Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,36

another had called up to ask if it were true that they had been murdered.

Finally, he said, the princess had rung to say she’d cancelled her visit to her friends at Newton Abbot and wouldn’t be there to watch her horses, and please would Wykeham tell Kit that yes, she did very definitely want him to return to Eaton Square as soon as he could.

‘What’s going on there?’ Wykeham asked, without pressing interest. ‘She sounds unlike herself.’

‘Her sister-in-law arrived unexpectedly.’

‘Oh?’ He didn’t pursue it. ‘Well done, today, with the winners.’

‘Thanks.’ I waited, expecting to hear that Dusty had said I’d fallen off, but I’d misjudged the old crosspatch. ‘Dusty says Torquil went down flat in the fifth. Were you all right?’

‘Not a scratch,’ I said, much surprised.

‘Good. About tomorrow, then …”

We discussed the next day’s runners and eventually said goodnight, and he called me Kit, which made it twice in a row. I would know things were returning to normal, I thought, when he went back to Paul.

I played back all the messages on my answering machine and found most of them echoes of Wykeham’s: a whole column of pressmen wanted to know my feelings on the loss of Cotopaxi. Just as well, I thought, that I hadn’t been at home to express them.

There was an enquiry from a Devon trainer as to whether I could ride two for him at Newton Abbot, his own jockey having been hurt: I looked up the horses in the form book, telephoned to accept, and peacefully went to bed.

The telephone woke me at approximately two-thirty.

‘Hello,’ I said sleepily, squinting at the unwelcome news on my watch. ‘Who is it?’

‘Kit …’

I came wide awake in a split second. It was Danielle’s voice, very distressed.

‘Where are you?’ I said.

‘I … oh … I need … I’m in a shop.’

‘Did you say shock or shop?’ I said.

‘Oh …’ she gulped audibly. ‘Both, I suppose.’

‘What’s happened? Take a deep breath. Tell me slowly.’

‘I left the studio … ten after two … started to drive home.’ She stopped. She always finished at two, when the studio closed and all the American news-gatherers left for the night, and drove her own small Ford car back to the garage behind Eaton Square where Thomas kept the Rolls.

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘A car seemed to be following me. Then I had a flat tyre. I had to stop. I …’ she swallowed again. ‘I found … I had two tyres almost flat. And the other car stopped and a man got out… He was wearing … a hood.’

Jesus Christ, I thought.

‘I ran,’ Danielle said, audibly trying to stifle near-hysteria. ‘He started after me … I ran and ran … I saw this shop … it’s open all night … and I ran in here. But the man here doesn’t like it. He let me use his telephone … but I’ve no money, I left my purse and my coat in the car … and I don’t know … what to do …’

‘What you do,’ I said, ‘is stay there until I reach you.’

‘Yes, but … the man here doesn’t want me to … and somewhere outside … I can’t… I simply can’t go outside. I feel so stupid … but I’m frightened.’

‘Yes, you’ve good reason to be. I’ll come at once. You let me talk to the man in the shop … and don’t worry, I’ll be there in under an hour.’

She said, ‘All right,’ faintly, and in a few seconds an Asian-sounding voice said, ‘Hello?’

‘My young lady,’ I said, ‘needs your help. You keep her warm, give her a hot drink, make her comfortable until I arrive, and I’ll pay you.’

‘Cash,’ he said economically.

‘Yes, cash.’

‘Fifty pounds,’ he said.

‘For that,’ I said, ‘you look after her very well indeed. And now tell me your address. How do I find you?’

He gave me directions and told me earnestly he would look after the lady, I wasn’t to hurry, I would be sure to bring the cash, wouldn’t I, and I assured him again that yes, I would.

I dressed, swept some spare clothes into a bag, locked the house and broke the speed limit to London. After a couple of wrong turns and an enquiry from an unwilling night-walker I found the street and the row of dark shops, with one brightly lit near the end next to the Underground station. I stopped with a jerk on double yellow lines and went inside.

The place was a narrow mini-supermarket with a take-away hot-food glass cabinet