Дик Фрэнсис - Banker

‘The things you put in with the active drug for various reasons,’ she said. ‘Like for instance chalk for bulk in pills.’

I turned the top page over and read the list on the second.

Bannitch

Excipients

Bentonite

Ethylene glycol monostearate

Citric acid

Sodium phosphate

Glyceryl monoricinoleate

Perfume

Active ingredients

Captan

Amphoteric

Selenium

‘Terrific,’ I said blankly. ‘What do they all mean?’

Pen, sitting beside me on the sofa, explained.

‘From the top... Bentonite is a thickening agent so that everything stays together and doesn’t separate out. Ethylene glycol monostearate is a sort of wax, probably there to add bulk. Citric acid is to make the whole mixture acid, not alkaline, and the next one, sodium phosphate, is to keep the acidity level more or less constant. Glyceryl monoricinoleate is a soap, to make lather, and perfume is there so that the dog smells nice to the owner when she’s washing him.’

‘How do you know so much?’ Gordon asked, marvelling.

‘I looked some of them up,’ said Pen frankly, with a smile. She turned back to me and pointed to the short lower column of active ingredients. ‘Captan and Amphoteric are both drugs for killing fungi on the skin, and Selenium is also anti-fungal and is used in shampoos to cure dandruff.’ She stopped and looked at me doubtfully. ‘I did tell you not to hope too much. There’s nothing there of any consequence.’

‘And nothing in the sample that isn’t on the manufacturer’s list?’

She shook her head. ‘The analysis from the British lab came yesterday, and the shampoo in Ginnie’s bottle contained exactly what it should.’

‘What did you expect, Tim?’ Gordon asked.

‘It wasn’t so much expect, as hope,’ I said regretfully. ‘Hardly hope, really. Just a faint outside chance.’

‘Of what?’

‘Well... the police thought — think — that the purpose of killing Ginnie was sexual assault, because of those other poor girls in the neighbourhood.’

They all nodded.

‘But it doesn’t feel right, does it? Not when you know she wasn’t walking home from anywhere, like the others, and not when she wasn’t actually, well, interfered with. And then she had the shampoo... and the farm was in such trouble, and it seemed to me possible, just slightly possible, that she had somehow discovered that something in that bottle was significant...’ I paused, and then said slowly to Pen, ‘I suppose what I was looking for was something that could have been put into Sandcastle’s food or water that affected his reproductive organs. I don’t know if that’s possible. I don’t know anything about drugs... I just wondered .’

They sat in silence with round eyes, and then Gordon, stirring, said with an inflection of hope, ‘Is that possible, Pen? Could it be something like that?’

‘Could it possibly ?’ Judith said.

‘My loves,’ Pen said. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked also as if whatever she said would disappoint us. ‘I’ve never heard of anything like that, I simply haven’t.’

‘That’s why I took the shampoo and gave it to you,’ I said. ‘I know it’s a wild and horrible idea, but I told Oliver I’d try everything, however unlikely.’

‘What you’re suggesting,’ Judith said plainly, ‘Is that someone might deliberately have given something to Sandcastle to make him produce deformed foals, and that Ginnie found out... and was killed for it.’

There was silence.

‘I’ll go and get a book or two,’ Pen said. ‘We’ll look up the ingredients, just in case. But honestly, don’t hope .’

She went home leaving the three of us feeling subdued. For me this had been the last possibility, although since I’d heard from Oliver that the police check had revealed only the expected shampoo in the bottle, it had become more and more remote.

Pen came back in half an hour with a thick tome, a piece of paper, and worried creases across her forehead. ‘I’ve been reading,’ she said. ‘Sorry to be so long. I’ve been checking up on sperm deformities, and it seems the most likely cause is ‘radiation.’

I said instantly, ‘Let’s ring Oliver.’

They nodded and I got through to him with Pen’s suggestion.

‘Tim!’ he said. ‘I’ll see if I can get anyone in Newmarket... even though it’s Sunday... I’ll ring you back.’

‘Though how a stallion could get anywhere near a radioactive source,’ Pen said while we were waiting, ‘would be a first-class mystery in itself.’ She looked down at the paper she carried. ‘This is the analysis report from the British lab, bill attached, I’m afraid. Same ingredients, though written in the opposite order, practically, with selenium put at the top, which means that that’s the predominant drug, I should think.’

Oliver telephoned again in a remarkably short time. ‘I got the chief researcher at home. He says they did think of radiation but discounted it because it would be more likely to result in total sterility, and there’s also the improbability of a horse being near any radio-active isotopes.’ He sighed. ‘Sand-castle has never even been X-rayed.’

‘See if you can check,’ I said. ‘If he ever was irradiated in any way it would come into the category of accidental or even malicious damage, and we’d be back into the insurance policy.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll try.’

I put down the receiver to find Pen turning the pages of her large pharmacological book with concentration.

‘What’s that?’ Judith asked, pointing.

‘Toxicity of minerals,’ Pen answered absentmindedly. ‘Ethylene glycol...’ she turned pages, searching. ‘Here we are.’ She read down the column, shaking her head. ‘Not that, anyway.’ She again consulted the index, read the columns, shook her head. ‘Selenium... selenium...’ She turned the pages, read the columns, pursed her lips. ‘It says that selenium is poisonous if taken internally, though it can be beneficial on the skin.’ She read some more. ‘It says that if animals eat plants which grow in soil which has much selenium in it, they can die.’

‘What is selenium?’ Judith asked.

‘It’s an element,’ Pen said. ‘Like potassium and sodium.’ She read on, ‘It says here that it is mostly found in rocks of the Cretaceous Age — such useful information — and that it’s among the most poisonous of elements but also an essential nutrient in trace quantities for both animals and plants.’ She looked up. ‘It says it’s useful for flower-growers because it kills insects, and that it accumulates mostly in plants which flourish where there’s a low annual rainfall.’

‘Is that all?’ Gordon asked, sounding disappointed.

‘No, there’s pages of it. I’m just translating the gist into understandable English.’

She read on for a while, and then it seemed to me that she totally stopped breathing. She raised her head and looked at me, her eyes wide and dark.

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘Read it.’ She gave me the heavy book, pointing to the open page.

I read: Selenium is absorbed easily from the intestines and affects every part of the body, more lodging in the liver, spleen, and kidneys than in brain and muscle. Selenium is teratogenic .

‘What does teratogenic mean?’ I asked.

‘It means,’ Pen said, ‘that it produces deformed offspring.’

‘ What ’ I exclaimed. ‘You don’t mean...’

Pen was shaking her head. ‘It couldn’t affect Sandcastle. It’s impossible. It would simply poison his system. Teratogens have nothing to do with males.’