Dick Francis - Crossfire

"None that I'd be happy to repeat," I said.

"Go on," she said, putting her hand on my arm. "You can tell me." She fluttered her eyelashes at me. It made me think that it was probably already too late for Ewen, far too late.

Isabella insisted that everyone move around after the lasagna and so, in spite of Julie Yorke's best efforts, I escaped her advances before they became too obvious, but not before she'd had the shock of her life trying to play footsie under the table with my prosthesis.

"My God! What's that?" she had exclaimed, but quietly, almost under her breath.

And so I'd been forced to explain about the IED and all the other things I would have preferred to keep confidential.

Far from turning her off, the idea of a man with only one leg had seemed to excite her yet further. She had become even more determined to invade my privacy with intimate questions that I was seriously not prepared to answer.

As soon as Isabella suggested it, I was quick and happy to move seats, opting to sit between Jackson Warren and another man at the second table.

I'd had my fill of the female of the species for one night.

"So how long have you been back?" Jackson asked me as I sat down.

"In Lambourn?" I asked.

"From Afghanistan."

"Four months," I said.

"In hospital?" he asked.

I nodded. Isabella must have told him.

"In hospital?" the man on my other side asked.

"Yes," I said. "I was wounded."

He looked at me and was clearly waiting for me to expand on my answer. As far as I was concerned, he was waiting in vain.

"Tom, here, lost a foot," Jackson said, filling the silence.

It felt as though I'd jumped out of one frying pan and into another.

"Really," said the man with astonishment. "Which one?"

"Does it matter?" I asked with obvious displeasure.

"Er… er…" He was suddenly uncomfortable, and I sat silently, doing nothing to relieve his embarrassment. "No," he said finally, "I suppose not."

It mattered to me.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking down and intently studying his dessert plate of chocolate mousse with brandy snaps and cream.

I nearly asked him if he was sorry for my losing a foot or sorry for asking me which one I'd lost, but it was Jackson I should have been really cross with, for mentioning it in the first place.

"Thank you," I said. I paused. "It was my right foot."

"It's amazing," he said, looking up at my face. "I watched you walk over here just now and I had no idea."

"Prosthetic limbs have come a long way since the days of Long John Silver," I said. "There were some at the rehab center who could run up stairs two at a time."

"Amazing," he said again.

"I'm Tom Forsyth," I said.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he replied. "Alex Reece. Good to meet you."

We shook hands in the awkward manner of people sitting alongside each other. He was a small man in his thirties, with thinning ginger hair and horn-rimmed spectacles of the same color. He was wearing a navy cardigan over a white shirt, and brown flannel trousers.

"Are you a trainer too?" I asked.

"Oh no," he said with a nervous laugh. "I haven't a clue about horses. In fact, to tell you the truth, I'm rather frightened of them. I'm an accountant."

"Alex, here," Jackson interjected, "keeps my hard-earned income out of the grasping hands of the tax man."

"I try," Alex said with a smile.

"Legally?" I asked, smiling back.

"Of course legally," said Jackson, feigning annoyance.

"The line between avoidance, which is legal, and evasion, which isn't, can sometimes be somewhat blurred,"Alex said, ignoring him.

"And what exactly is that meant to mean?" demanded Jackson, the simulated irritation having been replaced by the real thing.

"Nothing," Alex said, backpedaling furiously, and again embarrassed. "Just that sometimes what we believe is avoidance may be seen as evasion by the Revenue." Alex Reece was digging himself deeper into the hole.

"And who is right?" I asked, enjoying his discomfort.

"We are," Jackson stated firmly. "Aren't we, Alex?" he insisted.

"It is the courts who ultimately decide who's right," Alex said, clearly oblivious to the thinness of the thread by which his employment was dangling.

"In what way?" I asked.

"We put in a return based on our understanding of the tax law," he said, seemingly unaware of Jackson's staring eyes to my left. "If the Revenue challenge that understanding, they might demand that we pay more tax. If we then challenge their challenge and refuse to pay, they have to take us to court, and then a jury will decide whose interpretation of the law is correct."

"Sounds simple," I said.

"But it can be very expensive," Alex said. "If you lose in court, you will end up paying far more than the tax you should have paid in the first place, because they will fine you on top. And, of course, the court has the power to do more than just take away your money. They can also send you to prison if they think you were trying to evade paying tax on purpose. To say nothing of what else the Revenue might turn up with their digging. It's a risk we shouldn't take."

"Are you trying to tell me something, Alex?" Jackson asked angrily, leaning over me and pointing his right forefinger at his accountant's face. "Because I'm warning you, if I end up in court I will tell them it was all my accountant's idea."

"What was his idea?" I asked tactlessly.

"Nothing," said Jackson, suddenly realizing he'd said too much.

There was an uncomfortable few moments of silence. The others at the table, who had been listening to the exchange, suddenly decided it was best to start talking amongst themselves again, and turned away.

Jackson stood up, scraping his chair on the stone floor, and stomped out of the room.

"So how long have you been Jackson's accountant?" I asked Alex.

He didn't answer but simply watched the door through which Jackson had disappeared.

"Sorry. What did you say?" he said eventually.

"I asked you how long you'd been Jackson's accountant."

He stared at me. "Too long," he said. The kitchen supper soon broke up and most of the guests departed, Alex Reece being the first out of the door, almost at a run. Eventually, there were only a handful remaining, and I found myself amongst them. I had tried, politely, to depart, but Isabella had insisted on my staying for a nightcap, and I had been easily persuaded. I had nothing much to get up early for in the morning.

In all, five of us moved through from the kitchen into the equally spacious drawing room, including a couple I had seen only at a distance across the room earlier. He was wearing a dark suit and blue-striped tie while she was in a long charcoal-colored jersey over a brown skirt. I placed them both in their early sixties.

"Hello," I said to them. "I'm Tom Forsyth." I held out my hand.

"Yes," said the man rather sneeringly, not shaking it. "We know. Bella spoke of little else over dinner."

"Oh, really," I said with a laugh. "All good, I hope. And you are?"

The man said nothing.

"Peter and Rebecca Garraway," the woman said softly. "Please excuse my husband. He's just jealous because Bella doesn't speak about him all the time."

I wasn't sure if she was joking or not. Peter Garraway certainly wasn't laughing. Instead, he turned away, sat down on a sofa and patted the seat beside him. His wife obediently went over and joined him. What a bundle of fun, I thought, not. Why didn't they just go home?

Isabella handed around drinks while her husband remained conspicuous by his continued absence. But no one mentioned it, not even me.

"I thought all you trainers went to bed early," I said to Ewen Yorke as he sank into the armchair next to me and buried his nose into a brandy snifter.