Dick Francis - Enquiry

‘Attaboy,’ he said. He stood up. ‘Time for second lot, I hear.’ Down in the yard the lads were bringing out the horses, their hooves scrunching hollowly on the packed gravel.

‘How are they doing?’ I asked.

‘Oh... so so. I sure hate having to put up other jocks. Given me a bellyful of the whole game, this business has.’

When he’d gone down to ride I cleaned up my already clean flat and made some more coffee. The day stretched emptily ahead. So did the next day and the one after that, and every day for an indefinite age.

Ten minutes of this prospect was enough. I searched around and found another straw to cling to: telephoned to a man I knew slightly at the B.B.C. A cool secretary said he was out, and to try again at eleven.

I tried again at eleven. Still out. I tried at twelve. He was in then, but sounded as if he wished he weren’t.

‘Not Kelly Hughes, the...’ His voice trailed off while he failed to find a tactful way of putting it.

‘That’s right.’

‘Well... er... I don’t think...’

‘I don’t want anything much,’ I assured him resignedly. ‘I just want to know the name of the outfit who make the films of races. The camera patrol people.’

‘Oh.’ He sounded relieved. That’s the Racecourse Technical Services. Run by the Levy Board. They’ve a virtual monopoly, though there’s one other small firm operating sometimes under licence. Then there are the television companies, of course. Did you want any particular race? Oh... the Lemonfizz Crystal Cup, I suppose.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘The meeting at Reading two weeks earlier.’

‘Reading... Reading... Let’s see, then. Which lot would that be?’ He hummed a few out of tune bars while he thought it over. ‘I should think... yes, definitely the small firm, the Cannot Lie people. Cannot Lie, Ltd. Offices at Woking, Surrey. Do you want their number?’

‘Yes please.’

He read it to me.

‘Thank you very much,’ I said.

‘Any time... er... well... I mean...’

‘I know what you mean,’ I agreed. ‘But thanks anyway.’

I put down the receiver with a grimace. It was still no fun being everyone’s idea of a villain.

The B.B.C. man’s reaction made me decide that the telephone might get me nil results from the Cannot Lie brigade. Maybe they couldn’t lie, but they would certainly evade. And anyway, I had the whole day to waste.

The Cannot Lie office was a rung or two up the luxury ladder from David Oakley’s, which wasn’t saying a great deal. A large rather bare room on the second floor of an Edwardian house in a side street. A rickety lift large enough for one slim man or two starving children. A well worn desk with a well worn blonde painting her toe nails on top of it.

‘Yes?’ she said, when I walked in.

She had lilac panties on, with lace. She made no move to prevent me seeing a lot of them.

‘No one in?’ I asked.

‘Only us chickens,’ she agreed. She had a South London accent and the smart back-chatting intelligence that often goes with it. ‘Which do you want, the old man or our Alfie?’

‘You’ll do nicely,’ I said.

‘Ta.’ She took it as her due, with a practised come-on-so-far-but-no-further smile. One foot was finished. She stretched out her leg and wiggled it up and down to help with the drying.

‘Going to a dance tonight,’ she explained. ‘In me peep-toes.’

I didn’t think anyone would concentrate on the toes. Apart from the legs she had a sharp pointed little bosom under a white cotton sweater and a bright pink patent leather belt clasping a bikini sized waist. Her body looked about twenty years old. Her face looked as if she’d spent the last six of them bed hopping.

‘Paint the other one,’ I suggested.

‘You’re not in a hurry?’

‘I’m enjoying the scenery.’

She gave a knowing giggle and started on the other foot. The view was even more hair-raising than before. She watched me watching, and enjoyed it.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Carol. What’s yours?’

‘Kelly.’

‘From the Isle of Man?’

‘No. The land of our fathers.’

She gave me a bright glance. ‘You catch on quick, don’t you?’

I wished I did. I said regretfully, ‘How long do you keep ordinary routine race films?’

Huh? For ever, I suppose.’ She changed mental gear effortlessly, carrying straight on with her uninhibited painting. ‘We haven’t destroyed any so far, that’s to say. ’Course, we’ve only been in the racing business eighteen months. No telling what they’ll do when the big storeroom’s full. We’re up to the eyebrows in all the others with films of motor races, golf matches, three day events, any old things like that.’

‘Where’s the big storeroom?’

‘Through there.’ She waved the small pink enamelling brush in the general direction of a scratched once cream door. ‘Want to see?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

‘Go right ahead.’

She had finished the second foot. The show was over. With a sigh I removed my gaze and walked over to the door in question. There was only a round hole where most doors have a handle. I pushed against the wood and the door swung inwards into another large high room, furnished this time with rows of free standing bookshelves, like a public library. The shelves, however, were of bare functional wood, and there was no covering on the planked floor.

Well over half the shelves were empty. On the others were rows of short wide box files, their backs labelled with neat typed strips explaining what was to be found within. Each box proved to contain all the films from one day’s racing, and they were all efficiently arranged in chronological order. I pulled out the box for the day I rode Squelch and Wanderlust at Reading, and looked inside. There were six round cans of sixteen millimetre film, numbered one to six, and space enough for another one, number seven.

I took the box out to Carol. She was still sitting on top of the desk, dangling the drying toes and reading through a woman’s magazine.

‘What have you found then?’

‘Do you lend these films to anyone who wants them?’

‘Hire, not lend. Sure.’

‘Who to?’

‘Anyone who asks. Usually it’s the owners of the horses. Often they want prints made to keep, so we make them.’

‘Do the Stewards often want them?’

‘Stewards? Well, see, if there’s any doubt about a race the Stewards see the film on the racecourse. That van the old man and our Alfie’s got develops it on the spot as soon as it’s collected from the cameras.’

‘But sometimes they send for them afterwards?’

‘Sometimes, yeah. When they want to compare the running of some horse or other.’ Her legs suddenly stopped swinging. She put down the magazine and gave me a straight stare.

‘Kelly... Kelly Hughes ?’

I didn’t answer.

‘Hey, you’re not a bit like I thought.’ She put her blonde head on one side, assessing me. ‘None of those sports writers ever said anything about you being smashing looking and dead sexy.’

I laughed. I had a crooked nose and a scar down one cheek from where a horse’s hoof had cut my face open, and among jockeys I was an also-ran as a bird-attracter.

‘It’s your eyes,’ she said. ‘Dark and sort of smiley and sad and a bit withdrawn. Give me the happy shivers, your eyes do.’

‘You read all that in a magazine,’ I said.

‘I never!’ But she laughed.

‘Who asked for the film that’s missing from the box?’ I said. ‘And what exactly did they ask for?’

She sighed exaggeratedly and edged herself off the desk into a pair of bright pink sandals.

‘Which film is that?’ She looked at the box and its reference number, and did a Marilyn Monroe sway over to a filing cabinet against the wall. ‘Here we are. One official letter from the Stewards’ secretary saying please send film of last race at Reading...’