Дик Фрэнсис - Rat Race

Charles Carthy-Todd was engaged in taking candy from a mentally retarded child and then making it look as though the child had stolen it in the first place. One couldn’t help but feel protective. One couldn’t help but want to stop it.

I said impulsively, ‘Take care of yourself, sir.’

‘My dear chap... I will.’

I walked down the steps from his front door towards Honey’s Mini waiting in the drive, and looked back to where he stood in the yellow oblong of light. He waved a hand gently and slowly closed the door, and I saw from his benign slightly puzzled expression that he was still not quite sure why I had come.

It was after one o’clock when I got back to the caravan. Tired, hungry, miserable about Nancy, I still couldn’t stay asleep. Three o’clock, I was awake again, tangling the sheets as if in fever. I got up and splashed my itching eyes with cold water: lay down, got up, went for a walk across the airfield. The cool starry night came through my shirt and quietened my skin but didn’t do much for the hopeless ache between my ears.

At eight in the morning I went to fetch Honey, filling her tank with the promised petrol at the nearest garage. She had made a gallon or two on the deal, I calculated. Fair enough.

What was not fair enough, however, was the news with which she greeted me.

‘Colin Ross wants you to ring him up. He rang yesterday evening about half an hour after you’d buzzed off.’

‘Did he say... what about?’

‘He did ask me to write you a message, but honestly, I forgot. I was up in the tower until nine, and then Uncle was impatient to get home, and I just went off with him and forgot all about coming down here with the message... and anyway, what difference would a few hours make?’

‘What was the message?’

‘He said to tell you his sister didn’t meet anyone called Chanter at Liverpool. Something about a strike, and this Chanter not being there. I don’t know... there were two aircraft in the circuit and I wasn’t paying all that much attention. Come to think of it, he did seem pretty anxious I should give you the message last night, but like I said, I forgot. Sorry, and all that. Was it important?’

I took a deep breath. Thinking about the past night, I could cheerfully have strangled her. ‘Thanks for telling me.’

She gave me a sharp glance. ‘You look bushed. Have you been making love all night? You don’t look fit to fly.’

‘Seldom felt better,’ I said with truth. ‘And no, I haven’t.’

‘Save yourself for me,’

‘Don’t bank on it.’

‘Louse.’

When I rang Colin’s number from the telephone in the lounge it was Midge who answered. The relief in her voice was as overwhelming as my own.

‘Matt...!’ I could hear her gulp, and knew she was fighting against tears. ‘Oh, Matt... I’m so glad you’ve rung. She didn’t go after Chanter. She didn’t. It’s all right. Oh dear... just a minute...’ She sniffed and paused, and when she spoke again she had her voice under control. ‘She rang yesterday evening and we talked to her for a long time. She said she was sorry if she had upset us, she had really left because she was so angry with herself, so humiliated at having made up such silly dreams about you... she said it was all her own fault, that you hadn’t deceived her in any way, she had deceived herself... she wanted to tell us that it wasn’t because she was angry with you that she ran out, but because she felt she had made such a fool of herself... Anyway, she said she had cooled off a good deal by the time her train got to Liverpool and she was simply miserable by then, and then when she found Chanter had gone away because of the strike she said she was relieved, really. Chanter’s landlady told Nancy where he had gone... somewhere in Manchester, to do a painting of industrial chimneys, she thought... but Nancy decided it wasn’t Chanter she wanted... and she didn’t know what to do, she still felt muddled... and then outside the art school she met a girl who had been a student with us in London. She was setting off for a camping holiday near Stratford and... well... Nancy decided to go with her. She said a few days’ peace and some landscape painting would put her right... so she rang up here and it was our cleaning woman who answered... Nancy swears she told her it was Jill she was with, and not Chanter, but of course we never got that part of the message...’ She stopped, and when I didn’t answer immediately she said anxiously, ‘Matt, are you still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were so quiet.’

‘I was thinking about the last four days.’

Four wretched, dragging days. Four endless grinding nights. All unnecessary. She hadn’t been with Chanter at all. If she’d suffered about what she’d imagined about me, so had I from what I’d imagined about her. Which made us, I guessed, about quits.

‘Colin told her she should have asked you about that court case instead of jumping to conclusions,’ Midge said.

‘She didn’t jump, she was pushed.’

‘Yes. She knows that now. She’s pretty upset. She doesn’t really want to face you at Warwick... after making such a mess of things...’

‘I shan’t actually slaughter her.’

She half laughed. ‘I’ll defend her. I’m driving over with Colin. I’ll see you there too.’

‘That’s marvellous.’

‘Colin’s out on the gallops just now. We’re setting off after he’s come in and had something to eat.’

‘Tell him to drive carefully. Tell him to think of Ambrose.’

‘Yes... Isn’t it awful about that crash?’

‘Have you heard what happened, exactly?’

‘Apparently Ambrose tried to pass a slow lorry on a bend and there was another one coming the other way... he ran into it head on and one of the lorries overturned and crushed another car with three stable lads in it. There’s quite a lot about it in today’s Sporting Life .’

‘I expect I’ll see it. And Midge... thank Colin for his message last night.’

‘I will. He said he didn’t want you to worry any longer. He seemed to think you were almost as worried about her as we were.’

‘Almost,’ I agreed wryly. ‘See you at Warwick.’

Honey had arranged for me to fly a Mr and Mrs Whiteknight and their two young daughters down to Lydd, where the daughters were to meet friends and leave on the car air ferry to Le Touquet for a holiday in France. After waving the daughters off, the Whiteknights wanted to belt back to see their horse run in the first race at Warwick, which meant, since there was no racecourse strip, landing at Coventry and hailing a cab.

Accordingly I loaded them up at Buckingham and pointed tie nose of the Six towards Kent. The two daughters, about fourteen and sixteen, were world-weary and disagreeable, looking down their noses at everything with ingrained hostility. Their mother behaved to me with the cool graciousness of condescension, and autocratically bossed the family. Mr Whiteknight, gruff, unconsulted, a downtrodden universal provider, out of habit brought up the rear.

At Lydd, after carrying the daughters’ suitcases unthanked into the terminal, I went back to the Six to wait through the farewells. Mr Whiteknight had obligingly left his Sporting Life on his seat. I picked it up and read it. There was a photograph of the Ambrose crash. The usual mangled metal, pushed to the side of the road, pathetic result of impatience.

I turned to the middle page, to see how many races Colin was riding at Warwick. He was down for five, and in most of them was favourite.

Alongside the Warwick programme, there was an advertisement in bold black letters.

‘Colin Ross has insured with us. Why don’t you?’ Underneath in smaller type it went on, ‘ You may not be lucky enough to survive two narrow escapes. Don’t chance it. Cut out the proposal form printed below and send it with five pounds to the Racegoers’ Accident Fund, Avon Street, Warwick. Your insurance cover starts from the moment your letter is in the post.’