Дик Фрэнсис - Banker

‘Then what...?’

‘They act on the developing embryo,’ she said. Her face crumpled almost as if the knowledge was too much and would make her cry. ‘You could get deformed foals if you fed selenium to the mares.’

I went on the following morning to see Detective Chief Inspector Wyfold, both Gordon and Harry concurring that the errand warranted time off from the bank. The forceful policeman shook my hand, gestured me to a chair and said briskly that he could give me fifteen minutes at the outside, as did I know that yet another young girl had been murdered and sexually assaulted the evening before, which was now a total of six, and that his superiors, the press and the whole flaming country were baying for an arrest? ‘And we are no nearer now,’ he added with anger, ‘than we were five months ago, when it started.’

He listened all the same to what I said about selenium, but in conclusion shook his head.

‘We looked it up ourselves. Did you know it’s the main ingredient in an anti-dandruff shampoo sold off open shelves all over America in the drug stores? It used to be on sale here too, or something like it, but it’s been discontinued. There’s no mystery about it. It’s not rare, nor illegal. Just ordinary.’

‘But the deformities...’

‘Look,’ he said restively, ‘I’ll bear it in mind. But it’s a big jump to decide from one bottle of ordinary dog shampoo that that ’s what’s the matter with those foals. I mean, is there any way of proving it?’

With regret I said, ‘No, there isn’t.’ No animal, Pen’s book had inferred, would retain selenium in its system for longer than a day or two if it was eaten only once or twice and in non-fatal amounts.

‘And how, anyway,’ Wyfold said, ‘would you get a whole lot of horses to drink anything as nasty as shampoo?’ He shook his head. ‘I know you’re very anxious to catch Virginia Knowles’ killer, and don’t think we don’t appreciate your coming here, but we’ve been into the shampoo question thoroughly, I assure you.’

His telephone buzzed and he picked up the receiver, his eyes still turned in my direction but his mind already elsewhere. ‘What?’ he said. ‘Yes, all right. Straightaway.’ He put down the receiver. ‘I’ll have to go.’

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘Isn’t it possible that one of the lads was giving selenium to the mares this year also, and that Ginnie somehow found out...’

He interrupted. ‘We tried to fit that killing onto one of those lads, don’t think we didn’t, but there was no evidence, absolutely none at all.’ He stood up and came round from behind his desk, already leaving me in mind as well as body. ‘If you think of anything else Mr Ekaterin, by all means let us know. But for now — I’m sorry, but there’s a bestial man out there we’ve got to catch — and I’m still of the opinion he tried for Virginia Knowles too, and was interrupted.’

He gave me a dismissing but not impatient nod, holding open the door and waiting for me to leave his office ahead of him. I obliged him by going, knowing that realistically he couldn’t be expected to listen to any further unsubstantiated theories from me while another victim lay more horribly and recently dead.

Before I went back to him, I thought, I had better dig further and come up with connected, believable facts, and also a basis, at least, for proof.

Henry and Gordon heard with gloom in the bank before lunch that at present we were ‘insufficient data’ in a Wyfold pigeonhole.

‘But you still believe, do you, Tim...?’ Henry said enquiringly.

‘We have to,’ I answered. ‘And yes, I do.’

‘Hm.’ He pondered. ‘If you need more time off from the office, you’d better take it. If there’s the slightest chance that there’s nothing wrong with Sandcastle after all, we must do our absolute best not only to prove it to our own satisfaction but also to the world in general. Confidence would have to be restored to breeders, otherwise they wouldn’t send their mares. It’s a tall order altogether.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well... I’ll do all I can’; and after lunch and some thought I telephoned to Oliver, whose hopes no one had so far raised.

‘Sit down,’ I said.

‘What’s the matter?’ He sounded immediately anxious. What’s happened?’

‘Do you know what teratogenic means?’ I said.

‘Yes, of course. With mares one always has to be careful.’

‘Mm... Well, there was a teratogenic drug in the bottle of dog shampoo that Ginnie had.’

‘ What ?’ His voice rose an octave on the word, vibrating with instinctive unthinking anger.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Now calm down. The police say it proves nothing either way, but Gordon and Henry, our chairman, agree that it’s the only hope we have left.’

‘But Tim...’ The realisation hit him, ‘That would mean... that would mean...’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It would mean that Sandcastle was always breeding good and true and could return to gold-mine status.’

I could hear Oliver’s heavily disturbed breathing and could only guess at his pulse rate.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No. If shampoo had got into a batch of feed, all the mares who ate it would have been affected, not just those covered by Sandcastle.’

‘If the shampoo got into the feed accidentally, yes. If it was given deliberately, no.’

I can’t... I can’t...’

‘I did tell you to sit down,’ I said reasonably.

‘Yes, so you did.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m sitting,’ he said.

‘It’s at least possible,’ I said, ‘That the Equine Research people could find nothing wrong with Sandcastle because there actually isn’t anything wrong with him.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed faintly.

‘It is possible to give teratogenic substances to mares.’

‘Yes.’

‘But horses wouldn’t drink shampoo.’

‘No, thoroughbreds especially are very choosy.’

‘So how would you give them shampoo, and when?’

After a pause he said, still breathlessly, ‘I don’t know how. They’d spit it out. But when is easier, and that could probably be no more than three or four days after conception. That’s when the body tube is forming in the embryo... that’s when a small amount of teratogenic substance could do a lot of damage.’

‘Do you mean,’ I said, ‘that giving a mare selenium just once would ensure a deformed foal?’

‘Giving a mare what?’

‘Sorry. Selenium. A drug for treating dandruff.’

‘Good... heavens.’ He rallied towards his normal self. ‘I suppose it would depend on the strength of the dose, and its timing. Perhaps three or four doses... No one could really know , because no one would have tried... I mean, there wouldn’t have been any research.’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘But supposing that in this instance someone got the dosage and the timing right, and also found a way of making the shampoo palatable, then who was it? ’

There was a long quietness during which even his breathing abated.

‘I don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘Theoretically it could have been me, Ginnie, Nigel, the Watcherleys or any of the lads who were here last year. No one else was on the place often enough.

‘Really no one? How about the vet or the blacksmith or just a visiting friend?’

‘But there were eighteen deformed foals,’ he said. ‘I would think it would have to have been someone who could come and go here all the time.’

‘And someone who knew which mares to pick,’ I said. ‘Would that knowledge be easy to come by?’

‘Easy!’ he said explosively. ‘It is positively thrust at everyone on the place. There are lists in all the feed rooms and in the breeding pen itself saying which mares are to be bred to which stallion. Nigel has one, there’s one in my office, one at the Watcherleys — all over. Everyone is supposed to double-check the lists all the time, so that mistakes aren’t made.’