Дик Фрэнсис - Field of 13

‘Do it,’ The Rock insisted. ‘Tell your brother to fix it again.’

‘It’ll cost you,’ Nigel Tape said weakly.

‘Get on with it,’ he was told.

Nigel Tape’s ex-jail-bird car-thief brother knew a man who knew a man who was in touch with a man who knew someone in the elimination business. In early February 1987, the patron of Emil Jacques’ local cafe produced from beside his till a pale pink envelope that smelled sweetly of carnations.

The patron smiled widely, nudging Emil Jacques in the ribs. Emil Jacques smelled the scent and with many a wink stowed the billet-doux away to read in private.

Emil Jacques later stood at the window of his splendid lofty apartment and thoughtfully watched the small boats busy below on the Seine. The pink envelope had contained only a postcard-sized black and white photograph of Gypsy Joe, with his name, address, age and occupation written in pencil on the back. Underneath, in small letters, he read, ‘David Rockman, jockey’.

Owing to his careful and successful slaughter of British steeple-chasing’s brightest boy, Emil Jacques had begun to take a passing interest in the sport. He bought occasionally from news-stands British racing newspapers and persevered with them to the extent that he needed a French-English dictionary less and less. His English, in racing terms, became increasingly idiomatic.

He was tempted by the prospect of killing Gypsy Joe.

Normally he refused two terminations within the same small social or business circle, reckoning the duplication doubled his risk. Also two killings instigated so soon by the same client sent fierce warning shivers down his spine. David Rockman, jockey, however, had paid him promptly for Red Millbrook’s death and presumably knew that at least a similar sum would be expected again.

Emil Jacques cared nothing about his clients’ motives or inner psychological forces which could be roughly categorised, he thought, as greed, lust or hate. He cared only that he did his job cleanly, got safely clear and banked the proceeds later in his secretive way. He cared nothing personally for Red Millbrook or Gypsy Joe Smith. Emil Jacques Guirlande was always a true mercenary, a cold soldier for hire.

He decided that it would be safe enough to reconnoitre at least the Gypsy Joe prospect. Consequently, with small bag packed (no guns) he crossed the Channel with his car, uncomfortably sea-sick for once because of a sudden maritime winter storm. Early February snow fell and lay obstinately over southern England, bringing horse racing to a halt, the weather again conspiring to prolong Emil Jacques’ target’s life.

Emil Jacques could make only sporadic checks on Gypsy Joe’s daily existence without drawing comment on himself, but he learned the trainer’s morning routine of travelling up by Land Rover to the white-dusted Downs and watching the long string of horses cantering past for exercise up an all-weather sand track. He listened to the stable-lads’ chat in the local pubs in the evenings and absorbed their graphic language, along with the general flow of stable life.

He learned that Gypsy Joe’s devotion to his horses included a late-night visit to each of them, to see that all were comfortable and at peace, and on silent shoes one evening he approached the stable-yard and stopped at an undiscovered distance, watching.

Gypsy Joe came out of his house alone at ten o’clock and made his rounds, finally leaving his much loved horses safe until morning. At ten the following evening he made his rounds again, and at ten the next evening, again.

It was there, in the tranquil yard, Emil Jacques decided, that one night soon a quiet death would spit out of the dark.

During the night of Emil Jacques’ decision, a thaw turned England brown and green, and next day Gypsy Joe took his runners to Sandown Park races.

The two months since Red Millbrook’s murder had in no way lessened Gypsy Joe’s furious grief, and he couldn’t help remembering that it was here on this testing track that the red-haired boy’s dormant genius had first fully awakened. While he watched his February runners do moderately well with a jockey-replacement, Gypsy Joe mourned the past and vowed to continue his pursuit of Davey The Rock. However long it took him, he would reduce the guilty villain to breakdown and confession.

Davey Rockman, that afternoon, had been engaged (by a minor trainer) to ride only one race. He finished second to last with his mind not on the job. He spent his time glaring at Gypsy Joe in unabated hate, hopping up and down for an answer to the demand he’d passed to Nigel Tape’s brother.

Emil Jacques Guirlande, correctly positive that neither man would know him, went with inner amusement to Sandown Park races and stood close to both.

Gypsy Joe, his quarry, gave a cursory glance at the neat youngish undistinguished racegoer reading his racecard six feet away and felt none of the supernatural shudder of foreboding that his ancestry would have expected. Gypsy Joe looked at Red Millbrook’s murderer and didn’t know him.

An hour later, on the stands before the fifth race, Emil Jacques rubbed sleeves with Davey The Rock and listened to him complaining acidly to Nigel Tape about merciless trainers, the slow post and the spitefulness of ungrateful whores.

Emil Jacques, disliking him, decided to increase his fee sharply.

When the proposal reached Davey The Rock three days later he screeched with fury; the swollen payment demanded up-front would swallow the rest of his savings. But Gypsy Joe’s campaign of accusation was driving him to drink and madness, and he would do anything — anything — he thought, to get rid of the remorseless whispers in his ears. ‘Murderer. Murderer. Admit you let loose a murderer.’

Davey Rockman sent every advance cent asked for, leaving nothing in reserve. He was foolishly risking that the murderer would not come looking for the rest after the deed was done.

A week later, at the beginning of March, the patron of the café passed two letters — nudge nudge — to his lucky customer with the busy sex life. The customer winked and smiled and began to think of moving to a different mail box.

Emil Jacques took his letters home. One, a thick sort of package, contained the whole of Davey The Rock’s hard-earned savings. The other proposed the almost immediate assassination of a politician in Brussels, death to occur within ten days, before a crucial vote.

Emil Jacques stood by his high window and looked down on the Seine. Caution warned him that Brussels was too soon. His anonymity, he reckoned, depended in part on the infrequency of his operations.

He had survived Red Millbrook’s murder easily, but the hunt would be redoubled after Gypsy Joe’s. The enlarged fee might make that death worthwhile, but a further murder in Brussels, his third in little over three months, that quick murder might give him an identity in police consciousness. The last thing he wanted, he thought grimly, was to be ‘Wanted’.

All the same, the Brussels proposal included the offer of a magnificent fee for a prompt performance, and he was, he considered, the BEST.

The following day therefore he banked Davey Rockman’s savings, put in a morning’s teaching with new guns at the gun club and in the afternoon and evening drove across Belgium to Brussels. He would reconnoitre the Brussels job, he decided, and would give his yes or no before crossing to England to terminate Gypsy Joe. He would be careful, he thought, and go one step at a time.

He spent three too-slow days in Brussels stalking his politician round the bazaars of the European parliament, finding to his growing dismay that his quarry was seldom alone and even in the gents was thoroughly guarded. What was worse, there was a fond wife and a pack of bright children with little sharp eyes. Children were a hazard for sensible murderers to steer wide of.