Дик Фрэнсис: Field of 13

The scrambling thousands deserted all the racecourse buildings within a space of five minutes. Only a very few stayed behind, and chief of these was Kevin Cawdor-Jones, who had never lacked for personal courage and now saw it as his duty as a soldier to remain at his post.

The under-strength band of policemen collected bit by bit outside the weighing-room, each man hiding his natural apprehension under a reassuring front. Probably another bloody hoax, they told each other. It was always a hoax. Or nearly always. Their officer took charge of organising the search and told the civilian Cawdor-Jones to remove himself to safety.

‘No, no,’ said Cawdor-Jones. ‘While you look for the bomb, I’ll make quite sure that everyone’s out.’ He smiled a little anxiously and dived purposefully into the weighing-room.

All clear there, he thought, peering rapidly round the jockeys’ washroom. All clear in the judge’s box, the photo-finish developing room, the kitchens, the boiler room, the Tote, the offices, the stores... He bustled from building to building, knowing all the back rooms, the nooks and crannies where some deaf member of the staff, some drunk member of the public, might be sitting unawares.

He saw no people. He saw no bomb. He returned a little breathlessly to the open space outside the weighing-room and waited for a report from the slower police.

Around the stands Tricksy Wilcox was putting the great Bandwagon idea into sloppy execution. Chuckling away internally over the memory of his Irish impersonation (good enough for entry to Equity, he thought), he bustled speedily from bar to bar and in and out of the other doors, filling his large empty binoculars case with provender. It was amazing, he thought, giggling, how careless people were in a panic.

Twice, he came face to face with policemen.

‘All clear in there, Officer,’ he said purposefully, each time pointing back to where he had been. Each time the police gaze flickered unsuspectingly over the brown trilby, the dark suit, dim tie, and took him for one of the racecourse staff.

Only the orange socks stopped him getting clean away. One policeman, watching his receding back view, frowned uncertainly at the brilliant segments between trouser-leg and shoe and started slowly after him.

‘Hey—’ he said.

Tricksy turned his head, saw the Law advancing, lost his nerve, and bolted. Tricksy was never the most intelligent of men.

Saturday afternoon at 4 o’clock, Cawdor-Jones made another announcement.

‘It appears the bomb warning was just another hoax. It is now safe for everyone to return to the stands.’

The crowd streamed back in reverse and made for the bars. The barmaids returned to their posts and immediately raised hands and voices in a screeching sharp chorus of affronted horror.

‘Someone’s pinched all the takings!’

‘The cheek of it! Taken our tips, and all!’

In the various Tote buildings, the ticket sellers stood appalled. Most of the huge intake for the biggest race of the meeting had simply vanished.

Angelisa Ludville looked with utter disbelief at her own plundered cash drawer. White, shaking, she joined the clamour of voices. ‘The money’s gone.’

Cawdor-Jones received report after report with a face of anxious despair. He knew no doors had been locked after the stampede to the exit. He knew no security measures whatever had been taken. The racecourse wasn’t equipped to deal with such a situation. The Committee would undoubtedly blame him. Might even give him the sack.

At 4.30 he listened with astounded relief to news from the police that a man had been apprehended and was now helping to explain how his binoculars case came to be crammed to overflowing with used treasury notes, many of them bearing a fresh watermark resulting from the use of a wet beer glass as a paper-weight.

Monday morning, Tricksy Wilcox appeared gloomily before a magistrate and was remanded in custody for seven days. The great Bandwagon idea hadn’t been so hot after all, and they would undoubtedly send him down for more than nine months this time.

Only one thought brightened his future. The police had tried all weekend to get information out of him, and he had kept his mouth tight shut. Where, they wanted to know, had he hidden the biggest part of his loot?

Tricksy said nothing.

There had only been room in the binoculars case for one-tenth of the stolen money. Where had he put the bulk?

Tricksy wasn’t telling.

He would get off more lightly, they said, if he surrendered the rest.

Tricksy didn’t believe it. He grinned disdainfully and shook his head. Tricksy knew from past experience that he would have a much easier time inside as the owner of a large hidden cache. He’d be respected. Treated with proper awe. He’d have status. Nothing on earth would have persuaded him to spill the beans.

Monday morning, Major Cawdor-Jones took his red face to an emergency meeting of his Executive Committee and agreed helplessly with Bellamy’s sharply reiterated opinion that the racecourse security was a disgrace.

‘I warned you,’ Bellamy repeated for the tenth self-righteous time. ‘I warned you all. We need more locks. There are some excellent slam-shut devices available for the cash drawers in the Tote. I’m told that all money can be secured in five seconds. I propose that these devices be installed immediately throughout the racecourse.’

He glared belligerently round the table. Roskin kept his eyes down and merely pursed his mouth, and Kingdom Hill voted to bolt its doors now that the horse was gone.

Monday evening, Angelisa Ludville poured a double gin, switched on the television and put her feet up. Beside her lay a pile of stamped and addressed envelopes, each containing a cheque clearing one of her dreaded debts. She sighed contentedly. Never, she thought, would she forget the shock of seeing her empty till. Never would she get over the fright it had given her. Never would she forget the rush of relief when she realised that everyone had been robbed, not just herself. Because she knew perfectly well that it was one of the other sellers whose take she had scooped up on the scramble to the door. She had thought it plain stupid to lift the money from her own place. She couldn’t know that there would be another, more ambitious thief. It would have been plain silly at the time to steal from her own place. And besides, there was far more cash at the other window.

Monday evening, Kevin Cawdor-Jones sat in his bachelor flat thinking about the second search of Kingdom Hill. All day Sunday the police had repeated the nook-and-cranny inspection, but slowly, without fear, looking not for a bang but a bank. Cawdor-Jones had given his willing assistance, but nothing at all had been found. The money had vanished.

‘Tricksy must have had a partner,’ said the police officer in charge morosely. ‘But we won’t get a dicky bird out of him.’

Cawdor-Jones, unsacked from his managership, smiled gently at the memory of the past few days. Cawdor-Jones, impulsive and rashly courageous, had made the most of the opportunity Tricksy Wilcox had provided.

Cawdor-Jones, whose nerve could never be doubted, had driven away unchallenged on Saturday evening with the jackpot from the Tote.

He leaned over the arm of his chair and fondly patted his bulging briefcase.

Although first published here , Dead on Red is set in the past (in 1986 and 1987, to be exact) partly because the regulations regarding the carriage of hand-guns from mainland Europe to England were tightened as part of the 1988 firearms act .

Emil Jacques Guirlande, Frenchman, feared flying to the point of phobia. Even advertising posters featuring aeroplanes, and especially the roar of stationary jet engines at airports, raised his heartbeat to discomfort and brought a fine mist of chill sweat to his hairline. Consequently he travelled from his Paris home by wheels and waves on his world-wide entrepreneurial missions, the more leisurely journeys in fact suiting his cautious nature better. He liked to approach his work thoughtfully, every contingency envisaged. Panicky reactions to unforeseen hitches were, in his orderly consideration, the stupidity of amateurs.