conclusions.
Malcolm kept his word and, to my relief, came without Ramsey who had decided Stamford needed him if Connecticut were to survive. Ramsey, Malcolm said, would be over on Wednesday, we would all have three days at the races and go to Australia on Saturday night. He was crackling with energy, the eyes intensely blue. He and Ramsey had bought four more horses in partnership, he said in the first three minutes, and were joining a syndicate to own some others down under.
A forest fire out of control, I thought, and had sympathy for my poor brothers.
The Beverly Wilshire gave us a suite with brilliant red flocked wallpaper in the sitting-room and vivid pink and orange flowers on a turquoise background in the bedrooms. There were ornate crimson curtains, filmy cream inner curtains, a suspicion of lace, an air of Edwardian roguishness brought up to date. Rooms to laugh in, I thought. And with little wrought-iron balconies outside the bowed windows looking down on a pool with a fountain and gardens and orange trees, not much to complain of.
We dined downstairs in a bar that had tables at one end and music, and Malcolm said I looked thinner.
'Tell me about the horses,' I said; and heard about them through the smoked salmon, the salad, the veal and the coffee.
'Don't worry,' he said, near the beginning. 'They're not all as expensive as Blue Clancy and Chrysos. We got all four for under a million dollars, total, and they're two-year-olds ready to run. Good breeding; the best. One's by Alydar, even.'
I listened, amused and impressed. He knew the breeding of all his purchases back three generations, and phrases like 'won a stakes race' and 'his dam's already produced Group I winners' came off his tongue as if he'd been saying them all his life.
'Do you mind if I ask you something?' I said eventually.
'I won't know until you ask.'
'No… um… just how rich ARE you?'
He laughed. 'Did Joyce put you up to that question?'
'No. I wanted to know for myself.'
'Hm.' He thought. 'I can't tell you to the nearest million. It changes every day. At a rough estimate, about a hundred million pounds. It would grow now of its own accord at the rate of five million a year if I never lifted a finger again, but you know me, that would be boring, I'd be dead in a month.'
'After tax?' I said.
'Sure.' He smiled. 'Capital gains tax usually. I've spent a year's investment income after tax on the horses, that's all. Not as much as that on all those other projects that the family were going bananas about. I'm not raving mad. There'll be plenty for everyone when I pop off. More than there is now. I just have to live longer. You tell them that.'
'I told them you'd said in your will that if you were murdered, it would all go to charity.'
'Why didn't I think of that?'
'Did you think any more of letting the family have some of the lucre before you… er… pop off?'
'You know my views on that.'
'Yes, I do.'
'And you don't approve.'
'I don't disapprove in theory. The trust funds were generous when they were set up. Many fathers don't do as much. But your children aren't perfect and some of them have got into messes. If someone were bleeding, would you buy them a bandage?'
He sat back in his chair and stared moodily at his coffee. 'Have they sent you here to plead for them?' he asked.
'No. I'll tell you what's been happening, then you can do what you like.'
'Fair enough,' he said, 'but not tonight.'
'All right.' I paused. 'I won a race at Kempton, did you know?'
'Did you really?' He was instantly alive with interest, asking for every detail. He didn't want to hear about his squabbling family with its latent murderer. He was tired of being vilified while at the same time badgered to be bountiful. He felt safe in California although he had, I'd been interested to discover, signed us into the hotel as Watson and Watson.
'Well, you never know, do you?' he'd said. 'It may say in the British papers that Blue Clancy's coming over and Ramsey says this hotel is the centre for the Breeders' Cup organisers. They're having reception rooms here, and buffets. By Wednesday, he says, this place will be teeming with the international racing crowd. So where, if someone wanted to find me, do you think they'd look first?'
'I think Norman West gave us good advice.'
'So do I.'
The Watsons, father and son, breakfasted the following morning out in the warm air by the pool, sitting in white chairs beside a white table under a yellow sun umbrella, watching the oranges ripen amid dark green leaves, talking of horrors.
I asked him casually enough if he remembered Fred and the tree roots.
'Of course I do,' he said at once. 'Bloody fool could have killed himself.' He frowned. 'What's that got to do with the bomb at Quantum?' 'Superintendent Yale thinks it may have given someone the idea.'
He considered it. 'I suppose it might.'
'The superintendent, or some of his men, asked old Fred what he'd used to set off the cordite…' I told Malcolm about the cordite still lying around in the tool shed – 'and Fred said he had some detonators, but after that first bang, you came out and took them away.'
'Good Lord, I'd forgotten that. Yes, so I did. You were all there, weren't you? Pretty well the whole family?'
'Yes, it was one of those weekends. Helen says it was the first time she met you, she was there too, before she was married to Donald.'
He thought back. 'I don't remember that. I just remember there being a lot of you.'
'The superintendent wonders if you remember what happened to the detonators after you'd taken them away.'
He stared. 'It's twenty years ago, must be,' he protested.
'It might be the sort of thing you wouldn't forget.'
He shook his head doubtfully.
'Did you turn them over to the police?'
'No.' He was definite about that, anyway. 'Old Fred had no business to have them, but I wouldn't have got him into trouble, or the friend he got them from, either. I'll bet they were nicked.'
'Do you remember what they looked like?' I asked.
'Well, yes, I suppose so.' He frowned, thinking, pouring out more coffee. 'There was a row of them in a tin, laid out carefully in cotton wool so that they shouldn't roll about. Small silverish tubes, about two and a half inches long.'
'Fred says they had instructions with them.'
He laughed. 'Did he? A do-it-yourself bomb kit?' He sobered suddenly. 'I suppose it was just that. I don't remember the instructions, but I dare say they were there.'
'You did realise they were dangerous, didn't you?'
'I probably did, but all those years ago ordinary people didn't know so much about bombs. I mean, not terrorist bombs. We'd been bombed from the air, but that was different. I should think I took the detonators away from Fred so he shouldn't set off any more explosions, not because they were dangerous in themselves, if you see what I mean?'
'Mm. But you did know you shouldn't drop them?'
'You mean if I'd dropped them, I wouldn't be here talking about it?'
'According to the explosives expert working at Quantum, quite likely not.'
'I never worked with explosives, being an adjutant.' He buttered a piece of croissant, added marmalade and ate it. His service as a young officer in his war had been spent in arranging details of troop movements and as assistant to camp commanders, often near enough to the enemy but not seeing the whites of their eyes. He never
