Дик Фрэнсис - Break In

He held out a large palm on which rested a small cylinder with two short wires leading from it.

‘See, this picks up the currents from your phone wire and leads them into that transformer you took down last night. See, voice frequencies run at anywhere between fifty Hertz and three kiloHertz, but you can’t transmit that by radio, you have to transform it up to about three thousand megaHertz. You need an amplifier which modulates the frequency to something a microwave transmitter can transmit.’ He looked at our faces. ‘Not exactly electronics experts, are you?’

‘No,’ we said.

With complacent superiority he led the way back to the yard, carrying his heavy ladder with ease. In the kitchen he put the newly gathered cylinder alongside the previous night’s spoils and continued with the lecture.

‘These two wires from the cylinder plug into the transformer and this short little rod is the aerial.’

‘What’s all that cord?’ I asked.

‘Cord?’ He smiled largely. ‘That’s not cord, it’s wire. See? Fine wire inside insulation. That’s an earth wire, to complete the circuit.’

We looked no doubt blank.

‘If you’d have closely inspected your brickwork below your chimney these last weeks you’d have seen this so-called cord lying against it. Running through clips, even. Going down from the transmitter into the earth.’

‘Yes,’ Bobby said. ‘We’re never out there much this time of the year.’

‘Neat little job,’ the telephone man said again.

‘Is it difficult to get?’ I asked. ‘This sort of equipment.’

‘Dead easy,’ he said pityingly. ‘You can send for it from your electronic mail order catalogue any day.’

‘And what then?’ I asked. ‘We’ve got the tap and the transmitter. Where would we find the receiver?’

The phone man said judiciously, ‘This is a low-powered transmitter. Has to be, see, being so small. Runs on a battery, see? So you’d need a big dish-receiver to pick up the signals. Line of sight. Say a quarter-mile away? And no buildings to distort things. Then I’d reckon you’d get good results.’

‘A big dish-receiver a quarter of a mile away?’ I repeated. ‘Everyone would see it.’

‘Not inside a van, they wouldn’t.’ He touched the cube transmitter reflectively. ‘Nice high chimney you’ve got there. Most often we find these babies on the poles out on the road. But the higher you put the transmitter, of course, the further you get good reception.’

‘Yes,’ I said, understanding that at least.

‘This is an unofficial bit of snooping,’ he said, happy to instruct. ‘Private. You won’t get no clicks from this, neither. You’d never know it was there.’ He hitched up his tool-belt. ‘Right then, you just sign my sheet and I’ll be off. And you want to take your binoculars out there now and then and keep a watch on your chimney and your pole in the road, and if you see any more little strangers growing on your wires, you give me a ring and I’ll be right back.’

Bobby signed his sheet and thanked him and saw him out to his van; and I looked at the silent bug and wondered vaguely whose telephone I could tap with it, if I learned how.

Holly came in as the yellow van departed, Holly looking pale in jeans and sloppy sweater, with hair still damp from the shower.

‘Morning sickness is the pits,’ she said. ‘Did you make any tea?’

‘Coffee in the pot.’

‘Couldn’t face it.’ She put the kettle on. ‘What happened out there last night between you and Bobby? He said you would never forgive him, but he wouldn’t say what for. I don’t think he slept at all. He was up walking round the house at five. So what happened?’

‘There’s no trouble between us,’ I said. ‘I promise you.’

She swallowed. ‘It would just be the end if you and Bobby quarrelled.’

‘We didn’t.’

She was still doubtful but said no more. She put some bread tn the toaster as Bobby came back, and the three of us sat round the table passing the marmalade and thinking our own thoughts, which in my case was a jumble of journalists, Bobby’s bank manager, and how was I going to warm and loosen my muscles before the first race.

Bobby with apprehension began opening the day’s letters, but his fears were unfounded. There was no blast from the bank and no demands for payment with menaces. Three of the envelopes contained cheques.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, sounding stunned. ‘The owners are paying.’

‘That’s fast,’ I said. ‘They can only have got those letters yesterday. Their consciences must be pricking overtime.’

‘Seb’s paid,’ Bobby said. He mentally added the three totals and then pushed the cheques across to me. ‘They’re yours.’

I hesitated.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘You paid our bills on Monday. If those cheques had come on Monday you wouldn’t have had to.’

Holly nodded.

‘What about the lads’ wages this Friday?’ I asked.

Bobby shrugged frustratedly. ‘God knows.’

‘What did your bank manager actually say?’ I said.

‘Sadistic bully,’ Bobby said. ‘He sat there with a smirk on his prim little face telling me I should go into voluntary liquidation immediately. Voluntary! He said if I didn’t, the bank would have no choice but to start bankruptcy proceedings. No choice! Of course they have a choice. Why did they ever lend the money for the yearlings if they were going to behave like this five minutes later?’

The probable answer to that was because Bobby was Maynard’s son. Maynard’s millions might have seemed security enough, before the Flag fired its broadside.

‘Isn’t there any trainer in Newmarket who would buy the yearlings from you?’ I said.

‘Not a chance. Most of them are in the same boat. They can’t sell their own.’

I pondered. ‘Did the bank manager say anything about bailiffs?’

‘No,’ Bobby said, and Holly, if possible, went paler.

We might have a week, I thought. I didn’t know much about liquidation or bankruptcy: I didn’t know the speed of events. Perhaps we had no time at all. No one, however, could expect Bobby to be able to sell all his property overnight.

‘I’ll take the cheques,’ I said, ‘and I’ll get them cashed. We’ll pay your lads this week out of the proceeds and keep the rest for contingencies. And don’t tell the bank manager, because he no doubt thinks this money belongs to the bank.’

‘They lent it to us quick enough,’ Holly said bitterly. ‘No one twisted their arm.’

It wasn’t only Maynard, I thought, who could lend with a smile and foreclose with a vengeance.

‘It’s hopeless,’ Bobby said. ‘I’ll have to tell the owners to take their horses. Sack the lads.’ He stopped abruptly. Holly, too, had tears in her eyes. ‘It’s such a mess,’ Bobby said.

‘Yeah... well... hold tight for a day or two,’ I said.

‘What’s the point?’

‘We might try a little fund-raising.’

‘What do you mean?’

I knew only vaguely what I meant and I didn’t think I would discuss it with Bobby. I said instead, ‘Don’t break up the stable before the dragon’s breathing fire right in the yard.’

‘St George might come along,’ Holly said.

‘What?’ Bobby looked uncomprehending.

‘In the story,’ Holly said. ‘You know. Kit and I had a pop-up book where St George came along and slew the dragon. We used to read it with a torch under the bedclothes and scare ourselves with shadows.’

‘Oh.’ He looked from one of us to the other, seeing dark-haired twins with a shared and private history. He may have felt another twinge of exclusion because he smothered some reaction with a firming of the mouth, but after a while, with only a hint of sarcasm and as if stifling any hope I might have raised, he came up with an adequate reply. ‘OK, St George, Get on your horse.’