Dick Francis - Crossfire

I hadn't identified my enemy, but even in the dark, I thought I'd recognized the make of the car, even if I couldn't see the color.

So what did my mother say?" I asked Ian when I returned to his flat at Kauri House Stables.

"About what?" he said.

"About where I was."

"Oh, that. She was rather vague. Just said you'd gone away."

"So what did you say?" I pressed.

"Well, like you told me to, I asked her where you'd gone." He paused.

"And?"

"She told me it was none of my business."

I laughed. "So what did you say to that?"

"I told her, like you said, that you'd left a pen here when you watched the races and I wanted to give it back." He infuriatingly paused once more.

"And?"

"She said to give the pen to her and she'd get it returned to you. She said that you had unexpectedly been called to London by the army and she didn't know when you would be back. Your note hadn't said that."

"My note?" I said in surprise.

"Yeah. Mrs. Kauri said you sent her a note."

"From London?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know that," Ian said. "She didn't say, but there was no note, right?"

"No," I said truthfully. "I definitely didn't send her any note."

But someone else may have.

I woke at five after another restless night on Ian's couch. My mind was too full of questions to relax, and I lay awake in the dark, thinking.

Why had my enemy not gone up to the stables to make sure I was dead? Was it because they were convinced that by now I would be? Perhaps they didn't want to chance leaving any new evidence, like fresh tire tracks in the stable yard. Maybe it was because it didn't matter anymore. Or was it just because they didn't want to have to see the gruesome results of their handiwork? I didn't blame them on that count. Human bodies-dead ones that is-are mostly the stuff of nightmares, especially those that die from unnatural or violent causes. I knew, because I'd seen too many of them over the years.

If my enemy hadn't bothered to go up to the hill the previous evening after unlocking the gates, I didn't expect them ever to go back there again. So I decided not to spend any more of my time waiting for them in the Greystone Stables passageway. Anyway, I had different plans for today.

"Andover," the lawyer Hoogland had said.

Now, why did that ring a bell?

Old Man Sutton, I thought. He now lived in a care home in Andover. I'd been to see him. And Old Man Sutton's son, Detective Sergeant Fred, had been at Roderick Ward's inquest. And Roderick Ward's sister had moved to live in Andover. Was that just a coincidence?

I heard Ian get up and have a shower at six.

I sat on the sofa and attached my leg. Funny how quickly one's love for something can sway back and forth like a sail in the wind. On Wednesday afternoon I had embraced my prosthesis like a dear long-lost brother. It had given me back my mobility. Now, just thirty-six hours later, I was reverting to viewing it as an alien being, almost a foe rather than a friend, a necessary evil.

Perhaps the major from the MOD had been right. Maybe it really was time to look for a different direction in my life. If I survived my present difficulties, that was.

"Can I borrow your car?" I asked Ian over breakfast.

"How long for?" he said.

"I don't know," I said. "I've got to go to an ATM to get some money for a start. And I might be out all morning, or even all day."

"I need to go to the supermarket," he said. "I've run out of food."

"I'll buy you some," I said. "After all, I'm the one who's eaten all your cereal."

"All right, then," he said, smiling. "I'd much rather stay here and watch the racing from Sandown on the telly."

"Do we have any runners?" I asked, surprising myself by the use of the word we.

"Three," Ian said. "Including one in the Artillery Gold Cup."

"Who's riding it?" I asked. The Royal Artillery Gold Cup was restricted to amateur riders who were serving, or who had served, in the armed forces of the United Kingdom.

"Some chap with a peculiar name," he said, somewhat unhelpfully.

"Which peculiar name in particular?"

"Hold on," he said. He dug into a pile of papers on a table by the television. "I know it's here somewhere." He went on looking. "Here." He triumphantly held up a sheet of paper. "Everton."

"Everton who?" I asked.

"Major Jeremy Everton."

"Never heard of him," I said. It was not that surprising. There were more than fourteen thousand serving officers in the regular army, and more still in the Territorials, to say nothing of those who had already left the service.

Ian laughed. "And he's never heard of you either."

"How do you know?" I asked.

He laughed again. "I don't."

I laughed back. "So can I borrow your car?"

"Where's yours?"

"In Oxford," I said truthfully. "The head gasket has blown," I lied. "It's in a garage."

I thought that my Jaguar was probably still in the multistory parking lot in Oxford city center, and I had decided to leave it there. To move it would be to advertise, to those who might care, that I wasn't hung up dead in a deserted stable.

"OK. You can borrow it," he said, "provided you're insured."

I should be, I thought, through the policy on my own car, provided they didn't object to my driving with an artificial foot.

"I am," I said confidently. "And I'll fill it with fuel for you."

"That would be great," Ian said. He tossed me the keys. "The handbrake doesn't work too well. Leave it in gear if you park on a hill."

I caught the keys. "Thanks."

"Will you be back here tonight?" he asked.

"If you'll have me," I said. "Do you fancy Indian?"

"Yeah," he said. "Good idea. Get me a chicken balti and a couple of onion bhajis. And some naan." He spoke with the assurance of a man who dined often from the village takeaway menus. "And I'll have some raita on the side."

It was only fair, I thought, that I bought the dinner.

"OK," I said. "About seven-thirty?"

"Make it seven," he said. "I go down to the Wheelwright on a Friday."

"Seven it is, then. See you later."

I slipped out of Ian's flat while it was still dark, and as quietly as possible, I drove his wreck of a Vauxhall Corsa down the drive and out into the village.

Newbury was quiet at seven o'clock on a Friday morning, although Sainsbury's parking lot was already bustling with early-morning shoppers eager to beat the weekend rush for groceries.

I parked in a free space between two other cars, but I didn't go into the supermarket. Instead, I walked in the opposite direction, out of the parking lot, across the A339 divided highway and into the town center.

Forty-six Cheap Street was just one amongst the long rows of shops that lined both sides of the road, most of them with flats or offices above. The mailbox shop that occupied the address opened at eight-thirty and closed at six, Monday to Friday, and from nine until one on Saturdays. It said so on the door.

If, as usual, my stepfather had mailed the weekly package to the blackmailer, the one containing the two thousand pounds, on Thursday afternoon, then the package he sent yesterday should arrive at 46 Cheap Street sometime today and be placed in mailbox 116, ready for collection.

Mailbox 116 was visible through the front window of the shop, and I intended to watch it all day to see if anyone arrived to make a collection. However, I could hardly stand outside on the pavement, scrutinizing every customer who came along. For a start, they would then be able to see me, and I certainly didn't want that to happen.

That was why I had come into Newbury so early, so that I could make a full reconnaissance of the area and determine my tactics to fit in with the local conditions and pattern of life.

At first glance there seemed to be two promising locations from which to observe the comings and goings at number forty-six without revealing my presence. The first was an American-style coffee shop about thirty yards away, and the second was the Taj Mahal Indian restaurant that was directly opposite.