Banker

by Dick Francis

  ‘Fancy it being Dissdale who bought Indian Silk,’ Pen said. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’

  ‘Especially as he was saying he was short of cash and wanting to sell box-space at Ascot,’ Judith added.

  ‘Mm,’ I said. ‘But after Calder had cured the horse Dissdale sold it again pretty soon, and made a handsome profit, by what I gather.’

  ‘Typical Dissdale behaviour,’ Gordon said without criticism. ‘Face the risk, stake all you can afford, take the loot if you’re lucky, and get out fast.’ He smiled. ‘By Ascot I guess he’d blown the Indian Silk profit and was back to basics. It doesn’t take someone like Dissdale any longer to lose thousands than it does to make them.’

  ‘He must have colossal faith in Calder,’ Pen said musingly.

  ‘Not colossal, Pen,’ Gordon said. ‘Just twice what a knacker would pay for a carcass.’

  ‘Would you buy a sick-to-death horse?’ Judith asked, i mean, if Calder said buy it and I’ll cure him, would you believe it?’

  Gordon looked at her fondly. ‘I’m not Dissdale, darling, and I don’t think I’d buy it.’

  ‘And that is precisely,’ I pointed out, ‘why Fred Barnet lost Indian Silk. He thought Calder’s powers were all rubbish and he wouldn’t lash out good money to put them to the test. But Dissdale did. Bought the horse and presumably also paid Calder… who boasted about his success on television and nearly got himself killed for it.’

  ‘Ironic, the whole thing,’ Pen said, and we went on discussing it desultorily over coffee.

  I stayed until six, when Pen went off to her shop for a Sunday-evening stint and Gordon began to look tired, and I drove back to Hampstead in the usual post-Judith state; half-fulfilled, half-starved.

  Towards the end of November, and at Oliver Knowles’ invitation, I travelled to another Sunday lunch, this time at the stud farm in Hertfordshire.

  It turned out, not surprisingly, to be one of Ginnie’s days home from school, and it was she, whistling to Squibs, who set off with me through the yards.

  ‘Did you know we had a hundred and fifty-two mares here all at the same time, back in May?’ she said.

  ‘That’s a lot,’ I said, impressed.

  ‘They had a hundred and fourteen foals between them, and only one of the mares and three of the foals died. That’s a terrifically good record, you know.’

  ‘Your father’s very skilled.’

  ‘So is Nigel,’ she said grudgingly. ‘You have to give him his due.’

  I smiled at the expression.

  ‘He isn’t here just now,’ she said. ‘He went off to Miami yesterday to lie in the sun.’

  ‘Nigel?’

  She nodded. ‘He goes about this time every year. Sets him up for the winter, he says.’

  ‘Always Miami?’

  ‘Yes, he likes it.’

  The whole atmosphere of the place was back to where I’d known it first, to the slow chill months of gestation. Ginnie, snuggling inside her padded jacket, gave carrots from her pocket to some of the mares in the first yard and walked me without stopping through the empty places, the second yard, the foaling yard, and past the breeding shed.

  We came finally as always to the stallion yard where the curiosity of the residents brought their heads out the moment they heard our footsteps. Ginnie distributed carrots and pats with the aplomb of her father, and Sandcastle graciously allowed her to stroke his nose.

  ‘He’s quiet now,’ she said. ‘He’s on a much lower diet at this time of year.’

  I listened to the bulk of knowledge behind the calm words and I said, ‘What are you going to do when you leave school?’

  ‘This, of course.’ She patted Sandcastle’s neck. ‘Help Dad. Be his assistant.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  She shook her head. ‘I love the foals. Seeing them born and watching them grow. I don’t want to do anything else, ever.’

  We left the stallions and walked between the paddocks with their foals and dams, along the path to the Watcherleys’, Squibs trotting on ahead and marking his fence posts. The neighbouring place, whose ramshackle state I’d only glimpsed on my pursuit of the loose five million, proved now to be almost as neat as the parent spread, with much fresh paint in evidence and weeds markedly absent.

  ‘Dad can’t bear mess,’ Ginnie said when I remarked on the spit-and-polish. ‘The Watcherleys are pretty lucky, really, with Dad paying them rent and doing up their place and employing them to look after the animals in this yard. Bob may still gripe a bit at not being on his own, but Maggie was telling me just last week that she would be everlastingly thankful that Calder Jackson stole their business.’

  ‘He hardly stole it,’ I said mildly.

  ‘Well, you know what I mean. Did better at it, if you want to be pedantic’ She grinned. ‘Anyway, Maggie’s bought some new clothes at last, and I’m glad for her.’

  We opened and went into a few of the boxes where she handed out the last of the carrots and fondled the inmates, both mares and growing foals, talking to them, and all of them responded amiably to her touch, nuzzling her gently. She looked at peace and where she belonged, all growing pains suspended.

  The Third Year

  APRIL

  Alec had bought a bunch of yellow tulips when he went out for What’s Going On, and they stood on his desk in a beer mug, catching a shaft of spring sunshine and standing straight like guardsmen.

  Gordon was making notes in a handwriting growing even smaller, and the two older colleagues were counting the weeks to their retirement. Office life: an ordinary day.

  My telephone rang, and with eyes still bent on a letter from a tomato grower asking for more time to repay his original loan because of needing a new greenhouse (half an acre) right this minute, I slowly picked up the receiver.

  ‘Oliver Knowles,’ the voice said. ‘Is that you, Tim?’

  ‘Hello,’ I replied warmly. ‘Everything going well?’

  ‘No.’ The word was sickeningly abrupt, and both mentally and physically I sat up straighter.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Can you come down here?’ he asked, not directly answering. ‘I’m rather worried. I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Well… I could come on Sunday,’ I said.

  ‘Could you come today? Or tomorrow?’

  I reviewed my work load and a few appointments. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, if you like,’ I said. ‘If it’s bank business.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ The anxiety in his voice was quite plain, and communicated itself with much ease to me.

  ‘Can’t you tell me what’s the trouble?’ I asked. ‘Is Sandcastle all right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you when you come.’

  ‘But Oliver…’

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Sandcastle is in good health and he hasn’t escaped again or anything like that. It’s too difficult to explain on the telephone. I want your advice, that’s all.’

  He wouldn’t say any more and left me with the dead receiver in my hand and some horrid suspenseful question marks in my mind.

  ‘Sandcastle?’ Gordon asked.

  ‘Oliver says he’s in good health.’

  ‘That horse is insured against everything – those enormous premiums – so don’t worry too much,’ Gordon said. ‘It’s probably something minor.’

  It hadn’t sounded like anything minor, and when I reached the stud farm the next day I found that it certainly wasn’t. Oliver came out to meet me as I braked to a standstill by his front door, and there were new deep lines on his face that hadn’t been there before.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, clasping my hand. ‘I’m seriously worried. I don’t know what to do.’

  He led the way through the house to the office-sitting room and gestured me to a chair. ‘Sit down and read this,’ he said, and gave me a letter.

  There had been no time for ‘nice day’ or ‘how is Ginnie?’ introductory noises, just this stark command. I sat down, and I read, as directed.

&
nbsp; The letter dated April 21st, said:

  Dear Oliver,

  I’m not complaining, because of course one pays one’s fee and takes one’s chances, but I’m sorry to tell you that the Sandcastle foal out of my mare Spiral Binding has been born with a half of one ear missing. It’s a filly, by the way, and I dare say it won’t affect her speed, but her looks are ruined.

  So sad.

  I expect I’ll see you one day at the sales.

  Yours,

  Jane.

  ‘Is that very bad?’ I asked, frowning.

  In reply he wordlessly handed me another letter. This one said:

  Dear Mr Knowles,

  You asked me to let you know how my mare Girandette, whom you liked so much, fared on foaling. She gave birth safely to a nice colt foal, but unfortunately he died at six days. We had a post mortem, and it was found that he had malformed heart-valves, like hole-in-heart-babies.

  This is a great blow to me, financially as well as all else, but that’s life I suppose.

  Yours sincerely,

  George Page.

  ‘And now this,’ Oliver said, and handed me a third.

  The heading was that of a highly regarded and well-known stud farm, the letter briefly impersonal.

  Dear Sir,

  Filly foal born March 31st to Poppingcorn.

  Sire: Sandcastle.

  Deformed foot, near fore.

  Put down.

  I gave him back the letters and with growing misgiving asked, ‘How common are these malformations?’

  Oliver said intensely, ‘They happen. They happen occasionally. But those letters aren’t all. I’ve had two telephone calls – one last night. Two other foals have died of holes in the heart. Two more! That’s five with something wrong with them.’ He stared at me, his eyes like dark pits. ‘That’s far too many.’ He swallowed. ‘And what about the others, the other thirty-five? Suppose… suppose there are more…’

  ‘If you haven’t heard, they’re surely all right.’

  He shook his head hopelessly. ‘The mares are scattered all over the place, dropping Sandcastle’s foals where they are due to be bred next. There’s no automatic reason for those stud managers to tell me when a foal’s born, or what it’s like. I mean, some do it out of courtesy but they just don’t usually bother, and nor do I. I tell the owner of the mare, not the manager of the stallion.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘So there may be other foals with deformities… that I haven’t heard about.’

  There was a long fraught pause in which the enormity of the position sank coldly into my banking consciousness. Oliver developed sweat on his forehead and a tic beside his mouth, as if sharing his anxiety had doubled it rather than halved.

  The telephone rang suddenly, making us both jump.

  ‘You answer it,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  I opened my mouth to protest that it would be only some routine call about anything else on earth, but then merely picked up the receiver.

  ‘Is that Oliver Knowles?’ a voice said.

  ‘No… I’m his assistant.’

  ‘Oh. Then will you give him a message?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Tell him that Patrick O’Marr rang him from Limballow, Ireland. Have you got that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘It’s about a foal we had born here three or four weeks ago. I thought I’d better let Mr Knowles know that we’ve had to put it down, though I’m sorry to give him bad news. Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, feeling hollow.

  ‘The poor little fellow was born with a sort of curled-in hoof. The vet said it might straighten out in a week or two, but it didn’t, so we had it X-rayed, and the lower pastern bone and the coffin bone were fused and tiny. The vet said there was no chance of them developing properly, and the little colt would never be able to walk, let alone race. A beautiful little fella too, in all other ways. Anyway, I’m telling Mr Knowles because of course he’ll be looking out for Sandcastle’s first crop to win for him, and I’m explaining why this one won’t be there. Pink Roses, that’s the mare’s name. Tell him, will you? Pink Roses. She’s come here to be bred to Dallaton. Nice mare. She’s fine herself, tell Mr Knowles.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m very sorry.’

  ‘One of those things.’ The cultured Irish accent sounded not too despairing. ‘The owner of Pink Roses is cut up about it, of course, but I believe he’d insured against a dead or deformed foal, so it’s a case of wait another year and better luck next time.’

  ‘I’ll tell Mr Knowles,’ I said. ‘And thank you for letting us know.’

  ‘Sorry and all,’ he said. ‘But there it is.’

  I put the receiver down slowly and Oliver said dully, ‘Another one? Not another one.’

  I nodded and told him what Patrick O’Marr had said.

  ‘That’s six,’ Oliver said starkly. ‘And Pink Roses… that’s the mare you saw Sandcastle cover, this time last year.’

  ‘Was it?’ I thought back to that majestic mating, that moment of such promise. Poor little colt, conceived in splendour and born with a club foot.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ Oliver said.

  ‘Get out Sandcastle’s insurance policy.’

  He looked blank. ‘No, I mean, about the mares. We have all the mares here who’ve come this year to Sandcastle. They’ve all foaled except one and nearly all of them have already been covered. I mean… there’s another crop already growing, and suppose those… suppose all of those…’ He stopped as if he simply couldn’t make his tongue say the words. ‘I was awake all night,’ he said.

  ‘The first thing,’ I said again, ‘is to look at that policy.’

  He went unerringly to a neat row of files in a cupboard and pulled out the needed document, a many-paged affair, partly printed, partly typed. I spread it open and said to Oliver, ‘How about some coffee? This is going to take ages.’

  ‘Oh. All right.’ He looked around him vaguely. ‘There’ll be some put ready for me for dinner. I’ll go and plug it in.’ He paused. ‘Percolator,’ he explained.

  I knew all the symptoms of a mouth saying one thing while the mind was locked on to another. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That would be fine.’ He nodded with the same unmeshed mental gears, and I guessed that when he got to the kitchen he’d have trouble remembering what for.

  The insurance policy had been written for the trade and not the customer, a matter of jargon-ridden sentences full of words that made plain sense only to people who used them for a living. I read it very carefully for that reason; slowly and thoroughly from start to finish.

  There were many definitions of the word ‘accident’, with stipulations about the number of veterinary surgeons who should be consulted and should give their signed opinions before Sandcastle (hereinafter called the horse) could be humanely destroyed for any reason whatsoever. There were stipulations about fractures, naming those bones which should commonly be held to be repairable, and about common muscle, nerve and tendon troubles which would not be considered grounds for destruction, unless of such severity that the horse couldn’t actually stand up.

  Aside from these restrictions the horse was to be considered to be insured against death from any natural causes whatsoever, to be insured against accidental death occurring while the horse was free (such a contingency to be guarded against with diligence, gross negligence being a disqualifying condition) to be insured against death by fire should the stable be consumed, and against death caused maliciously by human hand. He was insured fully against malicious or accidental castration and against such accidental damage being caused by veterinarians acting in good faith to treat the horse. He was insured against infertility on a sliding scale, his full worth being in question only if he proved one hundred per cent infertile (which laboratory tests had shown was not the case).

  He was insured against accidental or malicious poisoning and against impotence resulting from non-fatal illness, and
against incapacitating or fatal injuries inflicted upon him by any other horse.

  He was insured against death caused by the weather (storm, flood, lightning, etc.) and also, surprisingly, against death or incapacity caused by war, riot or civil commotion, causes usually specifically excluded from insurance.

  He was insured against objects dropped from the sky and against being driven into by mechanical objects on the ground and against trees falling on him and against hidden wells opening under his feet.

  He was insured against every foreseeable disaster except one. He was not insured against being put out of business because of congenital abnormalities among his progeny.

  Oliver came back carrying a tray on which sat two kitchen mugs containing tea, not coffee. He put the tray on the desk and looked at my face, which seemed only very slightly to deepen his despair.

  ‘I’m not insured, am I,’ he said, ‘against possessing a healthy potent stallion to whom no one will send their mares.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Yes… I see you do.’ He was shaking slightly. ‘When the policy was drawn up about six people, including myself and two vets, besides the insurers themselves, tried to think of every possible contingency, and to guard against it. We threw in everything we could think of.’ He swallowed. ‘No one… no one thought of a whole crop of deformed foals.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I mean, breeders usually insure their own mares, if they want to, and the foal, to protect the stallion fee, but many don’t because of the premiums being high. And I… I’m paying this enormous premium… and the one thing… the one thing that happens is something we never… no one ever imagined… could happen.’

  The policy, I thought, had been too specific. They should have been content with something like ‘any factor resulting in the horse not being considered fit for stud purposes’; but perhaps the insurers themselves couldn’t find underwriters for anything so open to interpretation and opinion. In any case, the damage was done. All-risk policies all too often were not what they said; and insurance companies never paid out if they could avoid it.

  My own skin felt clammy. Three million pounds of the bank’s money and two million subscribed by private people were tied up in the horse, and if Oliver couldn’t repay, it was we who would lose.