Dick Francis - Silks

Both Josef Hughes and George Barnett sat quite still and stared back at him.

‘Mr Radcliffe,’ I said calmly. ‘Do you know someone called Julian Trent?’

Roger Radcliffe was more than flustered this time. He was in a panic. I could tell from the way the skin had tightened over his face and there was a slight tic in the corner of his left eye. He stood quite still in the witness box. But I was sure that, behind those steely eyes, his brain was moving fast.

‘Julian Trent is your godson, isn’t he?’ I asked him.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Radcliffe,’ I said. ‘Would you please speak up. The jury can’t hear you if you whisper.’

The irony of the comment was not lost on him. He positively glared at me.

I noticed that the press box had filled considerably since the start of the day. Word had clearly been passed outside that something was afoot and more reporters had been dispatched to the court. The public seats had also noticeably filled, and two court security officers now stood either side of the door. Detective Inspector McNeile, his evidence completed, was sat in a row of seats positioned in front of the press box, and he too was taking a keen interest in the proceedings.

I poured myself more water from the carafe on my table, and then slowly drank some of it.

‘Now, Mr Radcliffe,’ I said finally. ‘Can we return to the question of blackmail?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said, but the confidence had gone out of his performance.

‘We have heard that you bought a new car and then gave it to Millie Barlow,’ I said. ‘Is that correct?’

‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

‘Speak up,’ said the judge.

‘Yes,’ Radcliffe repeated louder.

‘I repeat my question,’ I said. ‘Was that car given by you to Millie Barlow as a payment for blackmail?’

‘No. That’s utter rubbish,’ he said.

I collected some more papers together in my hands.

‘These are bank statements,’ I said. ‘Millie Barlow’s bank statements. They show that she received regular payments into her account over and above her salary from the equine hospital. Can you explain these payments?’

‘Of course not,’ Radcliffe said.

‘Were these also blackmail payments, Mr Radcliffe, and did they come from your bank account?’

‘No,’ he said. But he didn’t convince me, and some of the jury looked sceptical as well.

‘Mr Radcliffe,’ I said, changing direction. ‘Do you ever have need for anaesthetics at your equine maternity unit?’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Why should we?’

‘Perhaps for a Caesarean birth if a foal cannot be born naturally?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said, suddenly back on surer ground. ‘The mare would be transferred to one of the local equine hospitals and anaesthetized there.’

‘And what would happen if a foal was born grossly deformed, or blind?’

‘That is very rare,’ he said.

‘But it must have happened at least once or twice in your experience.’

‘A few times, yes,’ he said.

‘And would the foal be immediately put down?’

He could see where I was going, and he didn’t like it.

‘I suppose so,’ he said.

‘And isn’t a very large dose of a barbiturate anaesthetic used for that purpose, a barbiturate anaesthetic like thiopental for example?’ I asked.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said.

‘Mr Radcliffe,’ I said, changing tack again. ‘Do you know of someone called Jacques van Rensburg?

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. But he started to sweat.

‘You may have known of him simply as Jack Rensburg,’ I said. ‘He used to work for you as a groom.’

‘We have lots of grooms during the foaling season,’ he said. ‘And they come and go regularly. I tend to use their first names only. We’ve had quite a few Jacks.’

‘Perhaps I can help you,’ I said. ‘I have a photograph of him.’

I took a stack of the Millie and foal pictures out of one of my boxes and passed them to the court usher, who passed one to the judge, one to the prosecution, six to the jury and, finally, one to Radcliffe in the witness box.

Some of the colour had returned to his face but now it drained away again and he swayed back and forth. Unfortunately both the judge and the jury had been looking at the photograph and had missed it.

‘Members of the jury,’ I said, ‘you will see that the photograph is of a new-born foal. The woman in the picture is Millie Barlow, the veterinary surgeon who had been present at the birth, and the man standing behind her, who you can clearly see in spite of the slightly blurred image, is Jacques van Rensburg, a South African citizen. Isn’t that right, Mr Radcliffe?’

‘If you say so,’ he said.

‘I do. And the foal is Peninsula, the horse that went on to be such a champion,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that right?’

‘It might be,’ he said. ‘Or it could be another foal. I can’t tell. Many foals look alike.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘But I assure you that the foal in this picture is Peninsula. He was the very first foal that Millie Barlow had delivered on her own. She was so proud of that horse and her part in its life that she kept a copy of that picture in a silver frame. It was her most prized possession. Isn’t that right, Mr Radcliffe?’

‘I have no idea,’ he said.

‘After his sister’s death, Scot Barlow asked for the picture in the silver frame to keep in his home as a lasting reminder of her. But the photo was removed from its frame and taken away from Scot Barlow’s house on the night he was killed. Why do you think that was?’

‘I have no idea,’ he said again.

‘I put it to you, Mr Radcliffe, that the picture was removed because it was being used by Scot Barlow to blackmail you in the same way that his sister had done previously. Isn’t that right?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s nonsense. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would anyone blackmail me?’

‘Does Jacques van Rensburg still work for you?’ I asked him.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe he does.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He couldn’t, could he? Because he’s dead. Isn’t that right, Mr Radcliffe?’

‘I have no idea,’ he said yet again.

‘Oh yes, I think you do,’ I said. ‘Jacques van Rensburg went on holiday to Thailand, didn’t he?’

‘If you say so,’ Radcliffe replied.

‘Not if I say so, Mr Radcliffe,’ I said, taking yet another sheet of paper from my stack and holding it up. ‘The South African Department of Home Affairs in Pretoria says so. He went to Thailand on holiday and he never came back, isn’t that right?’

Roger Radcliffe stood silently in the witness box.

‘Do you know why he didn’t come back, Mr Radcliffe?’ I asked.

Again he was silent.

‘He didn’t come back because, as the South African government records show, he was drowned on Phuket beach by the Great Asian Tsunami. Isn’t that right?’

Radcliffe still said nothing.

‘And, Mr Radcliffe, do you know when the Great Asian Tsunami disaster occurred?’

Radcliffe shook his head and looked down.

‘It is sometimes known as the Boxing Day Tsunami, is it not, Mr Radcliffe?’ I said. ‘Because it took place on December the twenty-sixth. Isn’t that right?’

He made no move to answer.

I continued. ‘Which means that, as Jacques van Rensburg was drowned in Thailand by the Great Asian Tsunami on the twenty-sixth of December 2004, this picture had to have been taken before Christmas that year. Which also means, does it not, Mr Radcliffe, that, even though the record of the birth submitted by you to Weatherbys shows otherwise, Peninsula had to have been foaled prior to the first of January 2005 and was therefore, in fact, officially a four-year-old horse when he won the Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby last year and not a three-year-old as demanded by the Rules of Racing?’