The hospital phoned. Jeremy was awa

The hospital phoned. Jeremy was awake. He was still very ill, but he was not going to die. I phoned Clare and told her.
'Can I come and stay with you? Until Saturday?' I asked.
'Why not? Come tonight.'
I told Harold that I would be well enough to race on Saturday. I packed a bag, picked up George's box, and drove to London. Samantha and Clare stared at my face. Black and purple and yellow bruises.
'But it's worse!' Clare said.
'It looks worse, but feels better,' I said. In fact, my whole body was covered with similar bruises.
Samantha was worried. 'Clare said that someone had hit you... but I never thought...'
'Look,' I said, 'I could go somewhere else.'
'Of course not. Sit down. Supper's ready.'
For two days I slept and waited to feel better. On Wednesday Samantha asked me, 'Who hit you/'
I didn't answer. Her house felt like home, and she had been welcoming and friendly to me after all those years. But I wasn't used to talking about my troubles. I had been on my own for too long. Samantha didn't ask again, but I


knew that she was hurt. Clare came home from work and she too, though she did not ask,was waiting.
During supper,I began to talk.I told them all about George Millace. I didn't decide to tell them; it just happened naturally. They listened as they ate slowly.
'I carried on what George had begun,' I said. 'It isn't finished yet. I didn't feel safe at my house. I'm not going back there until I know who tried to kill me.'
On Friday my face looked better. I drove north out of London to Basildon in Essex, to a factory which made paper for printing photographs.
'Do you make any paper which looks like plastic?' I asked in the front office.
They did not. Had I brought the paper with me?
'No,' I said. 'I was afraid to bring it into the light. Could I see someone else?'
Difficult, they said.
I waited.
Perhaps Mr Christopher could help me, they said at last, if he wasn't too busy.
Mr Christopher was about nineteen years old. I described the plastic and the paper to him. He shook his head.
I tried another question. 'Why would a photographer want ammonia?'
Mr Christopher stared. 'Only in order to print on diazo paper. It's used to print drawings. The drawing disappears


under a bright light, and the diazo paper is then developed in hot ammonia.'
'What dose diazo paper look like?'
'It looks just like paper. Diazo film looks like plastic.'
'How can I develop diazo film?'
'Easily,' Mr Christopher said. 'Put cold ammonia on the piece of plastic, then take it into light. The lines of the drawing will appear. Not too mush light. In sunlight, thirty seconds.'
'And the paper?' I asked. 'It's white on both sides.'
'Heat some ammonia in a pan and hold the paper over the top. Don't get it wet. Just hold it above the ammonia.'
'Would you,' I said carefully, 'like some champagne for lunch?'
I returned so Samantha's house at about six o'clock with a cheap pan and two bottles of ammonia. I was very tired and I hoped I would be well enough to ride tomorrow. Samantha had gone out and Clare was working on the table in the kitchen, her dark head bent over her book.
She looked up at me. 'A drink?' she asked.
I got us both a drink and sat at the table. I began to feel better. I fetched George's box of rubbish and took the piece of plastic from the black envelope. I put it on a plate and put some ammonia on it. Immediately, dark red writing began to appear. I put more ammonia on it, turned it over, and there was Dana's list



Name, dates, drugs. The list Dana had written on the cigarette packet.
Clare looked up from her work. 'What have you found?'
'What Dana wanted.'
She came across the room and looked at the plate.
'That's a dangerous list. How did you find it ?'
I told her about Mr Christopher in Basildon. 'George Millace was an extraordinary man,' I said.
'Extraordinary.' Clare looked at me. 'Perhaps all photographers are extraordinary.'
I accepted the word without thinking. A photographer. Not a jockey.
I opened the windows. Then I put more ammonia into the pan and began to heat it on the cooker. I held the piece of paper over the pan and watched George's letter appear.
The letter was written to someone I knew. When I read the name, I knew who had killed George.
And I could guess who wanted me to die.