Дик Фрэнсис - Knock Down

I laughed. She said she hadn’t meant to be funny. She had nice legs but no sense of humour. My own amusement rather died when she pointed out the state of the buckle on my strap, which she’d taken off to get at the cut. The buckle was bent. The mark of the prong showed clearly.

‘One prong hit the buckle. The other went into you but slid along against a rib. I’d say you were exceptionally lucky.’

I said soberly, ‘I’d say so too.’

She stuck on some plaster, gave me a couple of anti-infection injections, and refused my offer of a fee.

‘On the National Health,’ she said sternly, as if offering to pay were immoral. She handed me the strap. ‘Why don’t you get that shoulder repaired?’

‘Can’t spare the time... and I’m allergic to hospitals.’

She gave my bare chest and arms a quick glance. ‘You’ve been in a few. Several of your bones have been fractured.’

Quite so,’ I agreed.

She allowed herself a sudden small smile. ‘I recognise you now. I’ve seen you on television. I backed your horse once in the Grand National when I was a student. I won six pounds and spent it on a book on blood diseases.’

‘Glad to have been of service,’ I said.

‘I shouldn’t wear that strap for a week or so,’ she said. ‘Otherwise it will rub that wound and prevent it healing.’

‘All right.’

I thanked her for her skill, dressed, collected Sophie from the waiting-room, and drifted along to the police station. Once again Sophie was offered a chair to sit on. She showed signs of exasperated patience and asked if I would be long.

‘Take my car,’ I said contritely. ‘Do some shopping. Go for a walk to Windsor Park.’

She considered it and brightened. ‘I’ll come back in an hour.’

The police wanted a statement from me but I asked if I could first speak to Fynedale.

‘Speak to him? Well... there’s no law against it. He hasn’t been charged yet.’ They shook their heads dubiously. ‘He’s in a violent state, though. Are you sure you want to?’

‘Certain.’

They shrugged. ‘This way, then.’

Fynedale was in a small bare interview room, not sitting beside the table on one of the two plain wooden chairs, but standing in the centre of the largest available clear space. He vibrated still as if strung as tight as piano wire and a muscle jumped spasmodically under his left eye.

The room, brown paint to waist height, cream above, had no windows and was lit by electric light. An impassive young policeman sat in a chair just inside the door. I asked him and the others to leave me and Fynedale to talk alone. Fynedale said loudly ‘I’ve nothing to bloody say to you.’

The policemen thought I was being foolish, but eventually they shrugged and went away.

‘Sit down,’ I said, taking one of the chairs by the table and gesturing to the other.

‘No.’

‘All right, don’t.’ I pulled out cigarettes and lit one. Whatever was said about cancer of the lungs, I thought, there were times worth the risk. I drew the smoke down and was grateful for its comfort.

Fynedale began pacing around in jerky little strides.

‘I told you I’d kill you,’ he said.

‘Your good luck that you didn’t.’

He stopped dead. ‘What did you say?’

‘If you had, you’d have spent ten years inside.’

‘Bloody worth it.’ He went back to pacing.

‘I see Vic’s got another partner,’ I said.

He picked up a chair and threw it viciously against the wall. The door opened immediately and the young policeman stepped hurriedly in.

‘Please wait,’ I said. ‘We’ve hardly started.’

He looked indecisively at Fynedale, the fallen chair, and me sitting calmly smoking, and decided that perhaps after all it would be safe to leave. The door closed quietly behind him.

‘Vic’s done the dirty on you, I reckon,’ I said.

He circled behind me. The hairs on my neck bristled. I took another lungful of smoke and didn’t look round.

‘Getting you into trouble and then ditching you.’

‘It was you got me into trouble.’ The voice was a growl in the throat.

I knew that any tenseness in my body would react on him and screw him up even tighter, but it took a fair amount of concentration to relax every muscle with him out of sight behind my head. I tried to make my voice slow, thoughtful, persuasive, but my mouth was as dry as a Sunday in Salt Lake City.

‘Vic started it,’ I said. ‘Vic and you. Now it’s Vic and Ronnie North. You and I... we’ve both come off worst with Vic...’

He reappeared jerkily into my field of vision. The carrot hair looked bright orange under the electric bulb. His eyes alternately shone with manic fire when the light caught them and receded into secretive shadows when he bent his head. Sophie’s remarks about gelignite on the boil came back to me; and his instability had if anything increased.

‘Cigarette?’ I suggested.

‘Get stuffed.’

It was better when I could see him.

I said ‘What have you told the police?’

‘Nothing. Bloody nothing.’

‘Did they get you to make a statement?’

‘That they bloody did not.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘That simplifies things.’

‘What the hell are you on about?’

I watched the violence and agitation in every physical movement. It was as if his muscles and nerves were acting in spasms, as if some central disorganisation were plucking wires.

I said, ‘What is upsetting you most?’

‘Most?’ he yelled. ‘Most? The fact that you’re bloody walking in here as cool as bloody cucumbers, that’s what. I tried to kill you. Kill you .’

He stopped as if he couldn’t explain what he meant, but he’d got his message across to me loud and clear. He had taken himself beyond the edge of sense in his compulsion to do me harm, and there I was, proving that it had all been for nothing. I guessed that he badly needed not to have failed entirely. I took off my jacket and explained about the strap and buckle saving my life. I undid my shirt, showed him the plaster, and told him what lay underneath.

‘It hurts,’ I said truthfully.

He stopped pacing and peered closely at my face. ‘Does it?’

‘Yes.’

He put out his hand and touched me. I winced.

He stood back, bent and picked up the chair he’d thrown, set it on its feet on the far side of the table, and sat down opposite me. He stretched for the packet of cigarettes and lighter which I’d left lying, and lit one with hands still shaking with tension.

I left my shirt undone and falling open. He sat smoking jerkily, his eyes flicking every few seconds to the strip of plaster. It seemed to satisfy him. To reassure. Finally to soothe. He smoked the whole cigarette through without speaking, but the jerky movements gradually quietened, and by the time he threw the stub on the floor and twisted his foot on it the worst of the jangle had disappeared.

‘I’ll make a bargain with you,’ I said.

‘What bargain?’

‘I’ll say the pitchfork was an accident.’

‘You know bloody well it wasn’t.’

‘I know. You know. The police know. But there were no witnesses... If I swear it was an accident there would be no question of you being even charged with attempted murder, let alone tried and convicted.’

He thought it over. There were a lot of little twitches in the muscles of his face, and the skin stretched gauntly over the cheekbones.

‘You don’t actually want to do time, do you?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Suppose we could get you off all the hooks... Assault, fraud, the lot.’

‘You couldn’t.’

‘I could keep you out of jail, that’s for sure.’

A long pause. Then he said, ‘A bargain. That means you want something in return.’