Дик Фрэнсис - Break In

‘Yes, it is.’

‘And you broke the rules. That chest’s not cheap.’

‘So did you. Nor’s the kit.’

‘God bless credit cards.’

I kissed her, the same way as before, the gifts still on our laps. ‘Thank you for mine.’

‘Thank you for mine.’

‘Well,’ I said, reaching over to put my tool-kit on the back seat. ‘By the time we get there, the pub might be open.’

‘What pub?’

‘Where we’re going.’

‘Anyone who wants to know what you’re not about to tell them,’ she said, ‘has a darned sticky time.’

I drove in contentment to the French Horn at Sonning, where the food was legendary and floodlights shone on willow trees drooping over the Thames. We went inside and sat on a sofa, and watched ducks roast on a spit over an open fire, and drank champagne. I stretched and breathed deeply, and felt the tensions of the long week relax: and I’d got to phone Rose Quince.

I went and phoned her. Answering machine again. I said, ‘Rose, Rose, I love you. Rose, I need you. If you come home before eleven, please, I beg you, ring me at the French Horn Hotel, the number is 0734 692204, tell them I’m in the restaurant having dinner.’

I telephoned Wykeham. ‘Is the headache better?’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Never mind. How’s the mare?’

The mare was sore but eating, Mr Davis’s horse was exhausted, Inchcape hardly looked as if he’d had a race.

‘Icefall,’ I said.

‘What? I wish you wouldn’t ride him from so far in front.’

‘He liked it. And it worked.’

‘I was watching on TV. Can you come and school on Tuesday? We have no runners that day, I’m not sending any to Southwell.’

‘Yes, all right.’

‘Well done, today,’ he said with sincerity. ‘Very well done.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Yes. Er. Goodnight then, Paul.’

‘Goodnight, Wykeham,’ I said.

I went back to Danielle and we spent the whole evening talking and later eating in the restaurant with silver and candlelight gleaming on the tables and a living vine growing over the ceiling; and at the last minute Rose Quince called me back.

‘It’s after eleven,’ she said, ‘but I just took a chance.’

‘You’re a dear.’

‘I sure am. So what is so urgent, buddy boy?’

‘Um,’ I said. ‘Does the name Saul Bradfield or Saul Bradley... something like that... mean anything to you?’

‘Saul Bradley? Of course it does. What’s so urgent about him?’

‘Who is he?’

‘He used to be the sports editor of the Towncrier . He retired last year... everyone’s universal father-figure, an old friend or Bill’s.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’

‘Good heavens. Wait while I think. Why do you want him?’

‘In the general area of demolishing our business friend of the tapes.’

‘Oh. Well, let’s see. He moved. He said he was taking his wife to live by the sea. I’d’ve thought it would drive him mad but no accounting for taste. Worthing, or somewhere. No. Selsey.’ Her voice strengthened. ‘I remember, Selsey, in Sussex.’

‘Terrific,’ I said. ‘And Lord Vaughnley. Where does he live?’

‘Mostly in Regent’s Park, in one of the Nash terraces. They’ve a place in Kent too, near Sevenoaks.’

‘Could you tell me exactly?’ I said. ‘I mean... I’d like to write to thank him for my Towncrier trophy, and for all his other help.’

‘Sure,’ she said easily, and told me both his addresses right down to the postal codes, tacking on the telephone numbers for good measure. ‘You might need those. They’re not in the directory.’

‘I’m back in your debt,’ I said, writing it all down.

‘Deep, deep, buddy boy.’

I replaced the receiver feeling perfidious but unrepentant, and went to fetch Danielle to drive her home. It was midnight, more or less, when I pulled up in Eaton Square: and it wasn’t where I would have preferred to have taken her, but where it was best.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for a great day.’

‘What about tomorrow?’

‘OK.’

‘I don’t know what time,’ I said. ‘I’ve something to do first.’

‘Call me.’

‘Yes.’

We sat in the car looking at each other, as if we hadn’t been doing that already for hours. I’ve known her since Tuesday, I thought. In five days she’d grown roots in my life. I kissed her with much more hunger than before, which didn’t seem to worry her, and I thought not long, not long... but not yet. When it was right, not before.

We said goodnight again on the pavement, and I watched her go into the house, carrying her present and waving as she closed the door. Princess Casilia, I thought, you are severely inhibiting, but I said I’d bring your niece home, and I have; and I don’t even know what Danielle wanted, I can’t read her mind and she didn’t tell me in words, and tomorrow... tomorrow maybe I’d ask.

Early in the morning I drove to Selsey on the South Coast and looked up Saul Bradley in the local telephone book, and there he was, address and all, 15 Sea View Lane.

His house was on two floors and looked more suburban than seaside with mock-Tudor beams in its cream plastered gables. The mock-Tudor door, when I rang the bell, was opened by a grey-haired bespectacled motherly looking person in a flowered overall, and I could smell bacon frying.

‘Hugh?’ she said in reply to my question. ‘Yes, he’s still here, but he’s still in bed. You know what boys are.’

‘I’ll wait,’ I said.

‘She looked doubtful.

‘I do very much want to see him,’ I said.

‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask my husband. I think he’s shaving, but he’ll be down soon.’

She led me across the entrance hall into a smallish kitchen, all yellow and white tiles, with sunlight flooding in.

‘A friend of Hugh’s?’ she said.

‘Yes... I was talking to him yesterday.’

She shook her head worriedly. ‘It’s all most upsetting. He shouldn’t have gone to the races. He was more miserable than ever when he came back.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ I said, ‘to make things better.’

She attended to the breakfast she was frying, pushing the bacon round with a spatula. ‘Did you say Fielding, your name was?’ She turned from the cooker, the spatula in the air, motion arrested. ‘Kit Fielding? The jockey?’

‘Yes.’

She didn’t know what to make of it, which wasn’t surprising. She said uncertainly, ‘I’m brewing some tea’, and I said I’d wait until after I’d seen her husband and Hugh.

Her husband came enquiringly into the kitchen, hearing my voice, and he knew me immediately by sight. A sports editor would, I supposed. Bunty Ireland’s ex-boss was comfortably large with a bald head and shrewd eyes and a voice grown fruity, as from beer.

My presence nonplussed him, as it had his wife.

‘You want to help Hugh? I suppose it’s all right. Bill Vaughnley was speaking highly of you a few days ago. I’ll go and get Hugh up. He’s not good in the mornings. Want some breakfast?’

I hesitated.

‘Like that, is it?’ He chuckled. ‘Starving and daren’t put on an ounce.’

He went away into the house and presently returned, followed shortly by Hugh, tousle-haired, in jeans and a T-shirt, his eyes puffed from sleep

‘Hello,’ he said, bewildered. ‘How did you find me?’

‘You told me where you were staying.’

‘Did I? I suppose I did. Er... sorry and all that, but what do you want?’

I wanted, I said, to take him out for a drive, to talk things over and see what could be done to help him: and with no more persuasion, he came.

He didn’t seem to realise that his father had made sure he didn’t speak to me further on the previous day. It had been done too skilfully for him to notice, especially in the anxiety he’d been suffering.