Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [49]
Dead. Past help, past saving, past everything.
He rolled the horsebox forward off the crushed body and he kept on going. He took the police by surprise. He drove the horsebox at 65 for two miles, and long before they caught up he had abandoned it and taken to the woods.
The police had not known his name, which he prudently never divulged to his clients. All the police had was one quick sight of him in extremis, which was not enough, and evasion and escape had in the end proved the smallest of his personal problems.
He had never forgotten the face of the policeman who had looked down at his father. A senior policeman, wearing authority and insignia. He saw him too often in his uneasy dreams…
Martin Retsov shook off the regretted past and applied his concentration to the theft in hand. He had expected to feel the old anticipation, the old excitement, the pleasing racing of the pulse. He felt none of these things. He felt old.
‘Come on,’ said Johnnie Duke. ‘Or it will be light again before I deliver the goods.’
Martin Retsov nodded unwillingly and committed them both to the enterprise. Half an hour later when they pulled up in a dark side road he had succeeded in thrusting his soul’s shadows back into their closet and was approaching the next half-hour with cool, calm practicality.
They stepped quietly from the car and let down the ramp of the trailer. The night closed around them – small sounds, light sighing wind, stars showing in sparkling bunches between greyly drifting clouds. Traffic on the high road half a mile away swept past now and then, more a matter of flashing lights than of noise. Martin Retsov waited for his eyes to grow used to the dark, then he put his hand lightly on the young man’s arm.
‘This way,’ he said. His voice was a gentle whisper and when he moved his feet were soundless on the grass verge. Johnnie Duke followed him, marvelling at the big man’s silence and easy speed.
‘Where are we?’ Johnnie whispered. ‘Whose horses are we taking?’
‘Never you mind.’
They came to a gate, padlocked. The bolt cutter made it easy. They slid through into the field. Martin Retsov whistled gently in the dark, a seductive gypsy trill in the teeth.
He pulled out a handful of Thoroughbred horse nuts and called persuasively into the blackness ahead.
‘Come on, then, girl. Come on.’
There was a soft warm whinny and movement somewhere out beyond sight. Then they came, slowly, enquiringly, moving towards this human voice. They ate the nuts held out to them and made no fuss when the two men took hold of their head-collars.
‘You go ahead,’ Martin Retsov said softly to Johnnie Duke. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’
They went sweetly, the two great mares big with four-legged assets. Out of the gate and down the road to the transport. Easy as ever, thought Martin Retsov, once you knew what to take. Johnnie Duke led his mare into the trailer and fastened her there.
And that was when the nightmare began again. That was when the lights shone out, blinding Martin Retsov’s adjusted sight. That was when the man stepped out to confront him. The same man. The face from the dreams. The same callous face, dark clothes, high-rank insignia.
‘Martin Retsov,’ he was saying, ‘I arrest you…’
Martin Retsov was not listening. He was thinking wildly that it simply couldn’t be true. This particular client would never betray him. Never.
The police took the mare from his unresisting charge and put handcuffs round Martin Retsov’s wrists.
‘How did you get here?’ he asked blankly.
‘We’ve been looking for you for three years,’ said the policeman with smug satisfaction. ‘A few weeks ago we found you. But we had no conclusive evidence against you, so we’ve been keeping you in sight ever since.’
Johnnie Duke came out of the trailer, and Martin Retsov thought it was hard on the boy, being caught on his first job. The cold policeman walked over to him, looking pleased.
He brought out no handcuffs. He patted Johnnie on the shoulder.
‘Well done, Sergeant Duke,’ he said.
CARROT FOR A CHESTNUT
Out of the blue in