The Silver Falcon (28 page)

‘Thought Richard would have been with her,' Nigel muttered.

‘So did I,' Ryan said. He went back into the house and Nigel drove down the drive towards the lodge and the gates. It was no longer raining; he could see the house in his driving mirror, blazing with lights like a beacon in the darkness. He had seen enough action in the war to be immune to horror, but the scene in the hall at Coolbridge would remain in his mind for the rest of his life. The most horrible and vivid memory was of a trail of imprints on the polished stone floor of a naked, bloody foot. He shuddered, glancing at the silent woman beside him. She was leaning against the head-rest, and her eyes were closed.

By the mercy of God she had gone to bed before the intruder broke in. The distraught husband of the murdered woman had repeated over and over again that his wife normally came home an hour earlier. Just that evening she had chosen to stay late.…

Nigel put his foot down as soon as he had left the narrow country lanes and drove towards Lambourn at top speed.

The headlines were staring at Andrew Graham.

‘Murder at Millionairess's Rented Mansion. Housekeeper Beaten to Death.' He was sitting up in his hotel bedroom with a tray of coffee and the papers. He gave a gasping exclamation of shock. The housekeeper had disturbed an intruder and had been brutally battered to death, while the wealthy racehorse owner and widow of the American multi-millionaire Charles Schriber, slept upstairs, unaware of the horror taking place on the ground floor. Andrew put the paper down. He reached for the telephone and called through to MacNeil's room. His voice was muffled and hoarse with shock.

‘It's Graham. Have you seen the papers –'

‘Yeah,' the detective's voice sounded metallic. ‘Attempted robbery is what it says. Pretty brutal murder.'

‘I've got to talk to you,' Andrew said. ‘Come up to my room. It says Isabel's staying with her trainer. I'm going to put a call through at once!'

MacNeil was sitting by his bed, fully dressed. He picked a cigarette out of a packet with one hand, cradled the telephone under his chin while he lit it. ‘I'll be right up,' he said.

He found Andrew Graham shaving; the buzz of the electric razor hummed for a few minutes before he came out of the bathroom. MacNeil sat on the rumpled bed and read the newspaper. It was not the tabloid which he ordered for himself; it catered for a more select, yet equally sensation-seeking public. The account dwelt on the ferocity of the attack, the miraculous escape of Isabel, and the strange theory, borne out by footprints, that the thief had been barefooted. Robbery was obviously the motive, and the unfortunate housekeeper had disturbed the intruder as he was going through the house. There was a picture, taken from a snapshot, of Coolbridge House, and an inset of Isabel, smiling at Longchamp after the Falcon's victory. The police were mounting a nationwide hunt for the killer. MacNeil grimaced at the cliché. The attack was described as maniacal in its fury. He re-read that line.

He looked up as Graham came out of the bathroom. The doctor looked tired and grim. ‘I rang through to Foster,' he said. ‘They wouldn't let me speak to Isabel. She's under their own doctor and he says she's to have complete rest. I guess that's the best thing.'

He came and stood close to MacNeil, looking down at him.

‘I've got to see her,' he said. ‘However long it takes, I've got to talk to her again. Do you believe that was a robbery?'

MacNeil sucked on the end of his cigarette. ‘No,' he said. He stubbed it out in the metal ashtray by the bedside. ‘I don't see this as any burglary. This guy went berserk. I don't think it was a robbery.'

‘Where was Schriber?' Andrew Graham asked him. ‘Last night – where was he?'

‘I don't know,' MacNeil admitted. ‘I only trail him when he's with her. You didn't tell me she was back – I thought she was in France.'

He looked up at Andrew Graham.

‘You tell me,' he said. ‘What do you think?'

Graham turned suddenly and sat down; he passed a hand over his face and back over his sparse sandy hair.

‘I think that what I've been afraid of all along has finally happened,' he said. ‘And the terrible thing is, that an innocent woman has been butchered because nobody would listen to me. And so long as they keep on calling this a robbery, nobody
will
listen to me. I think Richard Schriber broke into that house to kill Isabel. Just as he tried to kill her in Barbados. Somehow, the housekeeper got in the way. That's what I think. It's come to the crisis point for him; his father's death triggered off the first attempt. Now the Derby's getting close. That's another flashpoint in his mind. So he goes down there and gets into the house to murder Isabel and make it look like a robbery.'

‘You're the expert on this kind of thing – you really think he did it?' MacNeil asked.

‘I do,' Andrew said. ‘And you can be sure he'll try again. It follows the pattern; he wants to rob his father of the final triumph and revenge his mother at the same time. He'll kill Isabel to stop the horse from running, and to punish her for taking his mother's place. But he'll protect himself. He'll try to make it look an accident. He's cunning, mad cunning, don't forget that. And he's just made a very bad mistake. He'll be extra careful next time. Jesus, what can I do to stop him?' He covered his face with his hands for a moment.

MacNeil lit a cigarette. He didn't say anything.

‘He's living with her,' Andrew went on. ‘We can't stop something happening when they're alone. There's no way to protect her if she won't protect herself!'

‘Then you'll have to try again,' MacNeil said. ‘She's safe so long as she stays with the Fosters. He can't get at her there. Meantime I'll keep him in sight twenty-four hours a day. How about this guy Ryan?'

‘I think he'll believe me,' Andrew said. ‘And that may be her best protection. He can stick close to Schriber; and to her.'

MacNeil nodded. ‘Fine, that way Schriber will be watched around the clock.'

He went out, leaving Andrew Graham alone.

‘He's gone,' Patsy Farrant said. She stood in the doorway of the principal guest room in the Hampstead house; Roy Farrant was behind her. The bed was stripped back to the bottom sheet, its covers hurled to the floor. The curtains hadn't been drawn, and the overhead reading light was still on.

Roy pushed past her into the room.

‘Bloody fool,' he said. He went in and pressed a switch; the curtains hissed and drew back, flooding the room with bright morning sunlight. He looked haggard, and there was a shrinkage about his face and jowls which hadn't been there on the morning of the Prix Lupin. Patsy came in after him. It was only two days since the death of Barry Lawrence and he hadn't sworn at her or lost his temper since.

‘He was in such a state,' Patsy said. ‘I thought he'd sleep through till lunch. Where do you think he's gone?'

‘Christ only knows,' Farrant said. ‘He must have heard about the murder. Maybe he woke up this morning and tried to phone her.'

‘He's come to you before when he's been in trouble,' Patsy said. ‘I think it was very generous of you to take him in last night at that hour, considering how he let you down over …'

‘Shut up,' Farrant said. ‘Just shut up, and don't ever mention anything about it. Ever.'

‘All right.' Her shoulders lifted under the expensive satin dressing gown. His rebuke was comparatively mild. She had no idea he had felt so deeply about Barry Lawrence. To Patsy he was just another crooked jockey that was mixed up with Roy, and their association had gone on a long time. Lawrence's death had really upset him. And when Richard Schriber had turned up drunk the night before, he had simply taken him upstairs and put him to bed without a word. He was a funny man; she would never, ever understand him, however hard she tried. She went over to the bed and stopped.

‘Oh hell,' she said, forgetting herself. ‘He's bloodied my sheet – look at that!' Roy turned and glanced down; there was an ugly stain on the crumpled top sheet. He looked at her briefly, and his face was blank. ‘Buy a new one,' he said. ‘I'll ring his flat – maybe he's gone there. Bloody fool,' he said again, lower this time, talking to himself. ‘I'd have gone with him.'

He went out of the bedroom, leaving Patsy fingering the sheet with the bloodstain. He had been astounded to find Richard Schriber on his doorstep at two in the morning. They hadn't seen or spoken to each other since the story about his proposed marriage had appeared in Partridge's gossip column. Farrant had sworn never to forgive him, to pay him back one day no matter how long it took. And he had meant it. If Barry Lawrence hadn't been lying in a French mortuary, he would have kicked Richard Schriber in the groin and left him lying there. But something had happened to Roy since Lawrence's body was brought back from the racecourse. Something he couldn't understand in himself. Ruthless, ambitious, tough, with one man's death on his conscience, he had suddenly weakened when Barry was killed.

There was a curious affinity between them, an emotional tie which had its origins and its strength in the shared guilt of that first crooked alliance which had ended in the victim's suicide. Roy could and did argue in the beginning that he hadn't known how desperate the Italian Lambarzini's financial situation was; it looked to him like a rich man's gamble which he could well afford to lose. But sharing the guilt had helped them both. They buried it and built on it further, with a multitude of dubious deals, culminating in the final disaster at Long-champ. Now, suddenly, the steel in Farrant cracked. He had paid the price and the price was too high. When an old friend turned up and needed help, he didn't think about revenge. He was glad of the chance to take him in. He didn't know it, but it was a subconscious longing to make amends.

He had seen the report of the murder at Isabel's house, and gone upstairs with Patsy to wake Richard and tell him. He would have welcomed the chance to drive him down there, help in any way he could. But Richard had gone. Almost too drunk to stand the night before, with the look of desperation about him that Roy had seen only when alcohol had totally disarmed him, Richard was in no fit state to be alone. He had homed in on his former friend, acting from blind instinct. Roy understood this, and accepted it. And Patsy had been intuitive enough for once not to argue with him. Even his constant irritation with her had suffered a diminution. He kept seeing Barry, smoking his big cigars, sipping champagne, in every corner of the house.

Sally Foster was doing the accounts; she was better at figures than Nigel, who had given up trying to make up the bills years ago, because he considered it a waste of time. Sally didn't argue with him: she merely took over the financial side of the business without any fuss. She had a bright little sitting room with files and a telephone on the desk with an outside line. Difficult owners were often switched through there when her husband didn't want to talk to them. Sally combined charm with brevity; the most persistent talkers found themselves cut short without a feeling of dissatisfaction.

She hadn't slept much the previous night. It was three in the morning before Nigel returned with Isabel; Sally had their spare room ready, with the electric blanket on and some hot milk and brandy in a flask. She was very good at looking after people, and she took charge of Isabel, putting her to bed. She gave her the milk and settled her down to sleep. She looked dazed and sick; Sally knew a lot about the effects of shock, and she came back and woke up her own doctor to explain the situation and ask him to make Isabel his first call in the morning. His diagnosis had been what she expected; complete rest for twenty-four hours. It was very lucky, from what he had read in the papers, that his patient hadn't seen the body of the housekeeper. The press was making a meal of the bloodstained horror in the manor house; the word maniac was being widely used to describe the attacker. One of the more sensational tabloids screamed about the barefoot slayer.

Sally, practical and unimaginative, couldn't begin to visualize the scene. She felt very sorry for Isabel Schriber, and fought off all press enquiries ruthlessly. When her daily woman reported that there were newspapermen in the yard asking for Nigel, she marched out stony-faced, to meet them and with the authority that came from being an upper-class English woman whose father was a General, told them to clear off before she called the police. The gates into the yard were locked, and she stamped back angrily into the house. She felt for a moment that it was just too damned unfair on Nigel, with a horse being readied for the Derby, to have this dirty mess thrown at him. Owners, she thought furiously; always some bloody trouble with them – and immediately she was sorry, thinking of Isabel that morning, white-faced and hollow-cheeked, sitting up in bed. Sally was a genuinely kind person, but her first love and primary consideration was for her husband.

She picked up the shrilling telephone for the umpteenth time, and it was Richard Schriber.

‘Oh, thank God it's you,' she said. ‘I've been going mad, fobbing off the bloody press all morning. Yes. She's here, with us. Nigel went down and got her last night. What a ghastly thing to happen!'

‘I'm at Coolbridge,' he said. ‘I phoned her this morning and got the police. I drove here. They wouldn't let me in at first till I proved who I was; then they told me she was staying with you.' His voice sounded unsteady. ‘I'll come straight down.'

‘She's not supposed to see anyone,' Sally said. ‘Doctor Graham phoned and I wouldn't let him come. Richard – are you there? Hullo – oh, good. I thought we'd been cut off – Is it very bad down there – the papers have been too horrible.…'

‘It's unbelievable,' he said. ‘Nothing's been touched; they're going through the house, photographing and looking for fingerprints. God Almighty, when I think what might have happened – I'll be with you as soon as I can. Tell her I'm coming. Is she very shaken?'