Dick Francis - Shattered

No one believed him. It had been Hickory who had reported all to Rose. Hickory had had the “binocs” in Broadway.

“So where is the tape?” asked George Lawson-Young.

“I don’t know,” replied Hickory. “Rose said that it must have been in Stukely’s house or in Logan’s but I’ve sat through hours of bloody horse racing and glassblowing and, I’m telling you, there was no tape of medical stuff.”

I believed him. Otherwise, I thought ruefully, I might have been saved a couple of beatings and Pernickety Paul would still be lying around in shop doorways.

A paramedic appeared and said that it was time to take Hickory to the hospital to dress his burn. The superintendent, roused into action, arrested Hickory. “You do not have to say anything...”

“Too bloody late,” retorted Hickory, as he was led off to the ambulance by a white-overalled police officer and the paramedic.

The super turned his attention to Doctor Red-Beard Force, who had listened in silence throughout.

He said, his speech always in the pattern of officialese, “Well, Doctor Force, can you enlighten us as to the whereabouts of a videotape containing medical research results stolen from the professor here?”

Force said nothing. It seemed that he had at least learned one lesson from our discussion under the fir trees in Lynton.

“Come on, Adam, tell us.” The professor, I saw, still had some vestige of friendship for the man before him dripping blood from his beard onto my smooth brick floor.

Force looked at him with disdain and kept silent.

In his turn, he too was arrested and taken away for wound stitching and fingerprinting. “You do not have to say anything...” So he didn’t.

In time the gallery, showroom and workshop began to clear. The coroner’s representative arrived and supervised the relocation of Paul to the local morgue. The other officers stopped work to stand and watch the sorry procession of undertakers and their highly regarded and valued burden move through the gallery to the door. There were tears in my eyes as well as in theirs. He had been a good man as well as a good policeman.

A few more photographs were taken and a few more pieces of evidence were collected. Blue-and-white “Do Not Cross” tape was strung about, doors were locked and guarded, and the professor and I were gently eased out to the street into the gray appropriate drizzle.

The superintendent again asked me to accompany him to the police station to make a full statement, though this time, there was more warmth in his manner. I agreed, but first, I asked, could we all go over to the Wychwood Dragon Hotel as I was thirsty and needed a jug of tea. I looked at my cheap watch. Amazingly it was still morning though it felt to me more like teatime must have come and gone.

They were in the residents’ downstairs sitting room. Bon-Bon and her four sat tightly side by side on the wide sofa in descending height from the right. Coca-Colas had been bought and a line of empty bottles with straws sat on a coffee table. Marigold occupied a deep squashy armchair while Worthington perched on its arm by her side. The manner in which Marigold clung to Worthington’s hand reminded me of his fly-trap warning. He didn’t appear to protest.

The Dragon poured tea into large millennium souvenir mugs and told us that Pamela Jane, still badly shocked, had been given a pill by the police doctor and dispatched to bed upstairs.

Victor stood by the window unable to remove his eyes from Logan Glass opposite. I took my tea over and joined him.

Without turning his head he said, “I suppose my aunt Rose will be inside for a long time?”

“Yes,” I said. “A very long time.” For life, I thought, either in prison or a secure mental hospital. Police killers didn’t get early parole.

He stood in silence a moment longer, then turned and looked me straight in the eye. “Good,” he said. “It might give me and Mom a chance.”

I turned and took Bon-Bon out into the hotel lobby. I needed her to do me a favor. Certainly, she said, and trotted off to the telephone box beneath the stairs.

I went back into the sitting room to finish my tea and soon after Bon-Bon returned with a smiling nod.

I thought about the events of the morning, and wondered if there had been another way.

Punty irons in anyone’s hand had to be swung around carefully. In Rose’s hands a punty iron tipped with semi-liquid glass had been literally a lethal weapon, and it had seemed to me that as it was me she was after, however weird and mistaken her beliefs, it was I who ought to stop her.

I’d tried to stop her with the shattering horse and I hadn’t succeeded. It had torn a hole in her lover and stoked her own anger, and I’d thought then, if I could blind her she would stop, so I’d thrown the powder, but blinding her had made her worse.

Paul had died.

If I hadn’t tried to stop her, if instead I had surrendered at once to her as she’d demanded, then Paul would be alive. But, I reflected, searching for comfort, I couldn’t have given her the tape she demanded as I hadn’t known exactly where it was.

I’d done my best, and my best had killed.

The voice of the superintendent brought me back to the present. He said he was eager to get to the police station to interview his prisoners and also that he was less eager, but duty demanded it, to visit Detective Constable Paul Cratchet’s family. “Would the professor and Mr. Logan come with me now, please, sirs?” he said.

“Another cup of tea?” I replied.

The super was not happy. “Contrary to popular belief, the tea at the station house is quite drinkable. So, if you please.”

I needed more time.

Settling into another deep armchair, I said, “Just a moment to sit down? I’m exhausted. How about something to eat before we go?”

“We have a canteen at the station. You can have something there.” The voice of authority had spoken and there seemed little else to do but comply.

I rose slowly to my feet and with relief found my expected guest hurrying at last through the door.

“Hello, Priam,” I said.

He looked past me towards the tall, elegantly suited George Lawson-Young. He flicked a glance at Bon-Bon as if to say, “Is this the one?”

“Priam,” I repeated, “it’s so good of you to come. Priam Jones, can I introduce Superintendent Shepherd of the West Mercia police.”

Priam turned slowly my way and instinctively shook an offered hand.

“I’m sorry?” he said, puzzled. “I don’t quite understand. Bon-Bon called me to say that she was with a potential racehorse owner and I should get down here pronto if I wanted the business. Interrupted a good lunch too, I can tell you.”

He looked around him still searching for the elusive owner.

“Priam,” I regained his attention, “that wasn’t quite the truth. I asked Bon-Bon to make that call because I needed to talk to you.” He wasn’t pleased. Far from it.

“What’s wrong with the bloody telephone if you needed a chat, although about what I can’t imagine.” He looked down at four sets of childhood eyes staring up at him. “Hmp... sorry.”

I said, “I needed a chat about a videotape.”

“Not that bl... er... er... videotape business again,” he said. “I have told you already, I don’t have any videotape.”

Daniel said distinctly, “I know where there’s a videotape.”

“Shhhh, darling,” said Bon-Bon.

“But I do know where a tape is,” Daniel persisted.

I had learned to take Daniel very seriously indeed.

I squatted down to his level on the sofa. “Where is the videotape, Daniel?” I said.

“I think it must be worth at least three or four gold coins,” he replied.