In the Frame - By Dick Francis Page 0,59

fists.’

He absentmindedly rubbed an area south of his heart.

‘He punched you?’ I said.

‘It was all so quick…’ he said apologetically. ‘They just crammed in… and biff bang… The next thing I knew they’d got hold of Sarah and were twisting her arm and saying that she wouldn’t just get turps in her eyes if I didn’t get you to come at once.’

‘Did they have a gun?’ I asked.

‘No… a cigarette lighter. Look, I’m sorry, mate. I guess it sounds pretty feeble, but Beetle-brows had her in a pretty rough grasp and the boy had this ruddy great cigarette lighter with a flame like a blow torch just a couple of inches from her cheek… and I was a bit groggy… and Greene said they’d burn her if I didn’t get you… and I couldn’t fight them all at once.’

‘Stop apologising,’ I said.

‘Yeah… well, so I rang you. I told Greene you’d be ten minutes because you were in your underpants, but I think he heard you anyway because he was standing right beside me, very wary and sharp. I didn’t know really whether you’d cottoned on, but I hoped to God… and you should have seen their faces when the waiter pushed the trolley in. Beetle-brows let go of Sarah and the boy just stood there with his mouth open and the cigarette lighter flaring up like an oil refinery…’

‘Greene said we didn’t want the champagne and to take it away,’ Sarah said. ‘But Jik and I said yes we did, and Jik asked the waiter to open it at once.’

‘Before he got the first cork out the others all began coming… and then they were all picking up glasses… and the room was filling up… and Greene and the boy and Beetle-brows were all on the window side of the room, sort of pinned in by the trolley and all those people… and I just grabbed Sarah and we ducked round the edge. The last I saw, Greene and the others were trying to push through, but our guests were pretty thick on the ground by then and keen to get their champagne… and I should think the cleaning trolley was just about enough to give us that start to the lift.’

‘I wonder how long the party lasted,’ I said.

‘Until the bubbles ran out.’

‘They must all have thought you mad,’ Sarah said.

‘Anything goes on Cup day,’ I said, ‘and the staff of the Hilton would be used to eccentric guests.’

‘What if Greene had had a gun?’ Sarah said.

I smiled at her twistedly. ‘He would have had to wave it around in front of a hell of a lot of witnesses.’

‘But he might have done.’

‘He might… but he was a long way from the front door.’ I bit my thumbnail. ‘Er… how did he know I was in the Hilton?’

There was a tangible silence.

‘I told him,’ Sarah said finally, in a small mixed outburst of shame and defiance. ‘Jik didn’t tell you it all, just now. At first they said… Greene said… they’d burn my face if Jik didn’t tell them where you were. He didn’t want to… but he had to… so I told them, so that it wouldn’t be him… I suppose that sounds stupid.’

I thought it sounded extraordinarily moving. Love of an exceptional order, and a depth of understanding.

I smiled at her. ‘So they didn’t know I was there, to begin with?’

Jik shook his head. ‘I don’t think they knew you were even in Melbourne. They seemed surprised when Sarah said you were upstairs. I think all they knew was that you weren’t still in hospital in Alice Springs.’

‘Did they know about our robbery?’

‘I’m sure they didn’t.’

I grinned. ‘They’ll be schizophrenic when they find out.’

Jik and I both carefully shied away from what would have happened if I’d gone straight down to their room, though I saw from his eyes that he knew. With Sarah held as a hostage I would have had to leave the Hilton with Greene and taken my chance. The uncomfortably slim chance that they would have let me off again with my life.

‘I’m hungry,’ I said.

Sarah smiled. ‘Whenever are you not?’

We ate in a small Bring Your Own restaurant nearby, with people at tables all around us talking about what they’d backed in the Cup.

‘Good heavens,’ Sarah exclaimed. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

‘About what?’

‘Your winnings,’ she said. ‘On Ringwood.’

‘But…’ I began.

‘It was number eleven!’

‘I don’t believe it.’

She opened her handbag and produced a fat wad of notes. Somehow, in all the mêlée in