Дик Фрэнсис - Bolt

‘And get it,’ I said. ‘He was sure of it.’

‘Yes.’

‘But Uncle Roland could say he was forced into signing,’ Danielle said. ‘He could repudiate it, couldn’t he?’

‘He might have been able to nullify an application form quite easily, but with a contract it’s much more difficult. He could plead threats and harassment, but the legal position might be that it was too late to change his mind, once he’d surrendered.’

‘And if he did get the contract overthrown,’ I said reflectively, ‘Henri Nanterre could start his harassment over again. There could be no end to it, until the contract was re-signed.’

‘But all four of us have to sign now,’ Danielle said. ‘What if we all say we won’t?’

‘I think,’ I said, ‘if your uncle decided to sign, you would all follow his lead.’

Litsi nodded. ‘The four-signature agreement is a delaying tactic, not a solution.’

‘And what,’ Danielle said flatly, ‘is a solution?’

Litsi looked my way. ‘Put Kit to work on it.’ He smiled. ‘Danielle told me you tied all sorts of strong men into knots last November. Can’t you do it again?’

‘This is a bit different,’ I said.

‘What happened last time?’ he asked. ‘Danielle told me no details.’

‘A newspaper was giving my sister Holly and her husband a lot of unearned bad publicity — he’s a racehorse trainer and they said he was going broke — and basically I got them to apologise and pay Bobby some compensation.’

‘And Bobby’s appalling father,’ Danielle said, ‘tell Litsi about him.’

She could look at me, as now, as if everything were the same. I tried with probably little success to keep my general anxiety about her from showing too much, and told the story to Litsi.

‘The real reason for the attacks on Bobby was to get at his father, who’d been trying to take over the newspaper. Bobby’s father, Maynard Allardeck, was in line for a knighthood, and the newspaper’s idea was to discredit him so that he shouldn’t get one. Maynard was a real pain, a ruthless burden on Bobby’s back. So I... er... got him off.’

‘How?’ Litsi asked curiously.

‘Maynard,’ I said, ‘makes fortunes by lending money to dicky businesses. He puts them straight and then calls in the loan. The businesses can’t repay him, so he takes over the businesses, and shortly after sells off their assets, closing them down. The smiling shark comes along and gobbles up the grateful minnows, who don’t discover their mistake until they’re half digested.’

‘So what did you do?’ Litsi said.

‘Well... I went around filming interviews with some of the people he had damaged. They were pretty emotional stuff. An old couple he’d cheated out of a star racehorse, a man whose son committed suicide when he lost his business, and a foolish boy who’d been led into gambling away half his inheritance.’

‘I saw the film,’ Danielle said. ‘It hit like hammers... it made me cry. Kit threatened to send video tape copies to all sorts of people if Maynard did any more harm to Bobby. And you’ve forgotten to say,’ she said to me, ‘that Maynard tried to get Bobby to kill you.’

Litsi blinked. ‘To kill...’

‘Mm,’ I said. ‘He’s paranoid about Bobby marrying my sister. He’s been programmed from birth to hate all Fieldings. He told Bobby when he was a little boy that if he was ever naughty, the Fieldings would eat him.’

I explained about the depth and bitterness of the old Fielding — Allardeck feud.

‘Bobby and I,’ I said, ‘have made it up and are friends, but his father can’t stand that.’

‘Bobby thinks,’ Danielle said to me, ‘that Maynard also can’t stand you being successful. He wouldn’t feel so murderous if you’d been a lousy jockey.’

‘Maynard,’ I told Litsi, smiling, ‘is a member of the Jockey Club and also now turns up quite often as a Steward at various racecourses. He would dearly like to see me lose my licence.’

‘Which he can’t manage unfairly,’ Litsi said thoughtfully, ‘because of the existence of the film.’

‘It’s a stand-off,’ I agreed equably.

‘OK,’ Litsi said, ‘then how about a stand-off for Henri Nanterre?’

‘I don’t know enough about him. I’d known Maynard all my life. I don’t know anything about arms or anyone who deals in them.’

Litsi pursed his lips. ‘I think I could arrange that,’ he said.

I telephoned to Wykeham later that Sunday afternoon and listened to the weariness in his voice. His day had been a procession of frustrations and difficulties which were not yet over. The dog-patrol man, complete with dog, was sitting in his kitchen drinking tea and complaining that the weather was freezing. Wykeham was afraid most of the patrolling would be done all night indoors.

‘Is it freezing really?’ I asked. Freezing was always bad news because racing would be abandoned, frosty ground being hard, slippery and dangerous.

‘Two degrees off it.’

Wykeham kept thermometers above the outdoor water taps so he could switch on low-powered battery heaters in a heavy freeze and keep the water flowing. His whole stable was rich with gadgets he’d adopted over the years, like infra-red lights in the boxes to keep the horses warm and healthy.

‘A policeman came,’ Wykeham said. ‘A detective constable. He said it was probably some boys’ prank. I ask you! I told him it was no prank to shoot two horses expertly, but he said it was amazing what boys got up to. He said he’d seen worse things. He’d seen ponies in fields with their eyes gouged out. It was c... c... crazy. I said Cotopaxi was no pony, he was co-favourite for the Grand National, and he said it was b... bad luck on the owner.’

‘Did he promise any action?’

‘He said he would come back tomorrow and take statements from the lads, but I don’t think they know anything. Pete, who looked after Cotopaxi, has been in tears and the others are all indignant. It’s worse for them than having one killed accidentally.’

‘For us all,’ I said.

‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘It didn’t help that the slaughterers had so much trouble getting the bodies out. I didn’t watch. I couldn’t. I l... loved both those horses.’

To the slaughterers, of course, dead horses were just so much dogmeat, and although it was perhaps a properly unsentimental way of looking at it, it wasn’t always possible for someone like Wykeham, who had cared for them, talked to them, planned for them and lived through their lives. Trainers of steeplechasers usually knew their charges for a longer span than Flat-race trainers, ten years or more sometimes as opposed to three or four. When Wykeham said he loved a horse, he meant it.

He wouldn’t yet have the same feeling for Kinley, I thought. Kinley, the bright star, young and fizzing. Kinley was excitement, not an old buddy.

‘Look after Kinley,’ I said.

‘Yes, I’ve moved him. He’s in the corner box.’

The corner box, always the last to be used, couldn’t be reached directly from any courtyard but only through another box. Its position was a nuisance for lads, but it was also the most secret and safe place in the stable.

‘That’s great,’ I said with relief, ‘and now, what about tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Plumpton races.’

There was a slight silence while he reorganised his thoughts. He always sent a bunch of horses to go-ahead Plumpton because it was one of his nearest courses, and as far as I knew I was riding six of them.

‘Dusty has a list,’ he said eventually.

‘OK.’

‘Just ride them as you think best.’

‘All right.’

‘Goodnight, then, Kit.’

‘Goodnight, Wykeham.’