Dick Francis - Under Orders

‘Did he give you his name?’ I asked. I already suspected who had called him.

‘No,’ he paused to think, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Was it a man called Chris Beecher?’ I asked

‘I don’t know, I didn’t ask his name.’ He paused again and shook his head. ‘Right bloody idiot I’ve been. See that now, but at the time I was so bloody angry.’ He dropped his eyes from mine. ‘I’m glad that bloody drive was long enough for me to come to my senses.’

So was I.

He sighed. ‘I suppose you’ll call the police now?’

‘How were you going to kill me?’ I asked, ignoring his question.

‘With my shotgun. It’s still in the car.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘Outside on the road.’

‘I’ll get it,’ I said. ‘What type of car and where are the keys?’

‘Old grey Ford.’ He patted his flat pockets. ‘Keys must be in it.’

I went down and it was still there with the keys in the ignition, unstolen. Good job it was a Sunday, I thought, or he would have had at least three parking tickets by now. Amazingly, the shotgun was still there, too, lying in plain view on the back seat.

I picked it up, locked the car and turned to go back upstairs.

I am not sure why I noticed the young man in a car on the far side of the road take aim at me, maybe it was his movement that caught my eye. I strode straight across to him and lifted the business end of the shotgun I was holding in his general direction.

He had aimed not a gun but a camera that he now lowered to his lap. Experienced paparazzi would have gone on snapping, I thought — Sid Halley threatening a photographer with a loaded shotgun, just what The Pump would have loved for the front page.

‘What are you after?’ I shouted at him through the closed car window. ‘Put the window down.’

He pushed a button and the window opened a couple of inches.

‘Who sent you?’ I asked through the crack.

He didn’t reply.

‘Tell Chris Beecher he shouldn’t tell tall stories to Welsh farmers,’ I said.

He just looked at me, then nodded slightly. It was enough.

I slowly lowered the shotgun. There were too many windows overlooking Ebury Street and I feared that net curtains would already be twitching.

The young man took one look at the lowered gun and decided that retreat was the best plan. He ground his gears and was gone.

I strode back through the lobby, grinning broadly, with the gun slung over my shoulder. Derek, who had watched the whole episode through the glass, now had an open mouth to match his staring eyes.

I winked at him as the lift closed.

So much for my secrets, I thought. Chris Beecher knew exactly where I lived. And he knew exactly who I was ‘screwing’.

Evan Walker stayed for another hour before remembering that he had cattle to feed and 175 miles to drive home first. In the meantime, he managed to consume four more slices of toast with lashings of strawberry jam, and two more mugs of tea.

He talked about Huw and how proud he was of what his son had achieved.

‘Glynis, that’s my wife, and me, we were so pleased when he won the Welsh National at Chepstow. You should have seen us. Dressed to the nines, we were. My Glynis was so proud. Best thing that happened to us for ages. Glynis passed away last October, see. Cancer it was.’ He was again close to tears. ‘Stomach. Poor lass couldn’t eat. Starved to death, really.’

‘Do you have any other children?’ I asked.

‘Did have,’ he said. ‘Another boy, Brynn. Two year older than Huw. Knocked off his bike, he was. On his way to school. On his fifteenth birthday.’

Life is full of buggers.

‘Glynis never got over it,’ he went on. ‘Visited his grave every week for eighteen year till her illness meant she couldn’t walk down to the churchyard. Buried next to him she is.’

There was a long pause as he stared down at the floor.

‘Suppose I should put Huw with them.’

Another longer pause.

‘Just me left now,’ he said. ‘I was an only child and Glynis lost touch with her brother when he moved to Australia. Didn’t even come back for her funeral although he could have afforded to. Successful businessman, apparently.’

Evan stood up and turned to me. ‘It says in that damn rag that you’re a private detective,’ he said. ‘I remember you as a jockey and a bloody good one too. I often wondered what Huw would do when he gave up riding… doesn’t matter now… Anyway, what I meant to say was, will you find out for me who killed my son?’

‘The police will do that,’ I said.

‘The police are fools,’ said Evan forcefully. ‘They never found out who killed our Brynn. Hit-and-run, you see. Never really tried, if you ask me.’

I noticed that Marina’s eyes had filled with tears. Just how much pain could a single man take?

‘I’ll pay for your time,’ he said to me. ‘Please… find out who killed my Huw.’

I thought of the desperate messages Huw had left on my answering machine.

‘I’ll do my best,’ I said.

How could I say no?

I lay awake for much of the night thinking nasty thoughts about what I would like to do to Chris Beecher and his young snapper and, sure enough, the Monday edition of The Pump had, on its Diary page, a photograph of Marina and me walking hand in hand along Ebury Street with the headline, ‘Who’s Sid Halley’s new girlfriend?’ The picture seemed to accentuate the fact that Marina was some four inches taller than I, and the brief paragraph underneath was hardly flattering with the words ‘divorced’, ‘diminutive’ and ‘crippled’ all making an appearance alongside ‘murder suspect’. At least the photo wasn’t one of me pointing a double-barrelled shotgun at the camera with the line ‘Who’s Sid Halley’s new victim?’

So much for keeping my relationship away from the Press and a secret from those persons who might look for ‘pressure points’.

I had created a reputation amongst the racing villainy that Sid Halley would not be put off by a bit of violence to his body. Such a reputation takes a while to establish and, unfortunately, quite a few had already tried the direct route. One such incident had resulted in the loss of my left hand. It had by then been useless for some time but I was still attached to it both literally and metaphorically. Its loss to a poker-wielding psychopath had been a really bad day at the office.

These days there were those who would stoop to different methods to discourage me from investigating their affairs. Consequently, I had tried to keep Marina’s existence a secret and I was frustrated that I had been so glaringly unsuccessful. Perhaps I was getting paranoid.

Marina, meanwhile, seemed more concerned that the photographer had captured her with her mouth open and her eyes shut.

‘At least they haven’t got my name,’ she said, trying to make me feel better.

‘They’ll get it. And your life story.’ There were always those who would ring up a newspaper if they had a snippet of information. Too many people knew Marina at her work.

‘Just take care,’ I warned, but she didn’t really believe that she would be in any danger.

‘You work for the Civil Service,’ she said. ‘How dangerous can that be?’

There was nothing ‘civil’ about some of those I had separated from their liberty or from their ill-gotten gains. But that had been before I had encountered my Dutch beauty at a friend’s party and invited her first to share my bed, then my life.

If I were honest, I would have to admit that nowadays I tended not to take on the sort of work that I had revelled in five years ago. Regular safe jobs provided by Archie Kirk filled most of my time. Boring but profitable. Hardly a threat to be heard, except from the tax man over my expenses — ‘a new suit to replace the one ruined due to lying in a wet ditch for two hours waiting for a certain Member of Parliament to complete an amorous assignation with a prostitute in the back of his Jaguar — you must be joking, sir’. I hadn’t shown him the pictures.