‘Those two auctioneers won’t let you out of their sight,’ I observed. ‘They suffered badly from a vanishing bidder not so long ago.’
‘They look as if they’re coming to arrest me,’ Malcolm said cheerfully; and both of the auctioneers indeed made their way right to his sides, handing him the clipboard and politely requiring him to sign their bill of sale, in triplicate and without delay. They retired to ground level but were still waiting for us with steely intent when, after three further sales had gone through as expected, we made our way down.
They invited Malcolm civilly to the quieter end of their large office, and we went. They computed what he owed and deferentially presented the total. Malcolm wrote them a cheque.
They politely suggested proof of identity and a reference. Malcolm gave them an American Express card and the telephone number of his bank manager. They took the cheque gingerly and said that although Mr… er… Pembroke should if he wished arrange insurance on his purchase at once, the colt would not be available for removal until… er… tomorrow.
Malcolm took no offence. He wouldn’t have let anyone he didn’t know drive off with a horsebox full of gold. He said tomorrow would be fine, and in high good spirits told me I could ferry him back to his Cambridge hotel, from where he’d come that morning in a taxi, and we would have dinner together.
After we’d called in at an insurance agent’s office and he’d signed some more papers and another cheque, we accordingly walked together to the car-park from where people were beginning to drift home. Night had fallen, but there were lights enough to see which car was which, and as we went I pointed out the row ahead where my wheels stood.
‘Where are you going to send your colt?’ I asked, walking.
‘Where would you say?’
‘I should think,’ I said… but I never finished the answer, or not at that actual moment.
A car coming towards us between two rows of parked cars suddenly emitted two headlight beams, blinding us; and at the same moment it seemed to accelerate fiercely, swerving straight towards Malcolm.
I leaped … flung myself… at my father, my flying weight spinning him off balance, carrying him off his feet, knocking him down. I fell on top of him, knowing that the pale speeding bulk of the car had caught me, but not sure to what extent. There was just a bang and a lot of lights curving like arcs, and a whirling view of gleams on metal, and a fast crunch into darkness.
We were on the ground then between two silent parked cars, our bodies heavy with shock and disorientation, in a sort of inertia.
After a moment, Malcolm began struggling to free himself from under my weight, and I rolled awkwardly onto my knees and thankfully thought of little but bruises. Malcolm pushed himself up until he was sitting with his back against a car’s wheel, collecting his wits but looking as shaken as I felt.
‘That car,’ he said eventually, between deep breaths,‘was aiming… to kill me.’
I nodded speechlessly. My trousers were torn, thigh grazed and bleeding.
‘You always had… quick reactions,’ he said. ‘So now… now you know… why I want you beside me… all the time.’
Two
It was the second time someone had tried to kill him, he said.
I was driving towards Cambridge a shade more slowly than usual, searching anxiously in the rear-view mirrors for satanically-minded followers but so far thankfully without success. My right leg was stiffening depressingly from the impact of twenty minutes ago, but I was in truth fairly used to that level of buffet through having ridden over the years in three or four hundred jump races, incurring consequent collisions with the ground.
Malcolm didn’t like driving for reasons Coochie had deftly diagnosed as impatience. Coochie hadn’t liked his driving either, for reasons (she said) of plain fear, and had taken over as family chauffeur. I too had been used to driving Malcolm from the day I gained my licence: I would need to have been delirious to ask him to take the wheel just because of some grazed skin.
The second time someone had tried to kill him …
‘When was the first time?’ I asked.
‘Last Friday.’
It was currently Tuesday evening.‘What happened?’ I said.
He took a while over answering. When he did there was more sadness in his voice than anger, and I listened to his tone behind the words and slowly understood his