In the Frame - By Dick Francis Page 0,76

Melbourne, tended by angels in sea-green. Sarah looked fresh, Jik definitely shop-worn, and I apparently like a mixture (Jik said) of yellow ochre, Payne’s grey, and white, which I didn’t think was possible.

Our passage had been oiled by telexes from above. When we arrived at the airport after collecting Sarah’s belongings in their carrier bags from the Townhouse, we found ourselves whisked into a private room, plied with strong drink, and subsequently taken by car straight out across the tarmac to the aeroplane.

A thousand miles across the Tasman Sea and an afternoon tea later we were driven straight from the aircraft’s steps to another small airport room, which contained no strong drink but only a large hard Australian plain-clothes policeman.

‘Porter,’ he said, introducing himself and squeezing our bones in a blacksmith’s grip. ‘Which of you is Charles Todd?’

‘I am.’

‘Right on, Mr Todd.’ He looked at me without favour. ‘Are you ill, or something?’ He had a strong rough voice and a strong rough manner, natural aids to putting the fear of God into chummy and bringing on breakdowns in the nervous. To me, I gradually gathered, he was grudgingly offering the status of temporary inferior colleague.

‘No,’ I said, sighing slightly. Time and airline schedules waited for no man. If I’d spent time on first aid we’d have missed the only possible flight.

‘His clothes are sticking to him,’ Jik observed, giving the familiar phrase the usual meaning of being hot. It was cool in Melbourne. Porter looked at him uncertainly.

I grinned. ‘Did you manage what you planned?’ I asked him. He decided Jik was nuts and switched his gaze back to me.

‘We decided not to go ahead until you had arrived,’ he said, shrugging. ‘There’s a car waiting outside.’ He wheeled out of the door without holding it for Sarah and marched briskly off.

The car had a chauffeur. Porter sat in front, talking on a radio, saying in stiltedly guarded sentences that the party had arrived and the proposals should be implemented.

‘Where are we going?’ Sarah said.

‘To reunite you with your clothes,’ I said.

Her face lit up. ‘Are we really?’

‘And what for?’ Jik asked.

‘To bring the mouse to the cheese.’ And the bull to the sword, I thought: and the moment of truth to the conjuror.

‘We got your things back, Todd,’ Porter said with satisfaction. ‘Wexford, Greene and Snell were turned over on entry, and they copped them with the lot. The locks on your suitcase were scratched and dented but they hadn’t burst open. Everything inside should be O.K. You can collect everything in the morning.’

‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Did they still have any of the lists of customers?’

‘Yeah. Damp but readable. Names of guys in Canada.’

‘Good.’

‘We’re turning over that Yarra gallery right this minute, and Wexford is there helping. We’ve let him overhear what we wanted him to, and as soon as I give the go-ahead we’ll let him take action.’

‘Do you think he will?’ I said.

‘Look, mister, wouldn’t you?’

I thought I might be wary of gifts from the Greeks, but then I wasn’t Wexford, and I didn’t have a jail sentence breathing down my neck.

We pulled up at the side door of the Hilton. Porter raised himself agilely to the pavement and stood like a solid pillar, watching with half-concealed impatience while Jik, Sarah, and I eased ourselves slowly out. We all went across the familiar red-and-blue opulence of the great entrance hall, and from there through a gate in the reception desk, and into the hotel manager’s office at the rear.

A tall dark-suited member of the hotel staff there offered us chairs, coffee, and sandwiches. Porter looked at his watch and offered us an indeterminate wait.

It was six o’clock. After ten minutes a man in shirt and necktie brought a two-way personal radio for Porter, who slipped the ear-plug into place and began listening to disembodied voices.

The office was a working room, lit by neon strips and furnished functionally, with a wall-papering of charts and duty rosters. There were no outside windows: nothing to show the fade of day to night.

We sat, and drank coffee, and waited. Porter ate three of the sandwiches simultaneously. Time passed.

Seven o’clock.

Sarah was looking pale in the artificial light, and tired also. So was Jik, his beard on his chest. I sat and thought about life and death and polka dots.

At seven eleven Porter clutched his ear and concentrated intently on the ceiling. When he relaxed, he passed to us the galvanic message.

‘Wexford did just what we reckoned he would, and the