Wild Horses - By Dick Francis Page 0,47
wait in the lounge.’
‘Great.’
‘I heard someone attacked Nash Rourke with a knife.’
‘As good as. It was his stand-in, though. And no harm done.’
‘So I gathered. Nine-thirty, then.’
He clicked off, his Scottish voice as brusque as ever: and redheaded and terrier-like, he was patiently waiting in the entrance lounge when I got back to Bedford Lodge.
‘Come upstairs,’ I said, shaking his hand. ‘What do you drink?’
‘Diet coke.’
I got room service to bring up his fizzy tipple and for myself poured cognac from a resident bottle. This film, I thought fleetingly, was driving me towards forty per cent proof.
‘Well,’ I said, waving him to an armchair in the neat sitting-room, ‘I went to see Dorothea in Cambridge this afternoon and found my way barred by our friend Paul.’
Robbie Gill grimaced. ‘She’s basically my patient, and he’s barring my way too, as far as possible.’
‘What can I do to preserve her from being shanghaied by him as soon as she’s capable of being transported by ambulance? She told him, and me, that she didn’t want to move into this retirement home he’s arranging for her, but he pays no attention.’
‘He’s a pest.’
‘Can’t you slap a “don’t move this patient” notice on Dorothea?’
He considered it doubtfully. ‘No one would move her at present. But a few days from now…’
‘Any which way,’ I said.
‘How much do you care?’
‘A good deal.’
‘I mean… money wise.’
I looked at him over my brandy glass. ‘Are you saying that an application of funds might do the trick?’
He replied forthrightly, as was his Scottish nature. ‘I’m saying that as her doctor I could, with her permission, shift her into a private nursing home of my choice if I could guarantee the bills would be paid.’
‘Would it break me?’
He mentioned an alarming sum and waited without censure for me to find it too much.
‘You have no obligation,’ he remarked.
‘I’m not poor, either,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell her who’s paying.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll say it’s free on the National Health. She’ll accept that.’
‘Go ahead, then.’
He downed his diet coke. ‘Is that the lot?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘If I draw something for you, tell me what you think.’
I took a large sheet of writing paper, laid it on the coffee table, and drew a picture of the knife I’d found on the Heath. A wickedly knobbed hand grip on eight sharp inches of steel.
He looked at the drawing in motionless silence.
‘Well?’ I asked.
‘A knuckle-duster,’ he said, ‘that grew into a knife.’
‘And Dorothea’s injuries?’ I suggested.
He stared at me.
I said, ‘Not two assailants. Not two weapons. This one, that’s both a blunt instrument and a blade.’
‘Dear God.’
‘Who would own such a thing?’ I asked him.
He shook his head mutely.
‘Do you know anyone called Derry?’
He looked completely perplexed.
I said, ‘Valentine once mentioned leaving a knife with someone called Derry.’
Robbie Gill frowned, thinking. ‘I don’t know any Derry.’
I sighed. Too many people knew nothing.
He said abruptly, ‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty. And you?’
‘Thirty-six.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Too old to conquer the world.’
‘So am I.’
‘Ridiculous!’
‘Steven Spielberg,’ I said, ‘was twenty-seven when he made Jaws. I’m not him. Nor Visconti, nor Fellini, nor Lucas. Just a jobbing storyteller.’
‘And Alexander the Great died at thirty-three.’
‘Of diet coke?’I asked.
He laughed. ‘Is it true that in America, if you die of old age, it’s your fault?’
I nodded gravely. ‘You should have jogged more. Or not smoked, or checked your cholesterol, or abstained from the juice.’
‘And then what?’
‘And then you exist miserably for years with tubes.’
He laughed and rose to go. ‘I’m embarrassed,’ he said, ‘but my wife wants Nash Rourke’s autograph.’
‘Done,’ I promised. ‘How soon can you realistically move Dorothea?’
He thought it over. ‘She was attacked yesterday evening. She’s been sleepy from anaesthetic all day today. It was a bad wound… they had to remove part of the intestine before repairing the abdomen wall. If all goes well she’ll be fully awake tomorrow and briefly on her feet the day after, but I’d say it will be another week before she could travel.’
‘I’d like to see her,’ I said. ‘The wretched Paul must sleep sometimes.’
‘I’ll fix it. Phone me tomorrow evening.’
Moncrieff, Ziggy Keene and I set off at four-thirty the next morning, heading north and east to the Norfolk coast.
Ed, instructed by O’Hara, had found me a driver, a silent young man who took my car along smoothly and followed the instructions I gave him as I map-read beside him in the front passenger seat.
Moncrieff and Ziggy slept in the back. Into the boot we’d packed the heavy camera Moncrieff could carry on his shoulders