by Dick Francis
I next went into a luggage shop and bought myself a suitcase, which, during the following hour and a half, I proceeded to fill with new pants and socks, five new shirts, three new pairs of chinos, a navy blue blazer, two tweed jackets and a tie. Fortunately, my work clothes, the sets of specially designed Max Moreton embroidered tunics and the large-check trousers, were safe at the restaurant. I never wore them home, since they went every morning with the tablecloths to a commercial laundry. But, I thought, I would look a bit stupid wearing a chef’s tunic to the Cadogan Hall next week.
Caroline called around two o’clock and was appropriately horrified to hear my news about the cottage.
“But are you all right?” she asked for the umpteenth time.
I assured her that I was fine. I told her that I was staying with Carl for a couple of days, and I would find myself some temporary accommodation while I decided what to do long-term.
“You can come and live with me,” she said.
“I would love to,” I said, smiling. “But I need to be nearer to the restaurant, at least for a bit. I’ll think of something. It’s all a bit hectic in my mind at the moment.”
“You look after yourself,” she ordered.
I promised I would.
“I’ll call you at seven your time, after rehearsal,” she said, and hung up.
I looked again at my empty wrist. It seemed a long time until seven my time.
Using the rest of my cash, I bought myself a new watch in one of the Newmarket High Street jewelers. That was better, I thought, as I checked to see if it was running properly. My existence was regaining some semblance of normalcy.
I returned to my bank and drew out another sheaf of banknotes and used some of them to buy a box of chocolates and a bouquet of spring flowers for my neighbor.
I parked the Mondeo on the road outside my cottage, the same road I had rolled across the previous night. I took a brief look at the sorry remains of my abode. It was not a pretty sight, with its blackened walls standing pitifully alone and roofless, pointing upwards at the gray sky above. I turned away gloomily and went and knocked on my neighbor’s door. She answered, not in her pink ensemble of last night but in a green tweed skirt with a long-sleeved cream sweater and sensible brown shoes. Her hair was as neat as before, but this time without the hairnet.
“Oh hello, dear,” she said, smiling. She looked at the bouquet. “Oh, are those for me? They’re lovely. Come on in.”
I gave her the flowers, and she headed back towards the kitchen. I closed her front door and followed, sitting again at the now-familiar kitchen table.
“Would you like some tea, dear?” she said as she placed the flowers in a vase by the sink.
“I’d love some,” I said.
She set the kettle to boil and fussed around with her flowers until she was happy with the arrangement.
“There,” she said at length. “So beautiful. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m not sure what I would have done without you last night.”
“Nonsense, dear,” she said. “I was just glad to be able to help.”
We sat and drank tea, just as we had done some twelve hours ago.
“Do you know yet what caused it?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “The fire brigade say they will send their investigation team to have a look. It’s pretty well burned everything. You can just about tell the difference between what was the fridge and what was the washing machine, but even those are badly melted by the heat. The oven is recognizable, but the rest has seemingly gone completely.”
“I’m so sorry, dear,” said my kindly neighbor.
“Well, at least it didn’t get me,” I said with a smile.
“No, dear,” she said, patting my arm. “I’m glad about that.”
So was I.
“Do you know what you will do?” she asked.
“I’m staying with a work colleague for the next couple of days,” I said. “Then I’ll try to find somewhere more permanent.”
“I really meant with the house, dear,” she said. “Are you going to rebuild?”
“Oh, I expect so,” I said. “I’ll have to wait and see what the insurance company says.”
I stayed with her for over an hour, and by that time, dear, she had showed me photos of all her many children and her very many grandchildren. Most of them lived in Australia, and she was obviously quite lonely and thankful for having someone to talk to. We opened the chocolates, and I had a second cup of tea.
I finally extricated myself from her life story and went back next door for a closer look at the remnants of my castle. I was not alone. A man in a dark blue jersey and royal blue trousers was picking his way through the ash.
“Hello,” I said. “Can I help you?”
“I’m fire brigade,” he said. “From the investigation team.”
“Oh right,” I said. “I own this heap of garbage.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“Ah well.” I smiled. “At least my ashes aren’t here for you to find.”
“Are anyone’s?” he asked seriously.
“No,” I said. “There was no one else in the house. Well, not unless they broke in after I had gone to bed and then died in the fire.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, not amused.
He went on poking the ash with a stick. At one point, he stopped and bent down, placing some of the ash into a plastic bag that he produced from his pocket.
“What have you found?” I asked him.
“Nothing special,” he said. “It’s just for an accelerant test.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Test to see if an accelerant had been present,” he said. “An accelerant like petrol, paint thinners or paraffin, that sort of thing.”
“I thought it was electrical,” I said.
“Probably was,” he said. “Most fires are electrical, but we need to do the test anyway. I don’t expect it to show much. This place is so badly burned out that it will be damn near impossible to determine how it started.”
He went back to his poking of the ash. After a while, he lifted something up on his stick, as if landing a salmon.
“Aha,” he said. “What have we got here?”
It looked like a black molten lump to me. I didn’t recognize it as anything I had once owned.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Your smoke detector,” he said.
I couldn’t remember having heard its alarm go off.
“You should have had a battery in it,” he said. “It’s not much use without a battery. You might have got the brigade here sooner and saved something if your detector had had a battery.”
“But it did have a battery,” I said.
“No, sir,” he said with conviction. “It did not. See how the heat has caused it to seal up completely?” He showed the lump to me. I would have to take his word for it. “If there had been a battery, then it would still be there, or at least the remains of it would. I still can see the clip, but there are no battery terminals attached to it. It definitely did not have a battery in it.” He paused, as if for effect. “It’s not the first time I’ve seen this. Loads of people forget to replace a detector battery, or, like you, they take out the old one and then forget to put a new one back in.”
But I hadn’t forgotten. There had to have been a battery in the detector. I had replaced it, as I always did, when the clocks went forward for summertime in March. It had gone off just last week when I had again burned some toast. It definitely had a battery. I was sure of it, just as sure as my investigator friend was that it had been batteryless.
I went cold and clammy. Someone had obviously removed my smoke detector battery before setting my house alight with me in it. With or without an accelerant, an established fire at the bottom of the stairs would have given me little chance of escaping. I had simply been lucky to wake up when I had.
I suddenly was certain that the fire had been the second t
ime someone had tried to kill me.
15
I was frightened. Very frightened. Twice I had cheated an assassin. I didn’t like to think “third time lucky” or “if at first you don’t succeed-try, try again.”
“Who could it be?” I asked myself yet again. “Who on earth could want me dead, and why?”
It was six o’clock in the evening, and I sat in the rented Mondeo in the empty parking lot of the Newmarket racetrack. I didn’t know why I chose there, particularly. I just wanted to be somewhere away from anyone else, and with enough space to see someone coming. The lot was deserted, save for my Mondeo in the center of it. I looked all around. There was no one about.
Who could I trust? Could I, in fact, trust anyone?
Caroline, I thought. I would trust her with my life. I suddenly realized that indeed it was my life I would lose if I made a mistake and trusted the wrong person.
The safest course was to trust no one. Not even my kindly neighbor, dear.
But I couldn’t stay sitting here in this parking lot forever.
Could I trust Carl? Was I safe to sleep in his house? Was he safe if I was sleeping in his house? I had witnessed only too clearly what a fire could do and how close I had come to joining my smoke detector as its victim. I really didn’t want to take that risk again.
Should I now go to the police? But would they believe me? It all seemed so unreal, even to me. Would they take me seriously enough to give me protection? It was not worth going to the police if they simply took a statement and then sent me away to my death. It wouldn’t help if they only believed me after I was dead.
I used my new cell phone to call the Hay Net. Martin, my barman, answered, and I asked him to get Carl for me.
“He’s in the kitchen, Chef,” said Martin. “I’ll get him.”
I waited.
“Hello,” Carl said finally. “Everything OK?”
“No, not exactly,” I said. “I’ve got to go away for a few days.”
“Where to?” he said.
Where to indeed? I thought. “Er, I’m not sure.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I said. “My mother is unwell, and I need to be with her. Can you cope without me for the rest of the week?”
“Sure,” he said rather uncertainly. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll be fine. But has anything arrived for me, by messenger?”
“Yes,” he replied, “about half an hour ago. Do you want me to bring it somewhere?”
“No, it’s all right. I’ll come and collect it.”
“How about your stuff at my place?” he said. I had left my overnight bag and shaving kit at his house.
“Don’t worry about them,” I said. “I’ll buy myself a new toothbrush and razor.”
“I can fetch them, if you like,” he said, still sounding a little unsure.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I have to go right now. Leave the package by the front door, will you?”
“All right, if you say so.” He clearly thought I was crazy.
I drove down the familiar road to the restaurant, looking left and right for any danger. There was none, at least none that I could see. I left the engine running as I jumped out and dashed inside the restaurant. The package was where I had asked Carl to leave it, and I grabbed it and went straight back out to the car.
“Max,” called Carl, following me outside. “Max, wait.”
I stood by the open door of the car.
“I’m sorry, Carl, I’ve got to go.”
“Call me, then,” he said.
“Later,” I said. “I’ll try to call you later.”
I climbed in and drove off, checking my rearview mirror every few seconds to see if I was being followed. I wasn’t. I was running away, and even I wasn’t sure where I was going.
THE FOLLOWING morning, I ran farther away. I caught the ten-fifty a.m. flight to Chicago.
After leaving the restaurant the previous evening, I had driven aimlessly down the A14 to Huntingdon and had stopped in the deserted parking lot of a closed carpet store.
Someone once told me that it was possible to trace the location from which a cell phone call was made. I had taken the risk, and first called my mother. Second, I called Caroline.
“Have you told the police?” she’d asked after I had told her everything.
“Not yet,” I’d said. “I’m worried they won’t take me seriously.”
“But someone has tried to kill you twice. Surely they will take that seriously.”
“Both attempts were designed to look like accidents. Maybe the police will think I’m irrational or something.” I was beginning to suspect as much myself.
“How could someone have got into your house to tamper with the smoke alarm?” she’d asked.
“I’m not sure,” I’d said. “But I’m absolutely certain that someone did. My front door key was on the fob with my car keys that went missing after the crash. Whoever removed the battery and set light to my cottage must have it.”
As I had told her the full story, it had all seemed less and less plausible. I had no firm idea who the “someone” could be who was trying to kill me, or even why. Would the police believe me or dismiss it all as some crazed, circumstantial conspiracy theory? I would have had to tell them I believed that the someone may be a Russian polo pony importer that I suspected only because he hadn’t turned up at a lunch to which he had been invited. If that was a crime, then half the population would be in court.
“You can go and stay at my flat, if you like,” Caroline had said. “My upstairs neighbor has a key, and I can call her to let you in.”
“I’m not sure that’s safe either. Suppose someone has been following me. They would have seen me go there last weekend. I’m not taking that chance.”
“You really are frightened, aren’t you?” she’d said.
“Very,” I’d said.
“Then come here. Come to Chicago. We can discuss everything through. Then we’ll decide what to do and who to tell.”
I had driven to one of the hotels on the northern edge of Heathrow and had booked myself in for the night under a false name, using cash to pay in advance for my room. The staff raised a questioning eyebrow, but they accepted my fictional explanation that I had stupidly left my passport and credit cards at home and that my wife was bringing them to me at the airport in the morning. Maybe I was being rather overdramatic, but I was taking no chances that I could be traced through my credit card. If someone really had been in my house at three in the morning to start a fire at the bottom of my stairs, then it didn’t stretch the imagination much further to realize they might have taken my old phone and credit cards, with all the access that the numbers could bring to my accounts, and maybe my whereabouts if I used them. I had turned off my new phone just in case.
On Wednesday morning, I had left the rented Mondeo in the hotel parking lot, where, according to the hotel reception staff, it would be quite safe but would incur charges. Fine, I’d said, and I had paid them up front for one week’s parking with the remains of my cash. I then had taken the hotel shuttle bus to the airport and had reluctantly used my new credit card to purchase the airline ticket. If someone could then find out I was at Heathrow buying a ticket, that was too bad. I just hoped that they wouldn’t be able to get to the airport before my flight departed. If they could further discover that the ticket was to Chicago, well…it’s a big city. I planned to stay hidden.
I had decided not to sit in some dark corner of the departure lounge while I waited for the flight. Instead, I’d sat in the open next to an American family with three small children who played around my feet with brmmm-brmmm noises and miniature London black taxis, souvenir toys of their trip. It had felt safer.
Departure had been uneventful, and I now dozed at forty thousand feet above the Atlantic. I had not slept particularly well in the hotel, and three times during the night had checked that the chair
I had propped under the door handle was still there. So as the airplane rushed westwards, I lay back and caught up on my lack of sleep from the previous two nights, and had to be woken by one of the cabin staff as we made our final approach to O’Hare airport in Chicago.
I KNEW that Caroline would not be waiting for me at the airport. She had told me that she had a rehearsal all afternoon, ready for that evening’s first night, and I had told her not to try to come anyway. I had somehow thought it might be safer. However, I still looked for her when I emerged from immigration and customs.
She wasn’t there. Of course she wasn’t there. I hadn’t really expected her to be there, but I felt a little disappointed nevertheless. There were several couples greeting each other with hugs and kisses, with I LOVE YOU or WELCOME HOME printed helium-filled balloons attached to their wrists or to the handles of strollers full of smiling babies. Airport arrival concourses are joyful places, good for the soul.
However, the source of my particular joy was not there. I knew that she would be deep into Elgar and Sibelius, and I was jealous of them, jealous of long-dead composers. Was that another example of irrational behavior?
I took a yellow cab from the airport to downtown, specifically to the Hyatt Hotel, where I knew the orchestra was staying, and sank into a deep leather armchair in the lobby that faced the entrance. I sat and waited for Caroline to return, and promptly went straight back to sleep.
She woke me by stroking my head and running her hands through my hair.
“Hello, my sleeping beauty,” she said.
“You’re the beautiful one,” I said, slowly opening my eyes.
“I see you’re keeping a good lookout for potential murderers,” she said.
“Don’t even joke about it,” I said. But she was right. Going to sleep in plain view of the hotel entrance and the street beyond was not the most clever thing I had done in the last twenty-four hours if I wanted to stay alive.
“Where are the rest of the orchestra?” I asked.
