CHAPTER ONE 5 страница

'Thanks,' I said, trying not to smile fatuously and scarcely succeeding. Dane looked at me speculatively; but I changed the subject back to racing, and presently I asked him if he had ever heard Bill Davidson spoken of in connection with any sort of odd happenings.

'No, I never did,' he said positively. I told him about the wire. His reaction was typical.

'Poor Bill,' he said with anger. 'Poor old Bill. What a bloody shame.'

'So if you hear anything which might have even the faintest significance-'

'I'll pass it on to you,' he promised.

At that moment Joe Nantwich walked straight into Dane as if he hadn't seen him. He stopped without apology, took a step back, and then went on his way to the changing room. His eyes were wide, unfocused, staring.

'He's drunk,' said Dane, incredulously. 'His breath smells like a distillery.'

Joe reappeared at our side. It was true that one could smell his approach a good yard away. Without preamble he spoke directly to me.

'I've had another one.' He took a paper out of his pocket. It had been screwed up and straightened out again, so that it was wrinkled in a hundred fine lines, but its ball-pointed message was still abundantly clear.

BOLINGBROKE. THIS WEEK, it said.

'When did you get it?' I asked.

'It was here when I arrived, waiting for me in the letter rack.'

'You've tanked up pretty quickly, then,' I said.

'I'm not drunk,' said Joe indignantly. 'I only had a couple of quick ones in the bar opposite the weighing room.'

Dane and I raised our eyebrows in unison. The bar opposite the weighing room had no front wall, and anyone drinking there was in full view of every trainer, owner, and Steward who walked out of the weighing room. There might be a surer way for a jockey to commit professional suicide than to have 'a couple of quick ones' at that bar before the first race, but I couldn't think of it off-hand.

'Double quick ones, I imagine,' said Dane with a smile, taking the paper out of my hand and reading it. 'What does it mean, Bolingbroke this week? Why are you so steamed up about it?'

Joe snatched the paper away and stuffed it back into his pocket. He seemed for the first time to be aware that Dane was listening.

'It's none of your business,' he said rudely.

I felt a great impulse to assure him it was none of mine either. But he turned back to me and said, 'What shall I do?' in a voice full of whining self-pity.

'Are you riding today?' I asked.

'I'm in the fourth and the last. Those bloody amateurs have got two races all to themselves today. A bit thick, isn't it, leaving us only four races to earn our living in?

There was a small silence. Dane laughed. Joe was after all not too drunk to realize he was riding his hobby horse in front of the wrong man. He said weakly, in his smarmiest voice, 'Well, Alan, of course I didn't mean you personally -'

'If you still want my advice, in view of your opinion of amateur jockeys,' I said, keeping a straight face, 'you should drink three cups of strong black coffee and stay out of sight as long as you can.'

'I mean, what shall I do about this note?' Joe had a thicker skin than a coach-hide cabin trunk.

'Pay it no attention at all,' I said. 'I should think that whoever wrote it is playing with you. Perhaps he knows you like to drown your sorrows in whisky and is relying on you to destroy yourself without his having to do anything but send you frightening letters. A neat, bloodless, and effective revenge.'

'No one's going to do that to me,' he said, with an aggressiveness which I guessed would diminish with the alcohol level in his blood. He weaved off out of the weighing room door, presumably in search of black coffee. Before Dane could ask me what was going on, he received a hearty slap on the back from Sandy Mason, who was staring after Joe with dislike.

They launched into a technical discussion and I turned away from them. But Dane touched my arm.

He said, 'Is it all right for me to tell people, say Sandy for instance, about the wire and Bill?'

'Yes, do. You might strike oil with someone I wouldn't have thought of asking about it. But be careful.' I thought of telling him about the warning in the horse-box, but it was a long story and it seemed enough to say, 'Remember that you're stirring up people who can kill, even if by mistake.'

He looked startled. 'Yes, you're right. I'll be careful.'

We turned back to Sandy together.

'What are you two so solemn about? Has someone swiped that luscious brunette you're both so keen on?' he said.

'It's about Bill Davidson,' said Dane, disregarding this.

'What about him?'

'The fall that killed him was caused by some wire being strung across the top of the fence, Alan saw it.'

Sandy looked aghast. 'Alan saw it,' he repeated, and then, as the full meaning of what Dane had said sank in, 'But that's murder.'

I pointed out the reasons for supposing that murder had not been intended. Sandy 's brown eyes stared at me unwinkingly until I had finished.

'I guess you're right,' he said. 'What are you going to do about it?'

'He's trying to find out what is behind it all,' said Dane. 'We thought you might be able to help. Have you heard anything that might explain it? People tell you things, you know.'

Sandy ran his strong brown hands through his unruly red hair, and rubbed the nape of his neck. This brain massage produced no great thoughts, however. 'Yes, but mostly they tell me about their girl friends or their bets or such like. Not Major Davidson though. We weren't exactly on a bosom pals basis.’

'See if your bookmaker friends have heard any whispers, then,' said Dane. 'They usually have their ears usefully to the ground.'

'OK,' said Sandy. 'I'll pass the news along and see what happens. Now come on, we haven't much time before the first. See you later, then.' He went into the changing room.

The afternoon wore on. The racing began. With the fine sunny day and the holiday mood of the crowd, the excitement was almost crackling in the air.

Dane, riding like a demon, won the Champion Hurdle by a head. Pete, patting his horse and sharing with the owner the congratulations of the great crowd round the unsaddling enclosure, was so delighted he could hardly speak. Large and red-faced, he stood there with his hat pushed back showing his baldness, trying to look as if this sort of thing happened every day, when it was in fact the most important winner he had trained.

Although I had won several races back in Rhodesia and about thirty since I had been in England, this was my first win at Cheltenham. I felt as high as if I had already drunk the champagne which waited unopened in the changing-room, the customary crateful of celebration for Champion Hurdle day. Palindrome was, in my eyes, the most beautiful, most intelligent, most perfect horse in the world. I walked on air to the scales to weigh in, and changed into my ordinary clothes, and had still not returned to earth when I went outside again. The gloom I had arrived in seemed a thousand years ago. I was so happy I could have turned cartwheels like a child. Such total, unqualified fulfilment comes rarely enough: and unexpectedly, I wished that my father were there to share it.

The problem of Bill had receded like a dot in the distance, and it was only because I had earlier planned to do it that I directed my airy steps down to the horsebox parking ground.

It was packed. About twenty horses ran in each race that day, and almost every horse-box available must have been pressed into service to bring them. I sauntered along the rows, humming light-heartedly, looking at the number plates with half an eye and less attention.

And there it was.

APX 708.

My happiness burst like a bubble.

There was no doubt it was the same horse-box. Regulation wooden Jennings design. Elderly, with dull and battered varnish. No name of owner or trainer painted anywhere on the doors or bodywork.

There was no one in the driver's cab. I walked round to the back, opened the door, and climbed in.

The horse-box was empty except for a bucket, a hay net, and a rug, the normal travelling kit for racehorses. The floor was strewn with straw, whereas three days earlier it had been swept clean.

The rug, I thought, might give me a clue as to where the box had come from. Most trainers and some owners have their initials embroidered or sewn in tape in large letters on the corners of their horse rugs. If there were initials on this one, it would be easy.

I picked it up. I found the initials. I stood there as if turned to stone. Plainly in view, embroidered in dark brown silk, were the letters A.Y.

It was my own rug.

Pete, when I ran him to earth, looked in no mood to answer any questions needing much thought. He leaned back against the weighing-room wall with a glass of champagne in one hand and a cigar in the other, surrounded by a pack of friends similarly equipped. From their rosy smiling faces I gathered the celebration had already been going on for some time.

Dane thrust a glass into my hand.

'Where have you been? Well done on Palindrome. Have some bubbly. The owner's paying, God bless him.' His eyes were alight with that fantastic, top-of-the-world elation that I had so lately felt myself. It began to creep back into me too. It was, after all, a great day. Mysteries could wait.

I drank a sip of champagne and said, 'Well done yourself, you old son-of-a-gun. And here's to the Gold Cup.'

'No such luck,' said Dane. 'I haven't much chance in that.' And from his laughing face I gathered he didn't care, either. We emptied our glasses. I'll get another bottle,' he said, diving into the noisy, crowded changing room.

Looking around I saw Joe Nantwich backed up into a nearby corner by the enormous Mr Tudor. The big man was doing the talking, forcefully, his dark face almost merging with the shadows. Joe, still dressed in racing colours, listened very unhappily.

Dane came back with the bubbles fizzing out of a newly opened bottle and filled our glasses. He followed my gaze.

'I don't know whether Joe was sober or not, but didn't he make a hash of the last race?' he said.

'I didn't see it.'

'Brother, you sure missed something. He didn't try a yard. His horse damned nearly stopped altogether at the hurdle over on the far side, and it was second favourite, too. What you see now,' he gestured with the bottle, 'is, I should think, our Joe getting the well-deserved sack.'

'That man owns Bolingbroke,' I said.

As Clifford Tudor turned away from Joe in our direction we heard the tail end of his remarks.

'- think you can make a fool of me and get away with it. The Stewards can warn you off altogether, as far as I'm concerned.'

Joe leaned against the wall for support. His face was pallid and sweating. He looked ill. He took a few unsteady steps towards us and spoke without caution, as if he had forgotten that Stewards and members of the National Hunt Committee might easily overhear.

'I had a phone call this morning. The same voice as always. He just said, Don't win the sixth race and rang off before I could say anything. And then that note saying Bolingbroke, this week – I don't understand it- and I didn't win the race and now that bloody wog says he'll get another jockey- and the Stewards have started an inquiry about my riding- and I feel sick.'

'Have some champagne,' said Dane, encouragingly.

'Don't be so bloody helpful,' said Joe, clutching his stomach and departing towards the changing-room.

'What the hell's going on?' said Dane.

'I don't know,' I said, perplexed and more interested in Joe's troubles than I had been before. The phone call was inconsistent, I thought, with the notes. One ordered business as usual, the other promised revenge. 'I wonder if Joe always tells the truth,' I said.

'Highly unlikely,' said Dane, dismissing it.

One of the Stewards came and reminded us that even after the Champion Hurdle, drinking in the weighing room itself was frowned on, and would we please drift along into the changing room. Dane did that, but I finished my drink and went outside.

Pete, still attended by a posse of friends, had decided that it was time to go home. The friends were unwilling. The racecourse bars, they were saying, were still open.

I walked purposefully up to Pete, and he made me his excuse for breaking away. We went towards the gates.

'You can take that anxious look off your face, Alan, my lad. I'm as sober as a judge and I'm driving myself home.'

'Good. In that case you'll have no difficulty in answering one small question for me?'

'Shoot.'

'In what horse-box did Palindrome come to Cheltenham?' I said.

'Eh? I hired one.

'Where did you hire it from?'

'What's the matter?' asked Pete. 'I know it's a bit old, and it had a puncture on the way, as I told you, but it didn't do him any harm. Can't have done, or he wouldn't have won.'

'No, it's nothing like that,' I said. 'I just want to know where that horse-box comes from.'

'The firm I usually hire a box from, Littlepeths of Steyning.

'Who drove it here?' I asked.

'Oh, one of their usual drivers.

'Do you know him well?'

'Not exactly well. He often drives the hired boxes, that's all.

'It may have something to do with Bill's death,' I said, 'but I'm not sure what. Can you find out where the box really comes from? Ask the hire firm? And don't mention me, if you don't mind.'

'Is it important?' asked Pete.

'Yes, it is.'

'I'll ring 'em tomorrow morning, then,' he said.

As soon as he saw me the next day, Pete said, 'I asked about that horse-box. It belongs to a farm near Steyning. I've got his name and address here.' He tucked two fingers into his breast pocket, brought out a slip of paper, and gave it to me. 'The farmer uses the box to take his hunters around, and his children's show jumpers in the summer. He sometimes lets the hire firm use it, if he's not needing it. Is that what you wanted?'

'Yes, thank you very much,' I said. I put the paper in my wallet.

By the end of the Festival meeting I had repeated the story of the wire to at least ten more people, in the hope that someone might know why it had been put there. The tale spread fast round the racecourse.

From all this busy sowing in the wind I learned absolutely nothing. And I would still, I supposed, have to reap the whirlwind.

CHAPTER EIGHT

On Saturday morning as I sat with Scilla and the children and Joan round the large kitchen table having a solidly domestic breakfast, the telephone rang.

Scilla went to answer it, but came back saying, 'It's for you, Alan. He wouldn't give his name.'

I went into the drawing-room and picked up the receiver. The March sun streamed through the windows on to a big bowl of red and yellow striped crocuses which stood on the telephone table. I said, 'Alan York speaking.'

'Mr York, I gave you a warning a week ago today. You have chosen to ignore it.'

I felt the hairs rising on my neck. My scalp itched. It was a soft voice with a husky, whispering note to it, not savage or forceful, but almost mildly conversational.

I didn't answer. The voice said, 'Mr York? Are you still there?'

'Yes.'

'Mr York, I am not a violent man. Indeed, I dislike violence. I go out of my way to avoid it, Mr York. But sometimes it is thrust upon me, sometimes it is the only way to achieve results. Do you understand me, Mr York?'

'Yes,' I said.

'If I were a violent man, Mr York, I would have sent you a rougher warning last week. And I'm giving you another chance, to show you how reluctant I am to harm you. Just mind your own business and stop asking foolish questions. That's all. Just stop asking questions, and nothing will happen to you.' There was a pause, then the soft voice went on, with a shade, a first tinge, of menace, 'Of course, if I find that violence is absolutely necessary, I always get someone else to apply it. So that I don't have to watch. So that it is not too painful to me. You do understand me, I hope, Mr York?'

'Yes,' I said again. I thought of Sonny, his vicious grin, and his knife.

'Good, then that's all. I do so hope you will be sensible. Good morning, Mr York.' There was a click as he broke the connection.

I jiggled the telephone rest to recall the operator. When she answered I asked if she could tell me where the call had come from.

'One moment, please,' she said. 'It was routed through London,' she said, 'but I can't trace it beyond there. So sorry.'

'Never mind. Thank you very much,' I said.

'Pleasure, I'm sure,' said the girl.

I put down the receiver and went back to my breakfast.

'Who was that?' asked Henry, spreading marmalade thickly on his toast.

'Man about a dog,' I said.

'Or in other words,' said Polly, 'ask no questions and you'll be told no thumping lies.'

Henry said, 'Will you take us out to tea in Cheltenham, Alan? Can we have some of those squelchy cream things like last time, and ice-cream sodas with straws, and some peanuts for coming home?'

'I'd love to,' I said, 'but I can't today. We'll do it next week, perhaps.' The day of my visit to Kate's house had come at last. I was to stay there for two nights, and I planned to put in a day at the office on Monday.

Seeing the children's disappointed faces I explained, 'Today I'm going to stay with a friend. I won't be back until Monday evening.'

'What a bore,' said Henry.

The Lotus ate up the miles between the Cotswolds and Sussex with the deep purr of a contented cat. I covered the fifty miles of good road from Cirencester to Newbury in fifty-three minutes, not because I was in a great hurry, but out of sheer pleasure in driving my car at the speed it was designed for. And I was going towards Kate.

Kate lived about four miles from Burgess Hill, in Sussex.

I arrived in Burgess Hill at twenty-past one, found my way to the railway station, and parked in a corner, tucked away behind a large shooting brake. I went into the station and bought a return ticket to Brighton. I didn't care to reconnoitre in Brighton by car: the Lotus had already identified me into one mess, and I hesitated to show my hand by taking it where it could be spotted by a cruising taxi driven by Peaky, Sonny, Bert, or the rest.

The journey took sixteen minutes. On the train I asked myself, for at least the hundredth time, what chance remark of mine had landed me in the horsebox hornet's nest. Whom had I alarmed by not only revealing that I knew about the wire, but more especially by saying that I intended to find out who had put it there? I could think of only two possible answers; and one of them I didn't like a bit.

I remembered saying to Clifford Tudor on the way from Plumpton to Brighton that a lot of questions would have to be answered about Bill's death; which was as good as telling him straight out that I knew the fall hadn't been an accident, and that I meant to do something about it.

And I had made the same thing quite clear to Kate. To Kate. To Kate. To Kate. The wheels of the train took up the refrain and mocked me.

Well, I hadn't sworn her to secrecy, and I hadn't seen any need to. She could have passed on what I had said to the whole of England, for all I knew. But she hadn't had much time. It had been after midnight when she left me in London, and the horse-box had been waiting for me seventeen hours later.

The train slowed into Brighton station. I walked up the platform and through the gate in a cluster of fellow passengers, but hung back as we came through the booking hall and out towards the forecourt. There were about twelve taxis parked there, their drivers standing outside them, surveying the out-pouring passengers for custom. I looked at all the drivers carefully, face by face.

They were all strangers. None of them had been at Plumpton.

Not unduly discouraged, I found a convenient corner with a clear view of arriving taxis and settled myself to wait, resolutely ignoring the cold draught blowing down my neck. Taxis came and went like busy bees, bringing passengers, taking them away. The trains from London attracted them like honey.

Gradually a pattern emerged. There were four distinct groups of them. One group had a broad green line painted down the wings, with the name Green Band on the doors. A second group had yellow shields on the doors, with small letters in black on the shields. A third group were bright cobalt blue all over. Into the fourth group I put the indeterminate taxis which did not belong to the other lines.

I waited for nearly two hours, growing stiffer and stiffer, and receiving more and more curious looks from the station staff. I looked at my watch. The last train I could catch and still arrive at Kate's at the right time was due to leave in six minutes. I had begun to straighten up and massage my cold neck, ready to go and board it, when at last my patience was rewarded.

Empty taxis began to arrive and form a waiting line, which I now knew meant that another London train was due. The drivers got out of their cars and clustered in little groups, talking. Three dusty black taxis arrived in minor convoy and pulled up at the end of the line. They had faded yellow shields painted on the doors. The drivers got out.

One of them was the polite driver of the horse-box. A sensible, solid citizen, he looked. Middle-aged, unremarkable, calm. I did not know the others.

I had three minutes left. The black letters were tantalizingly small on the yellow shields. I couldn't get close enough to read them without the polite driver seeing me, and I had not time to wait until he had gone. I went over to the ticket office, hovered impatiently while a woman argued about half fares for her teenage child, and asked a simple question.

'What is the name of the taxis with yellow shields on the doors?' The young man in the office gave me an uninterested glance.

'Marconi-cars, sir. Radio cabs, they are.'

'Thank you,' I said, and sprinted for the platform.

Kate lived in a superbly proportioned Queen Anne house which generations of Gothic-ruin-minded Victorians had left miraculously unspoilt. Its graceful symmetry, its creamy gravelled drive, its tidy lawns already mown in early spring, its air of solid serenity, all spoke of a social and financial security of such long standing that it was to be taken entirely for granted.

Inside, the house was charming, with just a saving touch of shabbiness about the furnishings, as if, though rich, the inhabitants saw no need to be either ostentatious or extravagant.

Kate met me at the door and took my arm, and walked me across the hall.

'Aunt Deb is waiting to give you tea,' she said. 'Tea is a bit of a ritual with Aunt Deb. You will be in her good graces for being punctual, thank goodness. She is very Edwardian, you'll find. The times have moved without her in many ways.' She sounded anxious and apologetic, which meant to me that she loved her aunt protectively, and wished me to make allowances. I squeezed her arm reassuringly, and said, 'Don't worry.'

Kate opened one of the white panelled doors and we went into the drawing-room. It was a pleasant room, wood panelled and painted white, with a dark plum-coloured carpet, good Persian rugs, and flower-patterned curtains. On a sofa at right angles to a glowing log fire sat a woman of about seventy. Beside her stood a low round table bearing a silver tray with Crown Derby cups and saucers and a Georgian silver teapot and cream jug. A dark brown dachshund lay asleep at her feet.

Kate walked across the room and said with some formality, 'Aunt Deb, may I introduce Alan York?'

Aunt Deb extended to me her hand, palm downwards. I shook it, feeling that in her younger days it would have been kissed.

'I am delighted to meet you, Mr York,' said Aunt Deb. And I saw exactly what Dane meant about her chilly, well-bred manner. She had no warmth, no genuine welcome in her voice. She was still, for all her years, or even perhaps because of them, exceedingly good-looking. Straight eyebrows, perfect nose, clearly outlined mouth. Grey hair cut and dressed by a first-class man. A slim, firm body, straight back, elegant legs crossed at the ankles. A fine shirt under a casual tweed suit, hand-made shoes of soft leather. She had everything. Everything except the inner fire which would make Kate at that age worth six of Aunt Deb.

She poured me some tea, and Kate handed it to me. There were pâté‚ sandwiches and a home-made Madeira cake, and although tea was usually a meal I avoided if possible, I found my jinks in Brighton and no lunch had made me hungry. I ate and drank, and Aunt Deb talked.

'Kate tells me you are a jockey, Mr York.' She said it as if it were as dubious as a criminal record. 'Of course I am sure you must find it very amusing, but when I was a girl it was not considered an acceptable occupation in acquaintances. But this is Kate's home, and she may ask whoever she likes here, as she knows.'

I said mildly, 'Surely Aubrey Hastings and Geoffrey Bennett were both jockeys and acceptable when you were – er – younger?'

She raised her eyebrows, surprised. 'But they were gentlemen,' she said.

I looked at Kate. She had stuffed the back of her hand against her mouth, but her eyes were laughing.

'Yes,' I said to Aunt Deb, with a straight face. 'That makes a difference, of course.'

'You may realize then,' she said, looking at me a little less frigidly, 'that I do not altogether approve of my niece's new interest. It is one thing to own a racehorse, but quite another to make personal friends of the jockeys one employs to ride it. I am very fond of my niece. I do not wish her to make an undesirable - alliance. She is perhaps too young, and has led too sheltered a life, to understand what is acceptable and what is not. But I am sure you do, Mr York?'

Kate, blushing painfully, said, 'Aunt Deb!' This was apparently worse than she was prepared for.

'I understand you very well, Mrs Penn,' I said, politely.

'Good,' she said. 'In that case, I hope you will have an enjoyable stay with us. May I give you some more tea?'

Having firmly pointed out to me my place and having received what she took to be my acknowledgement of it, she was prepared to be a gracious hostess.

She had the calm authority of one whose wishes had been law from the nursery. She began to talk pleasantly enough about the weather and her garden, and how the sunshine was bringing on the daffodils.

Then the door opened and a man came in. I stood up.

Kate said, 'Uncle George, this is Alan York.'

He looked ten years younger than his wife. He had thick well-groomed grey hair and a scrubbed pink complexion with a fresh-from-the-bathroom moistness about it, and when he shook hands his palm was soft and moist also.

Aunt Deb said, without disapproval in her voice, 'George, Mr York is one of Kate's jockey friends.'

He nodded. 'Yes, Kate told me you were coming. Glad to have you here.'

He watched Aunt Deb pour him a cup of tea, and took it from her, giving her a smile of remarkable fondness.

He was too fat for his height, but it was not a bloated-belly fatness. It was spread all over him as though he were padded. The total effect was of a jolly rotundity. He had the vaguely good-natured expression so often found on fat people, a certain bland, almost foolish, looseness of the facial muscles. And yet his fat-lidded eyes, appraising me over the rim of the teacup as he drank, were shrewd and unsmiling. He reminded me of so many businessmen I had met in my work, the slap you-on-the-back, come-and-play-golf men who would ladle out the Krug '49 and caviar with one hand while they tried to take over your contracts with the other.

He put down his cup and smiled, and the impression faded. 'I am very interested to meet you, Mr York,' he said, sitting down and gesturing to me to do the same. He looked me over carefully, inch by inch, while he asked me what I thought of Heavens Above. We discussed the horse's possibilities with Kate, which meant that I did most of the talking, as Kate knew little more than she had at Plumpton, and Uncle George's total information about racing seemed to be confined to Midday Sun's having won the Derby in 1937.

'He remembers it because of Mad Dogs and Englishmen,' said Kate. 'He hums it all the time. I don't think he knows the name of a single other horse.'

'Oh, yes I do,' protested Uncle George. 'Bucephalus, Pegasus, and Black Bess.'

I laughed. 'Then why did you give a racehorse to your niece?'

Uncle George opened his mouth and shut it again. He blinked. Then he said, 'I thought she should meet more people. She has no young company here with us, and I believe we may have given her too sheltered an upbringing.'

Aunt Deb, who had been bored into silence by the subject of horses, returned to the conversation at this point.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-16