the police station. The only way to get

into that house is by key, and I had the keys. So you

worked out how to get me there, and you set it up

through the trainer I ride for, which is how I know you

were aware I was a jockey. Apart from the staff, no one

else who knew I was a jockey knew I was looking for

diamonds, because I carefully didn't tell them. Come to

the telephone in Greville's house for information about

the diamonds. you said, and I obediently turned up,

which was foolish.'

 

'But I never went to Greville's house . . .' he said.

 

'No, not you, Jason. Strong and fast in the motorcycle

helmet which covered his orange hair, butting me

over again just like old times. I saw him vault the gate

on the way out. That couldn't have been you. He turned

the house upside down but the police didn't think he'd

found what he was looking for, and I'm sure he,didn't.'

 

'Why not?' he asked, and then said,'That's to say . . .'

 

'Did you mean Jason to kill me?' I asked flatly.

 

'No! Of course not!' The idea seemed genuinely to

shock him.

 

'He could have done,' I said.

 

'I'm not a murderer!' His indignation, as far as I

could tell, was true and without reservation, quite different

from his reaction to my calling him a thieœ

- 'What were you doing two days ago, on Sunday afternoon?'

I said.

 

'What?' He was bewildered by the question but not

alarmed.

 

'Sunday afternoon,' I said.

 

'What about Sunday afternoon? What are you talking

about?'

 

I frowned. 'Never mind. Go back to Saturday night.

To Jason giving me concussion with half a brick.'

 

The knowledge of that was plain to read. We were

again on familiar territory.

 

'You can kill people,' I said, hitting them with

bricks.'

 

'But he said . . .' He stopped dead.

 

'You might as well go on,' I said reasonably, 'we both

know that what I've said is what happened.'

 

'Yes, but . . . what are you going to do about it?'

 

'I don't know yet.'

 

'I'll deny everything.'

 

'What did Jason say about the brick?'

 

He gave a hopeless little sigh. 'He said he knew how

to knock people out for half an hour. He'd seen it done

in street riots, he said, and he'd done it himself. He said

it depended on where you hit.'

 

'You can't time it,' I objected.

 

'Well, that's what he said.'

 

He hadn't been so wrong, I supposed. I'd beaten his

estimate by maybe ten minutes, not more.

 

'He said you'd be all right afterwards,' Pross said.

'He couldn't be sure of that.'

 

'But you are, aren't you?' there seemed to be a tinge

of regret that I hadn't emerged punch drunk and unable

to hold the present conversation. Callous and irresponsible,

I thought, and unforgivable, really. Greville had

forgiven treachery; and which was worse?

 

'Jason knew which office window to break,' I said,

and he came down from the roof. The police found

marks up there.' I paused. 'Did he do that alone, or were

you with him?'

 

Do you expect me to tell you?' he said incredulously.

 

'Yes, I do. Why not? You know what plea bargaining

is, you just tried it with five diamonds.'

 

He gave me a shattered look and searched his

common sense; not that he had much of it, when one

considered.

 

Eventually, without shame, he said, 'We both went.'

 

'When?'

 

'That Sunday. Late afternoon. After he brought

Grev's things back from Ipswich and they were a waste

of time.'

 

'You found out which hospital Greville was in,' I

 

said' 'and you sent Jason to steal his things because

you believed they would include the diamonds which

Greville had told you he had with him, is that right?'

 

He rather miserably nodded. 'Jason phoned me from

the hospital on the Saturday and said Grev wasn't dead

yet but that this brother had turned up, some frail old

creature on crutches, and it was good because he'd be

an easy mark . . . which you were.'

 

'Yes'

 

He looked at me and repeated, 'Frail old creature,'

and faintly smiled, and I remembered his surprise at my

physical appearance when I'd first come into this room.

Jason, I supposed, had seen only my back view and

mostly at a distance. I certainly hadn't noticed anyone

lurking, but I probably wouldn't at the time have

noticed half a ship's company standing at attention.

Being with the dying, seeing the death, had made

ordinary life seem unreal and unimportant, and it had

taken me until hours after Jason's attack to lose that

feeling altogether.

 

'All right,' I said, 'so Jason came back empty-handed.

What then?'

 

He shrugged. 'I thought I'd probably got it wrong.

Grev couldn't have meant that he had the diamonds

with him.' He frowned. 'I thought that was what he said,

though.'

 

I enlightened him. 'Greville was on his way to Harwich

to meet a diamond cutter coming from Antwerp

by ferry, who was bringing your diamonds with him.

Twelve tear drops and eight stars'

 

'Oh.' His face cleared momentarily with pleasure but

gloom soon returned. 'Well, I thought it was worth looking

in his office, though Jason said he never kept anything

valuable there. But for diamonds... so many

diamonds... it was worth a chance. Jason didn't take

much persuading. He's a violent young bugger . . .'

 

I wondered fleetingly if that description mightn't be

positively and scatologically accurate.

 

'So you went up to the roof in the service lift,' I said,

'and swung some sort of pendulum at the packing room

window.'

 

He shook his head. 'Jason brought grappling irons

and a rope ladder and climbed down tbat to the

window, and broke the glass with a baseball bat. Then

when he was inside I threw the hooks and the ladder

down into the yard, and went down in the lift to the

eighth floor, and Jason let me in through the staff door.

But we couldn't get into the stock-rooms because of

Grev's infernal electronic locks or into the showroom,

same reason. And that vault . . . I wanted to try to beat

it open with the bat but Jason said the door is six inches

thick.' He shrugged. 'So we had to make do with papers

. . . and we couldn't find anything about diamonds. Jason

got angry . . . we made quite a mess'

 

'Mm.'

 

'And it was all a waste of time. Jason said what we

really needed was something called a Wizard, but

we couldn't find that either. In the end, we simply left. I

gave up. Grev had been too careful. I got resigned to

not having the diamonds unless I paid for them. Then

Jason said you were hunting high and low for them, and

I got interested again. Very. You can't blame me.'

I could and did, but I didn't want to switch off the

fountain.

 

'And then,' he said, 'like you guessed, I inveigled you

into Grev's garden, and Jason had been waiting ages

there getting furious you took so long. He let his anger

out on the house, he said.'

 

'He made a mess there too, yes.'

 

'Then you woke up and set the alarms off and Jason

said he was getting right nervous by then and he wasn't

going to wait around for the handcuffs. So Grev had

beaten us again . . . and he's beaten you too, hasn't he?'

He looked at me shrewdly. 'You haven't found the diamonds

either*.'

 

I didn't answer him. I said, 'When did Jason break

into Greville's car?'

 

'Well . . . when he finally found it in Greville's road.

I'd looked for it at the hotel and round about in Ipswich,

but Grev must have hired a car to drive there because

his own car won't start.'

 

'When did you discover that?'

 

'Saturday. If the diamonds had been in it, we

wouldn't have needed to search the house.'

 

'He wouldn't have left a fortune in the street,' I said.

 

Pross shook his head resignedly. 'You'd already

looked there, I suppose.'

 

'I had.' l considered him. 'Why Ipswich?' I said.

 

'What?'

 

Why the Orwell Hotel at Ipswich, particularly? Why

did he want you to go there?'

 

'No idea.' he said blankly. 'He didn't say. He'd often

ask me to meet him in odd places. It was usually because

he d found some heirloom or other and wanted to know

if the stones would be of use to me. An ugly old tiara

once, with a boring yellow diamond centrepiece filthy

from neglect. I had the stone recut and set it as the crest

of a rock crystal hird and hung it in a golden cage . . . it's

in Florida, in the sun.'

 

I was shaken with the pity of it. So much soaring

priceless imagination and such grubby, perfidious greed.

 

I said, 'Had he found you a stone in Ipswich?'

 

No. He told me he'd asked me to come there

because he didn't want us to be interrupted. Somewhere

quiet, he said. I suppose it was because he was going to

Harwich.

 

I nodded. I supposed so also, though it wasn't on

the most direct route which was further south, through

Colchester. But Ipswich was where Greville had chosen,

by freak mischance.

 

I thought of all Pross had told me, and was: struck by

one unexplored and dreadful possibility.

 

When the scaffolding fell,' I said slowly, 'when you

ran across the road and found Greville lethally

 

injured. . . when he was lying there bleeding with the

metal bar in him . . . did you steal his wallet?'

 

Pross's little-boy face crumpled and he put up his

hands to cover it as if he would weep. I didn't believe in

the tears and the remorse. I couldn't bear him any

longer. I stood up to go.

'You thought he might have diamonds in his wallet,' I

said bitterly. 'And then, even then, when he was dying,

you were ready to rob him.'

 

He said nothing. He in no way denied it.

 

I felt such anger on Greville's behalf that I wanted

suddenly to hurt and punish the man before me with a

ferocity I wouldn't have expected in myself, and I stood

there trembling with the self-knowledge and the essential

restraint, and felt my throat close over any more

words.

 

Without thinking, I put my left foot down to walk out

and felt the pain as an irrelevance, but then after three

steps used the crutches to make my way to his doorway

and round the screen into the shop and through there

out onto the pavement, and I wanted to yell and scream

at the bloody injustice of Greville's death and the wickedness

of the world and call down the rage of angels.

 

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

I stood blindly on the pavement oblivious to the passers-

by finding me an obstacle in their way. The swamping

tidal wave of fury and desolation swelled and broke

and gradually ebbed, leaving me still shaking from its

force, a tornado in the spirit.

 

I loosened a jaw I hadn't realized was clamped tight

shut and went on feeling wretched,

 

A grandmotherly woman touched my arm and said,

'Do you need help?' and I shook my head at her kindness

because the help I needed wasn't anyone's to give.

One had to heal from the inside: to knit like bones.

 

'Are you all right?' she asked again, her eyes concerned.

 

'

Yes.' I made an effort. 'Thank you.'

 

She looked at me uncertainly, but finally moved on,

and I took a few sketchy breaths and remembered with

bathos that I needed a telephone if I were ever to move

from that spot.

 

A hairdressing salon having (for a consideration) let

me use their instrument, Brad came within five minutes

   to pick me up. I shoved the crutches into the back and

climbed wearily in beside him, and he said, 'Where to?'

giving me a repeat of the grandmotherly solicitude in

his face if not his words

 

'Uh,' I said. 'I don't know.'

 

'Home?'

 

'No . . .'I gave it a bit of thought. I had intended to

go to Greville's house to change into my suit that was

hanging in his wardrobe before meeting Clarissa at

seven, and it still seemed perhaps the best thing to do,

even if my energy for the project had evaporated.

 

Accordingly we made our way there, which wasn't

far, and when Brad stopped outside the door, I said, 'I

think I'll sleep here tonight. This house is as safe as

anywhere. So you can go on to Hungerford now, if you

like.'

 

He didn't look as if he liked, but all he said was, 'I

come back tomorrow?'

 

'Yes, please,' I agreed.

 

'Pick you up. Take you to the office?'

 

'Yes, please.'

 

He nodded, seemingly reassured that I still needed

him. He got out of the car with me and opened the gate,

brought my overnight bag and came in with me to see,

upstairs and down, that the house was safely empty of

murderers and thieves When he'd departed I checked

that all the alarms were switched on and went up to

Greville's room to change.

 

I borrowed another of his shirts and a navy silk tie,

and shaved with his electric razor which was among the

things I'd picked up from the floor and had put on his

white chest of drawers, and brushed my hair with

his brushes for the same reason, and thought with an

odd frisson that all of these things were mine now, that I

was in his house, in his room, in his clothes . . . in his life.

 

I put on my own suit, because his anyway were too

long, and came across the tube of the baster, still there

in an inner breast pocket. Removing it, I left it among

the jumble on the dressing chest and checked in the

looking glass on the wall that Franklin, Mark II,

wouldn't entirely disgrace Franklin, Mark I. He had

looked in that mirror every day for three months, I

supposed. Now his reflection was my reflection and the

man that was both of us had dark marks of tiredness

under the eyes and a taut thinness in the cheeks, and

looked as if he could do with a week's lying in the sun. I

gave him a rueful smile and phoned for a taxi, which

took me to Luigi's with ten minutes to spare.

 

She was there before me all the same, sitting at a

small table in the bar area to one side of the restaurant,

with an emptyish glass looking like vodka on a prim mat

in front of her. She stood up when I went in and offered

me a cool cheek for a polite social greeting, inviting me

with a gesture to sit down.

 

'What will you drink?' she asked formally, but battling,

I thought, with an undercurrent of diffidence.

 

I said I would pay for our drinks and she said no, no,

this was her suggestion. She called the waiter and said,

'Double water?' to me with a small smile and when I

nodded ordered Perrier with ice and fresh limejuice for

both of us.

 

I was down by then to only two or three Distalgesics

a day and would soon have stopped taking them, though

the one I'd just swallowed in Greville's house was still

an inhibitor for the evening. I wondered too late which

would have made me feel better, a damper for the ankle

or a large scotch everywhere else.

 

Clarissa was wearing a blue silk dress with a doublestrand

pearl necklace, pearl, sapphire and diamond earrings

and a sapphire and diamond ring. I doubted if I

would have ttoticed those, in the simple old jockey days

Her hair, smooth as always curved in the expensive cut

and her shoes and handbag were quiet black calf. She

looked as she was, a polished, well-bred woman of forty

or so, nearly beautiful, slender, with generous eyes

 

'What have you been doing since Saturday?' she

asked, making conversation.

 

'Peering into the jaws of death. What have you?'

 

'We went to . . .' She broke off. 'What did you say?'

 

'Martha and Harley Ostermeyer and I were in a car

crash on Sunday. They're OK, they went back to

America today, I believe. And I, as you see, am here in

one piece. Well . . . almost one piece.'

 

She was predictably horrified and wanted to hear all

the details, and the telling at least helped to evaporate

any awkwardness either of us had been feeling at the

meeting.

 

STRA IGHT

 

'Simms was shot?'

 

'Yes'

 

'But . . . do the police know who did it?'

 

I shook my head. 'Someone in a large grey Volvo,

they think, and there are thousands of those.'

 

Good heavens' She paused. 'I didn't like to comment,

but you look . . .' She hesitated, searching for the

word.

 

'Frazzled?' I suggested.

 

'Smooth.' She smiled. 'Frazzled underneath.'

 

'It'll pass.'

 

The waiter came to ask if we would be having dinner

and I said yes, and no argument, the dinner was mine.

She accepted without fuss and we read the menus

 

The fare was chiefly Italian, the decor cosmopolitan,

the ambience faintly European tamed by London. A lot

of dark red, lamps with glass shades, no wallpaper

music. A comfortable place, nothing dynamic. Few

diners yet, as the hour was early.

 

It was not, I was interested to note, a habitual rendezvous

place for Clarissa and Greville: none of the waiters

treated her as a regular. I asked her about it and,

startled, she said they had been there only two or three

times, always for lunch.

 

'We never went to the same place often,' she said. 'It

wouldn't have been wise.'

 

'No.'

 

She gave me a slightly embarrassed look. 'Do you

disapprove of me and Greville?'

'No,' I said again. 'You gave him joy.'

 

'Oh.' She was comforted and pleased. She said with a

certain shyness, 'It was the first time I'd fallen in love. I

suppose you'll think that silly. But it was the first time

for him, too, he said. It was... truly wonderful. We

were like . . . as if twenty years younger . . . I don't know

if I can explain. Laughing. Lit up.'

 

'As far as I can see,' I said, 'the thunderbolt strikes at

any age. You don't have to be teenagers.'

 

'Has it . . . struck you?'

 

'Not since I was seventeen and fell like a ton of bricks

for a trainer's daughter.'

 

'What happened?'

 

'Nothing much. We laughed a lot. Slept together, a

bit clumsily at first. She married an old man of twentyeight.

I went to college.'

 

'I met Henry when I was eighteen. He fell in love

with me... pursued me... I was flattered... and he

was so very good looking . . . and kind.'

 

'He still is,' I said.

 

'He'd already inherited his title. My mother was

ecstatic . . . she said the age difference didn't matter. . .

so I married him.' She paused. 'We had a son and a

daughter, both grown up now. It hasn't been a bad life,

but before Greville, incomplete.'

 

'A better life than most,' I said, aiming to comfort.

 

'You're very like Greville,' she said unexpectedly.

'You look at things straight, in the same way. You've his

sense of proportion.'

 

'We had realistic parents.'

 

'He didn't speak about them much, only that he

became interested in gemstones because of the

museums his mother took him to. But he lived in

the present and he looked outward, not inward, and I

loved him to distraction and in a way I didn't know

him . . .' She stopped and swallowed and seemed determined

not to let emotion intrude further.

 

'He was like that with me tog,' I said. 'With everyone,

I think. It didn't occur to him to give running commentaries

on his actions and feelings. He found everything

else more interesting.'

 

'I do miss trim,' she said.

 

'What will you eat?' I asked.

 

She gave me a flick of a look and read the menu

without seeing it for quite a long time. In the end she

said with a sigh, 'You decide.'

 

'Did GreviUe?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'If I order fried zucchini as a starter, then fillet steak

in pepper sauce with linguine tossed in olive oil with

 

garlic, will that do?'

 

'I don't like garlic. I like everything else. Unusual.

Nice.'

 

'OK. No garlic.'

 

We transferred to the dining room before seventhirty

and ate the proposed programme, and I asked if

she were returning to York that night: if she had a train

to catch, if that was why we were eating early.

'No, I'm down here for two nights. Tomorrow I'm

going to an old friend's wedding, then back to York

on Thursday morning.' She concentrated on twirling

linguine onto her fork. 'When Henry and I come to

London together we always stay at the Selfridge Hotel,

and when I come alone I stay there also. They know us

well there. When I'm there alone they don't present me

with an account, they send it to Henry.' She ate the

forkful of linguine. 'I tell him I go to the cinema and eat

in snack bars. . . and he knows I'm always back in the

hotel before midnight.'

 

There was a good long stretch of time between this

dinner and midnight.

 

I said, 'Every five weeks or so, when you came down

to London alone, Greville met you at King's Cross, isn't

that right, and took you to lunch?'

 

She said in surprise, 'Did he tell you?'

 

'Not face to face. Did you ever see that gadget of his,

the Wizard?'

 

'Yes, but . . .' She was horrified. 'He surely didn't put

me in it?'

 

'Not by name, and only under a secret password.

You're quite safe.'

 

She twiddled some more with the pasta, her eyes

down, her thoughts somewhere else.

 

'After lurch,' she said, with pauses, 'if I had appointments.

I'd keep them, or do some shopping.. . something

to take home. I'd register at the hotel and change,

and go to Greville's house. He used to have the flat, of

course, but the house was much better. When he came,

we'd have drinks . . . talk . . . maybe make love. We'd go

to dinner early, then back to his house.' Her voice

stopped. She still didn't look up.

 

I said, 'Do you want to go to his house now, before

midnight?'

 

After a while, she said, 'I don't know.'

 

Well . . . would you like coffee?'

 

She nodded, still not meeting my eyes, and pushed

the linguine away. We sat in silence while waiters took

away the plates and poured into cups, and if she

couldn't make up her mind, nor could I.

 

In the end I said, 'If you like, come to Greville's

house now. I'm sleeping there tonight, but that's not a

factor. Come if you like, just to be near him, to be with

him as much as you can for maybe the last time. Lie on

his bed. Weep for him. I'll wait for you downstairs. ..

and take you safely to your hotel before the fairy coach

changes back to a pumpkin.'

 

'Oh!' She turned what had been going to be a sob

into almost a laugh. 'Can I really?'

 

'Whenever you like.'

 

'Thank you, then. Yes.'

 

'I'd better warn you,' I said, 'it's not exactly tidy.' I

told her what she would find, but she was inconsolable

 

at the sight of the reality.

 

'He would have hated this,' she said. 'I'm so glad he

didn't see it.'

 

We were in the small sitting room, and she went

round picking up the pink and brown stone bears,

restoring them to their tray.

 

'I gave him these,' she said. 'He loved them. They're

rhodonite. he said.'

 

Take them to remember him by. And there's a gold

watch you gave him, if you'd like that too.'

 

She paused with the last bear in her hand and said,

'You're very kind to me.'

 

'It's not difficult. And he'd have been furious with

me if I weren't.'

 

'I'd love the bears. You'd better keep the watch,

because of the engraving.'

 

'OK 'Isaid.

 

'I think,' she said with diffidence, 'I'll go upstairs

now.'

 

I nodded.

 

'Come with me,' she said.

 

I looked at her. Her eyes were wide and troubled,

but not committed, not hungry. Undecided. Like myself.

 

'All right,' I said.

 

Is there chaos up there too?'

 

'I picked some of it up.'

 

She went up the stairs ahead of me at about four

times my speed, and I heard her small moan of distress

at the desecration of the bedroom. When I joined her,

she was standing forlornly looking around, and with

naturalness she turned to me and put her arms loosely

round my waist laying her head on my shoulder. I shed

the confounded crutches and hugged her tight in grief

for her and for Greville and we stood there for a long

minute in mutual and much needed comfort.

 

She let her arms fall away and went over to sit on the

bed, smoothing a hand over the black and white

chequer-board counterpane.

 

'He was going to change this room,' she said. 'All this

drama . . .' She waved a hand at the white furniture, the

black carpet, one black wall . . . 'It came with the house.

He wanted me to choose something softer, that I would

like. But this is how I'll always remember it.'

 

She lay down flat, her head on the pillows, her legs

toward the foot of the bed, ankles crossed. I halfhopped,

half-limped across the room and sat on the

edge beside her.

 

She watched me with big eyes. I put my hand flat on

her stomach and felt the sharp internal contraction of

muscles.

 

'Should we do this?' she said.

 

'I'm not Greville.'

 

'No . . . Would he mind?'

 

'I shouldn't think so.' I moved my hand, rtlbbing a

little. 'Do you want to go on?'

 

'Do you?'

 

'Yes,' I said.

 

She sat up fast and put her arms round my neck in a

sort of released compulsion.

 

'I do want this,' she said. 'I've wanted it all day. I've

been pretending to myself, telling myself I shouldn't,

but yes, I do want this passionately, and I know you're

not Greville, I know it will be different, but this is the

only way I can love him . . . and can you bear it, can you

understand it, if it's him I love?'

 

I understood it well, and I minded not at all.

 

I said, smiling, 'Just don't caU me Greville. It would

be the turn-off of the century.'

 

She took her face away from the proximity of my ear

and looked me in the eyes, and her lips too, after a

moment, were smiling.

 

'Derek,' she said deliberately, 'make love to me.

Please.'

 

'Don't be,'I said.

 

I put my mouth on hers and took my brother's place.

 

As a memorial service it was quite a success. I lay in

the dark laughing in my mind at that disgraceful pun,

wondering whether or not to share it with Clarissa.

 

The catharsis was over, and her tears. She lay with

her head on my chest, lightly asleep, contented, as far as

I could tell, with the substitute loving. Women said men

were not all the same in the dark, and I knew both

where I'd surprised her and failed her, known what I'd

done like Greville and not done like Greville from the

instinctive releases and tensions of her reactions.

 

Greville, I now knew, had been a lucky man, though

whether he had himself taught her how to give exquisite

pleasure was something I couldn't quite ask. She knew,

though, and she'd done it, and the feeling of her feather

light tattooing fingers on the base of my spine at the

moment of climax had been a revelation. Knowledge

marched on, I thought. Next time, with anyone else, I'd

know what to suggest.

 

Clarissa stirred and I turned my wrist over, seeing the

fluorescent hands of my watch.

 

'Wake up,' I said affectionately. 'It's Cinderella time.'

 

'Ohh . . .'

 

I stretched out a hand and turned on a bedside light.

She smiled at me sleepily, no doubts remaining.

 

'That was all right,' she said.

 

'Mm. Very.'

 

'How's the ankle?'

 

'What ankle?'

 

She propped herself on one elbow, unashamed of

nakedness, and laughed at me. She looked younger and

sweeter, and I was seeing, I knew, what Greville had

seen, what Greville had loved.

 

'Tomorrow,' she said, 'my friend's wedding will be

over by six or so. Can I come here again?' Shje put her

fingers lightly on my mouth to stop me answering at

once. 'This time was for him,' she said. 'Tomorrow for

us. Then I'll go home.'

 

'For ever?'

 

'Yes, I think so. What I had with Greville was unforgettable

and unrepeatable. I decided on the train

coming down here that whatever happened with you, or

didn't happen, I would live with Henry, and do my best

there.'

I could easily love you,' I said.

 

'Yes, but don't.'

 

I knew she was right. I kissed her lightly.

 

'Tomorrow for us,' I agreed. 'Then goodbye.'

 

When I went into the office in the morning, Annette

told me crossly that Jason hadn't turned up for work,

nor had he telephoned to say he was ill.

 

Jason had been prudent, I thought. I'd have tossed

him down the lift shaft, insolence, orange hair and all,

given half an ounce of provocation.

 

'He won't be coming back,' I said, 'so we'll need a

replacement.'

 

She was astonished. 'You can't sack him for not turning

up. You can't sack him for anything without paying

compensation.'

 

'Stop worrying,' I said, but she couldn't take that

advice.

 

June came zooming into Greville's office waving a

tabloid newspaper and looking at me with wide incredulous

eyes.

 

'Did you know you're in the paper? Lucky to be

alive, it says here. You didn't say anything about it!'

 

'Let's see,' I said, and she laid the Daily Sensatior'

open on the black desk.

 

There was a picture of the smash in which one could

more or less see my head inside the Daimler, but not

recognizably. The headline read: 'Driver shot, jockey

lives', and the piece underneath listed the lucky-to-bealive

passengers as Mr and Mrs Ostermeyer of Pittsburgh,

America, and ex-champion steeplechase jockey

Derek Franklin. The police were reported to be

interested in a grey Volvo seen accelerating from the

scene, and also to have recovered two bullets from

the bodywork of the Daimler. After that titbit came a

rehash of the Hungerford massacre and a query, 'Is this

a copycat killing?' and finally a picture of Simms looking

happy: iSurvived by wife and two daughters who

were last night being comforted by relatives'.

 

Poor Simms. Poor family. Poor every shot victim in

Hungerford.

 

It happened on Sunday,' June exclaimed, 'and you

came here on Monday and yesterday as if nothing was

wrong. No wonder you looked knackered.'

 

'dune!' Annette disapproved of the word.

 

'Well, he did. Still does.' She gave me a critical,

kindly, motherly-sister inspection. He could have been

killed, and then what would we all have done here?'

 

The dismay in Annette's face was a measure, I supposed,

of the degree to which I had taken over. The

place no longer felt like a quicksand to me either and I

was beginning by necessity to get a feel of its pulse.

 

But there was racing at Cheltenham that day. I

turned the pages of the newspaper and came to the

runners and riders. That was where my name belonged,

not on Saxony Franklin cheques. June looked over my

shoulder and understood at least something of my sense

of exile.

 

'when you go back to your own world,' she said,

rephrasing her thought and asking it seriously, 'what

will we do here?'

 

We have a month,' I said. 'It'll take me that time to

get fit.' I paused. 'I've been thinking about that problem,

and, er, you might as well know, both of you, what

I've decided.'

 

They both looked apprehensive, but I smiled to

reassure them.

 

'What we'll do,' I said, 'is this. Annette will have a

new title, which will be Office Manager. She'll run

things generally and keep the keys.'

 

She didn t look displeased. She repeated 'Office

Manager' as if trying it on for size.

 

I nodded. 'Then I'll start looking from now on for a

business expert, someone to oversee the cash flow and

do the accountS and try to keep us afloat. Because it's

going to be a struggle, we can't avoid that.'

 

They both looked shocked and disbelieving. Cash

flow seemed never to have been a problem before.

 

'Greville did buy diamonds,' I said regretfully, 'and

so far we are only in possession of a quarter of them. I

can t find out what happened to the rest. They cost the

firm altogether one and a half million dollars, and we'll

still owe the bank getting on for three-quarters of that

sum when we've sold the quarter we have.'

 

Their mouths opened in unhappy unison.

'Unless and until the other diamonds turn up,' I said,

'we have to pay interest on the loan and persuade the

 

Ibank that somehow or other we'll climb out of the hole.

ISo we'll want someone we'll call the Finance Manager,

 

and we ll pay him out of part of what used to be Greville'

s own salary.'

 

They began to understand the mechanics, and

nodded.

 

'Then,' I said, 'we need a gemmologist who has a

feeling for stones and understands what the customers

like and need. There's no good hoping for another

Greville, but we will create the post of Merchandise

Manager, and that,' I looked at her, 'will be June.'

 

She blushed a fiery red. 'But I can't. . . I don't know

enough.'

 

'You'll go on courses,' I said. 'You'll go to trade

fairs. You'll travel. You'll do the buying.'

 

I watched her expand her horizons abruptly and saw

the sparkle appear in her eyes.

 

'She's too young,' Annette objected.

 

'We'll see,' I said, and to June I added, 'YoU know

what sells. You and the Finance Manager will work

together to make us the best possible profit. You'll still

work the computer, and teach Lily or Tina how to use it

for when you're away.'

 

'Tine,' she said, 'she's quicker.'

 

'Tine, then.'

 

'What about you?' she asked.

 

'I'll be General Manager. I'll come when I can, at

least twice a week for a couple of hours. Everyone will

tell me what's going on and we will all decide what is

best to be done, though if there's a disagreement I'll

have the casting vote. Right or wrong will be my responsibility,

not yours.'

 

Annette, nevertheless troubled, said, 'Surely you

yourself will need Mr Franklin's salary.'

 

I shook my head. 'I earn enough riding horses Until

we're solvent here, we need to save every penny.'

 

'It's an adventure!' dune said, enraptured.

 

I thought it might be a very long haul and even in

the end impossible, but I couldn't square it with the

consciousness of Greville all around me not to try.

 

'Well,' I said, putting a hand in a pocket and bringing

out a twist of gauze, 'we have here five uncut diamonds

which cost about seventy-five thousand dollars alto

 

gether.'

 

They more or less gasped.

 

'How do we sell them?' I said.

 

After a pause, Annette said, 'Interest a diamantaire.'

 

'Do you know how to do that?'

 

After another moment's hesitation, she nodded.

 

'We can give provenance,' I said. 'Copies of the

records of the original sale are on their way here from

Guy Servi in Antwerp. They might be here tomorrow.

Sight-box number and so on. We'll put these stones

in the vault until the papers arrive, then you can get

cracking.'

 

She nodded, but fearfully.

'Cheer up,' I said. 'It's clear from the ledgers that

Saxony Franklin is normally a highly successful and

profitable business We'll have to cut costs where we

can, that's all.'

 

'We could cut out Jason's salary,' Annette said

unexpectedly. 'Half the time Tina's been carrying

the heavy boxes, anyway, and I can do the hoovering

myself.'

 

'Great,' I said with gratitude. 'If you feel like that,

we'll succeed.'

 

The telephone rang and Annette answered it briefly.

 

'A messenger has left a packet for you down at the

front desk,' she said.

 

'I'll go for it,' June said, and was out of the door on

the words, returning in her usual short time with a

brown padded jiffy bag, not very large, addressed

simply to Derek Franklin in neat handwriting, which

 

she laid before me with a flourish.

 

'Mind it's not a bomb,' she said facetiously as I

picked it up, and I thought with an amount of horror

that it was a possibility I hadn't thought of.

 

'I didn't mean it,' she said teasingly, seeing me hesitate. '

Do you want me to open it?'

 

'And get your hands blown off instead?'

 

'Of course it's not a bomb,' Annette said uneasily.

 

'Tell you whet,' dune said, 'I'll fetch the shears from

the packing room.' She was gone for a few seconds

'Alfie says,' she remarked, returning, 'we ought to put it

in a bucket of water.'

She gave me the shears, which were oversized

scissors that Alfie used for cutting cardboard, and for all

her disbelief she and Annette backed away across the

room while I sliced the end off the bag.

 

There was no explosion. Complete anti-climax. I

shook out the contents which proved to be two objects

and one envelope.

 

One of the objects was the microcassette recorder

that I'd left on Prospero Jenks's workbench in my haste

to be gone.

 

The other was a long black leather wallet almost

the size of the Wizard, with gold initials G.S.F. in one

corner and an ordinary brown rubber band holding it

shut.

 

'That's Mr Franklin's,' Annette said blankly, and

June, coming to inspect it, nodded.

 

I peeled off the rubber band and laid the wallet open

on the desk. There was a business card lying loose inside

it with Prospero Jenks's name and shops on the front,

and on the reverse the single word, 'Sorry.'

 

'Where did he get Mr Franklin's wallet from?'

Annette asked, puzzled, looking at the card.

 

'He found it,' I said.

 

'He took his time sending it back,' June said

tartly.

 

'Mm.'

 

The wallet contained a Saxony Franklin chequebook,

four credit cards, several business cards and a small

pack of banknotes, which I guessed were fewer in

number than when Greville set out.

 

The small excitement over, Annette and June went

off to tell the others the present and future state of the

nation, and I was alone when I opened the envelope.

 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 

Pross had sent me a letter and a certified bank draft:

instantly cashable money.

I blinked at the numbers on the cheque and reread

them very carefully. Then I read the letter.

It said:

 

Derek,

 

This is a plea for a bargain, as you more or less

said. The cheque is for the sum I agreed with Grev

for the twelve tear drops and eight stars. I know

you need the money, and I need those stones.

 

Jason won't be troubling you again. I'm giving

him a job ifl one of my workrooms.

 

Grev wouldn't have forgiven the brick, though

he might the wallet. For you it's the other way

round. You're very like him. I wish he hadn't died.

Pross.

 

What a mess, I thought. I did need the money, yet if I

accepted it I was implicitly agreeing not to take any

action against him. The trouble about taking action

against him was that however much I might want to

I didn't know that I could. Apart from difficulties of

evidence I had more or less made a bargain that for

information he would get inaction. but that had been

before the wallet. It was perceptive of him, I thought, to

see that it was betrayal and attacks on our brother that

would anger both Greville and me most.

 

Would Greville want me to extend. if not forgiveness,

then at least suspended revenge? Would Greville want

me to confirm his forgiveness or to rise up in wrath and

tear up the cheque . . .

 

In the midst of these sombre squirrelling thoughts

the telephone rang and I answered it.

 

Elliot Trelawney here,' the voice said.

 

'Oh, hello.'

 

He asked me how things were going and I said life

was full of dilemmas. Ever so, he said with a chuckle.

 

Give me some advice,' I said on impulse, 'as a

magistrate.'

 

'If I can, certainly.'

 

Well. Listen to a story, then say what you think.'

 

'Fire away.'

 

'Someone knocked me out with a brick...' Elliot

made protesting noises on my behalf, but I went on. 'I

know now who it was, but I didn't then, and I didn't see

his face because he was masked. He wanted to steal a

particular thing from me. but although he made a mess

in the house searching, he didn't find it, and so didn't

 

,

rob me of anything except consciousness. I guessed later

who it was, and I challenged another man with having

sent him to attack me. That man didn't deny it to me,

but he said he would deny it to anyone else. So . . . what

do I do?'

 

'whew.' He pondered. 'What do you want to do?'

 

'I don't know. That's why I need the advice.'

 

'Did you report the attack to the police at the time?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'Have you suffered serious after-effects?'

 

'No.'

 

Did you see a doctor?'

'No.'

 

He pondered some more. 'On a practical level you'd

find it difficult to get a conviction, even if the prosecution

service would bring charges of actual bodily

harm. You couldn't swear to the identity of your assailant

if you didn t see him at the time, and as for the other

man, conspiracy to commit a crime is one of the most

difficult charges to make stick. As you didn't consult a

doctor. you're on tricky ground. So, hard as it may seem,

my advice would be that the case wouldn't get to court.'

 

I sighed. 'Thank you,' I said.

 

'Sorry not to have been more positive.'

 

'It's all right. You confirmed what I rather feared.'

 

'Fine then,' he said. 'I rang to thank you for sending

the Vaccaro notes. We held the committee meeting and

turned down Vaccaro's application, and now we find we

needn't have bothered because on Saturday night he

was arrested and charged with attempting to import

illegal substances. He's still in custody, and America is

 

asking for him to be extradited to Florida where he

 

faces murder charges and perhaps execution. And we

nearly gave him a gambling licence! Funny old world.'

 

I'Hilarious.'

 

How about our drink in The Rook and Castle?' he

suggested. 'Perhaps one evening next week?'

 

'OK.'

 

'Fine' he said. 'I'll ring you.'

 

I put the phone down thinking that if Vaccaro had

been arrested on Saturday evening and held in custody,

it was unlikely he'd shot Simms from a moving car in

Berkshire on Sunday afternoon. But then, I'd never

really thought he had.

 

Copycat. Copycat, that's what it had been.

 

Pross hadn't shot Simms either. Had never tried to

kill me. The Peter-Pan face upon which so many

emotions could be read had shown a total blank when

I'd asked him what he was doing on Sunday afternoon.

 

The shooting of Simms, I concluded, had been

random violence like the other murders in Hungerford.

 

Pointless and vicious; malignant, lunatic and impossible

to explain.

 

I picked up the huge cheque and looked at it. It

would solve all immediate problems: pay the interest

already due, the cost of cutting the diamonds and more

than a fifth of the capital debt. If I didn't take it, we

would no doubt sell the diamonds later to someone else,

 

but they had been cut especially for Prospero Jenks's

fantasies and might not easily fit necklaces and rings

 

A plea. A bargain. A chance that the remorse was at

least half real. Or was he taking me again for a sucker?

 

I did some sums with a calculator and when Annette

came in with the day's letters I showed her my figures

and the cheque and asked her what she thought.

 

'That's the cost price,' I pointed. 'That's the cost of

cutting and polishing. That's for delivery charges. That's

for loan interest and VAT. If you add those together and

subtract them from the figure on this cheque, is that the

sort of profit margin Greville would have asked?'

 

Setting prices was something she well understood,

and she repeated my steps on the calculator.

 

'Yes,' she said finally: 'it looks about right. Not overgenerous,

but Mr Franklin would have seen this as a

service for commission, I think. Not like the rock crystal,

which he bought on spec, which had to help pay for

his journeys.' She looked at me anxiously. 'You understand

the difference?'

 

'Yes,' I said. 'Prospero Jenks says this is what he and

Greville agreed on.'

 

'Well then,' she said, relieved, 'he wouldn't cheat

you.'

 

I smiled with irony at her faith. 'We'd better bank

this cheque, I suppose,' I said, 'before it evaporates.'

 

'I'll do it at once: she declared. 'With a loan as big as

you said, every minute costs us money.'

 

She put on her coat and took an umbrella to go out

with, as the day had started off raining and showed no

signs of relenting.

 

It had been raining the previous night when Clarissa

had been ready to leave, and I'd had to ring three times

for a taxi, a problem Cinderella didn't seem to have

encountered. Midnight had come and gone when the

wheels had finally arrived, and I'd suggested meanwhile

that I lend her Brad and my car for going to her

wedding.

 

I didn't need to, she said. When she and Henry were

in London, they were driven about by a hired car firm.

The car was already ordered to take her to the wedding

which was in Surrey. The driver would wait for her and

return her to the hotel, and she'd better stick to the

plan, she said, because the bill for it would be sent to

her husband.

 

'I always do what Henry expects,' she said, 'then

there are no questions.'

 

'Suppose Brad picks you up from the Selfridge after

you get back?' I said, packing the little stone bears and

giving them to her in a carrier. 'The forecast is lousy

and if it's raining you'll have a terrible job getting a taxi

at that time of day.'

 

She liked the idea except for Brad's knowing her

name. I assured her he never spoke unless he couldn't

avoid it, but I told her I would ask Brad to park somewhere

near the hotel. Then she could call the car

phone's number when she was ready to leave, and Brad

would beetle up at the right moment and not need to

know her name or ask for her at the desk.

 

As that pleased her, I wrote down the phone number

and the car's number plate so that she would recognize

the right pumpkin, and described Brad to her; going

bald, a bit morose, an open-necked shirt, a very good

driver.

 

I couldn't tell Brad's own opinion of the arrangement.

When I'd suggested it in the morning on the rainy

way to the office, he had merely grunted which I'd taken

as preliminary assent.

 

When h;'d brought Clarissa, I thought as I looked

through the letters Annette had given me, he could go

on home, to Hungerford, and Clarissa and I might walk

along to the restaurant at the end of Greville's street

where he could have been known but I was not, and

after an early dinner we would return to Greville's bed,

this time for us, and we'd order the taxi in better

time . . . perhaps.

 

I was awoken from this pleasant daydream by the

ever-demanding telephone, this time with Nicholas

Loder on the other end spluttering with rage.

 

'Milo says you had the confounded cheek,' he said,

'to have Dozen Roses dope-tested.'

 

'For barbiturates, yes. He seemed very sleepy. Our

vet said he'd be happier to know the horse hadn't been

tranquillized for the journey before he gave him an allclear

certificate.'

 

'I'd never give a horse tranquillizers,' he declared.

'No, none of us really thought so,' I said pacifyingly,

'but we decided to make sure.'

 

'It's shabby of you. Offensive. I expect an apology.'

 

'I apologize,' I said sincerely enough, and thought

guiltily of the further checks going on at that moment.

 

'That's not good enough,' Nicholas Loder said huffily.

 

'I was selling the horse to good owners of Milo,

people I ride for,' I said reasonably. 'We all know you

disapproved. In the same circumstances, confronted by

a sleepy horse, you'd have done the same, wouldn't

you? You'd want to be sure what you were selling.'

 

Weigh the merchandise, I thought. Cubic zirconia,

size for size, was one point seven times heavier than

diamond. Greville had carried jewellers' scares in his car

on his way to Harwich, presumably to check what the

Koningin Beatrix was bringing.

 

'You've behaved disgustingly,' Nicholas Loder said.

'When did you see the horse last? And when next?'

 

'Monday evening, last. Don't know when next. As I

told you, I'm tied up a bit with Greville's affairs.'

 

'Milo's secretary said I'd find you in Greville's office,'

he grumbled. 'You're never at home. I've got a buyer

for Gemstones, I think, though you don't deserve it.

Where will you be this evening, if he makes a definite

offer?'

 

'In Greville's house, perhaps.'

 

'Right, I have the number. And I want a written

apology from you about those dope tests. I'm so angry I

can hardly be civil to you.'

He hardly was, I thought, but I was pleased enough

about Gemstones The money would go into the firm's

coffers and hold off bankruptcy a little while longer. I

still held the Ostermeyers' cheque for Dozen Roses,

waiting for Phil Urquhart's final clearance before cashing

it. The horses would make up for a few of the

missing diamonds. Looking at it optimistically, saying it

quickly, the millstone had been reduced to near one

million dollars

 

June out of habit brought me a sandwich for lunch.

She was walking with an extra bounce, with unashamed

excitement. Way down the line, I thought, if we made it

through the "crisis, what then? Would I simply sell the

whole of Saxony Franklin as I'd meant or keep it and

borrow against it to finance a stable, as Greville had

financed the diamonds? I wouldn't hide the $table! Perhaps

I would know enough by then to manage both

businesses on a sound basis: I'd learned a good deal in

ten days. I had also, though I found it surprising, grown

fond of Greville's firm. If we saved it, I wouldn't want to

let it go.

 

If I went on-riding until solvency dawned I might be

the oldest jump jockey in history . .

 

Again the telephone interrupted the daydreams, and

I'd barely made a start on the letters

 

It was a man with a long order for cabochons and

beads. I hopped to the door and yelled for June to pick

up the phone and to put the order on the computer, and

Alfie came along to complain we were running out of

heavy duty binding tape and to ask why we'd ever

needed Jason. Tina did his work in half the time without

the swear words

 

Annette almost with gaiety hoovered everywhere,

though I thought I would soon ask Tina to do it instead.

Lily came with dowocast eyes to ask meekly if she could

have a title also. Stock-room Manager? she suggested.

 

'Done!' I said with sincere pleasure; and before the

day was out we had a Shipment Manager (Alfie) and an

Enabling Manager (Tina), and it seemed to me that

such a spirit had been released there that the enterprise

was now flying. Whether the euphoria would last or

not was next week's problem.

 

I telephoned Maarten-Pagnier in Antwerp and discussed

the transit of twelve tear drops, eight stars and

five fakes.

 

'Our customer has paid us for the diamonds,' I said.

'I'd like to be able to tell him when we could get them to

him.'

 

'Do you want them sent direct to him, monsieur?'

 

'No. Here to us We'll pass them on.' I &sked if he

would insure them for the journey and send them by

Euro-Securo; no need to trouble his partner again personally

as we did not dispute that five of the stones sent

to him had been cubic zirconia. The real stones had

been returned to us, I said.

 

'I rejoice for you, monsieur. And shall we expect

a further consignment for cutting? Monsieur Franklin

intended it.'

 

'Not at the moment, I regret.'

 

'Very well, monsieur. At any time, we are at your

service.'

 

After that I asked Annette if she could find Prospero

Jenks to tell him his diamonds would be coming. She

ran him to earth in one of his workrooms and appeared

in my doorway saying he wanted to speak to me personally.

 

 

With inner reluctance I picked up the receiver.

'Hello, Pross,'I said.

 

'Truce, thee?' he asked.

 

'We've banked the cheque. You'll get the diamonds.'

 

'When?'

 

'When they get here from Antwerp. Friday, maybe.'

 

'Thanks.' He sounded fervently pleased. Then he said

with hesitation, 'You've got some light blue topaz, each

fifteen carats or more, emerald cut, glittering like

water . . . can I have it? Five or six big stones, Grev said.

I'll take them all.'

 

'Give it time,' I said, and God, I thought, what unholy

nerve.

 

'Yes, well, but you and I need each other,' he protested.

 

 

iSymbiosis?' I said.

 

'What? Yes.'

 

It had done Greville no harm in the trade, I'd gathered,

to be known as the chief supplier of Prospero

Jenks. His firm still needed the cachet as much as the

cash. I'd taken the money once. Could I afford pride?

 

'If you try to steal from me one more time,' I said, 'I

not only stop trading with you, I make sure everyone

knows why. Everyone from Hatton Garden to Pelikanstraat.'

 

'

Derek!' He sounded hurt, but the threat was a dire

one.

 

'You can have the topaz,' I said. 'We have a new

gemmologist who's not Greville, I grant you, but who

knows what you buy. We'll still tell you what special

stones we've imported. You can tell us what you need.

We'll take it step by step.'

 

'I thought you wouldn't!' He sounded extremely

relieved. 'I thought you'd never forgive me the wallet.

Your face . . .'

 

'I don't forgive it. Or forget. But after wars, enemies

trade.'

 

It always happened, I thought, though cynics might

mock. Mutual benefit was the most powerful of bridgebuilders,

even if the heart remained bitter. 'We'll see

how we go,' I said again.

 

'If you find the other diamonds,' he said horpefully, 'I

still want them.' Like a little boy in trouble, I thought,

trying to charm his way out.

 

Disconnecting, I ruefully smiled. I'd made the same

inner compromise that Greville had, to do business with

the treacherous child, but not to trust him. To supply the

genius in him, and look to my back.

 

June came winging in and I asked her to go along to

the vault to look at the light blue large-stone topaz

which I well remembered. 'Get to know it while it's still

here. I've sold it to Prospero Jenks.'

 

'But I don't go into the vault,' she said.

 

'You do now. You'll go in there every day from now

on at spare moments to learn the look and feel of the

faceted stones, like I have. Topaz is slippery, for

instance. Learn the chemical formulas, leam the cuts

and the weights, get to know them so that if you're

offered unusual faceted stones anywhere in the world,

you can check them against your knowledge for probability.'

 

 

Her mouth opened.

 

'You're going to buy the raw materials for Prospero

Jenks's museum pieces,' I said. 'You've got to learn fast.'

 

Her eyes stretched wide as well, and she vanished.

 

With Annette I finished the letters.

 

At four o'clock I answered the telephone yet again,

and found myself talking to Phil Urquhart, whose voice

sounded strained.

 

'I've just phoned the lab for the results of Dozen

Roses's tests.' He paused. 'I don't think I believe this.'

 

'What's the matter?' I asked.

 

'Do you know what a metabolise is?'

 

'Only vaguely.'

 

'What then?' he said.

 

'The result of metabolism, isn't it?'

 

'It is,' he said. 'It's what's left after some substance or

other has broken down in the body.'

 

'So what?'

 

'So,' he said reasonably, 'if you find a particular

metabolise in the urine, it means a particular substance

was earlier present in the body. Is that clear?'

 

'Like viruses produce special antibodies, so the presence

of the antibodies proves the existence of the

viruses?'

 

'Exactly,' he said, apparently relieved I understood.

'Well, the lab found a metabolise in Dozen Roses's

urine. A metabolise known as benzyl ecognine.'

 

'Go on,' I urged, as he paused. 'What is it the metabolite

of ?'

 

'Cocaine,' he said.

 

I sat in stunned disbelieving silence.

 

'Derek?' he said.

 

'Yes.'

 

'Racehorses aren't routinely tested for cocaine

because it isn't a stimulant. Normally a racehorse could

be full of cocaine and no one would know.'

 

'If it isn't a stimulant,' I said, loosening my tongue,

'why give it to them?'

 

'If you believed it was a stimulant, you might. Knowing

it wouldn't be tested for.'

 

'How could you believe it?'

 

'It's one of the drugs that potentiates adrenalin. I

particularly asked the lab to test for all drugs like that

because of what you said about adrenalin yourself.

What happens with a normal adrenalin surge is that

after a while an enzyme comes along to disperse some

of it while much gets stored for futwe use. Cocaine

blocks the storage uptake, so the adrenalin goes roaring

round the body for much longer. When the cocaine

decays, its chief metabolic product is benzyl ecognine

which is what the lab found in its gas chromatograph

analyser this afternoon.'

 

'There were some cases in America...' I said

vaguely.

 

'It's still not part of a regulation dope test even

there.'

 

'But my God,' I said blankly, 'Nicholas Loder must

have known.'^

 

'Almost certainly, I should think. You'd have to

administer the cocaine very soon before the race,

because its effect is short lived. One hour, an how and a

half at most. It's difficult to tell, with a horse. There's no

data. And although the metabolise would appear in the

blood and the urine soon after that, the metabolise itself

would be detectable for probably not much longer than

forty-eight hours, but with a horse, that's still a guess.

We took the sample from Dozen Roses on Monday

evening about fifty-two hows after he'd raced. The lab

said the metabolise was definitely present, but they

could make no estimate of how much cocaine had been

assimilated. They told me all this very carefully. They

have much more experience with humans. They say in

humans the rush from cocaine is fast, lasts about forty

minutes and brings little post-exhilaration depression.'

'Nice,' I said.

 

'In horses,' he went on, 'they think it would probably

induce skittishness at once.'

 

I thought back to Dozen Roses's behaviour both at

York and on the TV tapes. He'd certainly woken up

dramatically between saddling box and starting gate.

 

'But,' Phil added, 'they say that at the most it might

give more stamina, but not more speed. It wouldn't

make the horse go faster, but just make the adrenalin

push last longer.'

 

That might be enough sometimes, I thought. Sometimes

you could feel horses 'die' under you near the

finish, not from lack of ability, but from lack of perseverance,

of fight. Some horses were content to be

second. In them, uninhibited adrenalin might perhaps

tip the balance.

 

Caffeine, which had the same potentiating effect, was

a prohibited substance in racing.

 

'Why don't they test for cocaine?' I asked.

 

'Heaven knows,' Phil said. 'Perhaps because enough

to wind up a horse would cost the doper too much to be

practicable. I mean . . . more than one could be sure of

winning back on a bet. But cocaine's getting cheaper,

I'm told. There's more and more of it around.'

 

'I don't know much about drugs,' I said.

 

'Where have you been?'

 

'Not my scene.'

 

'Do you know what they'd call you in America?'

 

'Wllat?'

'Straight,' he said.

 

'I thought that meant heterosexual.'

 

He laughed. 'That too. You're straight through and

through.'

 

'Phil,' I said,'what do I do?'

 

He sobered abruptly. 'God knows. My job ends with

passing on the facts. The moral decisions are yours. All I

can tell you is that some time before Monday evening

Dozen Roses took cocaine into his bloodstream.'

 

'Via a baster?' I said.

 

After a short silence he said, 'We can't be sure of

that.'

 

'We can't besure he didn't.'

 

'Did I understand right, that Harley Ostermeyer

picked up the tube of the baster and gave it to you?'

 

'That's right,' I said. 'I still have it, but like I told

you, it's clean.'

 

'It might look clean,' he said slowly, 'but if cocaine

was blown up it in powder form, there may be particles

clinging.'

 

I thought back to before the race at York.

 

'When Martha Ostermeyer picked up the blue bulb

end and gave it back to Rollway,' I said, 'she was brushing

her fingers together afterwards . . . she seemed to be

getting rid of dust from her gloves.'

 

'Oh glory,' Phil said.

 

I sighed and said, 'If I give the tube to you, can you

get it tested without anyone knowing where it came

from?'

'Sure. Like the urine, it'll be anonymous. I'll get the

lab to do another rush job, if you want. It costs a bit

more, though.'

 

'Get it done, Phil,' I said. 'I can't really decide anything

unless I know for sure.'

 

'Right. Are you coming back here soon?'

 

'Greville's business takes so much time. I'll be back

at the weekend, but I think I'll send the tube to you

by carrier, to be quicker. You should get it tomorrow

morning.'

 

'Right,' he said. 'We might get a result late tomorrow.

Friday at the latest.'

 

'Good, and er . . . don't mention it to Milo.'

 

'No, but why not?'

 

'He told Nicholas Loder we tested Dozen Roses for

tranquillizers and Nicholas Loder was on my phone

hitting the rooœ'

 

'Oh God.'

 

'I don't want him knowing about tests for cocaine. I

mean, neither Milo nor Nicholas Loder.'

 

'You may be sure,' Phil said seriously, 'they won't

learn it from me.'

 

It was the worst dilemma of all, I thought, replacing

 

the receiver.

 

Was cocaine a stimulant or was it not? The racing

authorities didn't think so didn't test for it. If I believed

it didn't effect speed then it was all right to sell Dozen

Roses to the Ostermeyers. If I thought he wouldn't have

got the race at York without help, then it wasn't all

right.

 

Saxony Franklin needed the Ostermeyers' money.

 

The worst result would be that, if I banked the

money and Dozen Roses never won again and Martha

and Harley ever found out I knew the horse had been

given cocaine, I could say goodbye to any future Gold

Cups or Grand Nationals on Datepalm. They wouldn't

forgive the unforgivable.

 

Dozen Roses had seemed to me to run gamely at

York and to battle to the end. I was no longer sure. I

wondered now if he'd won all his four races spaced out,

as the orthopod would have described it; as high as a

kite.

 

At the best, if I simply kept quiet, banked the money

and rode Dozen Roses to a couple of respectable victories,

no one would ever know. Or I could inform the

Ostermeyers privately, which would upset them.

 

There would be precious little point in proving to the

world that Dozen Roses had been given cocaine (and of

course I could do it by calling for a further analysis

of the urine sample taken by the officials at York)

because if cocaine weren't a specifically banned substance,

neither was it a normal nutrient. Nothing that

was not a normal nutrient was supposed to be given to

thoroughbreds racing in Britain.

 

If I disclosed the cocaine, would Dozen Roses be

disqualified for his win at York? If he were, would Nicholas

Loder lose his licence to train?

If I caused so much trouble, I would be finished in

racing. Whistleblowers were regularly fired from their

jobs.

 

My advice to myself seemed to be, take the money,

keep quiet, hope for the best.

 

Coward, I thought. Maybe stupid as well.

 

My thoughts made me sweat.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

 

June, her hands full of pretty pink beads from the stockroom,

said, 'What do we do about more rhodocrosite?

We're running out and the suppliers in Hong Kong

aren't reliable any more. I was reading in a trade magazine

that a man in Germany has some of good quality.

What do you think?'

 

'What would Greville have done?' I asked.

 

Annette said regretfully, 'He'd have gone to Germany

to see. He'd never start buying from a new source

without knowing who he was trading with.'

 

I said to June, 'Make an appointment, say who we

are, and book an air ticket.'

 

They both simultaneously said, 'But . . .' and stopped.

 

I said mildly, 'You never know whether a horse is

going to be a winner until you race it. June's going down

to the starting gate.'

 

June blushed and went away. Annette shook her

head doubtfully.

 

'I wouldn't know rhodocrosite from granite,' I said.

 

'June does. She knows its price, knows what sells I'll

trust that knowledge until she proves me wrong.'

 

'She's too young to make decisions' Annette

objected.

 

'Decisions are easier when you're young.'

 

Isn't that the truth, I thought wryly, rehearsing my

own words. At June's age I'd been full of certainties

At June's age, what would I have done about cocainepositive

urine tests? I didn't know. Impossible to go

back.

 

I said I would be off for the day and would see

them all in the morning. Dilemmas could be shelved, I

thought. The evening was Clarissa's.

 

Brad, I saw, down in the yard, had been reading

the Racing Post which had the same photograph as the

Daily Sensation. He pointed to the picture when I eased

in beside him, and I nodded.

 

'That's your head,' he said.

 

'Mm.'

 

'Bloody hell,' he said.

 

I smiled. 'It seems a long time ago.'

 

He drove to Greville's house and came in with me

while I went upstairs and put the baster tube into an

envelope and then into a jiffy bag brought from the

office for the purpose and addressed it to Phil Urquhart.

 

To Brad, downstairs again, I said, 'The Euro-Securo

couriers' main office is in Oxford Street not very far

from the Selfridge Hotel. This is the actual address . . .' I

 

gave it to him. 'Do you think you can find it?'

'Yerss'He was again affronted.

 

'I phoned them from the office. Ihey're expecting

this. You don't need to pay, they're sending the bill. Just

get a receipt. OK?'

 

'Yerss.'

 

'Then pick up my friend from the Selfridge Hotel and

bring her here. She'll phone for you, so leave it switched

on.'

 

'Yerss.'

 

'Then go home, if you like.'

 

He gave me a glowering look but-all he said was,

'Same time tomorrow?'

 

'If you're not bored.'

 

He gave me a totally unexpected grin. Unnerving,

almost, to see that gloom-ridden face break up.

 

'Best time o' my life,' he said, and departed, leaving

me literally gasping.

 

In bemusement, I went along to the little sitting room

and tidied up a bit more of the mess. If Brad enjoyed

waiting for hours reading improbable magazines it was

all right by me, but I no longer felt in imminent danger

of assault or death, and I could drive my car myself if I

cared to, and Brad's days as bodyguard/chauffeur were

numbered. He must realize it, I thought: he'd clung on

to the job several times.

 

By that Wednesday evening there was a rapid

improvement also in the ankle. Bones, as I understood

it, always grew new soft tissue at the site of a fracture, as

if to stick the pieces together with glue. After eight or

nine days, the soft tissue began to harden, the bone

getting progressively stronger from then on, and it was

in that phase that I'd by then arrived. I laid one of the

crutches aside in the sitting room and used the other

like a walking stick, and put my left toe down to the

carpet for balance if not to bear my full weight.

 

Distalgesic, I decided, was a thing of the past. I'd

drink wine for dinner with Clarissa.

 

The front door bell rang, which surprised me. It was

too early to be Clarissa: Brad couldn't have done the

errand and got to the Selfridge and back in the time

he'd been gone.

 

I hopped along to the door and looked through the

peep-hole and was astounded to see Nicholas Loder on

the doorstep. Behind him, on the path, stood his friend

Rollo Rollway, looking boredly around at the small

garden.

 

In some dismay I opened the door and Nicholas

Loder immediately said, 'Oh, good. You're in. We happened

to be dining in London so as we'd time rto spare I

thought we'd come round on the off-chance to discuss

Gemstones, rather than negotiate on the telephone.'

 

'But I haven't named a price,' I said.

 

'Never mind. We can discuss that. Can we come in?'

I shifted backwards reluctantly.

 

'Well, yes,' I said, looking at my watch. 'But not for

long. I have another appointment pretty soon.'

 

'So have we,' he assured me. He turned round and

waved a beckoning arm to his friend. 'Come on, Rollo,

he has time to see us'

 

Rollway, looking as if the enterprise were not to his

liking, came up the steps and into the house. I turned to

lead the way along the passage, ostentatiously not closing

the front door behind them as a big hint to them not

to stay long.

 

'The room's in a mess,' I warned them over my

shoulder, 'we had a burglar.'

 

'we?' Nicholas Loder said.

 

'Greville and I.'

 

'Oh.'

 

He said, 'Oh' again when he saw the chrysanthemum

 

pot wedged in the television, but Rollway blinked     around

in an uninterested fashion as if he saw houses in

chaos every day of the week.

 

Rollway at close quarters wasn't any more attractive

than Rollway at a distance: a dull dark lump of a man,

thickset, middle-aged and humourless One could only

explain his friendship with the charismatic Loder, I

thought, in terms of trainer-owner relationship.

 

'This is Thomas Rollway,' Nicholas Loder said to me,

making belated introductions 'One of my owners He's

very interested in buying Gemstones.'

 

Rollway didn't look very interested in anything.

 

'I'd offer you a drink,' I said, 'but the burglar broke

all the bottles.'

 

Nicholas Loder looked vaguely at the chunks of glass

on the carpet. There had been no diamonds in the

bottles Waste of booze.

 

'Perhaps we could sit down,' he said.

 

'Sure.'

 

He sat in Greville's armchair and Rollway perched

on the arm of the second armchair which effectively left

me the one upright hard one. I sat on the edge of it,

wanting them to hurry, laying the second crutch aside.

 

I looked at Loder, big, light-haired with brownish

eyes, full of ability and not angry with me as he had

been in the recent past. It was almost with guilt that I

thought of the cocaine analyses going on behind his

back when his manner towards me was more normal

than at any time since Greville's death. If he'd been like

that from the beginning, I'd have seen no reason to have

had the tests done.

 

'Gemstones,' he said, 'what do you want for him?'

 

I'd seen in the Saxony Franklin ledgers what Gemstones

had cost as a yearling, but that had little bearing

on his worth two years later. He'd won one race. He was

no bright star. I doubled his cost and asked for that.

 

Nicholas Loder laughed with irony. 'Come on,

Derek. Half.'

 

'Half is what he cost Greville originally,' I said.

 

His eyes narrowed momentarily and then opened

innocently. 'So we've been doing our homework!' He

actually smiled. 'I've promised Rollo a reasonable horse

at a reasonable price. We all know Gemstones is no

world-beater, but there are more races in him. His cost

price is perfectly fair. More than fair.'

 

I thought it quite likely was indeed fair, but Saxony

Franklin needed every possible penny.

 

'Meet me halfway,' I said, 'and he's yours.'

 

Nicholas raised his eyebrows at his friend for a

decision. 'Rollo?'

 

Rollo's attention seemed to be focused more on the

crutch I'd earlier propped unused against a wall rather

than on the matter in hand.

 

'Gemstones is worth that,' Nicholas Loder said to

him judiciously, and I thought in amusement that he

would get nte as much as he could in order to earn

himself a larger commission. Trade with the enemy, I

thought: build mutual-benefit bridges.

 

'I don't want Gemstones at any price,' Rollo said,

and they were the first words he'd uttered since arriving.

His voice was harsh and curiously flat, without inflection.

Without emotion, I thought.

 

ù Nicholas Loder protested, 'But that's why you

wanted to come here! It was your idea to come here.'

 

Thomas Rollway, as if absentmindedly, stood and

picked up the abandoned crutch, turning it upside down

and holding it by the end normall.y near the floor. Then,

as if the thought had at that second occurred to him, he

bent his knees and swung the crutch round forcefully

in a scything movement a bare four inches above the

carpet.

 

It was so totally unexpected that I wasn't quick

enough to avoid it. The elbow-rest and cuff crashed into

my ieft ankle and Rollway came after it like a bull,

kicking, punching, overbalancing me, knocking me

down.

 

I was flabbergasted more than frightened, and then

furious. It seemed senseless, without reason, unprovoked,

out of any sane proportion. Over Rollway's

shoulder I glimpsed Nicholas Loder looking dumbfounded,

his mouth and eyes stretched open, uncomprehending.

 

 

As I struggled to get up, Thomas Rollway reached

inside his jacket and produced a handgun; twelve inches

of it at least, with the thickened shape of a silencer on

the business end.

 

'Keep still,' he said to me, pointing the barrel at my

chest.

 

A gun... Simms... I began dimly to understand

and to despair pretty deeply.

 

Nicholas Loder was shoving himself out of his armchair. '

What are you doing?' His voice was high with

alarm, with rising panic.

 

'Sit down, Nick,' his friend said. 'Don't get up.' And

such was the grindingly heavy tone of his unemotional

voice that Nicholas Loder subsided, looking overthrown,

not believing what was happening.

 

'But you came to buy his horse,' he said weakly.

 

'I came to kill him.'

 

Rollway said it dispassionately, as if it were nothing.

But then, he'd tried to before.

Loder's consternation became as deep as my own.

 

Rollway moved his gun and pointed it at my ankle. I

immediately shifted it, trying desperately to get up, and

he brought the spitting end back fast into alignment

with my heart.

 

'Keep still,' he said again. His eyes coldly considered

me as I half-sat, half-lay on the floor, propped on my

elbow and without any weapon within reach, not even

the one crutch I'd been using. Then, with as little warning

as for his first attack, he stamped hard on my ankle

and for good measure ground away with his heel as if

putting out a cigarette butt. After that he left his shoe

where it wal, pressing down on it with his considerable

weight.

 

I swore at him and couldn't move, and thought idiotically,

feeling things give way inside there, that it would

take me a lot longer now to get fit, and that took my

mind momentarily off a bullet that I would feel a lot

less, anyway.

 

'But why?' Nicholas Loder asked, wailing. 'Why are

you doing this?'

 

Good question.

 

Rollway answered it.

 

'The only successful murders,' he said, 'are those for

which there appears to be no motive.'

 

It sounded like something he'd learned on a course.

Something surrealistic. Monstrous

 

Nicholas Loder, sitting rigidly to my right in Greville's

chair, said with an uneasy attempt at a laugh,

 

'You're kidding, Rollo, aren't you? This is some sort of

joke?'

 

Rollo was not kidding. Rollo, standing determinedly

on my ankle between me and the door, said to me, 'You

picked up a piece of my property at York races When I

found it was missing I went back to look for it. An

offficial told me you'd put it in your pocket. I want it

back.'

 

I said nothing.

 

Damn the official, I thought. So helpful. So deadly. I

hadn't even noticed one watching.

 

Nicholas Loder, bewildered, said, 'What piece of

property?'

 

'The tube part of the nebulizer,' Rollway told him.

 

'But that woman, Mrs Ostermeyer, gave it back to

you.'

 

'Only the bulb. I didn't notice the tube had dropped

as well. Not until after the race. After the Stewards'

enquiry.'

 

'But what does it matter?'

 

Rollway pointed his gun unwaveringly al where it

would do me fatal damage and answered the question

without taking his gaze from my face.

 

'You yourself, Nick,' he informed him, 'told me you

were worried about Franklin, he was observant and too

 

bright.'

 

'But that was because I gelded Dozen Roses'

 

'So when I found he had the nebulizer, I asked one

or two other people their opinion of Derek Franklin as

a person, not a jockey, and they all said the same.

Brainy. Intelligent. Bright.' He paused. 'I don't like

that.'

 

I was thinking that through the door, down the passage

and in the street there was sanity and Wednesday

and rain and rush hour all going on as usual. Saturn was

just as accessible.

 

'I don't believe in waiting for trouble,' Rollway said.

'And dead men can't make accusations' He stared at

me. 'Where's the tube?'

 

I didn't answer for various reasons. If he took murder

so easily in his stride and I told him I'd sent the tube to

Phil Urquhart I could be sentencing Phil to death too,

and besides, if I opened my mouth for any reason, what

might come out wasn't words at all but something

between a yell and a groan, a noise I could hear loudly

in my head but which wasn't important either, or not as

important as getting out of the sickening prospect of the

next few minutes.

 

'But he would never have suspected...' Loder

feebly said.

 

'Of course he did. Anyone would. Why do you think

he's had that bodyguard glued to him? Why do you

think he's been dodging about so I can't find him and

not going home? And he had the horse's urine taken in

Lambourn for testing, and there's the official sample

too at York. I tell you, I'm not waiting for him to make

trouble. I'm not going to gaol, I'll tell you.'

 

'But you wouldn't.'

 

'Be your age, Nick,' Rollway said caustically, 'I

import the stuff. I take the risks And I get rid of trouble

as soon as I see it. If you wait too long, trouble can

destroy you.'

 

Nicholas Loder said in wailing protest, 'I told you it

wasn't necessary to give it to horses. It doesn't make

them go faster.'

 

'Rubbish. You can't tell, because it isn't much done.

No one can afford it except people like me. I'm swamped

with the stuff at the moment, it's coming in bulk from

the Medellin cartel in Madrid . . . Where's the tube?' he

finished, bouncing his weight up and down.

 

If not telling him would keep me alive a bit longer, I

wasn't going to try telling him I'd thrown it away.

 

'You can't just shoot him,' Nicholas Loder said

despairingly. 'Not with me watching.'

 

'You're no danger to me, Nick,' Rollway said flatly.

'Where would you go for your little habit? One squeak

from you would mean your own ruin. I'd see you went

down for possession. For conniving with me to drug

 

horses. They'd take your licence away for that. Nicholas

Loder, trainer of Classic winners, down in the gutter.'

He paused. 'You'll keep quiet, we both know it.'

 

The threats were none the lighter for being uttered

in a measured unexcited monotone. He made my hair

bristle. Heaven knew what effect he had on Loder.

 

He wouldn't wait much longer, I thought, for me to

tell him where the tube was: and maybe the tube would

in the end indeed be his downfall because Phil knew

whose it was, and that the Ostermeyers had been witnesses,

and if I were found shot perhaps he would light

a long fuse... but it wasn't of much comfort at that

moment.

 

With the strength of desperation I rolled my body

and with my right foot kicked hard at Rollway's leg. He

grunted and took his weight off my ankle and I pulled

away from him, shuffling backwards, trying to reach the

chair I'd been sitting on to use it as a weapon against

him, or at least not to lie there supinely waiting to be

slaughtered, and I saw him recover his rocked balance

and begin t'ø straighten his arm, aiming and looking

along the barrel so as not to miss.

 

That unmistakable stance was going to be the last

thing I would see: and the last emotion I would feel

would be the blazing fury of dying for so pointless a

cause.

 

Nicholas Loder, also seeing that it was the moment

of irretrievable crisis, sprang with horror from the armchair

and shouted urgently, 'No, no, Rollo. No, don't do

it!'

 

It might have been the droning of a gnat for all the

notice Rollo paid him.

 

Nicholas Loder took a few paces forward and grabbed

at Rollway and at his aiming arm.

 

I took the last opportunity to get my hands on

something . . . anything . . . got my fingers on a crutch.

 

'I won't let you,' Nicholas Loder frantically persisted.

'You mustn't!'

Rollo shook him off and swung his gun back to me.

 

'No.' Loder was terribly disturbed. Shocked. Almost

frenzied. 'It's wrong. I won't let you.' He put his body

against Rollway's, trying to push him away.

 

Rollway shrugged him off, all bull-muscle and undeterrable.

Then, very fast, he pointed the gun straight at

Nicholas Loder's chest and without pausing pulled the

trigger. Pulled it twice.

 

I heard the rapid phut, phut. Saw Nicholas Loder fall,

saw the blankness on his face, the absolute astonishment.

 

 

There was no time to waste on terror, though I felt it.

I gripped the crutch I'd reached and swung the heavier

end of it at Rollway's right hand, and landed a blow

fierce enough to make him drop the gun.

 

It fell out of my reach.

 

I stretched for it and rolled and scrambled but he was

upright and much faster, and he bent down and took it

 

into his hand again with a tight look of fury as hot as my

-'                                  own.

.He began to lift his arm again in my direction and

 

again I whipped at him with the crutch and again hit

him. He didn't drop the gun that time but transferred it

to his left hand and shook out the fingers of his right

hand as if they hurt, which I hoped to God they did.

 

I slashed at his legs. Another hit. He retreated a

couple of paces and with his left hand began to take

aim. I slashed at him. The gun barrel wavered. When he

pulled the trigger, the flame spat out and the bullet

missed me.

 

He was still between me and the door.

 

Ankle or not, I thought, once I was on my feet I'd

smash him down and out of the way and run, run . . . run

into the street . . .

 

I had to get up. Got as far as my knees. Stood up on

my right foot. Put down the left. It wasn't a matter of

pain. I didn't feel it. It just buckled. It needed the crutch'

s help . . . and I needed the crutch to fight against his

gun, to hop and shuffle forward and hack at him, to put

 

off the inevitable moment, to fight until I was dead.    l

A figure appeared abruptly in the doorway, seen per-     l

ipherally in my vision.    l

 

Clarissa.

 

I'd forgotten she was coming.

 

'Run,' I shouted agonizedly. 'Run. Get away.'

 

It startled Rollway. I'd made so little noise. He

seemed to think the instructions were for himself.

He sneered. I kept my eyes on his gun and lunged at it,

making his aim swing wide again at a crucial second. He

pulled the trigger. Flame. Phut. The bullet zipped over

my shoulder and hit the wall.

 

'Run,' I yelled again with fearful urgency. 'Quick.

Oh, be quick.'

 

Why didn't she run? He'd see her if he turned.

 

He would kill her.

 

Clarissa didn't run. She brought her hand out of

her raincoat pocket holding a thing like a black cigar

and she swung her arm in a powerful arc like an avenging

fury. Out of the black tube sprang the fearsome

telescopic silvery springs with a knob on the end, and

the kiyoga smashed against the side of Rollway's skull

 

He fell without a sound. Fell forward, cannoning into

me, knocking me backwards. I ended on the floor,

sitting, his inert form stomach-down over my shins.

 

Clarissa came down on her knees beside me, trembling

violently, very close to passing out. I was breathless,

shattered, trembling like her. It seemed ages before

either of us was able to speak. When she could, it was a

whisper, low and distressed.

 

'Derek . . .'

 

'Thanks,' I said jerkily, 'for saving my life.'

 

'Is he dead?' She was looking with fear at Rollway's

head, strain in her eyes, in her neck, in her voice.

 

'I don't care if he is,' I said truthfully.

 

'But I . . . I hit him.'

 

'I'll say I did it. Don't worry. I'll say I hit him with the

crutch.'

 

She said waveringly, 'You can't.'

 

'Of course I can. I meant to, if I could.'

 

I glanced over at Nicholas Loder, and Clarissa

seemed to see him for the first time. He was on his back,

unmoving.

 

'Dear God,' she said faintly, her face even paler.

'Who's that?'

 

I introduced her posthumously to Nicholas Loder,

racehorse trainer, and then to Thomas Rollway, drug

baron. They'd squirted cocaine into Dozen Roses, I

said, struggling for lightness I'd found them out. Rollway

wanted me dead rather than giving evidence

against him. He'd said so.

 

Neither of the men contested the charges, though

Rollway at least was alive, I thought. I could feel his

breathing on my legs. A pity, on the whole. I told Clarissa

which made her feel a shade happier.

 

Clarissa still held the kiyoga. I touched her hand,

brushing my fingers over hers, grateful beyond

expression for her courage. Greville had given her the

kiyoga. He couldn't have known it would keep me alive.

I took it geatly out of her grasp and let it lie on the

carpet.

 

'Phone my car,' I said. 'If Brad hasn't gone too far,

he'll come back.'

 

'But . . .'

 

'He'll take you safely back to the Selfridge. Phone

quickly.'

 

'I can't just . . . Ieave you.'

 

'How would you explain being here, to the police?'

 

She looked at me in dismay and obstinacy. 'I

can't . . .'

 

'You must,' I said. 'What do you think Greville would

want?'

 

'Oh...' It was a long sigh of grief, both for my

brother and, I thought, for the evening together that she

and I were not now going to have.

 

'Do you remember the number?' I said.

'Derek . . .'

 

'Go and do it, my dear love.'

 

She got blindly to her feet and went over to the

telephone. I told her the number, which she'd forgotten.

When the impersonal voice of the radio-phone operator

said as usual after six or seven rings that there was no

reply, I asked her to dial the number again, and yet

again. With luck, Brad would reckon three calls spelled

emergency.

 

'When we got here,' Clarissa said, sounding stronger,

'Brad told me there was a grey Volvo parked not far

from your gate. He was worried, I think. He asked me

to tell you. Is it important?'

 

God in heaven . . .

 

'Will that phone stretch over here?' I said. 'See if it

will. Push the table over. Pull the phone over here. If I

ring the police from here, and they find me here, they'll

take the scene for granted.'

 

She tipped the table on its side, letting the answering

machine fall to the floor, and pulled the phone to the

end of its cord. I still couldn't quite reach it, and edged

round a little in order to do so, and it hurt, which she

saw.

 

'Derek!'

 

'Never mind.' I smiled at her, twistedly, making a

joke of it. 'It's better than death.'

 

'I can't leave you.' Her eyes were still strained and

she was still visibly trembling, but her composure was

on the way back.

'You damned well can,' I said. 'You have to. Go out

to the gate. If Brad comes, get him to toot the horn, then

I'll know you're away and I'll phone the police. If he

doesn't come... give him five minutes, then walk...

walk and get a taxi . . . Promise?'

 

I picked up the kiyoga and fumbled with it, trying to

concertina it shut. She took it out of my hands, twisted

it, banged the knob on the carpet and expertly returned

it closed to her pocket.

 

'I'll think of you, and thank you,' I said, 'every day

that I live.'

 

'At four-twenty,' she said as if automatically, and then

paused and looked at me searchingly. 'It was the time I

met Grevilld?

 

'Four-twenty,' I said, and nodded. 'Every day.'

 

She knelt down again beside me and kissed me, but it

wasn't passion. More like farewell.

 

'Go on,' I said. 'Time to go.'

 

She rose reluctantly and went to the doorway, pausing

there and looking back. Lady Knightwood, I

thought, a valiant deliverer with not a hair out of place.

 

'Phone me,' I said, 'one day soon?'

 

'Yes.'

 

She went quietly down the passage but wasn't gone

long. Brad himself came bursting into the room with

Clarissa behind him like a shadow.

 

Brad almost skidded to a halt, the prospect before

him enough to shock even the garrulous to silence.

 

'Streuth,' he said economically.

 

'As you say,' I replied.

 

Rollway had dropped his gun when he fell but it still

lay not far from his left hand. I asked Brad to move it

further away in case the drug man woke up.

 

'Don't touch it,' I said sharply as he automatically

reached out a hand, bending down. 'Your prints would

be an embarrassment.'

 

He made a small grunt of acknowledgement and Clarissa

wordlessly held out a tissue with which Brad gingerly

took hold of the silencer and slid the gun across

the room to the window.

 

'What if he does wake up?' he said, pointing to

Rollway.

 

'I give him another clout with the crutch.'

 

He nodded as if that were normal behaviour.

 

'Thanks for coming back,' I said.

 

'Didn't go far. You've got a Volvo . . .'

 

I nodded.

 

'Is it the one?'

 

'Sure to be,' I said.

 

'Streuth.'

 

'Take my friend back to the Selfridge,' I said. 'Forget

she was here. Forget you were here. Go home.'

 

'Can't leave you,' he said. 'I'll come back.'

 

'The police will be here.'

 

As ever, the thought of policemen made him uneasy.

'Go on home,' I said. 'The dangers are over.'

 

He considered it. Then he said hopefully, 'Same time

tomorrow?'

 

I moved my head in amused assent and said wryly,

'Why not?'

 

He seemed satisfied in a profound way, and he and

Clarissa went over to the doorway, pausing there and

looking back, as she had before. I gave them a brief

wave, and they waved back before going. They were

both, incredibly, smiling.

 

'Brad!' I yelled after him.

 

He came back fast, full of instant alarm.

 

'Everything's fine,' I said. 'Just fine. But don't shut

the front door behind you. I don't want to have to get

up to let the police in. I don't want them smashing the

locks. I want them to walk in here nice and easy.'

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

 

It was a long dreary evening, but not without humour.

 

I sat quietly apart most of the time in Greville's chair,

largely ignored while relays of people came and

effficiently measured, photographed, took fingerprints

and dug bullets out of the walls.

 

There had been a barrage of preliminary questions in

my direction which had ended with Rollway groaning

his way back to consciousness. Although the police

didn't like advice from a civilian, they did, at my mild

suggestion, handcuff him before he was fully awake,

which was just as well, as the bullish violence was the

first part of his personality to surface. He was on his

feet, threshing about, mumbling, before he knew where

he was.

 

While a policeman on each side of him held his arms,

he stared at me, his eyes slowly focusing. I was still it

that time on the floor, thankful to have his weight off me.

He looked as if he couldn't believe what was happening,

and in the same flat uninflected voice as before, called

me a bastard, among other things not as innocuous.

'I knew you were trouble,' he said. He was still too

groggy to keep a rein on his tongue. 'You won't live to

give evidence, I'll see to that.'

 

The police phlegmatically arrested him formally, told

him his rights and said he would get medical attention

at the police station. I watched him stumble away, thinking

of the irony of the decision I'd made earlier not to

accuse him of anything at all, much less, as now, of

shooting people. I hadn't known he'd shot Simms. I

hadn't feared him at all. It didn't seem to have occurred

to him that I might not act against him on the matter of

cocaine. He'd been ready to kill to prevent it. Yet I

hadn't suspeg,ted him even of being a large-scale dealer

until he'd boasted of it.

 

While the investigating activity went on around me, I

wondered if it were because drug runners cared so little

for the lives of others that they came so easily to

murder.

 

Like Vaccaro, I thought, gunning down his renegade

pilots from a moving car. Perhaps that was an habitual

mode of clean-up among drug kings. Copycat murder,

everyone had thought about Simms, and everyone had

been right.

 

People like Rollway and Vaccaro held other people's

lives cheap because they aimed anyway at destroying

them. They made addiction and corruption their business,

wilfully intended to profit from the collapse and

unhappiness of countless lives, deliberately enticed

young people onto a one-way misery trail. I'd read that

people could snort cocaine for two or three years before

the physical damage hit. The drug growers, shippers,

wholesalers knew that. It gave them time for steady

selling. Their greed had filthy feet.

 

The underlying immorality, the aggressive callousness

had themselves to be corrupting; addictive. Rollway

had self destructed, like his victims.

 

I wondered how people grew to be like him. I might

condemn them, but I didn't understand them. They

weren't happy-go-lucky dishonest, like Pross. They

were uncaring and cold. As Eliot Trelawney had said,

the logic of criminals tended to be weird. If I ever added

to Greville's notebook, I thought, it would be something

like 'The ways of the crooked are mysterious to

the straight', or even 'What makes the crooked crooked

and the straight straight?' One couldn't trust the sociologists'

easy answers.

 

I remembered an old story I'd heard sometime. A

scorpion asked a horse for a ride across a raging torrent.

Why not? said the horse, and obligingly starteli to swim

with the scorpion on his back. Halfway across, The scorpion

stung the horse. The horse, fatally poisoned, said,

'We will both drown now. Why did you do that?' And

the scorpion said, 'Because it's my nature.'

 

Nicholas Loder wasn't going to worry or wonder

about anything any more; and his morality, under stress,

had risen up unblemished and caused his death.

Injustice and irony everywhere, I thought, and felt

regret for the man who couldn't acquiesce in my

murder.

 

He had taken cocaine himself, that much was clear.

He'd become perhaps dependent on Rollway, had perhaps

been more or less blackmailed by him into allowing

his horses to be tampered with. He'd been ;

frightened I would find him out: but in the end he hadn't

been evil, and Rollway had seen it, had seen he couldn't

trust him to keep his mouth shut after all.  ;:

Through Loder, Rollway had known where to find

me on Sunday afternoon, and through him he'd known

where to find me this Wednesday evening. Yet Nicholas

Loder hadnt knowingly set me up. He'd been used by

his supposed friend; and I hadn't seen any danger in

reporting on Sunday morning that I'd be lunching with

Milo and the Ostermeyers or saying I would be in Greville's

house ready for Gemstones bids.

I hadn't specifically been keeping myself safe from

Rollway, whatever he might believe, but from an ~

unidentified enemy, someone there and dangerous, but

unrecognized.

 

Irony everywhere . . .

 

I thought about Martha and Harley and the cocaine

in Dozen Roses. I would ask them to keep the horse and

race him, and I'd promise that if he never did any good I ~

would give them their money back and send him to :,

auction. What the Jockey Club and the racing press

would have to say about the whole mess boggled the

mind. We might still lose the York race: would have to, I

guessed.

 

I thought of Clarissa in the Selfridge Hotel struggling

to behave normally with a mind filled with visions of

violence. I hoped she would ring up her Henry, reach

back to solid ground, mourn Greville peacefully, be glad

she'd saved his brother. I would leave the Wizard's

alarm set to four-twenty pm, and remember them both

when I heard it: and one could say it was sentimental,

that their whole affair had been packed with sentimental

behaviour, but who cared, they'd enjoyed it, and I

would endorse it.

 

At some point in the evening's proceedings, a highly

senior plain-clothes policeman arrived whom everyone

else deferred to and called sir.

 

He introduced himself as Superintendent Ingold and

invited a detailed statement from me, which a minion

wrote down. The superintendent was short, piercing

businesslike, and considered what I said with pauses

before his next question, as if internally computing my

answers. He was also, usefully, a man who liked racing:

who sorrowed over Nicholas Loder and knew of my

existence.

 

I told him pretty plainly most of what had happened,

omitting only a few things: the precise way Rollway had

asked for his tube, and Clarissa's presence, and the dire

desperation of the minutes before she'd arrived. I made

that hopeless fight a lot shorter, a lot easier, a rapid

knock-out.

 

'The crutches?' he enquired. 'What are they for?'

 

'A spot of trouble with an ankle at Cheltenham.'

 

'When was that?'

 

'Nearly two weeks ago.'

 

He merely nodded. The crutch handles were quite

heavy enough for clobbering villains, and he sought no

other explanation.

 

It all took a fair while, with the pauses and the writing.

I told him about the car crash near Hungerford. I

said I thought it possible that it had been Rollway who

shot Simms. I said that of course they would compare

the bullets the Hungerford police had taken from the

Daimler wim those just now dug out of Greville's walls,

and those no doubt to be retrieved from Nicholas

Loder's silent form. I wondered innocently what sort of

car Rollway drove. The Hungerford police, I told the

superintendent, were looking for a grey Volvo.

 

After a pause a policeman was despatched to search

the street. He came back wide-eyed with his news and

was told to put a cordon round the car and keep the

public off.

 

It was by then well past dark. Every time the police

or officials came into the house, the mechanical dog

started barking and the lights repeatedly blazed on. I

thought it amusing which says something for my lightheaded

state of mind but it wore the police nerves to

irritation.

 

'The switches are beside the front door,' I said to one

of them eventually. 'Why don't you flip them all up?'

 

.  They did, and got peace.

 

'Who threw the flower-pot into the television?' the

superintendent wanted to know.

 

''Burglars. Last Saturday. Two of your men came

'                            round.'

 

.

 

 

.

 

'

Are you ill?' he said abruptly.

 

'No. Shaken.'

 

He nodded. Anyone would be, I thought.

 

One of the policemen mentioned Rollway's threat

that I wouldn't live to give evidence. To be taken

sgriously, perhaps.

 

Ingold looked at me speculatively. 'Does it worry

you?'

 

'I'll try to be careful.'

 

He smiled faintly. 'Like on a horse?' The smile disappeared. '

You could do worse than hire someone to mind

your back for a while.'

 

I nodded my thanks. Brad, I thought dryly, would be

ecstatic.

 

They took poor Nicholas Loder away. I would

emphasize his bravery, I thought, and save what could

 

be saved of his reputation. He had given me, after all, a

chance of life.

 

Eventually the police wanted to seal the sitting room,

although the superintendent said it was a precaution

only: the events of the evening seemed crystal clear.

 

He handed me the crutches and asked where I would

be going.

 

'Upstairs to bed,' I said.

 

'Here?' He was surprised. 'In this house?'

 

'This house,' I said, 'is a fortress. Until one lowers the

drawbridge, that is.'

 

They sealed the sitting room, let themselves out, and

left me alone in the newly quiet hallway.

 

I sat on the stairs and felt awful. Cold. Shivery. Old

and grey. What I needed was a hot drink to get warm

from inside, and there was no way I was going down to

the kitchen. Hot water from the bathroom tap upstairs

would do fine, I thought.

 

As happeled in many sorts of battle, it wasn't the

moment of injury that was worst, but the time a couple

of hours later when the body's immediate natural

anaesthetic properties subsided and let pain take over:

nature's marvellous system for allowing a wild animal

to flee to safety before hiding to lick its wounds with

healing saliva. The human animal was no different. One

needed the time to escape, and one needed the pain

afterwards to say something was wrong.

 

At the moment of maximum adrenalin, fight-orflight,

I'd believed I could run on that ankle. It had

been mechanics that had defeated me, not instinct, not

willingness. Two hours later, the idea of even standing

on it was impossible. Movement alone became breathtaking.

I'd sat in Greville's chair for another two long

hours after that, concentrating on policemen, blanking

out feeling.

 

With them gone, there was no more pretending.

However much I might protest in my mind, however

much rage I might feel, I knew the damage to bones

and ligaments was about as bad as before. Rollway had

cracked them apart again. Back to square one. . . and

the Hennessy only four and a half weeks away . . . and I

was bloody well going to ride Datepalm in it, and

I wasn't going to tell anyone about tonight's little

stamping-ground, no one knew except Rollway and he

wouldn't boast about that.

 

If I stayed away from Lamboum for two weeks, Milo

wouldn't find out; not that he would himself care all that

much. If he didn't know, though, he couldn't mention it

to anyone else. No one expected me to be racing again

for another four weeks. If I simply stayed in London for

two of those and ran Greville's business, no one would

 

comment. Then once I could walk I'd go down to Lamboum

and ride every day . . . get physiotherapy, borrow

the Electrovet . . . it could be done . . . piece of cake.

 

Meanwhile there were the stairs.

 

Up in Greville's bathroom, in a zipped bag with my

washing things, I would find the envelope the orthopaedic

surgeon had given me, which I'd tucked into a

waterproof pocket and travelled around with ever since.

In the envelope, three small white tablets not as big as

aspirins, more or less with my initials on: DF 1-1~s.

Only as a last resort, the orthopod had said.

 

Wednesday evening, I reckoned, qualified.

 

I went up the stairs slowly, backwards, sitting down,

hooking the crutches up with me. If I dropped them, I

thought, they would slither down to the bottom again.

I wouldn't drop them.

 

It was pretty fair hell. I reminded myself astringently

that people had been known to crawl down mountains

with much worse broken bones: they wouldn't have

made a fuss over one little flight upwards. Anyway,

there had to be an end to everything, and eventually I

sat on the top step, with the crutches beside me, and

thought that the DF 1-1's weren't going to fly along

magically to my tongue. I had still got to get them.

 

I shut my eyes and put both hands round my ankle

on top of the bandage. I could feel the heat and it was

swelling again already, and there was a pulse hammering

somewhere.

 

Damn it, I thought. God bloody damn it. I was used

to this sort of pain, but it never made it any better. I

hoped Rollway's head was banging like crazy.

 

I made it to the bathroom, ran the hot water, opened

the door of the capacious medicine cabinet, pulled out

and unzipped my bag.

 

One tablet, no pain, I thought. Two tablets, spaced

out. Three tablets, unconscious.

 

Three tablets had definite attractions but I feared I

might wake in the morning needing them again and

wishing I'd been wiser. I swallowed one with a glassful

of hot water and waited for miracles.

 

The miracle that actually happened was extraordinary

but had nothing to do with the pills.

 

STRAIGHT

 

I stared at my grey face in the looking glass over the

basin. Improvement, I thought after a while, was a long

time coming. Perhaps the damned things didn't work.

 

Be patient.

 

Take another . . .

 

No. Be patient.

 

I looked vaguely at the objects in the medicine cupboard.

Talc. Deodorant. Shaving cream. Shaving cream.

Most of one can of shaving cream had been squirted all

over the mirror by Jason. A pale blue and grey can:

'Unscented,' it said.

 

Greville had an electric razor as well, I thought

inconsequentially. It was on the dressing chest. I'd borrowed

it that morning. Quicker than a wet shave,

though not so long lasting.

 

The damn pill wasn't working.

 

I looked at the second one longingly.

 

Wait a bit.

 

Think about something else.

 

I picked up the second can of shaving cream which

was scarlet and orange and said: 'Regular Fragrance'. I

shook the can and took off the cover and tried to squirt

foam onto the mirror.

 

Nothing happened. I shook it. Tried again. Nothing

at all.

 

Guile and misdirection, I thought. Hollow books and

green stone boxes with keyholes but no keys Safes in

concrete, secret drawers in desks... Take nothing at

face value. Greville's mind was a maze... and:

wouldn't have used scented skaving cream.

 

I twisted the shaving cream can this way and th'

the bottom ring moved and began to turn in my h

caught my breath. Didn't really believe it. I went

 

turning . . . unscrewing.

 

It would be another empty hiding place, I told n

Get a grip on hope. I unscrewed the whole botta

the can, and from a nest of cottonwool a ch

leather pouch fell out into my hand.

 

Well, all right, I thought, but it wouldn

 

diamonds.   :.

 

With the help of the crutches I took the poucl

the bedroom and sat on Greville's bed, and p

onto the counterpane a little stream of dullish-lc

pea-sized lumps of carbon.

 

I almost stopped breathing. Time stood

 

couldn't believe it. Not after everything . . .    .

 

With shaking fingers I counted them, setting tb

small clumps of five.

 

Ten . . . fifteen . . . twenty . . . twenty-five.

 

Twenty-five meant I'd got fifty per cent. Half of what

Greville had bought. With half, Saxony Franklin would

be safe. I offered heartburstine thanks to the f,

 

came dangerously near to crying.

 

Then, with a sense of revelation, I knew where the

rest were. Where they had to be. Greville really had

taken them with him to Ipswich, as he'd told Pross. I

guessed he'd taken them thinking he might give them to

the Maarten-Pagnier partner to take back to Antwerp

for cutting.

 

I'd searched through the things in his car and had

found nothing, and I'd held his diamonds in my hand

and not known it.

 

They were . . . they had to be . . . in that other scarlet

and orange can, in the apparent can of shaving cream in

his overnight bag, safe as Fort Knox under the stairs

of Brad's mum's house in Hungerford. She'd taken all

Greville's things in off the street out of my car to keep

them safe in a dodgy neighbourhood. In memory, I

could hear Brad's pride in her.

 

'Smart, our Mum . . .'

 

The DF 1-1 was at last taking the edge off the

worst.

 

I rolled the twenty-five precious pebbles around

under my fingers with indescribable joy and thought

how relieved Greville would have been. Sleep easy, pal,

I told him, uncontrollably smiling. I've finally found

them.

 

He'd left me his business, his desk, his gadgets, his

enemies, his horses, his mistress. Left me Saxony Franklin,

the Wizard, the shaving cream cans, Prospero Jenks

and Nicholas Loder, Dozen Roses, Clarissa.

 

I'd inherited his life and laid him to rest; and at that

moment, though I might hurt and I might throb, I didn't

 

think I had ever been happier.