Free In the Frame by Dick Francis Page A

at Regina. I didn’t know whether it would have been better or worse if I hadn’t painted her.
    Maisie was quiet for the whole of the first hour of the return journey, a record in itself.
    From Donald’s house we had driven first to one of the neighbours who had originally offered refuge, because he clearly needed help more now than ever.
    Mrs. Neighbour had listened with sympathy, but had shaken her head.
    ‘Yes, I know he should have company and get away from the house, but he won’t. I’ve tried several times. Called. So have lots of people round here. He just tells us he’s all right. He won’t let anyone help him.’
    Maisie drove soberly, mile after mile. Eventually she said, ‘We shouldn’t have bothered him. Not so soon after…’
    Three weeks, I thought. Only three weeks. To Donald it must have seemed like three months, stretched out in slow motion. You could live a lifetime in three weeks’ pain.
    ‘I’m going to Australia,’ I said.
    ‘You’re very fond of him, dear, aren’t you?’ Maisie said.
    Fond? I wouldn’t have used that word, I thought: but perhaps after all it was accurate.
    ‘He’s eight years older than me, but we’ve always got on well together.’ I looked back, remembering. ‘We were both only children. His mother and mine were sisters. They used to visit each other, with me and Donald in tow. He was always pretty patient about having a young kid under his feet.’
    ‘He looks very ill, dear.’
    ‘Yes.’
    She drove another ten miles in silence. Then she said, ‘Are you sure it wouldn’t be better to tell the police? About the paintings, I mean? Because you do think they had something to do with the burglaries, don’t you, dear, and the police might find out things more easily than you.’
    I agreed. ‘I’m sure they would, Maisie. But how can I tell them? You heard what Donald said, that he couldn’t stand a new lot of questions. Seeing him today, do youthink he could? And as for you, it wouldn’t just be confessing to a bit of smuggling and paying a fine, but of having a conviction against your name for always, and having the customs search your baggage every time you travelled, and all sorts of other complications and humiliations. Once you get on any blacklist nowadays it is just about impossible to get off.’
    ‘I didn’t know you cared, dear.’ She tried a giggle, but it didn’t sound right.
    We stopped after a while to exchange places. I liked driving her car, particularly as for the last three years, since I’d given up a steady income, I’d owned no wheels myself. The power purred elegantly under the pale blue bonnet and ate up the southward miles.
    ‘Can you afford the fare, dear?’ Maisie said. ‘And hotels, and things?’
    ‘I’ve a friend out there. Another painter. I’ll stay with him.’
    She looked at me doubtfully. ‘You can’t get there by hitch-hiking, though.’
    I smiled. ‘I’ll manage.’
    ‘Yes, well, dear, I dare say you can, but all the same, and I don’t want any silly arguments, I’ve got a great deal of this world’s goods thanks to Archie, and you haven’t, and as because it’s partly because of me having gone in for smuggling that you’re going yourself at all, I am insisting that you let me buy your ticket.’
    ‘No, Maisie.’
    ‘Yes, dear. Now be a good boy, dear, and do as I say.’
    You could see, I thought, why she’d been a good nurse. Swallow the medicine, dear, there’s a good boy. I didn’t like accepting her offer but the truth was that I would have had to borrow anyway.
    ‘Shall I paint your picture, Maisie, when I get back?’
    ‘That will do very nicely, dear.’
    I pulled up outside the house near Heathrow whose attic was my home, and from where Maisie had picked me up that morning.
    ‘How do you stand all this noise, dear?’ she said, wincing as a huge jet climbed steeply overhead.
    ‘I concentrate on the cheap rent.’
    She smiled, opening the crocodile handbag and producing her