‘There isn’t much in there,’ I said.
‘Money?’
‘Yes, money.’
How much was not much? Less than a thousand, I said.
The safe stood in the corner behind my desk, its fireproof metal casing camouflaged inside a polished wooden cabinet. The unharmed cabinet doors opened easily but the combination lock inside had been chopped about with the same heavy cutting edge as everything else. The lock had withstood the assault, but its mechanism proved to be jammed.
‘Nothing’s been stolen,’ I said. ‘The safe won’t open.’
The fax machine on top of the safe’s cabinet would send no more messages. The copier on the table alongside had copied its last. A simple blow to each had ended their lives.
My own anger, not blazing, immediate and tearful like Lizzie’s, but a slow inner burn of fury, increased sharply at the spiteful splitting of two machines I — and the insurance — could easily replace. The cruelty got to me. Whoever had done all this, whoever had thrown me into the water, had meant me to suffer, had meant me to feel as I felt. I would give no one the extra pleasure, I resolved, of hearing me scream and moan. I would find out who and why, and even the score.
The police asked about my trip to Southampton but I could tell them very little: I’d been dropped into water, I’d swum, I’d climbed out, I’d phoned my sister to collect me.
No, I hadn’t seen who hit me.
No, I hadn’t seen a doctor. No need.
In the middle of telling them I didn’t remember anything at all of the journey to Southampton, I began to know that at some point or other I had had my eyes open. I’d seen the moonlight. I’d even spoken. I’d said, ‘Beautiful night for flying.’ Delirious.
‘If this doesn’t give him flu, nothing will...’
They had known, I thought, that I was at least semi-conscious when they tipped me in.
Concussion was unpredictable, as I’d found at other times. Bits of memory could surface long after the impact. One could also appear to be conscious — people would say one had walked and talked — but afterwards one couldn’t remember that. Total recall could happen hours, days or weeks after the event, or sometimes remain blank for ever. I could remember the grass hitting my face one time; I could remember the fence I’d fallen at in the second race of the day and I could remember which horse I’d been riding. I still had no memory of driving to the racecourse that morning, or of the first race which, the record books told me, I had won by seven lengths half an hour before the fall.
I had travelled to Southampton in the boot of an ordinary car. The knowledge drifted in. I didn’t know how I knew, but I was sure.
The police had brought a photographer who took a few flash shots and departed, and a fingerprinter who stayed longer but gave his opinion in one succinct word, ‘Gloves.’
Lizzie mooned round her helicopter, stroking it now and then and muttering ‘Bastards’ under her breath. She said she would have to fly back to Edinburgh on the shuttle, as she had a lecture to give that afternoon. She vowed her partners in the helicopter would strangle whoever had crunched it.
Find him first, I thought.
The morning seemed disjointed. The police wrote a statement which put what they’d found and what I’d told them into police-force language, and I signed it in the kitchen. Sandy made tea. The other policemen, sipping, said ‘Ta.’
‘Ta,’ I said too. Lightheaded, I thought.
One of the policemen said he believed the damage to my property to be a personal vendetta. He suggested I should think about it. He thought I might know who had attacked me. He cautioned me against taking a personal revenge.
‘I don’t know who did it,’ I said truthfully. ‘I would tell you if I did.’
He looked as if he didn’t believe me. ‘Think it over, sir,’ he said.
I stifled a spurt of irritation and thanked him for coming. Lizzie walked into the kitchen saying ‘Bastards’ quite loudly. I wanted to laugh. She took a mug of tea and walked out.
When his colleagues had gone, Sandy said awkwardly, ‘They’re good lads, you know.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘They’ve seen too much,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen too much myself. It’s hard to feel sympathy over and over. We end up not feeling it. See what I mean?’
‘You’re a good lad yourself, Sandy,’ I said.
He looked gratified and gave me his own commendation in return.
‘You’re well-liked in Pixhill,’ he said. ‘I never heard anyone bad-mouth you. I reckon if you’d had enemies this bad, I’d have heard of it.’
‘I’d have thought I’d have heard of it, too.’
‘I reckon this was destruction for its own sake. They enjoyed it.’
I sighed. ‘Yes.’
‘Three times this last week,’ he said, ‘someone’s run a supermarket trolley straight into the side of a car in the car park in Newbury. Smashed the sides of the cars right in, all crumpled and scratched. Not for any reason except just to do damage. People come back to find it and it’s their frustration that’s the worst. The supermarket employs a guard, but no one’s caught the vandal yet. You can’t deal with that sort of vandalism. And if he’s caught red-handed one day, all he’ll get is probation.’
‘He’s probably a teenager.’
Sandy nodded. ‘They’re the worst. But arsonists, remember, are usually a bit older. And it wasn’t no teenager, I’d reckon, that got into this house.’
‘What age, then?’
Sandy pursed his lips. ‘Twenties. Thirties, perhaps. Not much older than forty. After that the driving force weakens. You don’t get sixty-year-olds doing this sort of thing. It’s fraud that sees them in court.’
I pondered a few things and said, ‘You know Jogger’s tools were stolen from his van?’
‘Aye. I heard.’
‘He had an axe in the van.’
Sandy stared. ‘I thought it was mechanic’s tools.’
‘There was a slider, and in a big open red plastic crate he had a hydraulic jack, spanners, tyre levers, jump leads, pliers, wiring, a grease gun, cleaning rags, all sorts of oddments... and an axe, like firemen use, that he’d carried ever since a tree fell across one of the boxes. Before I owned the business, that was.’
Sandy nodded. ‘I remember. In one of those hurricane-like winds.’
‘You might keep an eye out for Jogger’s stuff, in the village.’
‘I’ll put the word around,’ he said earnestly.
‘Say there would be a reward. Nothing fancy, but worthwhile for good information.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘It’ll be Jogger’s inquest at any minute,’ I said.
Sandy looked at his watch in alarm. ‘I’ll have to be going. I’ve not shaved yet, or dressed.’
‘I expect you’ll phone later.’
He promised he would, and drove away. Lizzie yawned into the kitchen and announced that if I needed her she would be upstairs asleep. I would wake her, please, at eleven, and drive her to Heathrow to catch the shuttle. She had just on my bedroom phone told one of her partners of the demise of the Robinson 22. He was speechless, she said. He would inform the insurers when he got his voice back and probably I would be hearing from them, as they were bound to send an inspector. Did I mind leaving my car where it was until after that? No, I supposed I didn’t.
She gave me an absent-minded kiss on the cheek and advised me to go back to bed.
‘I’m going to the farmyard,’ I said. ‘Too much to do.’
‘Then lock the door behind you, there’s a dear.’
I locked the back door and drove to the farmyard, finding Nina there drinking coffee in the canteen with Nigel. They were discussing the journey to fetch Jericho Rich’s daughter’s showjumper from France, Nina seeming oblivious of Nigel’s dark-lashed eyes and sultry mouth. They had heard from Harve all about the night’s alarms and were glad, they said, to find me functioning.