Dick Francis - Enquiry

‘What is this chunk of metal?’

‘Just hand it over.’

‘I don’t know what you’re looking for?’

‘Chunk of metal with a hole in it.’

‘What chunk of metal?’

‘Look, chum, what does it matter what chunk of metal? The one you’ve got.’

‘I haven’t.’

‘Stop playing games.’ He swung the crutch. I grunted. ‘Hand it over.’

‘I haven’t... got... any chunk of metal.’

‘Look chum, my instructions are as clear as glass. You’ve got some lump of metal and I’ve come to fetch it. Understand? Simple. So save yourself, you stupid crumb.’

‘What is he paying for it?’

‘You still offering more?’

‘Worth a try.’

‘So you said before. But nothing doing.’

‘Pity.’

‘Where’s the chunk...?’

I didn’t answer, heard the crutch coming, rolled at the right instant, and heard it thud on the carpet, roughly where my nose had been.

The little flashlight sought me out. He didn’t miss the second time, but it was only my arm, not my face.

‘Didn’t you ask what it was?’ I said.

‘None of your bloody business. You just tell me...’ bash...‘where’... bash...‘it is.’

I’d had about enough. Too much, in fact. And I’d found out all I was likely to, except how far he was prepared to go, which was information I could do without.

I’d been trying to roll towards the door. Finally made it near enough. Stretched backwards over my head and felt my fingers curl round the bottom of the other crutch still propped against the wall.

The rubber knob came into my hand, and with one scything movement I swept the business end round viciously at knee level.

It caught him square and unexpected on the back of the legs just as he himself was in mid swing, and he overbalanced and crashed down half on top of me. I reached out and caught something, part of his coat, and gripped and pulled, and tried to swing my plaster leg over his body to hold him down.

He wasn’t having any. We scrambled around on the floor, him trying to get up and me trying to stop him, both of us scratching and punching and gouging in a thoroughly unsportsmanlike manner. The flashlight had fallen away across the far side of the room and shone only on the wall. Not enough light to be much good. Too much for total evasion of his efficient fists.

The bedside table fell over with a crash and the lamp smashed. Oakley somehow reached into the ruins and picked up a piece of glass, and I just saw the light shimmer on it as he slashed it towards my eyes. I dodged it by a millimetre in the last half second.

‘You bugger,’ I said bitterly.

We were both gasping for breath. I loosed the grip I had on his coat in order to have both hands free to deal with the glass, and as soon as he felt me leave go he was heaving himself back on to his feet.

‘Now,’ he said, panting heavily, ‘Where bloody is it?’

I didn’t answer. He’d got hold of a crutch again. Back to square one. On the thigh, that time,

I was lying on the other crutch. The elbow supports were digging into my back. I twisted my arm underneath me and pulled out the crutch, hand swung it at him just as he was having a second go. The crutches met and crashed together in the air. I held on to mine for dear life and rolled towards the bed.

‘Give... up...’ he said.

‘Get... stuffed.’

I made it to the bed and lay in the angle between it and the floor. He couldn’t get a good swing at me there. I turned the crutch round, and held it by the elbow and hand grips with both of my own. To hit me where I was lying he had to come nearer.

He came. His dark shadow was above me, exaggerated by the dim torchlight. He leant over, swinging. I shoved the stick end of the crutch hard upwards. It went into him solidly and he screeched sharply. The crutch he had been swinging dropped harmlessly on top of me as he reeled away, clutching at his groin.

‘I’ll... kill you... for that...’ His voice was high with pain. He groaned, hugging himself.

‘Serves... you... right’ I said breathlessly.

I pulled myself across the floor, dragging the plaster, aiming for the telephone which had crashed on to the floor with the little table. Found the receiver. Pulled the cord. The telephone bumped over the carpet into my hand.

Put my finger on the button. Small ting. Dialling tone. Found the numbers. Three... nine... one...

‘Yeah?’ Tony’s voice, thick with sleep.

Dead careless, I was. Didn’t hear a thing. The crutch swung wickedly down on the back of my head and I fell over the telephone and never told him to gallop to the rescue.

I woke where Oakley had left me, still lying on the floor over the telephone, the receiver half in and half out of my hand.

It was daylight, just. Grey and raw and raining. I was stiff. Cold. Had a headache.

Remembered bit by bit what had happened. Set about scraping myself off the carpet.

First stop, back on to the bed, accompanied by bedclothes. Lay there feeling terrible and looking at the mess he had made of my room.

After he’d knocked me out, he had nothing to be quiet about. Everything had been pulled out of the closet and drawers and flung on the floor. Everything smashable was smashed. The sleeves of some of my suits were ripped and lying in tatters. Rosalind’s picture had been torn into four pieces and the silver frame twisted and snapped. It had been revenge more than a search. A bad loser, David Oakley.

What I could see of the sitting-room through the open door seemed to have received the same treatment.

I lay and ached in most places you could think of.

Didn’t look to see if Oakley had found the piece of manifold because I knew he wouldn’t have. Thought about him coming, and about what he’d said.

Thought about Cranfield.

Thought about Gowery.

Once I got the plaster off and could move about again, it shouldn’t take me too long now to dig out the enemy. A bit of leg work. Needed two legs.

Oakley would shortly be reporting no success from the night’s work. I wondered if he would be sent to try again. Didn’t like that idea particularly.

I shifted on the bed, trying to get comfortable. I’d been concussed twice in five days once before, and got over it. I’d been kicked along the ground by a large field of hurdlers, which had been a lot worse than the crutches. I’d broken enough bones to stock a cemetery and this time they were all whole. But all the same I felt sicker than after racing falls, and in the end realised my unease was revulsion against being hurt by another man. Horses, hard ground, even express trains, were impersonal. Oakley had been a different type of invasion. The amount you were mentally affected by a pain always depended on how you got it.

I felt terrible. Had no energy at all to get up and tidy the mess.

Shut my eyes to blot it out. Blotted myself out, too. Went to sleep.

A voice said above my head, ‘Won’t you ever learn to keep your door shut?’

I smiled feebly. ‘Not if you’re coming through it’

‘Finding you flat out is becoming a habit.’

‘Try to break it.’

I opened my eyes. Broad daylight. Still raining.

Roberta was standing a foot from the bed wearing a blinding yellow raincoat covered in trickling drops. The copper hair was tied up in a pony tail and she was looking around her with disgust.

‘Do you realise it’s half past ten?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Do you always drop your clothes all over the place when you go to bed?’

‘Only on Wednesdays.’

‘Coffee?’ she said abruptly, looking down at me.

‘Yes, please.’

She picked her way through the mess to the door, and then across the sitting-room until she was out of sight. I rubbed my hand over my chin. Bristly. And there was a tender lump on the back of my skull and a sore patch all down one side of my jaw, where I hadn’t dodged fast enough. Bruises in other places set up a morning chorus. I didn’t listen.