Crossfire by Dick;Felix Francis Francis

many people in racing dealt in cash, especially if they like to gamble in ready money. But it was a second piece of paper that completed the story. It was a simple handwritten note in capital letters scribbled on a sheet torn from a wire-bound notebook. I found it folded inside a plain white envelope addressed to my mother. The message on it was bold and very much to the point.
    THE PAYMENT WAS LATE. IF IT IS LATE ONE MORE TIME, THEN IT WILL INCREASE TO THREE THOUSAND. IF YOU FAIL TO PAY, A CERTAIN PACKAGE WILL BE DELIVERED TO THE AUTHORITIES.
    Plain and simple, it was a blackmail note.
    The “ongoing fallout” my stepfather had spoken about was having to pay two thousand pounds a week to a blackmailer. That worked out to more than a hundred thousand pounds a year out of their post-tax income. No wonder they couldn’t afford a new BMW.
    “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
    I jumped.
    My mother was standing in the office doorway. I hadn’t heard her come downstairs. My mind must have been so engaged by what I’d been reading that I hadn’t registered that the shouting match above my head had ceased. And there was no way to hide the fact that I was holding the blackmail note.
    I looked at her. She looked down at my hand and the paper it held.
    “Oh my God!” Her voice was little more than a whisper, and her legs began to buckle.
    I stepped quickly towards her, but she went down so fast that I wouldn’t have been able to catch her if we had been standing right next to each other.
    Fortunately, she went vertically down on her collapsing legs rather than falling straight forwards or back, her head making a relatively soft landing on the carpeted floor. But she was still out cold in a dead faint.
    I decided to leave her where she had fallen, although I did straighten out her legs a bit. I would have been unable to lift her anyway. As it was, I had to struggle to get down to my knees to place a small pillow under her head.
    She started to come around, opening her eyes with a confused expression.
    Then she remembered.
    “It’s all right,” I said, trying to give her some comfort.
    For the first time that I could remember, my mother looked frightened. In fact, she looked scared out of her wits, with wide staring eyes, and I wasn’t sure if the wetness on her brow was the result of fear or of the fainting.
    “Stay there,” I said to her. “I’ll get you something to drink.”
    I went out into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. As I did so, I carefully folded the blackmail note back into its envelope and placed it in my pocket along with her private-account bank statement. When I went back, I found my stepfather kneeling down beside his wife, cradling her head in his hands.
    “What did you do to her?” he shouted at me in accusation.
    “Nothing,” I said calmly. “She just fainted.”
    “Why?” he asked, concerned.
    I thought about saying something flippant about lack of blood to the brain but decided against it.
    “Derek, he knows,” my mother said.
    “Knows what?” he demanded, sounding alarmed.
    “Everything,” she said.
    “He can’t!”
    “I don’t know everything,” I said to him. “But I do know you’re being blackmailed.”
     
     
    I t was brandy, not water, that was needed to revive them both, and I had some too.
    We were sitting in the drawing room, in deep chintz-covered armchairs with high sides. My mother’s face was as pale as the cream-painted walls behind her, and her hands shook as she tried to drink from her glass without it chattering against her teeth.
    Derek, my stepfather, sat tight-lipped on the edge of his chair, knocking back Rémy Martin VSOP like it was going out of fashion.
    “So tell me,” I said for the umpteenth time.
    Again there was no reply from either of them.
    “If you won’t tell me,” I said, “then I will have no choice but to report a case of blackmail to the police.”
    I thought for a moment that my mother was going to faint