Come to Grief

Chapter 5

Betty Bracken, Archie Kirk and I returned to the house, again circumnavigating the trash cans. Archie Kirk’s car was parked outside the manor’s front door, not far from my own.

The lady of the manor refusing to leave without her husband, the uncomprehending old man, still saying ‘Eh?’ was helped with great solicitude across the hall, through the front door and into an ancient Daimler, an Establishment-type conservative-minded political statement if ever I saw one.

My own Mercedes, milk-coffee colored, stood beyond: and what, I thought astringently, was it saying about me? Rich enough, sober enough, preferring reliability to flash? All spot on, particularly the last. And speed, of course.

Betty spooned her beloved into the back seat of the Daimler and folded herself in beside him, patting him gently. Touch, I supposed, had replaced speech as their means of communication. Archie Kirk took his place behind the wheel as natural commander-in-chief and drove away, leaving for me the single short parting remark, ‘Let me know.’

I nodded automatically. Let him know what? Whatever I learned, I presumed.

I returned to the drawing room. The stolid tenants, on their feet, were deciding to return to their own wing of the house. The dogs snoozed. The cross aunt crossly demanded Esther’s presence. Esther, on duty at eight and not a moment before, come ramblers, police or whatever, appeared forbiddingly in the doorway, a small, frizzy-haired worker, clear about her ‘rights.’

I left the two quarrelsome women pitching into each other and went in search of Jonathan. What a household! The media were welcome to it. I looked but couldn’t find Jonathan, so I just had to trust that his boorishness would keep him well away from inquisitive reporters with microphones. The Land-Rover he’d seen might have brought the machete to the colt, and I wanted, if I could, to find it before its driver learned there was a need for rapid concealment.

The first thing in my mind was the colt himself. I started the car and set off north to Lambourn, driving thoughtfully, wondering what was best to do concerning the police. I had had varying experiences with the force, some good, some rotten. They did not, in general, approve of freelance investigators like myself, and could be downright obstructive if I appeared to be working on something they felt belonged to them alone. Sometimes, though, I’d found them willing to take over if I’d come across criminal activity that couldn’t go unprosecuted. I stepped gingerly around their sensitive areas, and also those of racing’s own security services run by the Jockey Club and the British Horseracing Board. I was careful always not to claim credit for clearing up three-pipe problems. Not even one-pipe problems, hardly worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

Where the Jockey Club itself was concerned, I fluctuated in their view between flavor of the month. and anathema, according as to who currently reigned as Senior Steward. With the police, collaboration depended very much on which individual policeman I reached and his private-life stress level at the moment of contact.

The rules governing evidence, moreover, were growing ever stickier. Juries no longer without question believed the police. For an object to be admitted for consideration in a trial it had to be ticketed, docketed and continuously accounted for. One couldn’t, for instance, flourish a machete and say, ‘I found it in X’s Land-Rover, therefore it was X who cut off a colt’s foot.’ To get even within miles of conviction one needed a specific search warrant before one could even look in the Land-Rover for a machete, and search warrants weren’t granted to Sid Halleys, and sometimes not to the police.

The police force as a whole was divided into autonomous districts, like the Thames Valley Police, who solved crimes in their own area but might not take much notice outside. A maimed colt in Lancashire might not have been heard of in Yorkshire. Serial rapists had gone for years uncaught because of the slow flow of information. A serial horse maimer might have no central file.

Dawdling along up the last hill before Lambourn, I became aware of a knocking in the car and pulled over to the side with gloomy thoughts of broken shock absorbers and misplaced trust in reliability, but after the car stopped the knocking continued. With awakening awareness, I climbed out, went around to the back and with difficulty opened the trunk. There was something wrong with the lock.

Jonathan lay curled in the space for luggage. He had one shoe off, with which he was assaulting my milk-coffee bodywork. When I lifted the lid he stopped banging and looked at me challengingly.

‘What the hell are you doing there?’ I demanded.

Silly question. He looked at his shoe. I rephrased it. ‘Get out.’

He maneuvered himself out onto the road and calmly replaced his shoe with no attempt at apology. I slammed the trunk lid shut at the second try and returned to the driver’s seat. He walked to the passenger side, found the door there locked and tapped on the window to draw my attention to it. I started the engine, lowered the electrically controlled window a little and shouted to him, ‘It’s only three miles to Lambourn.’

‘No. Hey! You can’t leave me here!’

Want to bet, I thought, and set off along the deserted downland road. I saw him, in the rear-view mirror, running after me determinedly. I drove slowly, but faster than he could run. He went on running, nevertheless.

After nearly a mile a curve in the road took me out of his sight. I braked and stopped. He came around the bend, saw my car and put on a spurt, racing this time up to the driver’s side. I’d locked the door but lowered the window three or four inches.

‘What’s all that for?’ he demanded.

‘What’s all what for?’

‘Making me run.’

‘You’ve broken the lock on my trunk.’

‘What?’ He looked baffled. ‘I only gave it a clout. I didn’t have a key.’ No key; a clout. Obvious, his manner said.

‘Who’s going to pay to get it mended?’ I asked.

He said impatiently, as if he couldn’t understand such small-mindedness, ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘With what?’

‘With the colt.’

Resignedly I leaned across and pulled up the locking knob on the front passenger door. He went around there and climbed in beside me. I noted with interest that he was hardly out of breath.

Jonathan’s haircut, I thought as he settled into his seat and neglected to buckle the seat belt, shouted an indication of his adolescent insecurity, of his desire to shock or at least to be noticed. He had, I thought, bleached inexpert haphazard streaks into his hair with a comb dipped in something like hydrogen peroxide. Straight and thick, the mop was parted in the center with a wing on each side curving down to his cheek, making a curtain beside his eye. From one ear backwards, and around to the other ear, the hair had been sliced off in a straight line. Below the line, his scalp was shaved. To my eyes it looked ugly, but then I wasn’t fifteen.

Making a statement through hairstyle was universal, after all. Men with bald crowns above pigtails, men with plaited beards, women with severely scraped-back pinnings, all were saying ‘This is me, and I’m different.’ In the days of Charles I, when long male hair was normal, rebellious sons had cut off their curls to have roundheads. Archie Kirk’s gray hair had been short, neat and controlled. My own dark hair would have curled girlishly if allowed to grow. A haircut was still the most unmistakable give-away of the person inside.

Conversely, a wig could change all that.

I asked Jonathan, ‘Have you remembered something else?’

‘No, not really.’

‘Then why did you stow away?’

‘Come on, man, give me a break. What am I supposed to do all day in that graveyard of a house? The aunt’s whining drives me insane and even Karl Marx would have throttled Esther.’

He did, I supposed, have a point.

I thoughtfully coasted down the last hill towards Lambourn.

‘Tell me about your uncle, Archie Kirk,’ I said.

‘What about him?’

‘You tell me. For starters, what does he do?’

‘He works for the government.’

‘What as?’

‘Some sort of civil servant. Dead boring.’

Boring, I reflected, was the last adjective I would have applied to what I’d seen in Archie Kirk’s eyes.

‘Where does he live?’ I asked.

‘Back in Shelley Green, a couple of miles from Aunt Betty. She can’t climb a ladder unless he’s holding it.’

Reaching Lambourn itself, I took the turn that led to the equine hospital. Slowly though I had made the journey, the horse ambulance had been slower. They were still unloading the colt.

From Jonathan’s agog expression, I guessed it was in fact the first view he’d had of a shorn-off leg, even if all he could now see was a surgical dressing.

I said to him, ‘If you want to wait half an hour for me, fine. Otherwise, you’re on your own. But if you try stealing a car, I’ll personally see you lose your probation.’

‘Hey. Give us a break.’

‘You’ve had your share of good breaks. Half an hour. OK?’

He glowered at me without words. I went across to where Bill Ruskin, in a white coat, was watching his patient’s arrival. He said, ‘Hello, Sid,’ absentmindedly, then collected the bucket containing the foot and, with me following, led the way into a small laboratory full of weighing and measuring equipment and microscopes.

Unwrapping the foot, he stood it on the bench and looked at it assessingly.

‘A good, clean job,’ he said.

‘There’s nothing good about it.’

‘Probably the colt hardly felt it.’

‘How was it done?’ I asked.

‘Hm.’ He considered. ‘There’s no other point on the leg that you could amputate a foot without using a saw to cut through the bone. I doubt if a single swipe with a heavy knife would achieve this precision. And achieve it several times, on different animals, right?’

I nodded.

‘Yes, well, I think we might be looking at game shears.’

‘Game shears?’ I exclaimed. ‘Do you mean those sort of heavy scissors that will cut up duck and pheasant?’

‘Something along those lines, yes.’

‘But those shears aren’t anywhere near big enough for this.’

He pursed his mouth. ‘How about a gralloching knife, then? The sort used for disemboweling deer out on the mountains?’

‘Jeez.’

‘There are signs of compression, though. On balance, I’d hazard heavy game shears. How did he get the colt to stand still?’

‘There were horse nuts on the ground.’

He nodded morosely. ‘Slimeball.’

‘There aren’t any words for it.’

He peered closely at the raw red and white end of the pastern. ‘Even if I can reattach the foot, the colt will never race.’

‘His owner knows that. She wants to save his life.’

‘Better to collect the insurance.’

‘No insurance. A quarter of a million down the drain. But it’s not the money she’s grieving over. What she’s feeling is guilt.’

He understood. He saw it often.

Eventually he said, ‘I’ll give it a try. I don’t hold out much hope.’

‘You’ll photograph this as it is?’

He looked at the foot. ‘Oh, sure. Photos, X rays, blood tests on the colt, micro-stitching, every luxury. I’ll get on with anesthetizing the colt as soon as possible. The foot’s been off too long…’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll try.’

‘Phone my mobile.’ I gave him the number. ‘Anytime.’

‘See you, Sid. And catch the bugger.’

He bustled away, taking the foot with him, and I returned to my car to find Jonathan not only still there but jogging around with excitement.

‘What’s up?’ I asked.

‘That Land-Rover that pulled the trailer that brought the colt…’

‘What about it?’

‘It’s got a red dragon on the windshield!’

‘What? But you said a blue—’

‘Yeah, yeah, it wasn’t the vet’s Land-Rover I saw in the lane, but it’s got a red dragon transfer on it. Not exactly the same, I don’t think, but definitely a red dragon.’

I looked around, but the horse ambulance was no longer in sight.

‘They drove it off,’ Jonathan said, ‘but I saw the transfer close to, and it has letters in it.’ His voice held triumph, which I allowed was justified.

‘Go on, then,’ I said. ‘What letters?’

‘Aren’t you going to say “well done”?’

‘Well done. What letters?’

‘E.S.M. They were cut out of the red circle. Gaps, not printed letters.’ He wasn’t sure I understood.

‘I do see,’ I assured him.

I returned to the hospital to find Bill and asked him when he’d bought his Land-Rover.

‘Our local garage got it for us from a firm in Oxford.’

‘What does E.S.M. stand for?’

‘God knows.’

‘I can’t ask God. What’s the name of the Land-Rover firm in Oxford?’

He laughed and thought briefly. ‘English Sporting Motors. E.S.M. Good Lord.’

‘Can you give me the name of someone there? Who did you actually deal with?’

With impatience he said, ‘Look, Sid, I’m trying to scrub up to see what I can do about sticking the colt’s foot back on.’

‘And I’m trying to catch the bugger that took it off. And it’s possible he traveled in a Land-Rover sold by English Sporting Motors.’

He said ‘Christ’ wide-eyed and headed for what proved to be the hospital’s record office, populated by filing cabinets. Without much waste of time he flourished a copy of a receipted account, but shook his head.

‘Ted James in the village might help you. I paid him. He dealt direct with Oxford. You’d have to ask Ted James.’

I thanked him, collected Jonathan, drove into the small town of Lambourn and located Ted James, who would do a lot for a good customer like Bill Ruskin, it seemed.

‘No problem,’ he assured me. ‘Ask for Roger Brook in Oxford. Do you want me to phone him?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Right on.’ He spoke briefly on the phone and reported back. ‘He’s busy. Satuiday’s always a busy sales day. He’ll help you if it doesn’t take long.’

The morning seemed to have been going on forever, but it was still before eleven o’clock when I talked to Roger Brook, tubby, smooth and self-important in the carpeted sales office of English Sporting Motors.

Roger Brook pursed his lips and shook his head; not the firm’s policy to give out information about its customers.

I said ruefully, ‘I don’t want to bother the police…’

‘Well…’

‘And, of course, there would be a fee for your trouble.’

A fee was respectable where a bribe wasn’t. In the course of life I disbursed a lot of fees.

It helpfully appeared that the red-dragon transparent transfers were slightly differently designed each year: improved as time went on, did I see?

I fetched Jonathan in from outside for Roger Brook to show him the past and present dragon logos, and Jonathan with certainty picked the one that had been, Brook said, that of the year before last.

‘Great,’ I said with satisfaction. ‘How many blue Land-Rovers did you sell in that year? I mean, what are the names of the actual buyers, not the middlemen like Ted James?’

An open-mouthed silence proved amenable to a larger fee. ‘Our Miss Denver’ helped with a computer print-out. Our Miss Denver got a kiss from me. Roger Brook with dignity took his reward in readies, and Jonathan and I returned to the Mercedes with the names and addresses of 211 purchasers of blue Land-Rovers a little back in time.

Jonathan wanted to read the list when I’d finished. I handed it over, reckoning he’d deserved it. He looked disappointed when he reached the end, and I didn’t point out to him the name that had made my gut contract.

One of the Land-Rovers had been delivered to Twyford Lower Farms Ltd.

I had been to Twyford Lower Farms to lunch. It was owned by Gordon Quint.

Noon, Saturday. I sat in my parked car outside English Sporting Motors, while Jonathan fidgeted beside me, demanding, ‘What next?’

I said, ‘Go and eat a hamburger for your lunch and be back here in twenty minutes.’

He had no money. I gave him some. ‘Twenty minutes.’

He promised nothing, but returned with three minutes to spare. I spent his absence thinking highly unwelcome thoughts and deciding what to do, and when he slid in beside me smelling of raw onions and french fries I set off southwards again, on the roads back to Combe Bassett.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To see your Aunt Betty.’

‘But hey! She’s not at home. She’s at Archie’s.’

‘Then we’ll go to Archie’s. You can show me the way.’

He didn’t like it, but he made no attempt to jump ship when we were stopped by traffic lights three times on the way out of Oxford. We arrived together in due course outside a house an eighth the size of Combe Bassett Manor; a house, moreover, that was frankly modem and not at all what I’d expected.

I said doubtfully, ‘Are you sure this is the place?’

‘The lair of the wolf. No mistake. He won’t want to see me.’

I got out of the car and pressed the thoroughly modem doorbell beside a glassed-in front porch. The woman who came to answer the summons was small and wrinkled like a drying apple, and wore a sleeveless sundress in blue and mauve.

‘Er…’ I said to her inquiring face, ‘Archie Kirk?’

Her gaze lengthened beyond me to include Jonathan in my car, a sight that pinched her mouth and jumped her to an instant wrong conclusion. She whirled away and returned with Archie, who said repressively, ‘What is he doing here?’

‘Can you spare me half an hour?’ I asked.

‘What’s Jonathan done?’

‘He’s been extraordinarily helpful. I’d like to ask your advice.’

‘Helpful!’

‘Yes. Could you hold your disapproval in abeyance for half an hour while I explain?’

He gave me an intense inspection, the brown eyes sharp and knowing, as before. Decision arrived there plainly.

‘Come in,’ he said, holding his front door wide.

‘Jonathan’s afraid of you,’ I told him. ‘He wouldn’t admit it, but he is. Could I ask you not to give him the normal tongue-lashing? Will you invite him in and leave him alone?’

‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’

‘I do,’ I said.

‘No one speaks to me like this.’ He was, however, only mildly affronted.

I smiled at his eyes. ‘That’s because they know you. But I met you only this morning.’

‘And,’ he said, ‘I’ve heard about your lightning judgments.’

I felt, as on other occasions with people of his sort, a deep thrust of mental satisfaction. Also, more immediately, I knew I had come to the right place.

Archie Kirk stepped out from his door, took the three paces to my car, and said through the window, ‘Jonathan, please come into the house.’

Jonathan looked past him to me. I jerked my head, as before, to suggest that he complied, and he left the safe shelter and walked to the house, even if reluctantly and frozen faced.

Archie Kirk led the way across a modest hallway into a middle-sized sitting room where Betty Bracken, her husband and the small woman who’d answered my ring were sitting in armchairs drinking cups of coffee.

The room’s overall impression was of old oak and books, a room for dark winter evenings and lamps and log fires, not fitted to the dazzle of June. None of the three faces turned towards us could have looked welcoming to the difficult boy.

The small woman, introducing herself as Archie’s wife, stood up slowly and offered me coffee. ‘And… er… Jonathan… Coca-Cola?’

Jonathan, as if reprieved, followed her out to the next-door kitchen, and I told Betty Bracken that her colt was at that moment being operated on, and that there should be news of him soon. She was pathetically pleased: too pleased, I was afraid.

I said casually to Archie, ‘Can I talk to you in private?’ and without question he said, ‘This way,’ and transferred us to a small adjacent room, again all dark oak and books, that he called his study.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘I need a policeman,’ I said.

He gave me a long, level glance and waved me to one of the two hard oak chairs, himself sitting in the other, beside a paper-strewn desk.

I told him about Jonathan’s night walk (harmless version) and about our tracing the Land-Rover to the suppliers at Oxford. I said that I knew where the Land-Rover might now be, but that I couldn’t get a search warrant to examine it. For a successful prosecution, I mentioned, there had to be integrity of evidence; no chance of tampering or substitution. So I needed a policeman, but one that would listen and cooperate, not one that would either brush me off altogether or one that would do the police work sloppily.

‘I thought you might know someone,’ I finished. ‘I don’t know who else to ask, as at the moment this whole thing depends on crawling up to the machine-gun nest on one’s belly, so to speak.’

He sat back in his chair staring at me vacantly while the data got processed.

At length he said, ‘Betty called in the local police this morning early, but…’ he hesitated, ‘they hadn’t the clout you need.’ He thought some more, then picked up an address book; he leafed through it for a number and made a phone call.

‘Norman, this is Archie Kirk.’

Whoever Norman was, it seemed he was unwilling.

‘It’s extremely important,’ Archie said.

Norman apparently capitulated, but with protest, giving directions.

‘You had better be right,’ Archie said to me, disconnecting. ‘I’ve just called in about a dozen favors he owed me.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Detective Inspector Norman Picton, Thames Valley Police.’

‘Brilliant,’ I said.

‘He’s off duty. He’s on the gravel pit lake. He’s a clever and ambitious young man. And I,’ he added with a glimmer, ‘am a magistrate, and I may sign a search warrant myself, if he can clear it with his superintendent.’

He rendered me speechless, which quietly amused him.

‘You didn’t know?’ he asked.

I shook my head and found my voice. ‘Jonathan said you were a civil servant.’

‘That, too,’ he agreed. ‘How did you get that boorish young man to talk?’

‘Er…’ I said. ‘What is Inspector Picton doing on the gravel pit lake?’

‘Water skiing,’ Archie said.

There were speedboats, children, wet-suits, picnics. There was a clubhouse in a sea of scrubby grass and people sliding over the shining water pulled by strings.

Archie parked his Daimler at the end of a row of cars, and I, with Jonathan beside me, parked my Mercedes alongside. We had agreed to bring both cars so that I could go on eventually to London, with Archie ferrying Jonathan back to pick up the. Brackens and take them all home to Combe Bassett. Jonathan hadn’t warmed to the plan, but had ungraciously accompanied me as being a lesser horror than spending the afternoon mooching aimlessly around Archie’s aunt-infested house.

Having got as far as the lake, he began looking at the harmless physical activity all around him, not with a sneer but with something approaching interest. On the shortish journey from Archie’s house he had asked three moody questions, two of which I answered.

First: ‘This is the best day for a long time. How come you get so much done so quickly?’

No answer possible.

And second: ‘Did you ever steal anything?’

‘Chocolate bars,’ I said.

And third: ‘Do you mind having only one hand?’

I said coldly, ‘Yes.’

He glanced with surprise at my face and I saw that he’d expected me to say no. I supposed he wasn’t old enough to know it was a question one shouldn’t ask; but then, perhaps he would have asked it anyway.

When we climbed out of the car at the water-ski club I said, ‘Can you swim?’

‘Do me a favor.’

‘Then go jump in the lake.’

‘Sod you,’ he said, and actually laughed.

Archie had meanwhile discovered that one of the scudding figures on the water was the man we’d come to see. We waited a fair while until a large presence in a blue wet-suit with scarlet stripes down arms and legs let go of the rope pulling him and skied free and gracefully to a sloping landing place on the edge of the water. He stepped off his skis grinning, knowing he’d shown off his considerable skill, and wetly shook Archie’s hand.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he said, ‘but I reckoned once you got here I’d have had it for the day.’

His voice, with its touch of Berkshire accent, held self-confidence and easy authority.

Archie said formally, ‘Norman, this is Sid Halley.’

I shook the offered hand, which was cold besides wet. I received the sort of slow, searching inspection I’d had from Archie himself: and I had no idea what the policeman thought.

‘Well,’ he said finally, stirring, ‘I’ll get dressed.’

We watched him walk away, squelching, gingerly barefooted, carrying his skis. He was back within five minutes, clad now in jeans, sneakers, open-necked shirt and sweater, his dark hair still wet and spiky, uncombed.

‘Right,’ he said to me. ‘Give.’

‘Er…’ I hesitated. ‘Would it be possible for Mr Kirk’s nephew Jonathan to go for a ride in a speedboat?’

Both he and Archie looked over to where Jonathan, not far away, lolled unprepossessingly against my car. Jonathan did himself no favors, I thought; self-destruction rampant in every bolshie tilt of the anti-authority haircut.

‘He doesn’t deserve any ride in a speedboat,’ Archie objected.

‘I don’t want him to overhear what I’m saying.’

‘That’s different,’ Norman Picton decided. ‘I’ll fix it.’

Jonathan ungraciously allowed himself to be driven around the lake by Norman Picton’s wife in Norman Picton’s boat, accompanied by Norman Picton’s son. We watched the boat race past with a roar, Jonathan’s streaky mop blown back in the wind.

‘He’s on the fence,’ I said mildly to Archie. ‘There’s a lot of good in him.’

‘You’re the only one who thinks so.’

‘He’s looking for a way back without losing face.’

Both men gave me the slow assessment and shook their heads.

I said, bringing Jonathan’s signed statement from my pocket, ‘Try this on for size.’

They both read it, Picton first, Archie after.

Archie said in disbelief, ‘He never talks. He wouldn’t have said all this.’

‘I asked him questions,’ I explained. ‘Those are his answers. He came with me to the Land-Rover central dealers in Oxford who put that red-dragon transfer on the windshield of every vehicle they sell. And we wouldn’t know of the Land-Rover’s presence in the lane, or its probable owner and whereabouts now, except for Jonathan. So I really do think he’s earned his ride on the lake.’

‘What exactly do you want the search warrant for?’ Picton asked. ‘One can’t get search warrants unless one can come up with a good reason — or at least a convincing possibility or probability of finding something material to a case.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘Jonathan put his hand on the hood of the vehicle standing right beside the gate to the field where Betty Bracken’s colt lost his foot. If you search a certain Land-Rover and find Jonathan’s hand-print on the hood, would that be proof enough that you’d found the right wheels?’

Picton said, ‘Yes.’

‘So,’ I went on without emphasis, ‘if we leave Jonathan here by the lake while your people fingerprint the Land-Rover, there could be no question of his having touched it this afternoon, and not last night.’

‘I’ve heard about you,’ Picton said.

‘I think,’ I said, ‘that it would be a good idea to fingerprint that hood before it rains, don’t you? Or before anyone puts it through a car-wash?’

‘Where is it?’ Picton asked tersely.

I produced the English Sporting Motors’ print-out, and pointed. ‘There,’ I said. ‘That one.’

Picton read it silently; Archie aloud.

‘But I know the place. You’re quite wrong. I’ve been a guest there. They’re friends of Betty’s.’

‘And of mine,’ I said.

He listened to the bleakness I could hear in my own voice.

‘Who are we talking about?’ Picton asked.

‘Gordon Quint,’ Archie said. ‘It’s rubbish.’

‘Who is Gordon Quint?’ Picton asked again.

‘The father of Ellis Quint,’ Archie said. ‘And you must have heard of him.’

Picton nodded. He had indeed.

‘I suppose it’s possible,’ I suggested tentatively, ‘that someone borrowed the Land-Rover for the night.’

‘But you don’t believe it,’ Picton remarked.

‘I wish I did.’

‘But where’s the connection?’ Picton asked. ‘There has to be more. The fact that Twyford Lower Farms Limited owned a blue Land-Rover of the relevant year isn’t enough on its own. We cannot search that vehicle for hand-prints unless we have good reason to believe that it was that one and no other that we are looking for.’

Archie said thoughtfully, ‘Search warrants have been issued on flimsier grounds before now.’

He and Picton walked away from me, the professionals putting their distance between themselves and Sid Public. I thought that if they refused to follow the trail it would be a relief, on the whole. It would let me off the squirming hook. But there could be another month and another colt… and an obsession feeding and fattening on success.

They came back, asking why I should link the Quint name to the deed. I described my box chart. Not conclusive, Archie said judiciously, and I agreed, no.

Picton repeated what I’d just said: ‘Rachel’s pony was bought by her father, Joe, on the advice of Ellis Quint?’

I said, ‘Ellis did a broadcast about Rachel’s pony losing his foot.’

‘I saw it,’ Picton said.

They didn’t want to believe it any more than I did. There was a fairly long, indeterminate silence.

Jonathan came back looking uncomplicatedly happy from his fast laps around the lake, and Norman Picton abruptly went into the clubhouse, returning with a can of Coke, which he put into Jonathan’s hands. Jonathan held it in his left hand to open it and his right hand to drink. Norman took the empty can from him casually but carefully by the rim, and asked if he would like to try the skiing itself, not just a ride in the boat.

Jonathan, on the point of enthusiastically saying, ‘Yes,’ remembered his cultivated disagreeableness and said, ‘I don’t mind. If you insist, I suppose I’ll have to.’

‘That’s right,’ Picton said cheerfully. ‘My wife will drive. My son will watch the rope. We’ll find you some swimming trunks and a wet-suit.’

He led Jonathan away. Archie watched inscrutably.

‘Give him a chance,’ I murmured. ‘Give him a challenge.’

‘Pack him off to the colonies to make a man of him?’

‘Scoff,’ I said with a smile. ‘But long ago it often worked. He’s bright and he’s bored and he’s not yet a totally confirmed delinquent.’

‘You’d make a soft and rotten magistrate.’

‘I expect you’re right.’

Picton returned, saying, ‘The boy will stay here until I get back, so we’d better get started. We’ll take two cars, mine and Mr Halley’s. In that way he can go on to London when he wants. We’ll leave your car here, Archie. Is that all right?’

Archie said he didn’t trust Jonathan not to steal it.

‘He doesn’t think stealing’s much fun without his pals,’ I said.

Archie stared. ‘That boy never says anything.’

‘Find him a dangerous job.’

Picton, listening, said, ‘Like what?’

‘Like,’ I said, unprepared, ‘like… well… on an oil rig. Two years of that. Tell him to keep a diary. Tell him to write.’

‘Good God,’ Archie said, shaking his head, ‘he’d have the place in flames.’

He locked his car and put the keys in his pocket, climbing into the front passenger seat beside me as we followed Norman Picton into Newbury, to his official place of work.

I sat in my car outside the police station while Archie and Picton, inside, arranged the back-ups: the photographer, the fingerprinter, the detective constable to be Inspector Picton’s note-taking assistant.

I sat with the afternoon sun falling through the windshield and wished I were anywhere else, engaged on any other mission.

All the villains I’d caught before hadn’t been people I knew. Or people — one had to face it — people I’d thought I’d known. I’d felt mostly satisfaction, sometimes relief, occasionally even regret, but never anything approaching this intensity of entrapped despair.

Ellis was loved. I was going to be hated.

Hatred was inevitable.

Could I bear it?

There was no choice, really.

Archie and Picton came out of the police station followed by their purposeful troop.

Archie, sliding in beside me, said the search warrant was signed, the Superintendent had given the expedition his blessing, and off we could go to the Twyford Lower Farms.

I sat without moving, without starting the car.

‘What’s the matter?’ Archie demanded, looking at my face.

I said with pain, ‘Ellis is my friend.’