Dick Francis - Enquiry

‘Dexter Cranfield... bloody snob... I’ll see he doesn’t get those horses... I’m going to kill him, see, kill him... then he can’t get them, can he? No... he can’t.’

Again there was no surprise either in Roberta or her mother. Grace had told them already what she’d come for.

‘Grace, killing Mr Cranfield won’t help your husband.’

‘Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.’ She nodded sharply between each yes, and the knife jumped against Roberta’s neck. Roberta shut her eyes for a while and swayed on the chair.

I said, ‘How do you hope to kill him, Grace?’

She laughed. It got out of control at halfway and ended in a maniacal high-pitched giggle. ‘He’ll come here, won’t he? He’ll come here and stand beside me, because he’ll do just what I say, won’t he? Won’t he?’

I looked at the steel blade beside Roberta’s pearly skin and knew that he would indeed do as she said. As I would.

‘And then, see,’ she said, ‘I’ll just stick the knife into him , not into her. See? See?’

‘I see,’ I said.

She nodded extravagantly and her hand shook.

‘And then what?’ I asked.

‘Then what?’ She looked puzzled. She hadn’t got any further than killing Cranfield. Beyond that lay only darkness and confusion. Her vision didn’t extend to consequences.

‘Edwin Byler could send his horses away to someone else,’ I said.

‘No. No. Only Dexter Cranfield. Only him. Telling him he ought to have a more snobbish trainer. Taking him away from us. I’m going to kill him. Then he can’t have those horses.’ The words tumbled out in a vehement monotone, all the more frightening for being clearly automatic. These were thoughts she’d had in her head for a very long time.

‘It would have been all right, of course,’ I said slowly. ‘If Mr Cranfield hadn’t got his licence back.’

‘Yes!’ It was a bitterly angry shriek.

‘I got it back for him,’ I said.

‘They just gave it back. They just gave it back. They shouldn’t have done that. They shouldn’t.’

‘They didn’t just give it back,’ I said. ‘They gave it back because I made them.’

‘You couldn’t...’

‘I told everyone I was going to. And I did.’

‘No. No. No.’

‘Yes.’ I said flatly.

Her expression slowly changed, and highly frightening it was too. I waited while it sank into her disorganised brain that if Byler sent his horses to Cranfield after all it was me alone she had to thank for it. I watched the intention to kill widen to embrace me too. The semi-cautious restraint in her manner towards me was transforming itself into a vicious glare of hate.

I swallowed. I said again, ‘If I hadn’t made the Stewards give Mr Cranfield’s licence back, he would still be warned off.’

Roberta said in horror, ‘No, Kelly. Don’t. Don’t do it.’

‘Shut up.’ I said. ‘Me or your father... which has more chance? And run, when you can.’

Grace wasn’t listening. Grace was grasping the essentials and deciding on a course of action.

There was a lot of white showing round her eyes.

‘I’ll kill you,’ she said. ‘I’ll kill you.’

I stood still. I waited. The seconds stretched like centuries.

‘Come here,’ she said. ‘Come here, or I’ll cut her throat.’

I took myself crutch by crutch towards her. When I was half way there Mrs Cranfield gave a moaning sigh and fainted, falling awkwardly on the rug and scattering the brass fire irons with a nerve-shattering crash.

Grace jumped. The knife snicked into Roberta’s skin and she cried out. I stood half unbalanced, freezing into immobility, trying to will Grace not to disintegrate into panic, not to go over the edge, not to lose the last tiny grip she had on her reason. She wasn’t far off stabbing everything in sight.

‘Sit still,’ I said to Roberta with dreadful urgency and she gave me a terrified look and did her best not to move. She was trembling violently. I had never thought I could pray. I prayed.

Grace was moving her head in sharp birdlike jerks. The knife was still against Roberta’s neck. Grace’s other hand still grasped Roberta’s shoulder. A thread of blood trickled down Roberta’s skin and was blotted up in a scarlet patch by her white jersey.

No one went to help Roberta’s mother. I didn’t even dare to look at her, because it meant turning my eyes away from Grace.

‘Come here,’ Grace said. ‘Come here.’

Her voice was husky, little more than a loud whisper. And although she was watching me come with unswerving murder in her eyes, I was inexpressibly thankful that she could still speak at all, still think, still hold a purpose.

During the last few steps I wondered how I was going to dodge, since I couldn’t jump, couldn’t bend my knees, and hadn’t even my hands free. A bit late to start worrying. I took the last step short so that she would have to move to reach me and at the same time eased my elbow out of the right-hand crutch.

She was almost too fast. She struck at me instantly, in a flashing thrust directed at my throat, and although I managed to twist the two inches needed to avoid it, the hissing knife came close enough, through the collar of my coat. I brought my right arm up and across, crashing crutch against her as she prepared to try again.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Roberta wrench herself out of Grace’s clutching grasp, and half stumble, half fall as she got away from the chair.

‘Kill you,’ Grace said. The words were distorted. The meaning clear. She had no thought of self defence. No thought at all, as far as I could see. Just one single burning obsessive intention.

I brought up the left-hand crutch like a pole to push her away. She dived round it and tried to plunge her knife through my ribs, and in throwing myself away from that I overbalanced and half fell down, and she was standing over me with her arm raised like a priest at a human sacrifice.

I dropped one crutch altogether. Useless warding off a knife with a bare hand. I tried to shove the other crutch round into her face, but got it tangled up against an armchair.

Grace brought her arm down. I fell right to the floor as soon as I saw her move and the knife followed me harmlessly, all the impetus gone by the time it reached me. Another tear in my coat.

She came down on her knees beside me, her arm going up again.

From nowhere my lost crutch whistled through the air and smashed into the hand which held the knife. Grace hissed like a snake and dropped it, and it fell point down on to my plaster. She twisted round to see who had hit her and spread out her hands towards the crutch that Roberta was aiming at her again.

She caught hold of it and tugged. I wriggled round on the floor, stretched until I had my fingers round the handle of the knife, and threw it as hard as I could towards the open door into the hall.

Grace was too much for Roberta. Too much for me. She was appallingly, insanely, strong. I heaved myself up on to my left knee and clasped my arms tight round her chest from behind, trying to pin her arms down to her sides. She shook me around like a sack of feathers, struggling to get to her feet.

She managed it, lifting me with her, plaster and all. She knew where I’d thrown the knife. She started to go that way, dragging me with her still fastened to her back like a leech.

‘Get that knife and run to the stables,’ I gasped to Roberta. A girl in a million. She simply ran and picked up the knife and went on running, out into the hall and out of the house.

Grace started yelling unintelligibly and began trying to unclamp the fingers I had laced together over her thin breastbone. I hung on for everyone’s dear life, and when she couldn’t dislodge them she began pinching wherever she could reach with fierce hurting spite.