Part 62 (1/2)

'I thought he was off duty.'

'He got a message from you, it seems.'

'Mm. I did send one.'

'What message?' Tremayne asked.

'I don't know,' Sam answered. 'Doone phoned me yesterday to say he'd been to the boatyard and taken away some objects for which he would give me a receipt.'

'What objects?' asked Tremayne.

'He wouldn't say.' Sam looked at me. 'Do you know what they were? You steered him to them, it seems. He sounded quite excited.'

'What was the message?' Mackie asked me.

'Um-' I said. 'I asked him why the floorboards didn't float.'

Tremayne and Mackie appeared mystified but Sam immediately understood and looked thunderstruck.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, how did you think of it?'

'Don't know,' I said. 'It just came.'

'Do explain,' Mackie begged.

I told her what I'd told Erica at Tremayne's dinner, and said it might not lead to anything helpful.

'But it certainly might,' Mackie said.

Sam said to me thoughtfully, 'If you hadn't stopped me, I'd have rolled up the curtain so as to go into the dock in a boat, and all that stuff under the water would have slithered away into the river and no one would have been any the wiser.'

'Fiona's sure John will find out, before Doone does, who set that trap for Harry,' Mackie said.

I shook my head. 'I don't know who it was. Wish I did.'

'Matter of time,' Tremayne said confidently. He looked at his watch. 'Talking of time, second lot.' He stood up. 'Sam, I want a trial of that new horse Roydale against Fringe. You ride Roydale, John's on Fringe.'

'OK,' Sam said easily.

'John,' Tremayne turned to me, 'don't try to beat Sam as if it were a race. This is a fact-finder. I want you to see which has most natural speed. Go as fast as you can but if you feel Fringe falter don't press him, just ease back.'

'Right.'

'Mackie, talk to Dee-Dee or something. I'm not taking you up there to vomit in the Land Rover.'

'Oh, Tremayne, as if I would.'

'Not risking it,' he said gruffly. 'Don't want you bouncing about on those ruts.'

'I'm not an invalid,' she protested, but she might as well have argued with a rock. He determinedly left her behind and drove Sam and me up to the gallops.