Rat Race Part 20

'Can't you possibly tell me how I could get in touch with Chanter?'

'Oh dear . . You are the second person pressing me to help... but honestly, to tell you the truth we don't know where he lives... he moves frequently and seldom bothers to keep us up to date.' Secretarial disapproval and despair in the tidy voice. 'As I told Mr Ross, with all the best will in the world, I simply have no idea where you could find him.'

I sat in the crew room while the afternoon dragged by. Finished writing up all records by two thirty, read through some newly arrived information circulars, calculated I had only three weeks and four days to run before my next medical, worked out that if I bought four cups of coffee every day from Honey's machine, I was drinking away one fifteenth of my total week's spending money, decided to make it water more often, looked up when Harley came stalking in, received a lecture on loyalty (mine to him), heard that I was on the next day to take a Wilts.h.i.+re trainer to Newmarket races, and that if I gave Polyplanes any more grounds for reporting me or the firm to the Board of Trade, I could collect my cards.

'Do my best not to,' I murmured. Didn't please him.

Looked at the door swinging shut behind his back.

Looked at the clock. Three twenty two.

Chanter and Nancy.

Back in the caravan, the same as the evening before. Tried turning on the television. Some comedy about American suburban life punctuated by canned laughter. Stood five minutes of it, and found the silence afterwards almost as bad.

Walked half way round the airfield, cut down to the village, drank half a pint in the pub, walked back. Total, four miles. When I stepped into the caravan it was still only nine o'clock.

Honey Harley was waiting for me, draped over the sofa with maximum exposure of leg. Pink checked cotton sun-dress, very low cut.

'Hi,' she said with self possession. 'Where've you been?'

'For a walk.'

She looked at me quizzically. 'Got the Board of Trade on your mind?'

I nodded. That, and other things.

'I shouldn't worry too much. Whatever the law says or does, you couldn't have just left the Rosses to flounder.'

'Your uncle doesn't agree.'

'Uncle,' she said dispa.s.sionately, 'is a nit. And anyway, play your cards right, and even if you do get a fine, Colin Ross will pay it. All you'd have to do would be to ask.'

I shook my head.

'You're daft,' she said. 'Plain daft.'

'You may be right.'

She sighed, stirred, stood up. The curvy body rippled in all the right places. I thought of Nancy: much flatter, much thinner, less obviously s.e.xed and infinitely more desirable. I turned abruptly away from Honey. Like hitting a raw nerve, the thought of Chanter, with his hair and his fringes . . and his hands.

'O.K., iceberg,' she said, mistakenly, 'Relax. Your virtue is quite safe. I only came down, to start with, to tell you there was a phone call for you, and would you please ring back.'

'Who...?' I tried hard to keep it casual.

'Colin Ross,' Honey said matter-of-factly. 'He wants you to call some time this evening, if you can. I said if it was about a flight I could deal with it, but apparently it's something personal.' She finished the sentence half way between an accusation and a question and left me ample time to explain.

I didn't. I said, 'I'll go up now, then, and use the telephone in the lounge.'

She shrugged. 'All right.'

She walked up with me, but didn't quite have the nerve to hover close enough to listen. I shut the lounge door in front of her resigned and humorously rueful face.

Got the number.

'Colin? Matt.'

'Oh good, he said. 'Look. Nancy rang up today while Midge and I were along at the races... I took Midge along on the Heath because she was so miserable at home, and now of course she's even more miserable that she missed Nancy... anyway, our cleaning woman answered the telephone, and Nancy left a message.'

'Is she... I mean, is she all right?'

'Do you mean, is she with Chanter?' His voice was strained. 'She told our cleaner she had met an old art school friend in Liverpool and was spending a few days camping with her near Warwick.'

'Her?' I exclaimed.

'Well, I don't know. I asked our Mrs Williams, and she then said she thought thought Nancy said "her", but of course she would think that, wouldn't she?' Nancy said "her", but of course she would think that, wouldn't she?'

'I'm afraid she would.'

'But anyway, Nancy had been much more insistent that Mrs Williams tell me something else... it seems she has seen Major Tyderman.'

'She didn't!'

'Yeah... She said she saw Major Tyderman in the pa.s.senger seat of a car on the Stratford road out of Warwick. Apparently there were some roadworks, and the car stopped for a moment just near her.'

'He could have been going anywhere... from anywhere...'

'Yes,' he agreed in depression. 'I rang the police in Cambridge to tell them, but Nancy had already been through to them, when she called home. All she could remember about the driver was that he wore gla.s.ses. She thought he might have had dark hair and perhaps a moustache. She only glanced at him for a second because she was concentrating on Tyderman. Also she hadn't taken the number, and she's hopeless on the make of cars, so altogether it wasn't a great deal of help.'

'No...

'Anyway, she told Mrs Williams she would be coming home on Sat.u.r.day. She said if I would drive to Warwick races instead of flying, she would come home with me in the car.'

'Well... thank G.o.d for that.'

'If for nothing else,' he said aridly.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

I flew the customers from Wilts.h.i.+re to Newmarket and parked the Six as far as possible from the Polyplane. When the pa.s.sengers had departed standwards, I got out of the fuggy cabin and into the free air, lay propped on one elbow on the gra.s.s, loosened my tie, opened the neck of my s.h.i.+rt. Scorching hot day, a sigh of wind over the Heath, a couple of small c.u.mulus clouds defying evaporation, blue sky over the blue planet.

A suitable day for camping.

Wrenched my thoughts away from the profitless grind: Nancy despised me, despised herself, had chosen Chanter as a refuge, as a steadfast known quant.i.ty, had run away from the near-stranger who had not seemed what he seemed, and gone to where she knew she was wanted. Blind, instinctive, impulsive flight. Reckless, understandable, forgivable flight...

I could take Chanter, I thought mordantly. I could probably take the thought and memory of Chanter, if only she would settle for me in the end.

It was odd that you had to lose something you didn't even know you had, before you began to want it more than anything on earth.

Down at the other end of the row of aircraft the Polyplane pilot was strolling about, smoking again. One of these fine days he would blow himself up. There was no smile in place that afternoon: even from a hundred yards one could detect the gloom in the heavy frowns he occasionally got rid of in my direction.

Colin had booked with Harley for the week ahead. Poly-planes must have been wondering what else they would have to do to get him back.

They played rough, no doubt of that. Informing on Derry-downs to the Board of Trade, discrediting their pilot, spreading smears that they weren't safe. But would they blow up a Derry-down aircraft? Would they go as far as that?

They would surely have had to be certain they would gain from it, before they risked it. But in fact they hadn't gained. No one had demonstrably been frightened away from using Derrydowns, particularly not Colin Ross. If the bomb had been meant to look like an attack on Colin's life, why should Colin think he would be any safer in a Polyplane?

If they had blown up the aircraft with pa.s.sengers aboard, that would have ruined Derrydowns. But even if they had been prepared to go that far, they wouldn't have chosen a flight with Colin Ross on it.

And why Major Tyderman, when their own pilots could get near the Derrydown's aircraft without much comment? That was easier... they needed a bomb expert. Someone completely unsuspectable. Someone even their pilots didn't know. Because if the boss of Polyplanes had taken the dark step into crime, he wouldn't want chatty employees like pilots spilling it into every aviation bar from Prestwick to Lydd.

The second aeroplane, though, that Tyderman had sabotaged, hadn't been one of the Derrydowns at all. On the other hand, he had thought it was. I stood up, stretched, watched the straining horses scud through the first race, saw in the distance a girl with dark hair and a blue dress and thought for one surging moment it was Nancy. It wasn't Nancy. It wasn't even Midge. Nancy was in Warwicks.h.i.+re, living in a tent.

I thrust my balled fists into my pockets. Not the slightest use thinking about it. Concentrate on something else. Start from the bottom again, as before. Look at everything the wrong way up.

No easy revelation this time. Just the merest flicker of speculation.

Harley...?

He had recovered ill-invested capital on the first occasion. He had known Colin would not rely often on his sister's skill after the second. But would Harley go so far...? And Harley had known I wasn't flying Colin, though Tyderman had thought I was.

Rats on treadwheels, I thought, go round and round in small circles and get nowhere, just like me.

I sighed. It wasn't much use trying to work it all out when I obviously lacked about fifty pieces of vital information. Decision: did I or did I not start actively looking for some of the pieces? If I didn't, a successor to Major Tyderman might soon be around playing another lot of chemical tricks on aeroplanes, and if I did, I could well be heading myself for yet more trouble.

I tossed a mental coin. Heads you do, tails you don't. In mid-toss I thought of Nancy. All roads led back to Nancy. If I just let everything slide and lay both physically and metaphorically on my back on the gra.s.s in the sun, I'd have nothing to think about except what I hated to think about. Very poor prospect. Almost anything else was better.

Took the plunge, and made a start with Annie Villars.

She was standing in the paddock in a sleeveless dark red dress, her greying short hair curling neatly under a black straw hat chosen more for generals.h.i.+p than femininity. From ten paces the authority was clearly uppermost: from three, one could hear the incongruously gentle voice, see the non-aggression in the consciously curved lips, realise that the velvet glove was being given a quilted lining.

She was talking to the Duke of Wess.e.x. She was saying, 'Then if you agree, Bobbie, we'll ask Kenny Bayst to ride it. This new boy has no judgement of pace, and for all his faults, Kenny does know how to time a race.'

The Duke nodded his distinguished head and smiled at her benevolently. They caught sight of me hovering near them and both turned towards me with friendly expressions, one deceptively, and one authentically vacant.

'Matt,' smiled the Duke. 'My dear chap. Isn't it a splendid day?'

'Beautiful, sir,' I agreed. As long as one could obliterate Warwicks.h.i.+re.

'My nephew Matthew,' he said, 'Do you remember him?'

'Of course I do, sir.'

'Well... it's his brithday soon, and he wants... he was wondering if for a birthday present I would give him a flight in an aeroplane. With you, he said. Especially with you.'

I smiled. 'I'd like to do that very much.'

'Good, good. Then... er... how do you suggest we fix it?'

'I'll arrange it with Mr Harley.'

'Yes. Good. Soon then. He's coming down to stay with me tomorrow as it's the end of term and his mother is off somewhere in Greece. So next week, perhaps?'

I'm sure that will be all right.'

He beamed happily. 'Perhaps I'll come along too.'

Annie Villars said patiently, 'Bobbie, we ought to go and see about saddling your horse.'

He looked at his watch. 'By jove, yes. Amazing where the afternoon goes to. Come along, then.' He gave me another large smile, transferred it intact to Annie, and obediently moved off after her as she started purposefully towards the saddling boxes.

I bought a racecard. The Duke's horse was a two year old maiden called Thundersticks. I watched the Duke and Annie watch Thundersticks walk round the parade ring, one with innocent beaming pride, the other with judicious non-commitment. The pace-lacking boy rode a bad race, even to my unpractised eye: too far out in front over the first furlong, too far out the back over the last. Just as well the Duke's colours were inconspicuous, I thought. He took his disappointment with charming grace, rea.s.suring Annie that the colt would do better next time. Sure to. Early days yet. She smiled at him in soft agreement and bestowed on the jockey a look which would have bored a hole through steel plating.

After they had discussed the sweating colt's performance yard by yard, and patted him and packed him off with his lad towards the stables, the Duke took Annie away to the bar for a drink. After that she had another loser for another owner and another thoughtful detour for refreshment, so that I didn't manage to catch her on her own until between the last two races.

She listened without comment to me explaining that I thought it might be possible to do something positive about solving the Great Bomb Mystery, if she would help.

'I thought it was solved already.'

'Not really. No one knows why.'

'No. Well, I don't see how I can help.'

'Would you mind telling me how well Major Tyderman and Mr Goldenberg know each other, and how they come to have any say in how Rudiments should run in its various races?'

She said mildly, 'It's none of your business.'

I knew what the mildness concealed. 'I know that.'

'And you are impertinent.'

'Yes.'

She regarded me straightly, and the softness gradually faded out of her features to leave taut skin over the cheekbones and a stern set to the mouth.

'I am fond of Midge and Nancy Ross,' she said. 'I don't see how anything I can tell you will help, but I certainly want no harm to come to those two girls. That last escapade was just a shade too dangerous, wasn't it? And if Rupert Tyderman could do that...' She paused, thinking deeply. 'I will be obliged if you will keep anything I may tell you to yourself.'

'I will.'

'Very well I've known Rupert for a very long time. More or less from my childhood. He is about fifteen years older.... When I was a young girl I thought he was a splendid person, and I didn't understand why people hesitated when they talked about him.' She sighed. 'I found out, of course, when I was older. He had been wild, as a youth. A vandal when vandalism wasn't as common as it is now. When he was in his twenties he borrowed money from all his relations and friends for various grand schemes, and never paid them back. His family bought him out of one mess where he had sold a picture entrusted to him for safe keeping and spent the proceeds.... Oh, lots of things like that. Then the war came and he volunteered immediately, and I believe all during the war he did very well. He was in the Royal Engineers, I think... but afterwards, after the war ended, he was quietly allowed to resign his commission for cas.h.i.+ng dud cheques with his fellow officers.'

She shook her head impatiently. 'He has always been a fool to himself.... Since the war he has lived on some money his grandfather left in trust, and on what he could cadge from any friends he had left.'