Rat Race - By Dick Francis Page 0,57

hell didn’t you have the guts to tell her yourself?’

‘Tell her what?’

‘What?’ He thrust his hand into the pocket of his faded jeans and brought out a folded wad of newspaper. ‘This.’

I took it from him. Unfolded it. Felt the woodenness take over in my face; knew that it showed.

He had handed me the most biting, the most damaging, of the tabloid accounts of my trial and conviction for negligently putting the lives of eighty seven people in jeopardy. A one-day wonder to the general public; long forgotten. But always lying there in the files, if anyone wanted to dig it up.

‘That wasn’t all,’ Colin said. ‘He told her also that you’d been sacked from another airline for cowardice.’

‘Who told her?’ I said dully. I held out the cutting. He took it back.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘He had no axe to grind. That’s what convinced her.’

‘No axe… did he say that?’

‘I believe so. What does it matter?’

‘Was it a Polyplane pilot who told her? The one, for instance, who is flying you today?’ Getting his own back, I thought, for :he way I’d threatened him at Redcar.

Colin’s mouth opened.

‘No axe to grind,’ I said bitterly. That’s a laugh. They’ve been trying to prise you loose from Derrydowns all summer and now it looks as if they’ve done it.’

I turned away from him, my throat physically closing. I didn’t think I could speak. I expected him to walk on, to walk away, to take himself to Polyplanes and my future to the trash can.

Instead of that he followed me and touched my arm.

‘Matt…’

I shook him off. ‘You tell your precious sister,’ I said thickly, that because of the rules I broke leading her back to Cambridge last Friday I am going to find myself in court again, and convicted and fined and in debt again… and this time I did it with my eyes open… not like that…’ I pointed to the newspaper clipping with a hand that trembled visibly, ‘when I had to take the rap for something that was mostly not my fault.’

‘Matt!’ He was himself appalled.

‘And as for the cowardice bit, she’s got her facts wrong… Oh, I’ve no doubt it sounded convincing and dreadful… Polyplanes had a lot to gain by upsetting her to the utmost… but I don’t see… I don’t see why she was more upset than just to persuade you not to fly with me…’

‘Why didn’t you tell her yourself?’

I shook my head. ‘I probably might have done, one day. I didn’t think it was important.’

‘Not important!’ He was fierce with irritation. ‘She seems to have been building up some some sort of hero image of you, and then she discovered you had clay feet in all directions… Of course you should have told her, as you were going to marry her. That was obviously what upset her most…’

I was speechless. My jaw literally dropped. Finally I said foolishly, ‘Did you say marry…’

‘Well, yes, of course,’ he said impatiently, and then seemed struck by my state of shock. ‘You were going to marry her, weren’t you?’

‘We’ve never… even talked about it.’

‘But you must have,’ he insisted. ‘I overheard her and Midge discussing it on Sunday evening, after I got back from Ostend. ‘When you are married to Matt,’ Midge said. I heard her distinctly. They were in the kitchen, washing up. They were deciding you would come and live with us in the bungalow… They were sharing out the bedrooms…’ His voice tailed off weakly. ‘It isn’t… it isn’t true?’

I silently shook my head.

He looked at me in bewilderment. ‘Girls,’ he said. ‘Girls.’

‘I can’t marry her,’ I said numbly. ‘I’ve hardly enough for a licence…”

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘It does to me.’

‘It wouldn’t to Nancy,’ he said. He did a sort of double take. ‘Do you mean… she wasn’t so far out… after all?’

‘I suppose… not so far.’

He looked down at the cutting in his hand, and suddenly screwed it up. ‘It looked so bad,’ he said with a tinge of apology.

‘It was bad,’ I said.

He looked at my face. ‘Yes. I see it was…’

A taxi drew up with a jerk and out piled my passengers, all gay and flushed with a winner and carrying a bottle of champagne.

‘I’ll explain to her,’ Colin said. ‘I’ll get her back…’ His expression was suddenly horrified. Shattered.

‘Where has she gone?’ I asked.

He screwed up his eyes as if in pain.

‘She said…’ He swallowed. ‘She went… to Chanter.’

I sat all evening in the caravan wanting to smash something. Smash the