Дик Фрэнсис - High Stakes

Poppet smiled happily. ‘George honey, you’re sweet.’

‘Which do you do most?’ I asked her. ‘Win or lose?’

She made a face. ‘Now that’s a naughty question, Mr Scott.’

Next morning, ten o’clock to the second, I collected Allie from Hampstead.

Seen in daylight for the first time she was sparkling as the day was rotten. I arrived at her door with a big black umbrella holding off slanting sleet, and she opened it in a neat white mackintosh and knee-high black boots. Her hair bounced with new washing, and the bloom on her skin had nothing to do with Max Factor.

I tried a gentlemanly kiss on the cheek. She smelled of fresh flowers and bath soap.

‘Good morning,’ I said.

She chuckled. ‘You English are so formal.’

‘Not always.’

She sheltered under the umbrella down the path to the car and sat inside with every glossy hair dry and in place.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Fasten your lap straps,’ I said. ‘To Newmarket.’

‘Newmarket?’

‘To look at horses.’ I let in the clutch and pointed the Lamborghini roughly north-east.

‘I might have guessed.’

I grinned. ‘Is there anything you’d really rather do?’

‘I’ve visited three museums, four picture galleries, six churches, one Tower of London, two Houses of Parliament and seven theatres.’

‘In how long?’

‘Sixteen days.’

‘High time you saw some real life.’

The white teeth flashed. ‘If you’d lived with my two small nephews for sixteen days you couldn’t wait to get away from it.’

‘Your sister’s children?’

She nodded. ‘Ralph and William. Little devils.’

‘What do they play with?’

She was amused. ‘The toy maker’s market research?’

‘The customer is always right.’

We crossed the North Circular road and took the Ai towards Baldock.

‘Ralph dresses up a doll in soldier’s uniforms and William makes forts on the stairs and shoots dried beans at anyone going up.’

‘Healthy aggressive stuff.’

‘When I was little I hated being given all those educational things that were supposed to be good for you.’

I smiled. ‘It’s well known there are two sorts of toys. The ones that children like and the ones their mothers buy. Guess which there are more of?’

‘You’re cynical.’

‘So I’m often told,’ I said. ‘It isn’t true.’

The wipers worked overtime against the sleet on the windscreen and I turned up the heater. She sighed with what appeared to be contentment. The car purred easily across Cambridgeshire and into Suffolk, and the ninety minute journey seemed short.

It wasn’t the best of weather but even in July the stable I’d chosen for my three young flat racers would have looked depressing. There were two smallish quadrangles side by side, built tall and solid in Edwardian brick. All the doors were painted a dead dull dark brown. No decorations, no flowers, no grass, no gaiety of spirit in the whole place.

Like many Newmarket yards it led straight off the street and was surrounded by houses. Allie looked around without enthusiasm and put into words exactly what I was thinking.

‘It looks more like a prison.’

Bars on the windows of the boxes. Solid ten foot tall gates at the road entrance. Jagged glass set in concrete along the top of the boundary wall. Padlocks swinging on every bolt on every door in sight. All that was missing was a uniformed figure with a gun, and maybe they had those too, on occasion.

The master of all this security proved pretty dour himself. Trevor Kennet shook hands with a smile that looked an unaccustomed effort for the muscles involved and invited us into the stable office out of the rain.

A bare room; linoleum, scratched metal furniture, strip lighting and piles of paper work. The contrast between this and the grace of Rupert Ramsey was remarkable. A pity I had taken Allie to the wrong one.

‘They’ve settled well, your horses.’ His voice dared me to disagree.

‘Splendid,’ I said mildly.

‘You’ll want to see them, I expect.’

As I’d come from London to do so, I felt his remark silly.

‘They’re doing no work yet, of course.’

‘No,’ I agreed. The last Flat season had finished six weeks ago. The next lay some three months ahead. No owner in his senses would have expected his Flat horses to be in full work in December. Trevor Kennet had a genius for the obvious.

‘It’s raining,’ he said. ‘Bad day to come.’

Allie and I were both wearing macs, and I carried the umbrella. He looked lengthily at these preparations and finally shrugged.

‘Better come on, then.’

He himself wore a raincoat and a droopy hat that had suffered downpours for years. He led the way out of the office and across the first quadrangle with Allie and me close under my umbrella behind him.

He flicked the bolts on one of the dead chocolate doors and pulled both halves open.

‘Wrecker,’ he said.

We went into the box. Wrecker moved hastily away across the peat which covered the floor, a leggy bay yearling colt with a nervous disposition. Trevor Kennet made no effort to reassure him but stood four square looking at him with an assessing eye. Jody for all his faults had been good with young stock, fondling them and talking to them with affection. I thought I might have chosen badly, sending Wrecker here.

‘He needs a gentle lad,’ I said.

Kennet’s expression was open scorn. ‘Doesn’t do to mollycoddle them. Soft horses win nothing.’

End of conversation.

We went out into the rain and he slammed the bolts home. Four boxes further along he stopped again.

‘Hermes.’

Again the silent appraisal. Hermes, from the experience of two full racing seasons, could look at humans without anxiety and merely stared back. Ordinary to look at, he had won several races in masterly fashion... and lost every time I’d seriously backed him. Towards the end of the Flat season he had twice trailed in badly towards the rear of the field. Too much racing, Jody had said. Needed a holiday.

‘What do you think of him?’ I asked.

‘He’s eating well,’ Kennet said.

I waited for more, but nothing came. After a short pause we trooped out again into the rain and more or less repeated the whole depressing procedure in the box of my third colt, Bubbleglass.

I had great hopes of Bubbleglass. A late-developing two-year-old, he had run only once so far, and without much distinction. At three, though, he might be fun. He had grown and filled out since I’d seen him last. When I said so, Kennet remarked that it was only to be expected.

We all went back to the office, Kennet offered us coffee and looked relieved when I said we’d better be going.

‘What an utterly dreary place,’ Allie said, as we drove away.

‘Designed to discourage owners from calling too often, I dare say.’

She was surprised. ‘Do you mean it?’

‘Some trainers think owners should pay their bills and shut up.’

‘That’s crazy.’

I glanced sideways at her.

She said positively, ‘If I was spending all that dough, I’d sure expect to be welcomed.’

‘Biting the hand that feeds is a national sport.’

‘You’re all nuts.’

‘How about some lunch?’

We stopped at a pub which did a fair job for a Monday, and in the afternoon drove comfortably back to London. Allie made no objections when I pulled up outside my own front door and followed me in through it with none of the prickly reservations I’d feared.

I lived in the two lower floors of a tall narrow house in Prince Albert Road overlooking Regent’s Park. At street level, garage, cloakroom, workshop. Upstairs, bed, bath, kitchen and sitting-room, the last with a balcony half as big as itself. I switched on lights and led the way.