Dick Francis - The Edge

'Brilliant,' I said

'Someone was asking Zak who had tried to kidnap which horse at Toronto station '

'What did he say?' I asked, amused. It was the loosest of the loose ends.

'He said it had seemed a good idea at the time ' She laughed. 'He said they'd had to change the script because the actor who was supposed to play the part of the kidnapper had broken his arm and couldn't appear. Everyone seemed to be satisfied. They're all very happy with the way it ended. People are kissing Donna and Mavis. Mavis is wearing the jewels.' She yawned and reflected. 'Mr Filmer didn't have any dinner, did he? Perhaps I'd better go and see if he's all right.'

I dissuaded her. Antacids were taking care of it, I said. What one could give a man for a sick soul was another matter.

From this point of view, he had made his move a fraction too early, I thought. If he hadn't already made the threat, the play wouldn't have had such a cataclysmic effect either on him or on Mercer. Mercer might have been warned, as I'd intended, might have been made to think: but I couldn't have foreseen that it would happen the way it had, even though Filmer's smirk and Mercer's gloom had made me wonder. Just as well, perhaps, that I hadn't known about the cats when I invented the theft of the jewels. I might have been terribly tempted to hit even closer to home. Tortured horses, perhaps?

'What are you hatching now?' Nell demanded. 'You've got that distant look.'

'I haven't done a thing,' I said.

'I'm not so sure.' She stood up. She was wearing, in honour of the banquet, a boat-necked black blouse above the full black skirt, a pearl choker round her neck. Her fair hair was held back high in a comb, but not plaited, falling instead in informal curls. I thought with unnerving intensity that I didn't want to lose her, that for me it was no longer a game. I had known her for a week and a day. Reason said it wasn't long enough. Instinct said it was.

'Where are you staying in Vancouver?' I asked.

'At the Four Seasons Hotel, with all the passengers.'

She gave me a small smile and went off towards the action. Oliver had finished clearing the cloths and was laying clean ones, to leave the place looking tidy, he said. I left him to finish and made up my way up the train to talk to George Burley, passing Filmer's closed door on the way.

The sleeping-car attendant was sitting in his roomette with the door open. I poked my head in and asked how the passenger was, who'd asked for the antacid.

'He went up the train a while ago, and came back. He didn't say anything, just walked past. He must be all right, I guess.'

I nodded and went on, and came to George sitting at his table with his endless forms.

'Come in,' he invited, and I took my accustomed seat. 'I showed that photo,' he said. 'Is that what you want to know about?'

'Yes.'

'He's definitely on the train. Name of Johnson, according to the passenger list. He has a roomette right forward, and he stays in it most of the time. He eats in the forward dome-car dining room, but only dinner, eh? He was in there just now when I went up to the engine, but he'd gone when I came back. A fast eater, they say. Never goes for breakfast or lunch. Never talks to anyone, eh?'

'I don't like it,' I said.

George chuckled. 'Wait till you hear the worst.'

'What's the worst?'

'My assistant conductor-he's one of the sleeping-car attendants up front-he says he's seen him before, eh?'

'Seen him where?'

George watched me for effect. 'On the railways.'

'On the-do you mean he's a railwayman?'

'He can't be sure. He says he looks like a baggage handler he once worked with on the Toronto to Montreal sector, long time ago. Fifteen years ago. Twenty. Says if it's him, he had a chip on his shoulder all the time, no one liked him. He could be violent. You didn't cross him. Might not be him, though. He's older. And he doesn't remember the name Johnson, though I suppose it's forgettable, it's common enough.'

'Would a baggage handler,' I said slowly, 'know how to drain a fuel tank… and uncouple the Lorrimores' car?'

George's eyes gleamed with pleasure. 'The baggage handlers travel on the trains, eh? They're not fools. They take on small bits of freight at the stops and see the right stuff gets off. If you live around trains, you get to know how they work.'

'Is there a baggage handler on this train? '

'You bet your life. He's not always in the baggage car, not when we're going along. He eats, eh? He's always there in the stations, unlocking the doors. This one's not the best we've got, mind. A bit old, a bit fat.' He chuckled. 'He said he'd never seen this man Johnson, but then he's always worked Vancouver to Banff, never Toronto to Montreal.'

'Has the baggage handler or your assistant talked to Johnson?'

'My assistant conductor says the only person Johnson talks to is one of the owners who raps on Johnson's door when he goes along to see his horse. He went up there this evening not long ago, and they had some sort of row in the corridor outside my assistant's roomette.'

'George! Did your assistant hear what it was about?'

'Important, is it?' George said, beaming.

'Could be, very.'

'Well, he didn't.' He shook his head regretfully. 'He said he thought the owner told Johnson not to do something Johnson wanted to. They were shouting, he said, but he didn't really listen, eh? He wasn't interested. Anyway, the owner came back down here, he said, and he heard Johnson say, "I'll do what I frigging like, " very loudly, but he doesn't think the owner heard, as he'd gone by then.'

'That's not much help,' I said.

'It's easier to start a train going downhill than to stop it, eh?'

'Mm.'

'It's the best I can do for you.'

'Well,' I said. 'We do know he's on the train, and we know his name may or may not be Johnson, and we know he may or may not be a railwayman, and I know for certain he has a violent personality. It sounds as if he's still planning something and we don't know what. I suppose you are certain he can't get past the dragon-lady?'

'Nothing is certain.'

'How about if you asked the baggage handler to sit in with her, with the horses.'

He put his head on one side. 'If you think she'd stand for it?'

'Tell her it's to keep the horses safe, which it is.'

He chuckled. 'Don't see why not.' He looked at his watch. 'Sicamous is coming up. I'll go up there outside, when we stop. Three or five minutes there. Then it'll be time to put the clocks back an hour. Did your Miss Richmond remember to tell everyone?'

'Yes. They're all on Pacific time already, I think. Getting on for midnight.'

We had stopped towards the end of dinner in a small place called Revelstoke for half an hour for all the cars to be refilled with water. At Kamloops, a far larger town, we would stop at two in the morning very briefly. Then it was North Bend at five-forty, then the last stretch to Vancouver, arriving at five past ten on Sunday morning, a week from the day we set off.

We slowed towards Sicamous while I was still with George.

'After here, though you won't see it,' he said, 'we follow the shoreline of Shuswap Lake. The train goes slowly.'

'It hasn't exactly been whizzing along through the Rockies.'

He nodded benignly. 'We go at thirty, thirty-five miles an hour. Fast enough, eh? Uphill, downhill, round hairpin bends. There are more mountains ahead.'

He swung down on to the ground when the train stopped and crunched off forwards to arrange things with the baggage handler.

It was snowing outside: big dry flakes settling on others that had already fallen, harbingers of deep winter. The trains almost always went through, George had said.

I thought I might as well see how the revelries were going but it seemed that, unlike after the Winnipeg race, most people were feeling the long evening was dying. The lounge in the dome car was only half full. The observation deck was scarcely populated. The poker school, in shirtsleeves, were counting their money. The actors had vanished. Nell was walking towards me with Xanthe whom she was seeing safely to bed in the upper bunk behind the felt curtains.