Shock took people like that sometimes, and to be fair he had had a bad fright.
I said to the girl, ‘There was a horse.’
She looked at me without eagerness.
‘Of course there was,’ she said.
‘Yes... He got loose from my stable and strayed up here on to the road.’
I was immediately the focus of a hedge of accusing eyes and also the new target for the Rover driver’s ire. He had really been quite restrained with the girl. He knew a lot of words one seldom heard even on a racecourse.
In a gap in the tirade the girl spoke. She had one hand pressed against her abdomen and a strained look on her face.
‘I need,’ she said distinctly, ‘to go to the bathroom.’
‘I’ll take you to my house,’ I said. ‘It’s not far.’
The Rover driver was against it. She should stay until the police arrived, which would be at any second, he said.But some of the men showed that they understood what such an occasion could do to the viscera and silently parted to let her go with me across to my car.
‘If the police want her,’ I said, ‘Tell them she’s at Jonah Dereham’s house. First turn left, through the village, a house and stable yard out on the far side, on the right.’
They nodded. When I looked back I could see most of them returning to their own cars and driving away, and only one or two staying to support the Rover man.
She said nothing on the short journey. There was sweat on her face as well as blood. I drew up outside the kitchen and led her inside without delay.
‘The cloakroom is there,’ I said, showing her the door.
She nodded and went inside. White walls, bright unshaded light bulb, gumboots, waterproofs, two framed racing photographs and an ancient shotgun. I left her to this uncosy decor and went outside again to where my ‘chaser still patiently stood hitched to the railing.
I patted him and told him he was a great fellow. Fetched him a couple of apples from the tackroom and led him back to his paddock. He hadn’t galloped so fast or felt such excitement since the day they cheered him home up the hill at Cheltenham. He snorted with what was easy to read as pride when I released him and trotted away on springy ankles like a yearling.
She was coming out of the cloakroom when I returned. She had washed the streaked blood off her face and was dabbing the still unclotted cut on her forehead with a towel. I invited her with a gesture back to the kitchen and she came with the same marked and unusual composure.
‘What you can give me now,’ she said, ‘is a large drink.’
‘Er... How about some hot strong tea?’
She stared. ‘No. Brandy.’
‘I haven’t any.’
She gestured impatiently. ‘Whiskey, then. Gin. Anything will do.’
‘I’m afraid,’ I said apologetically, ‘that I haven’t anything at all.’
‘Do you mean,’ she said in disbelief, ‘that you have no alcohol of any sort in this house?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said blankly. She sat down suddenly on the kitchen chair as if her knees had given way.
I said, ‘Tea is honestly better when you’re injured. I’ll make you some.’
I went over to the kettle and picked it up to fill it.
‘You bloody fool,’ she said. Her voice was a mixture of scorn, anger, and, surprisingly, despair.
‘But...’
‘But nothing,’ she said. ‘You let your stupid horse out and it nearly kills me and now you can’t even save me with a bloody drink.’
‘Save you?’ I echoed.
She gave me a cutting glance. Same mix; scorn, anger, despair. She explained the despair.
‘Look... I’ve been to a party. I was driving myself home. Now thanks to you and your stupid horse there’s been an accident and even though it wasn’t my fault the police will be along with their little breath tests.’
I looked at her.
‘I’m not drunk,’ she said unnecessarily. ‘Nowhere near it. But I’d be over the eighty milligrammes. Even eight-one is enough. And I can’t afford to lose my driving licence.’
My horse had got her into the mess. I suppose I should do my best to get her out.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll fix it.’
‘Wake a neighbour,’ she said. ‘But do it quick, or the police will be here.’
I shook my head. I went out to the dustbin and retrieved the empty Scotch bottle.
‘No time for neighbours,’ I said. ‘And it would look too deliberate.’ I fetched a glass and gave it to her. Then I held the empty bottle under the tap, splashed in a thimbleful of water, swilled the water around and finally dripped it into the glass.
‘Do you think,’ she said ominously, ‘that this is going to fool anybody?’
‘Don’t see why not.’
I put the empty bottle on the kitchen table and returned to the kettle. ‘And we’d better get your cuts seen to.’
She blotted her forehead again and looked indifferently at the crimson state of her right forearm. ‘I suppose so,’ she said.
While the kettle boiled I telephoned my own doctor and explained the situation.
‘Take her to the Casualty Department at the Hospital,’ he said. ‘That’s what they’re there for.’
‘She’s pretty,’ I said. ‘And you’d make a better job of it.’
‘Dammit, Jonah, it’s half past one,’ he said, but he agreed to come.
The tea was made and brewing by the time the police arrived with their little breath tests. They accepted mugs with sugar and milk and sniffed sourly into the whiskey bottle and the glass in the girl’s hand. Didn’t she know she shouldn’t have a drink before she had blown into the breathalyser? She shook her head tiredly and indicated that she hadn’t given it a thought.
Tests within fifteen minutes of alcohol intake were not acceptable as evidence. They filled in the time by taking down her view of the facts.
‘Name, miss?’
‘Sophie Randolph.’
‘Married?’
‘No.’
‘Age?’
‘Thirty-two.’ No feminine hesitation. Just a fact.
‘Address?’
‘Primrose Court, Scilly Isles Drive, Esher, Surrey.’
‘Occupation?’
‘Air traffic controller.’
The policeman’s pen remained stationary in the air for five seconds before he wrote it down. I looked at the girl; at Sophie Randolph, unmarried, thirty-two, air traffic controller, a woman accustomed to working on equal terms among males, and I remembered her instinctive reaction to the men at the scene of the crash: even in a crisis she repelled protective cosseting because in everyday life she could not afford it.
She gave them a straightforward statement. She had been to dinner with friends near Brighton. She left at twelve fifteen. At about twelve fifty she was driving in good visibility at forty-five miles an hour, listening to all-night radio. A horse suddenly emerged into the road from the central area of bushes. She braked hard but had no chance to stop. She steered sharply to the left to avoid the horse. She had passed the Rover a mile or so back and did not realise he was still so close behind her. The Rover struck the back of her car, slewing it round. Her car then bounced off a signpost at the side of the road, and slid to a stop in the ditch. She had been shaken. She had been wearing a seat belt. She had been slightly cut by broken glass.
One of the policemen asked what she had had to drink during the evening. In the same calm factual voice she itemised sherry before dinner, wine with.
Eventually they got her to blow into the bag. She did so without anxiety.
The policeman who took the bag from her gave the crystals a sharp scrutiny and raised his eyebrows.
‘Well, miss,’ he said. ‘Unofficially I can tell you that if you hadn’t drunk that whiskey you’d have been on the right side. It isn’t much over, even now.’