Dick Francis's Bloodline (9781101600931)

by Francis, Felix

I used my binoculars to scrutinize the horses as they walked around and around. I habitually used the race cards printed in the Racing Post, with their colored diagrams of the jockeys’ silks. Now I made notes in black felt-tip pen of which horses had white marks on their faces, or had sheepskin nosebands, or blinkers, or visors, or white bridles, or breast girths, or anything else that might help me recognize them if I couldn’t distinguish the colors, something that was not unknown if the track was very muddy.

  Not that that would be an issue today, I thought, not on a fine September afternoon when the problem for the racetrack had been too little water, not too much. Indeed, the dry conditions and the firmness of the track meant that the number of declared runners in each race was small. It made my life easy, but it wasn’t good for racing in general.

  I watched as the jockeys came out of the weighing room and into the paddock. I couldn’t help but think back to the last time I’d seen Clare doing the same thing at Lingfield. If only, I thought for the umpteenth time, if only I had known then what would happen later. I surely could have prevented it.

  Suddenly the horses were coming out onto the racetrack, and I had been daydreaming instead of learning the colors. Get a grip, I told myself.

  Fortunately there were only eight runners in the novice hurdle and many of them I knew well from having seen them run before. It would be an easy reintroduction to commentary for me. It seemed like longer than just the eleven days since I’d last done it at Lingfield.

  I switched on my microphone and described the horses as they made their way to the two-mile start on the far side of the course.

  “Hi, Mark,” said Derek’s voice through the headphones. “Coming to you in one minute.”

  Derek, sitting in the blacked-out RacingTV scanner truck, was at Chepstow racetrack, some seventy miles away to the southwest in Wales. He would be watching the same pictures that I had on the monitor in front of me, pictures that showed the eight runners here at Stratford circling while they had their girths tightened by the starter’s assistant.

  “Ten seconds,” said his voice into my ears. “Five, four, three . . .” He fell silent.

  “The starter is moving to his rostrum,” I said into the live microphone. “They’re under starters orders. They’re off.”

  The race was uneventful, with the eight horses well strung out even by the time they passed the stands for the first time. On the second circuit, three of them pulled up and the other five finished in an extended line astern with not a moment’s excitement between them.

  I tried my best to sound upbeat about the winner, as he strode away after the last hurdle to win by twenty lengths, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind. He’d been a well-backed favorite, and most of the punters were happy.

  “Thanks, Mark,” said Derek. “Back with you for the next.”

  I sighed. The fun suddenly seemed to have gone out of my job.

  I stayed in the commentary booth between the first two races and thought about what Toby Woodley had written in the Gazette. Was he just trying to get even for being humiliated by my father or was there more to his story? Did he really have his sources and knowledge of a betting syndicate or had he made up the whole thing?

  If so, he was a bit too close to the mark for my liking.

  I decided that perhaps I shouldn’t make too much of a fuss about it. The last thing I wanted was to attract any unwelcome scrutiny of Clare’s recent riding. I just hoped that the story was a one-day wonder that would quickly fade away to nothing and that everybody would soon forget about it.

  Fat chance of that.

  —

  THANKFULLY, the second race was more exciting than the first, this time with seven runners battling it out over fences in a two-and-half-mile Beginners’ Steeplechase.

  “Beginners” were horses that had never won a steeplechase before, either on a racetrack proper or at a recognized point-to-point meeting, and it showed, with two of the seven falling at the first fence. However, the remaining five put up more of a contest, with three of them still with a chance at the last and fighting out a tight finish all the way to the wire.

  That was more like it, I thought, smiling as I clicked off my microphone.

  “First number, one, Ed Online,” Terence the judge called over the public address from his booth next door. “Second number, three; third number, six. The fourth horse was number two. Distances were a neck and half a length.”

  “Well done, Mark,” said Derek through my headphones. “That was more like it. Back with you for the next.”

  “OK,” I replied, pushing the right button on my control box. “I’ll be here.”

  There was a thirty-five-minute gap between the second and third races, which gave me about twenty minutes until I was needed back in my position, so I decided to go down to the weighing room for a cup of tea. However, I was intercepted by Harry Jacobs, my leisurely friend whom I’d last seen at Lingfield the day Clare had died.

  “Hello, Mark,” he said, shaking my hand warmly. “You must come and have a drink.”

  “I’m working,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied with a smile. “I’ve been listening to your dulcet tones over the loudspeakers. But surely you’ve got time for a quick one?”

  I looked at my watch. “All right,” I said, smiling back. “But it will have to be quick.”

  “But they can’t start the race without you anyway,” he said, chuckling.

  “Oh yes they can,” I assured him. “The race will start on time, with or without the commentary.”

  “We’d better be quick, then.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder and guided me around behind the stands toward the pre–parade ring. “I’ve got a box,” he said as we climbed a metal staircase. “In here.” He opened a door, and we went into a room full to overflowing with people who all seemed to be talking at once. The noise was almost overwhelming.

  “Are all these your guests?” I asked him, shouting.

  “Yes!” he shouted back. “Stratford’s my local course, so I’ve asked along a few chums from home. Plus a few others I’ve sort of picked up since we arrived.” He grinned broadly at me. “Now, what will you have?”

  “Do you have a Diet Coke?” I asked.

  His face showed that he didn’t approve of any of his guests drinking nonalcoholic beverages. “Are you sure you won’t have champagne?”

  “Oh all right, then,” I said with a laugh. “I’ll force it down.”

  A waiter miraculously moved through the throng and delivered two slender glasses of bubbles into our hands.

  “Cheers,” I said, raising mine to my lips.

  We were still standing close to the door, and Harry decided to dive deeper into the room. “Come on,” he said, reaching out his hand and grabbing my jacket.

  I didn’t have much choice, so I followed him.

  We struggled through and out onto the balcony on the far side, overlooking the parade ring.

  “That’s better,” Harry said. “More air out here.” He looked over my shoulder. “Hi, Richard,” he shouted, and dived back into the melee, leaving me alone.

  I turned to my right just as the lady behind me turned to her left so that the two of us ended up standing face-to-face, crammed together by the crowd.

  “Hello, Sarah,” I said.

  Her irate husband, Mitchell Stacey, stood behind her, looking at me, and I swear I could see steam emanating from his ears.

  I turned away from him and left, forcing my way through the mob without much finesse or consideration for toes, and I didn’t look back to see if he was following. I almost ran down the metal stairs and then back to the commentary booth, where I remained holed up for the rest of the afternoon.

  —

  I LEFT IMMEDIATELY after the last race and hurried out to the parki
ng lot, but Stacey was ahead of me, waiting at my car. I stopped ten yards away.

  “I told you to stay away from my wife,” he hissed at me through clenched teeth. “I warned you.”

  I decided to say nothing. I could have tried to explain to him that Sarah and I had come together by accident, that I hadn’t even known she was at Stratford until we had ended up, nose to nose, on Harry Jacobs’s balcony. But I didn’t think it would help. Saying nothing was surely the best policy. Allow the volcano to subside, I thought. Don’t go poking it with a stick.

  He’d told me at Newmarket that he would have had my legs broken, but he could hardly do it on his own. For a start, I was half his age. I was also a good four or five inches taller than he and I kept myself fairly fit, not least by climbing stairs to the commentary booths at the top of all the racetrack grandstands.

  If he was going to break my legs, he’d need help.

  I glanced around, but there were no Stacey henchman lurking in the shadows. Rather, there was a group of inebriated racegoers making its unsteady way toward a row of buses.

  “I warned you,” he said again.

  He suddenly strode toward me, so I moved quickly to the side to put a car between us but he didn’t follow. He simply marched past where I’d been standing and continued in a straight line back toward the racetrack enclosures.

  I breathed a huge sigh of relief. The confrontation was over for now, but I would be naïve if I thought it would be over forever.

  10

  Toby Woodley’s story didn’t fade away. Quite the opposite.

  Wednesday morning’s Daily Gazette had upgraded it from the back page to the front with an “Exclusive” tag beneath a two-inch-high headline in bold capital letters: RACE FIXING.

  The article beneath reiterated the allegation that Clare had stopped Brain of Brixham in the race at Wolverhampton, even providing details about the amount of money that had supposedly been won by those laying the horse on the Internet betting exchanges.

  It must have been a slow news day, I thought, and Toby Woodley’s imagination had obviously been running in overdrive to fill the gap.

  But there was also an underlying tone to the piece that vaguely implied that Clare’s ride on Brain of Brixham might not have been an isolated incident but rather part of a pattern.

  Watch this space, it said at the end, for further revelations tomorrow. And not only about Clare Shillingford, but also about her brother, Mark.

  I stared at it. What revelations about me was Toby Woodley going to make up now? He’s told me I’d regret saying at Stratford that he’d been treated at Clare’s funeral not like dirt but like shit. Now the little bastard would make me pay. Unlike Clare, I would be able to take him to court if he lied.

  And this wasn’t the first time that the Daily Gazette had made accusations about race fixing either. It had done so the previous May, but not on the front page. On that occasion the whole thing had quickly died away to nothing as the paper had been unable to produce any firm evidence and had declined to name any individuals, probably for fear of being sued.

  Even the Racing Post, which should have known better, had a report following up on the Gazette’s story, demanding answers and challenging Toby Woodley to reveal the identity of members of the betting syndicate “for the good of racing.” The Post’s tenor may have been more “put up or shut up,” but it wouldn’t help to reduce the speculation. At least Jim Metcalf in UK Today had refused to join the chorus.

  —

  OTHER THAN READING the newspapers, I spent most of Wednesday morning studying the brochures for the eight houses I had looked at on the Internet. The various realtors had been most efficient in sending details, each brochure arriving with a cover letter telling me, each in a slightly different way, that now was the ideal time to buy a house.

  I was sure that every realtor always thought it was an ideal time to buy a house. They were hardly likely to say it wasn’t, now were they?

  I was particularly interested in a house in a North Oxfordshire village. I’d often thought that Edenbridge in Kent was far from being the ideal place to live for someone with my job. Lingfield Park was certainly handy, and Brighton, Plumpton, and Folkestone were pretty close as well. It was also not bad for Fontwell, Goodwood, and the London courses, but I spent much of my time at the tracks in the Midlands and the North and they were all a long way off. It was no wonder that the odometer on my old Ford had been around the dial twice.

  Oxfordshire, I thought, was a good central location, one where I could get to and from almost all the English racetracks in a single day, although there were none in the county itself.

  I sat and looked at the glossy pictures and wondered if I was doing the right thing. In particular, was it sensible to move away from my parents at a stage in their lives when they soon would be needing more help?

  That alone, I decided, was one very good reason why I should move. As things stood, I could see that it was going to fall to me alone to look after them, as had indeed become the case in recent months. If I lived in Oxfordshire rather than just five miles down the road, my elder siblings might start believing that they also had some responsibility for their parents, especially as they would all then be living closer to them than I.

  Perhaps I should call the realtor and made an appointment to go see the house. Maybe I’d do it tomorrow.

  —

  MIDWEEK RACING under the lights at Kempton Park on the all-weather Polytrack has become standard fare for punters, although during the winter months the “crowd,” if that is the right term for the sparse gathering of the faithful, wisely spend most of their time inside the glass-fronted bars and restaurants.

  However, in late September the weather gods had been kind, and England was enjoying an Indian summer, with hot days and balmy evenings. So much so that I left my overcoat in my car, which I parked in the track parking lot.

  I generally liked commentating on racing under lights.

  I had first been night racing at Happy Valley racetrack in Hong Kong as a nineteen-year-old. It probably had been the strange environment as much as anything, but I’d found the whole experience so exciting, and part of that excitement remains every time I see jockeys’ silks shining vividly in the bright glow of artificial light.

  But that would have to wait. The first race was at twenty minutes to six, and the sun was still well up in the sky as the ten runners were loaded into the starting gate at the one-mile start on the far side of the oval track.

  “They’re off in the Crane Park Limited Maiden Stakes,” I said into my microphone. “Quarterback Sneak breaks well and is quickly into stride on the nearside. He goes into an early lead, with Waimarima a close second. Popeye’s Girl is next, in the pink jacket and sheepskin noseband, with Apache Pilot alongside in the dark green. Next is Banker’s Joy, with the yellow crossbelts, and then Marker Pen in the hoops, with Kitbo now making some headway on the outside in the white cap.”

  The race unfolded, and I continued to describe the action as they swung right-handed into the stretch as a closely bunched group, the horses spreading across the track as their jockeys searched for a clear run to the line.

  And every one of the jockeys looked to me just like Clare.

  I almost lost it completely, but I forced myself to concentrate on the horses and pulled myself back from the brink.

  “Quarterback Sneak is still just in front, but here comes Apache Pilot, with Popeye’s Girl going very well on the wide outside. Just between these three, as they enter the final hundred yards. Quarterback Sneak seems unable to quicken, and Popeye’s Girl goes on to win easily from Apache Pilot, with Kitbo a fast-finishing third. Next comes Quarterback Sneak, then Marker Pen and Banker’s Joy together, followed by Waimarima, who faded badly in the closing stages.”

  I went through the rest of the field and then clicked off my mike. />
  I leaned back wearily against the wall of the commentary booth and wiped a bead of sweat from my clammy forehead. I felt wretched, and wondered if I would ever again be able to commentate on a race like that without seeing Clare as one, or all, of the jockeys.

  Throughout her career, and particularly in the early years, Clare had ridden often at the all-weather tracks, especially during the winter months when there was no turf flat racing in Great Britain. It was how up-and-coming jockeys nowadays learned their trade, taking rides in January and February while many of their more established colleagues were sunning themselves on Caribbean beaches or riding winners in the warmth of Australia, Dubai, or Hong Kong.

  I sat down on the stool in the commentary booth and looked out across the racetrack, the lights of the aircraft landing at Heathrow now shining brightly in the darkening sky.

  I told myself that the reason I didn’t feel like going down to the weighing room was I didn’t want to meet anyone who had read the Daily Gazette or who might ask me difficult questions after seeing the Racing Post. But, in reality, it was because I felt I had to psych myself up for the next race.

  I realized that commentating hadn’t been a problem the previous day because Clare had never ridden at Stratford, and never would have, since they staged just hurdle races and steeplechases. Only tonight, here at Kempton, was I suddenly struck by her absence from the track.

  Staying in the booth, however, wasn’t the ideal preparation for the next race, as I couldn’t see the runners in the parade ring, which at Kempton was situated right behind the main grandstand.

  I studied the race program and tried to memorize the colors, but there was nothing like actually seeing the jockeys wearing the silks. All too often, the pigment of the inks used in the printing bore little or no resemblance to the actual dyes used in the material.

  I went out of the commentary booth and turned left.

  As was the case at many racetracks, the commentary booth at Kempton was high above and behind the grandstand seating but still under its large cantilevered roof. It was one of a number of separate booths opening off a long corridor that ran behind them to a metal staircase at one end.