I said, 'She is a friend. She was walking a few steps behind me when the thugs hustled me into the garden. They didn't notice her. She told me yesterday that when she saw what was happening she ran down to the pub and called the police. Then, it seems, the busload of happy revellers arrived, so she drove the bus to the rescue, for which I'll always be grateful.'
'In other words,' Vernon said, 'you are not going to get her into trouble.'
'Quite right.'
He gave me a long slow look. 'And you're not going to give us her name and address.'
'She lives with a man,' I said, 'who wouldn't like to see her in court. You don't really need her, do you?'
'Probably not.'
'If there was any damage to the bus,' I said, 'I'll pay for it.'
Vernon went over to the door, opened it, and shouted to someone outside to bring tea. When he came back he said, 'We obtained a warrant yesterday to search Grantchester's house.'
He waited for me to ask if he'd found anything useful, so I did.
He didn't answer straightforwardly. He said, 'The policeman in Scotland sent us faxes today of the drawings you did of the thugs the day they attacked you at your home. Bernie almost collapsed when we showed them to him. Your policeman also sent the list of things that were stolen from you. In Grantchester's house we found four paintings of golf courses.'
'You didn't!'
Vernon nodded. 'Your policeman, Sergeant Berrick, said that the pictures had stickers on the backs, and if other stickers had been stuck over them, your name would still be visible under X-ray. So this afternoon we X-rayed the stickers.' He almost smiled. 'Your Scottish policeman said that you promised to paint a portrait of his wife if he helped to find your pictures.'
'I did,' I said. 'And I will.'
Vernon suggested, 'Mine, too?'
'A pleasure,' I said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
On Tuesday morning I went to the bank meeting in Reading and was shown into a small private conference room where the area bank manager, Margaret Morden and Tobias were already sitting round a table with coffee cups in front of them.
When I went in, they stood up.
'Don't,' I said awkwardly. 'Am I late?'
'No,' Tobe said.
They all sat. I took the one empty chair.
'Did you bring the list?' the bank man said.
I was wearing an open-necked white shirt with no tie, and carrying a jacket. I dug into a jacket pocket and handed Norman Quorn's envelope to Tobias.
They were staring at me, rather.
'Sorry about the bruises,' I said, making a gesture towards my face. 'I got a bit clobbered again. Very careless.'
Tobias said, 'I've talked to Chris. He told me about… Grantchester's barbecue.'
'Oh.'
Tobias had also, clearly, relayed to the bank man and to Margaret what Chris had said. All of them were embarrassed. I too. Very British.
'Well,' I said, 'can we find the money?'
They had no doubt of it. With a relieved air of eagerness and satisfaction they passed to each other the piece of paper, the riddle that Quorn had left; it soon became apparent that, although the numbers and names belonged to bank accounts, the brewery's Finance Director had been coy about setting down on paper which account referred to which bank. The list had been an aide memoire to himself. He had never meant anyone else to have to decipher it.
Thoughtfully they each copied out for themselves the whole list, numbers and names. (He wouldn't trust it to the office copier, the bank man said; the information was so hot it would not be allowed to leave that room.)
Each of them had brought a personal computer that was not connected to anything else and could not be hacked into from outside. Each of them fed into thek separate computer a disc recording what each of them, separately, knew. The bank had supplied a fax machine dedicated to this one job.
The room grew silent except for the tapping of keys and the drumming of thoughtful fingers when the solutions didn't quickly appear.
I waited without fret. They knew their business, and I didn't.
Tobias and the bank man wore the suits of their trade, dark confidence-builders with gravitas. Margaret had come in flowery printed wool, soft and rose-red and disarming, hiding the steel-hard brain. How ridiculous, I thought, that the male mind could often accept a female as equal only if she pretended to be in need of help. Margaret amused me. She caught me looking at her, read my thought, and winked. Men were right to be afraid of women, I concluded: the witch lived near the surface in all of them.
They burned witches… God help them.
I moved stiffly on my chair, leaning forward, resting my elbows on the table, taking shallow breaths. Body management, learned fast.
At the police station the previous afternoon Inspector Vernon had told me that Ivan's car (the wheels I'd driven to the party) had been identified by Mrs Benchmark and towed by the police and was, in fact, at that moment right outside in the station's car park.
'Can I take it?' I asked, surprised.
'If you think you're fit to drive.'
I had the car keys, among other things, in my restored trousers pocket.
Fit or not, I drove the car to Lambourn, found Emily's spare house key on its old familiar nail in the tack room, made inroads into her whisky and spent a disturbed night lying on my side in my clothes on the sofa in her drawing-room, lacking energy for anything else, feeling shivery and sick.
In the morning I'd made it upstairs to the bathroom, found a throw-away razor, combed my hair and rinsed my mouth. Well, I told myself, my physical state was my own stubborn fault: just put up with it. Swallow the tablets and be grateful for mercies.
I phoned Chris who said he'd been trying without success to reach my mobile number.
'The phone's in the car,' I said. 'I expect the battery's flat.'
'For hell's sake, charge it.'
'Yes.'
'Are you all right, Al? And where are you?'
'Lambourn. Could you drive to Paignton and then come here?'
'Today? Bring all three ladies?'
'If you can. I'll phone the hotel.'
'Chauffeur's togs coming up. Zipped bag nine.'
We disconnected on a smile. I phoned the Redcliffe and left messages for Emily and my mother. Then I retrieved the Quorn list from the back of the golf picture and drove to Reading.
By lunchtime the experts had got nowhere nearer the end of the rainbow.
They sent out for sandwiches, and we drank more coffee.
'The trouble is,' the bank man explained to me, 'that we have here three lots of variables. We have to match the account numbers on the list with a name on the list and with a bank identification number that we already have, and then we have to send that combination to the bank in question and hope to get a response from them to acknowledge that that account exists. We haven't so far been able to do that. The nearest we have come is matching one of the account numbers to one of the banks, but we supplied the wrong name for the account, and the bank told us by return fax, just now, that as our enquiry is incomplete, they cannot answer it. No one is being helpful. On top of that, the account numbers are the wrong way round.'
I said, 'How do you mean, the wrong way round?'
'All the numbers on the list end with two zeros. As a rule account numbers begin with two zeros. We have tried reversing the numbers, so far without success. I am still sure that all of the numbers have been reversed, but if Quorn jumbled them up further, or multiplied by two, for instance, we are in real trouble.'
Tobias and Margaret nodded in depression.
Tobias said, 'Quorn may have sent the money on a circular route involving all of these numbers - like the beach towels on the poolside chairs - or he may have sent it direct from Panama to any one place, but so far we haven't found a single trace of it. I have been working on the belief that one of these numbers or names must mean something to the Global Bank in Panama, but they will not admit it.'