by Dick Francis
‘Yes. Especially Fynedale, as he knew about the original insurance swindle. It just seems to have been my bad luck that I started being an agent at about the time Vic and the expert were warming things up. Pauli Teksa had a theory that Vic and his friends wanted me out of the way because I was a threat to their monopoly, and from what Fynedale says I should think he might have been right, though I thought it was nonsense when he suggested it.’
I yawned. Sophie drove smoothly, as controlled at the wheel as everywhere else. She had taken off the fur-lined hood, and the silver blonde hair fell gently to her shoulders. Her profile was calm, efficient, content. I thought that probably I did love her, and would for a long time. I also guessed that however often I might ask her to marry me, in the end she would not. The longer and better I knew her, the more I realised that she was by nature truly solitary. Lovers she might take, but a bustling family life would be alien and disruptive. I understood why her four years with the pilot had been a success: it was because of his continual long absences, not in spite of them. I understood her lack of even the memory of inconsolable grief. His death had merely left her where she basically liked to be, which was alone.
‘Go on about Vic,’ she said.
‘Oh… well…. They started this campaign of harassment. Compulsory purchase of Hearse Puller at Ascot. Sending Fred Smith down to my place to do what harm he could, which turned out to be giving Crispin whiskey and letting loose that road-hogging two-year-old. Arrang ing for me to buy and lose River God. When all that, and a few bits of intimidation from Vic himself, failed to work, they reckoned that burning my stable would do the trick.’
‘Their mistake.’
‘Yeah… well… they did it.’ I yawned again. ‘Fred Smith, now. Vic and the expert needed some muscle. Ronnie North knew Fred Smith. Vic must have asked Ronnie if he knew anyone suitable and Ronnie suggested Fred Smith.’
‘Bingo.’
‘Mm…. You know something odd?’
‘What?’
‘The insurance company that Vic swindled was the one Crispin used to work for.’
Sophie made us tea in her flat. We sat side by side on the sofa, bodies casually touching in intimate friendship, sipping the hot reviving liquid.
‘I ought to sleep a bit,’ she said. ‘I’m on duty at eight.’
I looked at my watch. Four thirty, and darkening already towards the winter night. It had seemed a long day.
‘Shall I go?’
She smiled. ‘Depends how sore you are.’
‘Sex is a great anaesthetic’
‘Nuts.’
We went to bed and put it fairly gently to the test, and certainly what I felt most was not the stab along my rib.
The pattern as before: sweet, intense, lingering, a vibration of subtle pleasure from head to foot. She breathed softly and slowly and smiled with her eyes, as close as my soul and as private as her own.
Eventually she said sleepily, ‘Do you always give girls what suits them best?’
I yawned contentedly. ‘What suits them best is best for me.’
‘The voice of experience….’ She smiled drowsily, drifting away.
We woke to the clatter of her alarm less than two hours later.
She stretched out a hand to shut it off, then rolled her head over on the pillow for a kiss.
‘Better than sleeping pills,’ she said. ‘I feel as if I’d slept all night.’
She made coffee and rapid bacon and eggs, because to her it seemed time for breakfast, and in an organised hurry she offered her cheek in goodbye on the pavement and drove away to work.
I watched her rear lights out of sight. I remembered I had read somewhere that air traffic controllers had the highest divorce rates on earth.
Wilton Young came to Cheltenham races the following day in spite of the basic contempt he held for steeple-chasing because of is endemic shortage of brass. He came because the rival tycoon who was sponsoring the day’s big race had asked him, and the first person he saw at the pre-lunch reception was me.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said bluntly.
‘I was invited.’
‘Oh.’
He didn’t quite ask why, so I told him. ‘I rode a few winners for our host.’
He cast his mind back and gave a sudden remembering nod. ‘Ay. So you did.’
A waiter offered a silver tray with glasses of champagne. Wilton Young took one, tasted it with a grimace, and said he would tell me straight he would sooner have had a pint of bitter.
‘I’m afraid I may have some disappointing news for you,’ I said.
He looked immediately belligerent. ‘Exactly what?’
‘About Fynedale.’
‘Him!’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Any bad news about him is good news.’
I said, ‘The man I sent to South Africa says he can’t swear the extra horses he looked after on the way were yours.’
‘You seemed sure enough that he would.’
‘He says he had the impression they were yours, but he couldn’t be sure.’
‘That’ll not stand up in court.’
‘No.’
He grunted. ‘I’ll not sue, then. I’ll not throw good brass after bad. Suing’s a mug’s game where there’s any doubt.’
His plain honesty rebuked me for the lie I’d told him. My man had been absolutely positive about the horses’ ownership: he’d seen the papers. I reckoned my promise to get Fynedale off was fully discharged and from there on he would have to take his chances.
‘What’s past is past,’ Wilton Young said. ‘Cut your losses. Eh, lad?’
‘I guess so,’ I said.
‘Take my word for it. Now, look here. I’ve a mind to buy an American horse. Tough, that’s what they are. Tough as if they came from Yorkshire.’ He wasn’t joking. ‘There’s one particular one I want you to go and buy for me. He comes up for sale soon after Christmas.’
I stared at him, already guessing.
‘Phoenix Fledgeling. A two-year-old. Ever heard of it?’
‘Did you know,’ I said, ‘That Constantine Brevett is after it too?’
He chuckled loudly. ‘Why the hell do you think I want it? Put his bloody superior nose out of joint. Eh, lad?’
The bloody superior nose chose that precise moment to arrive at the reception, closely accompanied by the firm mouth, smooth grey hair, thick black spectacle frames and general air of having come straight from some high up chairmanship in the City.
As his height and booming voice instantly dominated the assembly, I reflected that the advantage always seemed to go to the one who arrived later: maybe if Constantine and Wilton Young both realised it they would try so hard to arrive after each other that neither would appear at all, which might be a good idea all round. Constantine’s gaze swept authoritatively over the guests and stopped abruptly on Wilton Young and me. He frowned very slightly. His mouth marginally compressed. He gave us five seconds uninterrupted attention, and then looked away.
‘Has it ever occurred to you,’ I said slowly, ‘That it might just be your nose that he’s putting out of joint?’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘How many times have you had to out-bid him to get a horse?’
He chuckled. ‘Can’t remember. I’ve beaten him more times than he’s sold office blocks.’
‘He’s cost you a great deal of money.’
The chuckle died ‘That was bloody Fynedale and Vic Vincent.’
‘But… what if Constantine approved… or even planned it?’
‘You’re chasing the wrong rabbit, I tell thee straight.’
I chewed my lower lip. ‘As long as you’re happy.’
‘Ay.’
Nicol won the amateurs’ race by some startlingly aggressive tactics that wrung obscenities from his opponents and some sharp-eyed looks from the Stewards. He joined me afterwards with defiance flying like banners.
‘How about that, then?’ he said, attacking first.
‘If you were a
pro on the Flat you’d have been suspended.’
‘That’s right.’
‘A proper sportsman,’ I said dryly.
‘I’m not in it for the sport.’
‘What then?’
‘Winning.’
‘Just like Wilton Young,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Neither of you cares what winning costs.’
He glared. ‘It cost you enough in your time in smashed up bones.’
‘Well… maybe everyone pays in the way that matters to them least.’
‘I don’t give a damn what the others think of me.’
‘That’s what I mean.’
We stood in silence, watching horses go by. All my life I’d stood and watched horses go by. There were a lot worse ways of living.
‘When you grow up,’ I said, ‘You’ll be a bloody good jockey.’
‘You absolute sod.’ The fury of all his twenty-two pampered years bunched into fists. Then with the speed of all his mercurial changes he gave me instead the brief, flashing, sardonic smile. ‘Okay. Okay. Okay. I just aged five years.’
He turned on his heel and strode away, and although I didn’t know it until afterwards, he walked straight into the Clerk of the Course’s office and filled out an application form for a licence.
Vic didn’t come to Cheltenham races. I had business with him, however, so after a certain amount of private homework I drove to his place near Epsom early on the following morning.
He lived as he dressed, a mixture of distinguished traditional and flashy modern. The house, down a short well-kept drive off a country by-road on the outskirts of Ox-shott Woods, had at heart the classically simple lines of early Victorian stone. Stuck on the back was an Edwardian outcrop of kitchens and bathrooms and to one side sprawled an extensive new single storey wing which proved to embrace a swimming pool, a garden room, and a suite for guests.
Vic was in his stable, a brick-built quadrangle standing apart from the house. He came out of its archway, saw me standing by my car and walked across with no welcome written plain on his large unsmiling face.
‘What the hell do you want?’ he said.
‘To talk to you.’
The cold sky was thick with clouds and the first heavy drops spoke of downpours to come. Vic looked irritated and said he had nothing to say.
‘I have,’ I said.
It began to rain in earnest. Vic turned on his heel and hurried away towards the house, and I followed him closely. He was even more irritated to find me going in with him through his own door.
‘I’ve nothing to say,’ he repeated.
‘You’ll listen, then.’
We stood in a wide passage running between the old part of the house and the new, with central heating rushing out past us into the chilly air of Surrey. Vic tightened his mouth, shut the outer door, and jerked his head for me to follow.
Money had nowhere been spared. Large expanses of pale blue carpeting stretched to the horizon. Huge plushy sofas stood around. Green plants the size of saplings sprouted from Greek looking pots. He probably had a moon bath, I thought, with gold taps: and a water bed for sleep.
I remembered the holes in Antonia Huntercombe’s ancient chintz. Vic’s legal robbery had gone a long way too far.
He took me to the room at the far end of the hallway, his equivalent of my office. From there the one window looked out to the pool, with the guest rooms to the left, and the garden room to the right. His rows of record books were much like mine, but there ended the resemblance between the two rooms. His had bright new paint, pale blue carpet, three or four Florentine mirrors, Bang and Olufsen stereo and a well stocked bar.
‘Right,’ Vic said. ‘Get it over. I’ve no time to waste.’
‘Ever heard of a horse called Polyprint?’ I said.
He froze. For countable seconds not a muscle twitched. Then he blinked.
‘Of course.’
‘Died of tetanus.’
‘Yes.’
‘Ever heard of Nestegg?’
If I’d run him through with a knitting needle he would have been no more surprised. The stab went through him visibly. He didn’t answer.
‘When Nestegg was foaled,’ I said conversationally, ‘There was some doubt as to his paternity. One of two stallions could have covered the dam. So the breeder had Nestegg’s blood typed.’
Vic gave a great imitation of Lot’s wife.
‘Nestegg’s blood was found to be compatible with one of the stallions, but not with the other. Records were kept. Those records still exist.’
No sign.
‘A full brother of Polyprint is now in training in Newmarket.’
Nothing.
I said, ‘I have arranged a blood test for the horse now known as Nestegg. You and I both know that his blood type will be entirely different from that recorded for Nestegg as a foal. I have also arranged a blood test for Polyprint’s full brother. And his blood type will be entirely compatible with the one found in the supposed Nestegg.’
‘You bugger.’ The words exploded from him, all the more forceful for his unnatural immobility.
‘On the other hand,’ I said, ‘The tests have not yet been made, and in certain circumstances I would cancel them.’
His breath came back. He moved. ‘What circumstances?’ he said.
‘I want an introduction.’
‘A what?’
‘To a friend of yours. The friend who drew up the agreement that the breeder of the Transporter colt signed. The friend who decided to burn my stable.’
Vic moved restlessly.
‘Impossible.’
I said without heat, ‘It’s either that or I write to the High Power Insurance people.’
He fidgeted tensely with some pens lying on his desk.
‘What would you do if you met… this friend?’
‘Negotiate for permanent peace.’
He picked up a calendar, looked at it unseeingly, and put it down.
‘Today’s Saturday,’ I said. ‘The blood tests are scheduled for Monday morning. If I meet your friend today or tomorrow, I’ll call them off.’
He was more furious than frightened, but he knew as well as I did that those blood tests would be his first step to the dock. What I didn’t know was whether Vic like Fred Smith would swallow the medicine with, so to speak, his mouth shut.
Vic said forcefully, ‘You’d always have that threat over me. It’s bloody blackmail.’
‘Sort of,’ I agreed.
Ripples of resentment screwed up his face. I watched him searching for a way out.
‘Face to face with your friend,’ I said. ‘Five minutes will do. That’s not much when you think what you stand to lose if I don’t get it.’ I gestured round his bright room and out to the luxurious pool. ‘Built on Polyprint’s insurance, no doubt.’
He banged his fist down on the desk, making the pins rattle.
‘Bloody Fynedale told you,’ he shouted. ‘It must have been. I’ll murder the little rat.’
I didn’t exactly deny it, but instead I said matter-of-factly, ‘One calculation you left out… my brother Crispin worked for High Power.’
15
Crispin stood in the yard at home looking miserable and broody. I stopped the car on my return from Vic’s and climbed out to meet him.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said.
‘Oh….’ He swung an arm wide in inner frustration, indicating the flattened stable area and the new scaffolding climbing up to the burnt part of the roof.
‘All this.… If I hadn’t been drunk it wouldn’t have happened.’
I looked at him. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘But I do. If I’d been around… if there had been lights on in the house… that man wouldn’t have set fire…’
‘You don’t know that he wouldn’t,’ I said.
‘Stands to reason.’
‘No. Come on in, it’s cold out here.’
We went into the kitchen and
I made coffee. Crispin’s mood of self-abasement flickered on fitfully while he watched me put the water and coffee grounds into the percolator.
‘It would have been better if you had let me die.’
‘It was a good job you passed out in the bathroom,’ I said. ‘It was the only room which had natural ventilation through an airbrick.’
He wasn’t cheered. ‘Better if I’d snuffed it.’
‘Want some toast?’
‘Stop bloody talking about food. I’m saying you should have let me die.’
‘I know you are. It’s damn silly. I don’t want you dead. I want you alive and well and living in Surrey.’
‘You don’t take me seriously.’ His voice was full of injured complaint.
I thought of all the other conversations we’d had along those lines. I ought to have let him drown in the bath, the time he went to sleep there. I ought to have let him drive into a tree, the time I’d taken his car keys away. I ought to have let him fall off the Brighton cliffs, the time he tottered dizzily to the edge.
Blaming me for not letting him die was his way of laying all his troubles at my door. It was my fault he was alive, his mind went, so it was my fault if he took refuge in drink. He would work up his resentment against me as a justification for self-pity.
I sighed inwardly and made the toast. Either that day or the next he would be afloat again on gin.
There was no word from Vic. I spent all day working in the office and watching racing on television, with Crispin doing his best to put his mind to my accounts.
‘When you worked for High Power,’ I said, ‘Did you have anything to do with a claim for a horse called Poly-print?’
He sniffed. ‘You know damn well I was in Pensions, not Claims.’
‘Just thought you might have heard….’
‘No.’
We drank coke and fizzy lemonade and coffee, and I grilled some lamb chops for supper, and still Vic didn’t telephone.
Same thing the next morning. Too much silence. I bit my nails and wondered what to do if my lever didn’t work: if Vic wouldn’t tell and the friend wouldn’t save him. The blood typing tests could go ahead and chop Vic into little pieces, but the friend would be free and undiscovered and could recruit another lieutenant and start all over again, like cancer.
