Dick Francis: Proof

I stopped. There was a small silence.

‘Did you get all that, constable?’ Wilson asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘According to your van, you are a wine merchant, Mr Beach? And you supplied the drinks for the party?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

‘And you are observant.’ His voice was dry, on the edge of dubious.

‘Well...’

‘Could you describe the position of any other of the guests so accurately? For a whole hour, Mr Beach?’

‘Yes, some. But one tends to notice a Sheik. And I do notice where people are when I’m anywhere on business. The hosts, and so on, in case they want me.’

He watched my face without comment, and presently asked, ‘What did the Sheik drink?’

‘Orange juice with ice and mineral water’

‘And his followers?’

‘One had fizzy lemonade, the other two, Coca-Cola.’

‘Did you get that, constable?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Wilson stared for a while at his toecaps, then took a deep breath as if reaching a decision.

‘If I described some clothes to you, Mr Beach,’ he said, ‘could you tell me who was wearing them?’

‘Uh... if I knew them.’

‘Navy pinstripe suit...’

I listened to the familiar description. ‘A man called Larry Trent,’ I said. ‘One of Jack Hawthorn’s owners. He has... had... a restaurant; the Silver Moondance, near Reading.’

‘Got that, constable?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And also, Mr Beach, a blue tweed skirt and jacket with a light blue woollen shirt, pearls round the neck, and pearl earrings?’

I concentrated, trying to remember, and he said, ‘Greenish, slightly hairy trousers, olive-coloured sweater over a mustard shirt. Brown tie with mustard stripes.’

‘Oh...’

‘You know him?’

‘Both of them. Colonel and Mrs Fulham. I was talking to them. I sell them wine.’

‘Sold, Mr Beach,’ Wilson said regretfully. ‘That’s all, then. I’m afraid all the others have been identified, poor people.’

I swallowed. ‘How many...?’

‘Altogether? Eight dead, I’m afraid. It could have been worse. Much worse.’ He rose to his feet and perfunctorily shook my hand. ‘There may be political repercussions. I can’t tell whether you may be needed for more answers. I will put in my report. Good day, Mr Beach.’

He went out in his slow hunched way, followed by the constable, and I walked after them into the garden.

It was growing dark, with lights coming on in places.

The square of screens had been taken down, and two ambulances were preparing to back through the gap the horsebox had made in the hedge. A row of seven totally covered stretchers lay blackly on the horribly bloodstained matting, with the eighth set apart. In that, I supposed, lay the Sheik, as two living Arabs stood there, one at the head, one at the foot, still tenaciously guarding their prince.

In the dusk the small haggard group of people, all hope gone now, watched silently, with Flora among them, as ambulancemen lifted the seven quiet burdens one by one to bear them away; and I went slowly to my van and sat in it until they had done. Until only the Sheik remained, aloof in death as in life, awaiting a nobler hearse.

I switched on lights and engine and followed the two ambulances over the hill, and in depression drove down to the valley, to my house.

Dark house. Empty house.

I let myself in and went upstairs to change my clothes, but when I reached the bedroom I just went and lay on the bed without switching on the lamps; and from exhaustion, from shock, from pity, from loneliness and from grief... I wept.

Monday mornings I always spent in the shop restocking the shelves after the weekend’s sales and drawing up lists of what I would need as replacements. Monday afternoons I drove the van to the wholesalers for spirits, soft drinks, cigarettes, sweets and crisps, putting some directly into the shop on my return, and the reserves into the storeroom.

Mondays also I took stock of the cases of wines stacked floor to shoulder level in the storeroom and telephoned shippers for more. Mondays the storeroom got tidied by five p.m., checked and ready for the week ahead. Mondays were always hard work.

That particular Monday morning, heavy with the dead feeling of aftermath, I went drearily to work sliding Gordon’s gin into neat green rows and slotting Liebfraumilch into its rack; tidying the Teacher’s, counting the Bell’s, noticing we were out of Moulin à Vent. All of it automatic, my mind still with the Hawthorns, wondering how Jack was, and Jimmy, and how soon I should telephone to find out.

When I first had the shop I had just met Emma, and we had run it together with a sense of adventure that had never quite left us. Nowadays I had more prosaic help in the shape of a Mrs Palissey and also her nephew, Brian, who had willing enough muscles but couldn’t read.

Mrs Palissey, generous both as to bosom and gossip, arrived punctually at nine-thirty and told me wide-eyed that she’d seen on the morning television news about the Sheik being killed at the party.

‘You were there, Mr Beach, weren’t you?’ She was agog for gory details and waited expectantly, and with an inward sigh I satisfied at least some of her curiosity. Brian loomed over her, six feet tall, listening intently with his mouth open. Brian did most things with his mouth open, outward sign of inward retardation. Brian worked for me because his aunt had begged me piteously. ‘It’s giving my sister a nervous breakdown having him mooning round the house all day every day, and he could lift things here for me when you’re out, and he’ll be no trouble, I’ll see to that.’

At first I feared I had simply transferred the imminent breakdown from the sister to myself, but when one got used to Brian’s heavy breathing and permanent state of anxiety, one could count on the plus side that he would shift heavy cases of bottles all day without complaining, and didn’t talk much.

‘All those poor people!’ exclaimed Mrs Palissey, enjoying the drama. ‘That poor Mrs Hawthorn. Such a nice lady, I always think.’

‘Yes,’ I said, agreeing: and life did, I supposed, have to on. Automatic, pointless life, like asking Brian to go into storeroom and fetch another case of White Satin.

He nodded without closing the mouth and went off on the errand, returning unerringly with the right thing. He might not be able to read, but I had found he could recognise the general appearance of a bottle and label if I told him three or four times what it was, and he now knew all the regular items by sight. Mrs Palissey said at least once a week that she was ever so proud of him, considering.

Mrs Palissey and I remained by common consent on formal terms of Mrs and Mr: more dignified, she said. By nature she liked to please and was in consequence a good saleswoman, making genuinely helpful suggestions to irresolute customers. ‘Don’t know their own minds, do they, Mr Beach?’ she would say when they’d gone and I would agree truthfully that no, they often didn’t. Mrs Palissey and I tended to have the same conversations over and over and slightly too often.

She was honest in all major ways and unscrupulous in minor. She would never cheat me through the till, but Brian ate his way through a lot more crisps and Mars bars than I gave him myself, and spare light bulbs and half-full jars of Nescafé tended to go home with Mrs P. if she was short. Mrs Palissey considered such things ‘perks’ but would have regarded taking a bottle of sherry as stealing. I respected the distinction and was grateful for it, and paid her a little over the norm.

Whenever we were both there together, Mrs Palissey served the shop customers while I sat in the tiny office within earshot taking orders over the telephone and doing the paperwork, ready to help her if necessary. Some customers, particularly men, came for the wine-chat as much as the product, and her true knowledge there was sweet, dry, cheap, expensive, popular.