After a moment, Archie asked, ‘So how do we stop him?’
I shifted wearily in the chair and drank some brandy, and said, ‘I can, possibly, give you the tools.’
‘What tools?’
‘His secret files. His financial manoeuvrings. His debts. Details of bribes, I’d guess. Bargains struck. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Evidence of leverage. Details of all his dealings with Ellis, and all his dealings with Tilepit. I’ll give you the files. You can take it from there.’
‘But,’ Archie said blankly, ‘where are these files?’
‘In my computer in London.’
I explained the Internet transfer and the need for password cracking. I couldn’t decide whether they were gladdened or horrified by what I’d done. A bit of both, I thought.
Charles looked the most shocked, Archie the least.
Archie said, ‘If I ask you, will you work for me another time?’
I looked into the knowing eyes, and smiled, and nodded.
‘Good,’ he said.
Chapter 14
I went home to Aynsford with Charles.
It had been a long evening in Archie’s house. Archie, Davis, Norman and Charles had all wanted details, which I found as intolerable to describe as to live through. I skipped a lot.
I didn’t tell them about Ellis’s games with my hands. I didn’t know how to explain to them that, for a jockey, his hands were at the heart of his existence… of his skill. One knew a horse by the feel of the bit on the reins, one listened to the messages, one interpreted the vibrations, one talked to a horse through one’s hands. Ellis understood more than most people what the loss of a hand had meant to me, and that day he’d been busy punishing me in the severest way he could think of for trying to strip him of what he himself now valued most, his universal acclaim.
I didn’t know how to make them understand that to Ellis the severing of a horse’s foot had become a drug more addictive than any substance invented, that the risk and the power were intoxicating; that I’d been lucky he’d had only a wrench to use on me.
I didn’t know how near he had come in his own mind to irrevocably destroying my right hand. I only knew that to me it had seemed possible that he would. I couldn’t tell them that I’d intensely lived my own nightmare and still shook from fear inside.
I told them only that an adjustable wrench in Yorkshire’s hands had cut my face.
I told them a little about the escape by judo, and all about the boy on Rollerblades and the ice cream cone and catching the bus within sight of Yorkshire and Ellis. I made it sound almost funny.
Archie understood that there was a lot I hadn’t said, but he didn’t press it. Charles, puzzled, asked, ‘But did they hurt you, Sid?’ and I half laughed and told him part of the truth. ‘They scared me witless.’
Davis asked about Ellis’s Shropshire alibi. His colleague, the Crown Prosecutor, was increasingly concerned, he said, that Ellis’s powerful lawyers would prevent the trial from resuming.
I explained that I hadn’t had time to find out at what hour Ellis had arrived at the dance.
‘Someone must know,’ I said. ‘It’s a matter of asking the local people, the people who helped to park the cars.’ I looked at Norman. ‘Any chance of the police doing it?’
‘Not much,’ he said.
‘Round the pubs,’ I suggested.
Norman shook his head.
‘There isn’t much time,’ Davis pointed out. ‘Sid, couldn’t you do it tomorrow?’
Tomorrow, Sunday. On Monday, the trial.
Archie said firmly, ‘No, Sid can’t. There’s a limit… I’ll try and find someone else.’
‘Chico would have done it,’ Charles said.
Chico had undisputedly saved my pathetic skin that day. One could hardly ask more.
Archie’s wife, before she’d driven over to spend the evening with her sister-in-law Betty Bracken, had, it appeared, made a mound of sandwiches. Archie offered them diffidently. I found the tastes of cheese and of chicken strange, as if I’d come upon them new from another world. It was weird the difference that danger and the perception of mortality made to familiar things. Unreality persisted even as I accepted a paper napkin to wipe my fingers.
Archie’s doorbell rang. Archie went again to the summons and came back with a pinched, displeased expression, and he was followed by a boy that I saw with surprise to be Jonathan.
The rebel wings of hair were much shorter. The yellow streaks had all but grown out. There were no shaven areas of scalp.
‘Hi,’ he said, looking around the room and fastening his attention on my face. ‘I came over to see you. The aunts said you were here. Hey, man, you look different.’
‘Three months older.’ I nodded. ‘So do you.’
Jonathan helped himself to a sandwich, disregarding Archie’s disapproval.
‘Hi,’ he said nonchalantly to Norman. ‘How’s the boat?’
‘Laid up for winter storage.’
Jonathan chewed and told me, ‘They won’t take me on an oil rig until I’m eighteen. They won’t take me in the navy. I’ve got good pecs. What do I do with them?’
‘Pecs?’ Charles asked, mystified.
‘Pectoral muscles,’ Norman explained. ‘He’s strong from weeks of water-skiing.’
‘Oh.’
I said to Jonathan, ‘How did you get here from Combe Bassett?’
‘Ran.’
He’d walked into Archie’s house not in the least out of breath.
‘Can you ride a motorbike,’ I asked, ‘now that you’re sixteen?’
‘Do me a favor!’
‘He hasn’t got one,’ Archie said.
‘He can hire one.’
‘But… what for?’
‘To go to Shropshire,’ I said.
I was predictably drowned by protests. I explained to Jonathan what was needed. ‘Find someone — anyone — who saw Ellis Quint arrive at the dance. Find the people who parked the cars.’
‘He can’t go round the pubs,’ Norman insisted. ‘He’s under age.’
Jonathan gave me a dark look, which I steadfastly returned. At fifteen he’d bought gin for a truck-driver’s wife.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Where do I go?’
I told him in detail. His uncle and everyone else disapproved. I took all the money I had left out of my belt and gave it to him. ‘I want receipts,’ I said. ‘Bring me paper. A signed statement from a witness. It’s all got to be solid.’
‘Is this,’ he asked slowly, ‘some sort of test?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK.’
‘Don’t stay longer than a day,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget, you may be asked to give evidence this week at the trial.’
‘As if I could forget.’
He took a bunch of sandwiches, gave me a wide smile, and without more words departed.
‘You can’t,’ Archie said to me emphatically.
‘What do you propose to do with him?’
‘But… he’s…’
‘He’s bright,’ I said. ‘He’s observant. He’s athletic. Let’s see how he does in Shropshire.’
‘He’s only sixteen.’
‘I need a new Chico.’
‘But Jonathan steals cars.’
‘He hasn’t stolen one all summer, has he?’
‘That doesn’t mean…’
‘An ability to steal cars,’ I said with humor, ‘is in my eyes an asset. Let’s see how he does tomorrow, with this alibi.’
Archie, still looking affronted, gave in.
‘Too much depends on it,’ Davis said heavily, shaking his head.