She looked up at me in bewilderment.
‘You,’ she said. ‘It’s you. This is you.’
I looked down where her finger pointed. The fish and chip shop had wrapped up her chicken in the
‘Here’s your sherry,’ I said, holding it out to her.
She put down the chicken and took the glass without appearing to notice it.
‘Another Halley,’ she said. ‘It caught my eye. Of course I read it. And it’s your picture, and it even refers to your hand. You are Sid Halley.’
‘That’s right.’ There was no chance of denying it.
‘Good heavens. I’ve known about you for years. Read about you. I saw you on television, often. My father loved watching the racing, we always had it on when he was alive…’ She broke off and then said with increased puzzlement, ‘Why on earth did you say your name was John and that you worked in a shop? Why did you come to see Mr Bolt? I don’t understand.’
‘Drink your sherry, put the chicken in the oven before it freezes and I’ll tell you.’ There was nothing else to do: I didn’t want to risk her brightly passing on the interesting titbit of news to her employer.
Without demur she put the dinner to heat, came to sit on the sofa, opposite to where I apprehensively waited in an arm-chair, and raised her eyebrows in expectation.
‘I don’t work in a shop,’ I admitted. ‘I am employed by a firm called Hunt Radnor Associates.’
Like Brinton, she had heard of the agency. She stiffened her whole body and began to frown. As casually as I could, I told her about Kraye and the Seabury shares; but she was no fool and she went straight to the heart of things.
‘You suspect Mr Bolt too. That’s why you went to see him.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
‘And me? You took me out simply and solely to find out about him?’ Her voice was bitter.
I didn’t answer at once. She waited, and somehow her calmness was more piercing than tears or temper could have been. She asked so little of life.
At last I said, ‘I went to Bolt’s office as much to take out his secretary as to see Bolt himself, yes.’
The peas boiled over, hissing loudly. She stood up slowly. ‘At least that’s honest.’
She went into the tiny kitchen and turned out the gas under the saucepan.
I said, ‘I came to your office this afternoon because I wanted to look at those leaflets Bolt is sending to Seabury shareholders. You told me at once that they hadn’t come from the printers. I didn’t need to accept your invitation to supper after that. But I’m here.’
She stood in the kitchen doorway, holding herself straight with an all too apparent effort.
‘I suppose you lied about that too,’ she said in a quiet rigidly controlled voice, pointing to my arm. ‘Why? Why did you play such a cruel game with me? Surely you could have got your information without that. Why did you make me change my desk round? I suppose you were laughing yourself sick all day Saturday thinking about it.’
I stood up. Her hurt was dreadful.
I said, ‘I went to Kempton races on Saturday.’
She didn’t move.
‘I kept my promise.’
She made a slight gesture of disbelief.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said helplessly.
‘Yes. Good night Mr Halley. Good night.’
I went.
ELEVEN
Radnor held a Seabury conference the next morning, Wednesday, consisting of himself, Dolly, Chico and me: the result, chiefly, of my having the previous afternoon finally wrung grudging permission from Lord Hagbourne to arrange a twenty-four hour guard at Seabury for the coming Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The bulldozing had been accomplished without trouble, and a call to the course that morning had established that the tan was arriving in regular lorry loads and was being spread. Racing, bar any last minute accidents, was now certain. Even the weather was co-operating. The glass was rising; the forecast was dry, cold and sunny.
Dolly proposed a straight patrol system, and Radnor was inclined to agree. Chico and I had other ideas.
‘If anyone intended to sabotage the track,’ Dolly pointed out, ‘they would be frightened off by a patrol. Same thing if they were planning something in the stands themselves.’
Radnor nodded. ‘Safest way of making sure racing takes place. I suppose we’ll need at least four men to do it properly.’
I said, ‘I agree that we need a patrol tonight, tomorrow night and Friday night, just to play safe. But tomorrow, when the course will be more or less deserted… what we need is to pinch them at it, not to frighten them off. There’s no evidence yet that could be used in a court of law. If we could catch them in mid-sabotage, so to speak, we’d be much better off.’
‘That’s right,’ said Chico. ‘Hide and pounce. Much better than scaring them away.’
‘I seem to remember,’ said Dolly with a grin, ‘that the last time you two set a trap the mouse shot the cheese.’
‘Oh God, Dolly, you slay me,’ said Chico, laughing warmly and for once accepting her affection.
Even Radnor laughed. ‘Seriously, though,’ he said. ‘I don’t see how you can. A racecourse is too big. If you are hiding you can only see a small part of it. And surely if you show yourself your presence would act like any other patrol to stop anything plainly suspicious being done? I don’t think it’s possible.’
‘Um,’ I said. ‘But there’s one thing I can still do better than anyone else in this agency.’
‘And what’s that?’ said Chico, ready to argue.
‘Ride a horse.’
‘Oh,’ said Chico. ‘I’ll give you that, chum.’
‘A horse,’ said Radnor thoughtfully. ‘Well, that’s certainly an idea. Nobody’s going to look suspiciously at a horse on a racecourse, I suppose. Mobile, too. Where would you get one?’
‘From Mark Witney. I could borrow his hack. Seabury’s his local course. His stables aren’t many miles away.’
‘But can you still…?’ began Dolly, and broke off. ‘Well, don’t glare at me like that, all of you. I can’t ride with two hands, let alone one.’
‘A man called Gregory Philips had his arm amputated very high up,’ I said, ‘and went on racing in point-to- points for years.’
‘Enough said,’ said Dolly. ‘How about Chico?’
‘He can wear a pair of my jodphurs. Protective colouring. And lean nonchalantly on the rails.’
‘Stick insects,’ said Chico cheerfully.
‘That’s what you want, Sid?’ said Radnor.
I nodded. ‘Look at it from the worst angle: we haven’t anything on Kraye that will stand up. We might not find Smith, the tanker driver, and even if we do, he has everything to lose by talking and nothing to gain. When the race course stables burned down a year ago, we couldn’t prove it wasn’t an accident; an illicit cigarette end. Stable lads do smoke, regardless of bans.
‘The so-called drain which collapsed — we don’t know if it was dug a day, a week, or six weeks before it did its work. That letter William Brinton of Dunstable wrote to his brother, it’s only a copy from memory that we’ve got, no good at all for evidence. All it proves, to our own satisfaction, is that Kraye is capable of anything. We can’t show it to Lord Hagbourne, because I obtained it in confidence, and he still isn’t a hundred per cent convinced that Kraye has done more than buy shares. As I see it, we’ve just got to give the enemy a chance to get on with their campaign.’
‘You think they will, then?’
‘It’s awfully likely, isn’t it? This year there isn’t another Seabury meeting until February. A three months’ gap.
