Shattered by Dick Francis

not knowing what else to say. I leaned forward and kissed her cheek, which with mutual small movements became mouth to mouth, with passion in there somewhere, acknowledged but not yet overflowing.
    Arms around motorcycle leathers had practical drawbacks. My own physical aches put winces where they weren’t wanted, and with rueful humor she disengaged herself and said, “Maybe another time.”
    â€œDelete the maybe,” I said.

4
    All three of my assistants could let themselves in through the gallery with a personal key, and it was Pamela Jane alone whom I saw first with a slit of eyesight when I returned unwillingly to consciousness at about eight o‘clock on Monday morning. I’d spent the first hour after Catherine had gone considering the comfort of a Wychwood Dragon bed (without the Dragon herself) but in the end from lack of energy had simply flopped back into the big chair in the workshop and closed my eyes on a shuddering and protesting nervous system.
    Catherine herself, real and abstract, had kept me warm and mobile through the darkest hours of night, but she’d left long before dawn, and afterwards sleep, which practically never knitted up any raveled sleave of care, had made things slightly worse.
    Pamela Jane said, horrified, “Honestly, you look as if you’d been hit by a steamroller. Have you been here all night?”
    The answer must have been obvious. I was unshaven, for a start, and any movement set up quite awful and stiffened reactions. One could almost hear the joints creak. Never again, I promised myself.
    I hadn’t considered how I was going to explain things to my little team. When I spoke to Pamela Jane, even my voice felt rough.
    â€œCan you...” I paused, cleared my throat and tried again. “Pam... jug of tea?”
    She put her coat in her locker and scurried helpfully around, making the tea and unbolting the side door, which we were obliged to use as a fire escape if necessary. By the advent of Irish I was ignoring the worst, and Hickory, arriving last, found me lifting the three wing sections of the night’s work out of the ovens and carefully fitting them together before fusing them into place. All three of my helpers wished they’d seen the separate pieces made. One day, I agreed with them, I would make duplicates to show them.
    They couldn’t help but notice that I found too much movement a bad idea, but I could have done without Hickory’s cheerful assumption it was the aftermath of booze.
    The first customer came. Life more or less returned to normal. Irish began building a plinth in the gallery to hold the wings. If I concentrated on blowing glass, I could forget four black jersey-wool masks with eyeholes.
    Later in the morning Marigold’s Rolls drew up outside and occupied two of the parking spaces, with Worthington at the wheel looking formal in his badge-of-office cap.
    Marigold herself, he reported through his wound-down window, had gone shopping with Bon-Bon in Bon-Bon’s car. Both ladies had given him the day off and the use of the Rolls, and he appreciated their generosity, he said solemnly, as he was going to take me to the races.
    I looked back at him in indecision.
    â€œI’ m not going,” I said. “And where am I not going?”
    â€œLeicester. Jump racing. Eddie Payne will be there. Rose will be there. Norman Osprey will be there with his book. I thought you wanted to find out who gave the videotape to Martin. Do you want to know what was on it, or who stole it, and do you want to know who gassed me with the kids and the ladies, or do you want to stay here quietly and make nice little pink vases to sell to the tourists?”
    I didn’t answer at once and he said judiciously, making allowances, “Mind you, I don’t suppose you want another beating like you got last night, so stay here if you like and I’ll mooch around by myself.”
    â€œWho told you about last