High stakes - By Dick Francis Page 0,61

valley and on to the beginning of the hill.

I pressed the transmit button.

‘Charlie?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Seven minutes. Owen’s in front.’

‘Right.’

I pushed down the aerial of the walkie-talkie and took it and myself along to the passenger door of Pete’s box. He looked across and down at me enquiringly, wondering why on earth I was still delaying.

‘Just a moment,’ I said, giving no explanation, and he waited patiently, as if humouring a lunatic.

Owen came up the hill, changed gears abreast of the lay-by, and slowly accelerated away. Jody’s horsebox followed, doing exactly the same. The scrunched nearside front had been hammered out, I saw, but respraying lay in the future. I had a quick glimpse into the cab: two men, neither of them Jody, both unknown to me; a box driver who had replaced Andy-Fred and the lad with the horse. Couldn’t be better.

I hopped briskly up into Pete’s box.

‘Off we go, then.’

My sudden haste looked just as crazy as the former dawdling, but again he made no comment and merely did what I wanted. When he had found a gap in the traffic and pulled out on to the road there were four or five vehicles between Jody’s box and ourselves, and this seemed to me a reasonable number.

I spent the next four miles trying to look as if nothing in particular was happening while listening to my heart beat like a discotheque. Owen’s van went over the traffic lights at the big crossroads a half second before they changed to amber and Jody’s box came to a halt as they showed red. The back of Owen’s van disappeared round a bend in the road.

Between Jody’s box and Pete’s there were three private cars and one small van belonging to an electrical firm. When the lights turned green one of the cars peeled off to the left and I began to worry that we were getting too close.

‘Slow down just a fraction,’ I suggested.

‘If you like… but there’s not a squeak from the horse.’ He glanced over his shoulder to where the black head looked patiently forward through a small observation hatch, as nervous as a suet pudding.

A couple of private cars passed us. We motored sedately onwards and came to the bottom of the next hill. Pete changed his gears smoothly and we lumbered noisily up. Near the top, his eye took in a notice board on a tripod at the side of the road.

‘Damn,’ he said.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Did you see that?’ he said. ‘Census point ahead.’

‘Never mind, we’re not in a hurry.’

‘I suppose not.’

We breasted the hill. The fruit stall lay ahead on our left, with the sweep of car park beside it. Down the centre of the road stood a row of the red and white cones used for marking road obstructions and in the northbound lane, directing the traffic, stood a large man in navy blue police uniform with a black and white checked band round his cap.

As we approached he waved the private cars past and then directed Pete into the fruitstall car park, walking in beside the horsebox and talking to him through the window.

‘We’ll keep you only a few minutes, sir. Now, will you pull right round in a circle and park facing me just here, sir?’

‘All right,’ Pete said resignedly and followed the instructions. When he pulled the brake on we were facing the road. On our left, about ten feet away, stood Jody’s box, but facing in the opposite direction. On the far side of Jody’s box was Owen’s van. And beyond Owen’s van, across about twenty yards of cindery park, lay the caravan, its long flat windowless side towards us.

The Land-Rover and trailer which Allie had brought stood near the front of Jody’s box. There was also the car hitched to the caravan and the car Bert had hired, and all in all the whole area looked populated, official, and busy.

A second large notice on a tripod faced the car park from just outside the caravan.

Department of the Environment

Census point

and near a door at one end of the caravan a further notice on a stand said ‘Way In’.

Jody’s horsebox driver and Jody’s lad were following its directions, climbing the two steps up to the caravan and disappearing within.

‘Over there, please sir,’ A finger pointed authoritatively. ‘And take your driving licence and log book, please.’

Pete shrugged, picked up his papers, and went. I jumped out and watched him go.

The second he was inside Bert slapped me on the back in a