Felix Francis: Crisis

It sounded to me like a recipe for complete disaster.

‘So are the numbers of horses in the yard still declining or are they on the way back up?’

‘Times are difficult,’ Oliver said in reply. ‘People don’t have the spare cash they used to.’

I took that to mean that, yes, numbers were still declining.

I thought back to what Arabella Chadwick had said to Ryan while I was outside the kitchen door: It’s not Declan’s fault the Sheikh has decided to move the horses .

I decided it was high time I spoke directly with my client.

By the end of the afternoon several more facts had been established, the most pertinent one being that every one of Ryan’s stable staff had been accounted for. So the body in the burned-out stable block remained unidentified.

‘Do you have CCTV?’ I asked as we sat at the kitchen table.

‘Yeah, lots of it,’ Ryan replied. ‘We have cameras covering every stable block and every exit.’

‘So what does it show?’

‘Nothing.’ He threw his hands up in exasperation. ‘The control box with the hard-drive recorder was in the roof space of the block that burned. Whole thing is lost. Unbelievable. I’ve got lovely pictures of the new yard. Masses of them. That system is housed in the lads’ hostel. But for the old yard — nothing.’

‘How about sprinklers?’ I asked.

‘We have them in the new yard,’ Ryan said. ‘And we were having them retrofitted as part of the refurbishment of the flats in the old. I can’t bloody believe it. Another week and those in that block would have been working.’

‘Why was Prince of Troy in a building with no sprinkler system?’ I asked. ‘Surely your most valuable asset should have been in the safest place?’

‘I thought it was the safest place,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s close to the house. We’ve had intruders before in the new yard. And I keep all the colts together in the old yard. They’re easier to handle there without any fillies around. Before the fire I had twenty-six colts, sixteen three-year-olds and ten aged two.’

‘Are all the rest fillies then?’ I asked.

Ryan looked at me strangely.

‘No. There are also geldings and mares.’

‘What’s the difference between a filly and a mare?’ I asked.

Even I knew what a gelding was.

‘Age,’ he said, with an air of humouring an imbecile. ‘In British racing, a filly becomes a mare on her fifth birthday.’

‘On the first of January,’ I said, rather proud of myself that I knew that all horses have their birthday on the first day of the year, irrespective of when they were actually born.

‘In the northern hemisphere, yes,’ Ryan said. ‘In Australia it’s the first of August.’

‘August?’ I said. ‘Why not July? That would be halfway through the year.’

Now it was his turn to be baffled.

‘I’ve no idea. But it’s definitely the first of August.’

‘So what happens if a horse emigrates from here to Australia or vice versa, does it become half a year older or younger?’

He shrugged his shoulders. His time for humouring me was clearly over.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Is there anything else? I’ve got my entries to do and I need to concentrate. They’re difficult enough without all this palaver going on.’

He stood up to go.

‘Just one more thing,’ I said. ‘What security arrangements are there at night? Are the gates locked?’

‘Of course they’re locked,’ Ryan said irritably. ‘The whole place is locked up tight. My head lad lives in one of the flats and he does a check last thing at night before he goes to bed.’

‘Did he do it last night?’

‘I’m sure he did. He does it every night.’

‘Then how did someone get in and end up dead in the fire?’

‘I’ve no bloody idea,’ he said. ‘It was probably some homeless bastard. Climbed the gates and broke into the stables, looking for somewhere to bed down for the night. Set the place on fire with a discarded cigarette, I shouldn’t wonder. Bloody deserved to die, if you ask me.’

There was a remarkable lack of sympathy all round from the Chadwicks for the person who had just lost his life in their stables. All the compassion was for the horses.

And all afternoon, there was a continuous string of telephone calls from other trainers offering condolences for the lost animals, particularly Prince of Troy. I knew because I listened in on some of them using a second handset, just to be satisfied that the caller was not a member of the press and Ryan was not saying something he shouldn’t. But, after a while, I just let him get on with it.

The press were finding out what had happened from other sources.

Both the police and the fire service gave interviews, with senior officers standing on the road outside the gates of Castleton House Stables, and each was carried live on the TV news channels.

I watched on the set in the kitchen with Oliver, Maria and Ryan.

The Suffolk senior fire officer was up first, explaining how fire appliances from as far away as Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich had initially attended the fire along with one from neighbouring Cambridge. He reported that the fire was finally out and he thanked the firemen for their work. In all, five fire engines had been used including the two from Newmarket Fire Station, which would remain on site damping down for the rest of the day. He also stated that, as yet, no cause of the blaze had been established but fire investigators would be moving in just as soon as it was safe for them to do so.

The senior police officer, however, was far more informative.

He confirmed to the waiting press that seven horses had been lost in the fire and also revealed to the eager reporters that there had also been at least one human victim. Consequently, he said, the stable yard was being treated as a potential crime scene, even though he was at pains to point out that no actual cause of death had yet been established.

But the reporters didn’t care about that. Instead, they gleefully indulged in media speculation over foul play and who might have been responsible.

‘That’s totally ridiculous,’ Ryan shouted loudly at the TV. ‘Why would anyone purposely set fire to a stable full of horses?’

I could think of lots of reasons but decided not to mention them.

At five o’clock that afternoon, the police were still refusing Ryan access to his stables, not even to the new yard, which was outside the lines of POLICE DO NOT CROSS tape.

‘Look here,’ he told them with rising irritation. ‘In spite of everything, I still have a business to run. None of my horses has had any exercise today other than walking down to the town in the early hours. The stewards allowed me to withdraw my two at Wolverhampton this afternoon but I’ve got one declared at Beverley tomorrow, and then I have a whole raft of runners later in the week at York, Newbury and here at Newmarket. It’s all well and good them being in other people’s stables, but their regular bedding is here, as is their food. Horses don’t like change. Even without Prince of Troy, I’ve still got two left in the Dante on Thursday. If I don’t get them back here tonight, they’ll have no chance.’ Then he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘Also my staff can’t get to their homes. Some of them are still wearing their pyjamas.’

After more heated discussion between Ryan and the senior officers, they finally agreed that he could have access to the new yard, on condition that everyone used the top gate onto the road at the far end, well away from the old yard and house. The lads could also access their hostel, but the old stables and the flats above would still be off-limits.

‘What’s the Dante?’ I asked after the policemen had gone.