Dick Francis's Damage (25 page)

It was a good question.

“Perhaps the money is the incentive,” I said.

“But all of them have mountains of money already.”

Did they? Perhaps I would look at that too.

I
spent half an hour on the phone trying to convince a woman at
The Times
that it was imperative that I place an announcement into their Saturday edition.

“I told you, you're too late,” she said. “It will have to now be Monday.”

“This is an emergency,” I said. “Is there not a late-entry fee? You won't have gone to press yet.”

“But the editor has made up the page,” she said.

“Surely you can squeeze one more in,” I pleaded.

“I'll try,” she said, “but I'll not promise anything. What is the announcement?”

“Van Gogh offers Leonardo a further payment in exchange for
a quiet life.”

“That doesn't sound much like an emergency to me,” said the woman.

I used my most sincere tone of voice. “Trust me, it is.”

She wasn't very keen but she agreed to try to get it in the
Saturday paper if she could and took what I thought to be an excessive fee from my credit card for the privilege. Even so, I didn't hold out much hope that it would appear before Monday.

—

AFTER LEAVING
the BHA offices, I took the Tube to Kensington to see my ex–army friend at the spy-gadget shop.

“Night vision goggles?” he said. “Sure, I've got those, although they're not really goggles as such. And they're not cheap.”

“Nothing here is cheap,” I said with a smile.

But a hundred thousand pounds wasn't cheap either.

He showed me a top-of-the-range night vision monocular. It looked like half of the pair of small binoculars and it attached to a harness that held it in place, hands-free, over the right eye.

“You need only one eye covered. Your brain sorts out the image. The other eye is then clear in case you get a bright light coming on.”

“Would that harm the eye looking through the sight?”

“Not at all. The image intensifier shuts down instantly if it's in bright light. I tell you, this is the best night vision available. Made by the same people who make night vision equipment for army helicopter pilots. There's usually enough ambient light from stars and stuff if you're outside, but this has also got an infrared illuminator for when it's completely dark.”

He pushed a switch and a tiny red light came on next to the eyepiece.

“Come and check it out in my storeroom.”

We went into his storeroom, which had no windows. He closed the door and switched off the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I placed the monocular against my eye and
was amazed that I could see everything, albeit in black and white, overlaid with a slightly green tinge.

“Good, isn't it?” said my friend.

“Amazing. I'll take it.”

We went back into the shop and I waited while my friend turned the device off and put everything back in the box.

“Still checking on the little lady, then, are we?” he said. “On her nighttime excursions?”

“Something like that.”

He laughed as he too charged an exorbitant amount to my credit card.

“It's guaranteed for a year,” he said, handing me a plastic bag containing the box.

So it should be, at that price.

—

I STOOD
in the tube station ticket hall debating with myself whether I should take the train north towards home or south to Richmond.

It was four-thirty on a Friday afternoon. Lydia always worked late on Fridays, something about more people wanting to view apartments after work on a Friday than on any other day. She wouldn't be home before seven at the earliest.

Richmond won. Easily.

“Hello, little bro,” Faye said, opening her front door. She didn't express the enthusiasm that usually greeted my arrival, and there was something about her manner that worried me.

“Are you OK?” I asked with concern.

“Ha!” she said with a hollow laugh. “Am I OK? No, I'm not OK. I've got cancer, so I'm not bloody OK.” She began to cry.

I was rather shocked. I had assumed she was coping well.

“Come on,” I said, stepping inside the house and putting my arm around her shoulders, “let's get you a drink.”

“Good idea,” she said. “I could really do with a drink.”

I'd meant a cup of tea or coffee, but Faye went to the fridge and poured herself a large glass of white wine.

“White OK? It's all I have.”

“White is fine,” I said.

She poured a second glass and handed it to me. I took a small sip while Faye gulped down a mouthful.

“Have you had some bad news?” I asked carefully. “About the cancer?”

She took a Kleenex from the box on the counter and blew her nose.

“No, nothing like that. No bad news. Everything's fine. I'm sorry.” She dabbed at her eyes with another tissue.

“There's no need for you to be sorry,” I said. “Everything is clearly not fine. So talk to me.”

She took some deep breaths.

“I am fine,” she said, smiling. “Really I am. I just sometimes have minor bouts of depression about my own mortality, that's all. You caught me in the middle of one. I'll be OK now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Especially after this.”

She held up her glass and took another generous swig of her wine.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

“There's nothing to talk about. I don't want to die and the prospect depresses me. It's silly, I know. The operation was a success, and the damn chemo should do the rest, but . . . suddenly
you realize that your life won't go on forever and it's quite a shock.”

There was nothing to say so I gave her a hug instead.

“Thank you,” she said, “I needed that. Now, how are you and Lydia?”

“We're fine,” I said. “Busy as always.”

“You need to make more time for each other.”

“I know. You told me on Wednesday.”

“Are things any better?”

“Things were never really that bad,” I said. “It was more my state of mind rather than anything tangible about our relationship. And, yes, things are better in that department. Let's just say I might be coming through my midlife crisis.”

“Midlife crisis! Don't make me laugh. You're only thirty. Your midlife crisis is still a long way off. That only occurs when you buy a sports car or you start wearing designer jeans and funny hats.”

She clearly hadn't seen my brown woolen beanie.

“How's Quentin?” I asked.

“Same as ever,” she said, “although he seems slightly less stressed this week. He even came home from chambers early yesterday afternoon. He's not normally home until eight or nine at the earliest. He damn near caught me.”

“Doing what? Sleeping with the garden boy?”

“Chance would be a fine thing,” she said, laughing. “Our garden boy is pushing eighty. No, nothing like that. Kenneth had been here to see me.”

“Ah,” I said.

There must have been something in my tone.

“You
knew!
” she said suddenly.

“I knew that he might come to see you,” I said. “I suggested it.”

“Do you also know that he's gay?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Poor boy is terrified at what Quentin will say and with good reason. Quentin is not wholly enamored of gays.”

“According to Ken, that's an understatement. He says that Quentin would happily castrate them all.”

“Quentin will just have to learn to live with it,” Faye said. “But I think it's Kenneth not wanting to be a lawyer that he will hate more. He's been set on it for so long.”

“So Ken told you that as well.”

“He told me everything—about the party, the drugs, the police raid on his flat—everything. It was quite an eye-opener, I can tell you. The poor boy was in tears for most of the day. It all just spilled out of him.”

I wondered if he'd also told her about his visit to the Soho gym, but I decided not to ask.

“Did he tell you that he'll probably not now have to face trial?”

“Yes. And also that it was all because of you.” She held up her hands. “I don't want to know how you managed it, but thank you anyway.”

“Does Quentin know?”

“That Kenneth's gay? No, not yet. I'll have to choose the right time to tell him. I'll also have to pick my moment to give him the news that Kenneth intends leaving the law. That could be trickier.”

“He asked me if I would tell his father for him, but I said no. I told him he'd have to do that for himself.”

“But it might be better if I did it,” Faye said seriously. “Quentin can sometimes overreact and say things he'll later regret.”

“Rather you than me. He'll go nuts.”

“Quentin will do exactly as he's told,” she said firmly. “He always does in the end.”

I was surprised. I hadn't realized that it was my sister Faye who really wore the pants in this house.

—

I TOOK
an Overground train from Richmond to Willesden Junction and then walked the last hundred yards or so towards the flat in Spezia Road. The sky had turned very dark and large raindrops were beginning to bounce off the sidewalk around me. I turned the collar of my suit jacket up to stop the water running down my neck and hurried on.

I had spent rather longer with Faye than I had expected, talking about nothing in particular but trying to avoid the topics of mortality and sexuality.

“Hadn't you better get home?” Faye had said as she'd emptied the last few drops from our second bottle of sauvignon blanc. “You don't want to upset Lydia now that your midlife crisis is over.” She had giggled and then drained her glass.

“You're drunk,” I'd said accusingly.

“So are you.” She'd giggled again. “And it's so much more enjoyable than being dead.”

I turned into Spezia Road as the rain began to fall harder and I started to hurry even more. I should have taken my raincoat, I thought, or an umbrella. This wouldn't be doing my best suit any good at all.

In fact, it was probably the rain that saved me because it made me run.

I darted out between two parked vehicles, crossing the road directly towards my front door.

I didn't notice the car until it was almost upon me, by which time it was too late to avoid being hit. It raced up Spezia Road at high speed and caught my hip with a glancing blow from its right front fender, sending me cartwheeling across the sidewalk and into the red-brick garden wall topped with an iron railing that belonged to my neighbor.

I ended up lying flat on my back on the cold ground, trying to catch my breath, as the rain continued to hammer down both on and around me.

My breath quickly returned, but excruciating pain tagged along for the ride.

I thought it was my left shoulder that was the worst, but the whole of my body seemed to hurt.

Come on, I said to myself, you can't lie here all night in the rain. Move.

But moving was agony. Every muscle contraction hurt, with all nerves seemingly leading to my shoulder. Even breathing was painful.

I gritted my teeth and sat up, cradling my left wrist in my right hand.

It was not a great improvement.

I looked down. My left hand was wet from the rain, but there was something else about it that worried me more. My whole lower arm was in a strange position, with my palm turned out and the thumb pointing down at an unnatural angle.

Damn it, I thought, it's broken.

I tried shouting.

“Help! Help!”

Nothing happened. No one came.

I tried to shout again, but it hurt so much that my cries were
little more than a whisper. The rain drumming on the garbage cans in my neighbor's front garden was making more noise.

I sat very still, and gradually the pain subsided from a totally debilitating 10 to a merely agonizing 9.

Meanwhile, I was getting cold.

The rain had completely soaked my clothes right down to the skin. Jumping fully clothed into a swimming pool could not have made me more wet.

April was not the coldest month of the year, but, at half past eight in the evening, it was proving to be quite cold enough and I had begun to shiver uncontrollably. It may have been due to the cold, or maybe to the shock, or probably a bit of both, but it certainly did nothing to ease the severe ache that had gripped me right across my upper body.

Still no one came. Anyone sensible was sheltering from the weather, not sitting in an ever-deepening puddle on a suburban street becoming hypothermic while waiting for nonexistent rescuers to arrive.

The very last trace of daylight faded away into total darkness, with only the streetlight down the road providing any useful illumination. I looked at the plastic bag lying beside me that still contained the night vision monocular and wished it was a hot-water bottle.

I needed to do something or else I would die here of the cold just ten small steps from my own front door.

I decided to stand up, using my right hand to pull on my neighbor's railing. The plan seemed to be fine in principle but not so good in execution. It required me to let go of my left wrist, which gravity then caused to hang down unsupported as I rose.

I screamed and swayed precariously as a wave of nausea and dizziness swept over me. I steadied myself and again took my left hand in my right, which improved the situation slightly.

Those ten small steps took me a good five minutes, but I made it.

Finally, I leaned my head against the doorbell and kept it there.

Lydia opened the door with thunder in her eyes that turned to instant shock and concern.

“Oh my God!” she said. “What happened?”

“I was hit by a car,” I croaked, removing my forehead from the bell.

She steered me in through the front door and into our front room, where I perched on the arm of the sofa.

“I'm calling an ambulance,” she said, running off to find her phone in the kitchen.