Hands Down, page 19
‘You’re talkin’ nonsense,’ he said, but a distinct shallowing of his breath and a slight tremor in his right foot indicated that I had hit the bullseye.
‘Am I? Well in that case I’m sure you won’t mind if I ask Betfair to check their records for certain races.’
‘Which races?’ He was, at last, getting a bit flustered.
‘Two at Catterick last Tuesday for a start. Plantagenet King and Night Shadow. Both started favourite and both failed to win. Did you lay them both to lose, Anton? The betting exchange records will show it conclusively.’
He went on staring at me for quite a long time, maybe ten or fifteen seconds, while the cogs in his brain turned over.
‘What do you want?’ he asked finally.
‘I want you and your goons to leave me and my family alone. And if anything happens to me, like my sudden death or if there is an unexplained fire at my house, then I have instructed my solicitor to refute any suggestions of suicide and to give the package he holds for me to the relevant authorities. The package contains everything I know about your dubious activities and names you specifically as the chief suspect.’
‘Is that all you want?’ he asked.
‘That’s all for now.’
But I’d be back. He could certainly bet on that as a sure thing.
24
‘Was that what you wanted?’ Chico asked after Valance had scuttled away out of the steam and back to the changing room.
‘Not really.’ I removed my iPhone from my shorts pocket and switched off the recording. ‘He never said anything remotely incriminating. Nothing that could be of any use as evidence. That’s if this thing is still working after all this heat and damp.’ I wiped some moisture off the screen and put the phone back in my pocket.
‘How about you?’ I asked. ‘Everything go okay?’
‘Piece of cake. Couldn’t have been easier.’ He handed me the Skoda key, now missing the small, flat, circular NeverLoseIt tag from the centre of the attached key ring. ‘Didn’t even have to force his locker. I just pushed the tag through a convenient tiny tear in the linin’ of his overcoat, which he’d helpfully left hangin’ on a peg next to it. He’s very unlikely ever to find it.’
I didn’t ask if Chico had caused the convenient tiny tear in the lining himself. I didn’t care, but I would have to buy Marina a replacement tag.
‘Good. Then we can just let him go. No need to follow. We’ll find out where he’s gone later.’
‘Is it true?’ Chico said. ‘That stuff about you givin’ a package to your solicitor?’
I smiled at him. ‘No, but he’s not to know that, and maybe it would be a good idea to do that anyway.’ Not that I had a friendly solicitor to ask.
We gave Valance another five minutes or so before Chico and I went into the changing room. There was no sign of him.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s get going.’
We changed into our outdoor clothes and went back to the Skoda. I still looked both ways to make sure that Valance’s goons weren’t waiting for me. Would my warning to leave me alone actually work or would it make him more determined not to, as it would have done for me?
‘So what now?’ Chico asked when we were back in the car.
‘First, let’s find out where Valance has gone.’
‘His home, I expect.’
‘I hope so. I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to find out where he lives.’
I switched my phone from my own ID to Marina’s, turned on the NeverLoseIt app and selected her tag. Immediately the screen showed a map with the position of it indicated by a small blue circle. The circle was on the move, towards the south-east.
As we watched, the little blue dot doubled back twice, and also went three times completely round The Prince of Wales Roundabout on the A61.
‘He’s trying to make sure he’s not being followed,’ I said with a laugh.
I gave the phone to Chico to hold, while I drove.
After negotiating the one-way system in the town centre, we also took the A61 southeast.
‘He’s stopped,’ Chico said.
Finding him was even easier than I thought. The app even gave us audible directions.
‘Turn left onto Hookstone Road,’ said a disembodied female voice from my phone.
I did as I was told.
‘In two hundred yards, turn left into Oatlands Drive.’
I did that too.
‘In eighty yards, turn left into Park Edge.’
I turned left once more.
‘Your NeverLoseIt is one hundred yards on your left side.’
I drove down Park Edge, a quiet suburban cul-de-sac of very expensive and stylish residences.
‘You have arrived,’ said the voice, and the app changed to show the tag was just twelve yards away, with a big arrow pointing to the left.
I didn’t stop the Skoda but drove on slowly past.
Half hidden behind a tall hedge, and with high, elaborate, wrought-iron gates firmly shut across the driveway, was a large house, more like a mansion, with two swanky cars just visible on the gravel in front of the double-width front door. And there was an intercom system on the wall next to the gate.
‘Blimey,’ Chico said, with his big eyes wide. ‘He must be doing bleedin’ well.’
Yes, I thought, but how many other people is he bleedin’ dry to afford it?
‘Okay,’ said Chico. ‘So we know where he lives. What now?’
I turned the car round in the turning circle at the end of the road.
‘Use my phone to take some pictures of his house.’
Chico clambered through into the back seat and snapped away as I again drove slowly past. But Park Edge was one of those places where unfamiliar cars driving by at slow speed, with the occupants staring out of the windows taking photographs, would quickly get reported to the police, so we didn’t linger any longer than necessary.
However, I pulled into a garage forecourt just down the road.
I took my phone back from Chico and used the app to remotely switch off the NeverLoseIt tag. I didn’t want it beeping and giving away its position, as it would certainly do when it realized it was tracking somebody else.
I changed the phone back to my own ID before scrolling through the photos Chico had taken of Valance’s house.
‘Well done,’ I said. ‘They’re great.’
‘What are you going to do with them?’ he asked.
‘I thought I might send one of them to Valance’s mobile number with the caption: If you burn down my house, I’ll burn yours down too.’
‘Is that wise? Especially from your own phone.’
‘Probably not. But I want him to realize that I now know where he lives. I might just send a picture of his house without the caption. He’ll have to work out what it means.’
‘And what is that exactly?’ Chico asked.
‘Mutually assured destruction. MAD. The deterrent formula that had mostly kept the peace between the Russians and the Americans since atomic bombs were invented.’
And long may it do so, I thought.
‘But won’t you also be giving Valance your phone number?’
‘I certainly will, but it’s hardly a secret anyway. For years it was on my website so potential clients could contact me. I’m sure he would have had it already. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing anyway. Bit like the Red Telephone Hotline.’
‘Eh?’
‘The direct line between the White House in Washington and the Kremlin in Moscow. Better to talk than to fight. Less likelihood of mistakes with nervous fingers hovering over respective nuclear buttons.’
‘So you think Valance will call you?’
‘No. Not really. But it gives him the option to negotiate if he wants to.’
So I sent him just a picture of his house without any caption attached.
Then I filled the Skoda’s tank with fuel before setting off south towards home.
* * *
Chico was snoozing as I joined the M1 south of Wetherby.
Something that Anton Valance had said was niggling somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain. And it wasn’t the only thing I’d heard that had rung some alarm bells. I tried going over in my head again all that had been said but it wouldn’t come. I’d have to listen again to the recording later, when I didn’t have a curly-haired sleeping beauty sitting next to me.
However, his slumbers were disturbed anyway going past Leeds, as my phone rang.
‘Hello,’ I said, answering it on the Skoda’s hands-free system.
‘Sid, I’ve made a decision. Provided my father doesn’t die before then, I’m coming home on Friday with Sassy, so she can go to Annabel’s party on Saturday afternoon. I don’t know whether we will stay on after, that’s up to you.’
I rather thought it was up to her, but I didn’t say so.
‘Darling,’ I said instead, ‘I have Chico in the car with me and you’re on speaker.’
‘Oh.’ She paused. ‘Hello, Chico.’
‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he replied. ‘How you doin’?’
‘Not great at the moment,’ she replied curtly. ‘My father’s not well. In fact, he’s dying.’
‘Yeah. Sid told me. What a bugger. Sorry.’
‘Shall I call you later?’ I said.
‘Yes, do that. Oh, but one other thing, my phone’s been telling me that someone else has been using my personal ID. It happened once last week and it did it again today.’
‘That was only me. I was looking for the Skoda keys.’
‘They’re in my dressing-table drawer.’
‘Yes, I know, I used your NeverLoseIt tag to find them. That’s why I had to use your ID. I didn’t want to bother you.’
‘But it did bother me.’
‘I’m sorry. But if it happens again, don’t worry, it’ll only be me.’
‘Why will it happen again? You’re not trying to spy on me, are you?’
I forced a laugh. ‘No, of course not, my love. If I need to do it again, I’ll call you first. How’s that?’
She didn’t seem much placated, and I wasn’t really sure why I hadn’t told her the whole truth, except that I was afraid she would be cross I had used something of hers for my investigating.
‘I’ll ring you later, when I get home,’ I said.
She hung up and I drove on in silence, eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead. Only when we left the motorway did Chico say anything.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Tell you what?’
‘You know perfectly well what. That you and your missus are havin’ troubles.’
I looked across at him. There was no point in denying it.
‘It’s not the sort of thing you advertise.’
‘But I’m your mate.’
I sighed.
‘I think it’s my new hand.’
‘What about it?’
‘She says she can’t stand it. Claims it feels like she’s being touched up by a stranger.’
He laughed. ‘Don’t be so bleedin’ stupid. That can’t be the real reason. It may be what she says but that’s just a smokescreen, an excuse.’
‘Are you actually trying to make me feel worse?’
‘Course not. I’m just tellin’ you the truth.’
Maybe I didn’t want to hear the truth.
‘Perhaps she’s bored with me.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Chico said. ‘You’re gettin’ unexciting and ponderous in your old age. Where’s the old Sid Halley who would whisk Marina off her feet and give her a good seein’-to in the garden during the afternoons?’
‘We have a daughter, you know.’
‘So? The kid’s at school most of the day. So do it in the mornin’. Get on with it. Or do you want to end up bein’ one of those borin’ old farts in an ill-fittin’ grey cardigan with your trousers pulled up to your tits, more interested in what’s comin’ on the television than the passion you can still generate in the bedroom department?’
‘And who do you think you are?’ I said. ‘Dr Ruth? It’s not as if your love life is anything to write home about. Have you heard from Ingrid, or should I say Ivan?’
‘Fuck off,’ he said.
I wished I could.
* * *
Chico and I spent the rest of the journey to Charles’s place at Aynsford in an uneasy silence.
It gave me time to think.
Was I really boring?
I had to accept that maybe I was.
When Marina and I had first met, we had both been living in London. Indeed, I’d had a flat in Belgravia, just a stone’s throw from the gardens of Buckingham Palace, and in that great fun-fair of a city there had always been places to go, new restaurants to try, cinemas and theatres by the score, to say nothing of concerts, museums, river boats on the Thames, and a whole host of other things to do, all of them just a few Tube stops away and many within easy walking distance of our bed.
After Marina had moved in with me, we had almost never spent an evening at home in the flat, and when we had, we’d certainly not been watching television – there was too much else to do, too much fun to be had either just the two of us alone in adoration, or over a convivial dinner with friends.
We had spent the weekends on adventures out of the city, staying in grand country-house hotels or in rented cottages overlooking the sea, taking walks hand in hand – her left in my right – come sun, wind or rain.
In spite of Marina working full-time at the cancer laboratory and me conducting my self-employed investigating business, we had still managed to take spontaneous holidays, flying off at a moment’s notice to the Maldives or the Mediterranean, anywhere where there was warmth and sunshine to brighten our lives.
And laughing. We had always been laughing.
I suddenly realized how much our lives had changed since we had moved out of the noisy Smoke to the calmness of the countryside.
It wasn’t all bad, of course.
Saskia had been born just two months after we had arrived in Nutwell and both of us had taken to parenthood with a passion, adoring our new beautiful daughter and caring for her every need, never minding the fact that it left us both too tired for anything else except staying in, watching television and going to bed early.
I suppose, as time had moved on and Saskia had grown from being a baby to a toddler, then to a little girl, and now a not-so-little girl of nine and a half, we had become rather used to our quiet country lives.
It’s not that we didn’t go out. We did, but only rarely, maybe once a week or so with friends such as Tim and Paula, Annabel’s parents, when we might venture on foot to the village pub for supper or to Banbury for a curry.
I couldn’t remember the last time we had been to the cinema, usually waiting instead for the new releases to become available as a DVD or streamed on Netflix. And, as for live performances, we hadn’t even managed to get to the Royal Shakespeare or any of the other four theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon for years, and they were just a few miles away.
What had happened to us?
No wonder Marina was bored with me. I felt quite bored with me too.
But it had been her idea to move out of London in the first place. Indeed, it had been more than an idea, more like an ultimatum – move out or lose her. She had longed for the peace and quiet of the countryside, and she had particularly loved it when we had stayed for weekends with Charles.
That’s why we had bought a place near to him.
Except, of course, we never stayed with Charles now because he lived so close. On the occasions we all had dinner together at Aynsford, we would drive home afterwards, usually quite early in order to put Saskia to bed.
So, had moving out of London been the wrong thing to do?
And had it also been wrong for us to have had a child?
The jury may still be out on the first question but the answer to the second was a definitive no. It certainly hadn’t been the wrong thing. Saskia had provided us both with immeasurable happiness, as she still did. My deepest regret was that we hadn’t had more children, but it hadn’t been from lack of trying.
Marina had completed course after course of fertility treatments, but all to no avail. The doctors couldn’t understand why she wasn’t becoming pregnant. They couldn’t find anything wrong with either of us. Maybe it was due to stress, they said, but Marina had conceived easily in the stressful environment of SW1, while she couldn’t do so again in the tranquillity of OX15.
She was still young enough to be a mother again but we had long resigned ourselves to having just the one child. Perhaps things would have been different between us now if she’d been able to have more.
I resolved to make myself more exciting, more spontaneous and more attentive. I just hoped it wasn’t already too late.
25
Once again, both Charles and Rosie were delighted to see me when we drove in to Aynsford at half past eight.
‘Do you want to come in?’ Charles asked.
‘We’re both hungry,’ I said. ‘I’d better get back and fix us some supper.’
‘I have some left-over shepherd’s pie,’ Charles said. ‘You’re welcome to have that if you like. Mrs Cross always makes a large pie so that I can eat the rest for my lunch over the next few days. She only made it today, instead of a Sunday roast.’
‘So Mrs Cross has finished her grandmotherly duties?’
‘Indeed. Grateful to be back too, I think. She complained that those two young grandsons of hers totally wore her out.’ He laughed. ‘So, do you want the pie or not? It only needs to be put back in the Aga for twenty minutes.’
I looked across at Chico. He nodded.
‘Okay, that would be lovely, as long as we’re not depriving you of your lunches for the rest of the week.’
‘Mrs Cross can always make me another one tomorrow.’
The three of us, plus Rosie, went into his kitchen.
‘Good to see you again, Admiral,’ Chico said.
‘Ah, yes, thank you. Good to see you too.’
The excellent-looking shepherd’s pie was sitting on the kitchen table.
‘I’d have put it in the fridge before I went to bed,’ Charles said in unnecessary explanation. ‘Once it had cooled completely.’ Instead, he now put it back in the oven and set a timer for twenty minutes.
