Dick Francis - In the Frame

‘Stop,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But the organisation is like a mushroom... it burrows along underground and pops up everywhere.’

‘I only said stop so I could change the tape on the recorder. You can carry right on now.’

‘Oh.’ I half laughed. ‘Well... did you get any answers from Donald to my questions?’

‘Yes, we did.’

‘Carefully?’

‘Rest assured,’ he said dryly. ‘We carried out your wishes to the letter. Mr Stuart’s answers were “Yes of course” to the first question, and “No, whyever should I” to the second, and “Yes” to the third.’

‘Was he absolutely certain?’

‘Absolutely.’ He cleared his throat. ‘He seems distant and withdrawn. Uninterested. But quite definite.’

‘How is he?’ I asked.

‘He spends all his time looking at a picture of his wife. Every time we call at his house, we can see him through the front window, just sitting there.’

‘He is still... sane?’

‘I’m no judge.’

‘You can at least let him know that he’s no longer suspected of engineering the robbery and killing Regina.’

‘That’s a decision for my superiors,’ he said.

‘Well, kick them into it,’ I said. ‘Do the police positively yearn for bad publicity?’

‘You were quick enough to ask our help,’ he said tartly.

To do your job, I thought. I didn’t say it aloud. The silence spoke for itself.

‘Well...’ his voice carried a mild apology. ‘Our co-operation, then.’ He paused. ‘Where are you now? When I’ve telexed Melbourne, I may need to talk to you again.’

‘I’m in a ’phone booth in a country store in a village on the hills above Wellington.’

‘Where are you going next?’

‘I’m staying right here. Wexford and Greene are still around in the city and I don’t want to risk the outside chance of their seeing me.’

‘Give me the number, then.’

I read it off the telephone.

‘I want to come home as soon as possible,’ I said. ‘Can you do anything about my passport?’

‘You’ll have to find a consul.’

Oh ta, I thought tiredly. I hung up the receiver and wobbled back to the car.

‘Tell you what,’ I said, dragging into the back seat, ‘I could do with a double hamburger and a bottle of brandy.’

We sat in the car for two hours.

The store didn’t sell liquor or hot food. Sarah bought a packet of biscuits. We ate them.

‘We can’t stay here all day,’ she said explosively, after a lengthy glum silence.

I couldn’t be sure that Wexford wasn’t out searching for her and Jik with murderous intent, and I didn’t think she’d be happy to know it.

‘We’re perfectly safe here,’ I said.

‘Just quietly dying of blood-poisoning,’ Jik agreed.

‘I left my pills in the Hilton,’ Sarah said.

Jik stared. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Nothing. I just thought you might like to know.’

‘ The pill?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Jesus,’ Jik said.

A delivery van struggled up the hill and stopped outside the shop. A man in an overall opened the back, took out a large bakery tray, and carried it in.

‘Food,’ I said hopefully.

Sarah went in to investigate. Jik took the opportunity to unstick his tee-shirt from his healing grazes, but I didn’t bother.

‘You’ll be glued to those clothes, if you don’t,’ Jik said, grimacing over his task.

‘I’ll soak them off.’

‘All those cuts and things didn’t feel so bad when we were in the sea.’

‘No.’

‘Catches up with you a bit, doesn’t it?’

‘Mm.’

He glanced at me. ‘Why don’t you just scream or something?’

‘Can’t be bothered. Why don’t you?’

He grinned. ‘I’ll scream in paint.’

Sarah came back with fresh doughnuts and cans of Coke. We made inroads, and I at least felt healthier.

After another half hour, the store keeper appeared in the doorway, shouting and beckoning.

‘A call for you...’

I went stiffly to the telephone. It was Frost, clear as a bell.

‘Wexford, Greene and Snell have booked a flight to Melbourne. They will be met at Melbourne airport...’

‘Who’s Snell?’ I said.

‘How do I know? He was travelling with the other two.’

Beetle-brows, I thought.

‘Now listen,’ Frost said. ‘The telex has been red-hot between here and Melbourne, and the police there want your co-operation, just to clinch things...’ He went on talking for a long time. At the end he said, ‘Will you do that?’

I’m tired, I thought. I’m battered, and I hurt. I’ve done just about enough.

‘All right.’

Might as well finish it, I supposed.

‘The Melbourne police want to know for sure that the three Munnings copies you... er... acquired from the gallery are still where you told me.’

‘Yes, they are.’

‘Right. Well... good luck.’

We flew Air New Zealand back to Melbourne, tended by angels in sea-green. Sarah looked fresh, Jik definitely shop-worn, and I apparently like a mixture (Jik said) of yellow ochre, Payne’s grey, and white, which I didn’t think was possible.

Our passage had been oiled by telexes from above. When we arrived at the airport after collecting Sarah’s belongings in their carrier bags from the Townhouse, we found ourselves whisked into a private room, plied with strong drink, and subsequently taken by car straight out across the tarmac to the aeroplane.

A thousand miles across the Tasman Sea and an afternoon tea later we were driven straight from the aircraft’s steps to another small airport room, which contained no strong drink but only a large hard Australian plain-clothes policeman.

‘Porter,’ he said, introducing himself and squeezing our bones in a blacksmith’s grip. ‘Which of you is Charles Todd?’

‘I am.’

‘Right on, Mr Todd.’ He looked at me without favour. ‘Are you ill, or something?’ He had a strong rough voice and a strong rough manner, natural aids to putting the fear of God into chummy and bringing on breakdowns in the nervous. To me, I gradually gathered, he was grudgingly offering the status of temporary inferior colleague.

‘No,’ I said, sighing slightly. Time and airline schedules waited for no man. If I’d spent time on first aid we’d have missed the only possible flight.

‘His clothes are sticking to him,’ Jik observed, giving the familiar phrase the usual meaning of being hot. It was cool in Melbourne. Porter looked at him uncertainly.

I grinned. ‘Did you manage what you planned?’ I asked him. He decided Jik was nuts and switched his gaze back to me.

‘We decided not to go ahead until you had arrived,’ he said, shrugging. ‘There’s a car waiting outside.’ He wheeled out of the door without holding it for Sarah and marched briskly off.

The car had a chauffeur. Porter sat in front, talking on a radio, saying in stiltedly guarded sentences that the party had arrived and the proposals should be implemented.

‘Where are we going?’ Sarah said.

‘To reunite you with your clothes,’ I said.

Her face lit up. ‘Are we really?’

‘And what for?’ Jik asked.

‘To bring the mouse to the cheese.’ And the bull to the sword, I thought: and the moment of truth to the conjuror.

‘We got your things back, Todd,’ Porter said with satisfaction. ‘Wexford, Greene and Snell were turned over on entry, and they copped them with the lot. The locks on your suitcase were scratched and dented but they hadn’t burst open. Everything inside should be O.K. You can collect everything in the morning.’

‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Did they still have any of the lists of customers?’