14

The rest of the telephone was less useful than I had hoped.

Unlike most people, my father had not used his mobile as his phone book. There were no entries at all on either the phone memory or on the SIM card. No handy names of contacts who might or might not have made a microcoder, and who now lay in a Melbourne hospital with a bullet in his brain.

No convenient names for my sisters with their telephone numbers.

The only useful thing was a list in the calls register of the last ten numbers he had called and five that he had received. One of them in each of the lists was the +353 number of Paddy Murphy.

I made a written note of them all, just in case the phone decided to die completely, but I wasn’t even sure if they were UK, Irish or Australian numbers, or anywhere else for that matter.

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to ten in the morning in Kenilworth. It would be the same in Dublin. But I wondered what time that made it in Melbourne, Australia.

I used my father’s phone to call Paddy Murphy.

“Hello,” said a very Irish-sounding voice with the emphasis on the long final “o.”

“Is that Paddy Murphy?” I asked.

“Who wants to know?” said the voice rather cautiously. Was Paddy Murphy not his real name either?

“This is Alan Grady’s son,” I said.

There was a long pause from the other end.

“Are you still there?” I asked eventually. He was. I could hear his breathing.

“And who might Alan Grady be?” he said.

“Don’t play games with me, Mr. Murphy. Call me back on this number if you want to talk.”

I hung up.

He called back immediately, the phone ringing before I had time to put it down.

“Yes?” I said.

“And what line of business might you be in?” he asked.

“Selling,” I said.

“Selling what, exactly?” he replied.

“Depends on what you want to buy,” I said.

“Now, are you playing games with me this time, Mr. Grady?” he said.

“Maybe.”

“Are you the Garda?” he asked suddenly.

“Garda?”

“The Garda,” he repeated. “The police?”

“Why do you ask?” I said, realizing finally what he meant. “Have you been up to no good?” But the line was dead. Paddy Murphy, or whoever, had already hung up.

Damn, I thought. That hadn’t gone at all well. He was possibly my only real lead to discover what was going on, and now he had done a runner. Perhaps he believed I’d been trying to trace the call. I wish I had. My father had flown into Dublin, but Mr. Paddy Murphy, if that was his real name, could be anywhere in the more than thirty thousand square miles of the Republic of Ireland.

I sat for ten minutes, waiting and hoping for him to call. He didn’t.

So I tried him again, but he didn’t answer. How, I wondered, did one find out where a certain telephone number was situated? If it was a mobile, I might have no chance, but a landline would have an area code. I decided to ask Luca. If anyone knew, he would.

In the afternoon, I drove to Kempton Park for the evening racing. Luca had called to say he would meet me at the course as he and Betsy were spending the day somewhere in Surrey visiting friends, or something.

I’d asked him how things had gone at Leicester on the Wednesday evening.

“Fine,” he’d said. “Good crowd. Plenty of business.”

“Profitable?” I asked.

“Very,” he’d replied without explaining further.

Why did I worry so much? Would it be better or worse if Luca was my official business partner? Indeed, should I sell him the whole enterprise and be done with it? But what else could I do? I had to earn a living somehow.

I turned off the congested Friday-evening M25 and fought my way against the commuter traffic to Sunbury and Kempton Park racetrack.

Race traffic was starting to build up and add to the Friday-evening woes, and I crawled the last two miles nose to tail with other cars before turning into the racetrack parking lot behind the stands. There was free parking in the center of the course, but at Kempton I usually parked at the far end of the members’ parking lot near the railway station. It was nearly impossible to pull our equipment trolley across the new all-weather track to the grandstand from the free parking lot, but only after I’d paid the parking fee did I remember that Luca had all the stuff with him.

I pulled into a spot indicated by one of the parking marshals, who were, as always, efficiently placing as many cars as possible in the limited space available. Another car drew in beside me.

I sat in the car and called the hospital again. I had tried them twice before leaving Kenilworth, but there had been no news to report. Again, they were sorry, they said, there was still no decision from the psychiatrists, and it was now being assumed by the hospital staff that Sophie would be staying there until Monday at the earliest. She wouldn’t be pleased.

I watched as a train pulled into the racetrack station and disgorged a mass of humanity that literally swarmed to the racetrack entrances. It was a beautiful summer’s evening, with a gentle, cooling breeze, and the good weather had brought out the crowds in droves. A good night for business, I concluded, and stepped out of the car.

“Are you Talbot?” said someone behind me. “Teddy Talbot?”

I turned around. There were two men standing between the cars, both wearing short-sleeved white shirts, open at the neck, with black trousers: uniform of the heavy mob. The shirts did little to hide the substantial size of their biceps nor the tattoos clearly visible on their forearms. Neither of them was Shifty-eyes, but that hardly made me feel any better.

“Yes,” I said gingerly. “Can I help you?”

Instead of replying, the nearest man stepped forward quickly and punched me hard in the stomach.

The blow drove the air from my lungs, and I went down to the ground badly winded, unable to catch my breath.

“Oh, I say,” said the man from the neighboring car, looking horrified as he removed a jacket and some binoculars from the trunk.

“Shut up,” said the puncher, pointing sharply at him, “or you’ll get the same.”

The horrified man shut up immediately and moved rapidly away. I didn’t blame him. I would have moved rapidly away too, if only I could have drawn some air into my lungs. I rather hoped he had gone for reinforcements in the shape of a policeman or two, but I wouldn’t have bet on it.

“I have a message from my boss,” the puncher said, returning his attention to me. “Don’t mess again with the starting prices.” He kicked me in the midriff. “Get it?” he said. “No more Stratford.” He kicked again. “Get it?” he repeated.

He kicked me once again for good measure, and then the two of them turned and calmly walked away, leaving me lying on the tarmac with my knees drawn up to my chest and a severe ache in my abdomen.

I had been holding my stomach with my hands and I now looked at them with concern. There was no blood. The punch had been just that. There had been no knife. I was intact, at least on the outside.

Slowly my diaphragm recovered from its spasm and my breathing resumed with a rush, which greatly improved the situation. I drew my knees up under me and used the door handle of my Volvo to pull myself semi-upright.

“Are you OK?” asked the horrified man, appearing tentatively from around the back of his car.

“I’m fine,” I said, not feeling it.

“What was all that about?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“It didn’t look like nothing,” he said accusingly.

“Could you identify those men to the police?” I asked him.

“Er”-he hesitated-“not really.”

“No?” I said. “Then nothing happened. OK?”

“I’m only trying to help,” he said, somewhat pained.

“Sorry,” I said. “And thank you for your concern.” If I’d really been seriously hurt, life-threateningly hurt, he might just have saved my skin by coming back. “I promise you I am very grateful. My name’s Ned Talbot.” I held out my hand to him.