In the Frame - By Dick Francis Page 0,31

chemistry.

The Americans got up to go.

‘All very interesting,’ Wyatt said with a dismissive smile. ‘I guess I’ll keep my money in regular stocks.’

7

Jik had gone from the gents, gone from the whole Arts Centre. I found him back with Sarah in their hotel room, being attended by the Hilton’s attractive resident nurse. The door to the corridor stood open, ready for her to leave.

‘Try not to rub them, Mr Cassavetes,’ she was saying. ‘If you have any trouble, call the reception desk, and I’ll come back.’

She gave me a professional half-smile in the open doorway and walked briskly away, leaving me to go in.

‘How are the eyes?’ I said, advancing tentatively.

‘Ruddy awful.’ They were bright pink, but dry. Getting better.

Sarah said with tight lips, ‘This has all gone far enough. I know that this time Jik will be all right again in a day or two, but we are not taking any more risks.’

Jik said nothing and didn’t look at me.

It wasn’t exactly unexpected. I said, ‘O.K.… Well, have a nice week-end, and thanks anyway.’

‘Todd…’Jik said.

Sarah leapt in fast. ‘No, Jik. It’s not our responsibility. Todd can think what he likes, but his cousin’s troubles are nothing to do with us. We are not getting involved any further. I’ve been against all this silly poking around all along, and this is where it stops.’

‘Todd will go on with it,’ Jik said.

‘Then he’s a fool.’ She was angry, scornful, biting.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Anyone who tries to right a wrong these days is a fool. Much better not to meddle, not to get involved, not to think it’s your responsibility. I really ought to be painting away safely in my attic at Heathrow, minding my own business and letting Donald rot. Much more sensible, I agree. The trouble is that I simply can’t do it. I see the hell he’s in. How can I just turn my back? Not when there’s a chance of getting him out. True enough, I may not manage it, but what I can’t face is not having tried.’

I came to a halt.

A blank pause.

‘Well,’ I said, raising a smile. ‘Here endeth the lesson according to the world’s foremost nit. Have fun at the races. I might go too, you never know.’

I sketched a farewell and eased myself out. Neither of them said a word. I shut the door quietly and took the lift up to my own room.

A pity about Sarah, I thought. She would have Jik in cottonwool and slippers if he didn’t look out; and he’d never paint those magnificent brooding pictures any more, because they sprang from a torment he would no longer be allowed. Security, to him, would be a sort of abdication; a sort of death.

I looked at my watch and decided the Yarra River Fine Arts set-up might still have its doors open. Worth trying.

I wondered, as I walked along Wellington Parade and up Swanston Street, whether the young turps-flinger would be there, and if he was, whether he would know me. I’d seen only glimpses of his face, as I’d mostly been standing behind him. All one could swear to was light-brown hair, acne on the chin, a round jaw-line and a full-lipped mouth. Under twenty. Perhaps not more than seventeen. Dressed in blue jeans, white tee-shirt, and tennis shoes. About five-foot-eight, a hundred and thirty pounds. Quick on his feet, and liable to panic. And no artist.

The gallery was open, brightly lit, with a horse painting on a gilt display easel in the centre of the window. Not a Munnings. A portrait picture of an Australian horse and jockey, every detail sharp-edged, emphatic, and, to my taste, overpainted. Beside it a notice, gold embossed on black, announced a special display of distinguished equine art; and beside that, less well-produced but with larger letters, stood a display card saying ‘Welcome to the Melbourne Cup’.

The gallery looked typical of hundreds of others round the world; narrow frontage, with premises stretching back a good way from the street. Two or three people were wandering about inside, looking at the merchandise on the well-lit neutral grey walls.

I had gone there intending to go in. To go in was still what I intended, but I hesitated outside in the street feeling as if I were at the top of a ski jump. Stupid, I thought. Nothing venture, nothing gain, and all that. If you don’t look, you won’t see.

I took a ruefully deep breath and stepped over the welcoming threshold.

Greeny-grey carpet within, and an