- •I waited for four hours, getting to know intimately the pattern of the curtains and the cracks in the brown linoleum. Mostly, I thought about wire.
- •Chapter two
- •It was Sunday. I drove to the racecourse, but the gates were locked. Back in the town the Clerk of the Course's office was shut and empty. I telephoned his home, but there was no answer.
- •I told him about my search at the fence, and what I had found there.
- •I put my head quietly round Scilla's door. Her room was dark, but I could hear her even breathing. She was still sound asleep.
- •I sat up straight, surprised.
- •Chapter three
- •I told her as gradually, as gently as I could, that Bill's fall had not been an ordinary accident. I told her about the wire and about Lodge's investigations.
- •I had just decided to ask him to explain his attitude, and to tell him what had really happened, when he began to speak.
- •I was lost before she spoke a word. The first thing I said was, 'I'll be glad to ride your horse.'
- •Chapter four
- •I unsaddled, went back to the weighing-room, changed into Kate's brand new colours, and went out to see what had become of Miss Ellery-Penn.
- •Chapter five
- •I was just giving Joe up when he came out of the gate and hailed me with no apology for his lateness. But I was not the only person to notice his arrival.
- •I was puzzled. 'Is Sandy the only person who has harmed you?' 'It wasn't Sandy, surely, who was paying you not to win?'
- •Chapter six
- •I had driven the better part of three hundred miles besides riding in two races, and I was tired. We went to our beds early, Scilla promising to take her sleeping pills.
- •I drove up to London to spend some long overdue hours in the office, arranging the details of insurance and customs duty on a series of shipments of copper.
- •I already knew I wanted to marry Kate. The thought that she might not have me was a bitter one.
- •I parked the car in the lay-by behind the horse-box. The door at the back of the horse-box opened and a hand, the stable lad's, I supposed, reached out to help me up. He took me by the wrist.
- •I sat on the ground and looked after the speeding horse-box. The number plate was mostly obscured by thick dust, but I had time to see the registration letters. They were apx.
- •I said, 'Have you got any further with the Major Davidson business since the day before yesterday?'
- •I grinned.
- •I played poker with the children and lost to Henry because half my mind was occupied with his father's affairs.
- •Chapter seven
- •I felt a warm glow inside. The Cheltenham Festival meeting suddenly seemed not a bad place to be, after all.
- •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.
- •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 drank a sip of champagne and said, 'Well done yourself, you old son-of-a-gun. And here's to the Gold Cup.'
- •I walked purposefully up to Pete, and he made me his excuse for breaking away. We went towards the gates.
- •Chapter eight
- •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.
- •I laughed. 'Then why did you give a racehorse to your niece?'
- •I couldn't help a look of distaste, and she laughed and said, 'That's what I think too, but I'd never let him suspect it. He's so devoted to them all.'
- •It was ten miles to Washington. We went into the village and stopped, and I asked some children on their way home from Sunday school where farmer Lawson lived.
- •I thanked him all the same for his trouble, and he asked me to let him know, if I found out, who had taken his box.
- •I laughed. 'If I'd thought he could have possibly been the leader of the gang I wouldn't have taken you there.'
- •Chapter nine
- •I said, 'I suppose if they can't get money from their old victims, the gang try protecting people who don't know about your systems and your dogs -'
- •I looked at Uncle George to see how he liked being deprived of the end of the story, and saw him push his half-filled plate away with a gesture of revulsion, as if he were suddenly about to vomit.
- •Chapter ten
- •Chapter eleven
- •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.
- •I knew him.
- •Chapter twelve
- •Chapter thirteen
- •I scowled at him.
- •I leaned my head back against the window and waited for these details to mean something significant, but all that happened was that my inability to think increased.
- •Chapter fourteen
- •I went outside. I stood near the weighing-room door, waiting for Joe and catching up with the latest gossip.
- •Chapter fifteen
- •I pulled Admiral up. Looking carefully I could see the posts and the high wire fence which formed the boundary between the little trees and the road beyond.
- •I began to get the glimmerings of an idea of how to use the manhunt I had caused.
- •I came back to the present with a jerk. I picked up the microphone, clicked over the switch, and said 'No' in as bored and nasal a tone as I could muster.
- •Chapter sixteen
- •Chapter seventeen
- •I stared at the page until the words faded into a blur.
- •Chapter eighteen
- •I swallowed and said, 'Do you remember the children who had to be driven to school by a judo expert to keep them safe?'
- •It drove off. I stared after it, numbly.
- •Chapter nineteen
- •I was watching Sandy instead of concentrating wholly on Forlorn Hope, so that what happened was entirely my own fault.
- •I mentally reviewed the rest of the gang.
- •Illogically, this made me very angry.
- •Chapter nine
- •Chapter fourteen
- •Chapter fifteen
I was puzzled. 'Is Sandy the only person who has harmed you?' 'It wasn't Sandy, surely, who was paying you not to win?'
'No, I don't think so. I don't know,' he snivelled.
'Do you mean you don't know who was paying you? Ever?'
'A man rang up and told me when he wanted me to stop one, and afterwards I got a packet full of money through the post.'
'How many times have you done it?' I asked.
'Ten,' said Joe, 'all in the last six months.' I stared at him.
'Often it was easy,' said Joe defensively.
'How much did you get for it?'
'A hundred. Twice it was two-fifty.' Joe's tongue was still running away with him, and I believed him. It was big money, and anyone prepared to pay on that scale would surely want considerable revenge when Joe won against orders. But Sandy? I couldn't believe it.
'What did Sandy say to you after you won?' I asked.
Joe was still crying. 'He said he'd backed the horse I beat and that he'd get even with me,' said Joe. And it seemed that Sandy had done that.
'You didn't get your parcel of money, I suppose?'
'No,' said Joe, sniffing.
'Haven't you any idea where they come from?' I asked.
'Some had London postmarks,' said Joe. 'I didn't take much notice.' Too eager to count the contents to look closely at the wrappings, no doubt.
'Well, I said, 'surely now that Sandy has had his little revenge, you are in the clear? Can't you possibly stop crying about it? It's all over. What are you in such a state about?'
For answer Joe took a paper from his jacket pocket and gave it to me.
'You might as well know it all. I don't know what to do. Help me, Alan. I'm frightened.'
In the light of the dashboard I could see that this was true. And Joe was beginning to sober up.
I unfolded the paper and switched on the lights inside the car. It was a single sheet of thin, ordinary typing paper. In simple capital letters, written with a ball-point pen, were five words: BOLINGBROKE, YOU WILL BE PUNISHED.
'Bolingbroke is the horse you were supposed to stop and didn't?'
'Yes.' The tears no longer welled in his eyes.
'When did you get this?' I asked.
'I found it in my pocket, today, when I put my jacket on after I'd changed. Just before the fifth race. It wasn't there when I took it off.'
'And you spent the rest of the afternoon in the bar, I suppose,' I said.
'Yes- and I went back there while you took Mr Tudor to Brighton. I didn't think anything was going to happen to me because of Bolingbroke, and I've been frightened ever since he won. And just as I was thinking it was all right Sandy pushed me over the rails and then I found this letter in my pocket. It isn't fair.' The self-pity still whined in his voice.
I gave him back the paper.
'What am I to do?' said Joe.
I couldn't tell him, because I didn't know. He had got himself into a thorough mess, and he had good reason to be afraid. People who manipulated horses and jockeys to that extent were certain to play rough. The time lag of ten days between Bolingbroke's win and the arrival of the note could mean, I thought, that there was a cat-and-mouse, rather than a straight forward, mentality at work. Which was little comfort to offer Joe.
Joe seemed to have recovered from his tears, and the worst of the drunkenness was over. I switched off the inside lights, started the car up, and pulled back on the road. As I had hoped, Joe soon went to sleep.
Approaching Dorking, I woke him up. I had some questions to ask.
'Joe, who is that Mr Tudor I took to Brighton? He knows you.'
'He owns Bolingbroke,' said Joe. 'I often ride for him.'
I was surprised. 'Was he pleased when Bolingbroke won?' I asked.
'I suppose so. He wasn't there. He sent me ten per cent afterwards, though, and a letter thanking me. The usual thing.'
'He hasn't been in racing long, has he?' I asked.
Topped up about the same time you did,' said Joe. 'Both of you arrived with dark sun-tans in the middle of winter.'
I had come by air from the burning African summer to the icy reception of October in England: but after eighteen months my skin was as pale as an Englishman's. Tudor's, on the other hand, remained dark.
Joe was sniggering. 'You know why Mr Clifford bloody Tudor lives at Brighton? It gives him an excuse to be sunburnt all the year round.'
I drove back to the Cotswolds. At first I thought about Sandy Mason and wondered how he had got wind of Joe's intention to stop Bolingbroke.
But for the last hour of the journey I thought about Kate.