Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,51

which he smoked on sunny afternoons sitting on a wooden chair outside his kitchen door.

At three Sergeant Ridger returned carrying a paper bag from which he produced a bottle, setting it on the counter.

St Estèphe: just as I’d asked. Uncorked and sealed with sticky tape, untouched since its departure from the Silver Moondance.

‘Can I keep it?’ I said.

He gave one brief sharp nod. ‘For now. I said you’d been helpful, that it would be helpful for you to have this. I obtained permission from the Chief Inspector in charge of the Silver Moondance murder investigations.’ He dug into a pocket and produced a piece of paper, holding it out. ‘Please sign this chit. It makes it official.’

I signed the paper and returned it to him.

‘I’ve something for you, as well,’ I said, and fetched for him the thieves’ shopping list. The original.

His body seemed to swell physically when he understood what it was, and he looked up from it with sharply bright eyes.

‘Where did you find it?’

I explained about Brian clearing up.

‘This is of great significance,’ he said with satisfaction.

I agreed. I said, ‘It would be particularly interesting if this is Paul Young’s handwriting.’

His staring gaze intensified, if anything.

‘When he wrote his name and address,’ I said, ‘do you remember, he held his pen so awkwardly? He wrote in short sharp downward strokes. It just seemed to me that this list looked similar… though I only saw his name and address very briefly, of course.’

Sergeant Ridger, who had looked at them long and carefully, stared now at the thieves’ list, making the comparison in his mind. Almost breathlessly he said, ‘I think you’re right. I think they’re the same. The Chief Inspector will be very pleased.’

‘A blank wall, otherwise?’ I suggested. ‘You can’t find him?’

His hesitation was small. ‘There are difficulties, certainly,’ he said.

No trace at all, I diagnosed.

‘How about his car?’ I suggested.

‘What car?’

‘Yes… well… he didn’t come to the Silver Moondance that day on foot, would you think? It’s miles from anywhere. But when we went out with the boxes of drinks, there wasn’t an extra car in the car park. So… urn… he must have parked round at the back where the cars of the staff were. Round by that door into the lobby where Larry Trent’s office is, and the wine cellars. So Paul Young must have been to the Silver Moondance some other time… or he would have parked out front. If you see what I mean.’

Detective Sergeant Ridger looked at me long and slowly. ‘How do you know the staff parked round at the back?’

‘I saw cars through the lobby window when I went to fetch the bottles of wine. It seemed commonsense to assume those were the staff’s cars… barman, assistant assistant, waitress, kitchen staff and so on. They all had to get to work somehow, and the front car park was empty.’

He nodded, remembering.

‘Paul Young stayed there after we left,’ I said. ‘So maybe the assistant or the waitress… or somebody… remembers what car he drove away in. Pretty long shot, I suppose.’

Ridger carefully put the folded shopping list into the back of his notebook and then wrote a sentence or two on a fresh page. ‘I’m not of course in charge of that investigation,’ he said eventually, ‘and I would expect this line of questioning has already been thoroughly explored, but… I’ll find out.’

I didn’t ask again if he would tell me the results, nor did he even hint that he might. When he left, however, it was without finality: not so much goodbye as see you later. He would be interested, he said, in anything further I could think of in connection with the bottle of wine he had brought. If I came to any new conclusions, no doubt I would pass them on.

‘Yes, of course,’ I said.

He nodded, shut the notebook, tucked it into his pocket and collectedly departed, and I took the bottle of St Estèphe carefully into the office, putting it back into the bag in which Ridger had brought it so that it should be out of plain sight.

I sat down at the desk, lethargy deepening. Still a load of orders to make up to go out on the van; couldn’t be bothered even to start on them. Everyone would get their delivery a day late. Goblets and champagne needed for a coming-of-age on Thursday… by Thursday I mightn’t feel so bone weary and comprehensively sore.

Women’s voices in the shop. I stood up slowly and went