Dick Francis: Straight

“Nice,” I said.

“In horses,” he went on, “they think it would probably induce skittishness at once.”

“I thought back to Dozen Roses’ behavior both at York and on the TV tapes. He’d certainly woken up dramatically between saddling box and starting gate.

“But,” Phil added, “they say that at the most it might give more stamina, but not much more speed. It wouldn’t make the horse go faster, but just make the adrenaline push last longer.”

That might be enough sometimes, I thought. Sometimes you could feel horses “die” under you near the finish, not from lack of ability, but from lack of perseverance, of fight. Some horses were content to be second. In them, uninhibited adrenaline might perhaps tip the balance.

Caffeine, which had the same potentiating effect, was a prohibited substance in racing.

“Why don’t they test for cocaine?” I asked.

“Heaven knows,” Phil said. “Perhaps because enough to wind up a horse would cost the doper too much to be practicable. I mean... more than one could be sure of winning back on a bet. But cocaine’s getting cheaper, I’m told. There’s more and more of it around.”

“I don’t know much about drugs,” I said.

“Where have you been?”

“Not my scene.”

“Do you know what they’d call you in America?”

“What?”

“Straight,” he said.

“I thought that meant heterosexual.”

He laughed. “That too. You’re straight through and through.”

“Phil,” I said, “what do I do?”

He sobered abruptly. “God knows. My job ends with passing on the facts. The moral decisions are yours. All I can tell you is that some time before Monday evening Dozen Roses took cocaine into his bloodstream.”

“Via a baster?” I said.

After a short silence he said, “We can’t be sure of that.”

“We can’t be sure he didn’t.”

“Did I understand right, that Harley Ostermeyer picked up the tube of the baster and gave it to you?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I still have it, but like I told you, it’s clean.”

“It might look clean,” he said slowly, “but if cocaine was blown up it in powder form, there may be particles clinging.”

I thought back to before the race at York.

“When Martha Ostermeyer picked up the blue bulb end and gave it back to Rollway,” I said, “she was brushing her fingers together afterwards. She seemed to be getting rid of dust from her gloves.”

“Oh glory,” Phil said.

I sighed and said, “If I give the tube to you, can you get it tested without anyone knowing where it came from?”

“Sure. Like the urine, it’ll be anonymous. I’ll get the lab to do another rush job, if you want. It costs a bit more, though.”

“Get it done, Phil,” I said. “I can’t really decide anything unless I know for sure.”

“Right. Are you coming back here soon?”

“Greville’s business takes so much time. I’ll be back at the weekend, but I think I’ll send the tube to you by carrier, to be quicker. You should get it tomorrow morning.”

“Right,” he said. “We might get a result late tomorrow. Friday at the latest.”

“Good, and er... don’t mention it to Milo.”

“No, but why not?”

“He told Nicholas Loder we tested Dozen Roses for tranquilizers and Nicholas Loder was on my phone hitting the roof.”

“Oh God.”

“I don’t want him knowing about tests for cocaine. I mean, neither Milo nor Nicholas Loder.”

“You may be sure,” Phil said seriously, “they won’t learn it from me.”

It was the worst dilemma of all, I thought, replacing the receiver.

Was cocaine a stimulant or was it not? The racing authorities didn’t think so: didn’t test for it. If I believed it didn’t affect speed then it was all right to sell Dozen Roses to the Ostermeyers. If I thought he wouldn’t have got the race at York without help, then it wasn’t all right.

Saxony Franklin needed the Ostermeyers’ money.

The worst result would be that, if I banked the money and Dozen Roses never won again and Martha and Harley ever found out I knew the horse had been given cocaine, I could say goodbye to any future Gold Cups or Grand Nationals on Datepalm. They wouldn’t forgive the unforgivable.

Dozen Roses had seemed to me to run gamely at York and to battle to the end. I was no longer sure. I wondered now if he’d won all his four races spaced out, as the orthopedist would have described it; as high as a kite.

At the best, if I simply kept quiet, banked the money and rode Dozen Roses to a couple of respectable victories, no one would ever know. Or I could inform the Ostermeyers privately, which would upset them.

There would be precious little point in proving to the world that Dozen Roses had been given cocaine (and of course I could do it by calling for a further analysis of the urine sample taken by the officials at York) because if cocaine weren’t a specifically banned substance, neither was it a normal nutrient. Nothing that was not a normal nutrient was supposed to be given to thoroughbreds racing in Britain.

If I disclosed the cocaine, would Dozen Roses be disqualified for his win at York? If he were, would Nicholas Loder lose his license to train?

If I caused so much trouble, I would be finished in racing. Whistle-blowers were regularly fired from their jobs.

My advice to myself seemed to be, take the money, keep quiet, hope for the best.

Coward, I thought. Maybe stupid as well.

My thoughts made me sweat.

June, her hands full of pretty pink beads from the stockroom, said, “What do we do about more rhodochrosite? We’re running out and the suppliers in Hong Kong aren’t reliable anymore. I was reading in a trade magazine that a man in Germany has some of good quality. What do you think?”

“What would Greville have done?” I asked.

Annette said regretfully, “He’d have gone to Germany to see. He’d never start buying from a new source without knowing who he was trading with.”

I said to June, “Make an appointment, say who we are, and book an airline ticket.”

They both simultaneously said, “But...” and stopped.

I said mildly, “You never know whether a horse is going to be a winner until you race it. June’s going down to the starting gate.”

June blushed and went away. Annette shook her head doubtfully.

“I wouldn’t know rhodochrosite from granite,” I said. “June does. She knows its price, knows what sells. I’ll trust that knowledge until she proves me wrong.”

“She’s too young to make decisions,” Annette objected.

“Decisions are easier when you’re young.”

Isn’t that the truth, I thought wryly, rehearing my own words. At June’s age I’d been full of certainties. At June’s age, what would I have done about cocaine-positive urine tests? I didn’t know. Impossible to go back.

I said I would be off for the day and would see them all in the morning. Dilemmas could be shelved, I thought. The evening was Clarissa’s.

Brad, I saw, down in the yard, had been reading the Racing Post, which had the same photograph as the Daily Sensation. He pointed to the picture when I eased in beside him, and I nodded.

“That’s your head,” he said.

“Mm.”

“Bloody hell,” he said.

I smiled. “It seems a long time ago.”

He drove to Greville’s house and came in with me while I went upstairs and put the baster tube into an envelope and then into a Jiffy bag brought from the office for the purpose and addressed it to Phil Urquhart.

To Brad, downstairs again, I said, “The Euro-Securo couriers’ main office is in Oxford Street not very far from the Selfridge Hotel. This is the actual address...” I gave it to him. “Do you think you can find it?”