Dick Francis: Hot Money

A hush fell in the building at the entrance of the first of the legend-bred youngsters, the breath-held expectant hush of the knowledgeable awaiting a battle among financial giants. A fat cheque on this sales evening could secure a Derby winner and found a dynasty, and it happened often enough to tempt belief each time that this… this… was the one.

The auctioneer cleared his throat and managed the introduction without a quiver.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we now have Lot No 76, a bay colt by Nijinsky He recited the magical breeding as if bored, and asked for an opening bid.

Malcolm sat quiet and watched while the numbers flew high on the scoreboard, the price rising in jumps of fifty thousand; watched while the auctioneer scanned the bidding faces for the drop of an eyelid, the twitch of a head, the tiny acknowledgements of intent.

"… against you, sir. No more, then? All done?" The auctioneer's eyebrows rose with his gavel, remained poised in elevation, came smoothly, conclusively down. "Sold for one million seven hundred thousand guineas to Mr Siddons…"

The crowd sighed, expelling collective breath like a single organism. Then came rustling of catalogues, movement, murmuring and rewound expectation.

Malcolm said, "It's a spectator sport."

"Addictive," I agreed.

He glanced at me sideways. "For one million… five million… there's no guarantee the colt will ever race, isn't that what you said? One could be throwing one's cash down the drain?"

"That's right."

"It's a perfectly blameless way of getting rid of a lot of money very fast, wouldn't you say?"

"Well…" I said slowly, "is that what you're at?"

"Do you disapprove?"

"It's your money. You made it. You spend it."

He smiled almost secretively at his catalogue and said, "I can hear the but' in your voice."

"Mm. If you want to enjoy yourself, buy ten next-best horses instead of one super-colt, and get interested in them."

"And pay ten training fees instead of one?"

I nodded. "Ten would drain the exchequer nicely."

He laughed in his throat and watched the next half-grown blue-blood reach three million guineas before Mr Siddons shook his head.

"… sold for three million and fifty thousand guineas to Mrs Terazzini…"

"Who's she?" Malcolm asked.

"She owns a world-wide blood stock empire."

He reflected. "Like Robert Sangster?"

"Yep. Like him."

He made a noise of understanding. "An industry."

"Yes."

The following lot, a filly, fetched a more moderate sum, but the hush of expectancy returned for the next offering. Malcolm, keenly tuned by now to the atmosphere, watched the bidders as usual, not the nervous chestnut colt.

The upward impetus stopped at a fraction over two million and the auctioneer's eyebrows and gavel rose. "All done?" Malcolm raised his catalogue.

The movement caught the eye of the auctioneer, who paused with the gavel raised, using his eyebrows as a question, looking at Malcolm with surprise. Malcolm sat in what could be called the audience, not with the usual actors. "You want to bid, sir?" asked the auctioneer.

"And fifty," Malcolm said clearly, nodding.

There was a fluttering in the dove cot of auctioneers as head bent to head among themselves, consulting. All round the ring, necks stretched to see who had spoken, and down in the entrance-way the man who'd bid last before Malcolm shrugged, shook his head and turned his back to the auctioneer. His last increase had been for twenty thousand only: a last small raise over two million, which appeared to have been his intended limit.

The auctioneer himself seemed less than happy. "All done, then?" he asked again, and with no further replies, said, "Done then. Sold for two million and seventy thousand guineas toer… the bidder opposite."

The auctioneer consulted with his colleagues again and one of them left the box, carrying a clipboard. He hurried down and round the ring to join a minion on our side, both of them with their gaze fastened on Malcolm.

"Those two auctioneers won't let you out of their sight," I observed. "They suffered badly from a vanishing bidder not so long ago."

"They look as if they're coming to arrest me," Malcolm said cheerfully; and both of the auctioneers indeed made their way right to his sides, handing him the clipboard and politely requiring him to sign their bill of sale, in triplicate and without delay. They retired to ground level but were still waiting for us with steely intent when, after three further sales had gone through as expected, we made our way down.

They invited Malcolm civilly to the quieter end of their large office and we went. They computed what he owed and deferentially presented the total. Malcolm wrote them a cheque.

They politely suggested proof of identity and a reference. Malcolm gave them an American Express card and the telephone number of his bank manager. They took the cheque gingerly and said that although Mr… er… Pembroke should if he wished arrange insurance on his purchase at once, the colt would not be available for removal until… er… tomorrow.

Malcolm took no offence. He wouldn't have let anyone he didn't know drive off with a horse box full of gold. He said tomorrow would be fine, and in high good spirits told me I could ferry him back to his Cambridge hotel, from where he'd come that morning in a taxi, and we would have dinner together.

After we'd called in at an insurance agent's office and he'd signed some more papers and another cheque, we accordingly walked together to the car-park from where people were beginning to drift home. Night had fallen, but there were lights enough to see which car was which, and as we went I pointed out the row ahead where my wheels stood.

"Where are you going to send your colt?" I asked, walking.

"Where would you say?"

"I should think," I said… but I never finished the answer, or not at that actual moment.

A car coming towards us between two rows of parked cars suddenly emitted two headlight beams, blinding us; and at the same moment it seemed to accelerate fiercely, swerving straight towards Malcolm.

I leaped… flung myself… at my father, my flying weight spinning him off balance, carrying him off his feet, knocking him down. I fell on top of him, knowing that the pale speeding bulk of the car had caught me, but not sure to what extent. There was just a bang and a lot of lights curving like arcs, and a whirling view of gleams on metal, and a fast crunch into darkness.

We were on the ground then between two silent parked cars, our bodies heavy with shock and disorientation, in a sort of inertia.

After a moment, Malcolm began struggling to free himself from under my weight, and I rolled awkwardly onto my knees and thankfully thought of little but bruises. Malcolm pushed himself up until he was sitting with his back against a car's wheel, collecting his wits but looking as shaken as I felt.

"That car," he said eventually, between deep breaths, "was aiming… to kill me."

I nodded speechlessly. My trousers were torn, thigh grazed and bleeding.

"You always had… quick reactions," he said. "So now… now you know… why I want you beside me… all the time."

It was the second time someone had tried to kill him, he said.

I was driving towards Cambridge a shade more slowly than usual, searching anxiously in the rear-view mirrors for satanically-minded followers but so far thankfully without success. My right leg was stiffening depressingly from the impact of twenty minutes ago, but I was in truth fairly used to that level of buffet through having ridden over the years in three or four hundred jump races, incurring consequent collisions with the ground.

Malcolm didn't like driving for reasons Coochie had deftly diagnosed as impatience. Coochie hadn't liked his driving either, for reasons (she said) of plain fear, and had taken over as family chauffeur. I too had been used to driving Malcolm from the day I gained my licence: I would need to have been delirious to ask him to take the wheel just because of some grazed skin.