Straight. Part 17

'Cor,' Bred said, looking at the haul, and the foreman too, returning with the paperwork, was brought to an understanding of the need for the defences I shut the boot and locked it again, which seemed a very Greville-like thing to do, and took a quick look round inside the body of the car, seeing the-sort of minor clutter which defies the tidiest habit: matchbooks, time-clock parking slips, blue sungla.s.ses, and a cellophane packet of tissues In the door pocket on the driver's side, jammed in untidily, a map.

I picked it out. It was a road map of East Anglia, the route from London to Ipswich drawn heavily in black with, written,Jown one side, the numbers of the roads to be followed. The marked route, I saw with interest, didn't stop at Ipswich but went on beyond, to Harwich.

Harwich, on the North Sea, was a ferry port. Harwich to the Hook of Holland; the route of one of the historic crossings like Dover to Calais Folkestone to Ostend. I didn't know if the Harwich ferries still ran, and I thought that if Greville had been going to Holland he would certainly have gone by air. All the same he had, presumably, been going to Harwich.

I said abruptly to the foreman, who was showing impatience for our departure, 'Is there a travel agent near here?'

'Three doors along,' he said, pointing, 'and you can't park here while you go there.'

I gave him a tip big enough to change his mind, and left Brad keeping watch over the cars while I peg-legged along the street. Right on schedule the travel agents came up, and I went in to enquire about ferries for the Hook of Holland.

'Sure,' said an obliging girl. 'They run every day and every night. Sealink operate them. When do you want to go?'

'I don't know, exactly.'

She thought me feeble. 'Well, the St Nicholas goes over to Holland every morning, and the Koningin Beatrix every night.'

I must have looked as stunned as I felt. I closed my open mouth.

'What's the master?' she said.

'Nothing at all. Thank you very much.'

She shrugged as if the lunacies of the travelling public were past comprehension, and I shunted back to the garage with my chunk of new knowledge which had solved one little conundrum but posed another, such as what was Greville doing with Queen Beatrix, not a horse but a boat.

Brad drove the Rover to London and I drove my own car, the pace throughout enough to make a snail weep.

Whatever the Ipswich garage had done to Greville's plugs hadn't cured any trouble, the V.8 running more like a V.4 or even a V.1~/2 as far as I could see. Brad stopped fairly soon after we'd left the town and, cursing, cleaned the plugs again himself, but to no avail.

'Needs new ones,' he said.

I used the time to search thoroughly through the golf bag, the box of golf b.a.l.l.s, the overnight bag and all the gadgets.

No diamonds.

We set off again, the Rover going precariously slowly in very low gear up hills, with me staying on its tail in case it petered out altogether. I didn't much mind the slow progress except that resting my left foot on the floor sent frequent jabs up my leg and eventually reawoke the overall ache in the ankle, but in comparison with the ride home from Ipswich five days earlier it was chickenfeed. I still mended fast, I thought gratefully.

By TUesday at the latest I'd be walking. Well, limping, maybe, like Greville's car.

There was no joy in reflecting, as I did, that if the sparking plugs had been efficient he wouldn't have stopped to have them fixed and he wouldn't have been walking along a street in Ipswich at the wrong moment.

If one could foresee the future, accidents wouldn't happen. 'If only' were wretched words.

We reached Greville's road eventually and found two s.p.a.ces to park, though not outside the house. I'd told Brad in the morning that I would sleep in London that night to be handy for going to York with the Ostermeyers the next day. I'd planned originally that if we found the Rover he would take it on the orbital route direct to Hungerford and I would drive into London and go on home from there after I got back from York. The plugs having changed that plan near Ipswich, it was now Brad who would go to Hungerford in my car, and I would finish the journey by train. Greville's car, ruin that it was, could decorate the street.

We transferred all the gear from Greville's boot into the back of my car, or rather Brad did the transferring while I mostly watched. Then, Brad carrying the big brown envelope from the Rover and my own overnight grip, we went up the path to the house in the dark and set off the lights and the barking. No one in the houses around paid any attention. I undid the three locks and went in cautiously but, as before, once I'd switched the dog off the house was quiet and deserted. Brad, declining food and drink, went home to his mum, and I, sitting in Greville's chair, opened the big brown envelope and read all about Vaccaro who had been a very bad boy indeed.

Most of the envelope's contents were a copy of Vaccaro's detailed application, but on an attached sheet in abbreviated prose Greville had hand-written: Rambn Vaccaro, wanted for drug-running, Florida, USA.

Suspected of several murders, victims mostly pilots, wanting out from flying drug crates. Vaccaro leaves no mouths alive to chatter. My info from scared-to-death pilot's widow. She won't come to the committee meeting but gave enough insider details for me to believe her.

Vaccaro seduced private pilots with a big payoff'

then when they'd done one run to Colombia and got away with it, they'd be hooked and do it again and again until they finally got rich enough to have cold feet. Then the poor sods would die from being shot on their own doorsteps from pa.s.sing cars, no sounds because of silencers, no witnesses and no clues. But all were pilots owning their own small planes, too many for coincidence.

Widow says her husband scared stiff but left it too late. She's remarried, lives in London, always wanted revenge, couldn't believe it was the same man when she saw local newspaper snippet, Vaccaro's Family Gaming, with his photo. Family! She went to Town Hall anonymously, they put her on to me.

We don't have to find Vaccaro guilty. We just don't give him a gaming licence. Widow says not to let him know who turned his application down, - he's dangerous and vengeful, but how can he silence a whole committee? The Florida police might like to know his whereabouts Extradition?

I telephoned Elliot Trelawney at his weekend home, told him I'd found the red-hot notes and read them to him, which brought forth a whistle and a groan.

'But Vaccaro didn't kill Greville,' I said.

'No.' He sighed. 'How did the funeral go?'

'Fine. Thank you for your flowers.'

'Just sorry I couldn't get there - but on a working day, and so far . . .'

'It was fine,' I said again, and it had been. I'd been relieved, on the whole, to be alone.

'Would you mind,' he said, diffidently, 'if I arranged a memorial service for him? Sometime soon. Within a month?'

'Go right ahead,' I said warmly. 'A great idea.'

He hoped I would send the Vaccaro notes by messenger on Monday to the Magistrates Court, and he asked if I played golf.

In the morning, after a dream-filled night in Greville's black and white bed, I took a taxi to the Ostermeyers'

hotel, meeting them in the foyer as arranged on the telephone the evening before.

They were in very good form, Martha resplendent in a red wool tailored dress with a mink jacket, Harley with a new English-looking hat over his easy grin, binoculars and racing paper ready. Both of them seemed determined to enjoy whatever the day brought forth and Harley's occasional ill-humour was far out of sight.

The driver, a different one from Wednesday, brought a huge super-comfortable Daimler to the front door exactly on time, and with all auspices pointing to felicity, the Ostermeyers arranged themselves on the rear seaT, I sitting in front of them beside the chauffeur.

The chauffeur, who announced his name as Simms.

kindly stowed my crutches in the boot and said it was no trouble at all, sir, when I thanked him. The crutches themselves seemed to be the only tiny cloud on Martha's horizon, bringing a brief frown to the proceedings.

'Is that foot still bothering you? Milo said it was nothing to worry about.'

'No, it isn't, and it's much beTter,' I said truthfully.

'Oh, good. Just as long as it doesn't stop you riding Datepalm.'

'Of course not,' I a.s.sured her.

'We're so pleased to have him. He's just darling.'

I made some nice noises about Datepalm, which wasn't very difficult, as we nosed through the traffic to go north on the M1.

Harley said, 'Milo says Datepalm might go for the Charisma 'Chase at Kempton next Sat.u.r.day. What do you think?'

'A good race for him,' I said calmly. I would kill Milo, I thought. A dicey gallop was one thing, but no medic on earth was going to sign my card in one week to say I was fit; and I wouldn't be, because half a ton of horse over jumps at thirty-plus miles an hour was no puffball matter.

'Milo might prefer to save him for the Mackeson at Cheltenham next month,' I said judiciously, sowing the idea. 'Or of course for the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup two weeks later.' I'd definitely be fit for the Hennessy, six weeks ahead. The Mackeson, at four weeks, was a toss-up.

'Then there's that big race the day after Christmas,'

Martha sighed happily. 'It's all so exciting. Harley promises we can come back to see him run.'

They talked about horses for another half hour and then asked if I knew anything about a d.i.c.k TUrpin.

'Oh, sure.'

'Some guy said he was riding to York. I didn't understand any part of it.'

I laughed. 'It happened a couple of centuries ago.

d.i.c.k Turpin was a highwayman, a real villain, who rode his mare Black Bess north to escape the law. They caught him in York and flung him in gaol and for a fortnight he held a sort of riotous court in his cell, making jokes and drinking with all the notables of the city who came to see the famous thief in his chains. Then they took him out and hanged him on a piece of land called the Knavesmire, which is now the racecourse.'

'Oh, my,' Martha said, ghoulishly diverted. 'How perfectly grisly.'

In time we left the M1 and travelled north-east to the difficult old A1, and I thought that no one in their senses would drive from London to York when they could go by train. The Ostermeyers, of course, weren't doing the driving.

Harley said as we neared the city, 'You're expected at lunch with us, Derek.'

Expected, in Ostermeyer speech, meant invited. I protested mildly that it wasn't so.

'It sure is. I talked with Lord Knightwood yesterday evening, told him we'd have you with us. He said right away to have you join us for lunch. They're giving their name to one of the races, it'll be a big party.'

'Which race?' I asked with curiosity. Knightwood wasn't a name I knew.

'Here it is.' Harley rustled the racing newspaper. 'The University of York Trophy. Lord Knightwood is the University's top man, president or goveRNor, some kind of figurehead. A Yorks.h.i.+re VIP. Anyway, you're expected'

I thanked him. There wasn't much else to do, though a sponsor's lunch on top of no exercise could give me weight problems if I wasn't careful. However, I could almost hear Milo's agitated voice in my ear: 'Whatever the Ostermeyers want, for Christ's sake give it to them.'

'There's also the York Minster Cup,' Harley said, reading his paper, 'and the Civic Pride Challenge. Your horse Dozen Roses is in the York Castle Champions.'

'My brother's horse,' I said.

Harley chuckled. 'We won't forget.'

Simms dropped us neatly at the Club entrance. One could get addicted to chauffeurs, I thought, accepting the crutches gravely offered. No parking problems.

Someone to drive one home on crunch days. But no spontaneity, no real privacy... No thanks, not even long-term Brad.

Back the first horse you see, they say. Or the first jockey. Or the first trainer.

The first trainer we saw was Nicholas Loder. He looked truly furious and, I thought in surprise, alarmed when I came face to face with him after he'd watched our emergence from the Daimler.

'What are you doing here?' he demanded brusquely.

'You've no business here.'

'Do you know Mr and Mrs Ostermeyer?' I asked politely, introducing them. 'They've just bought Datepalm.

I'm their guest today.'

He glared; there wasn't any other word for it. He had been waiting for a man, perhaps one of his owners, to collect a Club badge from the allotted window and, the transaction achieved, the two of them marched off into the racecourse without another word.

'well!' Martha said, outraged. 'If Milo ever behaved like that we'd whisk our horses out of his yard before he could say goodbye.'

'It isn't my horse,' I pointed out. 'Not yet.'

'When it is, what will you do?'

'The same as you, I think, though I didn't mean to.'

'Good,' Martha said emphatically.

I didn't really understand Loder's att.i.tude or reaction.

If he wanted a favour from me, which was that I'd let him sell Dozen Roses and Gemstones to others of his owners either for the commission or to keep them in his yard, he should at least have shown an echo of Milo's feelings for the Ostermeyers.

If Dozen Roses had been cleared by the authorities to run, why was Loder scared that I was there to watch it?

Crazy, I thought. The only thing I'd wholly learned was that Loder's ability to dissimulate was underdeveloped for a leading trainer.

Harley Ostermeyer said the York University's lunch was to be held at one end of the Club members' dining room in the grandstand, so I showed the way there, reflecting that it was lucky I'd decided on a decent suit for that day, not just a sweater. I might have been a lastminute addition to the party but I was happy not to look it.

There was already a small crowd of people, gla.s.ses in hand, chatting away inside a temporary white-latticefenced area, a long buffet set out behind them with tables and chairs to sit at for eating.

'There are the Knightwoods,' said the Ostermeyers, clucking contentedly, and I found myself being introduced presently to a tall white-haired kindly-looking man who had benevolence s.h.i.+ning from every perhaps seventy-year-old wrinkle. He shook my hand amicably as a friend of the Ostermeyers with whom, it seemed, he had dined on a reciprocal visit to Harley's alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. Harley was endowing a Chair there. Harley was a VIP in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I made the right faces and listened to the way the world went round, and said I thought it was great of the city of York to support its industry on the turf.

'Have you met my wife?' Lord Knightwood said vaguely. 'My dear,' he touched the arm of a woman with her back to us, 'you remember Harley and Martha Ostermeyer? And this is their friend Derek Franklin that I told you about.'

She turned to the Ostermeyers smiling and greeting them readily, and she held out a hand for me to shake, saying, 'How do you do. So glad you could come.'

'How do you do, Lady Knightwood,' I said politely.

She gave me a very small smile, in command of herself.