Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [91]
“Everyone in my office,” I said. And whomever else Mrs. McDowd had told, I thought.
“Right,” he said. “I’ll call the Gloucestershire Police, but they’ll definitely want to talk to you, and to Claudia and your mother. They may even want you back at the cottage.”
“Tell them I’ll call them there in two hours,” I said.
“But you said the line had been cut.”
“Then get it fixed,” I said. “And get the power back on. Tell them I think my mother has left the stove on. I don’t want the place burning down when the power’s reconnected. And also tell them I’ve left the back door unlocked so they won’t have to break the front door down to get in.”
“OK,” he said. “I’ll tell them.” He paused. “Is the gun still under the fridge?”
“No,” I said. “I retrieved it.”
“So where is it now?”
I had so wanted to bring it with me, to give myself the armed protection that I’d been denied by the police.
“It’s outside the front door,” I said. “In a bush.”
“Right,” he said, sounding slightly relieved. “I’ll tell the Gloucestershire force that too. Save them hunting for it, and you.”
“Good,” I said.
It had been the right decision to leave the gun behind. I could still claim the moral high ground.
I hung up and switched off my phone. I would call the police on my terms, and I also didn’t want anyone being able to track my movements from the phone signal.
“Do you really think we’re still in danger?” Claudia asked next to me.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I’m not taking any chances.”
“Who knew we were there?” she asked.
“Everyone at the office, I expect,” I said. “Mrs. McDowd definitely knew and she’d have told everyone else.”
And Detective Chief Inspector Tomlinson had known as well.
I’d told him myself.
It was my mother who finally asked the big question.
“Why was that man trying to kill you?” she said calmly from the backseat.
We were on the road between Cirencester and Swindon.
I’d made one more stop in Cheltenham at one of the few remaining public phone boxes. I hadn’t wanted to use my mobile for fear that someone could trace who I was calling. We were going where no one would find us.
“I’m not totally sure but it may be because I am a witness to him killing a man at Aintree races,” I said. “And it wasn’t the first time he’d tried.”
Neither my mother nor Claudia said anything. They were waiting for me to go on.
“He was waiting outside our house in Lichfield Grove when I got back there on Tuesday afternoon,” I said. “Luckily, I could run faster than him.”
“Is that why we came to Woodmancote,” Claudia asked, “instead of going home?”
“It sure is,” I said. “But I didn’t realize that Woodmancote wasn’t safe either. Not until it was too late. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“But what about the police?” my mother asked. “Surely we must go to the police. They will look after us.”
But how much did I trust the police? I didn’t know that either. They hadn’t given me any protection when I’d asked for it and that omission had almost cost us our lives. No, I thought, I’d trust my own instincts. The police seemed more interested in solving murders than preventing them.
“I have been to the police,” I said, driving on through the darkness. “But it will be me who will look after you.”
And I would also find out who was trying to have me killed, and the real reason why.
Well, lover boy,” Jan Setter said, “when I asked you to come and stay, I didn’t exactly mean you to bring your girlfriend and your mother with you!”
We laughed.
We were sitting at her kitchen table in Lambourn, drinking coffee, the said girlfriend and mother having been safely tucked up in two of Jan’s many spare bedrooms.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” I said to her.
I had briefly thought about going to my father’s bungalow in Weymouth, but he had only two double bedrooms and, amusing as the thought had been, I could hardly expect my parents to share a bed together, not after seven years of divorce, and I certainly wasn’t sleeping with the old bugger.
“So what’s all this about?” Jan asked finally.