Dick Francis & Felix Francis

by Crossfire

  I unfolded my phone and showed her as I pushed the number nine key three times in a row, the emergency number. The phone obligingly emitted a beep each time I pressed it. I then held the phone to my ear. She wasn’t to know that I hadn’t also pressed the connect button.

  “Hello,” I said into the dead phone. “Police, please.” I smiled down at Julie. “This is your last chance,” I said.

  “All right,” she shouted. “All right. I’ll tell you.”

  “Sorry,” I said again into the dead phone. “There’s been a mistake. All is well now. Thank you.” I folded my phone together.

  “So who is it?” I asked.

  She said nothing.

  “Come on,” I said, unfolding the phone again. “Tell me. Who do you give the blackmail money to?”

  “Alex Reece,” she said slowly.

  “What?” I said, astounded. “The weasel accountant?”

  “Alex is not a weasel,” she said defensively. “He’s lovely.”

  I thought back to the hours I had spent chained to a wall, and I couldn’t agree with her. “So was it you and Alex Reece who chained me to a wall to die?” I was suddenly very angry, and it showed.

  “No,” she said. “Of course not. What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you leaving me to die of dehydration.”

  She was shocked. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Told you that he’d come back and let me go, did he?” I asked, my anger still very close to the surface.

  “He didn’t tell me anything of the sort,” she said.

  “But you did help him to kidnap me?” I shouted at her.

  “Tom, stop it,” she pleaded. “You’re frightening me. And I really don’t know what you are talking about. I have never kidnapped anyone in my life, and I’ve certainly never chained anyone to anything. I promise.”

  “Why should I believe you?” I asked. But I had seen the fear in her eyes, and I did believe her. But if she hadn’t helped kidnap and chain me to a wall, who had?

  Or could Alex Reece, my mother’s blackmailer, really not be the same person as my would-be murderer?

  There was very little else that Julie had to tell me. She collected the package from the mailbox shop in Newbury only when Alex Reece was unable to do so, and she didn’t even know how much money was in it. When we finally went downstairs to her kitchen and she took the package from her handbag, she could hardly believe her eyes when I removed the two thousand pounds.

  “It’s no game,” I told her. “Two thousand every week is no game.”

  “But she can afford it,” Julie said, defiantly.

  “No, she can’t. And why would that make any difference, even if she could?”

  “Alex says it’s just redistributing the wealth,” she said.

  “And that makes it all right, does it?” She said nothing. “Suppose I just steal your brand-new BMW to ‘redistribute the wealth.’ Is that then OK with you? Or do you call the cops?”

  “Alex says—” she started.

  “I don’t care what Alex says,” I shouted, cutting her off. “Alex is nothing more than a common thief, and he clearly saw you coming. And the sooner you realize it, the better it will be for you. Or else you’ll be in the dock with him, and then in prison.”

  And now, I thought, it was time for me to meet again with Mr. Alex Reece, and I had absolutely no intention of letting him see me coming.

  “When and where are you meant to give this package to Reece?” I asked.

  “He gets back tomorrow.”

  “From where?” I asked.

  “Gibraltar,” she said. “He went there with the Garraways on Tuesday.”

  So it couldn’t have been him who unlocked the gates of Greystone Stables on Thursday evening.

  “So when are you meant to give him the package?” I demanded.

  She clearly didn’t want to tell me, but I stood next to her, drumming my fingers noisily on the kitchen worktop. “He said to bring it to Newbury on Monday,” she said eventually.

  “Where in Newbury?”

  “There’s a coffee shop in Cheap Street,” she said. “That’s where we always meet on Friday mornings. Except this week, of course, when he was away.”

  Thank goodness for that, I thought.

  “So are you meeting him at the coffee shop on Monday?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “At ten-thirty.”

  It was far too public a place for what I wanted to do to him.

  “Change it,” I said. “Get him to collect it from here.”

  “Oh no. He won’t ever come here. He refuses to.”

  “So where else do you two get together?” I didn’t think a cup of coffee or two in Newbury would be quite sufficient to satisfy her other cravings.

  “At his place,” she said, blushing slightly.

  “Which is where?” I asked impatiently.

  “Greenham,” she said.

  Greenham was a village that had almost been consumed by the ever-expanding sprawl of Newbury town. It was most famous for its common, and the U.S. cruise missiles that had been based there at the height of the Cold War. Everyone in these parts knew of Greenham Common, and remembered the peace camps erected by antinuclear protesters.

  “Where in Greenham?” I demanded.

  “What are you going to do to him?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “As long as he cooperates.”

  “Cooperates how?” she asked.

  “If he gives me my mother’s money back, then I’ll let him go.”

  I’d also take her tax papers.

  “And if he doesn’t?” she asked.

  “Then I’ll persuade him,” I said, smiling.

  “How?” she said. “Will you take photos of him naked too?”

  “I doubt that,” I said. “But I’ll think of something.”

  Blitzkrieg is a German word that means “lightning war.” It was used to describe the attacks on Poland, France and the Low Countries by the Nazis. Unlike the war of attrition that had existed for mile after hundred-mile of trenches in Flanders during World War I, blitzkrieg was the surprise and overwhelming attack on just a few points in the enemy’s line. An attack that drove straight through to the heart of political power almost before any of the defenders had had a chance to react.

  The blitzkrieg unleashed by the German forces on Poland had started on the first day of September 1939, and within a week, Wehrmacht tanks and troops were in the suburbs of Warsaw, nearly two hundred miles from their starting point. The whole of Poland had capitulated within five weeks at a cost of only ten thousand Germans killed. Compare that to the advance of only six miles gained in four and a half months by British and French troops at the Battle of the Somme, and at a cost of more than six hundred thousand dead and wounded on each side.

  So if the past had taught the modern soldier anything, then it was that blitzkrieg-like “shock and awe” was the key to victory in battle, and I had every intention of creating some shock and awe in the life of one Alex Reece.

  15

  Bush Close in Greenham was full of those ubiquitous modern little box houses, and number sixteen, Alex Reece’s home, was one at the far end of the cul-de-sac.

  It was late Saturday afternoon, and I had left Julie Yorke in a state of near collapse. I had merely suggested to her that to have any contact whatsoever with Alex Reece in the next thirty-six hours, in person, by e-mail or by phone, would be reason enough for me to send the explicit photographs to her husband, in addition to posting them on my new Facebook page on the Internet.

  She had begged me to delete the pictures from my camera, but as I had pointed out, it was she and Alex who had started this blackmail business, and they really couldn’t now complain if they were receiving a bit of their own medicine.

  I had parked Ian Norland’s car out on Water Lane in Greenham and had walked around the corner into Bush Close. I was carrying a pile of free newspapers that I had picked up at
a petrol station, and I walked down the road, pushing one of them through every letter box. The houses were not identical, but they were similar, and number sixteen had the same style of plastic-framed front door as all the others.

  “What time does Alex get back?” I had asked Julie.

  “His plane lands at Heathrow at six-twenty tomorrow evening.”

  “And how does he get home to Greenham?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  I lingered for a moment outside the front door of number sixteen and adjusted the pile of remaining newspapers. I glanced around, looking for suitable hiding places, but the short driveway was bordered by nothing but grass. I looked to see which of the other houses had a direct line of sight to the front door of number sixteen, set back as it was beside the single garage.

  Only number fifteen, opposite, had an unobstructed view.

  I walked away from number sixteen and pushed newspapers through the front doors of a few more houses, including the one opposite, before moving off down the road, back towards Ian’s car. However, instead of immediately driving away, I walked through a gateway and into the adjacent field. Alex Reece’s house, together with all the other even-numbered houses in Bush Close, backed onto farmland, and I spent some time carefully reconnoitering the whole area.

  I looked at my watch. It was just after five-thirty, and the light was beginning to fade rapidly.

  Alex Reece couldn’t possibly be back here the following evening until eight o’clock at the earliest, and it would probably be nearer to nine if he had to collect luggage at the airport. And that was assuming his flight landed on time. By eight o’clock, of course, it would have been fully dark for hours.

  Keeping in the shadows of some trees, I skirted around the backs of the gardens in Bush Close until I arrived at number sixteen. There were lights on in the kitchen of number fourteen next door, and I could see a man and a woman in there talking. That was good, I thought. No one can see outside at dusk when they have the lights on inside, due to the reflection in the window glass, and especially when they are busy talking. There was little or no chance that they could see me watching them.

  I quickly rolled my body over the low back fence and into Alex Reece’s garden. It was mostly simply laid to grass, with no tangly flower beds or thorny rosebushes to worry about.

  I moved silently to the back of the garage and looked in. Even in the fast disappearing light I could see the shiny shape of a car in there. So Mr. Reece would probably arrive home by taxi, either direct from the airport or from the railway station in Newbury.

  And I’d be waiting for him.

  Did we win?” I asked Ian, as I walked in through his door at seven o’clock.

  “Win what?” he said, without taking his eyes off the television screen.

  “Oregon,” I said, “in the race at Haydock.”

  “Trotted up,” he said, still not turning around. “Won by six lengths. Reckon he’ll be hard to beat in the Triumph.”

  “Good,” I said to the back of his head. “What are you watching?”

  “Just some TV talent show.”

  “Have you eaten?” I asked.

  “Had a pizza for lunch,” he said. “From the freezer. One of them you bought yesterday. But I didn’t have that until after the race. I was too nervous to eat before.”

  “So are you hungry?”

  “Not really. Not yet. Maybe I’ll have Chinese later.”

  “Great idea,” I said. “I’ll buy.”

  He turned around and smiled, and I guessed that was what he was hoping I’d say.

  “How long are you staying?” he asked, turning back to the screen.

  “I’ll find somewhere else if you want,” I said. “You know the houseguests and the three-day-smell rule, and my time is up tonight.”

  “Stay as long as you like,” he said. “I’m enjoying the company.”

  And the free food, I thought, perhaps ungraciously.

  “I’ll stay another day or two, if that’s all right.”

  “As I said, stay as long as you want, if you don’t mind the couch.”

  I didn’t. It was a lot more comfortable than some of the places I’d slept, and warmer too.

  “Can I borrow your car again tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Sorry, mate. I need it,” he said. “I’m going to Sunday lunch with my folks.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “Near Banbury,” he said.

  “So what time will you be back?” I asked.

  “It’ll be before five,” he said. “Evening stables are at five on Sundays.”

  “Can I borrow the car after that?”

  “Sure,” he said. “But it might need more petrol by then.”

  “OK,” I said. “I’ll fill it up.”

  I could tell he was smiling, even though he didn’t turn around. Why didn’t he just ask me to pay for the use of his car? I suppose it was a little game.

  I could have gone to fetch my Jaguar, but it was a very distinctive car, and I wasn’t particularly keen to advertise my whereabouts to anyone. Ian’s little Corsa was far more anonymous. I just hoped my Jaguar was still sitting in the parking lot in Oxford, awaiting my return.

  I spent Sunday morning making my plans and sorting my kit. I had been back into Kauri House on Saturday afternoon after leaving Julie Yorke, and before my excursion to Greenham.

  The house had been empty, save for the dogs, who had watched me idly and unconcerned as I’d passed through the kitchen, stepping over their beds in front of the Aga. My mother and stepfather had been safely away at Haydock races, but nevertheless, I had remained in the house for only fifteen or twenty minutes, just time enough to have a quick shower and collect a few things from my room.

  I did not really want my mother coming back unexpectedly and finding me there. It was not because I didn’t trust her not to give away my presence, even unwittingly, it was more that I didn’t want to have to explain to her what I was going to do. She probably wouldn’t have approved, so it was much better that she didn’t know beforehand, if ever.

  Ian left for his Sunday lunch trip at eleven, promising that he would be back in time to start work at five.

  After I was sure Ian wasn’t going to come back, I sorted the equipment I would need for my mission. Bits of it I had owned previously, but some things I’d driven into Newbury to buy specifically the previous afternoon on my way to Greenham.

  I laid out my black roll-necked pullover, a pair of old, dark navy blue jeans, some dark socks, a black knitted ski hat and some matching gloves that I’d bought from the sports shop in Market Street, where I’d also obtained a pair of all-black Converse basketball boots.

  Next to the clothes I placed the rest of my kit: a small dark blue rucksack, some black heavy-duty garden ties similar to those that had been used to bind my wrists in the stables, a small red first-aid kit, three six-by-four-inch prints of the mailbox-shop photos, a certain metal ring with a piece of galvanized steel chain attached to it by a padlock, my camera and, finally, a roll of gray duct tape.

  There is a saying in every organization of the world, either military or civilian, that if something doesn’t move when it should, use WD-40, and if it moves when it shouldn’t, use duct tape. Originally designed during the Second World War to keep gun magazines and ammunition boxes watertight in jungle conditions, duct tape has since become the must-have item for each and every mission. It was even used to fix a fender on the Apollo 17 Lunar Rover when it was broken on the moon, as well as making the circular CO2 scrubbers “fit” square holes to save the lives of the crew of the stricken Apollo 13.

  I had decided against taking my sword. I would have loved to have had a weapon of some kind, if only for the shock value, but the sword was impractical and cumbersome. A regulation-issue Browning nine-millimeter sidearm would have been my weapon of choice, but I could hardly run around the English countryside brandishing an illegal firearm, even if I’d had one. In the end, I also elected not to borrow one
of Ian’s kitchen knives.

  It was not as if I intended to kill anyone. Not yet anyway.

  At ten minutes to eight I was in position alongside Alex Reece’s house, on the dark side, away from the glow from the solitary streetlamp outside number twelve, two houses down.

  I had already made a thorough reconnaissance of the area, including a special look at number fifteen, the house opposite, the one with a direct view of Alex Reece’s front door. As far as I could tell, the house was unoccupied, but that might be temporary. Maybe the residents were just out for the afternoon.

  Most of the other houses, including number fourteen next door, had people going about their usual Sunday-evening activities. I was actually amazed at how few of the residents of Bush Close pulled their curtains, especially at the back. Not that they would usually expect anyone to be lurking in a field, spying on them as they watched their televisions or read their books.

  Eight o’clock came and went, and I continued to wait. A fine drizzle began to fall, but that didn’t worry me. Rain was likely to keep the other residents inside. I had been unable to tell if any of them had a dog to walk.

  At eight-eighteen a car pulled into Bush Close and drove down to the end. I was all ready for action with the adrenaline rushing through my system, but the car pulled into the driveway of number fifteen, opposite, and a couple and two young children climbed out. I breathed heavily, calming myself down, and put the surprise “jack” back in his box.

  I stood silently in the shadows. I was pretty sure that no one would be able to see me, although I could see them clearly, the more so when the man turned on an outside light next to their front door. I was close to the wall, and I remained completely still.

  It was movement more than anything that gave people away, caught in peripheral vision and attracting immediate attention. My dark clothes would blend into the blackness of the background; only my face might be visible, and that was streaked with homemade mud-based camouflage cream to break up the familiar shape.