Dick Francis: Proof

A large crane on caterpillar tracks came grinding slowly over the hill and was manoeuvred into position near the horsebox; and in time, with chains, the heavy green vehicle was lifted a few inches into the air, and, after a pause, lifted higher and swung away onto a stretch of cleared grass.

The horse, still intermittently kicking, was finally released down a ramp and led away by one of Jack’s lads, and, closing the box again, two policemen took up stances to deter the inquisitive.

There was a small dreadful group of people waiting, unmoving, staring silently at the merciful screens. They knew, they had to know, that those they sought were dead, yet they stood with dry eyes, their faces haggard with persisting hope. Five tons of metal had smashed into a close-packed crowd... yet they hoped.

One of them turned his head and saw me, and walked unsteadily towards me as if his feet were obeying different orders from his legs. He was dressed in jeans and a dirty T-shirt, and he neither looked nor sounded like one of the guests. More like one of Jack’s lads on his Sunday off.

‘You went in there, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You’re the guy who brings the drinks, aren’t you? Someone said you went in...’ He gestured vaguely towards the remains of the tent. ‘Did you see my wife? Was she in there? Is she?’

‘I don’t know.’ I shook my head.

‘She was carrying things round. Drinks and such. She likes doing that... seeing people.’

One of the waitresses. He saw the movement in my face, and interpreted it unerringly.

‘She’s there... isn’t she?’ I didn’t answer for a moment, and he said with pride and despair inextricably mixed. ‘She’s pretty, you know. So pretty.’

I nodded and swallowed. ‘She’s pretty.’

‘Oh, no...’ He let the grief out in a tearing wail. ‘Oh, no...’

I said helplessly, ‘My own wife died... not long ago. I do know... I’m so... so appallingly sorry.’

He looked at me blankly and went back to the others to stare at the screens, and I felt useless and inadequate and swamped with pity.

The horsebox had hit at shortly before one-thirty: it was after five before the new investigators would let anyone leave. Messages were eventually passed that all could go, but that each car would have to stop at the gate for the passengers to give their names.

Tired, hungry, dishevelled, many with bandaged cuts, the guests who had trooped so expectantly down the hill climbed slowly, silently up. Like refugees, I thought. An exodus. One could hear the engines starting in a chorus, and see the first movement of wheels.

A man touched my arm: the fellow tunneller. A tall man, going grey, with intelligent eyes.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Tony Beach.’

‘Mine’s McGregor. Gerard McGregor.’ He pronounced the G of Gerard soft, like a J, in a voice that was remotely but detectably Scots, ‘Glad to know you,’ he said. He held out his hand, which I shook.

We smiled slightly at each other, acknowledging our shared experience; then he turned away and put his arm round the shoulders of a good-looking woman at his side, and I watched them thread their way across to the gate through the roses. Pleasant man, I thought; and that was all.

I went into the house to see if there was anything I could do for Flora before I left, and found a shambles of a different sort. Every downstairs room, now empty, looked as if a full-scale army had camped there, which in a way it had. Every cup and saucer in the place must have been pressed into service, and every glass. The bottles on the drinks tray were all empty, open-necked. Ashtrays overflowed. Crumbs of food lay on plates. Cushions were squashed flat.

In the kitchen, locust-like, the lunch-less guests had eaten everything to hand. Empty soup tins littered the worktops, egg shells lay in the sink, a chicken carcass, picked clean, jostled gutted packets of biscuits and crackers. Everything edible had gone from the refrigerator and saucepans lay dirty on the stove.

There was a faint exclamation from the doorway, and I turned to see Flora there, her face heavy and grey above the creased red dress. I made a frustrated gesture at the mess, but she looked at it all without emotion.

‘They had to eat,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’

‘I’ll straighten it.’

‘No. Leave it. Tomorrow will do.’ She came into the room and sat wearily on one of the wooden chairs. ‘It simply doesn’t matter. I told them to help themselves.’

‘They might have cleaned up afterwards,’ I said.

‘You should know the racing world better.’

‘Is there anything I can do, then?’

‘No, nothing.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Do you know how many of them are dead?’ Her voice itself was lifeless, drained by too much horror.

I shook my head. ‘The Sheik and one of his men. Larry Trent. And one of the waitresses, married, I think, to one of your lads. Some others. I don’t know who.’

‘Not Janey,’ Flora said, distressed.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Young and pretty. Married Tom Wickens in the summer. Not her.’

‘I think so.’

‘Oh, dear.’ Flora grew if anything paler. ‘I don’t care about the Sheik. It’s a wicked thing to say, and we’ll lose those horses, but I’ve known about him for hours and I simply don’t care. But Janey...’

‘I think you would help Tom Wickens,’ I said.

She stared at me for a moment, then rose to her feet and walked out into the garden, and through the window I saw her go over to the man in the T-shirt and put her arms round him. He turned and hugged her desperately in return, and I wondered fleetingly which of them felt the most released.

I chucked all the worst of the litter into the dustbin, but left the rest of it, as she’d said. Then I went out to the van to go home, and found a very young constable by my side as I opened the door.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, holding pen and notebook ready.

‘Yes?’

‘Name, sir?’

I gave it, and my address, which he wrote down.

‘Where were you in the marquee, sir, when the incident occurred?’

The incident ... ye gods.

‘I wasn’t in the marquee,’ I said. ‘I was here, by the van.’

‘Oh!’ His eyes widened slightly. ‘Then would you wait here, sir?’ He hurried away and returned presently with a man out of uniform who walked slowly, with hunched shoulders.

‘Mr... er... Beach?’ the newcomer said. A shortish man, not young. No aggression.

I nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘You were outside, here, is that right, when this happened?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did you... by any chance... see the horsebox on its way down the hill?’ He had a quiet voice and pronounced every syllable carefully, like talking to a lip-reader.

I nodded again. He said ‘Ah,’ with deep satisfaction, as if that were the answer he had long been seeking, and he smiled on me with favour and suggested we go into the house (where it would be warmer), accompanied by the constable, to take notes.

Among the litter in the drawing room we sat while I answered his questions.

His name was Wilson, he said. He was disappointed that I hadn’t seen the horsebox start down the hill, and he was disappointed that I hadn’t seen anyone in or near it before it rolled.

‘I’ll tell you one thing for certain, though,’ I said. ‘It was not parked in any prearranged place. I watched quite a few of the cars arrive. I could see them coming over the hill, the horsebox among them. They parked in a row just as they arrived, in the same order.’ I paused, then said, ‘The Sheik came to the stables a good hour before the other guests, which is why his Mercedes is first in the row. When he arrived he went to look round the yard, to see his horses. Then when several other guests came, he joined them in the marquee. No one manoeuvred him into any particular place. I was in there when he came. He was walking with Jack Hawthorn and Jimmy — Jack’s secretary. It was just chance he stood where he did. And he didn’t of course stand totally still all the time. He must have moved several yards during the hour he was there.’