Pulse(42)

‘Just coming, Dr Rankin,’ she said. ‘Mr O’Connor, here, had a bit of an argument with a flight of stairs and has cut his head. I won’t be a second.’

‘Can I help?’ I asked.

I went over to the treatment table.

I might have had a few drinks too many, but Mr O’Connor had clearly had quite a lot more than that. In spite of being horizontal, he forcefully gripped the edges of the treatment table to prevent himself from falling off as Isabelle applied some Steri-Strips to close a small wound on his forehead.

‘There you are, Mr O’Connor,’ Isabelle said, standing back and surveying her handiwork. ‘Now you take it easy, see.’

Mr O’Connor stood up very slowly. ‘Tank you,’ he said, before swaying slightly and making a roundabout lunge for the doorway. And then he was gone into the night.

Isabelle laughed. ‘Don’t you just love the Irish,’ she said. ‘They’re always so mellow when they’re drunk. Unlike the English, who simply fight.’

‘Are you ready now?’ I asked her. I was quite eager to get away, as the twins were due home at seven.

‘Coming, dear,’ Isabelle said, and she collected her coat.

Isabelle and I walked together down the hill in the dark to my car, but we were going nowhere in it, not for a while anyway.

It was Isabelle who spotted it first, in the glow of one of the lights that were set up around the car parks to help people find their vehicles.

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I think you’ve got a puncture.’

But then we saw that not just one but all four of the wheels were down on their rims.

‘Bugger,’ I said angrily.

Isabelle, meanwhile, was quite distressed by the discovery. ‘This can’t just have happened accidentally,’ she said with a tremor of concern in her voice. ‘Someone must have done this on purpose.’

‘Indeed they did,’ I said pragmatically, and wondered who.

I knew that he was pretty angry with me, but surely Adrian Kings wouldn’t have done such a thing?

No. I dismissed the notion almost as soon as I had it. Ridiculous.

So, who? And why? And was it directed specifically at me or at Mini owners in general? And who knew my car well enough to pick it out among so many others?

I then noticed that there was a piece of paper tucked under the windscreen wiper. I reached forward and removed it. There were three words written on it in capital letters: STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.

So it was directed specifically at me.

I wasn’t shocked.

I wasn’t even surprised.

In fact, if anything, I was pleased.

It confirmed that my obsession with the unnamed man must be for a valid reason.

I spun round a full 360 degrees on my heel, trying to see if the person who had done this had also waited to see what would happen when I came back to the car. But, if he were still there, he remained hidden in the shadows.

So, what to do now?

Isabelle was still rather flustered. ‘Shouldn’t we call the police, dear?’ she asked.

‘Maybe,’ I said.

I opened the car and removed the torch that I kept in the glovebox. Next I used it to inspect the tyres. I was quite expecting them to be slashed but I could spot no obvious damage to any of them. On all four, the little plastic cap had been removed, a short length of matchstick inserted to hold the valve open, and then the cap had been loosely replaced, allowing the tyre to deflate.

They had all been let down rather than punctured.

‘I don’t think we need the police,’ I said. ‘What we need is a pump.’

Most cars had departed soon after the last race but there was still a steady stream of people coming through the exits, leaving the bars and hospitality areas where the drink had continued to flow well after the horses had stopped running.

I walked the few yards back to the exit.

‘Does anyone have a pump?’ I shouted. ‘I have a flat tyre.’

‘I have one,’ said a smart gentleman in a three-piece tweed suit with a shock of white hair – my chivalrous knight coming to the aid of a damsel in distress. ‘I’ll get it. Where’s your car?’

‘Just down here,’ I said, pointing.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m just over there. Back in a mo.’

He hurried away and I worried that, when he got to his car, he’d change his mind and drive off. But I needn’t have. He came trotting over with a smart electric model that plugged into the car’s cigarette-lighter socket.

‘I say,’ he said, inspecting all four wheels. ‘This is a rum do. Did you forget to pay your bookie or something?’

I laughed. ‘Something like that.’

It was amazing how a bit of alcohol could make one both confident and carefree at the same time.

Isabelle and I were on our way after only a twenty-minute delay, with her driving, and the wait had even allowed the worst of the traffic to dissipate. We turned straight out onto the Evesham Road with no problem whatsoever.

‘I still think we should call the police,’ Isabelle kept saying.

‘On what grounds?’ I asked. ‘That someone stole the air from my tyres?’

‘Malicious damage,’ she insisted. ‘It must be against the law to let other people’s tyres down.’