Дик Фрэнсис - Decider

‘The hangers!’ Dart said.

‘But why , Rebecca?’ Conrad begged, intensely disturbed. ‘I’d have done anything for you...’

‘You might not have agreed,’ I said, ‘to build new stands at all, let alone have Wilson Yarrow design them. And it was he, wasn’t it, who came to you and said, “I have the dirt on your daughter, and all you have to do to save her honour is give me this commission”?’

Conrad didn’t answer directly, but he broke open his shotgun and with unsteady fingers pulled out both cartridges, the spent one, blackened and empty, and the unfired one, orange and bright. He put them both in his pocket and stood the gun by the wall.

As he did so there was a quiet tap on the door. Conrad went to open it and found Marjorie’s manservant there, worried. ‘Nothing wrong,’ Conrad assured him fruitily. ‘Gun went off by accident. Bit of a nuisance to clear up, I’m afraid. We’ll see to it later.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

The door closed. I noticed for the first time that the spreading shot had smashed a mirror on the wall and torn pieces of gold silk upholstery from chairs. Much too damned close.

I reached for the walking stick I’d laid beside the small sofa where I’d been sitting and, with its help, returned to my feet.

‘You must have said something to Keith about blackmail,’ I told Conrad. ‘He used that word in connection with Yarrow. You all heard him.’

Conrad made a helpless gesture. ‘Keith went on and on at me to abandon the idea of new stands and I said I couldn’t .’ He paused. ‘But how did you find all this out?’

‘A lot of small things,’ I said. ‘For example, I went to the same school of architecture as Wilson Yarrow.’

‘Architecture!’ Marjorie interrupted.

‘Yes. When I saw him... heard his name... I knew there was something wrong about him. I only vaguely remembered, so I looked up a man I was at architectural school with, that I hadn’t heard from for ten years, and asked him. He kept a diary all those years ago and he’d written down a rumour he’d heard, that Wilson Yarrow had won a prestigious prize with an architectural design he’d sent in, while knowing that it wasn’t his own. The school took the prize away and hushed it all up a bit, but the stigma of cheating remained, and there must be several hundred architects, like me, who associate that name of Yarrow with something not right. The word goes around in professional circles, and memories are long — and better than mine — and the brilliant career once expected of Yarrow has not come to pass. There was his name alone on the plans he drew for you, which means he’s probably not employed in a firm. He may very well be unemployed altogether, and there’s a glut of architects now, with the schools every year training more than the market can absorb. I’d guess he saw the prestige of building new stands at Stratton Park as a way back into esteem. I think he was desperate to get that commission.’

They listened, even Rebecca, as if spellbound.

I said, ‘Before I ever came to Stratton Park, Roger Gardner told me there was an architect designing new stands who knew nothing about racing and didn’t understand crowd behaviour, and that as he wouldn’t listen to advice he would be the death of the racecourse, but that you, Conrad, wouldn’t be deflected from him.’

I paused. No one said anything.

‘So,’ I went on, ‘I came to your shareholders’ meeting last Wednesday, and met you all, and listened. I learned what you all wanted for the racecourse. Marjorie wanted things to remain as they were. You, Conrad, wanted new stands, actually to save Rebecca from ruin, though I didn’t know that then. Keith wanted to sell, for the money. Rebecca, of course, wanted a clean sweep, as she said; new stands, new manager, new Clerk of the Course, a new image for old-fashioned Stratton Park. Marjorie managed that meeting in a way that would have had superpowers kneeling in admiration, and she manipulated you all so that she got her way, which was for Stratton Park to continue in its old manner for the foreseeable future.’

Dart cast an admiring glance at his great aunt, the grin very nearly appearing.

I said, ‘That was not good enough for Rebecca, nor for Keith. Keith had already enlisted the actor, Harold Quest, to make a nuisance of himself demonstrating against steeplechasing outside the main gates, so that people would be put off going to the races at Stratton Park and the course would lose its attraction and its income, and go bankrupt as a business so that you would have to sell its big asset, the land. He also got Harold Quest to burn a fence — the open ditch; symbolically the open ditch, as it was there that a horse had been killed at the last meeting — but that ploy was a dud, as you know. Keith isn’t bright. But Rebecca...’

I hesitated. There were things that had to be said: I wished there were someone else... anyone else... to say them.

‘In the Stratton family, as it is now,’ I resumed, approaching things sideways, ‘there are two good-natured harmless fellows, Ivan and Dart. There’s one very clever person, Marjorie. There’s Conrad, more powerful in appearance than fact. There’s a strain of ruthlessness and violence in everyone else of Stratton blood, which has cost you all fortunes. When you ally those traits with stupidity and arrogance, you get Forsyth and his mowers. There is in many of the Strattons, as in him, a belief that you’ll never be found out, and if you should be, you believe the family will use its money and muscle to save you, as it always has done in the past.’

‘And will again,’ Marjorie said firmly.

‘And will again,’ I acknowledged, ‘if you can. You’ll need all your skills soon, though, in damage control.’

Surprisingly, they went on listening, not trying to make me stop.

I said carefully, ‘In Rebecca, that violence is chiefly controlled and comes out as a consuming competitiveness in a testing sport. In her, there’s splendid courage and will-to-win. There’s also a tremendous overpowering urge to get her own way. When Marjorie blocked her first plan for achieving new stands, she hit on a simple solution — get rid of the old ones.’

This time, Conrad protested incredulously, and Marjorie also, but not Rebecca or Dart.

‘I’d guess,’ I said to Rebecca, ‘that you told Wilson Yarrow to do it, as, if he didn’t, he could kiss the commission goodbye.’

She glared at me unblinkingly, a tigress untamed.

I said, ‘Wilson Yarrow was in deep already with that blackmailing attempt. He saw, as you did, that destroying a part of the main grandstand would mean new ones had to be built. He knew those old grandstands and, as an architect, he saw how maximum damage could be achieved for minimum effort. The staircase in the centre was the main artery of the building. Collapse that core, and the rooms round it would cave in.’

‘I had nothing to do with it,’ Rebecca yelled suddenly.

Conrad jumped. Conrad... aghast.

‘I saw those charges before they exploded,’ I said to Rebecca. ‘I saw how they were laid. Very professional. I could have done it myself. And I know other dealers, not as responsible as my giant friend Henry, who’ll sell you anything, few questions asked. But it’s difficult, even for people whose whole job is demolition, to get right the amount of explosive needed. Every structure has its own strengths and weaknesses. There’s pressure to use too much rather than too little. The amount Yarrow used tore half the building apart.’

‘No,’ Rebecca said.

‘Yes,’ I contradicted her. ‘Between you, you decided it should be done early on Good Friday morning, when there would be no one about.’