Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,101

worry deepened round his eyes.

‘Do you have a family?’ Gerard said.

Vernon said faintly, ‘Yes.’

‘Unemployment is preferable to imprisonment,’ Gerard said austerely, as no doubt he had said to many a detected cheat: and Quigley as well as Vernon and myself heard the iron in his voice. Actions had to be accounted for and responsibility accepted. Consequences had to be faced. Constant forgiveness destroyed the soul…

Vernon shivered.

With Quigley’s permission, after Vernon had gone, Gerard and I loaded into his Mercedes (driven round to the green door) a case of ‘Vintners Incorporated’ Bell’s and a case each of the ‘Vintners Incorporated’ wines. In effect Gerard and Quigley watched while I shifted the cases. Back to my normal occupation, I thought with a sigh, and let the fork-lift truck take most of the strain off my mending muscles.

‘What do I do with the rest?’ Quigley said helplessly. ‘And how are we going to cope with the Autumn Carnival without Vernon? No one else knows the routine. He’s been here so long. He is the routine… he developed it.’

Neither Gerard nor I offered solutions. Quigley gloomily set about double-double-locking his treasure house and switching on the alarm, and we made the final reverse trip to the outer world.

‘What should I do?’ Quigley asked, fastening the green door ‘I mean… about that murder?’

Gerard said, ‘Vernon told you his version of what Paul Young told him, which was itself no doubt only a version of the facts. That’s a long way from first-hand knowledge.’

‘You mean… I could do nothing?’

‘Act as your judgment dictates,’ Gerard said pleasantly and unhelpfully, and for once in his life I guessed Quigley was searching his self-importance and finding only doubt and irresolution.

Gerard said, ‘Tony and I will tell the police that Paul Young may arrive here at any time from now on. After that, it’s up to them.’

‘He said he was coming at two o’clock,’ Quigley corrected.

‘Mm. But he might suspect Vernon would do what Vernon did mean to do, in other words clear off with the loot before Paul Young got here. Paul Young could be here at any minute.’ Gerard seemed unconcerned but he was alone in that. Quigley made his mind up to leave us as soon as possible and I felt very much like following.

‘He won’t be able to get in as I have all the keys,’ Quigley said. ‘I suppose I must thank you, Mr McGregor. I don’t like any of this. I can only hope that with Vernon gone we’ll have no more trouble.’

‘Certainly hope not,’ Gerard said blandly, and we both watched Quigley drive away with hope already straightening the shoulders and throwing forward the chin. ‘He might be lucky, he might not,’ Gerard said.

‘I don’t want to be here when Paul Young gets here,’ I said.

He half smiled. ‘More prudent not. Get in my car and we’ll fetch your car first and then find a telephone box.’

We both drove for five miles and stopped in a small village where he made the call from the public telephone outside the post office. I gave him the priority number Ridger had told me, and I listened to his brief message.

‘It’s possible,’ he said to the police, ‘that the man known as Paul Young may arrive at the caterers’ entrance in the grandstands of Martineau Park racecourse at any time today from now onwards.’ He listened to a reply and said, ‘No. No names. Goodbye.’

Smiling, he replaced the receiver. ‘O.K.,’ he said. ‘Duty done.’

‘To some extent,’ I said.

‘Everything’s relative.’ He was cheerful although still looking far from well. ‘We know where Kenneth Charter’s scotch is.’

‘Some of it,’ I said.

‘Enough.’

‘But not where it went between the tanker and the Vintners Incorporated deliveries.’

‘To a bottling plant, as you said.’

He was leaning against his car, arm in sling, looking frail, a recuperating English gentleman out for a harmless Sunday morning drive in the country. There was also a glimmer of humour about him and the steel core looking out of the eyes, and I said abruptly, ‘You know something you haven’t told me.’

‘Do you think so? What about?’

‘You’ve found the bottling plant!’

‘Found a bottling plant, yes. Somewhere to start from anyway. I thought I’d go and take a look this afternoon. Preliminary recce.’

‘But it’s Sunday. There’ll be no one there.’

‘That’s sometimes an advantage.’

‘You don’t mean… break in?’

‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘It depends. Sometimes there’s a caretaker. I’m good at government inspectors, even on Sundays.’

Slightly aghast I said, ‘Well… where is it?’

‘Roughly twenty-five miles this side of Kenneth Charter’s headquarters.’