Risk

16

Monday morning, after another night free of alarms and excursions, I went back to the office with good intentions of actually doing some work. Peter was sulking with Monday morning glooms, Bess had menstrual pains, and Debbie was tearful from a row with the screw-selling fiancé: par for office life as I knew it.

Trevor came into my room looking fatherly and anxious, and seemed reassured to find my appearance less deathly than on Friday.

‘You did rest, then, Ro,’ he said relievedly.

‘I rode in a race and took a girl to the seaside.’

‘Good heavens. At any rate, it seems to have done you good. Better than spending your time working.’

‘Yes...’ I said. ‘Trevor, I did come into the office on Saturday morning, for a couple of hours.’

His air of worry crept subtly back. He waited for me to go on with the manner of a patient expecting bad news from his doctor: and I felt the most tremendous regret in having to give it to him.

‘Denby Crest,’ I said.

‘Ro...’ He spread out his hands, palms downwards, in a gesture that spoke of paternal distress at a rebellious son who wouldn’t take his senior’s word for things.

‘I can’t help it,’ I said. ‘I know he’s a client, and a friend of yours, but if he’s misappropriated fifty thousand pounds and you’ve condoned it, it concerns us both. It concerns this office, this partnership, and our future. You must see that. We can’t just ignore the whole thing and pretend it hasn’t happened.’

‘Ro, believe me, everything will be all right.’

I shook my head. ‘Trevor, you telephone Denby Crest and tell him to come over here today, to discuss what we’re going to do.’

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ I said positively. ‘I’m not having it, Trevor. I’m half of this firm, and it’s not going to do anything illegal.’

‘You’re uncompromising.’ The mixture of sorrow and irritation had intensified. The two emotions, I thought fleetingly, that gave you regrets while you shot the rabbit.

‘Get him here at four o’clock,’ I said.

‘You can’t bully him like that.’

‘There are worse consequences,’ I said. I spoke without emphasis, but he knew quite well that it was a threat.

Irritation won hands down over sorrow. ‘Very well, Ro,’ he said sourly. ‘Very well.’

He went out of my room with none of the sympathetic concern for me with which he had come in, and I felt a lonely sense of loss. I could forgive him anything myself, I thought in depression, but the law wouldn’t. I lived by the law, both by inclination and choice. If my friend broke the law, should I abandon it for his sake: or should I abandon my friend for the sake of the law? In the abstract, there was no difficulty in my mind. In the flesh, I shrank. There was nothing frightfully jolly in being the instrument of distress, ruin, and prosecution. How much easier if the miscreant would confess of his own free will, instead of compelling his friend to denounce him: a sentimental solution, I thought sardonically, which happened only in weepie films. I was afraid that for myself there would be no such easy way out.

Those pessimistic musings were interrupted by a telephone call from Hilary, whose voice, when I answered, sounded full of relief.

‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

‘Nothing. I just...’ She stopped.

‘Just what?’

‘Just wanted to know you were there, as a matter of fact.’

‘Hilary!’

‘Sounds stupid, I suppose, now that we both know you are there. But I just wanted to be sure. After all, you wouldn’t have cast me in the role of rock if you thought you were in no danger at all.’

‘Um,’ I said, smiling down the telephone. ‘Sermons in stones.’

She laughed. ‘You just take care of yourself, Ro.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

I put down the receiver, marvelling at her kindness; and almost immediately the bell rang again.

‘Roland?’

‘Yes. Moira?’

Her sigh came audibly down the wire. ‘Thank goodness! I tried all day yesterday to reach you, and there was no reply.’

‘I was out all day.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t know that. I mean, I was imagining all sorts of things, like you being kidnapped again, and all because of me.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind, now that I know you’re safe. I’ve had this terrible picture of you shut up again, and needing someone to rescue you. I’ve been so worried, because of Binny.’

‘What about Binny?’

‘I think he’s gone really mad,’ she said. ‘Insane. I went over to his stables yesterday morning to see if Tapestry was all right after his race, and he wouldn’t let me into the yard. Binny, I mean. All the gates were shut and locked with padlocks and chains. It’s insane. He came out and stood on the inside of the gate to the yard where Tapestry is, and waved his arms about, and told me to go away. I mean, it’s insane.’

‘It certainly is.’

‘I told him he could have caused a terrible accident, tampering with that rein, and he screamed that he hadn’t done it, and I couldn’t prove it, and anything that happened to you was my fault for insisting that you rode the horse.’ She paused for breath. ‘He looked so... well, so dangerous. And I’d never thought of him being dangerous, but just a fool. You’ll think I’m silly, but I was quite frightened.’

‘I don’t think you were silly,’ I said truthfully.

‘And then it came to me, like a revelation,’ she said. ‘That it had been Binny who had kidnapped you before, both times, and that he’d done it again, or something even worse...’

‘Moira...’

‘Yes, but you didn’t see him. And then there was no answer to your telephone. I know you’ll think I’m silly, but I was so worried.’

‘I’m very grateful...’ I started to say.

‘You see, Binny never thought you’d win the Gold Cup,’ she said, rushing on. ‘And the very second you had, I told him you’d ride Tapestry always from then on, and he was furious, absolutely furious. You wouldn’t believe. So of course he had you kidnapped at once, so that you’d be out of the way, and I’d have to have someone else, and then you escaped, and you were going to ride at Ascot, so he kidnapped you again, and he went absolutely berserk when I wouldn’t let Tapestry go at Ascot with another jockey. And I made such a fuss in the press that he had to let you out, and so he had to try something else, like cutting the rein, and now I think he’s so insane that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. I mean, I think he thinks that if he kidnaps you, or kills you even, that I’ll have to get another jockey for the Whitbread Gold Cup a week next Saturday, and honestly I think he’s out of his senses, and really awfully dangerous because of that obsession, and so you see I really was terribly worried.’

‘I do see,’ I said. ‘And I’m incredibly grateful for your concern.’

‘But what are you going to do?’ she wailed.

‘About Binny? Listen, Moira, please listen.’

‘Yes,’ she said, her voice calming down. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Do absolutely nothing.’

‘But Roland,’ she protested.

‘Listen. I’m sure you are quite right that Binny is in a dangerous mental state, but anything you or I could do would make him worse. Let him cool down. Give him several days. Then send a horsebox with if possible a police escort — and you can get policemen for private jobs like that, you just apply to the local nick, and offer to pay for their time — collect Tapestry, and send him to another trainer.’

‘Roland!’

‘You can carry loyalty too far,’ I said. ‘Binny’s done marvels with training the horse, I agree, but you owe him nothing. If it weren’t for your own strength of mind he’d have manipulated the horse to make money only for himself, as well you know, and your enjoyment would have come nowhere.’

‘But about kidnapping you...’ she began.

‘No, Moira,’ I said. ‘He didn’t; it wasn’t Binny. I don’t doubt he was delighted it was done, but he didn’t do it.’

She was astonished. ‘He must have.’

‘No.’

‘But why not?’

‘Lots of complicated reasons. But for the one thing, he wouldn’t have kidnapped me straight after the Gold Cup. He wouldn’t have had any need to. If he’d wanted to abduct me to stop me riding Tapestry, he wouldn’t have done it until just before the horse’s next race, nearly three weeks later.’

‘Oh,’ she said doubtfully.

‘The first abduction was quite elaborate,’ I said. ‘Binny couldn’t possibly have had time to organise it between the Gold Cup and the time I was taken, which was only an hour or so later.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, Moira, quite sure. And when he really did try to stop me winning, he did very direct and simple things, not difficult like kidnapping. He offered me a bribe, and cut the rein. Much more in character. He always was a fool, and now he’s a dangerous fool, but he isn’t a kidnapper.’

‘Oh dear,’ she said, sounding disappointed. ‘And I was so sure.’

She cheered up a bit and asked me to ride Tapestry in the Whitbread. I said I’d be delighted, and she deflated my ego by passing on the opinion of a press friend of her to the effect that Tapestry was one of those horses who liked to be in charge, and an amateur who just sat there doing nothing very much was exactly what suited him best.

Grinning to myself I put down the receiver. The press friend was right; but who cared.

For the rest of the morning I tried to make inroads into the backlog of correspondence, but found it impossible to concentrate. The final fruit of two hours of reading letters and shuffling them around, was three heaps marked ‘overdue’, ‘urgent’, and ‘if you don’t get these off today there will be trouble’.

Debbie looked down her pious nose at my inability to apply myself, and primly remarked that I was under-utilising her capability. Under-utilising... Ye Gods! Where did the gobbledegook jargon come from?

‘You mean I’m not giving you enough to do.’

‘That’s what I said.’

At luncheon I stayed alone in the office and stared into space: and my telephone rang again.

Johnny Frederick, full of news.

‘Do you mind if I send you a bill for ’phone calls?’ he said. ‘I must have spent thirty quid. I’ve been talking all morning.’

‘I’ll send you a cheque.’

‘O.K. Well, mate, pin back your lugholes. That boat you were on was built at Lymington, and she sailed from there after dark on 17th March. She was brand spanking new, and she hadn’t completed her trials, and she wasn’t registered or named. She was built by a top-notch shipyard called Goldenwave Marine, for a client called Arthur Robinson.’

‘Who?’

‘Arthur Robinson. That’s what he said his name was, anyway. And there was only one slightly unusual thing about Mr Robinson, and that was that he paid for the boat in cash.’

He waited expectantly.

‘How much cash?’ I said.

‘Two hundred thousand pounds.’

‘Crikey.’

‘Mind you,’ Johnny said, ‘that’s bargain basement stuff for Goldenwave. They do a nice job in mini-liners at upwards of a million, with gold taps, for Arabs.’

‘In cash?’

‘Near enough, I dare say. Anyway, Arthur Robinson always paid on the nail, in instalments as they came due during the boat-building, but always in your actual folding. Goldenwave Marine wouldn’t be interested in knowing whether the cash had had tax paid on it. None of their business.’

‘Quite,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

‘That Thursday — 17th March-in the morning, some time, Arthur Robinson rang Goldenwave and said he wanted to take some friends aboard for a party that evening, and would they please see that the water and fuel tanks were topped up, and everything ship-shape. Which Goldenwave did.’

‘Without question.’

‘Of course. You don’t argue with two hundred thousand quid. Anyway, the boat was out on a mooring in the deep water passage, so they left her fit for the owner’s visit and brought her tender ashore, for him to use when he got there.’

‘A black rubber dinghy?’

‘I didn’t ask. The night watchman had been told to expect the party, so he let them in, and helped generally, and saw them off. I got him out of bed this morning to talk to him, and he was none too pleased, but he remembers the evening quite well, because of course the boat sailed off that night and never came back.

‘What did he say?’

‘There were two lots of people, he said. One lot came in an old white van, which he didn’t think much of for an owner of such a boat. You’d expect a Rolls, he said.’ Johnny chuckled. ‘The first arrivals, three people, were the crew. They unloaded stores from an estate car and made two trips out to the boat. Then the white van arrived with several more men, and one of those was lying down. They told the nightwatchman he was dead drunk, and that was you, I reckon. Then the first three men and the drunk man went out to the boat, and the other men drove away in the old van and the estate car, and that was that. The nightwatchman thought it a very boring sort of party, and noted the embarkation in his log, and paid no more attention. Next morning, no boat.’

‘And no report to the police?’

‘The owner had taken his own property, which he’d fully paid for. Goldenwave had expected him to take command of her a week later, anyway, so they made no fuss.’

‘You’ve done absolute marvels,’ I said.

‘Do you want to hear about Alastair Yardley?’

‘There’s more?’

‘There sure is. He seems to be quite well-known. Several of the bigger shipyards have recommended him to people who want their boats sailed from England, say, to Bermuda, or the Caribbean, and so on, and don’t have a regular crew, and also don’t want to cross oceans themselves. He signs on his own crew, and pays them himself. He’s no crook. Got a good reputation. Tough, though. And he’s not cheap. If he agreed to help shanghai you, you can bet Mr Arthur Robinson paid through the nose for the service. But you can ask him yourself, if you like.’

‘What do you mean?’

Johnny was justifiably triumphant. ‘I struck dead lucky, mate. Mind you, I chased him round six shipyards, but he’s in England now to fetch another yacht, and he’ll talk to you if you ring him more or less at once.’

‘I don’t believe it!’

‘Here’s the number.’ He read out the numbers, and I wrote them down. ‘Ring him before two o’clock. You can also talk to the chap in charge of Goldenwave, if you like. This is his number. He said he’d help in any way he could.’

‘You’re fantastic,’ I said, stunned to breathlessness by his success.

‘We got a real lucky break, mate, because when I took those photographs to Cowes first thing this morning, I asked round everybody, and there was a feller in the third yard I tried who’d worked at Goldenwave last year, and he said it looked like their Golden Sixty Five, so I rang them, and it was the departure date that clinched it.’

‘I can’t begin to thank you.’

‘To tell you the truth, mate, it’s been a bit of excitement, and there isn’t all that much about, these days. I’ve enjoyed this morning, and that’s a fact.’

‘I’ll give you a ring. Tell you how things turn out.’

‘Great. Can’t wait. And see you.’

He disconnected, and with an odd sinking feeling in my stomach I rang the first of the numbers he’d given me. A shipyard. Could I speak to Alastair Yardley? Hang on, said the switchboard. I hung.

‘Hullo?’

The familiar voice. Bold, self-assertive, challenging the world.

‘It’s Roland Britten,’ I said.

There was a silence, then he said, ‘Yeah,’ slowly.

‘You said you’d talk to me.’

‘Yeah.’ He paused. ‘Your friend this morning, John Frederick, the boat-builder, he tells me I was sold a pup about you.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I was told you were a blackmailer.’

‘A what?’

‘Yeah.’ He sighed. ‘Well, this guy Arthur Robinson, he said you’d set up his wife in some compromising photographs and were trying to blackmail her, and he wanted you taught a lesson.’

‘Oh,’ I said blankly. It explained a great deal, I thought.

‘Your friend Frederick told me that was all crap. He said I’d been conned. I reckon I was. All the other guys in the yard here know all about you winning that race and going missing. They just told me. Seems it was in all the papers. But I didn’t see them, of course.’

‘How long,’ I said, ‘were you supposed to keep me on board?’

‘He said to ring him Monday evening, April 4th, and he’d tell me when and where and how to set you loose. But of course, you jumped ship the Tuesday before, and how you got that lever off is a bloody mystery... I rang him that night, and he was so bloody angry he couldn’t get the words out. So then he said he wouldn’t pay me for the job on you, and I said if he didn’t he could whistle for his boat, I’d just sail it into some port somewhere and walk away, and he’d have God’s own job finding it. So I said he could send me the money to Palma, where I bank, and when I got it I’d do what he wanted, which was to take his boat to Antibes and deliver it to the ship brokers there.’

‘Brokers?’

‘Yeah. Funny, that. He’d only just bought it. What did he want to sell it for?’

‘Well...’ I said. ‘Do you remember his telephone number?’

‘No. Threw it away, didn’t I, as soon as I was shot of his boat.’

‘At Antibes?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did you meet him?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. That night at Lymington. He told me not to talk to you, and not to listen, because you’d tell me lies, and not to let you know where we were, and not to leave a mark on you, and to watch out because you were as slippery as an eel.’ He paused a second. ‘He was right about that, come to think.’

‘Do you remember what he looked like?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘what I saw of him; but it was mostly in the dark, out on the quay.’ He described Arthur Robinson as I’d expected, and well enough to be conclusive.

‘I wasn’t intending to go for another week,’ he said. ‘The weather forecasts were all bad for Biscay, and I’d only been out in her once, in light air, not enough to know how she’d handle in a gale, but he rang Goldenwave that morning and spoke to me, and told me about you, and said gale or no gale he’d make it worth my while if I’d go that evening and take you with me.’

‘I hope it was worth it,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ he said frankly. ‘I got paid double.’

I laughed in my throat. ‘Er...’ I said, ‘is it possible for a boat just to sail off from England and wander round Mediterranean ports, when it hasn’t even got a name? I mean, do you have to pass Customs, and things like that?’

‘You can pass Customs if you want to waste a bloody lot of time. Otherwise, unless you tell them, a port doesn’t know whether you’ve come from two miles down the coast, or two thousand. The big ports collect mooring fees, that’s all they’re interested in. If you drop anchor at somewhere like Formentor, which we did one night with you, no one takes a blind bit of notice. Easy come, easy go, that’s what it’s like on the sea. Best way to live, I reckon.’

‘It sounds marvellous,’ I sighed enviously.

‘Yeah. Look...’ he paused a second, ‘are you going to set the police on me, or anything? Because I’m off today, on the afternoon tide, and I’m not telling where.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No police.’

He let his breath out audibly in relief. ‘I reckon...’ He paused. ‘Thanks, then. And well, sorry, like.’

I remembered the paperback, and the socks, and the soap, and I had no quarrel with him.

From Goldenwave Marine, ten minutes later, I learned a good many background facts about big boats in general and Arthur Robinson in particular.

Goldenwave had four more Golden Sixty Fives on the stocks at the moment, all commissioned by private customers, and Arthur Robinson had been one of a stream. Their Golden Sixty Five had been a successful design, they were pleased and proud to say, and their standard of ship-building was respected the world over.

End of commercial.

I replaced the receiver gratefully. Sat, thinking, chewing bits off my fingernails. Decided, without joy, to take a slightly imprudent course.

Debbie, Peter, Bess and Trevor came back, and the place filled up with tap-tap and bustle. Mr Wells arrived for his appointment twenty minutes before the due time, reminding me of the psychiatrists’-eye-view of patients: if they’re early, they’re anxious, if they’re late, they’re aggressive, and if they’re on time, they’re pathological. I often thought the psychiatrists didn’t understand about trains, buses and traffic flow, but in this case there wasn’t much doubt about the anxiety. Mr Wells’ hair, manner and eyes were all out of control.

‘I rang the people you sent the rubber cheque to,’ I said. ‘They were a bit sticky, but they’ve agreed not to prosecute if you take care of them after the inevitable Receiving Order.’

‘I what?’

‘Pay them later,’ I said. Jargon... I did it myself.

‘Oh.’

‘The order of paying,’ I said, ‘will be first the Inland Revenue, who will collect tax in full, and will also charge interest for every day overdue.’

‘But I haven’t anything to pay them with.’

‘Did you sell your car, as we agreed you should?’

He nodded, but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

‘What have you done with the money?’ I said.

‘Nothing.’

‘Pay it to the Revenue, then, on account.’

He looked away evasively, and I sighed at his folly. ‘What have you done with the money?’ I repeated.

He wouldn’t tell me, and I concluded that he had been following the illegal path of many an imminent bankrupt, selling off his goods and banking the proceeds distantly under a false name, so that when the bailiffs came there wouldn’t be much left. I gave him some good advice which I knew he wouldn’t take. The suicidal hysterics of his earlier visit had settled into resentment against everyone pressing him, including me. He listened with a mulish stubborness which I’d seen often enough before, and all he would positively agree to was not to write any more cheques.

By three-thirty I’d had enough of Mr Wells, and he of me.

‘You need a good solicitor,’ I said. ‘He’ll tell you the same as me, but maybe you’ll listen.’

‘It was a solicitor who gave me your name,’ he said glumly.

‘Who’s your solicitor?’

‘Fellow called Denby Crest.’

It was a small community, I thought. Touching, overlapping, a patchwork fabric. When the same familiar names kept turning up, things were normal.

As it happened, Trevor was in the outer office when I showed Mr Wells to the door. I introduced them, explaining that Denby had sent him to see us. Trevor cast a benign eye, which would have been jaundiced had he known the Wells state of dickiness, and made affable small talk. Mr Wells took in Trevor’s substantial air, seniority, and general impression of worldliness, and I practically saw the thought cross his mind that perhaps he had consulted the wrong partner.

And perhaps, I thought cynically, he had.

When he’d gone, Trevor looked at me sombrely.

‘Come into my office,’ he sighed.