Suddenly things were looking up. Lying on the floor was my artificial leg, together with my overcoat.
Hanging me up to die had been a calculated evil. But removing my leg had been nothing more than pure malice. I resolved, there and then, that I would make the person who did this to me pay a heavy price.
I leaned against the door frame and put the leg on, rolling the securing rubber sleeve up over my knee.
I had always rather hated it, this thing that wasn't a real part of me. But now I gladly accepted it back as more than a necessary evil-it was a chum, an ally and a brother. If nothing else, the last two days had taught me that without my metal-and-plastic companion, I would be a helpless and incapable warrior in battle. But together, my prosthesis and I would be a force to be reckoned with.
The joy of walking again on two legs was immense. The familiar clink-clink was like music to my soul.
I picked up my coat and put it on against the cold. My shirt was still wet from standing in the rain, and I was grateful for the coat's thick, warm, fleecy lining. I put my hands into the pockets and found, to my surprise, my cell phone, my wallet, my car keys and the business card from Mr. Hoogland.
The phone was off. I'd switched it off for the inquest. So I turned it on and the familiar screen appeared. I wondered who I should call.
Who did I trust? I explored the stable block to try to find out where I was.
I could have probably used my cell to call the police and they would have been able to trace where the signal came from, but I really wanted to find out for myself.
I had visions of lying in wait for my would-be murderer to come back to check that I was dead. What chance would I have of getting my payback if the boys in blue arrived with flashing lights and sirens, clomping around the place in their size-ten boots, letting the world know I'd been found and frightening away my quarry?
But before all that, I desperately needed some food. And a shower.
There were no horses in any of the stalls. And there were no people in the big house alongside them. The place was like a ghost town. And all the doors were locked. So I walked across the gravel turning area, past the house and down the driveway.
For the umpteenth time I went to look at my watch, but it wasn't on my wrist. It was the one thing I'd had with me in Oxford that was still missing, other than my Jaguar. My would-be murderer must have removed it to tie me up. I had looked all around to try to find it, without success.
However, I judged from the light that it must be after five o'clock. There was just enough brightness for me to see where I was going, but full darkness would not be far away.
The driveway was long but downhill, which helped, and at the end there were some imposing seven-feet-high wrought-iron gates between equally impressive stone pillars. The gates were closed and firmly locked together by a length of chain and a padlock that both looked suspiciously similar to those in my coat pocket.
I looked up at the top of the gates. Did I really have to start climbing again?
No, I didn't. A quick excursion ten yards to the left allowed me to step through a post-and-rail fence. The imposing gates were more for show than for security. But the chain and padlock would have been enough to prevent some passing Nosey Parker from driving up to the house to have a look around, someone who might then have found me in the stables.
There was a plastic sign attached to the outside of one of the gateposts.
"FOR SALE," it said in bold capital letters, then gave the telephone number of a realtor. I recognized the dialing code: 01635 was Newbury.
The realtor's sign was nailed over another wooden notice. I pulled the for-sale sign away to reveal the notice beneath, and I could just see the painted words in the gathering gloom. "Greystone Stables," it read. And in smaller letters underneath, "Larry Webster-Racehorse Trainer."
I could remember someone had told me about this place. "The Webster place," they'd said. "On the hill off the Wantage Road." So I was back in Lambourn, or just outside. And I could see the village lights about half a mile or so away, down the road.
What do I do now, I thought.
Do I phone my mother and ask her to collect me, or do I call the police and report a kidnapping and an attempted murder? I knew I should. It was the right and the sensible thing to do. I should have done it as soon as I found my phone. And then my mother would simply have to take her chances with the tax man, and the courts.
Something was stopping me from calling the police, and it wasn't only the belief that my mother would then end up losing everything: her house, her stables, her business, her freedom and, perhaps worst of all for her to bear, her reputation.
It was something more than that. Maybe it was the need to fight my own battles, to prove to myself that I still could. Possibly it was to show the major from the MOD that I wasn't ready for retirement and the military scrap heap.
But above all, I think it was the desire to inflict personal revenge on the person who had done this to me.
Perhaps it was some sort of madness, but I put the phone in my pocket and called no one. I simply started walking towards the lights, and home.
I was alive and free, and for as long as someone believed that I was tied up and dead, I had the element of surprise on my side. In strategic terms, surprise was everything. The air attack on Pearl Harbor just before eight o'clock on a sleepy Sunday morning in December 1941 was testament to that. Eleven ships had been either sunk or seriously damaged and nearly two hundred aircraft destroyed on the ground for fewer than thirty of the attackers shot down. More than three and a half thousand Americans had been killed or wounded for the loss of just sixty-five Japanese casualties. I knew because at Sandhurst, each officer cadet had to give a presentation to their fellow trainees about a Second World War engagement, and I had been allocated Pearl Harbor.
Surprise had been crucial.
I had already shown myself to the enemy once, and I had barely survived the consequences. Now I would remain hidden, and better still, my enemy must surely believe that I'd already been neutralized and was no longer a threat. Just when he thought I was dead I would rise up and bite him. I wanted my Glenn-Close-in-the-bath moment from Fatal Attraction, but I wasn't going to then get shot and killed, as her character had been.
I walked through the village, keeping to the shadows and avoiding the busy center, where someone might have spotted me near the brightly lit shop windows. Only the damn clink-clink of my right leg could have given me away. I resolved to find a way to make my walking silent once more.
When I arrived at the driveway of Kauri House I paused.
Did I really want my mother and stepfather to know what had happened to me? How could I explain my dirty and disheveled condition to them without explaining how I came to be in such a state? And could I then trust them not to pass on the knowledge to others, even accidentally? Absolute secrecy might be vital. "Loose talk costs lives" had been a wartime slogan. I certainly didn't want it costing mine.
But I urgently needed to eat, and I also wanted to wash and put on some clean clothes.
As I approached I could see that the lights were on in the stables and the staff were busily mucking out and feeding their charges.
I skirted around the house and approached down the outside of the nearest stable rectangle, trying to keep my leg as quiet as possible. Only at the very last instant did I briefly step into the light, and only then when I was sure no one was looking.
I went quickly up the stairs and let myself in to Ian Norland's unlocked flat above the stables.
I'd taken a chance that Ian would not have locked the door while he was downstairs with the horses, and I'd been right. Now I had to decide what to tell him. It had to be enough to engage his help, but amongst other things, I thought it best not to inform him that his employer was effectively trading while insolvent, something that was strictly against the law. And I didn't want to scare him into instantly calling the police. I decided that I wouldn't tell him the whole truth, but I would try not to tell him any outright lies.