Дик Фрэнсис - Banker

‘And if you gave too much,’ she said, ‘Too large a dose, you’d be more likely to get abortions than really gross deformities. The embryo would only go on growing at all, that is, if the damage done to it by the selenium was relatively minor.’

‘There were a lot of different deformities,’ I said.

‘Oh sure. It could have affected any developing cell, regardless.’

I picked up the test-tube and peered closely at its murky contents. ‘I suppose all you’d have to do would be stir this into a cupful of oats.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Or... could you enclose it in a capsule?’

‘Yes, if you had the makings. We could have done it quite easily in the lab. You’d need to get rid of as much oil as possible, of course, in that case, and just scrape concentrated selenium into the capsules.’

‘Mm. Calder could do it, I suppose?’

‘Calder Jackson? Why yes, I guess he could if you wanted him to. He had everything there that you’d need.’ She lifted her head, remembering something. ‘He’s on the television tomorrow night, incidentally.’

‘Is he?’

‘Yes. They were advertising it tonight just after the news, before you came. He’s going to be a guest on that chat show... Mickey Bonwith’s show... Do you ever see it?’

‘Sometimes,’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘It’s transmitted live, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ She looked at me with slight puzzlement. ‘What’s going on in that computer brain?’

‘A slight calculation of risk,’ I said slowly, ‘and of grasping unrepeatable opportunities. And tell me, dearest Pen, if I found myself again in Calder’s surgery, what should I look for, to bring out?’

She stared at me literally with her mouth open. Then, recovering, she said, ‘You can’t mean... Calder ?’

‘Well,’ I said soberly. ‘What I’d really like to do is to make sure one way or another. Because it does seem to me, sad though it is to admit it, that if you tie in Dissdale’s offer for Sandcastle with someone deliberately poisoning the mares, and then add Calder’s expertise with herbs — in which selenium-soaked plants might be included — you do at least get a question mark . You do want to know for sure, don’t you think, whether or not Calder and Dissdale set out deliberately to debase Sandcastle’s worth so that they could buy him for peanuts... So that Calder could perform a well publicized “miracle cure” of some sort on Sandcastle, who would thereafter always sire perfect foals, and gradually climb back into favour. Whose fees might never return to forty thousand pounds, but would over the years add up to a fortune.’

‘But they couldn’t,’ Pen said, aghast. ‘I mean... Calder and Dissdale... we know them.’

‘And you in your trade, as I in mine, must have met presentable, confidence-inspiring crooks.’

She fell silent, staring at me in a troubled way, until finally I said, ‘There’s one other thing. Again nothing I could swear to — but the first time I went to Calder’s place he had a lad there who reminded me sharply of the boy with the knife at Ascot.’

‘Ricky Barnet,’ Pen said, nodding.

‘Yes. I can’t remember Calder’s lad’s name, and I couldn’t identify him at all now after all this time, but at Oliver’s I saw another lad, called Shane, who also reminded me of Ricky Barnet. I’ve no idea whether Shane and Calder’s lad are one and the same person, though maybe not, because I don’t think Calder’s lad was called Shane, or I would have remembered, if you see what I mean.’

‘Got you,’ she said.

‘But if — and it’s a big if — if Shane did once work for Calder, he might still be working for him... feeding selenium to mares.’

Pen took her time with gravity in the experienced eyes, and at last said, ‘ Someone would have had to be there on the spot to do the feeding, and it certainly couldn’t have been Calder or Dissdale. But couldn’t it have been that manager, Nigel? It would have been easy for him. Suppose Dissdale and Calder paid him...? Suppose they promised to employ him, or even give him a share in Sandcastle, once they’d got hold of the horse.’

I shook my head. ‘I did wonder. I did think of Nigel. There’s one good reason why it probably isn’t him, though, and that’s because he and only he besides Oliver knew that one of the mares down for Diarist was covered by Sandcastle.’ I explained about Oliver’s impulse mating. ‘The foal is perfect, but might very likely not have been if it was Nigel who was doing the feeding.’

‘Not conclusive,’ Pen said, slowly.

‘No.’

She stirred. ‘Did you tell the police all this?’

‘I meant to,’ I said, ‘But when I was there with Wyfold on Monday it seemed impossible. It was all so insubstantial. Such a lot of guesses. Maybe wrong conclusions. Dissdale’s offer could be genuine. And a lad I’d seen for half a minute eighteen months ago... it’s difficult to remember a strange face for half an hour, let alone all that time. I have only an impression of blankness and of sunglasses... and I don’t have the same impression of Oliver’s lad Shane. Wyfold isn’t the sort of man to be vague to. I thought I’d better come up with something more definite before I went back to him.’

She bit her thumb. ‘Can’t you take another good look at this Shane?’

I shook my head. ‘Oliver’s gradually letting lads go, as he does every year at this time, and Shane is one who has already left. Oliver doesn’t know where he went and has no other address for him, which he doesn’t think very unusual. It seems that lads can drift from stable to stable for ever with their papers always showing only the address of their last or current employer. But I think we might find Shane, if we’re lucky.

‘How?’

‘By photographing Ricky Barnet, side view, and asking around on racetracks.’

She smiled. ‘It might work. It just might.’

‘Worth a try.’

My mind drifted back to something else worth a try, and it seemed that hers followed.

‘You don’t really mean to break into Calder’s surgery, do you?’ she said.

‘Pick the lock,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

‘But...’

‘Time’s running out, and Oliver’s future and the bank’s money with it, and yes, sure, I’ll do what I can.’

She curiously looked into my face. ‘You have no real conception of danger, do you?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean... I saw you, that day at Ascot, simply hurl yourself at that boy, at that knife. You could have been badly stabbed, very easily. And Ginnie told us that you frightened her to tears jumping at Sandcastle the way you did, to catch him. She said it was suicidal... and yet you yourself seemed to think nothing of it. And at Ascot, that evening, I remember you being bored with the police questions, not stirred up high by a brush with death...’

Her words petered away. I considered them and found in myself a reason and an answer.

‘Nothing that has happened so far in my life,’ I said seriously, ‘has made me fear I might die. I think... I know it sounds silly... I am unconvinced of my own mortality.’

On the following day, Friday, June 1st, I took up a long-offered invitation and went to lunch with the board of a security firm to whom we had lent money for launching a new burglar alarm on the market. Not greatly to their surprise I was there to ask a favour, and after a repast of five times the calories of Ekaterin’s they gave me with some amusement three keys which would unlock almost anything but the crown jewels, and also a concentrated course on how to use them.