To the Hilt by Dick Francis

likes.”
    Ivan looked alarmingly pale and weak, sitting as ever in his dark red robe in his imposing chair. The heavy sedative drooped already in his eyelids, and I went across to him, offering my arm and suggesting he should lie down on his bed.
    “Leave him alone,” Patsy said sharply. “He has a nurse for that.”
    Ivan however put both hands on my offered forearm and pulled himself to his feet. His frailty had worsened, I thought, since the day before.
    “Lie down,” he said vaguely. “Good idea.”
    He let me help him towards his bedroom, and short of physically attacking me, Patsy and Surtees couldn’t stop me. Four practiced thugs had been beyond my fighting capabilities, but Patsy and her husband weren’t, and they had sense enough to know it.
    As I went past him, Surtees said spitefully, “Next time you’ll scream. ”
    My mother’s eyes widened in surprise. Patsy’s head snapped round towards her husband and with scorn she shriveled him verbally: “Will you keep your silly mouth shut. ”
    I went on walking with Ivan into his bedroom, where my mother and I helped him out of his robe and into the wide bed, where he relaxed gratefully, closing his eyes and murmuring, “Vivienne ... Vivienne.”
    “I’m here.” She stroked his hand. “Go to sleep, my dear.”
    He couldn’t with so powerful a drug have stayed awake. When he was breathing evenly my mother and I went out into the study and found that Patsy and Surtees had gone.
    “What did he mean?” she asked, perplexed. “Why did Surtees say, ‘Next time you’ll scream’?”
    “I dread to think.”
    “It didn’t sound like a joke.” She looked doubtful and worried. “There’s something about Surtees that isn’t ... oh dear ... that isn’t normal.”
    “Dearest Ma,” I said, teasing her, “almost no one is normal. Look at your son, for a start.”
    Her worry dissolved into a laugh and from there to visible happiness when from the study phone I told Jed Parlane that I would be staying down south for another twenty-four hours.
    “I’ll catch tomorrow night’s train,” I said. “I’m afraid it gets to Dalwhinnie at a quarter past seven in the morning. Saturday morning.”
    Jed faintly protested. “Himself wants you back here as soon as possible.”
    “Tell him my mother needs me.”
    “So do the police.”
    “Too bad. See you, Jed.”
     
     
    My mother and I ate the good meal Edna had cooked and left ready, and spent a peaceful, rare and therapeutic evening alone together in her sitting room, not talking much, but companionable.
    “I saw Emily,” I said casually, at one point.
    “Did you?” She was unexcited. “How is she?”
    “Well. Busy. She asked after Ivan.”
    “Yes, she telephoned. Nice of her.”
    I smiled. My mother’s reaction to my leaving my wife had been as always calm, unjudgmental and accepting. It was our own business, she had implied. She had also, I thought, understood. Her sole comment to me had been, “Solitary people are never alone,” an unexpected insight that she wouldn’t enlarge or explain; but she had long been accustomed to the solitary nature of her son’s instincts, that I had tried—and failed—to stifle.
     
     
    In the morning, when everyone had slept well, I talked for much longer than usual with Ivan.
    He looked better. He still wore pajamas, robe and slippers, but there was muscle tone and color in his face, and clarity in his mind.
    I told him in detail what I’d learned and done over the two days I’d spent in Reading. He faced unwillingly the whole frightening extent of the plundering of the brewery and approved of the appointment of Margaret Morden as captaining the lifeboat to save the wreck.
    “It’s my own fault things got so bad,” Ivan sighed. “But, you know, I couldn’t believe that Norman Quorn would rob the firm. I’ve known him for years, moved him up from the accounts department, made him Finance Director, gave him a seat on the Board ... I trusted him. I