Дик Фрэнсис - Banker

‘And do you advocate garlic poultices for the feet of babies with whooping-cough?’ Gordon asked.

Pen didn’t. There was more laughter. If one believed in Calder, Judith said firmly, one believed in him, garlic poultices and all.

The four of us spent a comfortable afternoon and evening together, and when Judith and Gordon went to bed I walked along with Pen to her house, where she’d been staying each night, filling my lungs with the fresh air off the common.

‘You’re going home tomorrow, aren’t you?’ she said, fishing out her keys.

I nodded. ‘In the morning.’

‘It’s been great fun.’ She found the keys and fitted one in the lock. ‘Would you like to come in?’

‘No... I’ll just walk for a bit.’

She opened the door and paused there. ‘Thank you for the kite... it was brilliant. And goodbye for this time, though I guess if Judith can stand it I’ll be seeing you again.’

‘Stand what?’ I asked.

She kissed me on the cheek. ‘Goodnight,’ she said. ‘And believe it or not, the herb known as passion flower is good for insomnia.’

Her grin shone out like the Cheshire Cat’s as she stepped inside her, house and closed the door, and I stood hopelessly on her pathway wanting to call her back.

Ian Pargetter was murdered at about one in the morning on February 1st.

I learned about his death from Calder when I telephoned that evening on impulse to thank him belatedly for the lunch party, invite him for a reciprocal dinner in London and hear whether or not he had enjoyed his American tour.

‘Who?’ he said vaguely when I announced myself. ‘Who? Oh... Tim... Look, I can’t talk now, I’m simply distracted, a friend of mine’s been killed and I can’t think of anything else.’

I’m so sorry,’ I said inadequately.

‘Yes... Ian Pargetter... but I don’t suppose you know...’

This time I remembered at once. The vet; big, reliable, sandy moustache.

‘I met him,’ I said, ‘in your house.’

‘Did you? Oh yes. I’m so upset I can’t concentrate. Look, Tim, ring some other time, will you?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘It’s not just that he’s been a friend for years,’ he said, ‘But I don’t know... I really don’t know how my business will fare without him. He sent so many horses my way... such a good friend... I’m totally distraught... Look, ring me another time... Tim, so sorry.’ He put his receiver down with the rattle of a shaking hand.

I thought at the time that he meant Ian Pargetter had been killed in some sort of accident, and it was only the next day when my eye was caught by a paragraph in a newspaper that I realized the difference.

Ian Pargetter, well known, much respected Newmarket veterinary surgeon, was yesterday morning found dead in his home. Police suspect foul play. They state that Pargetter suffered head injuries and that certain supplies of drugs appear to be missing. Pargetter’s body was discovered by Mrs Jane Halson, a daily cleaner. The vet is survived by his wife and three young daughters, all of whom were away from home at the time of the attack. Mrs Pargetter was reported last night to be very distressed and under sedation .

A lot of succinct bad news, I thought, for a lot of sad bereft people. He was the first person I’d known who’d been murdered, and in spite of our very brief meeting I found his death most disturbing: and if I felt so unsettled about a near-stranger, how, I wondered, did anyone ever recover from the murder of someone one knew well and loved. How did one deal with the anger? Come to terms with the urge to revenge?

I’d of course read reports of husbands and wives who pronounced themselves ‘not bitter’ over the slaughter of a spouse, and I’d never understood it. I felt furious on Ian Pargetter’s behalf that anyone should have had the arrogance to wipe him out.

Because of Ascot and Sandcastle my long-dormant interest in racecourses seemed thoroughly to have reawakened, and on three or four Saturday afternoons that winter I’d trekked to Kempton or Sandown or Newbury to watch the jumpers. Ursula Young had become a familiar face, and it was from this brisk well-informed lady bloodstock agent that I learnt most about Ian Pargetter and his death.

‘Drink?’ I suggested at Kempton, pulling up my coat collar against a bitter wind.

She looked at her watch (I’d never seen her do anything without checking the time) and agreed on a quick one. Whisky-mac for her, coffee for me, as at Doncaster.

‘Now tell me,’ she said, hugging her glass and yelling in my ear over the general din of a bar packed with other cold customers seeking inner warmth, ‘when you asked all those questions about stallion shares, was it for Sandcastle?’

I smiled without actually answering, shielding my coffee inadequately from adjacent nudging elbows.

‘Thought so,’ she said. ‘Look — there’s a table. Grab it.’

We sat down in a corner with the racket going on over our heads and the closed-circuit television playing re-runs of the last race fortissimo. Ursula bent her head towards mine. ‘A wow-sized coup for Oliver Knowles.’

‘You approve?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘He’ll be among the greats in one throw. Smart move. Clever man.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘Yes. Meet him often at the sales. He had a snooty wife who left him for some Canadian millionaire or other, and maybe that’s why he’s aiming for the big-time; just to show her.’ She smiled fiendishly. ‘She was a real pain and I hope he makes it.’

She drank half her whisky and I said it was a shame about Ian Pargetter, and that I’d met him once at Calder’s house.

She grimaced with a stronger echo of the anger I had myself felt. ‘He’d been out all evening saving the life of a classic-class colt with colic. It’s so beastly. He went home well after midnight, and they reckon whoever killed him was already in the house stealing whatever he could lay his hands on. Ian’s wife and family were away visiting her mother, you see, and the police think the killer thought the house would be empty for the night.’ She swallowed. ‘He was hit on the back of the head with a brass lamp off one of the tables in the sitting room. Just casual. Unpremeditated. Just... stupid .’ She looked moved, as I guessed everyone must have been who had known him. ‘Such a waste. He was a really nice man, a good vet, everyone liked him. And all for practically nothing... The police found a lot of silver and jewellery lying on a blanket ready to be carried away, but they think the thief just panicked and left it when Ian came home... all that anyone can think of that’s missing is his case of instruments and a few drugs that he’d had with him that evening... nothing worth killing for... not even for an addict. Nothing in it like that.’ She fell silent and looked down into her nearly empty glass, and I offered her a refill.

‘No, thanks all the same, one’s enough. I feel pretty maudlin as it is. I liked Ian. He was a good sort. I’d like to throttle the little beast who killed him.’

‘I think Calder Jackson feels much as you do,’ I said.

She glanced up, her good-looking fiftyish face full of genuine concern. ‘Calder will miss Ian terribly. There aren’t that number of vets around who’d not only put up with a faith-healer on their doorstep but actually treat him as a colleague. Ian had no professional jealousy. Very rare. Very good man. Makes it all the worse.’

We went out again into the raw air and I lost five pounds on the afternoon, which would have sent Lorna Shipton swooning to Uncle Freddie, if she’d known.

Two weeks later with Oliver Knowles’ warm approval I paid another visit to his farm in Hertfordshire, and although it was again a Sunday and still winter, the atmosphere of the place had fundamentally changed. Where there had been quiet sleepy near-hibernation there was now a wakeful bustle and eagerness, where a scattering of dams and foals across the paddocks, now a crowd of mares moving alone and slowly with big bellies.