by Dick Francis
He was standing by the window, gazing through the curtain of rain which streamed down the glass. He changed into colours for the first race, and was looking out towards the parade ring, where two miserable looking horses were being led round by dripping, mackintoshed stable lads.
‘We’ll need windscreen wipers on our goggles in this little lot,’ he remarked, with unabashed good spirits. ‘Anyone for a mud bath? Blimey, it’s enough to discourage ducks.’
‘How did you enjoy your Turkish bath on Sunday?’ I asked, smiling.
‘Oh, you heard about that, did you?’
‘I think everyone has heard about it,’ I said.
‘Good. Serve the little bastard right,’ said Sandy, grinning hugely.
‘How did you know where to find him?’ I asked.
‘Asked his mother…’ Sandy broke off in the middle of the word, and his eyes widened.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You sent him those threatening Bolingbroke notes.’
‘And what,’ said Sandy, with good humour, ‘makes you think so?’
‘You like practical jokes, and you dislike Joe,’ I said. ‘The first note he received was put into his jacket while it hung in the changing-room at Plumpton, so it had to be a jockey or a valet or an official who did it. It couldn’t have been a bookmaker or a trainer or an owner or any member of the public. So I began to think that perhaps the person who planted the note in Joe’s pocket was not the person who was paying him to stop horses. That person has, strangely enough, exacted no revenge at all. But I asked myself who else would be interested in tormenting Joe, and I came to you. You knew before the race that Joe was not supposed to win on Bolingbroke. When he won you told him you’d lost a lot of money, and you’d get even with him. And I guess you have. You even tracked him down to enjoy seeing him suffer.’
‘Revenge is sweet, and all that. Well, it’s a fair cop,’ said Sandy. ‘Though how you know such a lot beats me.’
‘Joe told me most of it,’ I said.
‘What a blabbermouth. That tongue of Joe’s will get him into a right mess one of these days.’
‘Yes, it will,’ I said, thinking of the incautious way Joe had spoken of his ‘stopping’ and its rewards.
‘Did you tell him I had sent him those notes?’ asked Sandy, with his first show of anxiety.
‘No, I didn’t. It would only stir up more trouble,’ I said.
‘Thanks for that, anyway.’
‘And in reward for that small service, Sandy,’ I said, ‘will you tell me how you knew in advance that Bolingbroke was not supposed to win?’
He grinned widely, rocking gently on his heels, but he didn’t answer.
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘It isn’t much to ask, and it might even give me a lead to that other mystery, about Bill Davidson.’
Sandy shook his head. ‘It won’t help you any,’ he said. ‘Joe told me himself.’
‘What?’ I exclaimed.
‘He told me himself. In the washroom when we were changing before the race. You know how he can’t help swanking? He wanted to show off, and I was handy, and besides, he knew I’d stopped a horse or two in my time.’
‘What did he say?’ I asked.
‘He said if I wanted a lesson in how to choke a horse I’d better watch him on Bolingbroke. Well, a nod’s as good as a wink to Sandy Mason. I got a punter to put fifty quid on Leica, which I reckoned was bound to win with Bolingbroke not trying. And look what happened. The little sod lost his nerve and beat Leica by two lengths. I could have throttled him. Fifty quid’s a ruddy fortune, mate, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Why did you wait as long as ten days before you gave him that first note?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t think of it until then,’ he said, frankly. ‘But it was a damn good revenge, wasn’t it? He nearly got his licence suspended at Cheltenham, and he sweated his guts out for three days at the week-end, all in the screaming heeby-jeebies worked up by yours truly.’ Sandy beamed. ‘You should have seen him in the Turkish baths. A sodden, whining, clutching wreck. In tears, and begging me to keep him safe. Me! What a laugh. I was nearly sick, trying not to laugh. A cracking good revenge, that was.’
‘And you put him over the rails at Plumpton, too,’ I said.
‘I never did,’ said Sandy, indignantly. ‘Did he tell you that? He’s a bloody liar. He fell off, I saw him. I’ve a good mind to frighten him again.’ His red hair bristled and his brown eyes sparkled. Then he relaxed. ‘Oh, well… I’ll think of something, sometime. There’s no rush. I’ll make his life uncomfortable—ants in his pants, worms in his boots, that sort of thing. Harmless,’ and Sandy began to laugh. Then he said, ‘As you’re such a roaring success as a private eye, how are you getting on with that other business?’
‘Not fast enough,’ I said. ‘But I know a lot more than I did at this time last week, so I haven’t lost hope. You haven’t heard anything useful?’ He shook his head.
‘Not a squeak anywhere. You’re not giving it up, then?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Well, the best of British luck,’ said Sandy, grinning.
An official poked his head round the door. ‘Jockeys out, please,’ he said. It was nearly time for the first race.
Sandy put his helmet on and tied the strings. Then he took out his false teeth, the two centre incisors of the upper jaw, wrapped them in a handkerchief and tucked them into the pocket of the coat hanging on his peg. He, like most jockeys, never rode races wearing false teeth, for fear of losing them, or even swallowing them if he fell. He gave me a gap-toothed grin, sketched a farewell salute, and dived out into the rain.
It was still raining an hour later when I went out to ride Palindrome. Pete was waiting for me in the parade ring, the water dripping off the brim of his hat in a steady stream.
‘Isn’t this a God-awful day?’ he said. ‘I’m glad it’s you that’s got to strip off and get soaked, and not me. I had a bellyful when I was riding. I hope you’re good at swimming.’
‘Why?’ I asked, mystified.
‘If you are, you’ll know how to keep your eyes open under water.’ I suspected another of Pete’s rather feeble jokes, but he was serious. He pointed to the goggles slung round my neck. ‘You won’t need those, for a start. With all the mud that’s being kicked up today, they’d be covered before you’d gone a furlong.’
‘I’ll leave them down, then,’ I said.
‘Take them off. They’ll only get in your way,’ he said.
So I took them off, and as I turned my head to ease the elastic over the back of my helmet, I caught a glimpse of a man walking along outside the parade ring. There were few people standing about owing to the rain, and I had a clear view of him.
It was Bert, the man in charge of the horse in the lay-by on Maidenhead Thicket. One of the Marconicar drivers.
He was not looking at me, but the sight of him was as unpleasant as an electric shock. He was a long way from base. He might have travelled the hundred and forty miles solely to enjoy an afternoon’s racing in the rain. Or he might not.
I looked at Palindrome, plodding slowly round the parade ring in his waterproof rug.
A dead cert.
I shivered.
I knew I had made some progress towards my quarry, the man who had caused Bill’s death, even though he himself was as unknown to me as ever. I had disregarded his two emphatic warnings and I feared I had left a broad enough trail for him to be well aware of my pursuit. Bert would not be at Bristol alone, I thought, and I could guess that a third deterrent message was on its way.
There are times when one could do without an intuition, and this was one of them. Palindrome, the dead cert. What had been done once would be tried again, and somewhere out on the rain-swept racecourse another strand of wire could be waiting. For no logical reason, I was certain of it.
It was too late to withdraw from the race. Palindrome was an odds-on favourite, and clearly in the best of health; he showed no lameness, no broken blood-vessels, none of
the permitted excuses for a last minute cancellation. And if I myself were suddenly taken ill and couldn’t ride, another jockey would be quickly found to take my place. I couldn’t send someone out in my colours to take a fall designed for me.
If I refused point-blank, without explanation, to let Palindrome run in the race, my permit to ride would be withdrawn, and that would be the end of my steeplechasing.
If I said to the Stewards, ‘Someone is going to bring Palindrome down with wire,’ they might possibly send an official round the course to inspect the fences: but he wouldn’t find anything. I was quite sure that if a wire were rigged, it would be, as in Bill’s case, a last minute job.
If I rode in the race, but kept Palindrome reined in behind other horses the whole way, the wire might not be rigged at all. But my heart sank as I regarded the faces of the jockeys who had already ridden, and remembered in what state they had come back from their previous races. Mud was splashed on their faces like thick khaki chicken-pox, and their jerseys were soaked and muddied to such an extent that their colours were almost unrecognisable from a few steps away, let alone the distance from one fence to the next. My own coffee and cream colours would be particularly indistinct. A man waiting with wire would not be able to tell for certain which horse was in front, but he would expect me and act accordingly.
I looked at the other jockeys in the parade ring, now reluctantly taking off their raincoats and mounting their horses. There were about ten of them. They were men who had taught me a lot, and accepted me as one of themselves, and given me a companionship I enjoyed almost as much as the racing itself. If I let one of them crash in my place, I couldn’t face them again.
It was no good. I’d have to ride Palindrome out in front and hope for the best. I remembered Kate saying, ‘If there’s something you’ve got to do, then to hell with the danger.’
To hell with the danger. After all, I could fall any day, without the aid of wire. If I fell today, with it, that would be just too bad. But it couldn’t be helped. And I might be wrong; there might be no wire at all.
Pete said, ‘What’s the matter? You look as if you’d seen a ghost.’
‘I’m all right,’ I said, taking off my coat. Palindrome was standing beside me, and I patted him, admiring his splendid intelligent head. My chief worry from then on was that he, at least, should come out of the next ten minutes unscathed.
I swung up on to his back and looked down at Pete, and said ‘If… if Palindrome falls in this race, please will you ring up Inspector Lodge at Maidenhead police station, and tell him about it?’
‘What on earth…?’
‘Promise,’ I said.
‘All right. But I don’t understand. You could tell him yourself, if you want to, and anyway, you won’t fall.’
‘No, perhaps not,’ I said.
‘I’ll meet you in the winner’s enclosure,’ he said, slapping Palindrome’s rump as we moved off.
The rain was blowing into our faces as we lined up for the start in front of the stands, with two circuits of the course to complete. The tapes went up, and we were off.
Two or three horses jumped the first fence ahead of me, but after that I took Palindrome to the front, and stayed there. He was at his best, galloping and jumping with the smooth flow of a top class ’chaser. On any other day, the feel of this power beneath me would have pleased me beyond words. As it was, I scarcely noticed it.
Remembering Bill’s fall, I was watching for an attendant to walk across behind a fence as the horses approached it. He would be uncoiling the wire, raising it, fixing it… I planned when I saw that to try to persuade Palindrome to take off too soon before the fence, so that he would hit the wire solidly with his chest when he was already past the height of his spread. That way, I hoped he might break or pull down the wire and still stay on his feet; and if we fell, it should not be in a shattering somersault like Admiral’s. But it is easier to plan than to do, and I doubted whether a natural jumper like Palindrome could be persuaded to take off one short stride too soon.
We completed the first circuit without incident, squelching on the sodden turf. About a mile from home, on the far side of the course, I heard hoof beats close behind, and looked over my shoulder. Most of the field were bunched up some way back, but two of them were chasing me with determination and they were almost up to Palindrome’s quarters.
I shook him up and he responded immediately, and we widened the gap from our pursuers to about five lengths.
No attendant walked across the course.
I didn’t see any wire.
But Palindrome hit it, just the same.
It wouldn’t have been too bad a fall but for the horses behind me. I felt the heavy jerk on Palindrome’s legs as we rose over the last fence on the far side of the course, and I shot off like a bullet, hitting the ground with my shoulder several yards ahead. Before I had stopped rolling the other horses were jumping the fence. They would have avoided a man on the ground if they possibly could, but in this case, I was told afterwards, they had to swerve round Palindrome, who was struggling to get up, and found me straight in their path.
The galloping hooves thudded into my body. One of the horses kicked my head and my helmet split so drastically that it fell off. There were six seconds of bludgeoning, battering chaos, in which I could neither think nor move, but only feel.
When it was all over I lay on the wet ground, limp and growing numb, unable to get up, unable even to stir. I was lying on my back with my feet towards the fence. The rain fell on my face and trickled through my hair, and the drops felt so heavy on my eyelids that opening them was like lifting a weight. Through a slit, from under my rain-beaded lashes, I could see a man at the fence.
He wasn’t coming to help me. He was very quickly coiling up a length of wire, starting on the outside of the course and working inwards. When he reached the inner post he put his hand in his raincoat pocket, drew out a tool, and clipped the wire where it was fastened eighteen inches above the fence. This time, he had not forgotten his wire cutters. He finished his job, hooked the coil over his arm, and turned towards me.
I knew him.
He was the driver of the horse-box.
The colour was going out of everything. The world looked grey to me, like an under-exposed film. The green grass was grey, the box driver’s face was grey…
Then I saw that there was another man at the fence, and he was walking towards me. I knew him, too, and he was not a taxi-driver. I was so glad to find I had some help against the box driver that I could have wept with relief. I tried to tell him to look at the wire, so that this time there should be a witness. But the words could get no farther than my brain. My throat and tongue refused to form them.
He came over and stood beside me, and stooped down. I tried to smile and say hello, but not a muscle twitched. He straightened up.
He said, over his shoulder, to the box driver, ‘He’s been knocked out.’ He turned back to me.
He said, ‘You nosey bastard,’ and he kicked me. I heard the ribs crack, and I felt the hot stab in my side. ‘Perhaps that’ll teach you to mind your own business.’ He kicked me again. My grey world grew darker. I was nearly unconscious, but even in that dire moment some part of my mind went on working, and I knew why the attendant had not walked across with the wire. He had not needed to. He and his accomplice had stood on opposite sides of the course and had raised it between them.
I saw the foot drawn back a third time. It seemed hours, in my disjointed brain, until it came towards my eyes, growing bigger and bigger until it was all that I could see.
He kicked my face, and I went out like a light.
TWELVE
Hearing came back first. It came back suddenly, as if someone had pressed a switch. At one moment no messages of any sort were getting through the swirling, distorted dreams which seemed to have been going on inside my head for a very long time, and in the next I was lying in still blackness, with every sound sharp and distinct in my ears.
I wanted to tell her it was not true, but could not.
The sounds went on; swishing, rustling, clattering, the murmur of distant voices, the thump and rattle of water in pipes of ancient plumbing. I listened, but without much interest.
After a while I knew I was lying on my back. My limbs, when I became aware of them, were as heavy as lead and ached persistently, and ton weights rested on my eyelids.
I wondered where I was. Then I wondered who I was. I could remember nothing at all. This seemed too much to deal with, so I went to sleep.
The next time I woke up the weights were gone from my eyes. I opened them, and found I was lying in a dim light in a room whose fuzzy lines slowly grew clear. There was a wash-basin in one corner, a table with a white cloth on it, an easy chair with wooden arms, a window to my right, a door straight ahead. A bare, functional room.
The door opened and a nurse came in. She looked at me in pleased surprise and smiled. She had nice teeth.
‘Hello there,’ she said. ‘So you’ve come back at last. How do you feel?’
‘Fine,’ I said, but it came out as a whisper, and in any case it wasn’t strictly true.
‘Are you comfortable?’ she asked, holding my wrist for the pulse.
‘No,’ I said, giving up the pretence.
‘I’ll go and tell Dr Mitcham you’ve woken up, and I expect he will come and see you. Will you be all right for a few minutes?’ She wrote something on a board which lay on the table, gave me another bright smile, and swished out of the door.
So I was in hospital. But I still had no idea what had happened. Had I, I wondered, been run over by a steam roller? Or a herd of elephants?
