It grew dark. The train clanked and swayed into realms of night. Life felt suspended.
There were prosaically plenty of taxis at Reading. I traveled safely to Shelley Green and rang Archie Kirk’s bell.
He came himself to open the door.
‘Hello,’ I said.
He stood there staring, then said awkwardly, ‘We’d almost given you up.’ He led the way into his sitting room. ‘He’s here,’ he said.
There were four of them. Davis Tatum, Norman Picton, Archie himself, and Charles.
I paused inside the doorway. I had no idea what I looked like, but what I saw on their faces was shock.
‘Sid,’ Charles said, recovering first and standing up. ‘Good. Great. Come and sit down.’
The extent of his solicitude always measured the depth of his alarm. He insisted I take his place in a comfortable chair and himself perched on a hard one. He asked Archie if he had any brandy and secured for me a half-tumblerful of a raw-tasting own brand from a supermarket.
‘Drink it,’ he commanded, holding out the glass.
‘Charles…’
‘Drink it. Talk after.’
I gave in, drank a couple of mouthfuls and put the glass on a table beside me. He was a firm believer in the life-restoring properties of distilled wine, and I’d proved him right oftener than enough.
I remembered that I still wore the soft, stripey hat, and took it off; and its removal seemed to make my appearance more normal to them, and less disturbing.
‘I went to Topline Foods,’ I said.
I thought: I don’t feel well; what’s wrong with me?
‘You’ve cut your face,’ Norman Picton said.
I also ached more or less all over from the desperate exertions of the judo. My head felt heavy and my hand was swollen and sore from Ellis’s idea of entertainment. On the bright side, I was alive and home, safe… and reaction was all very well but I was not at this point going to faint.
‘Sid!’ Charles said sharply, putting out a hand.
‘Oh… yes. Well, I went to Topline Foods.’
I drank some brandy. The weak feeling of sickness abated a bit. I shifted in my chair and took a grip on things.
Archie said, ‘Take your time,’ but sounded as if he didn’t mean it.
I smiled. I said, ‘Owen Yorkshire was there. So was Lord Tilepit. So was Ellis Quint.’
‘Quint!’ Davis Tatum exclaimed.
‘Mm. Well… you asked me to find out if there was a heavyweight lumbering about behind the Quint business, and the answer is yes, but it is Ellis Quint himself.’
‘But he’s a playboy,’ Davis Tatum protested. ‘What about the big man, Yorkshire?’ Tatum’s own bulk quivered. ‘He’s getting known. One hears his name.’
I nodded. ‘Owen Cliff Yorkshire is a heavyweight in the making.’
‘What do you mean?’
I ached. I hadn’t really noticed the wear and tear until then. Win now, pay later.
‘Megalomania,’ I said. ‘Yorkshire’s on the edge. He has a violent, unpredictable temper and an uncontrolled desire to be a tycoon. I’d call it incipient megalomania because he’s spending far beyond sanity on self-aggrandizement. He’s built an office block fit for a major industry — and it’s mostly empty — before building the industry first. He’s publicity mad — he’s holding a reception for half of Liverpool on Monday. He has plans — a desire — to take over the whole horse-feed nuts industry. He employs at least two bodyguards who will murder to order because he fears his competitors will assassinate him… which is paranoia.’
I paused, then said, ‘It’s difficult to describe the impression he gives. Half the time he sounds reasonable, and half the time you can see that he will simply get rid of anyone who stands in his way. And he is desperate… desperate… to save Ellis Quint’s reputation.’
Archie asked ‘Why?’ slowly.
‘Because,’ I said, ‘he has spent a colossal amount of money on an advertising campaign featuring Ellis, and if Ellis is found guilty of cutting off a horse’s foot, that campaign can’t be shown.’
‘But a few advertisements can’t have cost that much,’ Archie objected.
‘With megalomania,’ I said, ‘you don’t make a few economically priced advertisements. You really go to town. You engage an expensive, highly prestigious firm — in this case, Intramind Imaging of Manchester — and you travel the world.’
With clumsy fingers I took from my belt the folded copy of the paper in the ‘Quint’ box file in Mrs Dove’s office.
‘This is a list of racecourses,’ I said. ‘These racecourses are where they filmed the commercials. A thirty-second commercial gleaned from each place at phenomenal expense.’
Archie scanned the list uncomprehendingly and passed it to Charles, who read it aloud.
‘Flemington, Germiston, Sha Tin, Churchill Downs, Woodbine, Longchamps, K. L., Fuchu…’
There were fifteen altogether. Archie looked lost.
‘Flemington,’ I said, ‘is where they run the Melbourne Cup in Australia. Germiston is outside Johannesburg. Sha Tin is in Hong Kong. Churchill Downs is where they hold the Kentucky Derby. K. L. is Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Woodbine is in Canada, Longchamps is in Paris, Fuchu is where the Japan Cup is run in Tokyo.’
They all understood.
‘Those commercials are reported to be brilliant,’ I said, ‘and Ellis himself wants them shown as much as Yorkshire does.’
‘Have you seen them?’ Davis asked.
I explained about the box of BETACAM tapes. ‘Making those special broadcast-quality tapes themselves must have been fearfully expensive — and they need special playing equipment, which I didn’t find at Topline Foods, so no, I haven’t seen them.’
Norman Picton, with his policeman’s mind, asked, ‘Where did you see the tapes? Where did you get that list of racecourses?’
I said without emotion, ‘In an office at Topline Foods.’
He gave me a narrow inspection.
‘My car,’ I told him, ‘is still somewhere in Frodsham. Could you get your pals up there to look out for it?’ I gave him its registration number, which he wrote down.
‘Why did you leave it?’ he asked.
‘Er… I was running away at the time.’ For all that I tried to say it lightly, the grim reality reached them.
‘Well,’ I sighed, ‘I’d invaded Yorkshire’s territory. He found me there. It gave him the opportunity to get rid of the person most likely to send Ellis to jail. I accepted that possibility when I went there but, like you, I wanted to know what was causing terrible trouble behind the scenes. And it is the millions spent on those ads.’ I paused, and went on, ‘Yorkshire and Ellis set out originally, months ago, not to kill me but to discredit me so that nothing I said would get Ellis convicted. They used a figurehead, Topline Foods director Lord Tilepit, because he owned The Pump. They persuaded Tilepit that Ellis was innocent and that I was all that The Pump has maintained. I don’t think Tilepit believed Ellis guilty until today. I don’t think The Pump will say a word against me from now on.’ I smiled briefly. ‘Lord Tilepit was duped by Ellis, and so, also, to some extent, was Owen Yorkshire himself.’
‘How, Sid?’ Davis asked.
‘I think Yorkshire, too, believed in Ellis. Ellis dazzles people. Knowing Ellis, to Yorkshire, was a step up the ladder. Today they planned together to… er… wipe me out of the way. Yorkshire would have done it himself in reckless anger. Ellis stopped him, but left it to chance that the bodyguards might do it… but I escaped them. Yorkshire now knows Ellis is guilty, but he doesn’t care. He cares only to be able to show that brilliant ad campaign, and make himself king of the horse nuts. And of course it’s not just horse nuts that it’s all about. They’re a stepping-stone. It’s about being the Big Man with the power to bring mayors to his doorstep. If Yorkshire isn’t stopped you’ll find him manipulating more than The Pump. He’s the sort of man you get in the kitchens of political clout.’