Дик Фрэнсис - Break In

The flower bed, I thought, wouldn’t hurt the tool-kit, so I dropped the rolled bundle straight below, and went down the ladder as slowly as I’d gone up, careful to balance and not to fall. There was no doubt I felt more at home on horses.

Retrieving the jackets and the tool-kit but leaving the ladder, I went out of the garden and walked along the path and round to the kitchen door. Holly in a dressing gown and with wide frightened eyes was standing there, shivering with cold and anxiety.

‘Thank goodness,’ she said when I appeared. ‘Where’s Bobby?’

‘I don’t know. Come on in. Let’s make a hot drink.’

We went into the kitchen where it was always warmest and I put the kettle on while Holly looked out of the window for her missing husband.

‘He’ll come soon,’ I said. ‘He’s all right.’

‘I saw two men running...’

‘Where did they go?’

‘Over the fence into the paddock. One first, then the other a bit later. The second one was... well... groaning.’

‘Mm,’ I said. ‘Bobby hit him.’

‘Did he?’ She sounded proud. ‘Who were they? They weren’t Jermyn. Did they come for his horses?’

‘Which do you want,’ I asked, ‘coffee, tea or chocolate?’

‘Chocolate.’

I made chocolate for her and tea for myself and brought the steaming cups to the table.

‘Come and sit down,’ I said. ‘He’ll be back.’

She came reluctantly and then watched with awakening curiosity while I unbuckled and unrolled the tool-kit.

‘See that?’ I said. ‘That tiny little box with its rod and its coil of cord? I’ll bet anything that that’s what’s been listening to your telephone.’

‘But it’s minute.’

‘Yes. I wish I knew more. Tomorrow we’ll find out just how it works.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Today, I suppose one should say.’ I told her where I’d found the bug, and about Bobby and me disturbing the intruders.

She frowned. ‘These two men... Were they fixing this to our telephone?’

‘Taking it away, perhaps. Or changing its battery.’

She reflected. ‘I did say to you this evening on the telephone that the telephone people were coming tomorrow to look for bugs.’

‘So you did.’

‘So perhaps if they heard that, they thought... those two men... that if they took their bug away first, there wouldn’t be anything to find, and we’d never know for sure.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think you’re right.’ I picked up the first of the jackets and went through the pockets methodically, laying the contents on the table.

Holly, watching in amazement, said, ‘They surely didn’t leave their coats?’

‘They didn’t have much choice.’

‘But all those things... ’

‘Dead careless,’ I said. ‘Amateurs.’

The first jacket produced a notepad, three pens, a diary, a handkerchief, two toothpicks and the wallet I had shown to Bobby in the garden. The wallet contained a moderate amount of money, five credit cards, a photograph of a young woman, and a reminder to go to the dentist. The name on the credit cards was Owen Watts. The diary not only gave the same name but also an address (home) and telephone number (office). The pages were filled with appointments and memos, and spoke of a busy and orderly life.

‘Why are you purring like a cat with cream?’ Holly said.

‘Take a look.’

I pushed Owen Watts’s belongings over to her and emptied the pockets of the second jacket. These revealed another notepad, more pens, a comb, cigarettes, throwaway lighter, two letters and a chequebook. There was also, tucked into the outside breast pocket, a small plastic folder containing a gold-coloured card announcing that Mr Jay Erskine was member number 609 of The Press Club, London EC4A 3JB; and Mr Jay Erskine’s signature and address were on the back.

Just as well to make absolutely certain, I thought.

I telephoned to Owen Watts’s office number, and a man’s voice answered immediately.

‘ Daily Flag ,’ he said.

Satisfied, I put the receiver down without speaking.

‘No answer?’ Holly said. ‘Not surprising, at this hour.’

‘The Daily Flag neither slumbers nor sleeps. The switchboard, anyway, was awake.’

‘So those two really are... those pigs.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘They work for the Flag . One can’t say if they actually wrote those pieces. Not tonight. We’ll find out in the morning.’

‘I’d like to smash their faces.’

I shook my head. ‘You want to smash the face of whoever sent them.’

‘Him too.’ She stood up restlessly. ‘Where is Bobby? What’s he doing?’

‘Probably making sure that everything’s secure.’

‘You don’t think those men came back?’ she said, alarmed.

‘No, I don’t. Bobby will come in when he’s ready.’

She was worried, however, and went to the outside door and called him, but the wind snatched her voice away so that one could scarcely have heard her from across the yard.

‘Go and look for him, will you?’ she said anxiously. ‘He’s been out there so long.’

‘All right.’ I collected the bugging device, the tools and the pressmen’s things together on the table. ‘Could you find a box for these, and put them somewhere safe.’

She nodded and began to look vaguely about, and I went out into the yard on the unwelcome errand. Wherever Bobby was, I was probably the last person he wanted to have come after him. I thought that I would simply set about rigging the alarm bell again, and if he wanted to be found, he would appear.

I rigged the bell and got back some night vision, and came across him down by the gate into the garden. He had brought the ladder out so that it lay along the path, and he was simply standing by the gatepost, doing nothing.

‘Holly’s wondering where you’ve got to,’ I said easily.

He didn’t answer.

‘Do you think you can hear the bell from here?’ I said. ‘Would you climb up someone’s house if you’d heard an alarm bell?’

Bobby said nothing. He watched in flat calm while I found the string and shut the gate, fastening everything as before so that the bell would fall on the far side of the house if the gate was opened.

Bobby watched but did nothing. Shrugging, I opened the gate.

One could hear the bell if one was listening for it. On a still night it would have been alarming, but in the breeze the intruders had ignored it.

‘Let’s go in,’ I said. ‘Holly’s anxious.’

I turned away to walk up the path.

‘Kit,’ he said stiffly.

I turned back.

‘Did you tell her?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Come on in. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does matter.’ He paused. ‘I couldn’t help it. That makes it worse.’

‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘let’s go in out of this bloody cold wind. My legs are freezing. If you want to talk, we’ll talk tomorrow. But it’s OK. Come on in, you old bugger, it’s OK.’

I put the journalists’ belongings under my bed for safety before I went achingly back to sleep, but their owners seemed to make no attempt to break in to get them back. I derived a great deal of yawning pleasure from picturing their joint states of mind and body, and thought that anything that had happened to them served them very well right.

Owen Watts and Jay Erskine. Jay Erskine, Owen Watts.

They were going to be, I decided hazily, trying to find an unbruised area to lie on, the lever with which to shift the world. Careless, sneaky, callous Owen Watts, battered half unconscious by Bobby, and stupid, snooping, flint-hearted Jay Erskine, fallen off his ladder with his face pressed into the mud. Served them bloody well right.