Dick Francis - Shattered

I could see the superintendent begin to be skeptical but I nodded and he focused back on the professor.

“We knew,” George went on, “that he had stolen the information, had transferred it to a videotape and had destroyed all other records of our research. Understandably, we searched everywhere for it, even engaging private investigators, after the police had shown little interest.”

Superintendent Shepherd flinched not at all but continued listening intently.

“All our searches were in vain. We did not expect him to have entrusted the tape to the safekeeping of a jockey. Doctor Force had passed it to Martin Stukely but Stukely preferred to hand it on to his friend Gerard Logan here away from the fingers of his own children. As perhaps you know, Martin Stukely was killed at Cheltenham races on New Year’s Eve. But the tape had already begun its tortuous journey by then. Adam Force tried to steal it back. Tapes were stolen from here, from Gerard’s home and from the home of Martin Stukely.”

“Were we informed of those thefts?” asked the policeman.

“Yes,” I replied, “but the theft of a few videotapes for no apparent reason hardly brought the law out like today.”

“Hmm,” replied the superintendent, knowing it was true.

“One of your officers did come around here the following morning,” I said, “but there was far more interest in the money stolen with the tape.”

“Did Doctor Force steal the money as well?” asked the super, looking at Force.

“Yes,” I replied. “But I think that was just an opportunist theft which he might have thought would somehow smokescreen the removal of the tape.”

Doctor Force listened impassionately, his bloodied face giving away nothing.

“Anyway,” continued the professor, who did not welcome the interruption, “somehow all the thefts failed to get back the tape they wanted, and Doctor Force, with assistance from Rose Payne and others, has been trying here to coerce Mr. Logan to reveal its whereabouts. He tells me he hasn’t got it.”

“And have you?” asked the voice of authority.

“No,” I replied, “but I think I know who has.”

They all looked at me. Adam Force, Lawson-Young, the superintendent and even Hickory, who had been listening with his good ear, they all waited expectantly.

Into this tableau swept Marigold, floating in emerald silk with gold tassels and brushing aside the young constable who tried to stand in her way. In her wake came Bon-Bon, Victor, Daniel and the other children like the tail of a kite.

Marigold demanded to see how her trophy was getting along, but was brought up sharply by the sight of the blanket-covered form in the workshop and the mass of evidence gatherers crawling cautiously around it on their hands and knees. Bon-Bon, realizing the enormity of the situation, swept her brood back out of the door, leaving just her mother and Victor inside, both of them stock-still, transfixed, living through their eyes.

“Gerard darling,” Marigold exclaimed. “What is going on? And where is Worthington?”

“Marigold, my dear,” I said wearily, “there’s been a disaster. Please go across the road to the hotel and wait for me there.”

She seemed not to hear, her eyes steadfastly on the blanket. “Where is Worthington?” Her voice began to rise. “Where’s Worthington? Oh my God.”

I took her in my arms. “Marigold, Marigold, he’s all right. I promise. That’s not Worthington.”

She sobbed on my shoulder, near to collapse.

Victor turned to me and said, his voice barely more than a whisper, “It’s not a game anymore, is it?”

The question needed no answer, and presently the young constable led him and Marigold across to the Wychwood Dragon.

“So who is Blackmask Four?” asked Lawson-Young into the silence when they had gone.

“Who?” said the superintendent. “What are you talking about?”

The professor told him. “Gerard was attacked by four people in black masks outside his shop here. Three of them were Rose Payne, her father Eddie Payne and Norman Osprey. Gerard told me earlier today that he had worked out the identity of the fourth, so,” he turned to me and said with faith, “who is it and where is my research?”

“I don’t think Blackmask Four has the tape,” I replied.

“What!” exclaimed the professor. His shoulders dropped, his expectations had been so high and he took it now that I was leading him only to another cul-de-sac, another dead end.

I put him right. “My fourth assailant, Blackmask Four, was just a hired help and I’m not sure he even knew exactly what he was looking for.” But he knew, I thought, how to inflict maximum damage to my wrists. “He is, however, a dab hand with a baseball bat and anesthetic gas.”

“Who is it, for God’s sake?” The professor was finding it difficult to stifle his impatience, as was the superintendent, yet it wasn’t the easiest disclosure I’d ever made. Still...

“Who was the fourth man, Hickory?” I asked.

Hickory looked up from where he was kneeling on the floor, still holding a dressing to his ear.

“Why are you asking me?” he said.

“You bunched my fingers.”

“Of course I didn’t.”

“I’m afraid you did,” I said. “You held my hand against a wall ready for a baseball bat to smash my wrist.”

“You must be crazy. Why would I attack you? Why you of all people?”

It was a piercing question and one with a complex answer. He didn’t answer it. But we both knew what he had intended.

“Did you do it for money?” I asked.

I suspected that it was for more convoluted reasons than that. Something to do with my ability with glassblowing and his comparative lack of it. Envy was a strong emotion and, I reckoned, he wouldn’t have needed a whole lot of persuasion to oppose me.

He still refused to admit it. “You’re crazy, you are,” he said, getting to his feet and turning away as if looking for some quick escape.

“The green-and-white laces,” I said.

He stopped dead and turned back.

I went on, “You wore them here the day Martin Stukely was killed, and you wore them again the following day when you stole the tapes from his house, the day you hit me with the orange cylinder. Martin’s eldest son, Daniel, saw the laces and told the police about them.”

Hickory advanced a step or two, his ear clearly hurting.

His poise cracked.

“You’re so fucking clever,” he said. “I wish we had broken your wrists.”

The superintendent stopped leaning on the half-wall and stood up straight.

But Hickory had only just started.

“You and your fancy ways and your condescending comments about my work. I hate you and this workshop. I’m a damn good glassblower and I deserve more recognition.” He raised his chin and sneered.

“One day,” he went on, “John Hickory will be a name worth knowing and people will smash fucking Logan Glass to get to mine.”

Such a shame, I thought. He really did have some talent but, I suspected, it would never be allowed to develop as it should. Arrogance and a belief in skills he didn’t have would smother those he did.

“And Rose?” I asked.

“Stupid bitch,” he said, holding his hand to his throbbing ear, “bloody mad she is. Tie you up, she said; use you as a hostage, she said. Nothing about frying my effing ear. Hope she rots in hell.”

I hoped she’d rot on earth.

“She promised me my own place,” Hickory said. “Claimed she’d close you down. Her and that stupid father of hers.” He began to realize the hole he was digging for himself. “They put me up to it. It was their fault, not mine.”

He looked wretchedly at the rapt faces around him.

“It wasn’t my fault. It was their idea.”