Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,93

to see through a wall of glass to the parade ring. Outside and to the left, before one reached the parade ring, lay the weighing room and the office of the Clerk of the Course. Beyond the parade ring lay the gate to the car park and to freedom.

I was there. Nearly there. A door at the bottom of the Owners and Trainers’ enclosed viewing steps led straight out to the area in front of the weighing room, and if only that door like every one else in the building were unlocked, I’d be out.

I approached the steps thinking only of that, and along from behind the stands, barely twenty paces away from me, marched Vernon.

If he had walked up to the glass and looked through he would have seen me clearly. I could see even the brown and white checks of his shirt collar over his zipped jacket. I stood stock still in shuddering dismay and watched him walk along to the Clerk of the Course’s office and knock on the door.

The man who had been writing there came outside. I watched them talking. Watched them both look across to the stands. The man from the office pointed to the way he’d told me to go to find the caterers. Vernon seemed to be asking urgent questions but the office man shook his head and after a while went back indoors; and with clearly evident frustration Vernon began to hurry back the way he’d come.

The door at the bottom of the Owners and Trainers’ Bar steps proved to be bolted on the inside, top and bottom. I undid the bolts, fumbling. The door itself… the knob turned under my hand and the door opened inward towards me when I pulled, and I stepped out feeling that if Vernon or Paul Young jumped on me at that moment I would scream, literally scream with hysterics.

They weren’t there. I shut the door behind me and started walking with unsteady knees, and the man from the office came out of his door and said, i say, do you know the caterer’s store manager is looking for you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. It came out as a croak. I cleared my throat and said again, ‘Yes. I just met him along there.’ I pointed to the way Vernon had gone… and I feared he would come back.

‘Did you? Righto.’ He frowned at me, puzzled. ‘He wanted to know your name. Most odd, what? I said I didn’t know, but mentioned that it was hours since you’d asked the way to his door. I’d have thought he would have known.’

‘Most odd,’ I agreed. ‘Anyway, he knows now. I told him. Er… Peter Cash. Insurance.’

‘Ah.’

‘Not a bad day,’ I said, looking at the sky. ‘After yesterday.’

‘We needed the rain.’

‘Yes. Well… good day.’

He nodded benignly over the civility and returned to his lair, and I went shakily onwards past the parade ring, down the path, through the still open entrance gate and out to the Rover; and no one yelled behind me, no one ran to pounce and clutch and drag me back at the last moment. No one came.

The keys went tremblingly into the locks. The engine started. There were no flat tyres. I pushed the old gear level through the ancient gears, reverse and forward, and drove away over the cindery grass and through the main gates and away from Martineau Park with Pan at my shoulder fading slowly into the shadows on the journey.

When I went into the shop it was still only twenty-one minutes to four, although I felt as if I had lived several lifetimes. I headed straight through to the washroom and was sick in the washbasin and spent a long time wretchedly on the loo and felt my skin still clammy with shivers.

I splashed water on my face and dried it, and when I eventually emerged it was to worried enquiries from Mrs Palissey and open-mouthed concern from Brian.

‘Something I ate,’ I said weakly, and took a brandy miniature from the shelves, and despatched it.

Mrs Palissey and Brian had been too busy with customers to make even a start on the telephone orders. I looked at the pile of numbered lists carefully written in Mrs Palissey’s handwriting and felt absolutely incapable of the task of collecting each customer’s requirements into cartons for delivery.

‘Are any of these urgent?’ I asked helplessly.

‘Don’t you worry,’ Mrs Palissey said comfortingly. ‘Only one… and Brian and 1 will see to it.’

‘I’ll make it up to you.’

‘Yes,