"In cash," he said.
"Yes, but how did you give him the cash?"
"The same way as always."
"And that is?" I asked. Why was extracting answers from him always such hard work?
"By post."
"But to what address?" I asked patiently.
"Somewhere in Newbury," he said.
"And how did you get the address in the first place?"
"It was included with the first blackmail note."
"And when did that arrive?"
"In July last year."
When Roderick Ward had his accident.
"And the address has been the same since the beginning?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said. "I have to place two thousand pounds in fifty-pound notes in a padded envelope and post it by first-class mail each Thursday."
I thought back to the blackmail note that I had found on my mother's desk. "What happened that time to make you late with the payment?"
"I got stuck in traffic, and I didn't get to the bank in time to draw out the money before they shut."
"Couldn't you use a debit card in a cash machine?"
"It would only give me two hundred and fifty."
"Can you get me the address?" I asked.
As he stood up to fetch it, the telephone rang. As one, we all looked at the kitchen clock. It was exactly nine o'clock.
"Oh God," my mother said.
"Let me answer it," I said, standing up and striding across the kitchen.
"No," my mother shouted, jumping up. But I ignored her.
"Hello," I said into the phone.
There was silence from the other end.
"Hello," I said again. "Who is this?"
Again nothing.
"Who is this?" I repeated.
There was a click on the line and then a single tone. The person at the other end had hung up.
I replaced the receiver back on its cradle.
"Talkative, isn't he?" I said, smiling at my mother.
She was cross. "Why did you do that?" she demanded.
"Because he has to learn that we aren't going to just roll over and do everything he says."
"But it's not you that would go to prison," my stepfather said angrily.
"No," I said. "But I thought we'd agreed that we can't go on paying the blackmailer forever. Something has to be done to resolve the VAT situation, and the first thing I need to know is who the blackmailer is. I need to force him into a mistake. I want him to put his head up above the parapet, just for a second, so I can see him."
Or better still, I thought, so I can shoot him.
The phone rang again.
My mother stepped forward, but I beat her to it.
"Hello," I said. "Kauri House Stables."
There was silence again.
"Kauri House Stables," I repeated. "Can I help you?"
"Mrs. Kauri, please," said a whispered voice.
"Sorry?" I said. "Can you please speak up? I can't hear you."
"Mrs. Kauri," the voice repeated, still in the same quiet whisper.
"I'm sorry," I said extra-loudly. "She can't speak to you just now. Can I give her a message?"
"Give me Mrs. Kauri," the person whispered again.
"No," I said. "You will have to talk to me."
The line went click again as he hung up.
My mother was crosser than ever. "Thomas," she said, "please do not do that again." She was almost crying. "We must do as he says."
"Why?" I asked.
"Why!" she almost screamed. "Because he'll send the stuff to the tax man if we don't."
"No, he won't," I said confidently.
"How can you know?" she shouted. "He might."
"I think it most unlikely that he'll do anything," I said.
"I hope you're right," my stepfather said gloomily.
"What has he to gain?" I said. "In fact, he has everything to lose."
"I'm the one with everything to lose," my mother said.
"Yes," I agreed. "But you are paying the blackmailer two thousand a week, and he won't get that if he tips off the tax man. He's not going to give up that lucrative arrangement just because I won't let him speak to you on the telephone."
"But why are you antagonizing him?" my stepfather said.
More than two thousand years ago Sun Tzu, a mysterious Chinese soldier and philosopher, wrote what has since become the textbook of war, a volume that is still studied in military academies today. In The Art of War he stated that one should "beat the grass to startle the snake." What he meant was to do something unexpected to make the enemy give away their position.
"Because I need to see who it is," I said. "If I knew the identity of the enemy, I could then start to fight him."
"I don't want you to fight him," my mother said forlornly.
"Well, we have to do something. Tax returns are overdue, and it is only a matter of time before the VAT fraud is discovered. I need to identify the enemy, neutralize him, recover your money and tax papers and then pay the tax. And we need to do it all quickly."
The phone rang again. I picked it up.
"Kauri House Stables," I said.
Silence.
"Now, listen here you little creep," I said, beating the grass still further. "You can't speak to Mrs. Kauri. You'll have to speak to me. I'm her son, Thomas Forsyth."
More silence.
"And another thing," I said, "all the horses from these stables will, in the future, be trying their best to win. And if you don't like it, hard bloody luck. You can come and speak to me about it anytime you like, face-to-face. Do you understand?"
I listened. There was another few seconds of silence, followed by the now familiar click as he disconnected.
I had just committed a huge tactical gamble. I had put my head way up over the parapet, exposing myself to the enemy, beating the grass in the hope that this particular snake would be startled enough to give away his position, so I could shoot him.
But would he shoot me first?
Sunday had been an uneventful day, with apparently no further telephone calls from the whispering blackmailer. However, I couldn't be certain that he hadn't called during the time I'd been out in the middle of the day.
My mother had responded to my initiative of Saturday evening by withdrawing into her shell and not appearing at all from her bedroom until six in the evening, and only then briefly to raid the drinks cabinet before returning upstairs to bed. Derek had been dispatched downstairs later to make her a sandwich for her dinner.
I was certain that if the whisperer had called while I was out, my mother wouldn't have told me. Perhaps she felt like most of the civilians I had encountered in Afghanistan. Even though we firmly believed that we were fighting the Taliban on behalf of the Afghan people, they didn't seem to share the same view. The old adage "my enemy's enemy is therefore my friend" simply didn't apply. It was true that most of the population loathed the Taliban, but deep down they also hated the foreigners in their midst who were fighting them.
In the same way, I wondered if my mother considered me to be as much her enemy as her blackmailer.
Ian Norland had not made another appearance in the house on Sunday morning, and I had watched through the kitchen window as he had directed the stable staff in the mucking out, feeding and watering of the horses. I had taken it to mean that he had decided to stay, at least for the time being. Meanwhile, the broken reins in question were sitting safely in the locked trunk of my car.
At noon on Sunday I had driven into Newbury, using the Jaguar's satellite navigation system to find the address that Derek had finally given me, the address to which he sent the weekly cash payments.
"But it's so close," I'd said to my stepfather. "Surely you've been to see where it is you send all this money."
"He said not to," he'd replied.
"And you obeyed him?" I'd asked incredulously. "Didn't you just drive past to see? Even in the middle of the night?"
"We mustn't. We have to do exactly what he says." He had been close to tears. "We're so frightened."
I could see. "And how specifically did he tell you not to go and see where the money was going?"
"In a note."
"And where's the note now?" I'd asked him.
"I threw it away," he'd said. "I know I shouldn't have, but they made me feel sick. I threw all the notes away."