Come to Grief

by Dick Francis

  I would throttle Kevin, I thought. I said, “How are the frogs’ legs?”

  “Muscular.”

  “Never mind,” I said. “You have sharp teeth.”

  Her mind quite visibly changed gears from patronizing to uncertain, and I began to like her.

  Risky to like her, of course.

  After the curry and the frogs we drank plain black coffee and spent a pause or two in eye-contact appraisal. I expected she saw me in terms of adjectives and paragraphs. I saw her with appeased curiosity. I now knew what the serial reputation-slasher looked like at dinner.

  In the way one does, I wondered what she looked like in bed; and in the way that one doesn’t cuddle up to a potential cobra, I made no flicker of an attempt to find out.

  She seemed to take this passivity for granted. She paid for our meal with a Pump business credit card, as promised, and crisply expected I would kick in my share on Monday as an exclusive for Kevin.

  I promised what I knew I wouldn’t be able to deliver, and offered her a lift home.

  “But you don’t know where I live!”

  “Wherever,” I said.

  “Thanks. But there’s a bus.”

  I didn’t press it. We parted on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. No kiss. No handshake. A nod from her. Then she turned and walked away, not looking back: and I had no faith at all in her mercy.

  On Sunday morning I reopened the small blue suitcase Linda had lent me, and read again through all the clippings that had to do with the maimed Kent ponies.

  I played again the videotape of the twenty-minute program Ellis had made of the child owners, and watched it from a different, and sickened, perspective.

  There on the screen he looked just as friendly, just as charismatic, just as expert. His arms went around Rachel in sympathy. His good-looking face filled with compassion and outrage. Blinding ponies, cutting off a pony’s foot, he said, those were crimes akin to murder.

  Ellis, I thought in wretchedness, how could you?

  What if he can’t help it?

  I played the tape a second time, taking in more details and attentively listening to what he had actually said.

  His instinct for staging was infallible. In the shot where he’d commiserated with the children all together, he had had them sitting around on hay bales in a tack room, the children dressed in riding breeches, two or three wearing black riding hats. He himself had sat on the floor among them, casual in a dark open-necked jogging suit, a peaked cap pushed back on his head, sunglasses in-pocket. Several of the children had been in tears. He’d given them his handkerchief and helped them cope with grief.

  There were phrases he had used when talking straight to the camera that had brought the children’s horrors sharply to disturbingly visual life: ‘pierced empty sockets, their eyesight running down their cheeks,“ and ”a pure-bred silver pony, proud and shining in the moonlight.“

  His caring tone of voice alone had made the word pictures bearable.

  “A silver pony shining in the moonlight.” The basis of Rachel’s nightmare.

  “In the moonlight.” He had seen the pony in the moonlight.

  I played the tape a third time, listening with my eyes shut, undistracted by the familiar face, or by Rachel in his comforting hug.

  He said, “A silver pony trotting trustfully across the field lured by a handful of horse nuts.”

  He shouldn’t have known that.

  He could have known it if any of the Fernses had suggested it.

  But the Femses themselves wouldn’t have said it. They hadn’t fed Silverboy on nuts. The agent of destruction that had come by night had brought the nuts.

  Ellis would say, of course, that he had made it up, and the fact that it might be true was simply a coincidence. I rewound the tape and stared for a while into space. Ellis would have an answer to everything. Ellis would be believed.

  In the afternoon I wrote a long, detailed report for Norman Picton: not a joyous occupation.

  Early Monday morning, as he had particularly requested it, I drove to the police station in Newbury and personally delivered the package into the Detective Inspector’s own hands.

  “Did you talk about this to anybody?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Especially not to Quint?”

  “Especially not. But...,” I hesitated, “they’re a close family. It’s more than likely that on Saturday evening or yesterday, Ginnie and Gordon told Ellis that you and I and Archie were sniffing round the Land-Rover and that you took away the shears. I think you must consider that Ellis knows the hunt is on.”

  He nodded disgustedly. “And as Ellis Quint officially lives in the Metropolitan area, we in the Thames Valley district cannot pursue our inquiries as freely as we could have.”

  “You mean, you can’t haul him down to the local Regents Park nick and ask him awkward questions, like what was he doing at three A.M. on Saturday?”

  “We can ask him ourselves if the Met agrees.”

  “I thought these divisions were being done away with.”

  “Cooperation is improving all the time.”

  I left him to sort out his problems and set off to drive to Kent. On the way, wanting to give Rachel Ferns a cheering-up present, I detoured into the maze of Kingston and, having parked, walked around the precincts looking for inspiration in the shops.

  A windowful of tumbling puppies made me pause; perhaps Rachel needed an animal to love, to replace the pony. And perhaps Linda would not be pleased at having to house-train a growing nuisance that molted and chewed the furniture. I went into the pet shop, however, and that’s how I came to arrive at Linda Ferns’s house with my car full of fish tank, water weeds, miniature ruined castle walls, electric pump, lights, fish food, instructions, and three large lidded buckets of tropical fish.

  Rachel was waiting by the gate for my arrival.

  “You’re half an hour late,” she accused. “You said you’d be here by twelve.”

  “Have you heard of the M25?”

  “Everyone makes that motorway an excuse.”

  “Well, sorry.”

  Her bald head was still a shock. Apart from that, she looked well, her cheeks full and rounded by steroids. She wore a loose sundress and clumpy sneakers on stick-like legs. It was crazy to love someone else’s child so comprehensively, yet for the first time ever, I felt the idea of fatherhood take a grip.

  Jenny had refused to have children on the grounds that any racing day could leave her a widow, and at the time I hadn’t cared one way or another. If ever I married again, I thought, following Rachel into the house, I would long for a daughter.

  Linda gave me a bright, bright smile, a pecking kiss and the offer of a gin and tonic while she threw together some pasta for our lunch. The table was laid. She set out steaming dishes.

  “Rachel was out waiting for you two hours ago!” she said. “I don’t know what you’ve done to the child.”

  “How are things?”

  “Happy.” She turned away abruptly, tears as ever near the surface. “Have some more gin. You said you’d got news for me.”

  “Later. After lunch. And I’ve brought Rachel a present.”

  The fish tank after lunch was the ultimate success. Rachel was enthralled, Linda interested and helpful. “Thank goodness you didn’t give her a dog,” she said. “I can’t stand animals under my feet I wouldn’t let Joe give her a dog. That’s why she wanted a pony.”

  The vivid fish swam healthily through the Gothic ruins, the water weeds rose and swelled, the lights and bubbles did their stuff. Rachel sprinkled fish food and watched her new friends eat. The pet shop owner had persuaded me to take a bigger tank than I’d thought best, and he had undoubtedly been right. Rachel’s pale face glowed. Pegotty, in a baby-bouncer, sat wide-eyed and open-mouthed beside the glass. Linda came with me into the garden.

  “Any news about a transplant?” I asked.

  “It would have been the first thing I’d told you.”

&
nbsp; We sat on the bench. The roses bloomed. It was a beautiful day, heartbreaking.

  Linda said wretchedly, “In acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is what Rachel’s got, chemotherapy causes remission almost always. More than ninety percent of the time. In seven out of ten children, the remission lasts forever, and after five years they can be thought of as cured for life. And girls have a better chance than boys, isn’t that odd? But in thirty percent of children, the disease comes back.”

  She stopped.

  “And it has come back in Rachel?”

  “Oh, Sid!”

  “Tell me.”

  She tried, the tears trickling while she spoke. “The disease came back in Rachel after less than two years, and that’s not good. Her hair was beginning to grow, but it came out again with the drugs. They re-established her again in remission, and they’re so good, it isn’t so easy the second time. But I know from their faces—and they don’t suggest transplants unless they have to, because only about half of bone-marrow transplants are successful. I always talk as if a transplant will definitely save her, but it only might. If they found a tissue match they’d kill all her own bone marrow with radiation, which makes the children terribly nauseous and wretched, and then when the marrow’s all dead they transfuse new liquid marrow into the veins and hope it will migrate into the bones and start making leukemia-free blood there, and quite often it works ... and sometimes a child can be born with one blood group and be transfused with another. It’s extraordinary. Rachel now has type A blood, but she might end up with type O, or something else. They can do so much nowadays. One day they may cure everybody. But oh ... oh...”

  I put my arm around her shoulders while she sobbed. So many disasters were forever. So many Edens lost.

  I waited until the weeping fit passed, and then I told her I’d discovered who had maimed and destroyed Silverboy.

  “You’re not going to like it,” I said, “and it might be best if you can prevent Rachel from finding out: Does she ever read the newspapers?”

  “Only Peanuts.”

  “And the television news?”

  “She doesn’t like news of starving children.” Linda looked at me fearfully. “I’ve wanted her to know who killed Silverboy. That’s what I’m paying you for.”

  I took out of my pocket and put into her hands an envelope containing her much-traveled check, torn now into four pieces.

  “I don’t like what I found, and I don’t want your money. Linda ... I’m so very sorry ... but it was Ellis Quint himself who cut off Silverboy’s foot.”

  She sprang in revulsion to her feet, immediate anger filling her, the shock hard and physical, the enormity of what I’d said making her literally shake.

  I should have broken it more slowly, I thought, but the words had had to be said.

  “How can you say such a thing?” she demanded. “How can you? You’ve got it all wrong. He couldn’t possibly! You’re crazy to say such a thing.”

  I stood up also. “Linda ...”

  “Don’t say anything. I won’t listen. I won’t. He is so nice. You’re truly crazy. And of course I’m not going to tell Rachel what you’ve accused him of, because it would upset her, and you’re wrong. And I know you’ve been kind to her... and to me ... but I wouldn’t have asked you here if I’d thought you could do so much awful harm. So please ... go. Go, just go.”

  I shrugged a fraction. Her reaction was extreme, but her emotions were always at full stretch. I understood her, but that didn’t much help.

  I said persuasively, “Linda, listen.”

  “No!”

  I said, “Ellis has been my own friend for years. This is terrible for me, too.”

  She put her hands over her ears and turned her back, screaming, “Go away. Go away.”

  I said uncomfortably, “Phone me, then,” and got no reply.

  I touched her shoulder. She jerked away from me and ran a good way down the lawn, and after a minute I turned and went back into the house.

  “Is Mummy crying?” Rachel asked, looking out of the window. “I heard her shout.”

  “She’s upset.” I smiled, though not feeling happy. “She’ll be all right. How are the fish?”

  “Cool.” She went down. on her knees, peering into the wet little world.

  “I have to go now,” I said.

  “Good-bye.” She seemed sure I would come back. It was a temporary farewell, between friends. She looked at the fishes, not turning her head.

  ‘“Bye,” I said, and drove ruefully to London, knowing that Linda’s rejection was only the first: the beginning of the disbelief.

  In Pont Square the telephone was ringing when I opened my front door, and continued to ring while I poured water and ice from a jug in the refrigerator, and continued to ring while I drank thirstily after the hot afternoon, and continued to ring while I changed the battery in my left arm.

  In the end, I picked up the receiver.

  “Where the bloody hell have you been?”

  The Berkshire voice filled my ear, delivering not contumely, but information. Norman Picton, Detective Inspector, Thames Valley Police.

  “You’ve heard the news, of course.”

  “What news?” I asked.

  “Do you live with your head in the sand? Don’t you own a radio?”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Ellis Quint is in custody,” he said.

  “He’s what?”

  “Yes, well, hold on, he’s sort of in custody. He’s in hospital, under guard.”

  “Norman,” I said, disoriented. “Start at the beginning.”

  “Right.” He sounded over-patient, as if talking to a child. “This morning two plainclothes officers of the Metropolitan Police went to Ellis Quint’s flat overlooking Regents Park intending to interview him harmlessly about his whereabouts early Saturday morning. He came out of the building before they reached the main entrance, so, knowing him by sight, they approached him, identifying themselves and showing him their badges. At which point”—Picton cleared his throat but didn’t seem able to clear his account of pedestrian police phraseology—“at which point Mr. Ellis Quint pushed one of the officers away so forcefully that the officer overbalanced into the roadway and was struck by a passing car. Mr. Quint himself then ran into the path of traffic as he attempted to cross the road to put distance between himself and the police officers. Mr. Quint caused a bus to swerve. The bus struck Mr. Quint a glancing blow, throwing him to the ground. Mr. Quint was dazed and bruised. He was taken to hospital, where he is now in a secure room while investigations proceed.”

  I said, “Are you reading that from a written account?”

  “That’s so.”

  “How about an interpretation in your own earthy words?”

  “I’m at work. I’m not alone.”

  “OK,” I said. “Did Ellis panic or did he think he was being mugged?”

  Picton half laughed. “I’d say the first. His lawyers will say the second. But, d‘you know what? When they emptied his pockets at the hospital, they found a thick packet of cash—and his passport.”

  “No!”

  “it isn’t illegal.”

  “What does he say?”

  “He hasn’t said anything yet.”

  “How’s the officer he pushed?”

  “Broken leg. He was lucky.”

  “And ... when Ellis’s daze wears off?”

  “It’ll be up to the Met. They can routinely hold him for one day while they frame a charge. I’d say that’s a toss-up. With the clout he can muster, he’ll be out in hours.”

  “What did you do with my report?”

  “It went to the proper authorities.”

  Authorities was such a vague word. Who ever described their occupation as “an authority”?

  “Thanks for phoning,” I said.

  “Keep in touch.” An order, it sounded like.

  I put down the receiver and found a handwritten scrawl from Kevin Mills on Pump letterhead paper in
my fax.

  He’d come straight to the point.

  “Sid, you’re a shit.”

  7

  The week got worse, slightly alleviated only by a letter from Linda on Thursday morning.

  Variably slanting handwriting. Jerky. A personality torn this way and that.

  Dear Sid,

  I’m sorry I talked to you the way I did. I still cannot believe that Ellis Quint would cut off Silverboy’s foot, but I remember thinking when he came here to do the TV program that he already knew a lot about what had happened. I mean things that hadn’t been in the papers, like Silverboy liking horse nuts, which we never gave him, so how did he know, we didn’t know ourselves, and I did wonder who had told him, but of course Joe asked Ellis who to buy a pony from, so of course I thought Ellis knew things about him from way back, like Silverboy being fed on horse nuts before he came to us.

  Anyway, I can see how you got it wrong about Ellis, and it was very nice of you to bring the fish tank for Rachel, I can’t tear her away from it. She keeps asking when you will come back and I don‘t like to tell her you won’t, not as things are, so if you’ll visit us again I will not say any more about your being wrong about Ellis. I ask you for Rachel.

  We are both glad Ellis wasn’t hurt today by that horrid bus.

  Yours sincerely,

  Linda Ferns.

  I wrote, back thanking her for her letter, accepting her invitation and saying I would phone her soon.

  On Tuesday Ellis was charged with “actual bodily harm” for having inadvertently and without intention pushed “an assailant” into the path of potential danger (under the wheels of a speeding motor) and was set free “pending inquiries.”

  Norman Picton disillusionedly reported, “The only approximately good thing is that they confiscated his passport. His lawyers are pointing their fingers up any police nose they can confront, screeching that it’s a scandal.”

  “Where’s Ellis now?”

  “Look to your back. Your report is with the Crown Prosecution Service, along with mine.”

  “Do you mean you don’t know where he is?”

  “He’s probably in Britain or anywhere he can get to where he doesn’t need a passport. He told the magistrates in court that he’d decided to do a sports program in Australia, and he had to have his passport with him because he needed it to get a visa for Australia.”