Дик Фрэнсис: Slay-Ride

I shook my head.

‘I suppose I was worried about Arne.’

She stood up, smiling. ‘Arne had no appetite for his supper.’ She looked at the clock. Ten minutes before ten. ‘I will bring something for you both,’ she said.

Arne fondly watched her backview disappearing towards the kitchen.

‘What do you think of her, eh? Isn’t she beautiful?’

Normally I disliked men who invited admiration for their wives as if they were properties like cars, but I would have forgiven Arne a great deal that evening.

‘Yes,’ I said, more truthfully than on many similar occasions; and Arne positively smirked.

‘More wine,’ he said, getting up restlessly and filling both our glasses.

‘Your house, too, is beautiful,’ I said.

He looked over his shoulder in surprise. ‘That is Kari as well. She... it is her job. Making rooms for people. Offices, hotels. Things like that.’

Their own sitting-room was a place of natural wood and white paint, with big parchment-shaded table lamps shedding a golden glow on string-coloured upholstery and bright scattered cushions. A mixture of the careful and haphazard, overlaid with the comfortable debris of a full life. Ultra-tidy rooms always oppressed me: the Kristiansens’ was just right.

Arne brought back my filled glass and settled himself opposite, near the fire. His hair, no longer hidden, was now more grey than blond; longer than before, and definitely more distinguished.

‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘I’d like to see the racecourse Chairman, if I could.’

He looked startled, as if he had forgotten the real purpose of my visit.

‘Yes.’ He blinked a bit. ‘It is Saturday tomorrow. It is the Grand National meeting on Sunday. He will be at the racecourse on Sunday.’

Don’t let a thieving jockey spoil the man’s day off, Arne was meaning, so I shrugged and said Sunday would do.

‘I’ll maybe call on Gunnar Holth tomorrow, then.’

For some reason that didn’t fill Arne with joy either, but I discovered, after a long pause on his part, that this was because he, Arne, wished to go fishing all day and was afraid I would want him with me, instead.

‘Does Gunnar Holth speak English?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes.’

‘I’ll go on my own, then.’

He gave me the big smile and jumped up to help Kari, who was returning with a laden tray. She had brought coffee and open sandwiches of prawns and cheese and pineapple which we ate to the last crumb.

‘You must come another evening,’ Kari said. ‘I will make you a proper dinner.’

Arne agreed with her warmly and opened some more wine.

‘A great little cook,’ he said proprietorially.

The great little cook shook back her heavy blonde hair and stretched her elegant neck. She had a jaw-line in the same class and three small brown moles like dusty freckles high on one cheekbone.

‘Come any time,’ she said.

I got back to the Grand by taxi at one in the morning, slept badly, and woke at seven feeling like Henry Cooper’s punchbag.

Consultation with the bathroom looking-glass revealed a plate-sized bruise of speckled crimson over my left shoulder-blade, souvenir of colliding boats. In addition every muscle I possessed was groaning with the morning-after misery of too much strain. David Cleveland, it seemed, was no Matthew Webb.

Bath, clothes and breakfast didn’t materially improve things, nor on the whole did a telephone call to Gunnar Holth.

‘Come if you like,’ he said. ‘But I can tell you nothing. You will waste your time.’

As all investigators waste a lot of time listening to people with nothing to tell, I naturally went. He had a stable yard adjoining the racecourse and a belligerent manner.

‘Questions, questions,’ he said. ‘There is nothing to tell.’

I paid off my taxi driver.

‘You shouldn’t have sent him away,’ Gunnar Holth said. ‘You will be going soon.’

I smiled. ‘I can go back on a tram.’

He gave me a grudging stare. ‘You don’t look like a Jockey Club official.’

‘I would appreciate it very much,’ I said, ‘if you would show me your horses. Arne Kristiansen says you have a good lot... that they’ve been winning big prizes this year.’

He loosened, of course. He gestured towards a large barn on the other side of an expanse of mud. We made our way there, him in his boots showing me I shouldn’t have come in polished shoes. He was short, wiry, middle-aged and a typical stableman, more at home with his horses, I guessed, than with their owners; and he spoke English with an Irish accent.

The barn contained two rows of boxes facing into a wide central passage. Horses’ heads showed over most of the half doors and three or four lads were carrying buckets of water and haynets.

‘They’ve just come in from exercise,’ Holth said. ‘We train on the sand track on the racecourse.’ He turned left and opened the door of the first box. ‘This fellow runs tomorrow in the Grand National. Would you look at his shoulders now, isn’t that a grand sort of horse?’

‘Bob Sherman won a race on him the day he disappeared,’ I said.

He gave me a sharp wordless glance and went in to pat a strong-looking character with more bone than breeding. He felt the legs, looked satisfied, and came back to join me.

‘How do you know?’ he said.

No harm in telling him. ‘Arne Kristiansen gave me a list of Bob Sherman’s last rides in Norway. He said that this horse of yours was likely to win the National, and if Sherman had had any sense he would have come back for that race and then stolen the National day takings, which would have been a better haul all round.’

Holth allowed himself a glint of amusement. ‘That’s true.’

We continued round the barn, admiring every inmate. There were about twenty altogether, three-quarters of them running on the Flat, and although they seemed reasonable animals, none of them looked likely to take Epsom by storm. From their coats, though, and general air of well-being, Holth knew his trade.

One end of the barn was sectioned off to form living quarters for the lads, and Holth took me through to see them. Dormitory, washroom, and kitchen.

‘Bob stayed here, most times,’ he said.

I glanced slowly round the big main room with its half dozen two-tiered bunk beds, its bare board floor, its wooden table, wooden chairs. A big brown-tiled stove and double-glazed windows with curtains like blankets promised comfort against future snow, and a couple of mild girlie calendars brightened the walls, but it was a far cry from the Grand.

‘Always?’ I asked.

Holth shrugged. ‘He said it was good enough here, and he saved the expense of a hotel. Nothing wrong there now, is there?’

‘Nothing at all,’ I agreed.

He paused. ‘Sometimes he stayed with an owner.’

‘Which owner?’

‘Oh... the man who owns Whitefire. Per Bjørn Sandvik.’

‘How many times?’

Holth said with irritation, ‘What does it matter? Twice, I suppose. Yes, twice. Not the last time. The two times before that.’

‘How often did he come over altogether?’

‘Six perhaps. Or seven... or eight.’

‘All this summer?’

‘He didn’t come last year, if that’s what you mean.’

‘But he liked it?’

‘Of course he liked it. All British jockeys who are invited, they like it. Good pay, you see.’

‘How good?’

‘Well,’ he said, ”They get their fare over here, and a bit towards expenses. And the fees for riding. And the appearance money.’

‘The racecourse pays the appearance money?’

‘Not exactly. Well... the racecourse pays the money to the jockey but collects it from the owners who the jockey rode for.’

‘So an owner, in the end, pays everything, the riding fees, the winning percentage, a share of the fares, and a share of the appearance money?’