‘I am unlikely to do that,’ he said stiffly.
I wasn’t so sure. ‘I want your word on it,’ I said.
He drew himself up, offended. It at least had the effect of straightening his backbone.
‘You have it.’
‘Fine.’ I held the door open for him. ‘Let’s go down to the yard, then.’
He still hesitated, but finally made up his mind to it, and went before me through the door and down the stairs.
Roberta and her mother were standing in the hall, looking as if they were waiting for news at a pithead after a disaster. They watched the reappearance of the head of the family in mixture of relief and apprehension, and Mrs Cranfield said tentatively, ‘Dexter...?’
He answered irritably, as if he saw no cause for anxiety in his having shut himself away with a shotgun for thirty-six hours, ‘We’re going down to the yard.’
‘Great,’ said Roberta practically smothering any tendency to emotion from her mother, ‘I’ll come too;’
Archie hurried to meet us and launched into a detailed account of which horses had gone and which were about to go next. Cranfield hardly listened and certainly didn’t take it in. He waited for a gap in the flow, and when he’d waited long enough, impatiently interrupted.
‘Yes, yes, Archie, I’m sure you have everything in hand. That is not what I’ve come down for, however. I want you to tell the lads at once that their notice to leave is withdrawn for one month.’
Archie looked at me, not entirely understanding.
‘The sack,’ I said, ‘Is postponed. Pending attempts to get wrongs righted.’
‘Mine too?’
‘Absolutely.’ I agreed. ‘Especially, in fact.’
‘Hughes thinks there is a chance we can prove ourselves innocent and recover our licences,’ Cranfield said formally, his own disbelief showing like two heads. ‘In order to help me keep the stable together while he makes enquiries, Hughes has agreed to contribute one half towards your wages for one month.’ I looked at him sharply. That was not at all what I had agreed. He showed no sign of acknowledging his reinterpretation (to put it charitably) of the offer I had accepted, and went authoritatively on. ‘Therefore, as your present week’s notice still has five days to run, none of you will be required to leave here for five weeks. In fact,’ he added grudgingly, ‘I would be obliged if you would all stay.’
Archie said to me, ‘You really mean it?’ and I watched the hope suddenly spring up in his face and thought that maybe it wasn’t only my own chance of a future that was worth eight hundred quid.
‘That’s right,’ I agreed. ‘As long as you don’t all spend the month busily fixing up to go somewhere else at the end of it.’
‘What do you take us for?’ Archie protested.
‘Cynics,’ I said, and Archie actually laughed.
I left Cranfield and Archie talking together with most of the desperation evaporating from both of them, and walked away to my aerodynamic burnt orange car. I didn’t hear Roberta following me until she spoke in my ear as I opened the door.
‘Can you really do it?’ she said.
‘Do what?’
‘Get your licences back.’
‘It’s going to cost me too much not to. So I guess I’ll have to or...’
‘Or what?’
I smiled. ‘Or die in the attempt.’
It took me an hour to cross into Gloucestershire and almost half as long to sort out the geography of the village of Down-field, which mostly seemed to consist of cul-de-sacs.
The cottage I eventually found after six misdirections from local inhabitants was old but not beautiful, well painted but in dreary colours, and a good deal more trustworthy than its owner.
When Mrs Charlie West saw who it was, she tried to shut the front door in my face. I put out a hand that was used to dealing with strong horses and pulled her by the wrist, so that if she slammed the door she would be squashing her own arm.
She screeched loudly. An inner door at the back of the hall opened all of six inches, and Charlie’s round face appeared through the crack. A distinct lack of confidence was discernible in that area.
‘He’s hurting me,’ Mrs West shouted.
‘I want to talk to you,’ I said to Charlie over her shoulder.
Charlie West was less than willing. Abandoning his teenage wife, long straight hair, Dusty Springfield eyelashes, beige lipstick and all, he retreated a pace and quite firmly shut his door. Mrs West put up a loud and energetic defence to my attempt to establish further contact with Master Charlie, and I went through the hall fending off her toes and fists.
Charlie had wedged a chair under the door handle.
I shouted through the wood. ‘Much as you deserve it, I haven’t come here to beat you up. Come out and talk.’
No response of any sort. I rattled the door. Repeated my request. No results. With Mrs West still stabbing around like an agitated hornet I went out of the front door and round the outside to try to talk to him through the window. The window was open, and the sitting-room inside was empty.
I turned round in time to see Charlie’s distant backview disappearing across a field and into the next parish. Mrs West saw him too, and gave me a nasty smile.
‘So there,’ she said triumphantly.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you must be very proud of him.’
The smile wobbled. I walked back down their garden path, climbed into the car, and drove away.
Round one slightly farcically to the opposition.
Two miles away from the village I stopped the car in a farm gateway and thought it over. Charlie West had been a great deal more scared of me than I would have supposed, even allowing for the fact that I was a couple of sizes bigger and a fair amount stronger. Maybe Charlie was as much afraid of my fury as of my fists. He almost seemed to have been expecting that I would attempt some sort of retaliation, and certainly after what he had done, he had a right to. All the same, he still represented my quickest and easiest route to who, if not to why.
After a while I started up again and drove on into the nearest town. Remembered I hadn’t eaten all day, put away some rather good cold beef at three-thirty in a homemade café geared more to cake and scones, dozed in the car, waited until dark, and finally drove back again to Charlie’s village.
There were lights on in several rooms of his cottage. The Wests were at home. I turned the car and retracked about a hundred yards, stopping half on and half off a grassy verge. Climbed out. Stood up.
Plan of attack: vague. I had had some idea of ringing the front door bell, disappearing, and waiting for either Charlie or his dolly wife to take one incautious step outside to investigate. Instead, unexpected allies materialised in the shape of one small boy and one large dog.
The boy had a torch, and was talking to his dog, who paused to dirty up the roadside five yards ahead.
‘What the hell d’you think you were at, you bloody great nit, scoffing our Mum’s stewing steak? Gor blimey mate, don’t you ever learn nothing? Tomorrow’s dinner gone down your useless big gullet and our Dad will give us both a belting this time I shouldn’t wonder, not just you, you senseless rotten idiot. Time you knew the bloody difference between me Mum’s stewing steak and dog meat, it is straight, though come to think of it there isn’t all that difference, ’specially as maybe your eyes don’t look at things the same. Do they? I damn well wish you could talk, mate.’
I clicked shut the door of the car and startled him, and he swung round with the torch searching wildly. The beam caught me and steadied on my face.
The boy said, ‘You come near me and I’ll set my dog on you.’ The dog, however, was still squatting and showed no enthusiasm.