Dick Francis: The Edge

The doctor was thin, growing old and inclined to make jokes over his half-moon glasses.

'Ah,' he said, when I'd removed my shirt. 'Does it hurt when you cough? '

'It hurts when I do practically anything, as a matter of fact.'

'We'd better have a wee X-ray then, don't you think?'

I agreed to the X-ray and waited around for ages until he reappeared with a large sheet of celluloid which he clipped in front of a light.

'Well, now,' he said, 'the good news is that we don't have any broken ribs or chipped vertebrae.'

'Fine.' I was relieved and perhaps a bit surprised.

‘What we do have is a fractured shoulder blade.'

I stared at him. 'I didn't think that was possible.'

'Anything's possible,' he said 'See that,' he pointed, 'that's a real grand-daddy of a break Goes right across, goes right through The bottom part of your left scapula,' he announced cheerfully, 'is to all intents and purposes detached from the top '

'Um,' I said blankly. 'What do we do about it?'

He looked at me over the half-moons. 'Rivets,' he said, 'might be extreme, don't you think' Heavy strapping, immobility for two weeks, that'll do the trick.'

'What about,' I said, 'if we do nothing at all? Will it mend? '

'Probably. Bones are remarkable. Young bones especially. You could try a sling. You'd be more comfortable though, if you let me strap your arm firmly skin to skin to your side and chest, under your shirt.'

I shook my head and said I wanted to go on a sort of honeymoon to Hawaii.

'People who go on honeymoons with broken bones,' he said with a straight face, 'must be ready to giggle '

I giggled there and then I asked him for a written medical report and the X-ray, and paid him for them, and bore away my evidence.

Stopping at a pharmacy on my way back to the hotel, I bought an elbow-supporting sling made of wide black ribbon, which I tried on for effect in the shop, and which made things a good deal better. I was wearing it when I opened my door in the evening, first to the Brigadier on his arrival from Heathrow, and then to Bill Baudelaire, from Toronto.

Bill Baudelaire looked around the sitting room and commented to the Brigadier about the lavishness of my expense account.

'Expense account, my foot!' the Brigadier said, drinking my Scotch. 'He's paying for it himself.'

Bill Baudelaire looked shocked. 'You can't let him,' he said.

'Didn't he tell you?' the Brigadier laughed. 'He's as rich as Croesus.'

'No… he didn't tell me.'

'He never tells anybody. He's afraid of it.'

Bill Baudelaire, with his carroty hair and pitted skin, looked at me with acute curiosity.

'Why do you do this job?' he said.

The Brigadier gave me no time to answer. 'What else would he do to pass the time? Play backgammon? This game is better. Isn't that it, Tor?'

'This game is better,' I agreed.

The Brigadier smiled. Although shorter than Bill Baudelaire, and older and leaner, and with fairer, thinning hair, he seemed to fill more of the room. I might be three inches taller than he, but I had the impression always of looking up to him, not down.

'To work, then,' he suggested. 'Strategy, tactics, plan of attack.'

He had brought some papers from England, though some were still to come, and he spread them out on the coffee table so that all of us, leaning forward, could see them.

'It was a good guess of yours, Tor, that the report on the cats was a computer print-out, because of its lack of headings. The Master of the college had a call from Mercer Lorrimore at eight this morning… must have been midnight here… empowering him to tell us everything, as you'd asked. The Master gave us the name of the veterinary pathology lab he'd employed and sent us a fax of the letter he'd received from them. Is that the same as the one in Filmer's briefcase, Tor?'.

He pushed a paper across and I glanced at it. 'Identical, except for the headings.'

'Good. The path lab confirmed they kept the letter stored in their computer but they don't know yet how anyone outside could get a print-out. We're still trying. So are they. They don't like it happening.'

'How about a list of their employees,' I said, 'including temporary secretaries or wizard hacker office boys?'

'Where do you get such language?' the Brigadier protested. He produced a sheet of names. 'This was the best they could do.'

I read the list. None of the names was familiar.

'Do you really need to know the connection?' Bill Baudelaire asked.

'It would be neater,' I said.

The Brigadier nodded. 'John Millington is working on it. We're talking to him by telephone before tomorrow's meeting. Now, the next thing,' he turned to me. 'That conveyance you saw in the briefcase. As you suggested, we checked the number SF 90155 with the Land Registry.' He chuckled with all George Burley's enjoyment. 'That alone would have been worth your trip.'

He explained why. Bill Baudelaire said, 'We've got him, then,' with great satisfaction: and the joint Commanders-in-Chief began deciding in which order they would fire off their accumulated salvoes.

Julius Apollo walked into a high-up private room in Exhibition Park racecourse on Tuesday morning to sign and receive, as he thought, certification that he was the sole owner of Laurentide Ice, which would run in his name that afternoon.

The room was the President of the racecourse's conference room, having a desk attended by three comfortable armchairs at one end, with a table surrounded by eight similar chairs at the other. The doorway from the passage was at mid-point between the groupings, so that one turned right to the desk, left to the conference table. A fawn carpet covered the floor, horse pictures covered the walls, soft yellow leather covered the armchairs: a cross between comfort and practicality, without windows but with interesting spot-lighting from recesses in the ceiling.

When Filmer entered, both of the Directors of Security were sitting behind the desk, with three senior members of the Vancouver Jockey Club and the British Columbia Racing Commission seated at the conference table. They were there to give weight to the proceedings and to bear witness afterwards, but they had chosen to be there simply as observers, and they had agreed not to interrupt with questions. They would take notes, they said, and ask questions afterwards, if necessary.

Three more people and I waited on the other side of a closed door which led from the conference table end of the room into a serving pantry, and from there out again into the passage.

When Filmer arrived I went along the passage and locked the door he had come in by, and put the key in the pocket of my grey raincoat, which I wore buttoned to the neck. Then I walked back along the passage and into the serving pantry where I stood quietly behind the others waiting there.

A microphone stood on the desk in front of the Directors, with another on the conference table, both of them leading to a tape recorder. Out in the serving pantry, an amplifier quietly relayed everything that was said inside.

Bill Baudelaire's deep voice greeted Filmer, invited him to sit in the chair in front of the desk, and said, 'You know Brigadier Catto, of course?'

As the two men had glared at each other times without number, yes, he knew him.

'And these other gentlemen are from, the Jockey Club and Racing Commission here in Vancouver.'

'What is this?' Filmer asked truculently. 'All I want is some paperwork. A formality.'

The Brigadier said, 'We are taking this opportunity to make some preliminary enquiries into some racing matters, and it seemed best to do it now, as so many of the people involved are in Vancouver at this time '

'What are you talking about?' Filmer said.

'We should explain,' the Brigadier said smoothly, 'that we are recording what is said in this room this morning. This is not a formal trial or an official enquiry, but what is said here may be repeated at any trial or enquiry in the future. We would ask you to bear this in mind.'