Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,15

remember those names?’

Valery swallowed. ‘I didn’t er …’ he stuttered. ‘I didn’t study the names. Er … the first one was Princess Casilia …’

‘And the others?’

Valery shook his head, eyes wide. He as well as Nanterre saw too late that they had thrown away knowledge they might have used. Pressure couldn’t be applied to people one couldn’t identify. Bribes and blandishments could go nowhere.

Nanterre transmitted his frustration into an increase of aggression, thrusting the application form again towards Roland de Brescou and demanding he sign it.

Monsieur de Brescou didn’t even bother to shake his head. Nanterre was losing it, I thought, and would soon retire: and I was wrong.

He handed the form to Valery, put his right hand inside his jacket, and from a hidden holster produced a black and businesslike pistol. With a gliding step, he reached the princess and pressed the end of the barrel against her temple, standing behind her and holding her head firmly with his left hand under the chin.

‘Now,’ he said gratingly to de Brescou, ‘sign the form.’

FOUR

Into an electrified atmosphere, I said plainly, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Stop swinging that foot,’ Nanterre said furiously.

I stopped swinging it. There was a time for everything.

‘If you shoot Princess Casilia,’ I said calmly, ‘Monsieur de Brescou will not sign the form.’

The princess had her eyes shut and Roland de Brescou looked frail to fainting. Valery’s wide eyes risked popping out altogether and Gerald Greening, somewhere behind me, was saying ‘Oh my God,’ incredulously under his breath.

I said, my mouth drier than I liked, ‘If you shoot Princess Casilia, we are all witnesses. You would have to kill us all, including Valery.’

Valery moaned.

‘Monsieur de Brescou would not have signed the form,’ I said. ‘You would end up in jail for life. What would be the point?’

He stared at me with hot dark eyes, the princess’s head firm in his grip.

After a pause which lasted a couple of millennia, he gave the princess’s head a shake and let her go.

‘There are no bullets,’ he said. He shoved the gun back into its holster, holding his jacket open for the purpose. He gave me a bitter glance as if he would impress my face on his memory for ever and without another word walked out of the room.

Valery closed his eyes, opened them a slit, ducked his head and scuttled away in his master’s wake, looking as if he wished he were anywhere else.

The princess with a small sound of great distress slid out of her chair onto her knees beside the wheelchair and put her arms round her husband, her face turned to his neck, her shining dark hair against his cheek. He raised a thin hand to stroke her head, and looked at me with sombre eyes.

‘I would have signed,’ he said.

‘Yes, Monsieur.’

I felt sick myself and could hardly imagine their turmoil. The princess was shaking visibly, crying, I thought.

I stood up. ‘I’ll wait downstairs,’ I said.

He gave the briefest of nods, and I followed where Nanterre had gone, looking back for Gerald Greening. Numbly he came after me, closing the door, and we went down to the sitting room where I’d waited before.

‘You didn’t know,’ he said croakily, ‘that the gun was empty, did you?’

‘No.’

‘You took a terrible risk.’ He made straight for the tray of bottles and glasses, pouring brandy with a shaking hand. ‘Do you want some?’

I nodded and sat rather weakly on one of the chintz sofas. He gave me a glass and collapsed in much the same fashion.

‘I’ve never liked guns,’ he said hollowly.

‘I wonder if he meant to produce it?’ I said. ‘He didn’t mean to use it or he’d have brought it loaded.’

‘Then why carry it at all?’

‘A prototype, wouldn’t you say?’ I suggested. ‘His plastic equaliser, demonstration model. I wonder how he got it into England. Through airports undetected, would you say? In pieces?’

Greening made inroads into his brandy and said, ‘When I met him in France, I thought him bombastic but shrewd. But these threats … tonight’s behaviour …’

‘Not shrewd but crude,’ I said.

He gave me a glance. ‘Do you think he’ll give up?’

‘Nanterre? No, I’m afraid he won’t. He must have seen he came near tonight to getting what he wanted. I’d say he’ll try again. Another way, perhaps.’

‘When you aren’t there.’ He said it as a statement, all the former doubts missing. If he wasn’t careful, I thought, he’d persuade himself too far the other way. He looked at his watch, sighing deeply. ‘I told my wife I’d