by Dick Francis
Disregard what you’re actually putting into your mouth, my father had usefully instructed. If you know it’s a sheep’s eye, you’ll be sick. Think of it as a grape. Concentrate on the flavor, not the origin. Yes, Dad, I’d said.
Josephine wore a gray skirt, prim cream shirt and a sludge green cardigan. There was a photograph in a silver frame on a side table showing her young, smiling, pretty. Beside her in the picture stood a recognizable version of the Ken I knew: same long head, long body, fair hair. Kenny in the picture smiled happily: the Ken I knew smiled seldom.
We sat down. Josephine pressed her knees together: to repulse lechers, I supposed.
Beginning was difficult. “Was Ken’s father a good sportsman?” I asked.
“How do you mean?”
“Er . . . did he like fishing? My father fishes all the time.” My father would be amazed to hear it, I thought.
“No, he didn’t like fishing,” Josephine said, raising eyebrows. “Why do you ask?”
“Shooting?” I said.
She spluttered over the sherry, half choking.
“Do listen, Mother,” Ken said persuasively. “We’ve never really known why Dad killed himself. Peter has a theory.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“I think you do.”
I said, “Did he shoot?”
Josephine looked at Ken. He nodded to her. “Tell him,” he said.
She drank sherry. She would be all right once she’d started, I thought, remembering the unlocking of the gossip floodgates at lunch in Thetford Cottage, and so, hesitantly, it proved.
“Kenny,” she said, “used to go shooting pheasants with the crowd.”
“Which crowd?”
“Oh, you know. Farmers and so on. Mac Mackintosh. Rolls Eaglewood. Ronnie Upjohn. Those people.”
“How many guns did Kenny have?”
“Only the one.” She shuddered. “I don’t like thinking about it.”
“I know,” I said placatingly. “Where was he when he shot himself?”
“Oh dear. Oh dear.”
“Do tell him,” Ken said.
She gulped the sherry as a lifeline. Ken poured her more.
If the flash in my memory was right, I knew the answer, but for Ken’s sake it had to come from his mother.
“You’ve never told me where he died,” Ken said. “No one would talk to me about him. I was too young, everyone said. Recently, now that I’m the age he was when he died, I want to know more and more. It’s taken me a long time to face his killing himself, but now that I have, I have to know where and why.”
“I’m not sure about why,” she said unhappily.
“Where, then?”
She gulped.
“Go on, darling mother.”
The affection in his tone overthrew her. Tears streamed from her eyes. For a while she was completely unable to speak but eventually, bit by bit, she told him.
“He died ... he shot himself ... standing in the stream... where it was shallow... some way below the mill wheel... on the Mackintosh place.”
The revelation rocked Ken and confirmed my vision. In memory I heard clearly my weeping mother’s voice, sometime soon after she’d heard the news, talking to a visitor while I hid out of sight. She’d said, “He fell into the mill-stream and his brains washed away.”
“His brains washed away.” I’d stored that frightful phrase in deep freeze as a picture too awful to summon into consciousness. Now that I’d remembered it, the suppression surprised me. I’d have thought it was just the ghoulish sort of thing small boys would gloat over. Perhaps it was because it had made my mother cry.
“Do you know,” I asked gently, “if his gun was in the stream with him?”
“Does it matter? Yes, it was. Of course it was. Otherwise he couldn’t have shot himself.”
She put down her glass, stood up abruptly and went over to a mahogany bureau. From the top portion she retrieved a key with which she opened the lowest drawer, and from the lowest drawer produced a large polished wooden box. Another key was necessary to open that, but finally she brought it over and put it on the table beside her chair.
“I haven’t looked at these things since just after Kenny died,” she said, “but perhaps, for your sake, Ken, it’s time.”
The box contained newspapers, typewritten sheets and letters.
The letters, on top, were expressions of sympathy. The crowd, as Josephine called them, had done their duty with warmth: they’d clearly liked Kenny. Mackintosh, Eaglewood, Upjohn, Fitzwalter—a surprise, that—and many from clients, friends and fellow vets. I flipped through them. No letter from Wynn Lees, that I could see.
Towards the bottom, my heart skipped a bump. There, in her regular handwriting, was a short note from my mother.
My dear Josephine,
I’m so terribly sorry. Kenny was always a good friend and we shall miss him very much on the racecourse. If there’s anything I can do, please let me know. In deepest sympathy,
Margaret Perry.
My poor young mother, weeping with grief, had had impeccable manners. I put her long-ago letter back with the others and tried to show no emotion.
Turning to the newspapers I found they varied from factual to garish and bore many identical pictures of the dead man. “Well-liked,” “respected,” “a great loss to the community.” Verdict at the inquest: “not enough evidence to prove that he intended to take his own life.” No suicide notes. Doubts and questions. “If he hadn’t meant to kill himself, what was he doing standing in a stream in January with his shoes and socks on?” “Typical of Kenny, always thoughtful, not to leave a mess for others to clean up.”
“I can’t bear to read them,” Josephine said wretchedly.
“I thought I’d forgiven him, but I haven’t. The disgrace! You can’t imagine. It was hard enough being a widow, but when your husband kills himself it’s the ultimate rejection, and everyone thinks it’s your fault.”
“But it was an open verdict,” I said. “It says so in the papers.”
“That makes no difference.”
“I thought there was a fuss about a drug he shouldn’t have ordered,” I said. “There’s nothing about it here.”
“Yes, there is,” Ken said faintly. He’d been reading one of the typewritten sheets with his mouth open. “You’ll never believe this. And who on earth told you?”
“Can’t remember,” I said erroneously.
He handed me the papers, looking pale and shattered. “I don’t understand it.”
I read in his footsteps. It seemed to be a letter of opinion, but had no heading and no signature. It was shocking and revelationary, and in a way inevitable.
It read baldly:
Kenneth McClure, shortly before his death, had ordered and obtained a small supply, ostensibly for research purposes, of the organic compound tetrodotoxin. A horse in his care subsequently died suddenly without apparent cause, consistent with tetrodotoxin poisoning.
While not accusing him of having himself administered this extremely dangerous material, one had to consider whether the acquisition or dispensing of this substance could have engendered a remorse strong enough to lead to suicide. As it is impossible to know, I suggest we do not put forward the possible explanation on the grounds that it is alarmist.
In a shaking voice Ken asked his mother, “Do you know about this tetrodotoxin?”
“Is that what it was?” she asked vaguely. “There was an awful commotion but I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want people knowing that Kenny had done wrong. It was all too awful already, don’t you see?”
What I saw quite clearly was that somewhere among the old crowd the knowledge of the existence and deadliness of tetrodotoxin had been slumbering in abeyance all these years, and something—perhaps the Porphyry fiasco—had awakened it to virulence.
“Kenny!” Old Mackintosh had said joyfully when we’d visited him. “Did you bring the stuff?”
Kenny had, I judged. And then pre
sumably had repented and shot himself—or had decided to blow the whistle and had been silenced.
Scott, the messenger with his mouth shut. Travers, the insurance agent burned to the teeth. Kenny, the vet with his brains in the water and his gun with him, washed clean of prints. Tetrodotoxin, arguably, had been too much for any of them to stomach.
“Oh God,” Ken said miserably, “so that was why. I wish now that I didn’t know.”
“You know where,” I said, “but not whether.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he left no note. So the question is, did he kill himself in the stream, or did someone shoot him on the bank so that he fell backwards into the water?” Mother and son were aghast. I went on regretfully. “For one thing, how do you aim a shotgun at your head if you’re knee-deep? You can’t reach the trigger unless you use a stick. On the other hand, a shotgun let off at close quarters packs a terrific punch, easily enough to lift a man off his feet.”
Ken protested. “That can’t be right. Why should anyone kill him?”
“Why was Scott killed?” I asked.
He was silent.
“I think ...” Josephine’s voice quavered, “awful that it is, I’d feel he hadn’t betrayed me so terribly if he couldn’t help it. If someone killed him. It’s so long ago... but if he was killed... I’ll feel better.”
Ken looked as if he couldn’t understand her logic, but I knew my own mother, too, would be comforted.
KEN STAY ED WITH Josephine and I spent the afternoon aimlessly driving round the countryside, thinking. I stopped for a while on Cleeve Hill, overlooking Cheltenham racecourse, seeing below me the white rails, the green grass, the up-and-downhill supreme test for steeplechasers. The Grand National was a great exciting lottery, but the Cheltenham Gold Cup sorted out the true enduring stars.
The course, once familiar to me to the last blade of grass, had metamorphosed into an alien creature. There were huge new stands and realigned smoothed-out tracks, and the parade ring had turned itself round and changed entirely. To one side a whole village of striped medieval-looking tents was being erected, no doubt for sponsors and private parties at the big meeting due to be held in less than two weeks. It would be odd, I thought, to walk again through those gates. The long-ago course and the long-ago child were echoes in the wind. The here and now, the new world, would be yesterday’s ghost in its time.
I drove on. I drove past the ugly red lump of conspicuously signposted Porphyry Place and on into nice old Tewkesbury. I stopped by the River Severn and thought of Kenny’s washed-away brains, and I tried to sort out everything I’d seen, everything I’d heard and everything I’d remembered since I’d come back.
The conviction that gradually emerged seemed to have been staring me in the face all along, saying, “Here I am. Look at me.” It was theory, though, more than substance, so I could certainly believe but certainly not yet prove. Matching the foal’s DNA might be helpful. Porphyry Place might cough up a name. Villainous old Mackintosh essentially knew, as I did, things he couldn’t always call to mind.
Devising a revealing trap seemed the only solution, but I couldn’t so far think of one that would work.
I drove back to Thetford Cottage in the dark and swept Greg and Vicky out to drinks and dinner in the giddy heights of Cheltenham. Vicky, coquettish, said Belinda would be middle aged before herself. Greg smiled amiably. We talked about the wedding plans, which Ken had left to Belinda, and Belinda largely to her mother. There seemed an amazing amount to arrange. When I married Annabel, I thought, we would surely not need so much.
Dear heavens! I’d let that intention slip in unawares. When I married Annabel indeed! Much too soon, too soon for that.
A short while after we’d returned to the cottage, Ken telephoned.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Rioting in the town with Greg and Vicky.”
“That’ll be the day. Look”—he sounded awkward—“my mother’s been crying buckets. You let loose a logjam of grief. But by God I thank you. I don’t know how you know the things you know, but as far as I’m concerned, my father can rest in peace.”
“I’m glad.”
“Since I got home,” he said, “Carey phoned. He sounded pretty depressed. He wanted to know how things were going in the practice. I told him we needed him, but I honestly think he’s stopped caring. Anyway, I told him about the invoices and what we’d been doing.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing much. Just that we’d done well. I couldn’t seem to get him interested. I think Oliver’s right after all. We’ll have to regroup and work something out for ourselves.”
“Probably best.”
His voice sounded purposeful. “I’m going to get all the others together to discuss it.”
“Good idea.”
“Anyway, thanks again,” he said. “See you tomorrow, no doubt.”
Maybe, I thought, as he disconnected, but tomorrow Annabel would be coming and I wanted a private, not a family, lunch.
SHE CAME ON the train nearest noon and we kissed a greeting as familiarly as if the eight days we’d known each other were eighty on a desert island. She wore a vast sweater of white stars on black over tight black stretchy trousers. Pink lipstick. Huge eyes.
“I’ve found a super pub for lunch,” I said, “but we’ve got to make a short stop on the way. A tiny bit of sleuthing. Won’t be long.”
“Never mind,” she said, smiling. “And I’ve brought you a present from Brose’s friend Higgins to help you along.”
She took an envelope from a shiny black handbag and gave it to me. It contained, I found, a list of three insurance companies that had paid out on horses that had died off the racecourse during the past year. Alongside each company was a name and number for me to get in touch with, and at the bottom Higgins had written, “Mention my name and you’ll get the real dope. More to come next week.”
“Wonderful,” I said, very pleased. “With these, we must be nearly home. I’ll start phoning in the morning. It was boring old paperwork that put Al Capone in jail, don’t forget. Paperwork’s damning, as everyone knows only too well in the service, when we get things wrong.”
“Never sign anything,” she said ironically, “and you’ll stay out of trouble.”
We climbed into my car and set off to the horse hospital.
I said, “Vicky took a message from the Superintendent who’s in charge of Scott’s death saying he wants to see me briefly late this morning. Ken and I have talked to him at the hospital every day lately. It’s getting to be a habit.”
“How are things going in general?”
“I’ll tell you over lunch if you like, though there are better things to talk about. How’s the bishop?”
“Cautious.”
I smiled. I was growing less cautious every time I saw her. The prospect of the spring and summer ahead, the feeling of life beginning, the shivering excitement deep down, all came together in a fizzing euphoria. Let it not be a mistake, I thought. In a few months we would know whether it would last forever, if the attraction had glue. I’d never come near to thinking in such terms before. Perhaps it was true that one could know at once, when one met the right partner.
Perhaps she knew too. I saw in her the same glimmering acknowledgment, but also the certainty of her withdrawal if she should judge it a mistake. A mixture of fun, competence and reserve, that was Annabel. I began worrying that when I asked her, she wouldn’t have me.
There was only one parked car by the front entrance of the hospital when we got there. Not Ramsey’s usual car, not a car I knew.
“I don’t think the Superintendent’s here yet, but someone is,” I said. “Care to come in and look round?”
“Yes, I would. I’ve only ever seen the arrangements at Newmarket, before this.”
We went into the entrance hall and down the passage to the office, which was empty of everyone, not just policemen.
“Let’s see how much i
s unlocked,” I suggested, and we continued on down the passage to the door of the theater vestibule. It opened to the touch and we went through, with me pointing out the changing rooms and pharmacy cupboard to Annabel and saying at least we didn’t need to bother with shoe-covers and sterility or any of that jazz.
We went into the theater and looked around. Annabel was enthusiastic about the hoist.
“In the place I saw in Newmarket they stand the horse beside a table thing and strap him to it while he is still standing upright, conscious though sedated. Then when they’ve given the anesthestic they flip the table over to the horizontal position and hey presto, start cutting.”
The sliding door to the padded anesthesia/recovery room was wide open to every passing germ. We went through there, Annabel exclaiming over the resilient floor and bouncing up and down a couple of times.
“What’s that wall for?” she asked, pointing.
“The vets stand behind that when the horse comes round,” I explained. “Apparently the patient thrashes around sometimes and the vets like to be out of kicking range.”
“Like bullrings,” she said.
“Exactly.”
There seemed to be no one about. We went on across the corridor and into the reception room with its array of equipment round the walls, all quiet and ready for use.
“Usually they’re so careful about locking everything,” I said. “The whole system’s coming to bits.”
“Poor people.”
I tried the door leading to the outside world. That at least was secure.
I began to feel vaguely uneasy. The entire theater area felt wrong, though I couldn’t analyze why. I’d grown familiar with the place and it all looked the same. The difference was that I was now pretty sure who had murdered Scott, and felt anxious to tell Ramsey immediately. It was unlike him not to be there already, though the “late morning” of his message hadn’t been pinpointedly precise.
Perhaps I should have told Ken, I thought, but the damage had been done. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to be here on a Sunday morning.
