Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [47]
I woke late after a restless night, the space in the bed next to me already empty and cold.
I rolled over and looked at the bedside clock. It was gone eight o’clock, and I was usually on the Tube by now.
The phone rang. I decided I didn’t want to talk to anyone so I didn’t pick it up. However, it stopped ringing when Claudia answered it downstairs.
I turned on the television for the news. Billy Searle’s attempted murder had been downgraded from the top story by a government U-turn on schools’ policy, but it still warranted a report from Baydon village, and they still managed to mention me by name and show my picture in spite of my release.
At this rate the whole bloody world would believe me guilty.
Claudia came into the room. “It’s your mother,” she said.
I picked up the phone. “Hello, Mum,” I said.
“Darling,” she said. “What the hell’s going on? You’re in all the papers and on the TV.” She sounded very upset, as if she was in tears.
“It’s all right, Mum,” I said. “Calm down. I didn’t do anything, and the police know it. Otherwise they wouldn’t have released me. I promise you, all is fine.”
It took me about five minutes to calm my mother down completely. I knew when I’d succeeded because she told me to get up and have a good breakfast. Eventually I put the phone down and laid my head back on the pillow.
“Aren’t you going to the office today?” Claudia asked, coming back into the bedroom carrying two cups of steaming coffee.
It was an innocent enough question, so why did I straightaway wonder if she was checking on my movements in order to plan her own?
“I don’t know,” I said, taking one of the cups from her. “What do you think?”
“Things could be worse,” she said. “You could still be in that police station, or in court. Let’s look on the bright side.”
“What plans do you have?” I asked.
“Nothing much,” she said. “I might go shopping later.”
“For food?”
“No,” she said. “I need a new dress for the show next week.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’d forgotten about that.”
The thought of attending the opening night of a new West End musical with all the associated press coverage did not now fill me with great joy. Claudia and I had accepted an invitation from Jan Setter to join her at the star-studded event, and at the after-show party. I wondered if, after my clumsy brush-off at Cheltenham, Jan would now be so keen for me to be there, to say nothing of my subsequent arrest.
Look on the bright side, Claudia had said, things could indeed have been worse. I could have still been stuck in that unwelcome cell or I might have been lying in a Liverpool mortuary refrigerator like Herb or in a Swindon hospital intensive care bed like Billy. Things could have been a lot worse.
“Right,” I said with determination. “It’s time to show a defiant face to the world. I’m going to get up and go in to work, and bugger what anyone thinks. I’m innocent and I’m going to act like it.”
“That’s my boy,” said Claudia with a huge grin. “Bugger the lot of them.”
She lay down on the bed and snuggled up to me, slipping her hand down under the sheets in search of me.
“But do you have to go immediately? Or . . .” She grinned again. “Can you wait a while longer?”
Now I was really confused.
Had I been reading the signals incorrectly?
“Hmm, let me think,” I said, laughing with joy as well as expectation. “Work or sex? Sex or work? Such difficult decisions.”
Not really.
Sex won—easily.
I didn’t go into the office until after lunch, but that was not solely due to having fun and games in bed with Claudia. It was because I went to Hendon on the way to check on Sherri and to collect my laptop computer that I’d left on Herb’s desk.
“What happened to you?” she said, opening the door. “I thought you were coming back yesterday afternoon.”
“I was,” I said. “But I was detained elsewhere.” I decided not to elaborate. “What have you been up to?”
“I’ve started going through Herb’s things in his bedroom,” she said. “I got