‘Give... up...’ he said.
‘Get... stuffed.’
I made it to the bed and lay in the angle between it and the floor. He couldn’t get a good swing at me there. I turned the crutch round, and held it by the elbow and hand grips with both of my own. To hit me where I was lying he had to come nearer.
He came. His dark shadow was above me, exaggerated by the dim torchlight. He leant over, swinging. I shoved the stick end of the crutch hard upwards. It went into him solidly and he screeched sharply. The crutch he had been swinging dropped harmlessly on top of me as he reeled away, clutching at his groin.
‘I’ll... kill you... for that...’ His voice was high with pain. He groaned, hugging himself.
‘Serves... you... right’ I said breathlessly.
I pulled myself across the floor, dragging the plaster, aiming for the telephone which had crashed on to the floor with the little table. Found the receiver. Pulled the cord. The telephone bumped over the carpet into my hand.
Put my finger on the button. Small ting. Dialling tone. Found the numbers. Three... nine... one...
‘Yeah?’ Tony’s voice, thick with sleep.
Dead careless, I was. Didn’t hear a thing. The crutch swung wickedly down on the back of my head and I fell over the telephone and never told him to gallop to the rescue.
I woke where Oakley had left me, still lying on the floor over the telephone, the receiver half in and half out of my hand.
It was daylight, just. Grey and raw and raining. I was stiff. Cold. Had a headache.
Remembered bit by bit what had happened. Set about scraping myself off the carpet.
First stop, back on to the bed, accompanied by bedclothes. Lay there feeling terrible and looking at the mess he had made of my room.
After he’d knocked me out, he had nothing to be quiet about. Everything had been pulled out of the closet and drawers and flung on the floor. Everything smashable was smashed. The sleeves of some of my suits were ripped and lying in tatters. Rosalind’s picture had been torn into four pieces and the silver frame twisted and snapped. It had been revenge more than a search. A bad loser, David Oakley.
What I could see of the sitting-room through the open door seemed to have received the same treatment.
I lay and ached in most places you could think of.
Didn’t look to see if Oakley had found the piece of manifold because I knew he wouldn’t have. Thought about him coming, and about what he’d said.
Thought about Cranfield.
Thought about Gowery.
Once I got the plaster off and could move about again, it shouldn’t take me too long now to dig out the enemy. A bit of leg work. Needed two legs.
Oakley would shortly be reporting no success from the night’s work. I wondered if he would be sent to try again. Didn’t like that idea particularly.
I shifted on the bed, trying to get comfortable. I’d been concussed twice in five days once before, and got over it. I’d been kicked along the ground by a large field of hurdlers, which had been a lot worse than the crutches. I’d broken enough bones to stock a cemetery and this time they were all whole. But all the same I felt sicker than after racing falls, and in the end realised my unease was revulsion against being hurt by another man. Horses, hard ground, even express trains, were impersonal. Oakley had been a different type of invasion. The amount you were mentally affected by a pain always depended on how you got it.
I felt terrible. Had no energy at all to get up and tidy the mess.
Shut my eyes to blot it out. Blotted myself out, too. Went to sleep.
A voice said above my head, ‘Won’t you ever learn to keep your door shut?’
I smiled feebly. ‘Not if you’re coming through it’
‘Finding you flat out is becoming a habit.’
‘Try to break it.’
I opened my eyes. Broad daylight. Still raining.
Roberta was standing a foot from the bed wearing a blinding yellow raincoat covered in trickling drops. The copper hair was tied up in a pony tail and she was looking around her with disgust.
‘Do you realise it’s half past ten?’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Do you always drop your clothes all over the place when you go to bed?’
‘Only on Wednesdays.’
‘Coffee?’ she said abruptly, looking down at me.
‘Yes, please.’
She picked her way through the mess to the door, and then across the sitting-room until she was out of sight. I rubbed my hand over my chin. Bristly. And there was a tender lump on the back of my skull and a sore patch all down one side of my jaw, where I hadn’t dodged fast enough. Bruises in other places set up a morning chorus. I didn’t listen.
She came back minus the raincoat and carrying two steaming mugs which she put carefully on the floor. Then she picked up the bedside table and transferred the mugs to its top.
The drawer had fallen out of the table, and the envelope had fallen out of the drawer. But Oakley hadn’t apparently looked into it: hadn’t known it was there to find.
Roberta picked up the scattered crutches and brought them over to the bed.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘You take it very calmly.’
‘I’ve seen it before,’ I pointed out.
‘And you just went to sleep?’
‘Opted out,’ I agreed.
She looked more closely at ray face and rolled my head over on the pillow. I winced. She took her hand away.
‘Did you get the same treatment as the flat?’
‘More or less.’
‘What for?’
‘For being stubborn.’
‘Do you mean,’ she said incredulously, ‘That you could have avoided all this... and didn’t?’
‘If there’s a good reason for backing down, you back down. If there isn’t, you don’t.’
‘And all this... isn’t a good enough reason?’
‘No.’
‘You’re crazy,’ she said.
‘You’re so right.’ I sighed, pushed myself up a bit, and reached for the coffee.
‘Have you called the police?’ she asked.
I shook my head. ‘Not their quarrel.’
‘Who did it. then?’
I smiled at her. ‘Your father and I have got our licences back.’
‘What?’
‘It’ll be official sometime today.’
‘Does Father know? How did it happen? Did you do it?’
‘No, he doesn’t know yet. Ring him up. Tell him to get on to all the owners. It’ll be confirmed in the papers soon, either today’s evening editions, or tomorrow’s dailies.’
She picked the telephone off the floor and sat on the edge of my bed, and telephoned to her father with real joy and sparkling eyes. He wouldn’t believe it at first.
‘Kelly says it’s true,’ she said.
He argued again, and she handed the telephone to me.
‘You tell him.’
Cranfield said, ‘Who told you?’
‘Lord Ferth.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘No,’ I lied. ‘Just that the sentences had been reviewed... and reversed. We’re back, as from today. The official notice will be in next week’s Calendar.’
‘No explanation at all?’ he insisted.
‘They don’t have to give one,’ I pointed out.
‘All the same...’
‘Who cares why?’ I said. ‘The fact that we’re back... that’s all that matters.’
‘Did you find out who framed us?’
‘No.’
‘Will you go on trying?’
‘I might do,’ I said. ‘We’ll see.’
He had lost interest in that. He bounded into a stream of plans for the horses, once they were back. ‘And it will give me great pleasure to tell Henry Kessel...’
‘I’d like to see his face,’ I agreed. But Pat Nikita would never part with Squelch, nor with Kessel, now. If Cranfield thought Kessel would come crawling apologetically back, he didn’t know his man. ‘Concentrate on getting Breadwinner back,’ I suggested. ‘I’ll be fit to ride in the Gold Cup.’