Dick Francis: Dead Cert

He, Forlorn Hope, my newest acquisition, was a strongly built brown gelding only five years old. He looked as though he would develop into a 'chaser in a year or two, but meanwhile I was riding him in novice hurdle races to give him some sorely needed experience.

His unreliability as a jumper had made Scilla, the evening before, beg me not to ride him at Plumpton, a course full of snares for the unwary.

Unbearably strung up, and facing her loss for the first time without the help of drugs, she was angry and pleading by turns.

'Don't, Alan. Not a novice hurdle at Plumpton. You know your wretched Forlorn Hope isn't safe. You haven't got to do it, so why do you?'

'I like it.'

'There never was a horse more aptly named,' she said, miserably.

'He'll learn,' I said. 'But not if I don't give him the opportunity.'

'Put someone else up. Please.'

'There isn't any point in having a horse if I don't ride it myself. That's really why I came to England at all, to race. You know that.'

'You'll be killed, like Bill.' She began to cry, helplessly, worn out. I tried to reason with her.

'No, I won't. If Bill had been killed in a motor crash you wouldn't expect me to stop driving. Steeplechasing's just as safe and unsafe as motoring.' I paused, but she went on crying. 'There are thousands more people killed on the roads than on the race-track,' I said.

At this outrageous statement she recovered enough to point out acidly the difference in the number of people engaged in the two pursuits.

'Very few people are killed by steeplechasing,' I tried again.

'Bill was-'

'Only about one a year, out of hundreds,' I went on.

'Bill was the second since Christmas.'

'Yes.' I looked at her warily. There were still tears in her eyes.

'Scilla, was Bill in any sort of trouble recently?'

'Why ever do you ask?' She was astounded by my question.

'Was he?'

'Of course not.'

'Not worried about anything?' I persisted.

'No. Did he seem worried to you?'

'No,' I said. It was quite true. Until the moment of his fall Bill had been the same as I had always known him, cheerful, poised, reliable. He had had, and enjoyed, a pretty wife, three attractive children, a grey stone manor house, a considerable fortune and the best hunter 'chaser in England. A happy man. And rack my memory as I would, I could not recall the slightest ruffling of the pattern.

'Then why do you ask?' said Scilla, again.

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.

She sat like stone, absolutely stunned.

'Oh no,' she said. 'Oh no. Oh no.'

As I stood now outside the weighing room at Plumpton I could still see her stricken face. She had raised no more objections to my racing. What I had told her had driven every other thought out of her head.

A firm hand came down on my shoulder. I knew it well. It belonged to Peter Gregory, racehorse trainer, a burly man nearly six feet tall, running to fat, growing bald, but in his day, I had been told, the toughest man ever to put his foot in a racing stirrup.

'Hello, Alan me lad. I'm glad to see you're here. I've already declared you for your horse in the second race.'

'How is he?' I asked.

'All right. A bit thin, still.' Forlorn Hope had only been in his stable for a month. 'I should give him an easy, coming up the hill the first time, or he'll blow up before the finish. He needs more time before we can hope for much.'

'OK,' I said.

'Come out and see what the going is like,' said Pete. 'I want to talk to you.' He hitched the strap of his binoculars higher on his shoulder.

We walked down through the gate on to the course and dug our heels experimentally into the turf. They sank in an inch.

'Not bad, considering all the snow that melted into it a fortnight ago,' I said.

'Nice and soft for you to fall on,' said Pete with elementary humour.

We went up the rise to the nearest hurdle. The landing side had a little too much give in it, but we knew the ground at the other end of the course was better drained. It was all right.

Pete said abruptly, 'Did you see Admiral fall at Maidenhead?' He had been in Ireland buying a horse when it happened and had only just returned.

'Yes. I was about ten lengths behind him,' I said, looking down the course, concentrating on the hurdle track.

'Well?'

'Well, what?' I said.

'What happened? Why did he fall?' There was some sort of urgency in his voice, more than one would expect, even in the circumstances. I looked at him. His eyes were grey, unsmiling, intent. Moved by an instinct I didn't understand, I retreated into vagueness.

'He just fell,' I said. 'When I went over the fence he was on the ground with Bill underneath him.'

'Did Admiral meet the fence all wrong, then?' he probed.

'Not as far as I could see. He must have hit the top of it.' This was near enough to the truth.

'There wasn't- anything else?' Pete's eyes were fierce, as if they would look into my brain.

'What do you mean?' I avoided the direct answer.

'Nothing.' His anxious expression relaxed. 'If you didn't see anything-' We began to walk back. It troubled me that I hadn't told Pete the truth. He had been too searching, too aware. I was certain he was not the man to risk destroying a great horse like Admiral, let alone a friend, but why was he so relieved now he believed I had noticed nothing?

I had just decided to ask him to explain his attitude, and to tell him what had really happened, when he began to speak.

'Have you got a ride in the Amateur 'Chase, Alan?' He was back to normal, bluff and smiling.

'No, I haven't,' I said. 'Pete, look-'

But he interrupted. 'I had a horse arrive in my yard five or six days ago, with an engagement in today's Amateur 'Chase. A chestnut. Good sort of animal, I should say. He seems to be fit enough – he's come from a small stable in the West Country – and his new owner is very keen to run him. I tried to ring you this morning about it, but you'd already left.'

'What's his name?' I asked, for all this preamble of Pete's was, I knew, his way of cajoling me into something I might not be too delighted to do.

'Heavens Above.'

'Never heard of him. What's he done?' I asked.

'Well, not much. He's young, of course-'

I interrupted. 'What exactly has he done?'

Pete sighed and gave in. 'He's only had two runs, both down in Devon last autumn. He didn't fall, but – er – he got rid of his jockey both times. But he jumped well enough over my schooling fences this morning. I don't think you'd have any difficulty getting him round safely, and that's the main thing at this stage.'

'Pete, I don't like to say no, but-' I began.

'His owner is so hoping you'll ride him. It's her first horse, and it's running for the first time in her brand new colours. I brought her to the races with me. She's very excited. I said I'd ask you-'

'I don't think-' I tried again.

'Well, at least meet her,' said Pete.

'If I meet her, you know it'll be far more difficult for me to refuse to ride her horse.'

Pete didn't deny it.

I went on, 'I suppose she's another of your dear old ladies about to go into a nursing home from which she is unlikely to return, and wants a final thrill before she meets her fate?'

This was the sad tale which Peter had used not long before to inveigle me on to a bad horse against my better judgement. And I often saw the old lady at the races afterwards. The nursing home and her fate were still presumably awaiting her.

'This one is not,' said Pete, 'a dear old lady.'

We came to a stop in the paddock, and Pete looked around him and beckoned to someone. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman begin to walk towards us. It was already, without unforgivable rudeness, too late to escape. I had time for one heart-felt oath in Pete's ear before I turned to be introduced to the new owner of the jockey-depositing Heavens Above.