Дик Фрэнсис - Field of 13

John Chester observed the wince behind each step of his jockey’s arrival but did no more than shrug. The fast gallops got done to his satisfaction (all that mattered) and he offered a tactics-planning breakfast on his Winchester runners.

At shortly after eight-thirty, while Wendy Billington Innes, twenty miles away, still sat in frozen and helpless disbelief on her dressing stool, John Chester, bulky and aggressive, told his jockey that Storm Cone was to win the fourth race, the Cloister Hurdle, at all costs. Moggie must somehow achieve it.

John Chester had been doing his sums, and the prize money of the Cloister Hurdle would put him into leading position on the stakes-won trainers’ list. The big prizes were sparse at that time of year, as the main part of the jumping season was over: the very last was on the following day, Saturday, but Percy Driffield had no suitable runners. With luck John Chester could win the Cloister and stay ahead of Percy Driffield for the few weeks that were left.

John Chester ached to be leading trainer, and to humble Percy Driffield.

‘Find a way,’ he told his jockey, ‘of beating that bugger Lilyglit. He must have a weak spot somewhere.’

Moggie Reilly knew all about Lilyglit, having followed the bright chestnut twice past the winning post on other occasions. He doubted that Storm Cone would ever beat Lilyglit, but had more tact than to say so. He ate dry toast to keep his weight down and let John Chester’s wishful thinking roll over his head.

Sarah Driffield drove Moggie Reilly’s car back to park it outside The Stag, as he’d asked, and hid its key out of sight in a magnetic box.

As it was daylight she took the shorter path home across fields that she had shunned the previous midnight, and was sitting in the kitchen, showered, changed and eating breakfast when her father returned from seeing his horses gallop.

Percy Driffield, shedding jacket and helmet, merely asked if she’d had a good time at the birthday party.

‘Yes, thank you,’ she answered. ‘Moggie Reilly very kindly-drove me home.’

Her father frowned. ‘Don’t encourage him.’

‘No.’

Tequila Slammer , she thought. A pinch of salt on the tongue, toss back a jigger of neat tequila, suck a slice of lime. She had felt liberated. Sleeping with Moggie Reilly had become a fun and ‘why not?’ thing to do. She searched her conscience for guilt and came up with only a smile.

Percy Driffield talked compulsively about Lilyglit. ‘Damn fool owner wants to sell him. I’ve told him he needs to insure him, but he keeps putting it off. Why don’t very rich people insure things? Valuations invite crooks, he says. Jasper Billington Innes, nice enough, but daft. You’ve met him often, of course. I told him Lilyglit is a Champion Hurdle prospect, given another year. I can’t think what’s got into the man. He sounded panic-stricken on the phone yesterday evening, telling me to find a buyer at once. At least wait until after he wins the Cloister Hurdle, I said, but he’s afraid of Storm Cone, at better weights in the handicap. He seemed to think I could make some sort of suggestion to Storm Cone’s jockey. Not a chance. I told him to try it himself.’

His daughter raised her eyebrows over her cornflakes. If Moggie took a bribe she had finished with him, she thought.

Moggie ‘the cat’ Reilly, like many other jockeys, kept fit by regular running, and many, also, left their cars outside the pubs at night rather than be done for drink-driving, so no one paid any attention when Moggie jogged to The Stag, plucked his keys from their magnetic box and drove himself home.

When he walked through his door, the telephone began ringing: he picked up the receiver hoping the call would be short. He felt chilled, the warm jog ebbing. He wanted a hot shower and to sit in a warm woollen lumberjack sweater while he drank more coffee and read the newspapers.

A. high nervous hurried voice in his ear said, ‘I want to speak to Reilly. It’s Billington Innes here. Jasper... er... Billington Innes. I own Lilyglit... er... do you know who I mean?’

Moggie Reilly knew well. He said he was Reilly.

Yes. Well... er... I’m selling my horse.’ Billington Innes took a slow deep breath and tried to speak more slowly. ‘I’ve arranged a sale... top price of course... really an excellent sale...’

Moggie Reilly said briefly, ‘Congratulations.’

‘Yes, but, well, do you see, it’s a conditional sale.’

‘Mm?’ Moggie Reilly murmured, ‘Conditional on what? ’

‘Well... actually, conditional on his winning this afternoon. Winning the Cloister Hurdle, to be precise...’

‘I see,’ Moggie said with calm, and indeed he did see.

Yes... well, Percy Driffield refused to approach you with this proposition, but...’ he spoke faster, ‘this is not a bribe I’m offering you, not at all. I wouldn’t do that, absolutely not.’

‘No,’ Moggie said.

‘What I’m offering, do you see,’ Jasper Billington Innes continued, coming awkwardly to the point, ‘is in the nature of commission . If my horse Lilyglit wins the Cloister Hurdle, I can finalise the sale on better terms, and... er, well, if you and Storm Cone could have assisted the result in any way, then you would have earned a commission, don’t you see?’

What I see, Moggie Reilly thought to himself, is a quick way to lose my licence. To Jasper Billington Innes he replied reassuringly, ‘Your horse Lilyglit is good enough to win without help.’

‘But think of the handicap. It alters everything. And last time out Lilyglit at level weights beat Storm Cone by only two lengths...’ The voice rose in worry.

‘Mr Billington Innes,’ Moggie Reilly said patiently, near to shivering, ‘there are eleven runners in the Cloister. Theoretically it’s anybody’s race because of the handicap, and if Storm Cone makes his way to the front, I shan’t stop him.’

‘Are you saying you won’t help me?’

‘I’m saying good luck.’

The phone went dead abruptly. Jasper Billington Innes, thought Moggie Reilly, as he headed, undressing, for the shower, was one of the last people he’d have expected to aim to win by flim-flam.

Moggie didn’t know, of course, about the manager at Stemmer Peabody.

Jasper Billington Innes sat beside the telephone, staring unseeingly at the carpet of a small hotel bedroom next door to his gaming club. The deal he had made with his bookmaker and the club proprietors no longer seemed so brilliant as at four in the morning, but he had to admit that they’d been fair and even kind. He’d realised too late, though, that Lilyglit had to win the Cloister Hurdle for him to be left with enough to hold up his head around town. In effect, if Lilyglit won, the prize money would go a long way towards paying his gambling debts. Lilyglit’s value would have risen and his sale would leave a useful surplus. If Lilyglit lost, his sale proceeds would be swallowed by debt. If he lost the race he would be worth less than he would fetch at that moment. His hard-pressed owner had agreed that the horse’s value should decline slightly with every length he was beaten.

Jasper saw betting on Lilyglit to win as a way out, but his bookmaker had shaken his head and refused to increase his debt.

Jasper Innes made a hopeless list of his other saleable assets, none of which were unentailed antiques or portraits. He and Wendy had both from childhood lived among precious objects that belonged for ever to the next generation. Even his old house, dying of rot, belonged to his son and his son and his son, for ever.

Jasper Billington Innes, until that morning, would never have tried to bribe a jockey. He was only vaguely aware of the graceful manner of Moggie’s refusal, and he could think of nothing except his own desolation.