Dick Francis - Odds against

‘He was a fool to keep that gun after he had shot Andrews.’

‘Stupid. Crooks often are, or we’d never catch them. And he didn’t mention his little murder to Kraye and the others, so they can’t be pinched as accessories to that. Pity. But it’s quite clear he kept it quiet. The Sussex force said that Kraye went berserk when he found out. Apparently he mostly regretted not having known about your stomach while he had you in his clutches.’

‘Thank God he didn’t!’ I exclaimed with feeling.

Cornish’s chuckle came down the wire. ‘Fred was supposed to look for Brinton’s letter at your agency himself, but he wanted to go to a football match up North or something, and sent Andrews instead. He said he didn’t think there’d be a trap, or anything subtle like that. Just an errand, about on Andrews’ level. He said he only lent him the gun for a lark, he didn’t mean Andrews to use it, didn’t think he’d be so silly. But then Andrews went back to him scared stiff and said he’d shot you, so Fred says he suggested a country ramble in Epping Forest and the gun went off by accident! I ask you, try that on a jury! Fred says he didn’t tell Kraye because he was afraid of him.’

‘What! Fred afraid?’

‘Kraye seems to have made an adverse impression on him.’

‘Yes, he’s apt to do that,’ I said.

I read Chico’s booklet from cover to cover. One had to thank the thalidomide children, it appeared, for the speed-up of modern techniques. As soon as my arm had properly healed I could have a versatile gas-powered tool-hand with a swivelling wrist, activated by small pistons and controlled by valves, and operated by my shoulder muscles. The main snag to that, as far as I could gather, was that one always had to carry the small gas cylinders about, strapped on, like a permanent skin diver.

Much more promising, almost fantastic, was the latest invention of British and Russian scientists, the myo-electric arm. This worked entirely by harnessing the tiny electric currents generated in ones own remaining muscles, and the booklet cheerfully said it was easiest to fit on someone whose amputation was recent. The less one had lost of a limb, the better were ones chances of success. That put me straight in the guinea seats.

Finally, said the booklet with a justifiable flourish of trumpets, at St Thomas’ Hospital they had invented a miraculous new myo-electric hand which could do practically everything a real one could except grow nails.

I missed my real hand, there was no denying it. Even in its deformed state it had had its uses, and I suppose that any loss of so integral a part of oneself must prove a radical disturbance. My unconscious mind did its best to reject the facts: I dreamed each night that I was whole, riding races, tying knots, clapping… anything which required two hands. I awoke to the frustrating stump.

The doctors agreed to enquire from St Thomas’s how soon I could go there.

On Wednesday morning I rang up my accountant and asked when he had a free day. Owing to an unexpected cancellation of plans, he said, he would be free on Friday. I explained where I was and roughly what had happened. He said that he would come to see me, he didn’t mind the journey, a breath of sea air would do him good.

As I put the telephone down my door opened and Lord Hagbourne and Mr Fotherton came tentatively through it. I was sitting on the edge of the bed in a dark blue dressing-gown, my feet in slippers, my arm in a cradle inside a sling, chin freshly shaved, hair brushed, and the marks of Kraye’s fists fading from my face. My visitors were clearly relieved at these encouraging signs of revival, and relaxed comfortably into the arm-chairs.

‘You’re getting on well, then, Sid?’ said Lord Hagbourne.

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Good, good.’

‘How did the meeting go?’ I asked. ‘On Saturday?’

Both of them seemed faintly surprised at the question.

‘Well, you did hold it, didn’t you?’ I said anxiously.

‘Why yes,’ said Fotherton. ‘We did. There was a moderately good gate, thanks to the fine weather.’ He was a thin, dry man with a long face moulded into drooping lines of melancholy, and on that morning he kept smoothing three fingers down his cheek as if he were nervous.

Lord Hagbourne said, ‘It wasn’t only your security men who were drugged. The stable lads all woke up feeling muzzy, and the old man who was supposed to look after the boiler was asleep on the floor in the canteen. Oxon had given them all a glass of beer. Naturally, your men trusted him.’

I sighed. One couldn’t blame them too much. I might have drunk with him myself.

‘We had the inspector in yesterday to go over the boiler thoroughly,’ said Lord Hagbourne. ‘It was nearly due for its regular check anyway. They said it was too old to stand much interference with its normal working, and that it was just as well it hadn’t been put to the test. Also that they thought that it wouldn’t have taken as long as three hours to blow up. Oxon was only guessing.’

‘Charming,’ I said.

‘I sounded out Seabury Council,’ said Lord Hagbourne. ‘They’re putting the racecourse down on their agenda for next month. Apparently a friend of yours, the manager of the Seafront Hotel, has started a petition in the town urging the council to take an interest in the racecourse on the grounds that it gives a seaside town prestige and free advertising and is good for trade.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ I said, very pleased.

Fotherton cleared his throat, looked hesitantly at Lord Hagbourne, and then at me.

‘It has been discussed…’ he began. ‘It has been decided to ask you if you… er… would be interested in taking on… in becoming Clerk of the Course at Seabury.’

‘Me?’ I exclaimed, my mouth falling open in astonishment.

‘It’s getting too much for me, being Clerk of two courses,’ he said, admitting it a year too late.

‘You saved the place on the brink of the grave,’ said Lord Hagbourne with rare decisiveness. ‘We all know it’s an unusual step to offer a Clerkship to a professional jockey so soon after he’s retired, but Seabury executive are unanimous. They want you to finish the job.’

They were doing me an exceptional honour. I thanked them, and hesitated, and asked if I could think it over.

‘Of course, think it over,’ said Lord Hagbourne. ‘But say yes.’

I asked them then to have a look at the box of photographs, which they did. They both scrutinised each print carefully, one by one, but they could suggest nothing at the end.

Zanna Martin came to see me the next afternoon, carrying some enormous, sweet-smelling bronze chrysanthemums. A transformed Zanna Martin, in a smart dark green tweed suit and shoes chosen for looks more than sturdy walking. Her hair had been re-styled so that it was shorter and curved in a bouncy curl on to her cheek. She had even tried a little lipstick and powder, and had tidied her eyebrows into a shapely line. The scars were just as visible, the facial muscles as wasted as ever, but Miss Martin had come to terms with them at last.

‘How super you look,’ I said truthfully.

She was embarrassed, but very pleased. ‘I’ve got a new job. I had an interview yesterday, and they didn’t even seem to notice my face. Or at least they didn’t say anything. In a bigger office, this time. A good bit more than I’ve earned before, too.’

‘How splendid,’ I congratulated her sincerely.

‘I feel new,’ she said.

‘I too.’

‘I’m glad we met.’ She smiled, saying it lightly. ‘Did you get that file back all right? Your young Mr Barnes came to fetch it.’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Was it important?’

‘Why?’

‘He seemed very odd when I gave it to him. I thought he was going to tell me something about it. He kept starting to, and then he didn’t.’