Дик Фрэнсис - Banker

I wondered what, if anything, had specifically altered him, and it turned out to be the one thing I would have least expected: Ian Pargetter’s death.

Over a plateful of succulent smoked salmon Calder apologised for the abrupt way he’d brushed me off on the telephone on that disturbing night, and I said it was most understandable.

‘Fact is,’ Calder said, squeezing lemon juice, ‘I was afraid my whole business would collapse. Ian’s partners, you know, never approved of me. I was afraid they would influence everyone against me, once Ian had gone.’

‘And it hasn’t worked out that way?’

He shook his head, assembling a pink forkful. ‘Remarkably not. Amazing.’ He put the smoked salmon in his mouth and made appreciative noises, munching. I was aware, and I guessed he was, too, that the ears of the people at the tables on either side were almost visibly attuned to the distinctive voice, to the clear loud diction with its country edge. ‘My yard’s still full. People have faith, you know. I may not get quite so many racehorses, that’s to be expected, but still a few.’

‘And have you heard any more about Ian Pargetter’s death? Did they ever find out who killed him?’

He looked regretful. ‘I’m sure they haven’t. I asked one of his partners the other day, and he said no one seemed to be asking questions any more. He was quite upset. And so am I. I suppose finding his murderer won’t bring Ian back, but all the same one wants to know .’

‘Tell me some of your recent successes,’ I said, nodding, changing the subject and taking a slice of paper-thin brown bread and butter. ‘I find your work tremendously interesting.’ I also found it about the only thing else to talk about, as we seemed to have few other points of contact. Regret it as I might, there was still no drift towards an easy personal friendship.

Calder ate some more smoked salmon while he thought. ‘I had a colt,’ he said at last, ‘a two-year-old in training. Ian had been treating him, and he’d seemed to be doing well. Then about three weeks after Ian died the colt started bleeding into his mouth and down his nose and went on and on doing it, and as Ian’s partner couldn’t find out the trouble the trainer persuaded the owner to send the horse to me.’

‘And did you discover what was wrong?’ I asked.

‘Oh no.’ He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t necessary. I laid my hands on him on three succeeding days, and the bleeding stopped immediately. I kept him at my place for two weeks altogether, and returned him on his way back to full good health.’

The adjacent tables were fascinated, as indeed I was myself.

‘Did you give him herbs?’ I asked.

‘Certainly. Of course. And alfalfa in his hay. Excellent for many ills, alfalfa.’

I had only the haziest idea of what alfalfa looked like, beyond it being some sort of grass.

‘The one thing you can’t do with herbs,’ he said confidently, ‘is harm .’

I raised my eyebrows with my mouth full.

He gave the nearest thing to a grin. ‘With ordinary medicines one has to be so careful because of their power and their side effects, but if I’m not certain what’s wrong with a horse I can give it all the herbal remedies I can think of all at once in the hope that one of them will hit the target, and it quite often does. It may he hopelessly unscientific, but if a trained vet can’t tell exactly what’s wrong with a horse, how can I?’

I smiled with undiluted pleasure. ‘Have some wine,’ I said.

He nodded the helmet of curls, and the movement I made towards the bottle in its ice-bucket was instantly forestalled by a watchful waiter who poured almost reverently into the healer’s glass.

‘How was the American trip,’ I asked, ‘way back in January?’

‘Mm.’ He sipped his wine. ‘Interesting.’ He frowned a little and went back to finishing the salmon, leaving me wondering whether that was his total answer. When he’d laid down his knife and fork however he sat back in his chair and told me that the most enjoyable part of his American journey had been, as he’d expected, his few days on the ski slopes; and we discussed ski-ing venues throughout the roast beef and burgundy which followed.

With the crepes suzette I asked after Dissdale and Bettina and heard that Dissdale had been to New York on a business trip and that Bettina had been acting a small part in a British movie, which Dissdale hadn’t known whether to be pleased about or not. ‘Too many gorgeous young studs around,’ Calder said, smiling. ‘Dissdale gets worried anyway, and he was away for ten days.’

I pondered briefly about Calder’s own seemingly nonexistent sex-life: but he’d never seen me with a girl either, and certainly there was no hint in him of the homosexual.

Over coffee, running out of subjects, I asked about his yard in general, and how was the right-hand-man Jason in particular.

Calder shrugged. ‘He’s left. They come and go, you know. No loyalty these days.’

‘And you don’t fear... well, that he’d take your knowledge with him?’

He looked amused. ‘He didn’t know much. I mean, I’d hand out a pill and tell Jason which horse to give it to. That sort of thing.’

We finished amiably enough with a glass of brandy for each and a cigar for him, and I tried not to wince over the bill.

‘A very pleasant evening,’ Calder said. ‘You must come out to lunch again one day.’

‘I’d like to.’

We sat for a final few minutes opposite each other in a pause of mutual appraisal: two people utterly different but bonded by one-tenth of a second on a pavement in Ascot. Saved and saver, inextricably interested each in the other; a continuing curiosity which would never quite lose touch. I smiled at him slowly and got a smile in return, but all surface, no depth, a mirror exactly of my own feelings.

In the office things were slowly changing. John had boasted too often of his sexual conquests and complained too often about my directorship, and Gordon’s almost-equal had tired of such waste of time. I’d heard from Val Fisher in a perhaps edited version that at a small and special seniors meeting (held in my absence and without my knowledge) Gordon’s almost-equal had said he would like to boot John vigorously over St Paul’s. His opinion was respected. I heard from Alec one day merely that the mosquito which had stung me for so long had been squashed, and on going along the passage to investigate had found John’s desk empty and his bull-like presence but a quiver in the past.

‘He’s gone to sell air-conditioning to Eskimos,’ Alec said, and Gordon’s almost-equal, smiling affably, corrected it more probably to a partnership with some brokers on the Stock Exchange.

Alec himself seemed restless, as if his own job no longer held him enthralled.

‘It’s all right for you,’ he said once. ‘You’ve the gift. You’ve the sight . I can’t tell a gold mine from a pomegranate at five paces, and it’s taken me all these years to know it.’

‘But you’re a conjuror,’ I said. ‘You can rattle up outside money faster than anyone.’

‘Gift of the old gab, you mean.’ He looked uncharacteristically gloomy. ‘Syrup with a chisel in it.’ He waved his hand towards the desks of our new older colleagues, who had both gone out to lunch. ‘I’ll end up like them, still here, still smooth-talking, part of the furniture, coming up to sixty .’ His voice held disbelief that such an age could be achieved. ‘That isn’t life, is it? That’s not all ?’

I said that I supposed it might be.

‘Yes, but for you it’s exciting,’ he said. ‘I mean, you love it. Your eyes gleam . You get your kicks right here in this room. But I’ll never be made a director, let’s face it, and I have this grotty feeling that time’s slipping away, and soon it will be too late to start anything else.’