Dick Francis - Enquiry

She came back minus the raincoat and carrying two steaming mugs which she put carefully on the floor. Then she picked up the bedside table and transferred the mugs to its top.

The drawer had fallen out of the table, and the envelope had fallen out of the drawer. But Oakley hadn’t apparently looked into it: hadn’t known it was there to find.

Roberta picked up the scattered crutches and brought them over to the bed.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘You take it very calmly.’

‘I’ve seen it before,’ I pointed out.

‘And you just went to sleep?’

‘Opted out,’ I agreed.

She looked more closely at ray face and rolled my head over on the pillow. I winced. She took her hand away.

‘Did you get the same treatment as the flat?’

‘More or less.’

‘What for?’

‘For being stubborn.’

‘Do you mean,’ she said incredulously, ‘That you could have avoided all this... and didn’t?’

‘If there’s a good reason for backing down, you back down. If there isn’t, you don’t.’

‘And all this... isn’t a good enough reason?’

‘No.’

‘You’re crazy,’ she said.

‘You’re so right.’ I sighed, pushed myself up a bit, and reached for the coffee.

‘Have you called the police?’ she asked.

I shook my head. ‘Not their quarrel.’

‘Who did it. then?’

I smiled at her. ‘Your father and I have got our licences back.’

‘What? ’

‘It’ll be official sometime today.’

‘Does Father know? How did it happen? Did you do it?’

‘No, he doesn’t know yet. Ring him up. Tell him to get on to all the owners. It’ll be confirmed in the papers soon, either today’s evening editions, or tomorrow’s dailies.’

She picked the telephone off the floor and sat on the edge of my bed, and telephoned to her father with real joy and sparkling eyes. He wouldn’t believe it at first.

‘Kelly says it’s true,’ she said.

He argued again, and she handed the telephone to me.

‘You tell him.’

Cranfield said, ‘Who told you?’

‘Lord Ferth.’

‘Did he say why?’

‘No,’ I lied. ‘Just that the sentences had been reviewed... and reversed. We’re back, as from today. The official notice will be in next week’s Calendar.’

‘No explanation at all?’ he insisted.

‘They don’t have to give one,’ I pointed out.

‘All the same...’

‘Who cares why?’ I said. ‘The fact that we’re back... that’s all that matters.’

‘Did you find out who framed us?’

‘No.’

‘Will you go on trying?’

‘I might do,’ I said. ‘We’ll see.’

He had lost interest in that. He bounded into a stream of plans for the horses, once they were back. ‘And it will give me great pleasure to tell Henry Kessel...’

‘I’d like to see his face,’ I agreed. But Pat Nikita would never part with Squelch, nor with Kessel, now. If Cranfield thought Kessel would come crawling apologetically back, he didn’t know his man. ‘Concentrate on getting Breadwinner back,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll be fit to ride in the Gold Cup.’

‘Old Strepson promised Breadwinner would come back at once... and Pound Postage of his... that’s entered in the National, don’t forget.’

‘I haven’t,’ I assured him, ‘forgotten.’

He ran down eventually and disconnected, and I could imagine him sitting at the other end still wondering whether to trust me.

Roberta stood up with a spring, as if the news had filled her with energy.

‘Shall I tidy up for you?’

‘I’d love some help.’

She bent down and picked up Rosalind’s torn picture.

‘They didn’t have to do that,’ she said in disgust.

‘I’ll get the bits stuck together and rephotographed.’

‘You’d hate to lose her...’

I didn’t answer at once. She looked at me curiously, her eyes dark with some unreadable expression.

‘I lost her,’ I said slowly. ‘Rosalind... Roberta... you are so unalike.’

She turned away abruptly and put the pieces on the chest of drawers where they had always stood.

‘Who wants to be a carbon copy?’ she said, and her voice was high and cracking. ‘Get dressed... while I start on the sitting-room.’ She disappeared fast and shut the door behind her.

I lay there looking at it.

Roberta Cranfield. I’d never liked her.

Roberta Cranfield. I couldn’t bear it... I was beginning to love her.

She stayed most of the day, helping me clear up the mess.

Oakley had left little to chance: the bathroom and kitchen both looked as if they’d been gutted by a whirlwind. He’d searched everywhere a good enquiry agent could think of, including in the lavatory cistern and the refrigerator; and everywhere he’d searched he’d left his trail of damage.

After midday, which was punctuated by some scrambled eggs, the telephone started ringing. Was it true, asked the Daily Witness in the shape of Daddy Leeman, that Cranfield and I...? ‘Check with the Jockey Club,’ I said.

The other papers had checked first. ‘May we have your comments?’ they asked.

‘Thrilled to bits,’ I said gravely. ‘You can quote me.’

A lot of real chums rang to congratulate, and a lot of pseudo chums rang to say they’d never believed me guilty anyway.

For most of the afternoon I lay flat on the sitting-room floor with my head on a cushion talking down the telephone while Roberta stepped around and over me nonchalantly, putting everything back into place.

Finally she dusted her hands off on the seat of her black pants, and said she thought that that would do. The flat looked almost as good as ever. I agreed gratefully that it would do very well.

‘Would you consider coming down to my level?’ I asked.

She said calmly, ‘Are you speaking literally, metaphorically, intellectually, financial or socially?’

‘I was suggesting you might sit on the floor.’

‘In that case,’ she said collectedly, ‘Yes.’ And she sank gracefully into a cross legged sprawl.

I couldn’t help grinning. She grinned companionably back.

‘I was scared stiff of you when I came here last week,’ she said.

‘You were what ?’

‘You always seemed so aloof. Unapproachable.’

‘Are we talking about me... or you?’

‘You, of course,’ she said in surprise. ‘You always made me nervous. I always get sort of... strung up... when I’m nervous. Put on a bit of an act, to hide it, I suppose.’

‘I see,’ I said slowly.

‘You’re still a pretty good cactus, if you want to know... but... well, you see people differently when they’ve been bleeding all over your best dress and looking pretty vulnerable...’

I began to say that in that case I would be prepared to bleed on her any time she liked, but the telephone interrupted me at half way. And it was old Strepson, settling down for a long cosy chat about Breadwinner and Pound Postage.

Roberta wrinkled her nose and got to her feet.

‘Don’t go,’ I said, with my hand over the mouthpiece.

‘Must. I’m late already.’

‘Wait,’ I said. But she shook her head, fetched the yellow raincoat from the bath, where she’d put it, and edged herself into it.

‘ ’Bye,’ she said.

‘Wait...’

She waved briefly and let herself out of the door. I struggled up on to my feet, and said, ‘Sir... could you hold on a minute...’ into the telephone, and hopped without the crutches over to the window. She looked up when I opened it. She was standing in the yard, tying on a headscarf. The rain had eased to drizzle.

‘Will you come tomorrow?’ I shouted down.

‘Can’t tomorrow. Got to go to London.’