Дик Фрэнсис - High Stakes

The ifs multiplied like stinging ants.

Nine-fifteen.

I got out of the car and extended the aerial of a large efficient walkie-talkie. No matter that British civilians were supposed to have permission in triple triplicate before operating them: in this case we would be cluttering the air for seconds only, and lighting flaming beacons on hill-tops would have caused a lot more fuss.

‘Charlie?’ I said, transmitting.

‘All fine here.’

‘Great.’ I paused for five seconds, and transmitted again. ‘Owen?’

‘Here, sir.’

‘Great.’

Owen and Charlie could both hear me but they couldn’t hear each other, owing to the height of the Downs where I sat. I left the aerial extended and the switches to ‘receive’, and put the gadget back in the car.

The faint drizzle persisted, but my mouth was dry.

I thought about the five of us, sitting and waiting. I wondered if the others like me were having trouble with their nerves.

The walkie-talkie crackled suddenly. I picked it up.

‘Sir?’

‘Owen?’

‘Pete Duveen just passed me.’

‘Fine.’

I could hear the escaping tension in my own voice and the excitement in his. The on-time arrival of Pete Duveen signalled the real beginning. I put the walkie-talkie down again and was disgusted to see my hand shaking.

Pete Duveen in his horsebox drove into the lay-by nine and a half minutes after he had passed Owen, who was stationed in sight of the road to Jody’s stable. Pete owned a pale blue horsebox with his name, address and telephone number painted in large black and red letters on the front and back. I had seen the box and its owner often at race meetings and it was he, in fact, whom I had engaged at Sandown on my abortive attempt to prevent Jody taking Energise home.

Pete Duveen shut down his engine and jumped from the cab.

‘Morning, Mr Scott.’

‘Morning,’ I said, shaking hands. ‘Glad to see you.’

‘Anything to oblige.’ He grinned cheerfully, letting me know both that he thought I was barmy and also that I had every right to be, as long as I was harmless and, moreover, paying him.

He was well-built and fair, with weatherbeaten skin and a threadbare moustache. Open-natured, sensible and honest. A one-man transport firm, and making a go of it.

‘You brought my horse?’ I said.

‘Sure thing.’

‘And how has he travelled?’

‘Not a peep out of him the whole way.’

‘Mind if I take a look at him?’ I said.

‘Sure thing,’ he said again. ‘But honest, he didn’t act up when we loaded him and I wouldn’t say he cared a jimmy riddle one way or another.’

I unclipped and opened the part of the side of the horsebox which formed the entrance ramp for the horses. It was a bigger box than Jody’s, but otherwise much the same. The horse stood in the front row of stalls in the one furthest across from the ramp, and he looked totally uninterested in the day’s proceedings.

‘You never know,’ I said, closing the box again. ‘He might be all the better for the change of routine.’

‘Maybe,’ Pete said, meaning he didn’t think so.

I smiled. ‘Like some coffee?’

‘Sure would.’

I opened the boot of my car, took out a thermos, and poured us each a cup.

‘Sandwich?’ I offered.

Sandwich accepted. He ate beef-and-chutney with relish. ‘Early start,’ he said, explaining his hunger. ‘You said to get here soon after nine-thirty.’

‘That’s right,’ I agreed.

‘Er... why so early?’

‘Because,’ I said reasonably, ‘I’ve other things to do all the rest of the day.’

He thought me even nuttier, but the sandwich plugged the opinion in his throat.

The sky began to brighten and the tiny-dropped drizzle dried away. I talked about racing in general and Stratford on Avon in particular, and wondered how on earth I was to keep him entertained if Jody’s box should after all not leave home until the last possible minute.

By ten-fifteen we had drunk two cups of coffee each and he had run out of energy for sandwiches. He began to move restively and make ready-for-departure signs of which I blandly took no notice. I chatted on about the pleasures of owning racehorses and my stomach bunched itself into anxious knots.

Ten-twenty. Ten twenty-five. Ten-thirty. Nothing.

It had all gone wrong, I thought. One of the things which could have sent everything awry had done so.

Ten thirty-five.

‘Look,’ Pete said persuasively. ‘You said you had a great deal to do today, and honestly, I don’t think...’

The walkie-talkie crackled.

I practically leapt towards the front of the car and reached in for it.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes, Owen.’

‘A blue horsebox just came out of his road and turned south.’

‘Right.’

I stifled my disappointment. Jody’s two runners setting off to Chepstow, no doubt.

‘What’s that?’ Pete Duveen said, his face appearing at my shoulder full of innocent enquiry.

‘Just a radio.’

‘Sounded like a police car.’

I smiled and moved away back to the rear of the car, but I had hardly got Pete engaged again in useless conversation when the crackle was repeated.

‘Sir?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘A fawn coloured box with a red slash, sir. Just turned north.’ His voice trembled with excitement.

‘That’s it, Owen.’

‘I’m on my way.’

I felt suddenly sick. Took three deep breaths. Pressed the transmit button.

‘Charlie?’

‘Yes.’

‘The box is on its way.’

‘Halle-bloody-lujah.’

Pete was again looking mystified and inquisitive. I ignored his face and took a travelling bag out of the boot of my car.

‘Time to go,’ I said pleasantly. ‘I think, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see how my horse behaves while going along, so could you start the box now and take me up the road a little way?’

He looked very surprised, but then he had found the whole expedition incomprehensible.

‘If you like,’ he said helplessly. ‘You’re the boss.’

I made encouraging signs to him to get into his cab and start the engine and while he was doing it I stowed my bag on the passenger side. The diesel engine whirred and coughed and came to thunderous life, and I went back to the Cortina.

Locked the boot, shut the windows, took the keys, locked the doors, and stood leaning against the wing holding binoculars in one hand and walkie-talkie in the other.

Pete Duveen had taken nine and a half minutes from Jody’s road to my lay-by and Jody’s box took exactly the same. Watching the far hill through raceglasses I saw the big dark blue van which contained Owen come over the horizon, followed almost immediately by an oblong of fawn.

Watched them down into the valley and on to the beginning of the hill.

I pressed the transmit button.

‘Charlie?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Seven minutes. Owen’s in front.’

‘Right.’

I pushed down the aerial of the walkie-talkie and took it and myself along to the passenger door of Pete’s box. He looked across and down at me enquiringly, wondering why on earth I was still delaying.

‘Just a moment,’ I said, giving no explanation, and he waited patiently, as if humouring a lunatic.

Owen came up the hill, changed gears abreast of the lay-by, and slowly accelerated away. Jody’s horsebox followed, doing exactly the same. The scrunched nearside front had been hammered out, I saw, but respraying lay in the future. I had a quick glimpse into the cab: two men, neither of them Jody, both unknown to me; a box driver who had replaced Andy-Fred and the lad with the horse. Couldn’t be better.

I hopped briskly up into Pete’s box.

‘Off we go, then.’