1950, pirates, cutlasses, heaving bosoms. Switched off.
Sat and watched night arrive on the airfield. Tried to concentrate on what Annie Villars had told me, so as not to think of night arriving over the fields and tents of Warwickshire. For a long time, had no success at all.
Look at everything upside down. Take absolutely nothing for granted.
The middle of the night produced out of a shallow restless sleep a singularly wild idea. Most sleep-spawned revelations from the subconscious wither and die of ridicule in the dawn, but this time it was different. At five, six, seven o’clock, it still looked possible. I traipsed in my mind through everything I had seen and heard since the day of the bomb, and added a satisfactory answer to why to the answer to who.
That Friday I had to set off early in the Aztec to Germany with some television cameramen from Denham, wait while they took their shots, and bring them home again. In spite of breaking Harley’s ruling about speed into pin-sized fragments it was seven-thirty before I climbed stiffly out of the cockpit and helped Joe push the sturdy twin into the hangar.
‘Need it for Sunday, don’t you?’ he asked.
‘That’s right. Colin Ross to France.’ I stretched and yawned, and picked up my heavy flight bag with all its charts and documents.
‘We’re working you hard.’
‘What I’m here for.’
He put his hands in his overall pockets. ‘You’re light on those aeroplanes, I’ll give you that. Larry, now, Larry was heavy-handed. Always needing things repaired, we were, before you came.’
I gave him a sketch of an appreciative smile and walked up to fill in the records in the office. Harley and Don were both still flying, Harley giving a lesson, and Don a sight-seeing trip in the Six, and Honey was still traffic-copping up in the tower. I climbed up there to see her and ask her a considerable favour.
‘Borrow my Mini?’ she repeated in surprise. ‘Do you mean now, this minute?’
I nodded. ‘For the evening.’
‘I suppose I could get Uncle to take me home,’ she reflected. ‘If you’ll fetch me in the morning?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Well… all right. I don’t really need it this evening. Just fill it up with petrol before you hand it back.’
‘O.K. And thanks a lot.’
She gave me a frankly vulgar grin. ‘Minis are too small for what you want.’
I managed to grin back. ‘Yeah…’
Given the wheels, make the appointment. A pleasant male voice answered the telephone, polite and quiet.
‘The Duke of Wessex? Yes, this is his house. Who is speaking please?’
‘Matthew Shore.’
‘One moment, sir.’
The one moment stretched to four minutes, and I fed a week’s beer money into the greedy box. At last the receiver at the other end was picked up and with slightly heavy breathing the Duke’s unmistakable voice said, ‘Matt? My dear chap, what can I do for you?’
‘If you are not busy this evening, sir, could I call in to see you for a few minutes?’
‘This evening? Busy? Hm… Is it about young Matthew’s flight?’
‘No, sir, something different. I won’t take up much of your time.’
‘Come by all means, my dear chap, if you want to. After dinner, perhaps? Nine o’clock, say?’
‘Nine o’clock,’ I confirmed. ‘I’ll be there.’
The Duke lived near Royston, west of Cambridge. Honey’s Mini ate up the miles like Billy Bunter so that it was nine o’clock exactly when I stopped at a local garage to ask for directions to the Duke’s house. On Honey’s radio, someone was reading the news. I listened idly at first while the attendant finished filling up the car in front, and then with sharp and sickened attention. ‘Racehorse trainer Jarvis Kitch and owner Dobson Ambrose, whose filly Scotchbright won the Oaks last month, were killed today in a multiple traffic accident just outside Newmarket. The Australian jockey Kenny Bayst, who was in the car with them, was taken to hospital with multiple injuries. His condition tonight is said to be fair. Three stable lads, trapped when a lorry crushed their car, also died in the crash.’
Mechanically I asked for, got, and followed, the directions to the Duke’s house. I was thinking about poor large aggressive Ambrose and his cowed trainer Kitch, hoping that Kenny wasn’t too badly hurt to race again, and trying to foresee the ramifications.
There was nothing else on the news except the weather forecast: heatwave indefinitely continuing.
No mention of Rupert Tyderman. But Tyderman, that day, had been seen by the police.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Duke’s manservant was as pleasant as his voice: a short, assured, slightly