Free Shattered by Dick Francis Page A

didn’t want to give her “flu” (which I hadn’t got) and simply went on doing very little through a highly unsatisfactory evening. Worthington’s flytrap vision itched. I loved Bon-Bon as a friend, but not as a wife.
    At about ten-thirty I fell asleep in the soft chair and half an hour later was awakened again by the doorbell.
    Disorientated as I woke, I felt stiff, miserable and totally unwilling to move.
    The doorbell rang insistently. I went on feeling shivery and unwilling, but in the end I wavered upright and creaked out of the workshop to see who wanted what at such an hour. Even then, after the dire lessons I’d been given, I hadn’t enough sense to carry with me a weapon of defense.
    As it happened, my late-evening visitor looked pretty harmless. In addition, she was welcome. More than that, I thought that with a kiss or two and a hug she might prove therapeutic.
    Detective Constable Catherine Dodd took her finger off the doorbell when she saw me, and smiled with relief when I let her in.
    â€œWe had reports from two separate Broadway residents,” she said first. “They apparently saw you being attacked outside here. But we had no complaint from yourself, even though you were hardly walking, it seemed ... so anyway, I said I would check on you on my way home.”
    She again wore motorcycle leathers, and had parked her bike at the curb. With deft speed, as before, she lifted off her helmet and shook her head to loosen her fair hair.
    â€œOne of the reports,” she added, “said that your attacker had been Tom Pigeon, with his dogs. That man’s a damned pest.”
    â€œNo, no. It was he who got rid of the pests. Really depressing pests.”
    â€œCould you identify them?”
    I made a noncommittal gesture and meandered vaguely through the showroom to the workshop, pointing to the chair for her to sit down.
    She looked at the chair and at the sweat I could feel on my forehead, and sat on the bench normally the domain of Irish, Hickory and Pamela Jane. Gratefully I sank into the soft armchair and half answered her who? and why? queries, not knowing whether they had a police basis or were ordinary curiosity.
    She said, “Gerard, I’ve seen other people in your state.”
    â€œPoor them.”
    â€œDon’t laugh, it’s hardly funny.”
    â€œNot tragic, either.”
    â€œWhy haven’t you asked my colleagues for more help?”
    Well, I thought, why not?
    â€œBecause,” I said lightly, “I don’t know who or why, and every time I think I’ve learned something, I find I haven’t. Your colleagues don’t like uncertainty.”
    She thought that over with more weight than it deserved.
    â€œTell me, then,” she said.
    â€œSomeone wants something I haven’t got. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know who wants it. How am I doing?”
    â€œThat makes nonsense.”
    I winced and turned it into a smile. “It makes nonsense, quite right.” And in addition, I thought to myself with acid humor, I have the Dragon and Bon-Bon on my watch-it list, and policewoman Dodd on my wanted-but-can-I-catch-her list, and Tom Pigeon and Worthington on my save-my-skin list, Rose Payne/Robins on my black mask-possible list and young Victor Waltman on my can‘t-or-won’t-tell list.
    As for Lloyd Baxter and his epilepsy, Eddie Payne keeping and delivering videotapes, Norman Osprey running a book with the massive shoulders of 1894, and dear scatty Marigold, often afloat before breakfast and regularly before lunch, all of them could have tapes on their mind and know every twist in the ball of string.
    Constable Dodd frowned, faint lines crossing her smooth clear skin, and as it seemed to be question time I said abruptly, “Are you married?”
    After a few seconds, looking down at her ringless hands, she replied, “Why do you ask?”
    â€œYou have the air of