Hot Money Part 2

Malcolm raised his catalogue.

The movement caught the eye of the auctioneer, who paused with the gavel raised, using his eyebrows as a question, looking at Malcolm with surprise. Malcolm sat in what could be called the audience, not with the usual actors.

'You want to bid, sir?' asked the auctioneer.

'And fifty,' Malcolm said clearly, nodding.

There was a fluttering in the dovecot of auctioneers as head bent to head among themselves, consulting. All round the ring, necks stretched to see who had spoken, and down in the entrance-way the man who'd bid last before Malcolm shrugged, shook his head and turned his back to the auctioneer. His last increase had been for twenty thousand only: a last small raise over two million, which appeared to have been his intended limit.

The auctioneer himself seemed less than happy. 'All done, then?' he asked again, and with no further replies, said,'Done then. Sold for two million and seventy thousand guineas to... er... the bidder opposite.'

The auctioneer consulted with his colleagues again and one of them left the box, carrying a clipboard. He hurried down and round the ring to join a minion on our side, both of them with their gaze fastened on Malcolm.

'Those two auctioneers won't let you out of their sight,' I observed. 'They suffered badly from a vanis.h.i.+ng bidder not so long ago.'

'They look as if they're coming to arrest me,' Malcolm said cheerfully; and both of the auctioneers indeed made their way right to his sides, handing him the clipboard and politely requiring him to sign their bill of sale, in triplicate and without delay. They retired to ground level but were still waiting for us with steely intent when, after three further sales had gone through as expected, we made our way down.

They invited Malcolm civilly to the quieter end of their large office, and we went. They computed what he owed and deferentially presented the total. Malcolm wrote them a cheque.

They politely suggested proof of ident.i.ty and a reference. Malcolm gave them an American Express card and the telephone number of his bank manager. They took the cheque gingerly and said that although Mr... er... Pembroke should if he wished arrange insurance on his purchase at once, the colt would not be available for removal until... er... tomorrow.

Malcolm took no offence. He wouldn't have let anyone he didn't know drive off with a horsebox full of gold. He said tomorrow would be fine, and in high good spirits told me I could ferry him back to his Cambridge hotel, from where he'd come that morning in a taxi, and we would have dinner together.

After we'd called in at an insurance agent's office and he'd signed some more papers and another cheque, we accordingly walked together to the car-park from where people were beginning to drift home. Night had fallen, but there were lights enough to see which car was which, and as we went I pointed out the row ahead where my wheels stood.

'Where are you going to send your colt?' I asked, walking.

'Where would you say?'

'I should think,' I said... but I never finished the answer, or not at that actual moment.

A car coming towards us between two rows of parked cars suddenly emitted two headlight beams, blinding us; and at the same moment it seemed to accelerate fiercely, swerving straight towards Malcolm.

I leaped ... flung myself... at my father, my flying weight spinning him off balance, carrying him off his feet, knocking him down. I fell on top of him, knowing that the pale speeding bulk of the car had caught me, but not sure to what extent. There was just a bang and a lot of lights curving like arcs, and a whirling view of gleams on metal, and a fast crunch into darkness.

We were on the ground then between two silent parked cars, our bodies heavy with shock and disorientation, in a sort of inertia.

After a moment, Malcolm began struggling to free himself from under my weight, and I rolled awkwardly onto my knees and thankfully thought of little but bruises. Malcolm pushed himself up until he was sitting with his back against a car's wheel, collecting his wits but looking as shaken as I felt.

'That car,' he said eventually, between deep breaths,'was aiming... to kill me.'

I nodded speechlessly. My trousers were torn, thigh grazed and bleeding.

'You always had... quick reactions,' he said. 'So now... now you know... why I want you beside me... all the time.'

Two.

It was the second time someone had tried to kill him, he said.

I was driving towards Cambridge a shade more slowly than usual, searching anxiously in the rear-view mirrors for satanically-minded followers but so far thankfully without success. My right leg was stiffening depressingly from the impact of twenty minutes ago, but I was in truth fairly used to that level of buffet through having ridden over the years in three or four hundred jump races, incurring consequent collisions with the ground.

Malcolm didn't like driving for reasons Coochie had deftly diagnosed as impatience. Coochie hadn't liked his driving either, for reasons (she said) of plain fear, and had taken over as family chauffeur. I too had been used to driving Malcolm from the day I gained my licence: I would need to have been delirious to ask him to take the wheel just because of some grazed skin.

The second time someone had tried to kill him ...

'When was the first time?' I asked.

'Last Friday.'

It was currently Tuesday evening.'What happened?' I said.

He took a while over answering. When he did there was more sadness in his voice than anger, and I listened to his tone behind the words and slowly understood his deepest fears.

'One moment I was walking the dogs... well, I think I was, but that's it, I don't really remember.' He paused, 'I think I had a bang on the head... Anyway, the last thing I remember is calling the dogs and opening the kitchen door. I meant to take them through the garden to that field with the stream and the willows. I don't know how far I went. I shouldn't think far. Anyway, I woke up in Moira's car in the garage... it's still there... and it's d.a.m.n lucky I woke up at all... the engine was running ...' He stopped for a few moments.

'It's funny how the mind works. I knew absolutely at once that I had to switch off the engine. Extraordinary. Like a flash. I was in the back seat, sort of tumbled... toppled over... half lying. I got up and practically fell through between the front seats to reach the key in the ignition, and when the engine stopped I just lay there, you know, thinking that I was b.l.o.o.d.y uncomfortable but not having any more energy to move.'

'Did anyone come?' I said, when he paused.

'No... I felt better after a while. I stumbled out of the car and was sick.'

'Did you tell the police?'

'Sure, I told them.' His voice sounded weary at the recollection.'It must have been about five when I set off with the dogs. Maybe seven by the time I called the police. I'd had a couple of stiff drinks by then and stopped shaking. They asked me why I hadn't called them sooner. b.l.o.o.d.y silly. And it was the same lot who came after Moira. They think I did it, you know. Had her killed.'

'I know.'

'Did the witches tell you that too?'

'Joyce did. She said you couldn't have. She said you might have... er...' I baulked from repeating my mother's actual words, which were 'throttled the little b.i.t.c.h in a rage', and subst.i.tuted more moderately, '... been capable of killing her yourself, but not of paying someone else to do it.'

He made a satisfied noise but no comment, and I added, 'That seems to be the family concensus.'

He sighed. 'It's not the police concensus. Far from it. I don't think they believed anyone had tried to kill me. They made a lot of notes and took samples... I ask you... of my vomit, and dusted over Moira's car for fingerprints, but it was obvious they were choked with doubts. I think they thought I'd been going to commit suicide and thought better of it... or else that I'd staged it in the hope people would believe I couldn't have killed Moira if someone was trying to kill me me ...' He shook his head.'I'm sorry I told them at all, and that's why we're not reporting tonight's attempt either.' ...' He shook his head.'I'm sorry I told them at all, and that's why we're not reporting tonight's attempt either.'

He had been adamant, in the sales car-park, that we shouldn't.

'What about the b.u.mp on your head?' I asked.

'I had a swelling above my ear. Very tender, but not very big. The word I heard the police use about that was "inconclusive".'

'And if you'd died ...' I said thoughtfully.

He nodded, 'If I'd died, it would have wrapped things up nicely for them. Suicide. Remorse. Implicit admission of guilt.'

I drove carefully towards Cambridge, appalled and also angry. Moira's death hadn't touched me in the slightest, but the attacks on my father showed me I'd been wrong. Moira had had a right to live. There should have been rage, too, on her behalf.

'What happened to the dogs?' I said.

'What? Oh, the dogs. They came back... they were whining at the kitchen door. I let them in while I was waiting for the police. They were muddy... heaven knows where they'd been. They were tired anyway. I fed them and they went straight to their baskets and went to sleep.'

'Pity they couldn't talk.'

'What? Yes, I suppose so. Yes.' He fell into silence, sighing occasionally as I thought over what he'd told me.

'Who,' I said eventually,'knew you were going to Newmarket Sales?'

'Who?' He sounded surprised at the question, and then understood it. 'I don't know.' He was puzzled, 'I've no idea. I didn't know myself until yesterday.'

'Well, what have you been doing since the police left you last Friday night?'

'Thinking.' And the thoughts, it was clear, had been melancholic: the thoughts now saddening his voice.

'Mm,' I said, 'along the lines of why was Moira killed?'

'Along those lines.'

I said it plainly.'To stop her taking half your possessions?'

He said unwillingly,'Yes.'

'And the people who had a chief interest in stopping her were your likely heirs. Your children.'

He was silent.

I said,'Also perhaps their husbands and wives, also perhaps even the witches.'

'I don't want to believe it,' he said.'How could I have put a murderer into the world.'

'People do,' I said.

'Ian!'

The truth was that, apart from poor Robin, I didn't know my half-brothers and half-sisters well enough to have any certainty about anyof them. I was usually on speaking terms with them all, but didn't seek them out. There had been too much fighting, too many rows: Vivien's children disliked Alicia's, Alicia's disliked them and me, Vivien hated Joyce and Joyce hated Alicia very bitterly indeed. Under Coochie's reign, the whole lot had been banned from sleeping in the house, if not from single-day visits, with the result that a storm of collective resentment had been directed at me whom she had kept and treated as her own.

'Apart from thinking,' I said, 'what have you been doing since Friday night?'

'When the police had gone, I... I...' he stopped.

'The shakes came back?' I suggested.

'Yes. Do you understand that?'

'I'd have been scared silly,' I said.'Stupid not to be. I'd have felt that whoever had tried to kill me was prowling about in the dark waiting for me to be alone so he could have another go.'

Malcolm audibly swallowed.'I telephoned to the hire firm I use now and told them to send a car to fetch me. Do you know what panic feels like?'

'Not that sort, I guess.'

'I was sweating, and it was cold. I could feel my heart thumping... banging away at a terrible rate. It was awful. I packed some things... I couldn't concentrate.'

He s.h.i.+fted in his seat as the outskirts of Cambridge came up in the headlights and began to give me directions to the hotel where he said he'd spent the previous four nights.

'Does anyone know where you're staying?' I asked, turning corners.'Have you seen any of your old chums?'

Malcolm knew Cambridge well, had been at university there and still had friends at high tables. It must have seemed to him a safe city to bolt to, but it was where I would have gone looking for him, if not much else failed.

'Of course I have,' he said in answer to my question, 'I spent Sunday with the Rackersons, dined with old Digger in Trinity last night... it's nonsense to think they could be involved.'

'Yes,' I agreed, pulling up outside his hotel.'All the same, go and pack and check out of here, and we'll go somewhere else.'

'It's not necessary,' he protested.

'You appointed me as minder, so I'm minding,' I said.

He gave me a long look in the dim light inside the car. Thedoorman of the hotel stepped forward and opened the door beside me, an invitation to step out.

'Come with me,' my father said.

I was both astounded by his fear and thought it warranted. I asked the doorman where I should park, and turned at his suggestion through an arch into the hotel's inner courtway. From there, through a back door and comfortable old-fas.h.i.+oned hallways, Malcolm and I went up one flight of red-carpeted stairs to a lengthy winding corridor. Several people we pa.s.sed glanced down at my torn trouser-leg with the dried-blood scenery inside, but no one said anything: was it still British politeness, I wondered, or the new creed of not getting involved? Malcolm, it seemed, had forgotten the problem existed.

He brought his room key out of his pocket and, with it raised, said abruptly, 'I suppose you you didn't tell anyone I would be at the sales.' didn't tell anyone I would be at the sales.'

'No, I didn't.'

'But you knew.' He paused.'Only you knew.'

He was staring at me with the blue eyes and I saw all the sudden fear-driven question marks rioting through his mind.

'Go inside,' I said.'The corridor isn't the place for this.'

He looked at the key, he looked wildly up and down the now empty corridor, poised, almost, to run.

I turned my back on him and walked purposefully away in the direction of the stairs.

'Ian,' he shouted.

I stopped and turned round.

'Come back,' he said.

I went back slowly.'You said you trusted me,' I said.