Part 12 (1/2)

'Wrenched it,' I said, slipping the arm cuffs on with relief. 'Very boring.'

She smiled, nodded and patted my arm. 'Milo said it was nothing much.'

Milo gave me a gruesome look, handed Datepalm back to his lad, Gerry, and helped the Ostermeyers into the big-wheeled vehicle for the drive home. We b.u.mped down the tracks and I took off the helmet and ran my fingers through my hair, reflecting that although I wouldn't care to ride gallops like that every day of the week, I would do it again for as good an outcome.

We all went into Milo's house for breakfast, a ritual there as in many other racing stables, and over coffee, toast and scrambled eggs Milo and the Ostermeyers planned Datepalm's future programme, including all the top races with of course another crack at the Gold Cup.

'What about the Grand National?' Martha said, her eyes like stars.

'Well, now, we'll have to see,' Milo said, but his dreams too were as visible as searchlights. First thing on our return, he'd telephoned to Datepalm's former owner and got confirmation that she agreed to the sale and was pleased by it, and since then one had almost needed to pull him down from the ceiling with a string like a helium-filled balloon. My own feelings weren't actually much lower. Datepalm really was a horse to build dreams on.

After the food and a dozen repet.i.tions of the horse's virtues, Milo told the Ostermeyers about my inheriting Dozen Roses and about the probate saga, which seemed to fascinate them. Martha sat up straighter and exclaimed, 'Did you say York?'

Milo nodded.

'Do you mean this Sat.u.r.day? Why, Harley and I are going to York races on Sat.u.r.day, aren't we, HarLEy?'

Harley agreed that they were. 'Our dear friends Lord and Lady Knightwood have asked us to lunch.'

Martha said, 'Why don't we give Derek a ride up there to see his horse run? What do you say, Harley?'

'Be glad to have you along,' Harley said to me genuinely. '

Don't give us no for an answer.'

I looked at their kind insistent faces and said lamely, 'I thought of going by train, if I went at all.'

'No, no,' Martha said. 'Come to London by train and we'll go up together. Do say you will.'

Milo was looking at me anxiously: pleasing the Ostermeyers was still an absolute priority. I said I'd be glad to accept their kindness and Martha, mixing gratification with sudden alarm, said she hoped the inheritance wouldn't persuade me to stop riding races.

'No,' I said.

'That's positive enough.' Harley was pleased. 'You're part of the package, fella. You and Datepalm together.'

Brad and I went on to London, and I was very glad to have him drive.

'Office?' he asked, and I said, 'Yes,' and we travelled there in silent harmony.

He'd told me the evening before that Greville's car wasn't parked anywhere near Greville's house: or rather he'd handed me back the piece of paper with the car's number on it and said, 'Couldn't find it.' I thought I'd better get on to the police and other towers-away in Ipswich, and I'd better start learning the company's finances and Greville's as well, and I had two-thirds of the vault still to check and I could feel the suction of the quicksands inexorably.

I took the two baffling little gadgets from Greville's sitting room upstairs to Greville's office and showed them to June.

'That one,' she said immediately, pointing to the thumb-sized tube with the whine, 'is a device to discourage mosquitoes. Mr Franklin said it's the noise of a male mosquito, and it frightens the blood-sucking females away.' She laughed. 'He said every man should have one.'

She picked up the other gadget and frowned at it, pressing the red b.u.t.ton with no results.

'It has an aerial,' I said.

'Oh yes.' She pulled it out to its full extent. 'I think...' She paused. 'He used to have a transmitter which started his car from a distance, so he could warm the engine up in cold weather before he left his house, but the receiver bit got stolen with his Porsche. Then he bought the old Rover, and he said a car-starter wouldn't work on it because it only worked with direct transmission or fuel injection, or something, which the Rover doesn't have.'

'So this is the car-starter?'

'Well... no. This one doesn't do so much. The carstarter had b.u.t.tons that would also switcH on the headlights so that you could see where your car was, if you'd left it in a dark car-park.' She pushed the aerial down again. 'I think this one only switches the lights on, or makes the car whistle, if I remember right. He was awfully pleased with it when he got it, but I haven't seen it for ages. He had so many gadgets, he couldn't take them all in his pockets and I think he'd got a bit tired of carrying them about. He used to leave them in his desk, mostly.'

'You just earned your twenty per cent all over again,'

I said.

'What?'

'Let's just check that the batteries work,' I said.

She opened the battery compartment and discovered it was empty. As if it were routine, she then pulled open a drawer in one of the other tiers of the desk and revealed a large open box containing packet after packet of new batteries in every possible size. She pulled out a packet, opened it and fed the necessary power packs into the slots, and although pressing the red b.u.t.ton still provided no visible results, I was pretty confident wE were in business.

June said suddenly, 'You're going to take this to Ipswich, aren't you? To find his car? Isn't that what you mean?'

I nodded. 'Let's hope it works.'

'Oh, it must.'

'It's quite a big town, and the car could be anywhere.'

'Yes,' she said, 'but it must be somewhere. I'm sure you'll find it.'

'Mm.' I looked at her bright, intelligent face. 'June,' I said slowly, 'don't tell anyone else about this gadget.'

'Why ever not?'

'Because,' I said, 'someone broke into this office looking for something and we don't know if they found it. If they didn't, and it is by any chance in the car, I don't want anyone to realize that the car is still lost.'

I paused. 'I'd much rather you said nothing.'

'Not even to Annette?'

'Not to anyone.'

'But that means you think . . . you think . . .'

'I don't really think anything. It's just for security.'

Security was all right with her. She looked less troubled and agreed to keep quiet about the car-finder; and I hadn't needed to tell her about the mugger who had knocked me down to steal Greville's bag of clothes, which to me, in hindsight, was looking less and less a random hit and more and more a shot at a target.

Someone must have known Greville was dying, I thought. Someone who had organized or executed a mugging. I hadn't the faintest idea who could have done either, but it did seem to me possible that one of Greville's staff might have unwittingly chattered within earshot of receptive ears. Yet what could they have said?

Greville hadn't told any of them he was buying diamonds.

And why hadn't he? Secretive as he was, gems were his business.