I thanked him for the prescription and put it in my pocket.
‘Ty... are the pills for Elizabeth, or for you?’
I looked at him, startled. ‘Why?’
‘My dear fellow, I have eyes. What I see in your face is... severe.’
I smiled wryly. ‘All right. I was going to ask you. Could you put a bit of strapping on a couple of ribs?’
He stuck me up firmly and handed me a small medicine glass containing, he said, disprins dissolved in nepenthe, which worked like a vanishing trick: now you feel it, now you don’t.
‘You haven’t told Elizabeth?’ he said anxiously.
‘Only that I fell and winded myself.’
He relaxed, moving his head in a gesture of approval. ‘Good.’
It had been his idea to shield her from worries which ordinary women could cope with in their stride. I had thought him unduly fussy at first, but the strict screening he had urged had worked wonders. She had become far less nervous, much happier, and had even put on some badly needed weight.
‘And the police? Have you told the police?’
I shook my head and explained about Luke-John.
‘Difficult. Um. Suppose you tell this Luke-John simply that those men threatened you? You’ll not be taking your shirt off in the office.’ He smiled in the way that made Elizabeth’s eyes shine. ‘These two men, they will not go about saying they inflicted so much damage.’
‘They might.’ I frowned, considering. ‘It could be a good idea if I turned up in perfect health at the races today and gave them the lie.’
With an assenting gesture he mixed me a small bottle full of the disprin and nepenthe. ‘Don’t eat much,’ he said, handing it over. ‘And only drink coffee.’
‘O.K.’
‘And do nothing that would get you another beating like this.’
I was silent.
He looked at me with sad understanding. ‘That is too much to give up for Elizabeth?’
‘I can’t just... crawl away,’ I protested. ‘Even for Elizabeth.’
He shook his head. ‘It would be best for her. But...’ He shrugged, and held out his hand in goodbye. ‘Stay out of trains, then.’
I stayed out of trains. For ninety-four minutes. Then I caught the race train to Plumpton and travelled down safely with two harmless strangers and a man I knew slightly from the B.B.C.
Thanks to Tonio’s mixture I walked about all day and talked and laughed much the same as usual. Once I coughed. Even that caused only an echo of a stab. For maximum effect I spent a good deal of my time walking about the bookmakers’ stalls, inspecting both their prices and their clerks. The fraternity knew something had happened. Their heads swivelled as I passed and they were talking behind my back, nudging each other. When I put ten shillings on a semi-outsider with one of them he said, ‘You feeling all right, chum?’
‘Why not?’ I said in surprise. ‘It’s a nice enough day.’
He looked perplexed for a second, and then shrugged. I walked on, looking at faces, searching for a familiar one. The trouble was I’d paid the four clerks in the compartment so little attention that I wasn’t sure I’d recognise any one of them again, and I wouldn’t have done, if he hadn’t given himself away. When he saw me looking at him, he jerked, stepped down off his stand, and bolted.
Running was outside my repertoire. I walked quietly up behind him an hour later when he had judged it safe to go back to his job.
‘A word in your ear,’ I said at his elbow.
He jumped six inches. ‘It was nothing to do with me.’
‘I know that. Just tell me who the two men were. Those two in overalls.’
‘Do me a favour. Do I want to end up in hospital?’
‘Twenty quid?’ I suggested.
‘I dunno about that... How come you’re here today?’
‘Why not?’
‘When those two’ve seen to someone... they stay seen to.’
‘Is that so? They seemed pretty harmless.’
‘No, straight up,’ he said curiously, ‘didn’t they touch you?’
‘No.’
He was puzzled.
‘A pony. Twenty-five quid,’ I said. ‘For their names, or who they work for.’
He hesitated. ‘Not here, mate. On the train.’
‘Not on the train.’ I was positive. ‘In the Press Box. And now.’
He got five minutes off from his grumbling employer and went in front of me up the stairs to the eyrie allotted to newspapers. I gave a shove-off sign to the only press man up there, and he obligingly disappeared.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Who were they?’
‘They’re Brummies,’ he said cautiously.
‘I know that. You could cut their accents.’
‘Bruisers,’ he ventured.
I stopped myself just in time from telling him I knew that too.
‘They’re Charlie Boston’s boys.’ It came out in a nervous rush.
‘That’s better. Who’s Charlie Boston?’
‘So who hasn’t heard of Charlie Boston? Got some betting shops, hasn’t he, in Birmingham and Wolverhampton and such like.’
‘And some boys on race trains?’
He looked more puzzled than ever. ‘Don’t you owe Charlie no money? So what did they want, then? It’s usually bad debts they’re after.’
‘I’ve never heard of Charlie Boston before, let alone had a bet with him.’ I took out my wallet and gave him five fivers. He took them with a practised flick and stowed them away in a pocket like Fort Knox under his left armpit. ‘Dirty thieves,’ he explained. ‘Taking precautions, aren’t I?’
He scuttled off down the stairs, and I stayed up in the press box and took another swig at my useful little bottle, reflecting that when Charlie Boston unleashed his boys on me he had been very foolish indeed.
Luke-John reacted predictably with a bridling ‘They can’t do that to the Blaze’ attitude.
Wednesday morning. Not much doing in the office. Derry with his feet up on the blotter, Luke-John elbow deep in the Dailies’ sports pages, the telephone silent, and every desk in the place exhibiting the same feverish inactivity.
Into this calm I dropped the pebble of news that two men, adopting a threatening attitude, had told me not to interfere in the non-starters racket. Luke-John sat up erect like a belligerent bull frog, quivering with satisfaction that the article had produced tangible results. With a claw hand he pounced on the telephone.
‘Manchester office? Give me the Sports Desk... That you, Andy? Luke Morton. What can you tell me about a bookmaker called Charlie Boston? Has a string of betting shops around Birmingham.’
He listened to a lengthy reply with growing intensity.
‘That adds up. Yes. Yes. Fine. Ask around and let me know.’
He put down the receiver and rubbed his larynx. ‘Charlie Boston changed his spots about a year ago. Before that he was apparently an ordinary Birmingham bookmaker with about six shops and a reasonable reputation. Now, Andy says he’s expanded a lot and become a bully. He says he’s been hearing too much about Charlie Boston lately. Seems he hires two ex-boxers to collect unpaid debts from his credit customers, and as a result of all this he’s coining it.’
I thought it over. Charlie Boston of Birmingham with his betting shops and bruisers didn’t gel at all with the description Dembley had given me of a quiet gentleman in a Rolls with a chauffeur and a Greek, Dutch or Scandinavian accent. They even seemed an unlikely pair as shoulder to shoulder partners. There might of course be two separate rackets going on, and if so, what happened if they clashed? And by which of them had Bert Checkov been seduced? But if they were all one outfit, I’d settle for the Rolls gent as the brains and Charlie Boston the muscles. Setting his dogs on me had been classic muscle-bound thinking.