Free 10 lb Penalty by Dick Francis Page A

You have to win the floaters over to your side, and they have to be persuaded one by one.”
    “I’m hungry,” I said as we passed a brightly lit take-away, so we backtracked and bought chicken wings with banana and bacon, and even there my father, recognized, fell into political chat with the man deep-frying chips.
     
    In the early morning I went out and bought a copy of the Gazette. Sleaze and Paul Bethune filled pages four and five (with photographs) but the front-page topic of concern was headlined “Juliard Shot?”
    Columns underneath said yes (eyewitnesses) and no (he wasn’t hurt). Statements from the police said nothing much (they couldn’t find a gun). Statements from onlookers, like the self-important gunshot expert, said Juliard had definitely been the object of an assassination attempt. He thought so and he was always right.
    The consensus theory of the reporters (including Usher Rudd) was that resentment against Juliard was running high in the Orinda Nagle camp. The editor’s leader column didn’t believe that political assassination ever took place at so low a level. World leaders, perhaps. Unelected local candidates, never.
    I walked through the town to the ring road looking for Rudd’s Repair Garage and found the staff unlocking their premises for the day. They had a large covered workshop and an even larger wire-fenced compound where jobs done or waiting stood in haphazard rows. The Range Rover was parked in that compound, sunlight already gleaming on its metallic paint.
    I asked for, and reached, the manager, whose name was Basil Rudd. Thin, red-haired, freckled and energetic, his likeness to Usher Rudd made twins a possibility.
    “Don’t ask,” he said, eyeing my newspaper. “He’s my cousin. I disown him, and if you’re out to be busy with your fists, you’ve reached the wrong man.”
    “Well ... I really came to collect that Range Rover. It’s my father’s.”
    “Oh?” He blinked. “I’ll need proof of identity.”
    I showed him a letter of authorization signed by my parent and also my driver’s license.
    “Fair enough.” He opened a drawer, picked out a labeled ring bearing two keys and held them out for me to take. “Don’t forget to switch off the alarms. I’ll send the bill to Mr. Juliard’s party headquarters. OK?”
    “Yes. Thank you. Was there anything wrong?”
    He shrugged. “If there was, there isn’t now.” He consulted a spiked worksheet. “Oil change. General check. That’s all.”
    “Do you think I could talk to whoever did the job?”
    “Whatever for?”
    “Er ... I’ve got to drive my father around in that vehicle and I’ve never driven it before... and I thought I might get some tips about engine management... so I don’t overheat it by crawling along the roads canvassing door to door.”
    Basil Rudd shrugged. “Ask for Terry. He did the work.”
    I thanked him and sought out Terry, who gave three instant physical impressions: big, bald, belly. Brown overalls, grease-stained from his job.
    He too eyed my newspaper. He spoke with venom in a powerful Dorset voice.
    “Don’t mention Bobby bloody Rudd ’round here.”
    I hadn’t been going to, but I said, “Why not?”
    “He’ll listen to you and your missus in bed with one of them window-vibrating bugging contraptions and before you know it, never mind the sex, he’ll be printing what you said about the boss having his hand up a customer’s skirt when she brings her car in for the twentieth time to be overhauled, though there’s bugger all wrong with it in the first place. Got me sacked, Bobby did.”
    “But,” I suggested, “you’re still here.”
    “Yeah, see, Basil took me on because he loathes Bobby, who’s his cousin, see. It was over in Quindle I got sacked by Bobby’s dad, that’s Basil’s uncle, drunk half the time ...” He broke off. “If it’s not to complain about Bobby Usher bleeding Rudd, what is it you want, lad?”
    “I ... er... you serviced my father’s