Decider - By Dick Francis Page 0,103

taken just for a look at some plans… and it simply flashed into my mind that you’d been so involved in things, and although I couldn’t believe you’d been searching for anything else, or that you knew enough, I went into the cupboard and looked into the box where I’d put the photograph and the tape, and I was so devastated that Keith asked what was the matter, and I told him. He said – we both thought – you would of course blackmail me.’

‘Oh, of course.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘You all do it to each other; you think no one’s capable of anything else.’

Conrad shrugged his heavy shoulders as if he believed that to be self evident. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘Keith asked me to give him the envelope our father had entrusted to me shortly before he died. I told Keith I couldn’t do that. We had a bit of an argument, but Father had given me very explicit instructions about not letting anyone else see it. Keith asked me if I knew what was in it, but I don’t, and I said so. He said he had to have it. He began opening the boxes and tipping everything out. I tried to stop him, but you know what he’s like. Then he came to the box where I thought I’d put that letter but when he tipped everything out it didn’t seem to be there… but how could you have taken it when you couldn’t have known it existed? In the end, I helped him look for it. Everything’s out on the floor, it’s a terrible mess and I’ll never put it straight…’

‘But you did find the envelope?’ Marjorie asked anxiously.

‘No, we didn’t.’ He turned to me, insisting, ‘I know it was in there, in one special box, under a pile of out-of-date insurance policies. Keith told me to bring the gun and kill you…’

‘But he knew you wouldn’t,’ I said positively.

Dart asked, ‘Why are you so sure?’

‘One twin,’ I said, ‘would kill the pilgrim. The other wouldn’t. They can’t change their natures.’

‘The fork in the road! You… you subtle bastard.’

Marjorie looked at me forthrightly, not understanding or caring what Dart had said. ‘Did you take that envelope?’

‘Yes, I did,’ I said.

‘Did you open it? Did you see what was inside?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then give it to me.’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘This one…’ I took a breath, ‘this one I have to do alone.’

The telephone shrilled beside Marjorie. Mouth tightening with annoyance at the interruption, she lifted the receiver.

‘Yes,’ she said, her face going blank. ‘Yes, he’s here.’

She held out the receiver to me. ‘It’s Keith,’ she said. ‘He wants to talk to you.’

He knows, I thought, that I must have taken that letter; and he knows what is in it.

With foreboding, I said, ‘Yes?’

He didn’t speak at once, but he was there: I could hear him breathing.

Long seconds passed.

He said five words only before the line went dead. The worst five words in the language.

‘Say goodbye to your children.’

CHAPTER 16

My brain went numb.

A flush of fear zipped from my heels to my scalp in one of those dreadful physical disturbances that come with perceived irretrievable disaster.

I stood immobile, trying to remember the Gardners’ telephone number. Couldn’t do it. Squeezed my eyes shut and let it come without struggling, let it come subliminally, known as a rhythm, not by sight. Pressed buttons and sweated.

Roger’s wife answered.

‘Where are the boys?’ I asked her abruptly.

‘They should be with you at any minute,’ she said comfortingly. ‘They set off… oh… say, fifteen minutes ago. They’ll be with you directly.’

‘With me… where?’

‘Along at the big top, of course.’ She was puzzled. ‘Christopher got your message and they set off at once.’

‘Did Roger drive them?’

‘No. He’s around the course somewhere, I’m not sure where. The boys set off on foot, Lee… is something wrong?’

‘What message?’ I said.

‘A phone call, for Christopher…’

‘I threw the receiver to Marjorie and sprinted out of her drawing room, across her calm hallway, and out of her front door and into Dart’s car. Never mind that the sprint was a hobble, I’d never moved faster. Never mind that I knew I was heading for an ambush, for some thought-out fate. There was nothing to do but rush to it, hoping beyond hope that he’d be satisfied with me, that he would let the boys live…

I drove Dart’s car like a madman through the village, but just when I could have done with a whole police posse, there was no police car to chase me