by Dick Francis
“Yes.”
“Most viruses are spread by accident, like AIDS.”
“How long can they lie dormant?”
“You could have a virus quite a long time before it was triggered into life.” His eyes held all the sad knowledge of his generation. “You have to take precautions.”
I told him I wished we’d known him sooner and mentioned the name of the firm we had dealt with in the past.
He laughed. “Half the computers they sold were awash with viruses. They used infected diagnostic disks themselves and they used to rewrap vermin-ridden disks that people had returned to them in anger and sell them again to the great unsuspecting public. They vanished overnight because they knew March 6 would mean an army of furious customers suing their pants off. Even though March 6 was Sunday, we’ve dozens of cases like yours to clean up this week. Not our own customers, but theirs.”
Isobel looked shocked. “But they were always so nice and helpful, coming out here whenever we needed them.”
“And feeding in programs that would keep you needing them, I shouldn’t wonder,” the expert said with only half-disguised admiration.
“If you do that to me,” I said pleasantly, “your pants will be off for life.”
He regarded me thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t,” he said, and added, as if safeguarding himself from future accusations of which he would be innocent, “don’t forget the commonest reason for losing all files is pilot error. I mean, you can wipe everything off the hard disk just by typing DEL for Delete, followed by a Directory identification.”
We looked blank.
He said to Isobel, “Suppose you typed DEL star full stop star, that’s all it would take. Just as effective as Michelangelo. You’d lose everything forever.”
“No!” She was horrified, predictably.
“Yes.” He smiled. “But people who write viruses see no fun in that.”
“But why?” Isobel asked, unhappily wailing. “Why do people want to write viruses to cause such trouble?”
“To show off,” I said.
The expert’s eyes widened. He didn’t overmuch care for that assessment, I thought. He tended too much to admire the expertise, not despise the self-indulgence.
“Well,” he said slowly, “it’s true a lot of virus-writers sign their names into the programs. There’s one called Eddie, he’s invented several.”
“Just put us back in business,” I interrupted, tiring suddenly of the whole subject. “Keep us clean from now on with regular checks. We’ll work out a maintenance agreement.”
“Delighted,” he said, the hand doing double time through the hair. “You’ll be up and running by tomorrow.”
I left him preparing to go while writing a list (expensive) of what we would need, and went along to my office to telephone the makers of my safe.
“An ax?” they exclaimed, shocked. “Are you sure?”
“I need the safe opened,” I confirmed. “What can you do and how soon?”
They gave me the phone number of their nearest agent. The nearest agent would no doubt send a locksmith to look-see. Thank you, I said.
The nearest agent sounded unenthusiastic and doubtfully suggested a visit the following week.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
There was a sharp intake of breath. I could imagine the pursed lips, the judicial shaking of the head. Possibly Friday afternoon, they said. Possibly. As a great favor they might manage it.
I put the phone down reflecting that if I myself let that sort of general backpedaling unwillingness creep into responses to requests for my services, I’d be twiddling my thumbs in no time. Not only did I myself drive anywhere anytime if I had no other driver available, but often at five minutes’ notice I’d hire an extra horse van from a rival so as not to turn work down. I’d almost never been unable to get wheels out on the road. It was a matter of pride, of course, but the sort of pride that got things done.
Aziz came into the office to collect the keys of the Fourtrak in order to drive Lizzie to Heathrow. I handed them to him and reflexively asked him to drive her carefully.
“Slow down for roundabouts?” he asked, eyes brilliant.
“Oh, God.” I felt like laughing for the first time that morning. “Yeah. Get her to the shuttle on time.”
When he’d gone I sat for a while thinking of this and that, and then I phoned the computer expert again. He answered at once, reporting contentedly that he was fixing yet another Michelangelo casualty and assuring me he’d be back with us tomorrow morning.
“Fine,” I said, “but . . . er . . . could you answer a question?”
“Fire away.”
I said, “Can you change the date in the computer? Could you change its internal clock so that March 6 in the computer wouldn’t turn up at all? Could you change March 6 to March 7?”
“Sure,” he said readily. “It’s a well-known way of avoiding March 6. Switch the clock forward to March 7, then switch it back to the right date a couple of days later. Easy, if you know what you’re doing.”
“And . . . you could advance or retard March 6 so that it activated on the actual March 5 or on the actual March 7?”
“Yes.” A pause. “That would be positive malice. You’d have to know the virus was in there.”
“But it would be possible? Possible to change the hours, too?”
“Yes.”
“How long would it take you to change the clock?”
“Me personally? Say a minute, maximum.”
“And if I did it myself?”
“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “if someone wrote down for you exactly what to do, step by step, or if you had an instruction book, you’d have to allow maybe five minutes of privacy, because you’d have to concentrate.” He paused again. “Do you seriously think someone changed your clock? Because it’s set to the right date and time now, I’ll tell you.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just asked.”
“Anytime,” he replied. “So long. See you tomorrow.”
I was fighting shadows, I thought. Seeing villains behind every bush. The great probability was that my computer, like so many others, had accidentally crashed. And if it hadn’t . . . then somewhere in its records there must be information I needed for unlocking surrounding mysteries. Information that some foe or other must know I possessed.
To destroy the records it was easiest to type DEL star full stop star. Yet to do that one had to be present, and the disk failure would be instantaneous. Changing the computer’s clock to activate Michelangelo meant that any future hour could be chosen, like a time bomb going off.
Sandy Smith drove his police car into the farmyard and parked it outside the office window. He came in to join me, taking off his peaked cap and sitting, uninvited but welcome, in the chair across from mine.
“Jogger’s inquest,” he said, wiping his forehead.
“How did it go?”
He shrugged. “Opened and adjourned, like I said. I identified him. Bruce Farway gave evidence of death. The coroner looked at the photos and he’d read the postmortem report. He adjourned pending further inquiries.” Sandy sighed deeply. “I’d better warn you he wasn’t happy. I heard it said that Jogger died from crushing and dislocation of the atlas and that there were particles of rust embedded in his skin at the site of the injury.”
“Rust!” I repeated, not liking it.
“There must be rust round the edges of your inspection pit,” Sandy said.
“I hope to God there is.”
We looked at each other blankly, still not wanting to put the obvious surmise into words.
Sandy said, “The postmortem put his time of death at about noon.”
“Did it?”
“There will be a lot of inquiries.”
I nodded.
“They’ll want to know what you were doing at the time,” Sandy said. “They’re bound to ask.”
Picking flowers, putting them on my parents’ grave and driving to Maudie Watermead’s
lunch. Not brilliant, as alibis went.
“Let’s go along to the pub for a drink,” I suggested.
“I can’t.” He looked a shade scandalized. “I’m on duty.”
“We could drink Coke,” I said. “I have to go and settle up for Jogger’s memorial.”
“Oh.” Sandy’s face looked relieved. “All right, then.”
“Can we go in your car? My Fourtrak’s out on an errand.”
He was reluctant to take me and uncomfortable in his refusal.
“Don’t worry, Sandy,” I said, tiredly teasing him. “I won’t compromise you. I’ll drive Jogger’s old van. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
He did want to, however. We drove in convoy to Jogger’s boozer and I gave the landlord a heavy check. The landlord was well pleased with the trade and had done his best with the signatures, which filled a sheet of paper the size of a tabloid newspaper and were accompanied by encouraging comments. “Poor old Jogger, jogged his last.” “Up the apples and pears to the pearlies. Go for it, Jog.”
“Upstairs to the pearly gates,” Sandy interpreted, reading with me.
“ ‘Gone to the great oil change in the sky,’ ” the landlord said, pointing. “That’s mine.”
“Most appropriate,” I assured him.
Half of Pixhill seemed to have signed their names but unfortunately all over the place, not in the tidy columns I’d envisaged. Most of my drivers were there, including Lewis, who had been in France collecting Michael’s two-year-olds on that Saturday night. I commented on it. The landlord agreed that more people had signed the memorial than had been with Jogger on his last evening. “They wanted to pay their respects,” he explained.
“And to drink the free beer,” Sandy said.
“Well . . . old Jogger was a good mate.”
“Mm,” I agreed. “So which of these people were actually here on Saturday? Sandy, you were here. You’ll know.”
“I was off duty,” he protested.
“Your eyes were still working.”
Sandy looked at the crowded names and pointed out a few with a stubby finger.
“Of your drivers, Dave definitely, he pretty well lives here. Also Phil and his missus, and Nigel who was chatting her up to Phil’s disgust, and Harve looked in. And Brett, the one who drove that dead man, Ogden, he was there definitely, even though he was supposed to have left Pixhill. He was grousing about you having got shot of him.”
His gaze moved over the names.
“Bruce Farway! He’s signed it. I didn’t see him here.”
“The doctor?” The landlord nodded. “He often comes in with those book people who sit in that far corner putting the world to rights. He drinks Aqua Libra.” He concentrated on the sheet, reading upside down. “A whole bunch of Watermead’s lads were here and some from half the stables in Pixhill. That new lady, Mrs. English, some of her lads came. New faces. Not a bad bunch. And John Tigwood, he’s always in and out with those collecting boxes. And Watermead’s son and daughter, they were here Saturday, but they haven’t been in since so their names aren’t down, see?”
I asked, surprised, “Do you mean Tessa and Ed?”
“Aye.”
“But they’re underage,” Sandy said pompously. “They’re not eighteen.”
The landlord took mild offense. “I’d only serve them soft drinks. They both like Diet Coke.” He glanced at me slyly. “She likes that Nigel, too. That driver of yours.”
“Does he encourage her?” I asked.
The landlord laughed. “He encourages anything with tits.”
“You’ll be in trouble serving them without an adult,” Sandy said.
“She said Nigel was buying.”
“You’ll be in trouble,” Sandy repeated.
“They didn’t stay long,” the landlord said defensively.
“They’d probably gone before you got here.” He sniffed. “I daresay some of those lads aren’t eighteen either, if the truth be told.”
“You be careful,” Sandy warned. “You can lose your license faster than blink.”
“How early did Jogger get drunk?” I asked.
“I don’t serve drunks,” the landlord said virtuously. Sandy snorted.
“How early, then,” I rephrased it, “did Jogger start talking about aliens, little green men and lone rangers?”
“He was here from six o’clock until Sandy drove him home,” the landlord said.
“What rate of pints per hour?”
“Two at least,” Sandy said. “Jogger could knock ’em back with the best.”
“He wasn’t drunk,” the landlord maintained. “Maybe not fit to drive his van, but not drunk.”
“Reeling a bit,” Sandy said. “He was on about the aliens before I got here at eight or thereabouts. And telling the world, he was, about Poland having five on a horse last summer.”
“Why?” the landlord asked me. “What does it matter?”
“Yes,” Sandy said, “and what did Jogger mean?”
“Heaven knows.”
“Jogger knows in heaven.” The landlord was delighted with his own wit. “Hear that? Jogger knows in heaven.”
“Very good,” Sandy said heavily.
“Did anything else happen?” I asked. “Who stole the tools out of his van?”
The landlord said he hadn’t a clue.
“Dave told Jogger to shut up,” Sandy said.
“What?”
“Jogger was getting on his nerves. Jogger just laughed so Dave took a swipe at him.”
The landlord nodded. “He knocked Jogger’s drink over.”
“He hit Jogger?” I said, astonished. Jogger, because of his fancy footwork, had been instinctively quick on his feet.
“He missed him,” Sandy said. “You have to get up early to hit Jogger.”
We all listened in silence to what he’d just said.
“Yes, well . . .” Sandy said, stirring. “Time I reported back on duty. Are you staying, Freddie?”
“Nope.”
I followed him out, leaving the memorial with the landlord for framing and hanging on the wall.
“That Tessa,” Sandy said, putting on his official hat, “she’s a wild one. Not high-spirited, I don’t mean. I mean, well, borderline delinquent. I’d not be surprised if she ends up in court.”
I thought he exaggerated, but I took his estimation seriously. He spent his life with minor offenders: every local bobby did in villages, but he was particularly good at prevention as opposed to retribution. “I don’t suppose you could warn Michael Watermead, could you?” he asked.
“Difficult.”
“Try,” he said. “Save Mrs. Watermead’s tears.”
I was startled by his imagery. “OK,” I said.
“Good.”
“Sandy . . .”
He stopped in midstep. “Yes?”
“If someone killed Jogger . . . if he didn’t just fall . . . well, catch the bugger.”
He listened to the commitment in my voice. “And catch the bugger who took you to Southampton? Catch the bugger who smashed your car and your house and your sister’s little wings?”
“If it’s possible.”
“But you don’t trust my colleagues. You don’t help them.”
“If they treated me as an ally, not a suspect, we’d get on better.”
“It’s just their way.”
We looked at each other peacefully, longtime friends up to a point. Alone together, we’d have been allies in any investigation. With his colleagues taking charge, the professional fence rose between us like dragons’ teeth. No-man’s-land would keep him loyally in the opposing trenches, though surreptitiously he might send me semaphore messages. I’d have to settle for that. So would he.
I drove Jogger’s old truck back to the farmyard and parked it again beside the barn. Its two rear doors were still unlocked and inside there was still nothing but some reddish gray dust. I drove my fingers through the dust and looked at them, not in the least
happy with what I saw. The reddish particles among the gray were, to the unmagnified eye, suspiciously like rust.
Brushing the dust off my fingers, I went into the barn and stood looking at the floor there, especially at the edges of the pit. There was grease in plenty, and general dirt. There would certainly be rust embedded in it. Steel and damp weather infallibly shed ferric oxide. Rust would be there.
All the same, in memory I surveyed Jogger’s lost tools; the old slider, the sharp ax, the jumbled small wrenches, the loops of wire . . . all those, and the tire iron. An old strong tire iron, as long as one’s arm. Ferrous metal, a wide-open invitation to rust.
I walked back to my office and wondered how much of my hovering nausea was due to the blow on my own head or the imagined scrunch of a rusty tire iron into Jogger’s.
You’d have to get up early to hit Jogger . . .
He’d died about noon in broad daylight.
It had to have been an accident. I didn’t want him to have died simply because he’d worked for me. I could deal with attacks on myself. I didn’t want to bear the guilt of someone else’s death.
Aziz came back from Heathrow, his irrepressible good spirits hovering in a liquid smile even while he commiserated with me over the Jaguar.
“It can’t have been easy to get a car to run at that speed into a helicopter. Not on flatland. Not without risking your neck.”
“That’s no comfort,” I pointed out.
“I took a quick decko into the wreck,” he said, bright-eyed. “I’d say the accelerator pedal was wedged down with a brick.”
“A brick?” I haven’t any bricks.”
“What’s a brick doing there, then?”
I shook my head.
“You’d have to be nippy,” he said. “You’d have only seconds to get clear once you’d got up enough speed.”
“It has automatic gears,” I said thoughtfully. “It sets . . . set . . . off slowly, left to itself.”
He nodded happily. “Nice little problem.”
“How would you solve it, then?”
He had already been thinking about it, as he answered without hesitation, “I’d wind down the driver’s window, for a start. I’d have a brick lashed to one end of a stick with the other end through the window. I’d slide into the driver’s seat, start the engine, put the gear lever in drive, slide out again at slow speed and shut the door, then through the window I’d push the accelerator down hard with the brick and jump away just before impact.” He grinned. “Mind you, it would take nerve. And you’d have to start a good way back from the helicopter to get up enough speed for that amount of damage. You’d have to be running by the end.”
