I told them you’d said in your will that if you were murdered, it would all go to charity.’
‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
‘Did you think any more of letting the family have some of the lucre before you… er… pop off?’
‘You know my views on that.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘And you don’t approve.’
‘I don’t disapprove in theory. The trust funds were generous when they were set up. Many fathers don’t do as much. But your children aren’t perfect and some of them have got into messes. If someone were bleeding, would you buy them a bandage?’
He sat back in his chair and stared moodily at his coffee.
‘Have they sent you here to plead for them?’ he asked.
‘No. I’ll tell you what’s been happening, then you can do what you like.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, ‘but not tonight.’
‘All right.’ I paused. ‘I won a race at Kempton, did you know?’
‘Did you really?’ He was instantly alive with interest, asking for every detail. He didn’t want to hear about his squabbling family with its latent murderer. He was tired of being vilified while at the same time badgered to be bountiful. He felt safe in California although he had, I’d been interested to discover, signed us into the hotel as Watson and Watson.
‘Well, you never know, do you?’ he’d said. ‘It may say in the British papers that Blue Clancy’s coming over, and Ramsey says this hotel is the centre for the Breeders’ Cup organisers. They’re having reception rooms here, and buffets. By Wednesday, he says, this place will be teeming with the international racing crowd. So where, if someone wanted to find me, do you think they’d look first?’
I think Norman West gave us good advice.’
‘So do I.’
The Watsons, father and son, breakfasted the following morning out in the warm air by the pool, sitting in white chairs beside a whitetable under a yellow sun umbrella, watching the oranges ripen amid dark green leaves, talking of horrors.
I asked him casually enough if he remembered Fred and the tree roots.
‘Of course I do,’ he said at once. ‘Bloody fool could have killed himself.’ He frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with the bomb at Quantum?’
‘Superintendent Yale thinks it may have given someone the idea.’
He considered it. ‘I suppose it might.’
‘The superintendent, or some of his men, asked old Fred what he’d used to set off the cordite…’ I told Malcolm about the cordite still lying around in the tool shed’… and Fred said he had some detonators, but after that first bang, you came out and took them away.’
‘Good Lord, I’d forgotten that. Yes, so I did. You were all there, weren’t you? Pretty well the whole family?’
‘Yes, it was one of those weekends. Helen says it was the first time she met you, she was there too, before she was married to Donald.’
He thought back, i don’t remember that. I just remember there being a lot of you.’
‘The superintendent wonders if you remember what happened to the detonators after you’d taken them away.’
He stared. ‘It’s twenty years ago, must be,’ he protested.
‘It might be the sort of thing you wouldn’t forget.’
He shook his head doubtfully.
‘Did you turn them over to the police?’
‘No.’ He was definite about that, anyway. ‘Old Fred had no business to have them, but I wouldn’t have got him into trouble, or the friend he got them from, either. I’ll bet they were nicked.’
‘Do you remember what they looked like?’ I asked.
‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’ He frowned, thinking, pouring out more coffee. ‘There was a row of them in a tin, laid out carefully in cotton wool so that they shouldn’t roll about. Small silverish tubes, about two and a half inches long.’
‘Fred says they had instructions with them.’
He laughed. ‘Did he? A do-it-yourself bomb kit?’ He sobered suddenly. ‘I suppose it was just that. I don’t remember the instructions, but I dare say they were there.’
‘You did realise they were dangerous, didn’t you?’
I probably did, but all those years ago ordinary people didn’tknow so much about bombs. I mean, not terrorist bombs. We’d been bombed from the air, but that was different. I should think I took the detonators away from Fred so he shouldn’t set off any more explosions, not because they were dangerous in themselves, if you see what I mean?’
‘Mm. But you did know you shouldn’t drop them?’
‘You mean if I’d dropped them, I wouldn’t be here talking about it?’
‘According to the explosives expert working at Quantum,