Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,75

porcupine reflexes as sensitive as at the beginning, and I made no attempt to placate him, as any such attempt would in itself be seen as suspicious.

He drove away from the kerb saying that he would visit the nearest places first, with which I could find no quarrel, and I discovered that by nearest he meant nearest to the Silver Moondance. He turned off the main road about a mile before we reached it, and stopped in a village outside a country pub.

As an inn it had been old when Queen Anne died, when coaches had paused there to change horses. The building of the twentieth century highway had left the pub in a backwater, the old coaching road a dead end now, an artery reduced to an appendix. Emma and I had drunk a few times there, liking the old bulging building with the windows leaning sideways and the Stuart brickwork still in the fireplaces.

‘Not here!’ I said, surprised, as we stopped.

‘Do you know it?’

‘I’ve been here, but not for a year.’

Ridger consulted a clipboard. ‘Complaints of whisky being watered, gin ditto. Complaints investigated, found to be unfounded. Investigations dated August 23rd and September 18th last.’

‘The landlord’s a retired cricketer,’ I said. ‘Generous. Loves to talk. Lazy. The place needs a facelift.’

‘Landlord: Noel George Darnley.’

I turned my head, squinting down at the page. ‘Different man.’

‘Right.’ Ridger climbed out of the car and carefully locked it. ‘I’ll have a tomato juice.’

‘Who’s paying?’

Ridger looked blank. ‘I haven’t much money…’

‘No instructions?’ I asked. ‘No police float?’

He cleared his throat. ‘We must keep an account,’ he said.

‘O.K.,’ I said. ‘I’ll pay. We’ll write down at each place what I spend and you’ll initial it.’

He agreed to that. Whether the police would reimburse me or not I didn’t know, but Kenneth Charter very likely would, if not. If neither did, no great matter.

‘And what if we find a match?’ I asked.

He was on surer ground. ‘We impound the bottle, sealing it, labelling it, and giving a receipt.’

‘Right.’

We walked into the pub as customers, Ridger as relaxed as guitar strings.

The facelift, I saw at once, had occurred, but I found I preferred the old wrinkles. True, the worn Indian rugs wih threadbare patches had needed renewing, but not with orange and brown stripes. The underpolished knobbly oak benches had vanished in favour of smooth leather-look vinyl, and there were shiny modern brass ornaments on the mantel instead of antique pewter platters.

The new landlord’s new broom had resulted, however, in a much cleaner looking bar, and the landlord himself, appearing from the rear, wasn’t fat, sloppily dressed and beaming, but neat, thin and characterless. In the old days the pub had been full: I wondered how many of the regulars still came.

‘A Bell’s whisky, please,’ I said. I looked at his row of bottles. .’And a second Bell’s whisky from that bottle over there, and a tomato juice, please.’

He filled the order without conversation. We carried the glasses to a small table and I began on the unlikely task with a judicious trial of the first tot of Bell’s.

‘Well?’ Ridger asked, after fidgeting a full minute. ‘What have we got?’

I shook my head. ‘It’s Bell’s all right. Not like the Silver Moondance.’

Ridger had left his clipboard in the car, otherwise I was sure he would have crossed off mine host there and then.

I tried the second Bell’s. No luck there either.

As far as I could tell, neither bottle had been watered: both samples seemed full strength. I told Ridger so while he was making inroads into the tomato juice, which he genuinely seemed to enjoy.

I left both whiskies on the table and wandered to the bar.

‘You’re new here?’ I said.

‘Fairly.’ He seemed cautious, not friendly.

‘Settling in well with the locals?’ I asked.

‘Are you here to make trouble?’

‘No.’ I was surprised at the resentment he hadn’t bothered to hide. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Sorry, then. It was you ordering two whiskies from different bottles and tasting them carefully, as you did. Someone round here made trouble with the Weights and Measures, saying I gave short measures and watered the spirits. Some of them round here don’t like me smartening the place up. But I ask you, trying to get me fined or lose my licence… too much.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Malicious.’

He turned away, still not sure of me, which was fair enough, considering. I collected Ridger who was wiping red stains from his mouth and we went outside leaving the unfinished whiskies on the table, which probably hardened the