Wild Horses - By Dick Francis Page 0,67

can’t have been the same knife.’ He walked on, troubled but certain.

‘The only connection,’ I said, going with him, ‘is the fact that long ago Dorothea’s brother Valentine put shoes on Jackson Wells’s racehorses.’

‘Much too distant to have any significance.’

‘And Valentine said he once gave a knife to someone called Derry.’

‘Hell’s teeth, Thomas, you’re rambling.’

‘Yes. Valentine was at the time.’

‘Valentine was what?’

‘Rambling,’ I said. ‘Delirious.’

I killed the Cornish boy…

Too many knives.

‘You are not,’ O’Hara said strongly, ‘going to get knifed tomorrow.’

‘Good.’

He laughed. ‘You’re a jackass, Thomas.’

He wanted me to travel in his car, but I called Robbie Gill’s mobile and found I could briefly see Dorothea, if I arrived by seven.

At the hospital the egregious Paul had positioned himself in a chair outside the single room into which Dorothea had been moved. He rose heavily to his feet at the sight of me, but to my surprise made none of the objections I was expecting.

‘My mother wants to see you,’ he said disapprovingly. ‘I’ve told her I don’t want you here, but all she does is cry.’

There had been, I thought, a subtle change in Paul. His pompous inner certainty seemed to have rocked: the external bombast sounded much the same, but half its fire had gone.

‘You’re not to tire her,’ he lectured. ‘Five minutes, that’s all.’

Paul himself opened Dorothea’s door, and came in with me purposefully.

Dorothea lay on a high bed, her head supported by a bank of pillows, her old face almost as colourless as the cotton except for dark disturbing bruises and threadlike minutely stitched cuts. There were tubes, a bag delivering drops of blood, another bag of clear liquid, and a system that allowed her to run painkillers into her veins when she needed it. Her hold on life looked negligible. Her eyes were closed and her white body was motionless, even the slow rise and fall of her chest seeming too slight to register on the covering sheet.

‘Dorothea,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s Thomas. I’ve come.’

Very faintly, she smiled.

Paul’s loud voice broke her peace. ‘I’ve told him, Mother, that he has five minutes. And, of course, I will remain here at hand.’

Dorothea, murmuring, said she wanted to talk to me alone.

‘Don’t be silly, Mother.’

Two tears appeared below her eyelids and trembled in the lashes.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Paul said brusquely. ‘She does that all the time.’ He turned on his heel and gave her her wish, seeming hurt at her rejection. ‘Five minutes,’ he threatened as a parting shot.

‘Paul’s gone,’ I said, as the door closed behind him. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘So tired, dear.’ Her voice, though still a murmur, was perfectly clear. ‘I don’t remember how I got here.’

‘No, I’ve been told. Robbie Gill told me.’

‘Robbie Gill is very kind.’

‘Yes.’

‘Hold my hand, dear.’

I pulled the visitor’s chair to her side and did as she asked, vividly remembering Valentine’s grasp of my wrist, exactly a week ago. Dorothea, however, had no sins to confess.

‘Paul told me,’ she said, ‘that someone tore my house apart, looking for something.’

‘I’m afraid so. Yes, I saw it.’

‘What were they looking for?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘No, dear. The police asked me. It must have been something Valentine had. Sometimes I think I know. Sometimes I think I hear him shouting at me, to tell him. Then it all goes away again.’

‘Who was shouting?’

She said doubtfully, ‘Paul was shouting.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘He does shout, you know. He means well. He’s my son, my sweet baby.’ Tears of weakness and regret ran down her cheeks. ‘Why do precious little babies grow…?’ Her question ended in a quiet sob, unanswerable. ‘He wants to look after me.’

I said, ‘Did Robbie Gill talk to you about a nursing home?’

‘So kind. I’d like to go there. But Paul says…’ She stopped, fluttering a white hand exhaustedly. ‘I haven’t the strength to argue.’

‘Let Robbie Gill move you,’ I urged. ‘In a day or two, when you’ re stronger.’

‘Paul says…’ She stopped, the effort of opposing him too much.

‘Just rest,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry. Just lie and drift and get stronger.’

‘So kind, dear.’ She lay quiet for a long minute, then said, ‘I’m sure I know what he was looking for, but I can’t remember it.’

‘What Paul was looking for?’

‘No, dear. Not Paul.’ She frowned. ‘It’s all jumbled up.’ After another pause she said, ‘How many knives did I have?’

‘How many…?’

‘The police asked me. How many knives in the kitchen. I can’t remember.’

‘No one knows how many knives they have in the kitchen.’

‘No. They said there weren’t any knives in the house with