In the Frame - By Dick Francis Page 0,78

found myself staring straight into the eyes of the bull. He realised that he’d been tricked. Had convicted himself out of his own mouth and by his own presence on such an errand. The fury rose in him like a geyser and his hands reached out to grab my neck.

‘You’re dead,’ he yelled. ‘You’re fucking dead.’

His plunging weight took me off balance and down on to one knee, smothering under his choking grip and two hundred pounds of city suiting; trying to beat him off with my fists and not succeeding. His anger poured over me like lava. Heaven knows what he intended, but Porter’s men pulled him off before he did bloody murder on the plushy carpet. As I got creakily to my feet, I heard the handcuffs click.

He was standing there, close to me, quivering in the restraining hands, breathing heavily, dishevelled and bitter-eyed. Civilised exterior all stripped away by one instant of ungovernable rage. The violent core plain to see.

‘Hello, Hudson,’ I said.

‘Sorry,’ Porter said perfunctorily. ‘Didn’t reckon he’d turn wild.’

‘Revert,’ I said.

‘Uh?’

‘He always was wild,’ I said, ‘Underneath.’

‘You’d know,’ he said. ‘I never saw the guy before.’ He nodded to Jik and Sarah and finally to me, and hurried away after his departing prisoner.

We looked at each other a little blankly. The hotel guests stared at us curiously and began to drift away. We sat down weakly on the nearest blue velvet seat, Sarah in the middle.

Jik took her hand and squeezed it. She put her fingers over mine.

It had taken nine days.

It had been a long haul.

‘Don’t know about you,’ Jik said. ‘But I could do with a beer.’

Todd,’ said Sarah, ‘Start talking.’

We were upstairs in a bedroom (mine) with both of them in a relaxed mood, and me in Jik’s dressing gown, and he and I in a cloud of Dettol.

I yawned. ‘About Hudson?’

‘Who else? And don’t go to sleep before you’ve told us.’

‘Well… I was looking for him, or someone like him, before I ever met him.’

‘But why?’

‘Because of the wine,’ I said. ‘Because of the wine which was stolen from Donald’s cellar. Whoever stole it not only knew it was there, down some stairs behind an inconspicuous cupboard-like door… and I’d stayed several times in the house and never knew the cellar existed… but according to Donald they would have had to come prepared with proper cases to pack it in. Wine is usually packed twelve bottles in a case… and Donald had two thousand or more bottles stolen. In bulk alone it would have taken a lot of shifting. A lot of time, too, and time for house-breakers is risky. But also it was special wine. A small fortune, Donald said. The sort of wine that’s bought and sold as an asset and ends up at a week’s wage a bottle, if it’s ever drunk at all. Anyway, it was the sort of wine that needed expert handling and marketing if it was to be worth the difficulty of stealing it in the first place… and as Donald’s business is wine, and the reason for his journey to Australia was wine, I started looking right away for someone who knew Donald, knew he’d bought a Munnings, and knew about good wine and how to sell it. And there, straightaway, was Hudson Taylor, who matched like a glove. But it seemed too easy… because he didn’t look right.’

‘Smooth and friendly,’ said Sarah, nodding.

‘And rich,’ Jik added.

‘Probably a moneyholic,’ I said, pulling open the bed and looking longingly at the cool white sheets.

‘A what?’

‘Moneyholic. A word I’ve just made up to describe someone with an uncontrollable addiction to money.’

‘The world’s full of them,’ Jik said, laughing.

I shook my head. ‘The world is full of drinkers, but alcoholics are obsessive. Moneyholics are obsessive. They never have enough. They cannot have enough. However much they have, they want more. And I’m not talking about the average hard-up man, but about real screwballs. Money, money, money. Like a drug. Moneyholics will do anything to get it… Kidnap, murder, cook the computer, rob banks, sell their grandmothers… You name it.’

I sat on the bed with my feet up, feeling less than fit. Sore from too many bruises, on fire from too many cuts. Jik too, I guessed. They had been wicked rocks.

‘Moneyholism,’ Jik said, like a lecturer to a dimmish class, ‘is a widespread disease easily understood by everyone who has ever felt a twinge of greed, which is everyone.’

‘Go on about Hudson,’ Sarah said.

‘Hudson had the