"No," he said. "That was over his and Peter's other little fiddle."
"And what's that?" I asked.
"No way," he said, shaking his head. "I've already said too much as it is."
At least he was right on that count.
"You think the Revenue will investigate their other little fiddle?" I asked him, thinking back to the supper exchange between him and Jackson. What was it he had said then? Something about that there was no telling what else the Revenue might dig up. "And you're worried about that investigation finding out about everything else?"
It was a guess but not a bad one.
"Bloody stupid, if you ask me," he said.
I was asking him.
"Why take the risk?" I said.
"Exactly."
"So their other little fiddle is about tax?"
"Look," he said, changing the subject and completely ignoring my question, "I had a few beers on the flight, and now I desperately need to take a piss."
I thought back to my time in the stable. Should I make him wet himself just as I had been forced to do?
"Come on," he shouted at me. "I'm bloody bursting."
Reluctantly, I took a pair of scissors from my rucksack, leaned down and cut the ties holding Alex's hands behind his back.
"I might run away," he said, sitting up and rubbing his wrists.
"Not like that you won't." I pointed to the plastic ties that still bound his ankles together.
"Come on," he said. "Cut them too."
"No," I said. "You can hop."
Grudgingly, he pulled himself upright and hopped into the bathroom beneath the stairs.
I thought it unlikely that there would be a phone in the bathroom, but nevertheless, I took the precaution of removing the house telephone from its cradle in the kitchen. You can't dial out on one extension if another is off the hook, and his cell was still lying, switched off, on the kitchen counter where I'd left it.
Alex was taking his time, and I was beginning to think he might be trying to escape out of the bathroom window, when I heard the flush. Presently, he reappeared, hobbling out into the hall.
"Cut these bloody things off," he demanded angrily. He had obviously been using the time to try to break the plastic ties around his ankles, but I knew from experience that they were tougher than they looked. Much tougher indeed than his skin, which was chafed and reddening.
"No," I said.
"What the bloody hell more do you want?" he asked angrily.
"My WMD," I said.
"Eh?"
"My weapon of mass destruction," I said. "My nuclear deterrent. I need some hard evidence."
"What sort of evidence?"
"Evidence of conspiracy to defraud my mother of one million U.S. dollars."
"Dream on," he said, smiling.
"Maybe I should just ring up Jackson Warren and ask him about my mother's money, telling him that it was you who suggested I did so."
"You wouldn't do that," he said, looking a little worried.
"Don't tempt me," I said.
"He'd bloody kill me just for talking to you."
Good, I thought. It was much to my advantage that Alex remained more frightened of Jackson Warren than he was of me. That alone would prevent him from telling Jackson anything about this nocturnal encounter. Maybe that in itself was my nuclear deterrence.
"Or perhaps I should call Jackson and ask for the number of the Swiss bank account into which he and Garraway put all the money they steal."
"You'd better bloody not," Alex said. "Or I'll be onto the tax man about your mother."
I strode into the kitchen, and he hobbled in behind me. I walked straight past his flight bag, and I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye as he pushed it farther out of sight beneath the table. I didn't mind one bit that Alex believed I hadn't accessed his computer.
"Sit down," I said sharply, pointing to one of the kitchen chairs.
I don't think he really knew how to react. He didn't move.
"Sit down," I said again, in my best voice-of-command.
He wavered, but after a few seconds, he pulled the chair out from under the table and sat down while I sat on the chair opposite him.
"So whose idea was it to get my mother's horses to lose?" I asked.
"Julie's," he said.
"So she could bet against them on the Internet?"
"No, nothing like that," he said. "She just wanted to give her old man's horses a better chance of winning. He gives her such a hard time when they lose. It was me who bets against the horses on the Internet. Not too much, like, not enough to attract attention. But it's been a nice little earner."
Amateurs, I thought. These people were amateurs.
The doorbell rang, making both of us jump. It was followed by a persistent gentle knocking at the door. I glanced at my watch. It was ten to one in the morning.
"Stay there," I ordered. "And keep quiet. Neither of us wants the police involved in this, do we?"
Alex shook his head, but I thought it most improbable that the police would knock so softly. They were far more likely to break the door down.
I walked through into the dark front room and looked out through the window. Julie Yorke was standing outside the door, rapping her knuckles gently against the glass. I went back into the hall and opened the door.
"What have you done to him?" Julie asked in a breathless voice.
"Nothing," I said.
"Where is he, then?" she demanded.
"In the kitchen," I said, standing aside to let her pass. I glanced out at the dark and silent road and closed the door.
When I went back into the kitchen Julie was standing behind Alex, stroking his fine ginger hair. In other circumstances, it might have been a touching scene.
I could see that she was still wearing a nightdress under her raincoat.
"Couldn't sleep?" I asked sarcastically.
"I had to wait for my bloody husband to drop off," she said. "I've taken a bloody big chance coming here, I can tell you. I tried to call, but it was permanently engaged and Alex's cell went straight to voice mail."
I looked across the kitchen at the house phone still lying off the hook on the countertop, and at the switched-off cell alongside it.
"I thought I told you not to contact Alex," I said sharply, pointing to her.
"You said not in the next thirty-six hours," she replied in a pained tone. "That ran out at ten forty-five this evening."
I hadn't been counting, but she obviously had.
"So what happens now?" Alex asked into the silence.
"Well," I said, "for a start, you return all the blackmail money to my mother. I reckon that's about sixty thousand pounds."
"I can't," he said. "We've spent it. And anyway, why would I?"
"Because you obtained it illegally," I pointed out.
"But your mother should have paid it to the tax man."
"And so she will when you give it back."
"Dream on," he said again, with a laugh.
"OK," I said. "If that's your attitude, I will have to go to Jackson Warren and Peter Garraway and ask them for it."
"You'll be lucky," he said, still laughing. "They're the most tightfisted pair of bastards I've ever met."
"I'll tell them you said that."
The laughter died in his throat.
"Now, don't you go telling them anything of the sort, or I'll be straight on the blower to the Revenue."
Mutually assured destruction-it was what nuclear deterrence was all about.
"And what about my pictures?" Julie demanded, gaining some confidence from Alex.
"They prove nothing,"Alex said. "All they show is that you were in the mailbox shop. That doesn't mean you were blackmailing anyone."
"Not those pictures," Julie said, irritated. "The other pictures he took of me yesterday."