Dick Francis's Refusal (32 page)

Nothing.

I moved farther into the room, swinging the door closed to check that no one was hiding behind it.

There wasn't.

Where were they?

I leaned down and looked under the bed.

Zilch.

Suddenly, I heard footsteps running along the landing.

I leaped out of the room in time to see shadowy figures running towards the stairs, three men clearly silhouetted against the lighter rectangle of the window beyond.

I dropped to one knee, swung the shotgun and discharged both barrels, great flashes extending from each in the darkness.

The noise was unbelievable, the reports bouncing back at me off the walls and ceiling.

I had aimed low, but I couldn't be certain if I'd hit anyone. The three had been on the stairs before I'd fired. Perhaps I'd been too slow. I couldn't hear any cries of pain, but I probably wouldn't have heard them anyway over the dreadful ringing in my ears.

I urgently scrabbled in my coat pocket for the spare cartridges, spilling them both out onto the floor in my haste.

Dammit. Why did I have just one hand when I desperately needed two?

I had to put the gun down to search around with my fingers for the shells, all the time worrying that McCusker was getting away, and maybe getting away with Saskia, although I was sure she hadn't been with the men on the landing or I wouldn't have fired.

At last I found the cartridges and managed to fumble them into the chambers. I snapped the gun closed and released the safety catch.

Now what?

I edged towards the stairs.

There was no one lying there wounded or dying. I must have missed.

But then I noticed some droplets on the wooden treads, each one glistening slightly in the meager light from outside.

Blood splatter.

I smiled. I hoped it was McCusker's.

My joy, however, was short-lived.

Gasoline! I could smell gasoline!

I rushed down the stairs and over to the front door, glancing briefly around it and onto the glassed-in porch.

The whole floor was awash with liquid, and the smell of gas was almost overwhelming. And I could hear someone pouring more of the damn stuff at the far end.

I daren't shoot, as the flash from the barrels would surely ignite the fumes.

I withdrew my head, slammed the heavy door closed and went swiftly to the window.

Against the light from the still-illuminated Range Rover, I could see a figure holding a jerry can, lifting it high to pour its last contents in a line across the gravel from the porch door. As I watched, he put down the can and then lit a rag with a cigarette lighter, holding it out in front of him.

It didn't take much of a genius to realize what he was about to do.

I fired at him through the glass, both barrels.

He staggered and fell. Another one down.

To my horror, a second man then stepped forward from the shadows. He picked up the burning rag, and I could see by its light that this was McCusker himself, his high cheekbones and protruding brow clearly visible in the glow.

I broke open the gun, ejecting the empty cases, but I had nothing to replace them with. Charles had had only four shells in the box, and I'd fired them all.

Why had I used both barrels?

I watched helplessly as McCusker moved a few steps closer to the porch before tossing the rag towards the open doorway.

What had Chico said about starting fires with gas?
Effin' stupid. Only a bloody fool sets a fire with gasoline. It's far too explosive.

As if in slow motion, the flaming rag arced through the opening, igniting the air-and-gasoline-vapor mixture inside the porch long before it reached the liquid on the floor.

The porch exploded.

I instinctively ducked down as a huge fireball burst through the glass walls and roof of the porch, sending razor-sharp shards in every direction, the shock of the explosion also breaking the remaining panes in the window above my head.

When I stood up, the view in front of me was like a vision conjured up by the Devil.

Everything seemed to be on fire, covered in burning gasoline that had been thrown out by the blast.

Everything, including Billy McCusker, who danced around in a deadly jig with flames consuming his clothes, his face and his hair as he tried to beat them out with his burning hands.

Suddenly, the place was awash with blue flashing lights as a firetruck pulled up abruptly in the driveway behind my burning Range Rover.

I stood there transfixed, watching through the broken window, as a burly fireman in a big yellow helmet threw a blanket over McCusker and then knocked him to the ground with a rugby tackle, rolling him over and over on the gravel until all the flames were extinguished.

I watched as the fireman stood up, leaving McCusker lying in a heap under the still-smoldering blanket. Was he dead? I wondered. Probably, I thought. He'd been on fire like a human torch. But stuntmen do it every day and they survive. But they have full-cover fireproof suits, while McCusker had had nothing at all on his face and head. Even if he survived, he would be dreadfully burned.

Either way, dead or alive, it was over.

He had sown the wind, and now he had reaped the whirlwind.

Meanwhile, other firefighters were already connecting hoses to the firetruck, and they would soon have the rest of the flames out.

What I really wanted now was an ambulance for Charles and a search party to find Marina and Saskia.

T
he following Monday, I ended up back in the same interview room at Oxford police station with Detective Superintendent Ingram, together with his sidekick, Sergeant Fleet, Detective Chief Inspector Watkinson and Maggie Jennings, my solicitor.

Although this time, it seemed, I wasn't under arrest, and I'd not been required to wait for hours beforehand in cell number 5. But I was still being interviewed under caution. Everything I said would be taken down and may be used in evidence.

“Now, Mr. Halley,” said the superintendent, “can you tell us everything that occurred at Aynsford last Friday night.”

As before, Maggie Jennings didn't want me to tell them anything. If it had been up to her, I'd have replied “No comment” to every question. But I'd had enough of doing that.

Now it was time to put the record straight.

So I told the policemen everything that I could remember from the moment Chico and I arrived back at Aynsford from Aintree.

“You admit that you willfully disregarded your bail conditions by going to your house?” asked the superintendent.

“Yes,” I said.

He made a note on his pad while Maggie Jennings pursed her lips in disapproval.

“And you took Admiral Roland's shotgun with you in spite of you not holding a license for it?”

“Yes,” I said again, and he made another note. Maggie Jennings snorted.

“Are you aware that discharging a shotgun at somebody is an extremely serious matter?”

“So is trying to burn down a house with people inside it,” I replied. “And, by the way, how are McCusker and his Volunteers?”

“McCusker has been transferred to the special burns unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. He's alive, but only just, and the prognosis is not good for his survival. The man you hit with your Range Rover, Luke Walker, was probably luckier. He was killed outright by the collision and pronounced dead at the scene.”

“And the other two?”

“Both of the men you shot will live,” he said, “although one of them, Andrew Hebborn, may lose his arm, such was the extent of the damage caused.”

I suppose I had instinctively shot straight at the flaming rag rather than at the man actually holding it. Now he might lose his arm.

Join the club.

“How about the other one?” I asked.

“The other man, Shane Duffy, was peppered by some shot in his left calf and knee, but there was only soft tissue damage with a minor loss of blood. Very sore, I'm sure, but he'll make a full recovery. He is now under arrest. He was tackled by Mr. Barnes while trying to fetch their vehicle.”

I nodded. Chico had told me about it later that night in his own unique manner.

“So there I am, comin' down the drive, and this geezer is walkin' towards me, limpin'-like and swearin' blue murder. Cor blimey, you should have heard him, effin' this and blindin' the other, and not a good word for you, Sid, I can tell you. But he's so preoccupied with himself that he doesn't even notice me until I've chucked him over my shoulder and put him in a stranglehold.”

“What took you so bloody long?” I'd asked him.

“First, I has to puncture the tires on their Toyota, like, then I tries to make the calls, but there's still no effin' signal on me bleedin' phone, is there? Had to almost break into someone's place to get a landline to call the cops and the fire department. No one would bloody answer their doors.”

I didn't blame them. I wouldn't have either.

“Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?” the superintendent asked, bringing my thoughts back to the present.

“Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, there is.”

Against Maggie Jennings's better judgment, I went through everything that had happened in the preceding four weeks in chronological order.

Well, almost everything. I didn't say anything about Tony and Margaret Molson being kidnappers, not only of Saskia from her school but also of Pierre Beaudin's twin sons from the clinic in Montparnasse.

I also decided not to apprise them of the finer details of the race fixing, and especially not the names of the jockeys involved. Nor did I tell them of Chico's uncovering of Peter Medicos as McCusker's inside man at the BHA. I had decided that that information was something I should keep to myself.

For the good of racing.

•   •   •

A
S
I
WALKED OUT
of the police station at six-thirty, I thought back to what had happened since the explosion.

Charles was still in intensive care, the doctors being worryingly noncommittal about his chances of survival.

He had been severely beaten around the face and head, one blow being of sufficient force to fracture his skull and cause a hemorrhage in the brain. A team of surgeons had operated on him throughout Friday night in order to remove a portion of his skull to relieve the pressure in his head.

The doctors had became more optimistic as time had moved on and there had been no further deterioration in his condition, but it was still touch and go as to whether he'd have severe amnesia, permanent brain damage or even if he'd wake up at all.

Marina and Saskia, together with Rosie, had been hiding in the house all the time, in Saskia's favorite “sardines” hiding place, high up in the eaves, through a removable access panel in one of the old servants' bedrooms.

It had taken quite a while for me to find them, even with the help of a fireman and a powerful flashlight. I had continually shouted their names, and, eventually, Marina had deemed it safe to emerge.

She clung to me like a limpet and told me how terrified she'd been—first, when all the lights had suddenly gone out, and then later, even worse, when she'd heard the shots being fired and the sound of the explosion. She had tried to phone for help, but the landline had been cut, and there was no signal on her cell. Charles had sent her up to hide with Saskia while he had chosen to stay downstairs to protect them. Rosie, it seemed, had crawled in with them and had refused to budge.

I had been determined to bring matters to a head between McCusker and me, but even I hadn't foreseen the collateral damage it would cause. Quite apart from what had happened to Charles, one man had died, and McCusker himself was in critical condition and not expected to survive, with third-degree burns over forty percent of his body.

In addition, the house at Aynsford had been badly damaged by the explosion, to say nothing of our Range Rover and Charles's old Mercedes, neither of which would cruise the open road again.

•   •   •

T
HE
A
DMIRAL
recovered consciousness four days after being attacked and confounded all the doctors by the pace of his recovery. Far from there being any loss of memory, Charles could recall everything right up until the moment he had been struck on the head by McCusker's baseball bat.

Marina and I went to see him in the hospital as soon as we were allowed.

“The ruddy doctors won't let me get up,” he said when we arrived. “Some bloody nonsense about me possibly feeling dizzy if I stand.”

I laughed. There was no permanent brain damage there, then, but his poor face was swollen and bruised, and he sported a humdinger of a pair of black eyes. There was also a line of stitching stretching halfway across his scalp where the surgeons had been busy.

“You poor thing,” Marina said, stroking the back of his hand.

“Can you tell us what happened?” I said.

“Those awful Irishmen wanted to know where Marina and little Saskia were hiding,” he said, “but I wouldn't tell them. They also demanded to know where you were too, Sid. They were quite frantic. Two of them held me by the arms while the others hit me in the face and in the stomach.” He rubbed his tummy. “Jolly hard too, let me tell you. But I was damned if I was going to tell them anything.”

He smiled, and Marina squeezed his hand and kissed him on the cheek. Charles had clearly been elevated from “complete nuisance” to “dashing hero” in her eyes, and with good reason.

•   •   •

A
WEEK AFTER
Charles regained consciousness, I returned once again to Oxford police station, where I was officially released from my police bail and reunited with my laptop computer, cell phone and passport, although the same custody sergeant as before was not in the slightest apologetic as he handed them back to me.

But at least he hadn't described me as
scum
like he had the last time.

I could now legally return to my home, even though I'd been openly staying there for the past ten days.

Not having a car was a real bore. I'd already ordered a replacement Range Rover from the dealer, but it would take three weeks to arrive.

My insurance, I discovered, did not cover the cost of an interim rental car in the event of a complete write-off. “It only allows for a replacement car during the repair period,” the woman from the insurance company had said unhelpfully. “If yours can't be repaired, then I'm afraid it doesn't apply.”

Marina, in one of her “greener” moments, had suggested that we should try living without a car for the three weeks. “It will make us appreciate it all the more when it does come,” she'd said, all self-righteously, before swiftly organizing a lift to school and back for Saskia with the mother of another girl in the village.

I, personally, thought it was a damn silly idea. Did Marina have any idea how difficult it was to get from Nutwell to Oxford and back again on public transport? Especially as it hadn't stopped raining for a week.

I dodged another heavy shower as I walked through the city center towards the railway station.

I know that I'd been hoping for rain, but not this much.

Detective Chief Inspector Watkinson was the first person to call me on my newly recovered phone as I waited on the platform for a flood-delayed train to Banbury.

“There are a couple of things I thought you'd be interested to know,” he said. “First, Billy McCusker died this morning. He had too much of his skin burned away to survive. Apparently, he did well to last as long as he did, but it seems it was inevitable. According to the doctor I spoke to, skin is needed as a barrier to keep fluids in the body, and McCusker had lost so much of his that the fluids simply evaporated away faster than they could replace them. He died of multiple organ failure brought on by severe dehydration.”

He had, effectively, died of thirst.

Just as Darren Paisley had in Belfast, nailed to the floor.

“And the second thing?” I asked.

“More copies of those indecent photos were found by Greater Manchester Police when they searched McCusker's house. Even Superintendent Ingram is now convinced you were the victim of a malicious frame-up, and he's even gone so far as to issue a press release to that effect.”

That was a relief, I thought, provided people would believe it. In my experience, folk always wanted to imagine the worst of their fellow man, whatever the actual facts might indicate.

“So who was it that complained to you in the first place?” I asked.

“No complaint was made directly to the police,” he said. “But I understand three were made to social services.”

“Who from?” I asked again.

“It wasn't so much the complaints that got you into trouble, it was the pictures found in the shed, and that one on your cell phone.”

“But those pictures would never have been found without the complaints having been made first. That's why I'd like to know who made them.”

“Does it really matter?” he said.

Did it? I supposed not. Whoever had complained would have been forced to do so by McCusker. Did it really matter who they were?

“Do you know?” I asked.

“No way,” he said with a laugh. “I'd need a court order to find out, and, even then, they probably wouldn't tell me. Social services are more secretive than MI6. Nothing gets said unless it's in the best interest of the children.”

The best interest of the children.

Saskia was still nervous going to bed, and she liked to go to sleep with the light on in her bedroom. But, overall, she had come through the experience pretty unscathed and was now making grand plans for the imminent arrival of her very own red setter puppy.

Marina and I had made our peace with Tim and Paula Gaucin, even though I suspected that Annabel wouldn't be coming for another sleepover anytime soon, if ever.

“Oh yes, one more thing,” said the chief inspector. “I see from my newspaper this morning that Peter Medicos has resigned as head of racing security.”

“Yes,” I said, “so I've heard.”

“One of my ex-colleagues who now works for Greater Manchester Police told me that they found some compromising pictures of him in a safe in McCusker's house. Naked in bed with another man, it seems. Could that have had anything to do with his resignation?”

“I have no idea,” I lied. “Didn't he say to the press that he wanted to spend more time with his wife?”

He laughed. “Oh yeah! That's what they always say when someone leaves under a cloud. Especially in those circumstances. Nudge nudge. Wink wink. Say no more!”

But I had little doubt that he had been the victim of a setup, and that the pictures had been created solely for the purpose of blackmail and control. I rather hoped they would remain out of the papers.

In spite of everything, I believed that Peter Medicos was fundamentally a good man. Otherwise, he wouldn't have made that phone call, and I would have been still waiting in the dog kennel at Nutwell while McCusker took out his fearful revenge on my family two miles away at Aynsford.

“Perhaps you should apply for his job,” I said. “The BHA seem to like appointing ex-policemen as head of their Security Service.”