Dick Francis: Hot Money

They were racing for a purse of a million Australian dollars, of which sixty-five per cent went to the winner, besides a handsome gold cup. Thwarted this year, Malcolm, I imagined, would be back next year. He'd met in Paris and California several of the owners now standing in the parade ring and I could guess the envy he was feeling. No one was as passionate as a new convert.

When the race was finally off, I couldn't hear the commentary for the exhortations around me, but it didn't much matter. the winner was owned by one of the international owners and afterwards I found Malcolm beside the winner's enclosure looking broody and thinking expensive thoughts.

"Next year," he said.

"You're addicted."

He didn't deny it. He and Ramsey slapped each other on the back, shook hands and promised like blood brothers to meet regularly on every major racecourse in the world. Ramsey, the bulky manufacturer of millions of baseball caps, had somewhere along the line realised what "metal" really meant in Malcolm's vocabulary and from cronies they had become comfortable friends, neither feeling at an advantage over the other.

They discussed staying on in Australia but Ramsey said the baseball caps needed guidance. Malcolm wavered about going to see some gold mines in Kalgoorlie but decided on a gold share broker in Melbourne instead. We spent Melbourne Cup night in a farewell dinner and when Ramsey had departed in the morning and left us alone in the quiet breakfast room upstairs, Malcolm looked at me as if coming down to earth for the first time since we'd left England. With a touch of despondency, he asked for how long he was to be exiled for safety's sake.

"But you've enjoyed it," I said.

"God, yes." The remembrance flashed in his eyes. "But it's not real life. We have to go back. I know I've avoided talking about it, it's all dreadful. I know you've been thinking about it all this time. I could see it in your face."

"I've come to know them all so much better," I said, "my brothers and my sisters. I didn't care for them all that much, you know, before Moira died. We've always met of course from time to time, but I'd forgotten to a great extent what we had been like as children." I paused for a bit, but he didn't comment. "Since the bomb went off at Quantum," I said, "a great deal of the past has come back. And I've seen, you know, how the present has grown out of that past. How my sisters-in-law and my brother-in-law have been affected by it. How people easily believe lies, old and new. How destructive it is to yearn for the unobtainable, to be unsatisfied by anything else. How obsessions don't go away, they get worse."

He was silent for a while, then said, "Bleak." Then he signed and said, "How much do they need, then? How much should I give them? I don't believe in it, but I see it's necessary. Their obsessions have got worse as I've grown richer. If the money wasn't there, they'd have sorted themselves out better. Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes, partly." It hadn't been, entirely, but as it had produced a reaction I'd wanted but hadn't expected, I kept quiet.

"All right, then," he said. "I've had a bloody good holiday and I'm feeling generous, so draw up a list of who's to get what."

"All equal," I said.

He began to protest, but sighed instead. "What about you, then?"

"I don't know. We'll decide about that later."

"I thought you wanted half a million to set up as a trainer."

"I've changed my mind. For now, anyway. There's something else I want to do first."

"What's that?"

I hesitated. I'd barely admitted it to myself, had certainly told no one else.

"Go on," he urged.

"Be a jockey. Turn professional."

"Good Lord," he said, astonished, "haven't you left it too late?"

"Maybe. We'll see. I'll have three or four years, perhaps. Better than not trying."

"You amaze me." He reflected. "Come to think of it, you've constantly amazed me since you came to Newmarket Sales. It seems I hardly knew you before."

"That's how I feel about you," I said, "and about all of the family."

We set off homewards later the same day, travelling west via Singapore. Malcolm's gold share broker happened to be going there at the same time, so I changed places with him on the aeroplane and let the two of them say things like "percussion and rotary air blast drilling to get a first idea" and "diamond core drilling is necessary for estimating reserves accurately", which seemed to entertain them for hours.

I thought meantime about invitations. About invitations like meat over bear pits. The right invitation would bring the right visitor. The problem was how to make the invitation believable.

Part of the trouble was time. When we reached England, Malcolm would have been out of harm's way for four weeks, and I for almost three. We'd been safe, and I'd had time to reflect: those on the plus side. On the minus, as far as the invitation was concerned, was the fact that it would be six weeks since Malcolm had survived in the garage, and ten since Moira had died. Would a classic trap invitation work after so long an interval? Only one thing to do: try it and see.

Malcolm's voice was saying, "… a section assaying five point eight grams per tonne" and a bit later, "… Big Bell's plant milling oxide and soft rock", and "… the future is good in Queensland, with those epithermal gold zones at Woolgar". The broker listened and nodded and looked impressed. My old man, I thought, really knows his stuff. He'd told me at one point on our journeyings that there were roughly twenty-five hundred active gold mines in Australia and that it would soon rival or even surpass Canada as a producer. I hadn't known gold was big in Canada. I was ignorant, he said. Canada had so far come regularly second to South Africa in the non-communist world. We'd taught each other quite a lot, I thought, in one way and another.

I would need someone to deliver the invitation. Couldn't do it myself.

"Market capitalisation per ounce…" I heard the broker saying in snatches, and "… in situ reserves based on geological interpretation…"

I knew who could deliver the invitation. The perfect person. "As open-cut mining cost as little as two hundred Australian dollars an ounce…"

Bully for open-cut mining, I thought, and drifted to sleep.

We left spring behind in Australia on Wednesday and came home to winter on Friday in England. Malcolm and I went back to the Ritz as Mr and Mr Watson and he promised with utmost sincerity that he wouldn't telephone anyone, not even his London broker. I went shopping in the afternoon and then confounded him at the brandy and cigar stage late that evening by getting through to Joyce.

"But you said…" he hissed as he heard her voice jump as usual out of the receiver.

"Listen," I hissed back. "Hello, Joyce."

"Darling! Where are you? What are you doing? Where's your father?"

"In Australia," I said.

"WHAT?" she yelled.

"Looking at gold mines," I said.

It made sense to her as it would make sense to them all.

"He went to California, I saw it in the paper," she said. "Blue Clancy won a race."

"We went to Australia afterwards."

"WE? Darling, where are you now?"

"It doesn't matter where I am," I said. "To make it safe for us to come home, will you help to find out who killed Moira?"

"But darling, the police have been trying for weeks… and anyway, Ferdinand says it has to be Arthur Bellbrook."

"It's not Arthur Bellbrook," I said.

"Why not?" She sounded argumentative, still wanting it to be Arthur, wanting it to be the intruder from outside. "He could have done it easily. Ferdinand says he could have done everything. It has to be him. He had a shot-gun, Ferdinand says."

I said, "Arthur didn't use his shot-gun. More importantly, he wouldn't have made a timing device exactly like we'd made as children, and he hadn't a motive."