by Dick Francis
What would be his route, I wondered. New Scotland Yard first, I expected, for Detective Superintendent Aldridge, then on to Thames Valley Police headquarters in Oxfordshire to drop the one for Inspector Johnson. Then down to Cheltenham to deliver the one for my friend Chief Inspector Carlisle. Next to South Wales, to Brecon, to find Evan Walker’s farm for package four.
Finally, on his way back, the motorcyclist’s last stop was to be at the House of Lords. Package five was for his lordship. The videotape was in case he didn’t believe what he read in the newspapers.
The bodyguard I had arranged for Marina arrived promptly at eight and turned out to be a six-foot-two ex-Marine with biceps bigger than my thighs. The biceps, along with an impressive pair of pecs and assorted other bulging muscles that I didn’t even know existed, were squeezed into a bottle-green T-shirt that looked to be at least two sizes too small.
He dismissed my suggestion that he should sit in reception and wait for Marina to come down when she went out to lunch. No good, he said. He wanted to have ‘the target’ in sight at all times.
I said I would rather he did not refer to Marina as ‘the target’ and he couldn’t have her in sight at all times as she was still in her dressing gown and was about to have a shower. He covered his disappointment well.
In the end, he settled for a chair outside the flat door, opposite the lift.
‘But how about the windows?’ he asked. ‘Someone could come through one.’
‘We’ll take our chances,’ I said. After all, as I pointed out to him, we were on the fourth floor. But he still wasn’t happy.
However, it was a great relief to see him there when I left for Archie Kirk’s office at nine to deliver the last of the videotape packages. And, in the interests of my own security, I telephoned for a taxi that was waiting for me at the front entrance of the building with its engine running for a quick getaway.
‘Well, you have caused a bit of a stir,’ Archie said as I arrived.
I needn’t have bothered to bring the pages of The Pump as he already had a copy open on his desk.
‘Is it all true?’ he said.
‘Perfectly,’ I said. ‘And the full interview with the girl is on this tape.’
I handed the sixth package to him.
‘Thank you.’ He took it. ‘Good job that truth is now a defence against libel.’
‘Hasn’t it always been?’ I asked.
‘Good God, no,’ he said. ‘In the past, one could be guilty of criminal libel even if you were telling the truth. Just to ruin someone’s reputation was enough despite the fact that they may have deserved to have it ruined. The European Convention on Human Rights has stopped all that. No one can now be convicted for telling the truth.’
Tell that, I thought, to the mothers of the cot death babies sent to prison for murder due to the erroneous evidence of a so-called medical expert.
‘I will leave it to you to decide who gets the information on the internet gambling and gaming,’ I said. ‘I realise it was not really what you wanted but it’s a start and I will do a bit more digging before you get my final report.’
‘What do you think will happen?’ he asked.
‘About the murders,’ I said, ‘or the gambling?’
‘Both.’
‘I hope the police pick up Peter Enstone pretty quickly. I don’t think Marina, that’s my girlfriend, is very safe with him on the loose. Then, with luck, there will be enough evidence to remand him in custody, and then to convict. I think there should be.’
‘And make-a-wager.com?’ said Archie.
‘I think it will be far more difficult to prove anything against George Lochs. He’s a very sharp cookie indeed and he will have covered his tracks very carefully. However, punters like to have confidence when they gamble and all this is going to severely shake their trust in his website.’
‘And I’m sure you could help to further undermine that trust,’ he said, spreading his hands wide.
‘Indeed, I could,’ I said with a smile. ‘And I think I just might. Especially the trust required for on-line gaming. If I can show that he has been involved with some dodgy dealings with race fixing, it is only a small step for people to believe that he has also been fixing the games on his website. I think the earnings and value of Make A Wager Ltd are about to take a major dip in the market.’
‘George made a wager, and lost,’ he said.
I left Archie still chuckling at his little joke and took another taxi back to Ebury Street. My Charles Atlas look-alike was still on guard outside the door. I wondered if he ever went to the lavatory.
Jenny arrived on the dot of twelve thirty as promised. In spite of being announced from downstairs and being met by me at the lift, she was still keenly scrutinised by the bodyguard who insisted on looking in her handbag before he would allow her into the flat.
‘But I know this person,’ I said. All too well.
‘Sir,’ he said, sounding a little patronising, ‘most people are murdered by someone they know.’
I decided against mentioning that Indira Gandhi, the former Indian prime minister, had been murdered by her bodyguards.
After an inspection of the bag had revealed nothing more lethal than half a packet of menthol cigarettes, Jenny was allowed to proceed. At least he hadn’t performed a full body search.
‘What’s that all about?’ she said.
‘The man who shot Marina is still on the loose,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want him having another go.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Was going out to lunch such a good idea after all?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘We can’t hide away for ever. And I’ve arranged for Muscles out there to go with you.’ She opened her mouth. ‘It’s all right. He won’t sit at the same table. You can tie his lead to a lamppost.’
Marina was ready and itching to get out of our cramped home if only for a couple of hours.
‘Take care,’ I said as they squeezed into the lift with the muscles. They were both giggling as the doors closed. Would I ever have thought that Jenny, my ex-wife, and Marina, my future one, would be giggling together? Not in a thousand years.
I went out on to the balcony to watch them leave. The muscleman was too big to fold himself into the back seat of Jenny’s little town runabout so he rode up front while Marina sat behind. The girls were still laughing but I was happy that Muscles, at least, was taking their security seriously as he scanned every nook and cranny for potential danger. None transpired, and they drove off safely.
I was just sitting down at my computer to answer a couple of e-mails when my phone rang. It was Chief Inspector Carlisle.
‘Did you get the tape?’ I asked him.
‘Yes, thank you,’ he said. ‘Very interesting. But you should leave that sort of questioning to the police. You may have damaged the case by locking her in the room like that.’
‘But the police weren’t interested,’ I said. ‘You were too busy elsewhere and Johnson from Thames Valley believed Bill’s death was suicide. If I hadn’t questioned her, no one would have.’
‘Breaking into her house was not very wise either.’
‘I didn’t break in. She had previously shown me where she left the key, so I simply used it.’
‘A technicality,’ he said.
‘Cases hinge on technicalities,’ I said. ‘Anyway, have you caught him yet?’
‘Who?’ he said.
‘Peter Enstone, of course.’
‘Not yet, but we are now officially looking for him. An APB has been put out jointly by the Met Police, Thames Valley and us.’
It sounded a bit like ‘Hawaii Five-O’.
‘What does APB actually stand for?’ I asked.
‘All Points Bulletin,’ he said. ‘It means that various agencies like the police, immigration service, customs and so on get a list of names of people to be apprehended. It should prevent him leaving the country.’
‘If he hasn’t already done so,’ I said. ‘When did this APB get
put out?’
‘Only about an hour ago, I’m afraid. The Met went to his home at nine this morning but he wasn’t there. His neighbour apparently told the officers that Enstone had just popped out for a newspaper and would soon be back. So the officers waited for him. They waited for an hour but he didn’t come back.’
God help me, I thought. Of course he didn’t come back. He would have arrived at the newsagents to find his smiling face on the front of The Pump and he would have done a runner.
‘Where else are you looking for Enstone?’ I asked.
‘Where do you suggest?’
‘How about Juliet Burns’s house,’ I said.
‘Ah, Juliet Burns,’ he repeated slowly. ‘And where is she exactly?’
‘Last I heard she was at the Donnington Valley Hotel in Newbury,’ I said, ‘but that was last night. I expect she may be in need of your protection.’
‘I’m sure we can find a secure cell for her somewhere.’
‘Don’t be too hard on her,’ I said. ‘She did help me in the end.’
‘She had better help us, too,’ he said, ‘or I will personally throw away the key to her cell.’
The buzzer sounded on the internal telephone so I went into the hallway to answer it, still holding my mobile.
‘Just a moment,’ I said to Carlisle.
‘Yes,’ I said into the internal system.
‘Charles Rowland down here for you, Mr Halley,’ said one of the porters.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Send him up.’ He was early, no doubt eager to have another go at my whisky.
I replaced the internal phone receiver and spoke again to Carlisle. ‘I must go, my father-in-law has arrived. You will call me if you catch Peter Enstone, won’t you?’
‘Certainly will,’ he said, and we hung up.
I went out to the lift to meet Charles, but it wasn’t Charles in the lift.
It was the smiling man from the front page of The Pump.
Only he wasn’t smiling now.
He held a black revolver very steadily in his right hand and he was pointing it right between my eyes.
Damn, I thought. That was bloody careless.
CHAPTER 21
‘I’ve come here to kill you,’ Peter said.
I didn’t doubt it.
‘Inside,’ he said.
We were standing outside my front door near the lift and, typically, there was no sign of my neighbours when you needed them.
We went in through the door and he locked it behind us. He took the key out of the lock and put it in his pocket.
He didn’t once allow me to get close to him. Never close enough to give me the chance of wresting the gun out of his hand before he had time to use it.
‘In there,’ he said, waving the gun towards the sitting room. He seemed to be looking for something.
‘She’s not here,’ I said, assuming it was Marina he was after.
He ignored me.
‘This way,’ he said, again waving the gun, this time directing me back into the hallway.
We proceeded to go all round the flat until he seemed satisfied that we were alone. I could see the clock in the bedroom. It was only ten to one, it would be at least an hour before Marina and Jenny came back. Would I still be alive by then?
‘Go in there,’ he said, pointing at the bathroom.
I went.
He turned on the light and the extractor fan began to emit a whine. I wished it could extract me from this situation.
The bathroom was a small room about six foot six square. It was built in the interior of the building and consequently had no windows. A bath ran down the wall on the right with a lavatory next to it and there was a wash-basin opposite the entrance. But Peter was most interested in what was behind the door attached to the left-hand wall — a shiny chrome three-bar centrally-heated towel rail about three feet long. There were three yellow towels neatly hanging on it.
‘Catch,’ he said and threw me a pair of sturdy-looking metal handcuffs that he had brought with him in his pocket. I caught them.
‘Put one on your right wrist and the other round the bracket of the towel rail where it is attached to the wall. Shut them tight.’
I managed it with some difficulty. My only real hand was now firmly attached to the heating system. Not a great improvement.
‘Now put your left hand out towards me,’ he said.
I wondered if and when I would not do as he said.
He seemed to sense the thought in me and raised his gun higher, taking deliberate aim at my head. I could see right down the barrel. I speculated about whether I would have time to see the bullet coming before it tore into my brain. I decided that I didn’t want to find out. I put my left hand forward.
He lifted the sleeve of my shirt and removed the battery from my false arm and put it in his pocket. He was very careful never to move the gun line away from my eye and I was equally careful not to make any sudden movement that might encourage him to pull the trigger.
‘Now take that thing off,’ he said, stepping back.
‘I can’t,’ I said.
He held the gun in his left hand and grasped my left wrist with his right. He pulled. I pulled back. I stressed my arm to prevent the false bit from coming off. He pulled harder. The arm didn’t shift.
‘You won’t remove it, it stays on permanently,’ I said. ‘You see those little rivets on either side? They’re the ends of the pins that go right through what’s left of my real arm to hold it in place.’
I wasn’t really sure why I told him the lie. The rivets were actually holding the sensors in place on the inside, the sensors that sat against my skin to pick up the nerve impulses that made the hand work. It was only a small act of defiance, but it was something.
He gave the arm one last violent tug but I was ready for him and the fibreglass shell didn’t budge.
He stood back and looked at me. Then he said, ‘Put the arm out again.’
I did so.
He took the battery out of his pocket and clipped it back into place. I moved my thumb in and out.
‘Grab hold of the towel rail,’ he said. ‘There.’ He pointed.
‘What?’ I said.
The gun came up a fraction.
‘Just do it,’ he said.
I placed my unfeeling fingers around the boiling hot rail and closed the thumb. He leaned forward and removed the battery, dropping it on the floor. Without the battery the thumb wouldn’t move. The hand and arm were locked in place.
I was standing in my bathroom with my back against a hot towel rail with both hands firmly attached to it at either end.
Peter Enstone seemed to relax a little. He had been as frightened of me as I was of him.
‘What does it take to stop you?’ he said.
‘Honesty,’ I said.
‘Don’t be so bloody self-righteous,’ he said. ‘You have ruined my life.’
‘You ruined it yourself,’ I said.
He ignored me.
‘Do you know what it’s like to hate your own father?’ he said.
‘No.’
I had never even known my own father.
‘And do you know what it’s like to spend your life trying to please someone only for them to despise the very ground you walk on?’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Do you?’ he shouted.
‘No,’ I said.
‘It becomes your whole existence. Looking for things he will like but only finding things he hates. And all the time he thinks you’re an idiot, an imbecile, a helpless child, with no feelings.’
I stood there looking at the monster. This man was no helpless child.
‘Then I found a way of breaking out of the cage,’ he said. ‘I found a way to control his emotions. To make him happy, to make him sad, and especially to make him angry with someone else for a change.’
He came closer to my face. I could almost have leaned forward and kissed him. Provided, that is, I wanted to kiss the devil.
He’s not going to be the only one, I thought. He sounded like a petulant schoolboy caught with his hand in the biscuit tin.
‘Do you know what it’s like to have someone angry with you all the time?’
‘No,’ I said. Actually I did. People were often angry with me for exposing their misdeeds. I had always rather enjoyed it, but I decided not to say so, not now.
‘I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘It eats away at your soul. When you’re a child, it’s frightening. I spent my whole childhood being frightened of him, every single minute. He would beat me for being naughty, and the harder I tried to be good, the more he saw me as naughty. “Hold out your hand, Peter,” he would say. Then he would hit me with a wooden bat. Then he would smile and say it was for my own good.’
He went quiet for a moment and stared off into space; I could tell he was reliving incidents elsewhere.
‘He used to hit my mother as well,’ he said. ‘He drove her away. At first, she used to protect me from him but then she left. She deserted me and he killed her.’ He paused then went on. ‘Well, he didn’t actually kill her, but as good as. She was desperate to get away from him and she agreed to everything he said so long as he would leave her alone. He saw to it that she left with nothing, no money, no home and no chance of ever seeing me again. I was twelve.’
She obviously hadn’t had a very good solicitor, I thought. Times had changed.
‘He never spoke about her. It was as if she had never existed. I found out much later that she had been absolutely destitute and had even been begging in the street.’ He made it sound like the most shameful thing in the world. I had occasionally seen my own mother beg. It had sometimes made the difference between life and death for us both.
‘She tried to get him to give her some money to live on but he refused. When she tried to take him to court to get access to me, his lawyers blocked her. They just tore to shreds the hardly qualified Legal Aid lawyer that my mother had to resort to.’
Definitely not a good solicitor.
‘She walked straight out of her lawyer’s office and under a number 15 bus. Funny,’ he said, ‘ever since I found that out, I’ve never been able to ride on a number 15 bus, just in case it was the one.’
