Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,74

He could tell things by taste like you. The Customs and Excise people use instruments, same as the Weights and Measures. They’re concerned with alcohol content, not flavour.’

‘Did they check any of the places on your list?’

He said, ‘All of them,’ disapprovingly, and I remembered what he’d said before about someone in one of those two departments tipping off the Silver Moondance that investigators were on their way.

‘With no luck?’ I asked.

‘No prosecutions have resulted.’

Quite so. ‘All right, Sergeant. You drive, I’ll drink, and I’ve got ro be sober and back here by three to get my arm checked at the hospital.’

He went away looking smug and at nine-thirty to the half minute Mrs Palissey arrived with Brian. I explained that I would be away every mid-day for a while and said I would get her some help by tomorrow if she could possibly manage that morning on her own.

‘Help?’ She was affronted. ‘I don’t need help.’

‘But your lunch-hour…’

‘I’ll bring our lunch and we’ll eat in the back,’ she said, i don’t want strangers in here meddling. Brian and I will see to things. You go off and enjoy yourself, you’re still looking peaky.’

I was about to say that I wasn’t doing police work to enjoy myself but then it occurred to me that I probably was. I’d had no hesitation at all in accepting Ridger’s – or Wilson’s –invitation. I was flattered to be thought an expert. Deplorable vanity. Laugh at yourself, Tony. Stay human.

For an hour the three of us restocked the shop, made lists, took telephone orders, served customers, swept and dusted. I looked back when I left with Ridger: to a clean, cosy, welcoming place with Mrs Palissey smiling behind the counter and Brian arranging wine boxes with anxious care. I wasn’t an empire builder, I thought. I would never start a chain. That one prosperous place was enough.

Prosperous, I knew, against the odds. A great many small businesses like mine had died of trying to compete with chains and supermarkets, those giants engaged in such fierce undercutting price wars that they bled their own profits to death. I’d started that way and began losing money, and, against everything believed and advised in the trade, had restored my position by going back to fair, not suicidal prices. The losses had stopped, my customers had multiplied, not deserted, and I’d begun to enjoy life instead of waking up at night sweating.

Ridger had brought the Bell’s bottle with him in his car; it sat upright on the back seat in the same box in which it had left the Silver Moondance, two-thirds full, as before.

‘Before we go,’ I said, ‘I’ll take that whisky into the shop and taste it there.’

‘Why not here?’

‘The car smells of petrol.’ A gift, I thought.

‘I’ve just filled up. What does it matter?’

‘Petrol smells block out scotch.’

‘Oh. All right.’ He got out of his car, removed the box and methodically locked his doors although the car was right outside the shop and perfectly visible through the window: then he carried the box in and set it on the counter.

Casually I slipped my wrist out of the sling, picked up the Bell’s bottle, took it back to the office, and with a clink or two poured a good measure through a funnel into a clean small bottle I’d put ready, and then a very little into a goblet. The small bottle had a screw-on cap which I caught against the thread in my haste, but it was closed and hidden with the funnel behind box-files in an instant, and I walked unhurriedly back into the shop sipping thoughtfully at the glass, right wrist again supported.

Ridger was coming towards me. ‘I’m not supposed to let that bottle out of my sight,’ he said.

‘Sorry.’ I gestured with the glass. ‘It’s just on the desk in the office. Perfectly safe.’

He peered into the recess to make sure and turned back nodding. ‘How long will you be?’

‘Not long.’

The liquid in my mouth was definitely Rannoch, I thought. Straightforward Rannoch. Except that…

‘What’s the matter?’ Ridger demanded; and I realised I’d been frowning.

‘Nothing,’ I said, looking happier. ‘If you want to know if I’ll recognise it again, then yes, I will.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why are you smiling?’

‘Sergeant,’ I said with exasperation, ‘this is a collaboration not an inquisition. Let’s take the bottle and get the show on the road.’

I wondered if Sergeant Ridger ever achieved friendship; if his suspicious nature ever gave him a rest. Certainly after all our meetings I found his