‘I don’t know...’ I sighed. ‘I just thought they might possibly have some connection with my being abducted.’
He looked at me with compassion. ‘My dear Ro, why don’t you leave it all to the police?’
‘I’m not hindering them.’ I picked up the armful of files and smiled. ‘I don’t think I’m high on their urgency list, though. I wasn’t robbed, ransomed, or held hostage, and a spot of unlawful imprisonment on its own probably ranks lower than parking on double yellow lines.’
‘But,’ he said doubtfully, ‘don’t you think they will ever discover who, or why?’
‘It depends on where they look, I should think.’ I shrugged a shoulder, walked to the door, and stopped to look back. He was standing by Bess’s desk, clearly troubled. ‘Trevor,’ I said, ‘I don’t mind one way or the other whether the police come up with answers. I don’t madly want public revenge, and I’ve had my fill of court-case publicity, as a witness. I certainly don’t relish it as a victim. But for my own peace of mind, I would like to know. If I find out, I won’t necessarily act on the knowledge. The police would have to. So there’s the difference. It might be better — you never know — if it’s I who did the digging, not the police.’
He shook his head, perturbed and unconvinced.
‘See you Monday,’ I said.
14
Jossie met me on the doorstep, fizzing with life.
‘Dad says please come in for a drink.’ She held the door open for me and looked uncertainly at my face. ‘Are you all right? I mean... I suppose I didn’t realise...’
I kissed her mouth. Soft and sweet. It made me hungry.
‘A drink would be fine,’ I said.
William Finch was already pouring Scotch as we walked into his office-sitting-room. He greeted me with a smile and held out the glass.
‘You look as if you could do with it,’ he said. ‘You’ve been having a rough time, by all accounts.’
‘I’ve a fellow feeling for footballs.’ I took the glass, lifted it in a token toast, and sipped the pale fine spirit.
Jossie said, ‘Kicked around?’
I nodded, smiling. ‘Somebody,’ I said, ‘is playing a strategic game.’
Finch looked at me curiously. ‘Do you know who?’
‘Not exactly. Not yet.’
Jossie stood beside her father, pouring grapefruit juice out of a small bottle. One could see heredity clearly at work: they both had the same tall, well-proportioned frame, the same high carriage of head on long neck, the same air of bending the world to their ways, instead of being themselves bent. He looked at her fondly, a hint of civilised amusement in his fatherly pride. Even her habitual mockery, it seemed, stemmed from him.
He turned his greying head to me again, and said he expected the police would sort out all the troubles, in time.
‘I expect so,’ I said neutrally.
‘And I hope the villains get shut up in small spaces for years and years,’ Jossie said.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘they may.’
Finch buried his nose in a large gin and tonic and surfaced with a return to the subject which interested him most. Kidnappings came a poor second to racing.
‘My next ride?’ I echoed. ‘Tomorrow, as a matter of fact. Tapestry runs in the Oasthouse Cup.’
His astonishment scarcely boosted my non-existent confidence. ‘Good heavens,’ he said. ‘I mean, to be frank, Ro, is it wise?’
‘Totally not.’
‘Then why?’
‘I have awful difficulty in saying no.’
Jossie laughed. ‘Spineless,’ she said.
The door opened and a dark-haired woman came in, walking beautifully in a long black dress. She seemed to move in a glow of her own; and the joy died out of Jossie like an extinguished fire.
Finch went towards the newcomer with a welcoming smile, took her elbow proprietorially, and steered her in my direction. ‘Lida, my dear, this is Roland Britten. Ro, Lida Swann.’
A tapeworm with hooks, Jossie had said. The tapeworm had a broad expanse of unlined forehead, dark blue eyes, and raven hair combed smoothly back. As we shook hands, she pressed my fingers warmly. Her heavy sweet scent broadcast the same message as full breasts, tiny waist, narrow hips, and challenging smile: the sexual woman in full bloom. Diametrically opposite, I reflected, to my own preference for astringency and humour. Jossie watched our polite social exchanges with a scowl, and I wanted to walk over and hug her.
Why not, I thought. I disengaged myself from the sultry aura of Lida, took the necessary steps, and slid my arm firmly round Jossie’s waist.
‘We’ll be off, then,’ I said. ‘To feed the starving.’
Jossie’s scowl persisted across the hall, into the car, and five miles down the road.
‘I hate her,’ she said. ‘That sexy throaty voice... it’s all put on.’
‘It’s gin,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Too much gin alters the vocal chords.’
‘You’re having me on.’
‘I think I love you,’ I said.
‘That’s a damn silly thing to say.’
‘Why?’
‘You can’t love someone just because she hates her father’s girlfriend.’
‘A better reason than many.’
She turned her big eyes searchingly my way. I kept my own looking straight ahead, dealing with night on the country road.
‘Strong men fall for her like ninepins,’ she said.
‘But I’m weak.’
‘Spineless.’ She cheered up a good deal, and finally managed a smile. ‘Do you want me to come to Kempton tomorrow and cheer you on?’
‘Come and give Moira Longerman a double brandy when I fall off.’
Over dinner she said with some seriousness, ‘I suppose it’s occurred to you that the last twice you’ve raced, you’ve been whipped off into black holes straight after?’
‘It has,’ I said.
‘So are you — uh — at all scared, about tomorrow?’
‘I’d be surprised if it happened again.’
‘Surprise wouldn’t help you much.’
‘True.’
‘You’re absolutely infuriating,’ she said explosively. ‘If you know why you were abducted, why not tell me?’
‘I might be wrong, and I want to ask some questions first.’
‘What questions?’
‘What are you doing on Sunday?’
‘That’s not a question.’
‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘Would you care for a day on the Isle of Wight?’
With guilty misgivings about riding Tapestry I did my best to eat, and later, after leaving Jossie on her doorstep, to go home and sleep. As my system seemed to be stubbornly resisting my intention that it should return to normal, both enterprises met with only partial success. The Saturday morning face in the shaving mirror would have inspired faith in no one, not even Moira herself.
‘You’re a bloody fool,’ I said aloud, and my reflection agreed.
Coffee, boiled egg and toast to the good, I went down into the town to seek out owners of destitute warehouses. The estate agents, busy with hand-holding couples, told me impatiently that they had already given the information to the police.
‘Give it to me, too, then,’ I said. ‘It’s hardly a secret, is it?’
The bearded pale-faced man I’d asked looked harried and went off to consult. He came back with a slip of paper which he handed over as if contact with it had sullied his soul.
‘We have ceased to act for these people,’ he said earnestly. ‘Our board should no longer be affixed to the wall.’
I’d never known anyone actually say the word ‘affixed’ before. It wasn’t all he could say, either. ‘We wish to be considered as disassociated from the whole situation.’
I read the words written on the paper. ‘I’m sure you do,’ I said. ‘Could you tell me when you last heard from these people? And has anyone been enquiring recently about hiring or using the warehouse?’