Frankie's Letter - By Dolores Gordon-Smith Page 0,100
laughter. ‘Ditched! That’s a good one, that. Wait till I tell everyone about that. Ditched!’
Still laughing he went back to the horse, climbed back up to his seat, jiggled the reins and slowly clopped away.
Anthony watched him go, the sound of the horse’s hooves gradually fading into silence. He moved his left arm tentatively and winced. The bone hadn’t been touched, thank God, but the muscle was damaged. His ribs were incredibly sore. He was desperate to follow the car but his arm was screaming for attention.
He managed to pull off his jacket. The bullet had creased his biceps and his sleeve was wet with blood. He thought of going back to the house for help but all he wanted to do was follow that bloody chauffeur and his car.
His shirtsleeve was ripped already and he tore the fabric off. Using his teeth and his good hand he managed to make a passable bandage with his handkerchief. He draped his jacket round his shoulders to cover his arm – he didn’t want to have to explain myself to any kindly passer-by – and set out to follow the car.
He was alone. Cooke and Bedford would take a long time to recover and he didn’t have a clue where Parkinson was. In the meantime he had a fresh trail to follow.
SIXTEEN
For about a mile there was no turning in the road. He should, Anthony realized, after walking for ten minutes or so, have left some sort of note for Cooke and Bedford, but he couldn’t face the thought of going back. He trudged along, gradually recovering his strength. There was a horse-trough on the road fed by a spring and Anthony had a rudimentary wash.
He plunged his head into the clear water, taking off the worst of the dirt and the mud. It would take more than a wash to make him feel better but it did him a lot of good. He could feel his arm stiffening and, gritting his teeth, forced himself to move the damaged muscles.
Then came a choice. The road proper continued on, but a cart track stretched off to the right. It wound off between the trees, dark underneath the overhanging branches. It looked little used. Anthony followed it for a few yards, looking intently at the ground. After a few minutes’ walk he was rewarded with a fresh tyre-track in the red clay soil.
A little further and he saw where the bank had been scraped by something large. Crushed grass-stems and cow parsley hung forlornly, but the flowers on the cow parsley were still fresh. They had been broken very recently. Less than ten minutes later the track widened out into a clearing.
He crouched down behind some shrubby undergrowth. Before him stood a cottage with its door open and, to the side of the cottage, was the big green tourer.
The clearing was deserted but, from the open door of the cottage, he could hear the murmur of voices. The place looked as if it’d been abandoned for years.
Tiles hung off the roof, the glass in three of the windows was smashed and the lean-to privy at the side stood with its door hanging drunkenly from broken hinges. What had been a kitchen garden was overgrown with nettles, loosestrife, brambles and scrubby trees, surrounded by a low, broken wall.
The only people he could imagine finding shelter here were passing tramps, glad of any sort of protection from the elements.
He shrank back into the bushes as the chauffeur and the man in the brown suit came out of the cottage door. They had mugs in their hands and they were both smoking cigarettes.
‘Please God we don’t have to spend the night here,’ said the brown-suited man, taking a drink from his mug. From his accent, he was from Belfast. He pulled a face. ‘Why didn’t you bring sugar? I can’t abide tea without sugar.’
‘I put it in the box,’ said the chauffeur, drinking his tea. ‘You’re blind, Keegan.’
‘Blind yourself,’ said Keegan morosely. ‘I’ve had enough of this job. For two pins I’d be on the next boat. To listen to the boss, you’d think all we had to do was whistle for that bastard Brooke and he’d come running. I’d like to see the boss get his hands dirty.’
‘The boss is tough enough,’ said the chauffeur. ‘And he is the boss. Don’t get any fancy ideas about leaving. You wouldn’t get far.’