Hot Money

CHAPTER ONE

I intensely disliked my father's fifth wife, but not to the point of murder.

I, the fruit of his second ill-considered gallop up the aisle, had gone dutifully to the next two of his subsequent nuptials, the changes of "mother" punctuating my life at six and fourteen.

At thirty, however, I'd revolted: wild horses couldn't have dragged me to witness his wedding to the sharp-eyed honey-tongued Moira, his fifth choice. Moira had been the subject of the bitterest quarrel my father and I ever had and the direct cause of a non- speaking wilderness which had lasted three years.

After Moira was murdered, the police came bristling with suspicion to my door, and it was by the merest fluke that I could prove I'd been geographically elsewhere when her grasping little soul had left her carefully tended body. I didn't go to her funeral, but I wasn't alone in that. My father didn't go either. A month after her death he telephoned me, and it was so long since I'd heard his voice that it seemed that of a stranger.

"Ian?"

"Yes," I said.

"Malcolm."

"Hello," I said.

"Are you doing anything?"

"Reading the price of gold."

"No, dammit," he said testily. "in general, are you busy?"

"In general," I said, "fairly."

The newspaper lay on my lap, an empty wine glass at my elbow. It was late evening, after eleven, growing cold. I had that day quit my job and put on idleness like a comfortable coat.

He sighed down the line.

"I suppose you know about Moira."

"Front page news," I agreed. "The price of gold is on… er… page thirty-two."

"If you want me to apologise," he said, "I'm not going to."

His image stood sharp and clear in my mind: a stocky, grey-haired man with bright blue eyes and a fizzing vitality that flowed from him in sparks of static electricity in cold weather. He was to my mind stubborn, opinionated, rash and often stupid. He was also financially canny, intuitive, quick-brained and courageous, and hadn't been nicknamed Midas for nothing.

"Are you still there?" he demanded.

"Yes."

"Well… I need your help."

He said it as if it were an everyday requirement, but I couldn't remember his asking anyone for help ever before, certainly not me.

"Er…" I said uncertainly. "What sort of help?"

"I'll tell you when you get here."

"Where is here'?"

" Newmarket," he said. "Come to the sales tomorrow afternoon."

There was a note in his voice which couldn't be called entreaty, but was far from a direct orderand I was accustomed only to orders.

"All right," I said slowly.

"Good."

He disconnected immediately, letting me ask no questions: and I thought of the last time I'd seen him, when I'd tried to dissuade him from marrying Moira, describing her progressively, in face of his implacable purpose, as a bad misjudgement on his part and as a skilful, untruthful manipulator and, finally, as a rapacious blood- sucking tramp. He'd knocked me down to the floor with one fast, dreadful blow, which he'd been quite capable of at sixty-five, three years ago. Striding furiously away, he'd left me lying dazed on my carpet and had afterwards behaved as if I no longer existed, packing into boxes everything I'd left in my old room in his house and sending them by public carrier to my flat.

Time had proved me right about Moira, but the unforgivable words had remained unforgiven to her death and, it had seemed, beyond. On this October evening, though, perhaps they were provisionally on ice.

I, Ian Pembroke, the fifth of my father's nine children, had from the mists of infancy loved him blindly through thunderous years of domestic in-fighting which had left me permanently impervious to fortissimo voices and slammed doors. In a totally confused chaotic upbringing, I'd spent scattered unhappy periods with my bitter mother but had mostly been passed from wife to wife in my father's house as part of the furniture and fittings, treated by him throughout with the same random but genuine affection he gave to his dogs. Only with the advent of Coochie, his fourth wife, had there been peace, but by the time she took over I was fourteen and world- weary, cynically expecting a resumption of hostilities within a year of the honeymoon.

Coochie, however, had been different. Coochie of all of them had been my only real mother, the only one who'd given me a sense of worth and identity, who'd listened and encouraged and offered good advice. Coochie produced twin boys, my half-brothers Robin and Peterand it had seemed that at last Malcolm Pembroke had achieved a friendly family unit, albeit a sort of sunny clearing surrounded by jungle thickets of ex-wives and discontented siblings.

I grew up and left home but went back often, feeling never excluded. Coochie would have seen Malcolm into a happy old age but, when she was forty and the twins eleven, a hit-and-run driver swerved her car off the road and downhill onto rocks. Coochie and Peter had been killed outright. Robin, the elder twin, suffered brain damage. I had been away. Malcolm was in his office: a policeman went to him to tell him, and he let me know soon after. I'd learned the meaning of grief on that drizzly afternoon, and still mourned them all, their loss irreparable.

On the October evening of Malcolm's telephone call, I glanced at them as usual as I went to bed, their three bright faces grinning out from a silver frame on my chest of drawers. Robin lived – just – in serene twilight in a nursing home. I went to see him now and again. He no longer looked like the boy in the photograph, but was five years older, growing tall, empty-eyed.

I wondered what Malcolm could possibly want. He was rich enough to buy anything he needed, maybe – only maybe – excluding the whole of Fort Knox. I couldn't think of anything I could do for him that he couldn't get from anyone else.

Newmarket, I thought. The sales.

Newmarket was all very well for me because I'd been working as an assistant to a racehorse trainer. But Newmarket for Malcolm? Malcolm never gambled on horses, only on gold. Malcolm had made several immense consecutive fortunes from buying and selling the hard yellow stuff, and had years ago reacted to my stated choice of occupation by saying merely, "Horses? Racing? Good Lord! Well, if that's what you want, my boy, off you go. But don't expect me to know the first thing about anything." And as far as I knew, he was still as ignorant of the subject as he'd been all along.

Malcolm and Newmarket blood stock sales simply didn't mix. Not the Malcolm I'd known, anyway.

I drove the next day to the isolated Suffolk town whose major industry was the sport of kings, and among the scattered purposeful crowd found my father standing bareheaded in the area outside the sale-ring building, eyes intently focused on a catalogue.

He looked just the same. Brushed grey hair, smooth brown vicuna knee-length overcoat, charcoal business suit, silk tie, polished black shoes; confidently bringing his City presence into the casual sophistication of the country.

It was a golden day, crisp and clear, the sky a cold cloudless blue. I walked across to him in my own brand of working clothes: cavalry twill trousers, checked wool shirt, padded olive-green jacket, tweed cap. A surface contrast that went personality deep.

"Good afternoon," I said neutrally.

He raised his eyes and gave me a stare as blue as the sky.

"So you came."

"Well… yes."

He nodded vaguely, looking me over.

"You look older," he said.

"Three years."

"Three years and a crooked nose." He observed it dispassionately. "I suppose you broke that falling off a horse?"

"No… You broke it."

"Did I?" He seemed only mildly surprised. "You deserved it."

I didn't answer.

He shrugged.

"Do you want some coffee?"

"OK."

We hadn't touched each other, I thought. Not a hug, not a handshake, not a passing pat on the arm. Three years' silence couldn't easily be bridged.

He set off not in the direction of the regular refreshment room, but towards one of the private rooms set aside for the privileged. I followed in his footsteps, remembering wryly that it took him roughly two minutes any time to talk himself into the plushest recesses, wherever.

The Newmarket sales building was in the form of an amphitheatre, sloping banks of seats rising all round from the ground-level ring where each horse was led round while being auctioned. Underneath the seating and in a large adjacent building were rooms used as offices by auctioneers and blood stock agents, and as entertainment rooms by commercial firms, such as Ebury jewellers, Malcolm's present willing hosts.

I was used only to the basic concrete boxes of the blood stock agents' offices. Ebury's space was decorated in contrast as an expensive showroom, with well-lit glass display cases round three walls shining with silver and sparkling with baubles, everything locked away safely but temptingly visible. Down the centre of the room, on brown wall-to-wall carpeting, stood a long polished table surrounded with armed, leather-covered dining chairs. Before each chair was neatly laid a leather-edged blotter alongside a gold- tooled tub containing pens, suggesting that all any client needed to provide here was his cheque-book.

A smooth young gentleman welcomed Malcolm with enthusiastic tact and offered drinks and goodies from the well-stocked buffet table which filled most of the fourth wall. Lunch, it seemed, was an all- day affair. Malcolm and I took cups of coffee and sat at the table, I, at any rate, feeling awkward. Malcolm fiddled with his spoon. A large loud lady came in and began talking to the smooth young man about having one of her dogs modelled in silver. Malcolm raised his eyes to them briefly and then looked down again at his cup.

"What sort of help?" I said.

I suppose I expected him to say he wanted help in some way with horses, in view of the venue he'd chosen, but it seemed to be nothing as straightforward.

"I want you beside me," he said.

I frowned, puzzled.

"How do you mean?"

"Beside me," he said. "All the time."

"I don't understand."

"I don't suppose you do," he said. He looked up at my face. "I'm going to travel a bit. I want you with me."

I made no fast reply and he said abruptly, explosively, "Dammit, Ian, I'm not asking the world. A bit of your time, a bit of your attention, that's all."

"Why now, and why me?"

"You're my son." He stopped fiddling with the spoon and dropped it onto the blotter where it left a round stain. He leaned back in his chair. "I trust you." He paused. "I need someone I can trust."

"Why?"

He didn't tell me why. He said, "Can't you get some time off from work? Have a holiday?"

I thought of the trainer I'd just left, whose daughter had made my job untenable because she wanted it for her fiance. There was no immediate need for me to find another place, save for paying the rent. At thirty-three, I'd worked for three different trainers, and had lately come to feel I was growing too old to carry on as anyone's assistant. The natural progression was towards becoming a trainer myself, a dicey course without money.

"What are you thinking?" Malcolm asked.

"Roughly whether you would lend me half a million quid."

"No," he said.

I smiled. "That's what I thought."

"I'll pay your fares and your hotel bills."

Across the room the loud lady was giving the smooth young man her address. A waitress had arrived and was busy unpacking fresh sandwiches and more alcohol onto the white-clothed table. I watched her idly for a few seconds, then looked back to Malcolm's face, and surprised there an expression that could only be interpreted as anxiety.

I was unexpectedly moved. I'd never wanted to quarrel with him: I'd wanted him to see Moira as I did, as a calculating, sweet-talking honey pot who was after his money, and who had used the devastation of Coochie's death to insinuate herself with him, turning up constantly with sympathy and offers to cook. Malcolm, deep in grief, had been helpless and grateful and seemed hardly to notice when she began threading her arm through his in company, and saying "we". I had for the whole three silent years wanted peace with my father, but I couldn't bear to go to his house and see Moira smirking in Coochie's place, even if he would have let me in through the door.

Now that Moira was dead, peace was maybe possible, and it seemed now as though he really wanted it also. I thought fleetingly that peace wasn't his prime object, that peace was only a preliminary necessary for some other purpose, but all the same it was enough.

"Yes," I said, "all right. I can take time off."

His relief was visible. "Good! Good! Come along then, I may as well buy a horse." He stood up, full of sudden energy, waving his catalogue. "Which do you suggest?"

"Why on earth do you want a horse?" "To race, of course."

"But you've never been interested…"

"Everyone should have a hobby," he said briskly, though he'd never had one in his life. "Mine is racing." And, as an afterthought, he added, "Henceforth," and began to walk to the door.

The smooth young man detached himself from the dog lady and begged Malcolm to come back any time. Malcolm assured him he would, then wheeled round away from him again and marched across to one of the display cabinets.

"While I was waiting for you, I bought a cup," he said to me over his shoulder. "Want to see? One rather like that." He pointed. "It's being engraved."

The cup in question was a highly-decorated and graceful elongated jug, eighteen inches tall and made undoubtedly of sterling silver.

"What's it for?" I asked.

"I don't know yet. Haven't made up my mind."

"But… the engraving?"

"Mm. The Coochie Pembroke Memorial Challenge Trophy. Rather good, don't you think?"

"Yes," I said.

He gave me a sidelong glance. "I thought you'd think so." He retraced his steps to the door. "Right, then, a horse."

Just like old times, I thought with half-forgotten pleasure. The sudden impulses which might or might not turn out to be thoroughly sensible, the intemperate enthusiasms needing instant gratification… and sometimes, afterwards, the abandoning of a debacle as if it didn't exist. The Coochie Pembroke Memorial Challenge Trophy might achieve world-wide stature in competition or tarnish un-presented in an attic: with Malcolm it was always a toss-up.

I called him Malcolm, as all his children did, on his own instructions, and had grown up thinking it natural. Other boys might have Dad: I had my father, Malcolm.

Outside Ebury's room, he said, "What's the procedure, then? How do we set about it?"

"Er…' I said. "This is the first day of the Highflyer Sales."

"Well?" he demanded as I paused. "Go on."

"I just thought you ought to know… the minimum opening bid today is twenty thousand guineas."

It rocked him only slightly. "Opening bid? What do they sell them for?"

"Anything from a hundred thousand up. You'll be lucky today to get a top-class yearling for under a quarter of a million. This is generally the most expensive day of the year."

He wasn't noticeably deterred. He smiled. "Come on, then," he said. "Let's go and start bidding."

"You need to look up the breeding first," I said. "And then look at the animals, to see if you like them, and then get the help and advice of an agent."

"Ian," he said with mock sorrow, "I don't know anything about the breeding, I can just about tell if a thing's got four legs, and I don't trust agents. So let's get on and bid."

It sounded crazy to me, but it was his money. We went into the sale-ring itself where the auction was already in progress, and Malcolm asked me where the richest bidders could be found, the ones that really meant business.

"in those banks of seats on the left of the auctioneers, or here, in the entrance, or just round there to the left…"

He looked and listened and then led the way up to a section of seats from where we could watch the places I'd pointed out. The amphitheatre was already more than three-quarters full, and would later at times be crammed, especially whenever a tip-top lot came next.

"The very highest prices will probably be bid this evening," I said, half teasing him, but all he said was, "Perhaps we should wait, then."

"If you buy ten yearlings," I said, "six might get to a racecourse, three might win a race and one might be pretty good. if you're lucky."

"Cautious Ian."

"You," I said, "are cautious with gold."

He looked at me with half-shut eyes.

"Not many people say that."

"You're fast and flamboyant," I said, "but you sit and wait for the moment."

He merely grunted and began paying attention to the matter in hand, intently focusing not on the merchandise but on the bidders on the far side of the ring. The auctioneers in the box to our left were relaxed and polished, the one currently at the microphone elaborately unimpressed by the fortunes passing.

"Fifty thousand, thank you, sir; sixty thousand, seventy… eighty? Shall I say eighty? Eighty, thank you, sir. Against you, sir. Ninety? Ninety. One hundred thousand. Selling now. I'm selling now. Against you, sir? No? All done? All done?" A pause for a sweep round to make sure no new bidder was frantically waving. "Done, then. Sold to Mr Siddons. One hundred thousand guineas. The next lot…"

"Selling now," Malcolm said. "I suppose that means there was a reserve on it?"

I nodded.

"So until the fellow says selling now', it's safe to bid, knowing you won't have to buy?"

"Yours might be the bid that reaches the reserve."

He nodded. "Russian roulette."

We watched the sales for the rest of the afternoon, but he aimed no bullets at his own head. He asked who people were.

"Who is that Mr Siddons) That's the fourth horse he's bought."

"He works for a blood stock agency. He's buying for other people."

"And that man in navy, scowling. Who's he?"

"Max Jones. He owns a lot of horses."

"Every time that old woman bids, he bids against her."

"It's a well-known feud."

He sniffed. "It must cost them fortunes." He looked around the amphitheatre at the constantly changing audience of breeders, trainers, owners and the simply interested. "Whose judgement would you trust most?"

I mentioned several trainers and the agents who might be acting on their behalf, and he told me to tell him when someone with good judgement was bidding, and to point them out. I did so many times, and he listened and passed no comment.

After a while, we went out for a break, an Ebury scotch, a sandwich and fresh air.

"I suppose you know," Malcolm said casually, watching yearlings skittering past in the grasp of their handlers, "that Moira and I were divorcing?"

"Yes, I heard."

"And that she was demanding the house and half my possessions?"

"Mm."

"And half my future earnings?"

"Could she?"

"She was going to fight for it."

I refrained from saying that whoever had murdered Moira had done Malcolm a big favour, but I'd thought it several times. I said instead, "Still no clues?"

"No, nothing new."

He spoke without regret. His disenchantment with Moira, according to his acid second wife, my own mother Joyce, had begun as soon as he'd stopped missing Coochie; and as Joyce was as percipient as she was catty, I believed it.

"The police tried damned hard to prove I did it," Malcolm said.

"Yes, so I heard."

"Who from? Who's your grapevine?"

"All of them," I said.

"The three witches?"

I couldn't help smiling. He meant his three living ex-wives, Vivien, Joyce and Alicia.

"Yes, them. And all of the family."

He shrugged.

"They were all worried that you might have," I said.

"And were you worried?" he asked.

"I was glad you weren't arrested."

He grunted noncommittally. "I suppose you do know that most of your brothers and sisters, not to mention the witches, told the police you hated Moira?"

"They told me they'd told," I agreed. "But then, I did." " Lot of stinkers I've fathered," he said gloomily.

Malcolm's personal alibi for Moira's death had been as unassailable as my own, as he'd been in Paris for the day when someone had pushed Moira's retrousse little nose into a bag of potting compost and held it there until it was certain she would take no more geranium cuttings. I could have wished her a better death, but it had been quick, everyone said. The police still clung to the belief that Malcolm had arranged for an assassin, but even Joyce knew that that was nonsense. Malcolm was a creature of tempest and volatility, but he'd never been calculatingly cruel.

His lack of interest in the horses themselves didn't extend to anything else at the sales: inside the sale-ring he had been particularly attentive to the flickering electronic board which lit up with the amount as each bid was made, and lit up not only in English currency but in dollars, yen, francs, lire and Irish punts at the current exchange rates. He'd always been fascinated by the workings of money, and had once far more than doubled a million pounds simply by banking it in the United States at two dollars forty cents to the pound, waiting five years, and bringing it back when the rate stood at one dollar twenty cents, which neatly gave him twice the capital he'd started with and the interest besides. He thought of the money market, after gold, as a sort of help- yourself cornucopia.

None of his children had inherited his instinct for timing and trends, a lack he couldn't understand. He'd told me directly once or twice to buy this or sell that, and he'd been right, but I couldn't make money the way he did without his guidance.

He considered that the best years of his talent had been wasted: all the years when, for political reasons, the free movement of capital had been restricted and when gold bullion couldn't be bought by private Britons. Always large, Malcolm's income, once the controls were lifted, went up like a hot air balloon, and it was at the beginning of that period, when he'd woken to the possibilities and bought his first crock of gold for sixty pounds an ounce to sell it presently for over a hundred, that he'd first been called Midas.

Since then, he'd ridden the yellow roller-coaster several times, unerringly buying when the price sank ever lower, selling as it soared, but before the bubble burst, always seeming to spot the wobbling moment when the market approached trough or peak.

Coochie had appeared wearing ever larger diamonds. The three witches, Vivien, Joyce and Alicia, each with a nice divorce settlement agreed in less sparkling days, unavailingly consulted their lawyers.

There was a second electronic board outside the sale-ring showing the state of the sale inside. Malcolm concentrated on the flickering figures until they began to shine more brightly in the fading daylight, but he still paid no close attention to the merchandise itself.

"They all look very small," he said reprovingly, watching a narrow colt pass on its way from stable to sale-ring.

"Well, they're yearlings."

"One year old, literally?"

"Eighteen months, twenty months: about that. They race next year, when they're two."

He nodded and decided to return to the scene of the action, and again found us seats opposite the big-money crowd. The amphitheatre had filled almost to capacity while we'd been outside, and soon, with every seat taken, people shoved close-packed into the entrance and the standing-room sections: the blood of Northern Dancer and Nijinsky and of Secretariat and Lyphard was on its regal way to the ring.

A hush fell in the building at the entrance of the first of the legend-bred youngsters, the breath-held expectant hush of the knowledgeable awaiting a battle among financial giants. A fat cheque on this sales evening could secure a Derby winner and found a dynasty, and it happened often enough to tempt belief each time that this… this… was the one.

The auctioneer cleared his throat and managed the introduction without a quiver.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we now have Lot No 76, a bay colt by Nijinsky He recited the magical breeding as if bored, and asked for an opening bid.

Malcolm sat quiet and watched while the numbers flew high on the scoreboard, the price rising in jumps of fifty thousand; watched while the auctioneer scanned the bidding faces for the drop of an eyelid, the twitch of a head, the tiny acknowledgements of intent.

"… against you, sir. No more, then? All done?" The auctioneer's eyebrows rose with his gavel, remained poised in elevation, came smoothly, conclusively down. "Sold for one million seven hundred thousand guineas to Mr Siddons…"

The crowd sighed, expelling collective breath like a single organism. Then came rustling of catalogues, movement, murmuring and rewound expectation.

Malcolm said, "It's a spectator sport."

"Addictive," I agreed.

He glanced at me sideways. "For one million… five million… there's no guarantee the colt will ever race, isn't that what you said? One could be throwing one's cash down the drain?"

"That's right."

"It's a perfectly blameless way of getting rid of a lot of money very fast, wouldn't you say?"

"Well…" I said slowly, "is that what you're at?"

"Do you disapprove?"

"It's your money. You made it. You spend it."

He smiled almost secretively at his catalogue and said, "I can hear the but' in your voice."

"Mm. If you want to enjoy yourself, buy ten next-best horses instead of one super-colt, and get interested in them."

"And pay ten training fees instead of one?"

I nodded. "Ten would drain the exchequer nicely."

He laughed in his throat and watched the next half-grown blue-blood reach three million guineas before Mr Siddons shook his head.

"… sold for three million and fifty thousand guineas to Mrs Terazzini…"

"Who's she?" Malcolm asked.

"She owns a world-wide blood stock empire."

He reflected. "Like Robert Sangster?"

"Yep. Like him."

He made a noise of understanding. "An industry."

"Yes."

The following lot, a filly, fetched a more moderate sum, but the hush of expectancy returned for the next offering. Malcolm, keenly tuned by now to the atmosphere, watched the bidders as usual, not the nervous chestnut colt.

The upward impetus stopped at a fraction over two million and the auctioneer's eyebrows and gavel rose. "All done?" Malcolm raised his catalogue.

The movement caught the eye of the auctioneer, who paused with the gavel raised, using his eyebrows as a question, looking at Malcolm with surprise. Malcolm sat in what could be called the audience, not with the usual actors. "You want to bid, sir?" asked the auctioneer.

"And fifty," Malcolm said clearly, nodding.

There was a fluttering in the dove cot of auctioneers as head bent to head among themselves, consulting. All round the ring, necks stretched to see who had spoken, and down in the entrance-way the man who'd bid last before Malcolm shrugged, shook his head and turned his back to the auctioneer. His last increase had been for twenty thousand only: a last small raise over two million, which appeared to have been his intended limit.

The auctioneer himself seemed less than happy. "All done, then?" he asked again, and with no further replies, said, "Done then. Sold for two million and seventy thousand guineas toer… the bidder opposite."

The auctioneer consulted with his colleagues again and one of them left the box, carrying a clipboard. He hurried down and round the ring to join a minion on our side, both of them with their gaze fastened on Malcolm.

"Those two auctioneers won't let you out of their sight," I observed. "They suffered badly from a vanishing bidder not so long ago."

"They look as if they're coming to arrest me," Malcolm said cheerfully; and both of the auctioneers indeed made their way right to his sides, handing him the clipboard and politely requiring him to sign their bill of sale, in triplicate and without delay. They retired to ground level but were still waiting for us with steely intent when, after three further sales had gone through as expected, we made our way down.

They invited Malcolm civilly to the quieter end of their large office and we went. They computed what he owed and deferentially presented the total. Malcolm wrote them a cheque.

They politely suggested proof of identity and a reference. Malcolm gave them an American Express card and the telephone number of his bank manager. They took the cheque gingerly and said that although Mr… er… Pembroke should if he wished arrange insurance on his purchase at once, the colt would not be available for removal until… er… tomorrow.

Malcolm took no offence. He wouldn't have let anyone he didn't know drive off with a horse box full of gold. He said tomorrow would be fine, and in high good spirits told me I could ferry him back to his Cambridge hotel, from where he'd come that morning in a taxi, and we would have dinner together.

After we'd called in at an insurance agent's office and he'd signed some more papers and another cheque, we accordingly walked together to the car-park from where people were beginning to drift home. Night had fallen, but there were lights enough to see which car was which, and as we went I pointed out the row ahead where my wheels stood.

"Where are you going to send your colt?" I asked, walking.

"Where would you say?"

"I should think," I said… but I never finished the answer, or not at that actual moment.

A car coming towards us between two rows of parked cars suddenly emitted two headlight beams, blinding us; and at the same moment it seemed to accelerate fiercely, swerving straight towards Malcolm.

I leaped… flung myself… at my father, my flying weight spinning him off balance, carrying him off his feet, knocking him down. I fell on top of him, knowing that the pale speeding bulk of the car had caught me, but not sure to what extent. There was just a bang and a lot of lights curving like arcs, and a whirling view of gleams on metal, and a fast crunch into darkness.

We were on the ground then between two silent parked cars, our bodies heavy with shock and disorientation, in a sort of inertia.

After a moment, Malcolm began struggling to free himself from under my weight, and I rolled awkwardly onto my knees and thankfully thought of little but bruises. Malcolm pushed himself up until he was sitting with his back against a car's wheel, collecting his wits but looking as shaken as I felt.

"That car," he said eventually, between deep breaths, "was aiming… to kill me."

I nodded speechlessly. My trousers were torn, thigh grazed and bleeding.

"You always had… quick reactions," he said. "So now… now you know… why I want you beside me… all the time."