Dick Francis - Proof

It was a man’s voice I could hear saying, ‘Is Mr Beach himself in?’ and Mrs Palissey’s helpfully answering, ‘Yes, sir, he’ll be right with you,’ and I rose and took the few steps into his sight.

The man there, dressed in a belted fawn raincoat, was perhaps a shade older than myself and had a noticeably authoritative manner. Without enormous surprise I watched him reach into an inner pocket for a badge of office and introduce himself as Detective Sergeant Ridger, Thames Valley police. He hoped I might be able to help him with his enquiries.

My mind did one of those quick half-guilty canters round everything possible I might have done wrong before I came to the more sensible conclusion that his presence must have something to do with the accident. And so it had, in a way, but not how I could have expected.

‘Do you know a Mr d’Alban, sir?’ He consulted his memory. ‘The Honourable James d’Alban, sir?’

‘Yes I do,’ I said. ‘He was injured yesterday at the Hawthorn party. He’s not... dying?’ I shied at the last minute away from ‘dead’.

‘No, sir, he’s not. As far as I know he’s in Battle Hospital with broken ribs, a pierced lung, and concussion.’

Enough to be going on with, I thought ironically. Poor Jimmy.

Ridger had a short over-neat haircut, watchful brown eyes, a calculator-wristwatch bristling with knobs and no gift for public relations. He said impersonally, ‘Mr d’Alban woke up to some extent in the ambulance taking him to hospital and began talking disjointedly but repeatedly about a man called Larry Trent and some unpronounceable whisky that wasn’t what it ought to be, and you, sir, who would know for certain if you tasted it.’

I just waited.

Ridger went on, ‘There was a uniformed policeman in the ambulance with Mr d’Alban, and the constable reported the substance of those remarks to us, as he was aware we had reason to be interested in them. Mr d’Alban, he said, was totally unable to answer any questions yesterday and indeed appeared not to know he was being addressed.’

I wished vaguely that Ridger would talk more naturally, not as if reading from a notebook. Mrs Palissey was listening hard though pretending not to, with Brian frowning uncomprehendingly beside her. Ridger glanced at them a shade uneasily and asked if we could talk somewhere in private.

I took him into the miniscule office, large enough only for a desk, two chairs and a heater: about five feet square, approximately. He sat in the visitors’ chair without waste of time and said, ‘We’ve tried to interview Mr d’Alban this morning but he is in Intensive Care and the doctor refused us entry.’ He shrugged. ‘They say to try tomorrow, but for our purposes tomorrow may be too late.’

‘And your purposes are... what?’ I asked.

For the first time he seemed to look at me as a person, not just as an aid to enquiries; but I wasn’t sure I liked the change because in his warming interest there was also a hint of manipulation. I had dealt in my time with dozens of salesmen seeking business, and Ridger’s was the same sort of approach. He needed something from me that called for persuasion.

‘Do you verify, sir, that Mr d’Alban did talk to you about this whisky?’

‘Yes, he did, yesterday morning.’

Ridger looked almost smug with satisfaction.

‘You may not know, sir,’ he said, ‘that Mr Larry Trent died in yesterday’s accident.’

‘Yes, I did know.’

‘Well, sir...’ he discreetly cleared his throat, lowering his voice for the sales pitch, softening the natural bossiness in his face. ‘To be frank, we’ve had other complaints about the Silver Moondance. On two former occasions investigations have been carried out there, both times by the Office of Weights and Measures, and by Customs and Excise. On neither occasion was any infringement found.’

He paused.

‘But this time?’ I prompted obligingly.

‘This time we think that in view of Mr Trent’s death, it might be possible to make another inspection this morning.’

‘Ah.’

I wasn’t sure that he liked the dry understanding in my voice, but he soldiered on. ‘We have reason to believe that in the past someone at the Silver Moondance, possibly Mr Trent himself, has been tipped off in advance that the investigations were in hand. So this time my superiors in the CID would like to make some preliminary enquiries of our own, assisted, if you are agreeable, by yourself, as an impartial expert.’

‘Um,’ I said, doubtfully. ‘This morning, did you say?’

‘Now, sir, if you would be so good.’

‘This very minute?’

‘We think, sir, the quicker the better.’

‘You must surely have your own experts?’ I said.

It appeared... er... that there was no official expert available at such short notice, and that as time was all important... would I go?

I could see no real reason why not to, so I said briefly, ‘All right’, and told Mrs Palissey I’d be back as soon as I could. Ridger drove us in his car, and I wondered on the way just how much of an expert the delirious Jimmy had made me out to be, and whether I would be of any use at all, when it came to the point.

The Silver Moondance, along the valley from the small Thames-side town where I had my shop, had originally been a sprawlingly ugly house built on the highest part of a field sloping up from the river. It had over the years metamorphosed successively into school, nursing home, and general boarding house, adding inappropriate wings at every change. Its most recent transformation had been also the most radical, so that little could now be seen of the original shiny yellow-grey bricks for glossier expanses of plate glass. At night from the river the place looked like Blackpool fully illuminated, and even by day, from the road, one could see ‘Silver Moondance’ blinking on and off in white letters over the doorway.

‘Do they know you here, sir?’ Ridger belatedly asked as we turned into the drive.

I shook my head. ‘Shouldn’t think so. The last time I came here it was the Riverland Guest Home, full of old retired people. I used to deliver their drinks.’

Dears, they had been, I remembered nostalgically, and great topers, on the whole, taking joy in their liquid pleasures.

Ridger grunted without much interest and parked on an acre or two of unpopulated tarmac. ‘They should just be open,’ he said with satisfaction, locking the car doors. ‘Ready, sir?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And Sergeant... um... let me do the talking.’

‘But...’

‘Best not to alarm them,’ I said, persuasively, ‘if you don’t want them pouring the Laphroaig down the sink.’

‘The what?’

‘What we’re looking for.’

‘Oh.’ He thought. ‘Very well.’

I said, ‘Fine,’ without emphasis and we walked through the flashing portal into the ritzy plush of the entrance hall.

There were lights on everywhere, but no one in sight. A reception desk; unattended. A flat air of nothing happening and nothing expected.

Ridger and I walked toward a wrought iron and driftwood sign announcing ‘Silver Moondance Saloon’, and pushed through Western-style swing doors into the room beyond. It was red, black and silver, very large and uninhabited. There were many tables, each with four bentwood chairs set neatly round, and an orthodox bar at one end, open for business.

No bartender.

Ridger walked purposefully across and rapped on the counter, I following him more slowly.

No one came. Ridger rapped again, louder and longer, and was presently rewarded by a youngish fair-haired man coming through another swinging door at the back of the bar area, sweating visibly and struggling into a white jacket.

‘Give us a chance,’ he said crossly. ‘We’ve only been open five minutes.’ He wiped his damp forehead with his fingers and buttoned his coat. ‘What can I get you?’