Дик Фрэнсис - Banker

Oliver was perplexed. ‘How can we possibly guess?’

‘Hm,’ I said. ‘Did you know about Indian Silk?’

‘Not before today.’

‘Well, suppose Dissdale acts to a pattern, which people so often do. He told Fred Barnet he was putting Indian Silk out to grass, which was diametrically untrue; he intended to send him to Calder and with luck put him back in training. He told you he was planning to put Sandcastle back into training, so suppose that’s just what he doesn’t plan to do. And he suggested gelding, didn’t he?’

Oliver nodded.

‘Then I’d expect gelding to be furthest from his mind,’ I said. ‘He just wants us to believe that’s his intention.’ I reflected ‘Do you know what I might do if I wanted to have a real gamble with Sandcastle?’

‘What?’

‘It sounds pretty crazy,’ I said. ‘But with Calder’s reputation it might just work.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Oliver said in some bewilderment. ‘What gamble?’

‘Suppose,’ I said, ‘that you could buy for a pittance a stallion whose perfect foals would be likely to win races.’

‘But no one would risk...’

‘Suppose,’ I interrupted. ‘There was nearly a fifty per cent chance, going on this year’s figures, that you’d get a perfect foal. Suppose Dissdale offered Sandcastle as a sire at say a thousand pounds, the fee only payable if the foal was born perfect and lived a month.’

Oliver simply stared.

‘Say Sandcastle’s perfect progeny do win, as indeed they should. There are fourteen of them so far this year, don’t forget. Say that in the passage of time his good foals proved to be worth the fifty per cent risk. Say Sandcastle stands in Calder’s yard, with Calder’s skill on the line. Isn’t there a chance that over the years Dissdale’s twenty-five thousand pound investment would provide a nice steady return for them both?’

‘It’s impossible,’ he said weakly.

‘No, not impossible. A gamble.’ I paused. ‘You wouldn’t get people sending the top mares, of course, but you might get enough dreamers among the breeders who’d chance it.’

‘Tim...’

‘Just think of it,’ I said. ‘A perfect foal by Sandcastle for peanuts. And if you got a malformed foal, well, some years your mare might slip or be barren anyway.’

He looked at his feet for a while, and then into the middle distance, and then he said, ‘Come with me. I’ve something to show you. Something you’d better know.’

He set off towards the Watcherleys’, and would say nothing more on the way. I walked beside him down the familiar paths and thought about Ginnie because I couldn’t help it, and we arrived in the next-door yard that was now of a neatness to be compared with all the others.

‘Over here,’ Oliver said, going across to one of the boxes. ‘Look at that.’

I looked where directed: at a mare with a colt foal suckling, not unexpected in that place.

‘He was born three days ago,’ Oliver said. ‘I do so wish Ginnie had seen him.’

‘Why that one, especially?’

‘The mare is one of my own,’ he said. ‘And that foal is Sandcastle’s.’

It was my turn to stare. I looked from Oliver to the foal and back again. ‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ I said.

‘No.’

‘But...’

Oliver smiled twistedly. ‘I was going to breed her to Diarist. She was along here at the Watcherleys’ because the foal she had then was always ailing, but she herself was all right. I was along here looking at her one day when she’d been in season a while, and on impulse I led her along to the breeding pen and told Nigel to fetch Sandcastle, and we mated them there and then. That foal’s the result.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘He’ll be sold, of course, with everything else. I wish I could have kept him, but there it is.’

‘He should be worth quite a bit,’ I said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Oliver said. ‘And that’s the flaw in your gamble. It’s not just the racing potential that raises prices at auction, it’s the chance of breeding. And no one could be sure, breeding from Sandcastle’s stock, that the genetic trouble wouldn’t crop up for evermore. It’s not on, I’m afraid. No serious breeder would send him mares, however great the bargain.’

We stood for a while in silence.

‘It was a good idea,’ I said, ‘while it lasted.’

‘My dear Tim... we’re clutching at straws.’

‘Yes.’ I looked at his calm strong face; the captain whose ship was sinking. ‘I’d try anything, you know, to save you,’ I said.

‘And to save the bank’s money?’

‘That too.’

He smiled faintly. ‘I wish you could, but time’s running out.’

The date for bringing in the receivers had been set, the insurance company had finally ducked, the lawyers were closing in and the respite I’d gained for him was trickling away with no tender plant of hope growing in the ruins.

We walked back towards the house, Oliver patting the mares as usual as they came to the fences.

‘I suppose this may all be here next year,’ he said, ‘looking much the same. Someone will buy it... it’s just I who’ll be gone.’

He lifted his head, looking away over his white painted rails to the long line of the roofs of his yards. The enormity of the loss of his life’s work settled like a weight on his shoulders and there was a haggard set to his jaw.

‘I try not to mind,’ he said levelly. ‘But I don’t quite know how to bear it.’

When I reached home that evening my telephone was ringing. I went across the sitting room expecting it to stop the moment I reached it, but the summons continued, and on the other end was Judith.

‘I just came in,’ I said.

‘We knew you were out. We’ve tried once or twice.’

I went to see Oliver.’

‘The poor, poor man.’ Judith had been very distressed over Ginnie and still felt that Oliver needed more sympathy because of his daughter than because of his bankruptcy, which I wasn’t sure was any longer the case. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘Pen asked me to call you as she’s tied up in her shop all day and you were out when she tried... She says she’s had the reply from America about the shampoo and are you still interested?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

‘Then... if you’re not doing anything else... Gordon and I wondered if you’d care to come here for the day tomorrow, and Pen will bring the letter to show you.’

‘I’ll be there,’ I said fervently, and she laughed.

‘Good, then. See you.’

I was at Clapham with alacrity before noon, and Pen, over coffee, produced the letter from the drug company.

‘I sent them a sample of what you gave me in that little glass jar,’ she said. ‘And, as you asked, I had some of the rest of it analyzed here, but honestly, Tim, don’t hope too much from it for finding out who killed Ginnie, it’s just shampoo, as it says.’

I took the official-looking letter which was of two pages clipped together, with impressive headings.

Dear Ms. Warner ,

We have received the enquiry from your pharmacy and also the sample you sent us, and we now reply with this report, which is a copy of that which we recently sent to the Hertfordshire police force on the same subject .

The shampoo in question is our ‘Bannitch’ which is formulated especially for dogs suffering from various skin troubles, including eczema. It is distributed to shops selling goods to dog owners and offering cosmetic canine services, but would not normally be used except on the advice of a veterinarian .

We enclose the list of active ingredients and excipients, as requested .

‘What are excipients?’ I asked, looking up.