by Dick Francis
‘This is no time,’ Jo said laughing, ‘to look sad.’
Seventeen
I flew to New York two days later, still not knowing where to find Malcolm.
The voice at Stamford, Connecticut, always helpful but uninformed, had thought, the previous evening, that the gentlemen might have gone back to Kentucky: they’d been talking of buying a horse that they’d seen there a week earlier. Another horse, not the one they’d bought yesterday.
It was just as well, I thought, that Donald and Helen and Thomas and Berenice and Edwin and Lucy and Vivien and Joyce didn’t know. That Gervase, Ursula, Alicia, Ferdinand, Debs and Serena hadn’t heard. All fourteen of them would have fallen upon Malcolm and torn him apart.
I chose New York for the twin reasons that Stamford, Connecticut, was barely an hour and a halPs drive away (information from the voice) and that everyone should see New York some time. My journeys before that had been only in Europe, to places like Paris, Rome, Athens and Oslo. Beaches and race-meetings and temples. Horses and gods.
I was heading for a hotel on 54th Street, Manhattan, that the voice had recommended: she would tell Mr Pembroke I would be there, as soon as she knew where Mr Pembroke was. It seemed as good an arrangement as any.
Superintendent Yale didn’t know I’d left England, nor did any of the family. I sighed with deep relief on the aeroplane and thought about the visits I’d made the day before to Alicia and Vivien. Neither had wanted to see me and both had been abrasive, Alicia in the morning, Vivien in the afternoon.
Alicia’s flat outside Windsor was spacious and overlooked the Thames, neither of which pleasures seemed to please her. She did reluctantly let me in, but was unplacated by my admiration of her view.
She was, in fact, looking youthfully pretty in a white wool dress and silver beads. Her hair was pulled high in a velvet bow on the crown, and her neat figure spoke of luck or dieting. She had a visitor with her already when I called, a fortyish substantial-looking man introduced coquettishly as Paul, who behaved with unmistakable lordliness, the master in his domain. How long, I wondered, had this been going on?
‘You might have said you were coming,’ Alicia complained. ‘Ferdinand said you would, some time. I told him to tell you not to.’
‘It seemed best to see everyone,’ I said neutrally.
‘Then hurry up,’ she said. ‘We’re going out to lunch.’
‘Did Ferdinand tell you about Malcolm’s new will?’
‘He did, and I don’t believe a word of it. You’ve always been Malcolm’s wretched little pet. He should have sent you back to Joyce when I left. I told him to. But would he listen? No, he wouldn’t.’
‘That was twenty years ago,’ I protested.
‘And nothing’s changed. He does what he likes. He’s utterly selfish.’
Paul listened to the conversation without stirring and with scant apparent interest but he did, it seemed, have his influence. With an arch look at him, Alicia said, ‘Paul says Gervase should force Malcolm to give him power of attorney.’
I couldn’t off-hand think of anything less likely to happen.
‘Have you two known each other long?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Alicia said, and the look she gave Paul was that of a flirt of sixteen.
I asked her if she remembered the tree stump. ‘Of course. I was furious with Malcolm for letting Fred do anything so ridiculous. The boys might have been hurt.’
And did she remember the switches? How could she forget them, she said, they’d been all over the house. Not only that, Thomas had made another one for Serena some time later. It had sat in her room gathering dust. Those clocks had all been a pest.
‘You were good to me in those old days,’ I said.
She stared. There was almost a softening round her eyes, but it was transitory, i had to be,’ she said acidly. ‘Malcolm insisted.’
‘Weren’t you ever happy?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes.’ Her mouth curled in a malicious smile. ‘When Malcolm came to see me, when he was married to Joyce. Before that weaselly detective spoiled it.
I asked her if she had engaged Norman West to find Malcolm in Cambridge.
She looked at me with wide empty eyes and said blandly, ‘No, I didn’t. Why would I want to? I didn’t care where he was.’
‘Almost everyone wanted to find him to stop him spending his money.’
‘He’s insane,’ she said. ‘Paranoid. He should hand control over to Gervase, and make sure that frightful Ursula isn’t included. She’s the wrong wife for Gervase, as I’ve frequently told him.’
‘But you didn’t ask Norman West to find Malcolm?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she said very sharply. ‘Stop asking that stupid question.’ She turned away from me restlessly. ‘It’s high time you went.’
I thought so too, on the whole. I speculated that perhaps the presence of Paul had inhibited her from saying directly to my face the poison she’d been spreading behind my back. They would dissect me when I’d gone. He nodded coolly to me as I left. No friend of mine, I thought.
If my visit to Alicia had been unfruitful, my call on Vivien was less so. Norman West’s notes had been minimal: name, address, sorting magazines, no alibis. She wouldn’t answer any of my questions either, or discuss any possibilities. She said several times that Malcolm was a fiend who was determined to destroy his children, and that I was the devil incarnate helping him. She hoped we would both rot in hell. (I thought devils and fiends might flourish there, actually.)
Meanwhile, I said, had she employed Norman West to find Malcolm in Cambridge? Certainly not. She wanted nothing to do with that terrible little man. If I didn’t remove myself from her doorstep she would call in the police.
It can’t be much fun,’ I said, ‘living with so much hatred in your head.’
She was affronted. ‘What do you mean?’
‘No peace. All anger. Very exhausting. Bad for your health.’
‘Go away,’ she said, and I obliged her.
I drove back to Cookham and spent a good deal of the evening on the telephone, talking to Lucy about Thomas and to Ferdinand about Gervase. ‘We are all our brothers’ keepers,’ Lucy said, and reportedthat Thomas was spending most of the time asleep. ‘Retreating,’ Lucy said.
Lucy had spoken to Berenice. ‘Whatever did you say to her, Ian? She sounds quite different. Subdued. Can’t see it lasting long, can you? I told her Thomas was all right and she started blubbing.’
Lucy said she would keep Thomas for a while, but not for his natural span.
Ferdinand, when he heard my voice, said, ‘Where the hell have you been? All I get is your answering machine. Did you find out who killed Moira?’ There was anxiety, possibly, in his voice.
‘I found out a few who didn’t,’ I said.
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘like you with your computer, I’ve fed in a lot of data.’
‘And the result?’
‘The wheels are turning.’
‘Computers don’t have wheels. Come to think of it, though, I suppose they do. Anyway, you’ve left a whole trail of disasters behind you, haven’t you? I hear Thomas has left Berenice, and as for Gervase, he wants your guts for taking Ursula out to lunch. Did you do that? Whatever for? You know how possessive he is. There’s a hell of a row going on.’
‘If you want to hang on to Debs,’ I said, ‘don’t listen to Alicia.’
‘What the hell’s that got to do with Gervase and Ursula having a row?’ he demanded.
‘Everything.’
He was furious. ‘You’ve always got it in for Alicia.’
‘The other way round. She’s a dedicated troublemaker who’s cost you one wife already.’ He didn’t immediately answer. I said, ‘Gervase is knocking back a fortune in scotch.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘How do you cope so well with illegitimacy?’
‘What?’
‘Everything’s
linked. So long, pal. See you.’ I put the receiver down with a sigh, and ate dinner, and packed.
In the morning, having paid a few bills, I took the hired car to Heathrow and turned it in there and, with a feeling of shackles dropping off, hopped into the air.
* * *
I spent four nights in New York before I found Malcolm; or before he found me, to be more precise.
In daily consultations, the Stamford voice assured me that 1 wasn’t forgotten, that the message would one day get through. I had a vision of native bearers beating through jungles, but it wasn’t like that, it transpired. Malcolm and Ramsey had simply been moving from horse farm to horse farm through deepest Kentucky, and it was from there he finally phoned at eight-ten in the morning.
‘What are you doing in New York?’ he demanded.
‘Looking at skyscrapers,’ I said.
I thought we were meeting in California.’
‘Well, we are,’ I said. ‘When?’
‘What’s today?’
‘Friday.’
‘Hang on.’
I heard him talking in the background, then he returned. ‘We’re just going out to see some horses breeze. Ramsey reserved the rooms from tomorrow through Saturday at the Beverly Wilshire, he says, but he and I are going to spend a few more days here now. You go to California tomorrow and I’ll join you, say, on Wednesday.’
‘Couldn’t you please make it sooner? I do need to talk to you.’
‘Did you find something out?’ His voice suddenly changed gear, as if he’d remembered almost with shock the world of terrors he’d left behind.
‘A few things.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Not on the telephone. Not in a hurry. Go and see the horses breeze and meet me tomorrow.’ I paused. ‘There are horses in California. Thousands of them.’
He was quiet for a few moments, then he said, i owe it to you. I’ll be there,’ and disconnected.
I arranged my air ticket and spent the rest of the day as I’d spent all the others in New York, wandering around, filling eyes and ears with the city… thinking painful private thoughts and coming to dreadful conclusions.
Malcolm kept his word and, to my relief, came without Ramsey who had decided Stamford needed him if Connecticut were to survive. Ramsey, Malcolm said, would be over on Wednesday, we would allhave three days at the races and go to Australia on Saturday night.
He was crackling with energy, the eyes intensely blue. He and Ramsey had bought four more horses in partnership, he said in the first three minutes, and were joining a syndicate to own some others down under.
A forest fire out of control, I thought, and had sympathy for my poor brothers.
The Beverly Wilshire gave us a suite with brilliant red flocked wallpaper in the sitting-room and vivid pink and orange flowers on a turquoise background in the bedrooms. There were ornate crimson curtains, filmy cream inner curtains, a suspicion of lace, an air of Edwardian roguishness brought up to date. Rooms to laugh in, I thought. And with little wrought-iron balconies outside the bowed windows looking down on a pool with a fountain and gardens and orange trees, not much to complain of.
We dined downstairs in a bar that had tables at one end and music, and Malcolm said I looked thinner.
‘Tell me about the horses,’ I said; and heard about them through the smoked salmon, the salad, the veal and the coffee.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, near the beginning. ‘They’re not all as expensive as Blue Clancy and Chrysos. We got all four for under a million dollars, total, and they’re two-year-olds ready to run. Good breeding; the best. One’s by Alydar, even.’
I listened, amused and impressed. He knew the breeding of all his purchases back three generations, and phrases like ‘won a stakes race’ and ‘his dam’s already produced Group I winners’ came off his tongue as if he’d been saying them all his life.
‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ I said eventually.
‘I won’t know until you ask.’
‘No… urn… just how rich are you?’
He laughed. ‘Did Joyce put you up to that question?’
‘No. I wanted to know for myself.’
‘Hm.’ He thought. ‘I can’t tell you to the nearest million. It changes every day. At a rough estimate, about a hundred million pounds. It would grow now of its own accord at the rate of five million a year if I never lifted a finger again, but you know me, that would be boring, I’d be dead in a month.’
‘After tax?’ I said.
‘Sure.’ He smiled. ‘Capital gains tax usually. I’ve spent a year’s investment income after tax on the horses, that’s all. Not as much asthat on all those other projects that the family were going bananas about. I’m not raving mad. There’ll be plenty for everyone when I pop off. More than there is now. I just have to live longer. You tell them that.’
I told them you’d said in your will that if you were murdered, it would all go to charity.’
‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
‘Did you think any more of letting the family have some of the lucre before you… er… pop off?’
‘You know my views on that.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘And you don’t approve.’
‘I don’t disapprove in theory. The trust funds were generous when they were set up. Many fathers don’t do as much. But your children aren’t perfect and some of them have got into messes. If someone were bleeding, would you buy them a bandage?’
He sat back in his chair and stared moodily at his coffee.
‘Have they sent you here to plead for them?’ he asked.
‘No. I’ll tell you what’s been happening, then you can do what you like.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, ‘but not tonight.’
‘All right.’ I paused. ‘I won a race at Kempton, did you know?’
‘Did you really?’ He was instantly alive with interest, asking for every detail. He didn’t want to hear about his squabbling family with its latent murderer. He was tired of being vilified while at the same time badgered to be bountiful. He felt safe in California although he had, I’d been interested to discover, signed us into the hotel as Watson and Watson.
‘Well, you never know, do you?’ he’d said. ‘It may say in the British papers that Blue Clancy’s coming over, and Ramsey says this hotel is the centre for the Breeders’ Cup organisers. They’re having reception rooms here, and buffets. By Wednesday, he says, this place will be teeming with the international racing crowd. So where, if someone wanted to find me, do you think they’d look first?’
I think Norman West gave us good advice.’
‘So do I.’
The Watsons, father and son, breakfasted the following morning out in the warm air by the pool, sitting in white chairs beside a whitetable under a yellow sun umbrella, watching the oranges ripen amid dark green leaves, talking of horrors.
I asked him casually enough if he remembered Fred and the tree roots.
‘Of course I do,’ he said at once. ‘Bloody fool could have killed himself.’ He frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with the bomb at Quantum?’
‘Superintendent Yale thinks it may have given someone the idea.’
He considered it. ‘I suppose it might.’
‘The superintendent, or some of his men, asked old Fred what he’d used to set off the cordite…’ I told Malcolm about the cordite still lying around in the tool shed’… and Fred said he had some detonators, but after that first bang, you came out and took them away.’
‘Good Lord, I’d forgotten that. Yes, so I did. You were all there, weren’t you? Pretty well the whole family?’
‘Yes, it was one of those weekends. Helen says it was the first time she met you, she was there too, before she was married to Donald.’
He thought back, i don’t remember that. I just remember there being a lot of you.’
‘The superintendent wonders if you remember what happened to the detonators after you’d taken them away.�
�
He stared. ‘It’s twenty years ago, must be,’ he protested.
‘It might be the sort of thing you wouldn’t forget.’
He shook his head doubtfully.
‘Did you turn them over to the police?’
‘No.’ He was definite about that, anyway. ‘Old Fred had no business to have them, but I wouldn’t have got him into trouble, or the friend he got them from, either. I’ll bet they were nicked.’
‘Do you remember what they looked like?’ I asked.
‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’ He frowned, thinking, pouring out more coffee. ‘There was a row of them in a tin, laid out carefully in cotton wool so that they shouldn’t roll about. Small silverish tubes, about two and a half inches long.’
‘Fred says they had instructions with them.’
He laughed. ‘Did he? A do-it-yourself bomb kit?’ He sobered suddenly. ‘I suppose it was just that. I don’t remember the instructions, but I dare say they were there.’
‘You did realise they were dangerous, didn’t you?’
I probably did, but all those years ago ordinary people didn’tknow so much about bombs. I mean, not terrorist bombs. We’d been bombed from the air, but that was different. I should think I took the detonators away from Fred so he shouldn’t set off any more explosions, not because they were dangerous in themselves, if you see what I mean?’
‘Mm. But you did know you shouldn’t drop them?’
‘You mean if I’d dropped them, I wouldn’t be here talking about it?’
‘According to the explosives expert working at Quantum, quite likely not.’
‘I never worked with explosives, being an adjutant.’ He buttered a piece of croissant, added marmalade and ate it. His service as a young officer in his war had been spent in arranging details of troop movements and as assistant to camp commanders, often near enough to the enemy but not seeing the whites of their eyes. He never spoke of it much: it had been history before I was born.
‘I remembered where the cordite was, even after all this time,’ 1 said. ‘If you imagine yourself going into the house with this tin of detonators, where would you be likely to put it? You’d put it where you would think of looking for it first, wouldn’t you?’
