Дик Фрэнсис - Knock Down

‘You bugger .’ The words exploded from him, all the more forceful for his unnatural immobility.

‘On the other hand,’ I said, ‘The tests have not yet been made, and in certain circumstances I would cancel them.’

His breath came back. He moved. ‘What circumstances?’ he said.

‘I want an introduction.’

‘A what?’

‘To a friend of yours. The friend who drew up the agreement that the breeder of the Transporter colt signed. The friend who decided to burn my stable.’

Vic moved restlessly.

‘Impossible.’

I said without heat, ‘It’s either that or I write to the High Power Insurance people.’

He fidgeted tensely with some pens lying on his desk.

‘What would you do if you met... this friend?’

‘Negotiate for permanent peace.’

He picked up a calendar, looked at it unseeingly, and put it down.

‘Today’s Saturday,’ I said. ‘The blood tests are scheduled for Monday morning. If I meet your friend today or tomorrow, I’ll call them off.’

He was more furious than frightened, but he knew as well as I did that those blood tests would be his first step to the dock. What I didn’t know was whether Vic like Fred Smith would swallow the medicine with, so to speak, his mouth shut.

Vic said forcefully, ‘You’d always have that threat over me. It’s bloody blackmail.’

‘Sort of,’ I agreed.

Ripples of resentment screwed up his face. I watched him searching for a way out.

‘Face to face with your friend,’ I said. ‘Five minutes will do. That’s not much when you think what you stand to lose if I don’t get it.’ I gestured round his bright room and out to the luxurious pool. ‘Built on Polyprint’s insurance, no doubt.’

He banged his fist down on the desk, making the pins rattle.

‘Bloody Fynedale told you,’ he shouted. ‘It must have been. I’ll murder the little rat.’

I didn’t exactly deny it, but instead I said matter-of-factly, ‘One calculation you left out... my brother Crispin worked for High Power.’

Crispin stood in the yard at home looking miserable and broody. I stopped the car on my return from Vic’s and climbed out to meet him.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

‘Oh...’ He swung an arm wide in inner frustration, indicating the flattened stable area and the new scaffolding climbing up to the burnt part of the roof.

‘All this... If I hadn’t been drunk it wouldn’t have happened.’

I looked at him. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘But I do. If I’d been around... if there had been lights on in the house... that man wouldn’t have set fire...’

‘You don’t know that he wouldn’t,’ I said.

‘Stands to reason.’

‘No. Come on in, it’s cold out here.’

We went into the kitchen and I made coffee. Crispin’s mood of self-abasement flickered on fitfully while he watched me put the water and coffee grounds into the percolator.

‘It would have been better if you had let me die.’

‘It was a good job you passed out in the bathroom,’ I said. ‘It was the only room which had natural ventilation through an airbrick.’

He wasn’t cheered. ‘Better if I’d snuffed it.’

‘Want some toast?’

‘Stop bloody talking about food. I’m saying you should have let me die.’

‘I know you are. It’s damn silly. I don’t want you dead. I want you alive and well and living in Surrey.’

‘You don’t take me seriously.’ His voice was full of injured complaint.

I thought of all the other conversations we’d had along those lines. I ought to have let him drown in the bath, the time he went to sleep there. I ought to have let him drive into a tree, the time I’d taken his car keys away. I ought to have let him fall off the Brighton cliffs, the time he tottered dizzily to the edge.

Blaming me for not letting him die was his way of laying all his troubles at my door. It was my fault he was alive, his mind went, so it was my fault if he took refuge in drink. He would work up his resentment against me as a justification for self-pity.

I sighed inwardly and made the toast. Either that day or the next he would be afloat again on gin.

There was no word from Vic. I spent all day working in the office and watching racing on television, with Crispin doing his best to put his mind to my accounts.

‘When you worked for High Power,’ I said, ‘Did you have anything to do with a claim for a horse called Polyprint?’

He sniffed. ‘You know damn well I was in Pensions, not Claims.’

‘Just thought you might have heard...’

‘No.’

We drank coke and fizzy lemonade and coffee, and I grilled some lamb chops for supper, and still Vic didn’t telephone.

Same thing the next morning. Too much silence. I bit my nails and wondered what to do if my lever didn’t work: if Vic wouldn’t tell and the friend wouldn’t save him. The blood typing tests could go ahead and chop Vic into little pieces, but the friend would be free and undiscovered and could recruit another lieutenant and start all over again, like cancer.

I wandered round the place where the stable had been, desultorily kicking at loose stones.

A car turned into the yard, one I didn’t know, and from it stepped a total stranger. Tall, young, blond. Surely this couldn’t be Vic’s friend, I thought: and it wasn’t. There were two other people in the car with him, and from the back of it stepped Sophie.

‘Hi...’ She grinned at my face. ‘Who were you expecting? The bailiffs?’

She introduced the friends, Peter and Sue. They were all on their way to lunch with Sue’s parents, but if I liked she could stop off with me and they would pick her up on their way back.

I liked. The friends waved and went, and Sophie tucked her arm through mine.

‘How about marriage?’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you like oysters and I don’t.’

I smiled and steered her into the house. It was as good an answer as any.

Crispin was highly restless and not in the least pleased to see her.

‘I’ll go for a walk,’ he said. ‘I can see I’m not wanted.’

‘You’ll stay right where you are and pour us some cokes,’ I said firmly. We looked at each other, both knowing that if he went for a walk it would lead to the pub.

‘All right,’ he said abruptly. ‘You bloody bully.’

I cooked the lunch: steaks and grilled tomatoes. Crispin said that Sophie ought to do it and Sophie said you should never interfere in someone else’s kitchen. They looked at each other with unfriendly eyes as if each wishing that the other wasn’t there. Not the most relaxed of Sunday lunch parties, I thought: and Vic telephoned with the coffee.

‘My friend will meet you,’ he said. ‘For five minutes only. Like you said.’

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘Here. At my house. Six o’clock.’

‘I’ll be there,’ I said.

His voice held a mixture of instructions and anxiety. ‘You’ll cancel those blood tests?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘After the meeting, I will.’

I went back to the kitchen. Sophie was smoking and Crispin glowered at his coffee as if it were an enemy. When we were alone he often stacked the plates in the dishwasher but I knew he wouldn’t do it while she was there. He took it for granted that if there was a woman in the room she would do the household chores, even if she were a guest. Sophie saw no reason to do jobs she disliked, and her host’s jobs at that, simply because she was female. I watched the two of them with a sad sort of amusement, my liability of a brother and the girl who wouldn’t be my wife.

During the afternoon Peter and Sue rang to say they were staying overnight with Sue’s parents and consequently couldn’t take Sophie home. Would I mind frightfully driving her home myself.