Dick Francis - Straight

It was restful in the car, I decided. Brad went on reading. I thought of robbery with violence and violence without robbery, of being laid out with a brick and watching Simms die of a bullet meant for me, and I wondered whether, if I were dead, anyone could find what I was looking for, or whether they reckoned they now couldn’t find it if I were alive.

I stirred and fished in a pocket and gave Brad a check I’d written out for him upstairs.

“What’s this?” he said, peering at it.

I usually paid him in cash, but I explained I hadn’t enough for what I owed him, and cash dispensers wouldn’t disgorge enough all at once and we hadn’t recently been in Hungerford when the banks were open, as he might have noticed.

“Give me cash later,” he said, holding the check out to me. “And you paid me double.”

“For last week and this week.” I nodded. “When we get to the bank I’ll swap it for cash. Otherwise, you could bring it back here. It’s a company check. They’d see you got cash for it.”

He gave me a long look. “Is this because of guns and such? In case you never get to the bank?”

I shrugged. “You might say so.”

He looked at the check, folded it deliberately and stowed it away. Then he picked up the magazine and stared blindly at a page he’d just read. I was grateful for the absence of comment or protest, and in a while said matter-of-factly that I was going upstairs for a bit, and why didn’t he get some lunch.

He nodded.

“Have you got enough money for lunch?”

“Yerss.”

“You might make a list of what you’ve spent. I’ve enough cash for that.”

He nodded again.

“OK, then,” I said. “See you.”

Upstairs, Annette said she had opened the day’s mail and put it ready for my attention, and she’d found Prospero Jenks and he would be expecting me in the Knightsbridge shop any time between three and six.

“Great.”

She frowned. “Mr. Jenks wanted to know if you were taking him the goods Mr. Franklin bought for him. Grev — he always calls Mr. Franklin Grev. I do wish he wouldn’t. I asked what he meant about goods and he said you would know.”

“He’s talking about diamonds,” I said.

“But we haven’t...” She stopped and then went on with a sort of desperate vehemence. “I wish Mr. Franklin was here. Nothing’s the same without him.”

She gave me a look full of her insecurity and doubt of my ability and plodded off into her own domain and I thought that with what lay ahead I’d have preferred a vote of confidence: and I too, with all my heart, wished Greville back.

The police from Hungerford telephoned, given my number by Milo’s secretary. They wanted to know if I had remembered anything more about the car driven by the gunman. They had asked the family in the family car if they had noticed the make and color of the last car they’d seen coming toward them before they rounded the bend and crashed into the Daimler, and one of the children, a boy, had given them a description.

They had also, while the firemen and others were trying to free me, walked down the row of spectator cars asking them about the last car they’d seen coming toward them. Only the first two drivers had seen a car at all, that they could remember, and they had no helpful information. Had I any recollection, however vague, as they were trying to piece together all the impressions they’d been given.

“I wish I could help,” I said, “but I was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Ostermeyer, not concentrating on the road. It winds a bit, as you know, and I think Simms had been waiting for a place where he could pass the car in front, but all I can tell you, as on Sunday, is that it was a grayish color and fairly large. Maybe a Mercedes. It’s only an impression.”

“The child in the family car says it was a gray Volvo traveling fast. The bus driver says the car in question was traveling slowly before the Daimler tried to pass it, and he was aiming to pass also at that point, and was accelerating to do so, which was why he rammed the Daimler so hard. He says the car was silver gray and accelerated away at high speed, which matched what the child says.”

“Did the bus driver,” I asked, “see the gun or the shots?”

“No, sir. He was looking at the road ahead and at the Daimler, not at the car he intended to pass. Then the Daimler veered sharply, and bounced off the wall straight into his path. He couldn’t avoid hitting it, he said. Do you confirm that, sir?”

“Yes. It happened so fast. He hadn’t a chance.”

“We are asking in the neighborhood for anyone to come forward who saw a gray four-door sedan, possibly a Volvo, on that road on Sunday afternoon, but so far we have heard nothing new. If you remember anything else, however minor, let us know.”

I would, I said.

I put the phone down wondering if Vaccaro’s shot-down pilots had seen the make of car from which their deaths had come spitting. Anyone seeing those murders would, I supposed, have been gazing with uncomprehending horror at the falling victims, not dashing into the road to peer at a fast-disappearing license plate.

No one had heard any shots on Sunday. No one had heard the shots, the widow had told Greville, when her husband was killed. A silencer on a gun in a moving car... a swift pfftt ... curtains.

It couldn’t have been Vaccaro who shot Simms. Vaccaro didn’t make sense. Someone with the same antisocial habits, as in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. A copycat. Plenty of precedent.

Milo’s secretary had been busy and given my London number also to Phil Urquhart, who came on the line to tell me that Dozen Roses had tested clean for barbiturates and he would give a certificate of soundness for sale.

“Fine,” I said.

“I’ve been to examine the horse again this morning. He’s still very docile. It seems to be his natural state.”

“Mm.”

“Do I hear doubt?”

“He’s excited enough every time cantering down to the start.”

“Natural adrenaline,” Phil said.

“If it was anyone but Nicholas Loder...”

“He would never risk it,” Phil said, agreeing with me. “But look... there are things that potentiate adrenaline, like caffeine. Some of them are never tested for in racing, as they are not judged to be stimulants. It’s your money that’s being spent on the tests I’ve had done for you. We have some more of that sample of urine. Do you want me to get different tests done, for things not usually looked for? I mean, do you really think Nicholas Loder gave the horse something, and if you do, do you want to know about it?”

“It was his owner, a man called Rollway, who had the baster, not Loder himself.”

“Same decision. Do you want to spend more, or not bother? It may be money down the drain, anyway. And if you get any results, what then? You don’t want to get the horse disqualified, that wouldn’t make sense.”

“No... it wouldn’t.”

“What’s your problem?” he asked. “I can hear it in your voice.”

“Fear,” I said. “Nicholas Loder was afraid.”

“Oh.” He was briefly silent. “I could get the tests done anonymously, of course.”

“Yes. Get them done, then. I particularly don’t want to sell the Ostermeyers a lemon, as she would say. If Dozen Roses can’t win on his own merits, I’ll talk them out of the idea of owning him.”

“So you’ll pray for negative results.”

“I will indeed.”

“While I was at Milo’s this morning,” he said, “he was talking to the Ostermeyers in London, asking how they were and wishing them a good journey. They were still a bit wobbly from the crash, it seems.”

“Surprising if they weren’t.”

“They’re coming back to England, though, to see Datepalm run in the Hennessy. How’s your ankle?”