Dick Francis - Wild Horses

I looked at Cibber the actor and wondered how I could ever dig out of him Cibber the man.

I started that afternoon by blowing away his complacency and telling him he didn’t understand lust.

He was indignant. ‘Of course I do.’

‘The lust I want is uncontrollable. It’s out of control, frenetic, frantic, raging, berserk. It’s murderous.’

‘And you expect me to show all that?’

‘No, I don’t. I don’t think you can. I don’t think you have the technique. I don’t think you’re a good enough actor.’

Cibber froze. He stubbed out the cigar: and he produced for the camera that day a conception of lust that made one understand and pity his ungovernable compulsion even while he killed for having it mocked.

He would never be a grandee type-cast actor again.

‘I hate you,’ he said.

Lucy was busy with the boxes when, on returning to the hotel, I opened the door of my sitting-room and went in, leaving it ajar.

She was on her knees among the boxes and looked up as if guiltily, faintly blushing.

‘Sorry for the mess,’ she said, flustered. ‘I didn’t think you’d be back before six o’clock, as usual. I’ll just tidy this lot away. And shall I close the door?’

‘No, leave it open.’

Books and papers were scattered over much of the floor, and many of them, I was interested to see, had come out of boxes she had already investigated and itemised. The folder of clippings about Sonia’s death lay open on the table: the harmless clippings only, as Valentine’s totally revealing souvenirs were out of sight in O’Hara’s safe.

‘You had some messages,’ Lucy said jerkily, picking up and reading from a notebook. ‘Howard Tyler wants to see you. Someone called Ziggy — I think — wanted you to know the horses had come without trouble through Immingham and had reached their stable. Does that sound right? Robbie — he wouldn’t give any other name — said to tell you the move had been accomplished. And the film crew you sent to Huntingdon races got some good crowd and bookmaker shots, they said.’

‘Thanks.’

I viewed the general clutter on the floor and mildly asked, ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Oh.’ The blush deepened. ‘Dad said... I mean, I hope you won’t mind, but my Uncle Ridley came in to see me.’

‘In here?’

‘Yes. I didn’t know he was coming. He just knocked on the door and walked straight in when I opened it. I said you might not be pleased, and he said he didn’t care a f- I mean, he didn’t care what you thought.’

‘Did your father send him?’

‘I don’t know if he sent him. He told him where I was and what I was doing.’

I hid from her my inner satisfaction. I had rather hoped to stir Ridley to action; hoped Jackson would perform the service.

‘What did Ridley want?’ I asked.

‘He said I wasn’t to tell you.’ She stood up, her blue eyes troubled. ‘I don’t like it... and I don’t know what I should do.’

‘Perch on something and relax.’ I lowered myself stiffly into an armchair and eased my constricted neck. ‘Bad back,’ I said, explaining it away. ‘Nothing to fuss over. What did Ridley want?’

She sat doubtfully sideways on the edge of the table, swinging a free leg. The ubiquitous jeans were accompanied that day by a big blue sweater across which white lambs gambolled: nothing could possibly have been less threatening.

She made up her mind. ‘He wanted that photo of The Gang that you showed Dad yesterday. And he wanted anything Valentine had written about Sonia. He emptied out all this stuff, And,’ her forehead wrinkled, ‘he wanted the knives.’

‘What knives?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me. I asked him if he wanted that one a boy asked me to give you at Huntingdon, and he said that one and others.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said I hadn’t seen any others and anyhow, if you had anything like that you would keep it locked away safely... and... well... he told me to wheedle out of you the combination you’re using for the safe here. He tried to open it, you see... ’ She stopped miserably. ‘I know I should never have let him in. What is it all about?’

‘Cheer up,’ I said, ‘while I think.’

‘Shall I tidy the boxes?’

‘Yes, do.’

First catch your sprat...

‘Lucy,’ I said, ‘why did you tell me what Ridley wanted?’

She looked uncomfortable. ‘Do you mean, why am I not loyal to my uncle?’

‘Yes, I do mean that.’

‘I didn’t like him saying wheedle . And... well... he’s not as nice as he used to be.’

I smiled. ‘Good. Well, if I tell you the combination number, will you please tell Ridley? And also tell him how clever you were, the way you wheedled it out of me! And tell him you do think I have knives in the safe.’

She hesitated.

I said, ‘Give your allegiance one way or the other, but stick to one.’

She said solemnly, ‘I give it to you.’

‘Then the combination is seven three five two.’

‘Now?’ she asked, stretching towards the telephone.

‘Now.’

She spoke to her uncle. She blushed deeply while she lied, but she would have convinced me, let alone Ridley.

When she put down the telephone I said, ‘When I’ve finished all the work on this film, which will be in another four and a half months, I should think, would you like to spend a holiday in California? Not,’ I went on hastily, ‘with any conditions or expectations attached. Just a holiday. You could bring your mother, if you like. I thought you might find it interesting, that’s all.’

Her uncertainty over this suggestion was endearing. I was everything she’d been taught to fear, a young healthy male in a position of power, out for any conquest he could make.

‘I won’t try to seduce you,’ I promised lightly. But I might end by marrying her, I thought unexpectedly, when she was older. I’d been forever bombarded by actresses. An Oxfordshire farmer’s freckled-nosed blue-eyed daughter who played the piano and lapsed occasionally into sixteen-year-old awkwardness seemed in contrast an unrealistic and unlikely future.

There was no thunderbolt: just an insidious hungry delight that never went away.

Her first response was abrupt and typical. ‘I can’t afford it.’

‘Never mind, then.’

‘But... er... yes.’

‘Lucy!’

The blush persisted. ‘You’ll turn out to be a frog.’

‘Kermit’s not bad,’ I said, assessingly.

She giggled. ‘What do you want me to do with the boxes?’

Her work on the boxes had been originally my pathway to her father. I might not need her to work on them any longer, but I’d grown to like finding her here in my rooms.

‘I hope you’ll go on with the cataloguing tomorrow,’ I said.

‘All right.’

‘But this evening I have to work on the film... er, alone.’

She seemed slightly disappointed but mostly relieved. A daring step forward... half a cautious step back. But we would get there one day, I thought, and was content and even reassured by the wait.

We left through the still slightly open doorway and I walked down the passage a little way before waving her down the stairs; and, returning, I stopped to talk to my bodyguard whom O’Hara, for the company, had by now installed in the room opposite my own.

My bodyguard, half Asian, had straight black hair, black shiny eyes and no visible feelings. He might be young, agile, well-trained and fast on his feet, but he was also unimaginative and hadn’t saved me from the Armadillo.

When I pushed open his unlocked door to reveal him sitting wide awake in an upright chair facing me, he said at once, ‘Your door has all the time been open, Mr Lyon.’