Driving Force

Chapter 6

Lizzie owned a quarter share of the tiny Robinson 22, her only extravagance and the way she chose to use her inheritance from our parents. To my mind, the helicopter was her equivalent of Roger’s cruise ships and my steeplechasing, the elder sister’s statement that if boys could have toys, so could girls. She had shown us each in turn as children how to run a complicated train set. She’d taught us how to bat unafraid at cricket, she’d climbed trees like a cat; in her teens she’d led us into jungle woods and scary caves and defended us and lied for us in our wrong doings. Because of her, we’d grown up understanding many faces of courage.

She cut the engine and, when the rotor had stopped, jumped down from the little glass bubble and walked collectedly to meet me on the tarmac.

‘Hi,’ she said; small, light, wiry, pleased with life.

I hugged her.

‘Have you fixed lunch?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Good. I brought a picnic.’

She returned to the helicopter and retrieved a carrier, which we took with us into the house. She never came empty handed. I never wasted time catering for her except to put champagne on ice. I popped the cork and poured it straight, and she relaxed in a big chair, taking a deep fizzy gulp and looking me over as sisters do.

‘How was the flight?’ I asked.

‘Bumpy over the moors. Some snow still lying about. I dropped down at Carlisle to refuel. Four hours, door to door.’

‘Three hundred and fifty miles,’ I said.

‘Near enough.’

‘It’s great to see you.’

‘Mm.’ She stretched, almost purring. ‘Tell me all.’

I told her a good deal, explaining who everyone was: Sandy Smith, Bruce Farway, the Watermeads, Jericho Rich, Brett, Dave, Kevin Keith Ogden and Jogger. I told her about Nina Young and her metamorphosis.

She inspected the empty cash box standing in all its grime on the newspaper. I showed her the rhyming dictionary and played her the tape of Jogger’s last message, but all the mental agility under the greying dark cap of hair couldn’t unlock the old soldier’s meaning.

‘Silly man,’ Lizzie said. ‘Did he fall or was he pushed?’

‘Pushing someone into a five-feet deep inspection pit is not a sure fire way of killing them.’

‘An accidental push, then.’

‘No one has owned up to it.’

With some hesitation I offered to show her the photographs of Jogger in the pit.

‘I’m not squeamish,’ she protested. ‘Hand them over.’

She studied them at length. ‘There’s nothing to tell, one way or another.’

‘No,’ I agreed, taking the photos back and returning them to their packet.

After a pause she asked, ‘What about these tubes in the thermos flask?’

I took two of the tubes from my safe, where I’d kept them overnight, and gave them to her. She unwrapped each from its tissue and held them up to the light.

‘Ten ccs,’ she said, reading the small numbers. ‘In other words, one tablespoonful.’

‘Only one?’ I was slightly surprised. I’d thought the tubes held more.

‘Only one,’ Lizzie confirmed. ‘A large mouthful.’

‘Yuk.’

‘Well, yes, it wouldn’t be prudent to drink this.’ She put the tubes back into the tissues, and into her handbag, just like Nina. ‘I suppose you want the results like, say, yesterday?’

‘It would be helpful.’

‘Day after tomorrow,’ she promised prosaically. ‘The best that can be done.’

‘I’ll try for patience.’

‘Never your best virtue.’

She sniffed the contents of the thermos and poured a little into a spare glass, putting her nose down close to the surface.

‘Coffee,’ she said, ‘and the milk’s off.’

‘It’s been in the thermos since Thursday at least.’

‘Do you want this analysed as well?’

‘What do you think?’ I asked.

She said, ‘I’d think the coffee was just there to cushion the tubes.’

‘Leave it, then,’ I said.

We drank more champagne and unpacked the picnic, which was the glorious gift of arguably the best restaurant in Scotland, La Potinière at Gullane in East Lothian. ‘The Browns send you their love,’ Lizzie said, referring to the owners. ‘They want to know when you’re coming back.’

They would want to know six months in advance and even then one might not get a table. Sometimes Lizzie, their close friend, had been down on her knees. This time, they’d sent chicken breasts stuffed with a mousseline of cream, hazelnuts and Calvados and a watercress salad with its hazelnut oil dressing packed separately, followed by a light lemon cheesecake that melted to ambrosia on the tongue.

I seldom cared much what I ate. Lizzie deplored it and educated me when she could. I’d have been willing to have graduated at La Potinière.

We companionably watched the first of the Cheltenham races on television, and it was no use looking back, it was three years since I’d finished second in the Champion Hurdle, a bitter sweet loss on the day.

‘Be glad you’re out of the worry of it,’ Lizzie said, watching me watching the jockeys.

‘What worry?’

‘The worry of someone else being given your rides.’

I smiled. That was, for all jockeys, the worst of worries, and I said, ‘You’re right. It’s a relief. Now I only have to worry about other transport firms pinching my customers.’

‘Which I don’t suppose they do, much.’

‘Not so far, luckily.’

The phone rang with a call from Isobel, reporting progress.

‘Everything’s OK,’ she said. ‘That new man, Aziz, has phoned from Yorkshire to say they want him to bring back eight animals, not seven, and the eighth is a half-bald old pony that can hardly walk. What do you want him to do?’

‘John Tigwood’s there,’ I said. ‘If he’ll be responsible if the pony dies on the way, we’ll ship it. Tell Aziz to get Tigwood to write a note absolving us, and sign and date it, including the time.’

‘Right.’

‘How did Aziz sound?’

‘Fed up,’ Isobel said cheerfully. ‘Can’t blame him.’

‘What’s all that about?’ Lizzie asked lazily as I put down the receiver, and I explained about the geriatric expedition and gave her a rundown on John Tigwood, profit-making philanthropist.

‘A fanatic?’

‘He has to be.’

We watched the rest of the races, all, that is, that were shown. Isobel phoned again in mid-programme at four to report all well; she was going off home. One of the local horses Harve had driven to Cheltenham had won, had I noticed?

‘Yes, terrific.’

‘Good for custom at the pub,’ she observed, bright girl, reminding me, as it happened, that I hadn’t checked that day on Jogger’s memorial.

I told Lizzie about the memorial, and the reason for it.

‘So you don’t think it was an accident!’ she said.

‘I want it to be.’

When the races had finished, we switched off the television and just talked in general, and later Aziz telephoned direct to my house, saying he hoped I didn’t mind but the office was shut with my own number on its answering machine.

‘No, of course not, I don’t mind. Where are you?’

‘Chieveley service station; that place north of Newbury. I’m inside, in a phone booth. I wanted to talk to you without them listening.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s my first day with you, and I...’ He stopped, seeking the words. ‘Do you mind,’ he said in a rush, ‘coming to meet this box wherever it is that I’m taking it?’

‘Centaur Care.’

‘Yes. These horses aren’t fit to travel. I told Mr Tigwood but he insisted we bring them. Mrs Lipton’s worried they’ll die before we unload them...’

‘All right,’ I said decisively. ‘When you get near Pixhill, call me again on the horsebox phone and I’ll drive round at once. Don’t let the ramps down until I get there. Sit in the cab and write up the log sheet. Do anything. Understand?’

‘Thanks.’ One short word; a dictionary full of meaning.

‘See you,’ I said.

When I told Lizzie the problem she asked to come with me, and after Aziz had phoned again, round we went.

The scrubby Centaur Care paddock had been overgrazed to the point where the dark earth showed between the straggling tufts of grass. The roughly hard-topped parking area had weeds growing through cracks and the small concrete office was streaked with rusty rain marks. Behind it, the stables looked as if a good breeze would flatten them. Lizzie gazed at this magnificent spread speechlessly as we pulled up beside the elderly green paint of the front door.

We’d been there barely a minute before Aziz turned in slowly from the road and brought the nine-box to an exceedingly gentle halt. I walked across to his window as Tigwood and Lorna disembarked from the passenger seats on the other side.

Aziz opened the window and said, ‘They’re all still alive, I hope.’

There were sounds of the ramps being unbolted on the far side and I hurried round the front and told both Tigwood and Lorna to stop.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Tigwood said. ‘Of course we must unload them.’

‘I’d be happier to see them first,’ I told him reasonably.

‘Whatever for?’

‘Old horses might like five minutes’ rest at this point. There’s no mad hurry, is there?’

‘It’ll soon be dark,’ he pointed out.

‘All the same, John, I’ll just rub their noses.’

I opened the rear grooms’ door without waiting for any further objections and heaved myself up to horse level. Three patient old sets of eyes gazed at me, tiredness showing in the angle of the necks and in the lethargically turning ears.

In the space in front of their heads, where often an attendant travelled, stood an untouched bale of hay and the row of plastic water containers, all full.

I jumped down from that compartment and opened the centre grooms’ door, climbing up again into the space between the middle three stalls and the front three. In the middle three stalls stood another shaky trio, their heads hanging low with fatigue. I wriggled forward through the empty third of the front stalls and inspected the rest of the load, a horse so feeble that it looked as if the partitions themselves were all that were holding him on his feet, and a pathetic pony with acres of hairless skin and its eyes shut.

I descended to ground level and told Tigwood and Lorna that I wanted the vet round to see them before they were unloaded. I wanted an authoritative opinion, I said, that my firm had delivered them in as good a condition as possible.

‘It’s none of your business,’ Tigwood said furiously. ‘And it’s an insult to Centaur Care.’

‘Look, John,’ I said placatingly, ‘if the owners of those horses care enough about them to give them good homes in their old age, they’ll certainly pay for a vet to make sure they’ve come to no harm from the journey. They’re nice old horses but they’re very tired and I should think you should be grateful to have help with their well-being.’

‘John,’ Lorna said, ‘I’m sure Freddie’s right. I do think we should. They were a lot feebler than I expected.’

‘Did they drink before they set off?’ I asked.

Lorna looked at me worriedly. ‘Do you think they’re thirsty?’ she said. ‘Aziz was driving so dreadfully slowly.’

‘Hm.’ Through the open passenger door I asked Aziz to hand me the phone and without more ado got through to the local veterinary surgeon, explaining what I wanted. ‘Five minutes’ look-see, that’s probably all. But right now, if you could.’

He promised the right now and was as good as his word, a longtime friend who knew I wouldn’t call him out for nothing. He made the same brief inspection as I had and at the end gave me a hollow-eyed look, meaning more than he said.

‘Well?’ John Tigwood demanded, and listened crossly to the verdict.

‘They’re mildly dehydrated and probably hungry. Thin, too, though they’ve been adequately looked after in general. They’ll need good hay and water and a lot of rest. I’ll stay while you unload, I think.’

During the wait for his arrival, I’d introduced Lizzie to Tigwood and Lorna. They paid her scant attention, having thoughts only for the horses, and Lizzie herself was content just to watch and listen.

I lowered the rear ramp finally and John Tigwood untied the first of the passengers and led him to the ground, the old legs slipping and unsteady, hooves clattering, eyes frightened. He reached firm footing and stood still, quivering.

‘Lorna,’ I said, ‘how old are they?’

She produced a list and handed it to me mutely. The names, ages, and owners of the horses were there, some of them so familiar as to raise my interest sharply.

‘But I rode two of them!’ I exclaimed. ‘Some of these were great horses.’

‘Surely you realised that?’ Lorna said tartly.

‘No, I didn’t. Which is which?’

‘They have labels on their headcollars.’

I went to the horse Tigwood was holding while the vet looked it over and read the name, Peterman. I fondled the old nose and thought of the races we’d won and lost together twelve and more years earlier, days when the shaky frame had been taut and powerful, a proud head-tossing prince, a star in his time. At twenty-one, his age on the list, he was the equivalent of roughly ninety, in human terms.

‘He’s fine,’ the vet said. ‘Just tired.’

Tigwood gave me an ‘I told you so’ look of triumph and led my old friend off towards the stables.

‘He’s the youngest,’ I remarked, reading the list.

The daylight faded as the unloading progressed and I switched on all the horsebox’s lights, inside and out, to give passable illumination. The vet gave a provisional thumbs up to all of the travellers except the last two from the forwardmost stalls, both of which had him shaking his head.

The aged pony was worst. The poor creature could hardly stand, let alone walk down the ramp.

‘Advanced laminitis,’ the vet said. ‘Best to put him down.’

‘Certainly not,’ Tigwood pronounced indignantly. ‘He’s a much loved pet. I promised a comfortable home, and that’s what he’ll get. His owner’s fifteen. She made me promise.’

I thought of Michael Watermead’s remark about his own children: ‘they don’t understand the need for death.’ Tigwood understood it all right, but keeping life going at any cost was where both his income and his fanaticism seemed to lie.

‘At least let me dress his alopecia,’ the vet suggested, referring to the hair loss, and Tigwood resentfully said, ‘Tomorrow, then,’ and literally pushed the poor little beast until he had to totter down the ramp or fall down altogether.

‘It’s disgusting,’ Lizzie said under her breath.

Lorna heard and snapped at her, ‘It’s the people who kill horses just because they’re old who are disgusting.’ She was busy stifling her own doubts, I saw. ‘Old horses have a right to life. Centaur Care is a wonderful institution.’

‘Yes,’ Lizzie said dryly.

Lorna gave her an unfriendly stare which she then transferred to me.

‘You don’t appreciate John’s work,’ she accused. ‘And don’t give me all that crap about putting animals out of their misery. You can’t be sure they’re miserable.’

I thought it quite easy to be sure when they were, but I was not going to argue, and besides, I’d known many old horses live healthily and happily into their middle twenties. My father, the trainer, had looked after his favourite horses until they died in the fields, feeding them oats all winter to keep them well-fleshed and warm. They had all looked better than the thin crowd of today.

I said, ‘It’s nice to see old Peterman again and I’m sure the owners will appreciate your personal attention.’

‘And John’s!’

‘And John’s,’ I said.

We all three watched Tigwood lead the pony towards the paddock, the sore hooves flinching at every slow step, the head bobbing low with pain. The fifteen-year-old owner, I thought, was full of love but had no mercy, a cruel combination.

Lorna tossed her fair hair, admitting no criticism. The vet shook his head, Lizzie went on looking disgusted, Aziz shrugged. He’d brought them back alive: his involvement ended there.

Tigwood let the pony loose in the paddock and returned to open his office door. We all trooped in behind him, filling a functional space about fifteen feet square, lit by fluorescent strips and lined with filing cabinets. The brown composition flooring was softened by two large patterned rugs, and framed photographs of old horses in sunlit fields crowded the walls. Tigwood crossed to a pair of metal desks standing side by side, one holding a computer and printer, and the other the normal impedimenta of the pre-computer age. A row of collecting tins stood on one of the filing cabinets and a tea-making machine on another. Bookshelves conspicuously displayed publications on the medical problems and care of aged thoroughbreds. There were three comfortable looking wool-covered armchairs and some decent blue curtains at the two windows. If any of the horses’ owners ever turned up on the doorstep, the setup would give the message that here every penny was devoted to the cause, while at the same time due regard was paid to the luxury level normal to racehorse owners.

Give him his due, I thought, Tigwood had got it right; inside, at any rate.

He demanded, and the vet wrote, a brief statement to the effect that six horses (names attached) had travelled without incident from Yorkshire and had arrived in good condition. One horse (name attached) showed signs of exhaustion and required special care. One pony with laminitis needed veterinary attention. All had been transported by Croft Raceways and entrusted to Centaur Care.

Satisfied, Tigwood made a photocopy and handed it to me with a smirk, saying, ‘You’ve made a lot of fuss about nothing, Freddie. You can pay the vet’s bill, I’m not going to.’

I shrugged. I’d called for the help and received it, and I didn’t mind paying. The statement, in fact, had insulated me from any accusation of negligence Tigwood might think of making once he received my account. I said I was very glad the horses had been all right, but that it was nice to be sure, wasn’t it?

With varying emotions we all left the office again, the vet driving off with a wave and Tigwood and Lorna climbing back into the horsebox for the run to the farmyard, where they’d both left their cars that morning. Lizzie and I followed the box, Lizzie asking whether it hadn’t all been a storm in a teacup.

‘Didn’t your driver over-react?’ she said.

‘Maybe. But he’s new today. And there can’t be much wrong with his driving if he got them all here on their feet.’

Lorna and Tigwood left the farmyard separately in individual shades of huff.

Aziz said awkwardly, ‘Sorry for all that.’ No white teeth. Shiny eyes downcast.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ I reassured him. ‘You did right.’

Lizzie and I left him refilling his fuel tanks and went home, deciding to pause there briefly and go out to eat.

There were three call-back messages on the answering machine, two business, and one Sandy Smith.

I called him back first and listened to him tell me that this was out of hours, like, and unofficial.

‘Thanks, Sandy.’

‘Well, they did the post-mortem on Jogger yesterday in the morgue of Winchester Hospital. Cause of death, broken neck. He hit the back of his head at the bottom of his skull, the top two vertebrae were dislocated, same as in hanging, but he wasn’t hanged, no rope marks. Anyway, the inquest opens tomorrow in Winchester. They’ll only want identification, which I’m doing myself as there’s no next of kin, and Dr Farway’s statement, and the police photos. Then the coroner will adjourn the inquest for three weeks or so for enquiries. Routine for all accidents. You won’t be needed.’

‘Thanks very much indeed, Sandy.’

‘The Ogden inquest’s first thing on Thursday, same place, that’s to say the coroner’s court, which is a room in the police station in Winchester. The verdict will be natural causes. They won’t adjourn that one. Dr Farway will give his report. Mrs Ogden’s identified her husband. Seems Ogden had heart trouble on and off but was bad at taking pills. Dave had better attend, though they might not call him. I’ll be there too, of course.’

‘Great, Sandy. Thanks again.’

‘I drank to Jogger last night in the pub,’ he said. ‘There was quite a turn out. Loads of people signing his memorial. You’ll get an astronomical bill.’

‘All in a good cause.’

‘Poor old Jogger.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Lizzie and I settled for dinner on an old country inn ten miles from Pixhill where the speciality was duck roasted in a honey glaze to a crisp blackened skin with succulence inside. La Potinière it was not, but an old favourite place of Lizzie’s, who liked the heavy oak beams, the authentically crooked walls and the low-to-dim lighting.

As Pixhill people often ate there, I was not much surprised to see Benjy and Dot Usher side by side at a booth table across the room from us. Impervious to their surroundings they were in mid-quarrel as usual, the two faces tight with fury six inches apart.

‘Who are they?’ Lizzie asked, following my gaze.

‘A Pixhill millionaire who plays at training and his inseparable wife.’

‘Ask a silly question...’

‘And you get a dead accurate answer.’

‘Really?’

‘I reckon if they ever stop fighting that marriage will collapse from boredom.’

I told her about my day with them at Sandown races and about Benjy’s odd habit of not touching horses.

‘And he’s a trainer?’

‘Of sorts. But he’s also a customer, which makes him OK by me.’

She studied my face with elder-sister indulgence. ‘I remember you once saying,’ she said, ‘that if you rode races only for people you liked you’d have missed winning the Gold Cup.’

‘Mm. Same theory. I’ll hire out my skills to anyone for the prospect of reward.’

‘It sounds like prostitution.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘Pure research, for one thing. You’re an absolute philistine.’

‘Goliath was a Philistine... a giant of a man.’

‘Brought down by a slingshot.’

‘Sneaky.’

Lizzie smiled with pleasure. ‘I miss you,’ she said.

‘Me too. Tell me about Professor Quipp.’

‘I knew I shouldn’t have said that about everyone finding me. You never miss a trick.’

‘Well, go on.’

‘He’s nice.’ She sounded fond, not defensive. A good sign, given the characters of some of the past beards. ‘He’s five years younger than I am and he adores skiing. We went to Val d’Isère for a week.’ Lizzie positively purred. ‘We raced each other down mountains.’

‘Um... What colour beard?’

‘No beard. You’re a beast. No moustache either.’

It sounded serious. ‘What subject?’ I asked.

‘Actually, organic chemistry.’

‘Ah.’

‘Any more ahs and you won’t get your tubes analysed.’

‘Not another ah shall pass my lips.’

We ate the crisp black duck and during our coffee Benjy Usher took his attention off Dot long enough to notice me across the room.

‘Freddie!’ he shouted uninhibitedly, turning every other diner’s head his way. ‘Come over here, you bugger.’

It seemed easiest to go. I stopped at their table and said hello to Dot.

‘Come and join us,’ Benjy commanded. ‘Bring the bird.’

‘She’s my sister.’

‘Oh sure, pull the other one.’

Benjy had had one drink too many. Dot looked embarrassed. It was for her sake, really, that I went and persuaded Lizzie to cross the carpet.

We accepted coffee from Dot and resisted Benjy’s offer of huge glasses of port. When Benjy summoned another for himself, Dot said conversationally, ‘He’s now at impotence. Paralysis next.’

‘Vicious bitch,’ Benjy said.

Lizzie’s eyes widened.

Dot remarked, ‘Followed by vomiting, ending in tears of maudlin self-pity. He calls himself a man.’

‘Pre-menstrual tension,’ Benjy mocked. ‘Chronic case.’

Lizzie looked at their handsome faces and casually good clothes, at the diamonds on Dot’s fingers and at Benjy’s gold watch. No comment was possible. None was needed. Their pleasure depended not on money but on spite.

‘When are you going to Italy for my colt?’ Benjy asked me.

‘Monday,’ I suggested. ‘It’ll take us three days. He could be here by Wednesday evening.’

‘Which driver? Not that one called Brett. Michael says never Brett.’

‘He’s left. It won’t be Brett.’

‘Send Lewis. Michael swears by him, and he’s driven my horses a lot. That colt’s valuable, you know. And send someone to look after him on the journey. Send that man of yours, that Dave. He can handle him.’

‘Is he difficult to handle?’

‘You know colts,’ Benjy said expansively. ‘You send Dave. He’ll be all right.’

Dot said, ‘I don’t know why you don’t stand him at stud in Italy.’

‘You keep your tongue off what doesn’t concern you,’ her husband replied.

To try to stop their argument, I mentioned that we’d that day brought the load of old horses from Yorkshire and I gathered he was giving a home to two of them.

‘Those old wrecks!’ Dot exclaimed. ‘Not more of them.’

‘Do you have some already?’ Lizzie asked.

‘They died,’ Dot told her. ‘I hate it. I don’t want any more.’

‘Don’t look at them,’ Benjy said.

‘You put them outside the drawing-room window.’

‘I’ll put them in the drawing-room. That should please you.’

‘You’re utterly childish.’

‘You’re utterly stupid.’

Lizzie said sweetly, ‘It’s been terribly nice meeting you,’ and stood up to leave, and when we were out in the Jaguar asked, ‘Do they always go on like that?’

‘I can testify to fifteen years of it.’

‘Good grief.’ She yawned, well-fed and relaxed, sleepy. ‘Beautiful moon tonight. Terrific for flying.’

‘But you’re not going tonight!’

‘No, it’s just a habit of mind. I think of the sky in flying terms, you think of the ground as hard or soft for horses.’

‘I suppose I do.’

She sighed pleasurably. ‘Lovely car, this.’

The Jaguar hummed through the night, powerful, intimate, the best wheels I’d owned. The jockeys lately seemed to have stopped buying speed in favour of middle-rank family saloons, ultra-reliable but rather dull. My bit of flamboyance, alive in my hands, was no longer politically correct with the new serious lot in the changing room.

Bad luck for them, I thought. Looking back, I seemed to have laughed a lot in those years. And cursed and ached and seethed at injustices. And had a sizzling good time.

The last stretch of the road from dinner to bed went past the farmyard. I slowed automatically to glance at the row of transport gleaming in the moonlight. The gates were open, which meant that one or more boxes were still out on the road, and I completed the short distance to the house wondering which one it was.

Lizzie’s Robinson 22 shone in the moonlight, standing on the tarmac where the nine-box had stood with Kevin Keith Ogden on board.

‘I’ll leave about nine in the morning,’ she said, ‘and get your analysis started in the afternoon.’

‘Great.’ I must have sounded preoccupied. She turned her head to study me.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘Nothing really. You go in, go to bed. I’ll just nip back to the farmyard to lock the gates. There aren’t any boxes still out, or anyway there shouldn’t be. I won’t be long.’

She yawned. ‘See you in the morning, then.’

‘Thanks for coming.’

‘I’ve enjoyed it.’

We hugged briefly and she went in smiling. I hoped Professor Quipp would love her for a long time, as I’d never known her so at peace.

I drove the Jaguar back to the farmyard and stopped outside the gates. Someone was walking about in the yard, as Harve often did, taking care of things, and I walked towards the half-seen figure, calling ‘Harve?’

No answer. I walked on, reaching the nearest box to Harve’s own, and passing into a patch of shadow.

‘Harve,’ I shouted.

I heard nothing, but something hit me very hard on the back of the head.

I worked out later how long I spent unaware of the world: one hour, forty minutes.

The first sensation of the daze I awoke to was a pain in the head. The second sensation was of being carried. The third was a matter of hearing, with a voice making a nonsensical remark.

‘If this doesn’t give him flu, nothing will.’

I was dreaming of course.

Of course.

Soon I would wake up.

I felt I was falling. I hated dreams about falling: they were always about falling off buildings, never off horses.

I fell into water. Breathtakingly cold.

I went down into it without struggling. Wholly immersed. Went down deep.

Terrible dream.

Instinct, perhaps, switched me to reality. This was no dream, this was Freddie Croft, in his clothes, drowning.

The first awful compulsion was to take a deep breath, and it was again subconscious knowledge, not present thought, that stopped me.

I kicked, seeking to go upward, and felt sucked to one side and clutched by currents, a rag doll in limbo.

I kicked again with growing horror, urgency flooding finally into a response from arms and legs, muscles bunching, working hard, chest hurting, head hammering.

Swim up, for God’s sake.

Swim... up.

I swam up in crazy panic-driven breaststrokes. Swam as if horizontal, arms sweeping, legs kicking, knowing I was also going sideways, being swept without choice.

Probably I spent barely more than a minute under water. I breaststroked through the surface into the night and gulped air into my starved lungs with a whooping roar, and the moment I stopped swimming my heavily saturated clothes and waterfilled shoes dragged me down again, down like a see-saw, ultimate terror.

The drowning come up twice, and the third time stay down... the bad news wisdom. I swam with ebbing strength to the surface against the weight of my clothes and the drag of the water and its inexorable swirling suction, seeing no light anywhere, only darkness enough for one struggling gasp, and my head went under again, will power urging me up and the salt sea claiming me for its own.

Salt sea... I swallowed it, gagging. Pretty well every vestige of athleticism went into lifting my nose above the surface, and kicking to stay there. In a way I knew it was a losing battle, but I couldn’t accept it. If I’d been dropped off a boat, if I were alone far from land, an end would come soon, and it was intolerable. I protested furiously, vainly, against being murdered.

I saw a glitter on the water, a flash of light. The current was taking me into it, out of darkness.

Electric light.

A lamp... high above the water... on a lamp standard.

I hadn’t realised how far I’d lost hope until the knowledge that electric lamp standards didn’t grow in mid-ocean hit my brain like a more friendly blow on the skull. Lamp standards equalled land. Land meant life. Life meant swimming to the lamp standard.

Simple.

Not so simple. It was all I could do to stay up. All the same, the current that had floated me from darkness to light continued its benign work, taking me towards the lamp standard, but slowly, casually, indifferent to its flotsam.

Two lamp standards.

They were above me, on top of a wall. I bumped eventually into the wall, no longer able to see the lights on their tall stalks, but knowing they were there. I was in shadow again by the wall but, looking back, I could see little lights everywhere, bright, unmoving, a whole forest of lamp standards.

The wall was smooth and slimy, without handholds. The water carried me along it slowly, sucking me away and slapping me back against it, while I kicked fearfully and with insidiously growing feebleness to stay up to breathe.

I tried shouting for help. The suck and slap and gurgle of the eddies smothered my voice. When I took a deep breath to shout again, the salt water rushed into my mouth and set me choking.

It seemed ridiculous to drown when I could actually touch land, while the swell lifted me against safety and pulled me away again, while ten feet above me there was a dry place to walk.

I lived by luck. Lived thanks to the designer who’d built a staircase into his wall. One surge of water lifted me into a sort of hollow in the smooth cliff and the retreating ebb all but floated me out again. Almost too late I thrust my arms and hands against slippery concrete, desperate not to be dragged away, waiting... waiting... for the water to lift me again into the hollow and knowing it was the last chance, the miracle of deliverance if only I had the strength.

I rolled with the water into the hollow and pressed my body onto a sharp step; felt the tug of the receding swell and rolled against it, using the killing weight of shoes, trousers and jacket as anchor. With the next swell of water I rose to the step above and lay there immobile, head and shoulders out of the water, legs and feet still submerged. The next wave achieved for me one more step up so that I was lying on the slope of stairs, feeling hard land embrace me as if in forgiveness, as if saying, ‘All right, then, not yet.’

The stairs were inset, parallel with the wall, the seaward side being always wide open to the water. I crawled up one step more and simply lay there, exhausted, shuddering, frozen and concussed, with almost nil activity going on in the brain-box. My feet, still in the water, lifted and fell with liquid rhythm and it wasn’t until one wave slapped over my knees and tried to float me out again that I sluggishly realised that the tide had to be rising and that if I didn’t climb upwards I would be back where I’d come from with no strength for another fight.

I slithered up two steps. Three steps. At the top, as I looked up, stood a lamp standard.

When some semblance of strength oozed back I continued crawling, pressing myself against the inner wall, cravenly frightened of dropping off the open edge back into the sea. True nightmares weren’t about falling off buildings, I thought, they were about falling off steps built for embarking onto boats.

The endless-seeming climb ended. I slithered onto hard dusty flat dry road-surface, crawled weakly to the lamp standard and lay full length beside it, face down, one arm hooked round it as if to convince myself that this, at least, was no dream.

I had no idea where I was. I’d been too busy trying to survive to worry about such minor details. My head throbbed. When I tried to work out why, memory got lost in a fog.

There were footsteps approaching, grittily scrunching. For a shattering moment I thought the people who’d thrown me in had found me again, but the voice that spoke above me carried a different sort of threat, the heavy resentment of affronted petty authority.

‘You can’t lie here,’ he said. ‘Clear off.’

I rolled onto my back and found myself staring straight into the eyes of a large purposeful dog. The dog pulled against a leash held by a burly figure in a navy uniform with a peaked cap and a glinting silver badge. The dog wore a light muzzle which looked inadequate for the job.

‘Did you hear what I said? Clear off.’

I tried to speak and achieved only an incoherent croak.

Authority looked displeased. The dog, an unfriendly rottweiler, lowered his head to mine hungrily.

Trying again, I said, ‘I fell in.’ This time the message reached its target but with moderate results.

‘I don’t care if you swam the Channel, get up and clear off.’

I made an effort to sit up. Got as far as one elbow. The dog warily retreated a step, leaving his options open.

‘Where am I?’ I said.

‘In the Docks, of course.’

‘In the docks. Where else?’

‘Which docks?’ I said. ‘Which port?’

‘What?’

‘I... don’t know where I am.’

He was far from reassured by my obvious weakness. With the dog at the ready, he said suspiciously, ‘Southampton, of course.’

Southampton Docks. Why Southampton Docks? My bewilderment grew.

‘Come on. Get going. No one’s allowed on here when the dock’s shut. And I can’t stand drunks.’

‘I hit my head,’ I said.

He opened his mouth as if to say he didn’t care if I’d been decapitated, but instead said grudgingly, ‘Did you fall off a ship?’

‘I don’t really know.’

‘You can’t lie here, all the same.’

I wasn’t so sure I could get up and walk and he must, I thought, have seen it, as he suddenly thrust down a reaching hand to be grasped. He pulled me vigorously to my feet and I held on to the lamp standard and felt dizzy.

‘You want a doctor,’ he said accusingly.

‘Just give me a minute.’

‘You can’t stay here. It’s against orders.’

Seen at level height, he was a truculent-looking fiftyish individual with a large nose and small eyes and the thin grim mouth of perpetual wariness. He’d been afraid of me, I saw.

I didn’t mind his manner. To be a nightwatchman in a dock area was to face dangers from knaves and thieves, and a man lying where he shouldn’t had to be treated as a hazard until proved to be harmless.

‘Do you have a telephone?’ I asked.

‘In the guardroom, yes.’

He didn’t say I couldn’t use it, which was invitation enough. I let go of the lamp standard and tottered a few shaky steps, lurching sideways off a straight line and trying hard to behave with more sense than I felt.

‘Here,’ he said roughly, grabbing my arm. ‘You’ll fall in again.’

‘Thanks.’

He held my sleeve, not exactly supporting me but certainly a help. With feet that seemed hardly to belong to me I made a slow passage down a long dock and arrived finally at some large buildings.

‘This way,’ he said, tugging my sleeve.

We went through tall iron gates in a high fence and out onto a pavement. A car-parking area lay ahead, followed by a low wall, with a public roadway beyond that. No traffic. I tried looking at my watch to see the time and hit a slight snag: no watch.

I peered feebly along the road in both directions while the nightwatchman fed a key into a lock, and I found I was looking at a recognisable landmark, somewhere I’d been before, an orientating building telling me exactly where I was, if still not why.

‘Come in,’ the nightwatchman invited. ‘The phone’s on the wall. You’ll have to pay for it, of course.’

‘Mm.’ I nodded assent, felt for wallet and coins, and found neither. Nothing in any of my pockets. The nightwatchman observed the search judiciously.

‘Have you been mugged?’

‘It looks like it.’

‘Don’t you remember?’

‘No.’ I looked at the telephone. ‘I can reverse the charges,’ I said.

He made an assenting wave. I took the receiver off the wall and realised that if I phoned my own house what I would get would be my answering machine. It was possible to de-activate it from a distance but not on a reverse charge call. Sighing, I got through to the number, listened to my voice saying I was out and to leave a message, and went through the switch-off routine. The nightwatchman asked crossly what I was doing.

‘Getting the operator,’ I said, redialling.

The operator tried my number and said there was no answer.

‘Please keep trying,’ I said anxiously. ‘I know someone’s there, but she’ll be asleep. You need to wake her.’

Lizzie’s bedroom was next to mine, where the phone would be ringing. I exhorted her silently to wake up, to tire of the ringing, to get up and answer it. Come on, Lizzie... come on for God’s sake.

Ages seemed to pass before she finally said, ‘Hello?’ thick with sleep. The operator, following my instructions, asked if she would take a call from her brother, Mr Croft, in Southampton.

When she spoke to me direct she said, astonished, ‘Roger? Is that you? I thought you were in the Caribbean.’

‘It’s Freddie,’ I said.

‘But you can’t be in Southampton. Roger’s ship goes to Southampton.’

Explaining was impossible, and besides, the nightwatchman was listening avidly to every word.

‘Lizzie,’ I said desperately, ‘come and collect me. I’ve been robbed of money... everything. I’ve been in the water and I’m freezing and I hit my head, and to be honest I feel rotten. Come in the Fourtrak, it’s outside on the tarmac. The key’s on a hook beside the back door. Please do come.’

‘Heavens! Come where?’

‘Go to the main road to Newbury, but turn south. That’s the A34. It joins the Winchester bypass. Then follow the signs to Southampton and when you get there take the road to the Docks and the Isle of Wight ferries. There are signs everywhere. I’m... I’m down there by the Docks. The Isle of Wight ferry terminal is just along the road. I’ll go there... and wait for you.’

She said, ‘Are you shivering?’

I coughed convulsively. ‘Bring me some clothes. And some money.’

‘Freddie...’ She sounded shocked and unsure.

‘I know,’ I said contritely, ‘it’s the middle of the night. It’ll take you three-quarters of an hour, about...’

‘But what happened? I thought you were here in bed, but you didn’t answer the phone. How did you get to Southampton?’

‘I don’t know. Look, Lizzie, just come.’

She made up her mind. ‘Isle of Wight ferry. Southampton Docks. Forty-five minutes. Five more while I dress. Just hang in there, buddy boy. The cavalry’s coming.’

‘The cinema has a lot to answer for.’

‘At least your sense of humour’s still working.’

‘It’s a close run thing.’

‘I’ll be there,’ she said, and put down the phone.

I thanked the nightwatchman and told him my sister would come. He thought I should have telephoned the police.

‘I’d rather go home,’ I said, and realised I simply hadn’t thought of asking for police help. That would involve too many questions and I had not enough answers. And also not enough stamina left for sitting on a hard chair in a police station, or for having my bumps read. The source of my troubles lay not in Southampton but back in Pixhill, and if the transit from one to the other was wholly a blank, I did vaguely remember driving the Jaguar to the farmyard and calling to Harve.

The troubles lay on my doorstep, in my farmyard, under my lorries, in my business. I wanted to go home, to sort them out.