by Francis - TO THE HILT

Poor Norman Quorn, non-violent embezzler, had been sixty-five and frightened.

I'd been twenty-nine… and frightened… and irrational… and I'd been let off in time not to die.

I'd been let off with multiple bars of first, second and third degree burns, that would heal.

I'd been let off in time to know that burning had been a gesture for nothing, because whatever information Norman Quorn had entrusted to his sister in that benighted envelope, it hadn't turned out to be an indication of what he'd done with the brewery's money.

I could admit to myself that I'd burned from pride.

Harder to accept that it had been pointless.

Essential to accept that it had been pointless, and to go on from there.

I stood up stiffly and walked for a while, leading the horse.

If I'd been in Scotland I would have gone up into the mountains and let the wild pipes skirl out the raw sorrow, as they always had in turbulent history. Yet… would a lament be enough? A pibroch would cry for the wounded man but I needed more - I needed something tougher. Something to tell me, well OK, too bad, don't whine, you did it to yourself. Get out the paints.

When I went back to the mountains, I would play a march.

I rode for a while and walked by turns through the consoling night, and when the first grey seeped into the dark sky I turned the horse westwards and let him amble that way until we came to landmarks we both recognised as the right way home.

Friday morning, Lambourn, Emily's house.

I telephoned Margaret Morden.

No, she said, no one had thought of any new way of finding the money. The list, if it held the secret, had humbled them so far, but…

'It was a false hope,' I said. 'Useless. Forget it. Give it up.'

'Don't talk like that!'

'It's all right. Truly. Will you come to the races?'

'If you want me…'

'Of course we want you. Without you, there would be no race.'

'Without you .'

'We're brilliant,' I said, laughing, 'but no one will give us our due.'

'You do sound better.'

'I promise you, I'm fine.'

I was floating on a recent pill. Well, one had to, sometimes.

Inspector Vernon telephoned. 'Oliver Grantchester,' he said.

'What about him?'

'Someone viciously assaulted him last Saturday, in his garage… as you know.'

'The poor fellow.'

'Was it your girlfriend who kicked hell out of him?'

'Inspector,' I said reasonably, 'I was lying in that pond. How could I know?'

'She might have told you who did it.'

'No, she didn't - and, anyway, I don't repeat what I'm told.'

After a moment he said, 'Fair enough.'

I smiled. He could hear it in my voice. 'I do hope,' I said, 'that poor Mr Grantchester is still in a bad way.'

'I can tell you, off the record,' he said austerely, 'that the testicular damage inflicted on Mr Grantchester was of a severity that involved irreparable rupture and… er… surgical removal.'

'What a shame,' I said happily.

'Mr Kinloch!'

'My friend has gone abroad, and she won't be back,' I said. 'Don't bother looking. She wouldn't have attacked anyone, I'm sure.'

Vernon didn't sound convinced, but apart from no witnesses, it seemed he had no factual clues. The unknown assailant seemed to be getting away with it.

'How awful,' I said.

I supposed that, when Chris found out, the gelding of Oliver Grantchester would cost me extra. Money well spent.

I said to Vernon, 'Give Grantchester my best regards for a falsetto future.'

That's heartless.'

'You don't say.'

I slept on the pill for three or four hours. Out in the yard life bustled along in the same old way, and by lunchtime I found myself falling into the same old role of general dogsbody, 'popping' down to the village for such-and-such, ferrying blood samples to the vet's office, collecting tack from repair.

Emily and I ate dinner together and went to bed together, and even though this time I easily raised the necessary enthusiasm, she lay in my arms afterwards and told me it broke her heart.

'What does?' I asked.

'Seeing you try to be a husband.'

'But I am…'

'No.' She kissed my shoulder above the bandages. 'You know you don't belong here. Just come back sometimes. That'll do.'

Patsy had organised the race day. Patsy had consulted with the tent-erectors and caterers who were out to please. At Patsy's command, the hundred or so commercial guests - creditors, suppliers, landlords of tied houses - were given a big welcome, unlimited drinks, free racecards, tickets to every enclosure, press-release photographs, lunch, tea.

Cheltenham's racecourse, always forward-looking, had extended to King Alfred's brewery, in Ivan's memory, every red-carpet courtesy they could give to the chief sponsor of one of their top crowd-pulling early-season afternoons. Patsy had the whole racecourse executive committee tumbling over themselves to please her. Patsy's social gifts were priceless.

To Patsy had been allocated the Sponsors' Box in the grandstand, next best thing to the plushed-up suite designed for crowned heads and other princes.

Patsy had organised, in the Sponsors' Box, a private family lunch for my mother, her stepmother, so that Ivan's widow could be both present and apart.

Having met my mother at the Club entrance, I walked with her to the Sponsors' Box. Patsy faultlessly welcomed her with kisses. Patsy was dressed in dark grey, in mourning for her father but with a bright Hermes silk scarf round her neck. She looked grave, businesslike, and in full control of the day.

Behind her stood Surtees, who would not meet my eyes. Surtees shifted from foot to foot, gave my mother a desultory peck on the cheek, and altogether behaved as if he wished he weren't there.

'Hello, Surtees,' I said, to be annoying.

He gave me a silent, frustrated look, and took two paces backwards. What a grand change, I thought, from days gone by.

Patsy gave us both a puzzled look, and at one point later in the afternoon said, 'What have you said to Surtees? He won't talk about you at all. If I mention you he finds some reason for leaving the room, I don't understand it.'

'Surtees and I,' I said, 'have come to an understanding. He keeps his mouth shut, and so do I.'

'What about?'

'On my side about his behaviour in Oliver Grantchester's garden.'

'He didn't really mean what he said.'

I clearly remembered Surtees urging Jazzo to hit me harder, when Jazzo was already hitting me as hard as he could. Surtees had meant it, all right: his revenge for my making him look foolish in Emily's yard.

I said, 'For quite a while I believed it was Surtees who sent those thugs to my house in Scotland, to find the King Alfred Gold Cup.'

It shook her. 'But why?'

'Because he said, "Next tune you'll scream".'

Her eyes darkened. She said slowly, 'He was wrong about that.'

I shrugged. 'You were telling everyone that I'd stolen the Cup. Surtees, of course, believed it.'

'You wouldn't steal.'

I listened to the certainty in her voice, and asked, trying to suppress bitterness, 'How long have you known that?'

Obliquely she told me the truth, opening to my understanding her own long years of unhappy fear. She said, 'He would have given you anything you asked for.'

'Ivan?'

She nodded.

I said, 'I would never have taken anything that was yours.'

'I thought you would.' She paused. 'I did hate you.'

She made no more admissions, nor any excuses, but in the garden she had called me her brother, and in the bank she had said, 'I'm sorry.' Perhaps, just perhaps, things had really changed.

'I suppose,' she began, 'that it's too late…' She left the sentence unfinished, but it was a statement of acceptance, not a plea.