by Dick Francis
She pulled up outside the red-brick station building as I struggled through the narrow doorway with my suitcase and the crutches. I tossed the suitcase onto the back seat of her car and climbed into the passenger seat. Eleanor leaned over and gave me a kiss.
‘Where to?’ she said, driving away.
‘Oxford,’ I said.
One of the good things about having a room in an ex-prison was that it was just as difficult to break into as it had once been to break out of. My room at the hotel was as safe a place as I could think of to spend the weekend, especially as the cell-door locks were now controlled by the person on the inside.
I made Eleanor drive twice round the roundabout where the A34 crosses the M4 but, if there was someone tailing us, I couldn’t see them.
‘Do you really think that someone would have come to Lambourn looking for me?’ asked Eleanor.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do. I think these people will stop at nothing. It’s no longer about Steve Mitchell any more, it’s to do with them not getting convicted for the murder of Scot Barlow. Once you’ve killed one person, it’s much easier to kill again.’
I’d once been assured by one cold-bloodied client, following his well-deserved conviction for a string of murders, that, after the first couple, it had been as easy as stepping on a spider.
For the rest of the journey Eleanor spent almost as much time looking in the rear-view mirror as she did watching the road in front, but we made it to the hotel safely without hitting anything, and also without seeing anyone tailing us.
As we pulled up at the hotel entrance, Eleanor’s phone rang.
‘Hello,’ she said, pushing the button. She listened for a few moments. ‘Suzie, hold on a minute.’ She put her hand over the microphone and turned to me. ‘It’s Suzie, one of the other vets at the hospital. Seems a young man has turned up there asking for me, says he’s my younger brother.’
‘And is he?’ I asked her.
‘I’m an only child,’ she said.
‘Does the young man know that Suzie is making this call?’ I asked.
Eleanor spoke into the phone, asked the question and listened for a moment.
‘No,’ she said. ‘The young man has talked his way up into my room and is waiting there. Suzie is downstairs.’
‘Let me talk to her,’ I said.
Eleanor spoke again into the phone and then handed it to me. I tossed my own phone at Eleanor. ‘Call the police,’ I said to her. ‘Tell them there’s an intruder in the house there with a girl on her own.’ That should bring them coming with the sirens blazing.
‘Suzie,’ I said into Eleanor’s phone. ‘This is Geoffrey Mason, I’m a friend of Eleanor’s.’
‘I know,’ she said, laughing. ‘She’s talked of nothing else for weeks.’
‘Are you there on your own?’ I asked her, cutting off her laughter.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Except for him upstairs. The others have gone down the pub, but I didn’t feel up to it.’
‘Suzie, this is a serious situation,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to alarm you too much, but the young man is not Eleanor’s younger brother. She doesn’t have any brothers. And I fear he could be dangerous.’
There was silence from the other end of the line.
I went on. ‘Eleanor is talking to the police now.’
‘Oh God!’ she said shakily.
‘Suzie,’ I said urgently, not wanting her to go into a complete panic. ‘As he’s asked for Eleanor, go and tell him that she’s gone to stay with her boyfriend in London. He might then go away.’
‘I’m not going up there again,’ she said with real fear in her voice.
‘All right,’ I said calmly. ‘If you can leave the house without him seeing you, then go straight away. Go round to the pub, and stay there with the others.’
‘OK,’ she said rapidly. ‘I’m going now.’
‘Good. But go quickly and quietly,’ I said. ‘Are you talking on a mobile phone?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Then keep talking to me as you leave the house. Do it now.’
I could hear her breathing and also the squeak of a door being opened, and then it slammed shut.
‘Bugger,’ she said to the world in general.
‘Quietly,’ I hissed into the phone, but I don’t think she heard me.
There was the sound of her feet crunching on the gravel as she ran down the path.
‘Oh my God,’ she screamed. ‘He’s coming after me.’
‘Run,’ I said.
I didn’t need to say it. I could hear Suzie running. Then the running stopped and I heard a car door slam.
‘I’m in my car,’ she said breathlessly. ‘But I haven’t got the damn keys.’ She was crying. ‘Help me,’ she shouted down the phone. ‘Oh my God,’ she said, her voice again in rising panic. ‘He’s walking down the path.’
‘Can you lock the doors?’ I said to her.
‘Yes,’ she said. I heard the central locking go click.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Does the horn work?’
I could hear her bashing at the button but there was no noise.
‘It won’t work,’ she cried, still bashing. It obviously needed the key in the ignition.
‘Where’s Eleanor Clarke?’ I could hear Julian Trent shouting, his voice muffled by the car doors and windows.
‘Go away,’ screamed Suzie. ‘Leave me alone.’
It was like listening to a radio drama – all sound and no pictures. The noise of Trent banging on the windows of the car was plainly audible and I could clearly visualize the scene in my mind’s eye.
‘Go away,’ Suzie screamed at him again. ‘I’ve called the police.’
‘Where’s Eleanor?’ Trent shouted again.
‘With her boyfriend,’ shouted Suzie back at him. ‘In London.’
Well done her, I thought. It went quiet, save for the sound of Suzie’s rapid shallow breathing.
‘Suzie?’ I asked. ‘What’s happening?’
‘He’s run off,’ she said. ‘He’s disappeared round the corner of the hospital. Do you really think he’s gone?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But stay in the car. We’ve called the police. They are on their way. Stay in the car until they come.’ I hoped that Trent hadn’t disappeared round the corner of the hospital simply to get his trusty baseball bat, so he could smash his way into Suzie’s car.
‘Who the hell was it?’ she asked me.
‘I don’t know,’ I lied. ‘But he definitely wasn’t Eleanor’s brother. I think he may have been someone on the lookout for women.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said again, but without the urgency of before. ‘He might have raped me.’
‘Suzie,’ I said as calmly as possible. ‘Be happy he didn’t. You’re fine. Describe him to the police and they will look after you. Ask them to get the others back from the pub to stay with you.’
‘But I don’t think I want to stay here,’ she said.
‘OK, OK,’ I said. ‘You can do whatever you please.’
By now she had calmed down a lot. Vets were obviously made of stern stuff.
‘The police are here.’ She sounded so relieved.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Give Eleanor a call later, after you’ve spoken to them.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I will.’ She sounded quite normal, almost as if she was now rather enjoying the situation. It must be due to the release of tension, I thought.
I hung up and passed the phone back to Eleanor.
‘Why didn’t you tell her that it was Julian Trent?’ she said, almost accusingly.
‘We don’t absolutely know for certain that it was him, even if we are pretty sure that it was. The police are bound to be in touch with us soon because it was my phone you used to call them, so they’ll have the number, and you must have had to give them your name.’
She nodded.
‘If we want, we can give them Trent’s name then as a possible suspect,’ I said. ‘But I certainly will
not be telling them that I think he went there intending to threaten you so that I would purposely lose the Mitchell case.’
‘No,’ she said with conviction. ‘Nor will I.’
Good girl, I thought, again.
Next, I called my father.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I said to him. ‘How are things in sunny Devon?’
‘Boring,’ he said. ‘When can I go home?’
‘Soon,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you know when. But please stay there for a bit longer.’
‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why do I have to stay here?’
I hadn’t explained everything to him about Julian Trent. Perhaps I should have, but I hadn’t wanted to worry him. These days he tended to live in a more gentle world of pottering about in his garden and playing bridge with his neighbours. Baseball-bat wielding maniacs were not his typical concerns.
‘I’ll tell you everything next week,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, can’t you go off on a drive somewhere? Go and visit Dartmoor or something.’
‘I’ve been there before,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘Why would I want to go again?’
I gave up. ‘Just stay in Sidmouth for a few more days,’ I said sharply.
‘Don’t you tell me what to do,’ he said with irritation.
‘Please, Dad,’ I said more gently.
‘You’re a strange boy,’ he said. It was his usual answer for everything.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But please, Dad, stay there. It’s important. Please just do as I ask.’
‘All right,’ he said reluctantly. ‘At least you’re paying.’
Indeed I was, and the Victoria Hotel in Sidmouth wasn’t cheap. I’d had to give them my credit-card details over the phone, and send them a signed fax guaranteeing the full amount.
With the knowledge that Julian Trent had been in Lambourn only fifteen minutes previously, Eleanor and I felt quite relaxed as we made our way into the hotel with the stuff from her car, which was then taken away to the hotel car park.
I closed and locked the room/cell door with us securely on the inside, and felt safe for the first time in hours. Then I called down to the front desk and ordered a bottle of red wine and some glasses. Eleanor and I may need to be locked up in a prison cell for the weekend, but it didn’t mean we couldn’t have a few of life’s little pleasures to while away the time.
When the room-service waiter delivered the wine, we ordered some food as well. I then asked the receptionist to ensure that I wasn’t disturbed and that no calls were put through. ‘Certainly sir,’ she said.
‘So tell me,’ said Eleanor finally. ‘Why do you suddenly think that I am now in danger from Julian Trent when I wasn’t before?’
‘Because since the witness summonses were delivered, he now knows for sure that I won’t do what he wants. I think he would try to use you as a lever rather than as just an implied threat.’
‘And it seems you are right,’ she said. ‘So now what?’
I glanced around our prison-secure room. It had been created out of three old cells knocked together, complete with the high-up barred windows that had been intended to give the prisoners only light rather than a view. Thankfully, a modern bathroom had been added during the conversion so ‘slopping out’ was no longer required.
‘Eleanor,’ I said, turning to look at her face. ‘No one, not even you, has really understood what sort of people we are dealing with here, although I think you might now be beginning to. We are not living here in some television drama where the blood is fake and the characters mostly behave in a fairly decent manner. This is a story of blackmail and murder, where seriously nasty people would as easily kill you as they would a fly.’ She stared at me with wide eyes. ‘But I don’t intend to let them do either.’
‘But how?’ she said.
I told her. Some of it she knew, and some she didn’t. I spoke for more than an hour with her listening intently to what I said.
Only after I stopped did she ask me the big question. ‘Why don’t you just take all this to the police?’ she said.
‘Because I want my day in court,’ I said. And I didn’t want to have to admit that I had been intimidated for so long without saying anything. I valued my career.
I told her what I proposed to do on Monday morning when the trial resumed.
‘Just as long as we are both still alive on Monday morning,’ she said.
Now, for a change, she was frightening me.
CHAPTER 20
‘All rise,’ called the court clerk.
The judge entered from his chambers, bowed slightly towards us and took his seat behind the bench. Everyone else then sat down. The court was now in session.
‘Mr Mason,’ said the judge.
‘Yes, My Lord,’ I said, rising.
‘Still no sign of Sir James Horley?’ he asked with raised eyebrows.
‘No, My Lord,’ I said.
‘And you, and your client, are happy to continue with the case for the defence with you acting alone?’ he said.
‘Yes, My Lord,’ I said. Steve nodded at the judge from the dock.
‘I don’t need to remind you of what I said about that not being grounds for an appeal,’ said the judge.
‘I understand, My Lord,’ I said.
He nodded, as if to himself, and consulted a sheet of paper on the bench in front of him.
‘Are your witnesses present?’ he asked.
‘As far as I am aware, My Lord,’ I replied. I hadn’t actually been outside into the waiting area to check, but Bruce Lygon seemed happy they were ready.
In fact, I hadn’t been outside at all since last Friday.
At ten thirty on Friday evening the telephone in the hotel room had rung. ‘I thought I said no calls,’ I had complained to the hotel operator when I’d answered it.
‘Yes, Mr Mason, we are very sorry to disturb you,’ she had said. ‘But we have your nephew on the telephone, and he’s frantic to get in touch with you. I’m very sorry, but he tells me your elderly father has had a fall and that he’s been taken to hospital.’
‘Did you confirm to my nephew that I was here?’ I’d asked her.
‘Of course,’ she’d said. ‘Shall I put him through?’
‘Thank you,’ I’d said. There had been a click or two, but no one had been on the line. Trent had already gained the information he had wanted. Thereafter Eleanor and I had not left the room for the whole weekend, not even for an exercise period in the old prison yard, although we had made up for it with plenty of exercise in bed. We had ordered room service for every meal and had instructed the staff to ensure that they were completely alone when it was delivered. They had probably thought we were totally mad, but they had been too polite to say so, to us at least.
I had called Bruce to discuss the question of how to get safely to court on Monday morning. Without telling him exactly why I was concerned, I explained to him that I really didn’t want to run into either of my two witnesses before they were called and I needed some secure transport from the hotel to the court buildings. He had come up with the ingenious idea of getting one of the private security companies to collect me in a prison transfer van. It transpired that Bruce was a friend of the managing director, and he had thought the idea was a great hoot and had been happy to oblige, for a fee of course.
So, at nine o’clock on Monday morning, Eleanor and I had moved as quickly as my crutches would allow along the hanging gallery of ‘A’ wing, down in the lift and out through the hotel lobby. We had gone from the front door of the hotel, across six feet of paving, straight into the waiting white box-like vehicle with its high dark-tinted square windows, while Bruce had stood by on guard. Some of the hotel staff had watched this piece of theatre with wide eyes. I was sure that they must believe we were either escaped lunatics or convicts, or both.
Needless to say, Julian Trent had been nowhere to be seen, but it was better to be safe than dead.
Our prison van had then delivered us right into th
e court complex through the security gates round the back, just as it would have done if we had been defendants on remand. We had emerged into court number 1 along the cell corridor beneath, and then via the steps up to the dock. Eleanor, who had called the equine hospital to say she wasn’t coming in to work, now sat right behind me in court, next to Bruce.
‘Very well,’ said the judge. He nodded at the court usher, who went to fetch the jury. As we waited for them, I looked around the courtroom with its grand paintings of past High Sheriffs of Oxfordshire. On the wall above the judge there was the royal crest with its motto, HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE, written around the central crest. Evil to him who evil thinks was a translation from Old French, the medieval language of the Norman and Plantagenet kings of England. How about ‘Evil to him that evil does’, I thought. That would be much more appropriate in this place.
The press box was busy but not quite so full as it had been at the start of the trial the week before. Public interest had waned a little as well, and only about half of the thirty or so of the public seats were occupied, with Mr and Mrs Barlow senior sitting together in the front row, as ever.
The five men and seven women of the jury filed into the court and took their seats to my left in the jury box. They all looked quite normal. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, professional people and manual workers, all of them thrown together into a panel by simple chance. There was nothing unusual or extraordinary about any one of them, but collectively they had to perform the extraordinary task of determining the facts, and deciding if the defendant was guilty or not. They’d had no training for the task, and they had no instruction manual to follow. Our whole legal system was reliant on such groups of people, who had never met one another prior to the trial, doing the ‘right’ thing and together making exceptional decisions on questions far beyond their regular daily experiences. It was one of the greatest strengths of our system, but also, on occasion, one of its major weaknesses, especially in some fraud trials where the evidence was complex and intricate, often beyond the understanding of the common man.
I looked at the members of this jury one by one, and hoped they had been well rested by four days away from the court. They might need to be alert and on the ball to follow what would happen here today, and to understand its significance.
