Дик Фрэнсис - Break In

If I could find them; in Hitchin, or outside.

I telephoned to my answering machine in the cottage and collected my messages: four from various trainers, the one from Holly, and a final unidentified man asking me to ring him back, number supplied.

I got through to Wykeham Harlowe first because he, like my grandfather, went early to bed, and he, too, said he was in his pyjamas.

We talked for a while about that day’s runners and those for the next day and the rest of the week, normal more or less nightly discussions. And as usual nowadays he said he wouldn’t be coming to Towcester tomorrow, it was too far. Ascot, he said, on Friday and Saturday. He would go to Ascot, perhaps only on one day, but he’d be there.

‘Great,’ I said.

‘You know how it is, Paul,’ he said. ‘Old bones, old bones.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know. This is Kit.’

‘Kit? Of course you’re Kit. Who else would you be?’

‘No one,’ I said. ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow night.’

‘Good, good. Take care of those novices. Goodnight, then, Paul.’

‘Goodnight,’ I said.

I talked after that with the three other trainers, all on the subject of the horses I’d be riding for them that week and next, and finally, after ten o’clock and yawning convulsively, I got through to the last, unidentified, number.

‘This is Kit Fielding,’ I said.

‘Ah.’ There was a pause, then a faint but discernible click, ‘I’m offering you,’ said a civilised voice, ‘a golden opportunity.’

He paused. I said nothing. He went on, very smoothly, ‘Three thousand before, ten thousand after.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘You haven’t heard the details.’

I’d heard quite enough. I disconnected without saying another word and sat for a while staring at walls I didn’t see.

I’d been propositioned before, but not quite like that. Never for such a large sum. The before-and-after merchants were always wanting jockeys to lose races to order, but I hadn’t been approached by any of them seriously for years. Not since they’d tired of being told no.

Tonight’s was an unknown voice, or one I hadn’t heard often enough to recognise. High in register. Education to match. Prickles wriggled up my spine. The voice, the approach, the amount, the timing, all of them raised horrid little suggestions of entrapment.

I sat looking at the telephone number I’d been given.

A London number. The exchange 722. I got through to the operator and asked whereabouts in London one would find exchange 722, general information printed in London telephone directories. Hold on, she said, and told me almost immediately; 722 was Chalk Farm stroke Hampstead.

I thanked her. Chalk Farm stroke Hampstead meant absolutely nothing, except that it was not an area known for devotion to horse racing. Very much the reverse, I would have thought. Life in Hampstead tended to be intellectually inward-looking, not raucously open-air.

Why Hampstead...

I fell asleep in the chair.

After a night spent at least half in bed I drank some coffee in the morning and went out shopping, standing in draughty doorways in Tottenham Court Road, waiting for the electronic wizards to unbolt their steel-mesh shutters.

I found a place that would re-record Rose’s professional three-quarter-inch tape of Maynard on to a domestic size to fit my own player, no copyright questions asked. The knowingly obliging youth who performed the service seemed disgusted and astounded that the contents weren’t pornographic, but I cheered him up a little by buying a lightweight video-recording camera, a battery pack to run it off and a number of new tapes. He showed me in detail how to work everything and encouraged me to practise in the shop. He could point me to a helpful little bachelor club, he said, if I needed therapy.

I declined the offer, piled everything in the car, and set off north to Hitchin, which was not exactly on the direct route to Towcester but at least not in a diametrically opposite direction.

Finding the Perrysides when I got there was easy: they were in the telephone book. Major C. Perryside, 14 Conway Retreat, Ingle Barton. Helpful locals pointed me to the village of Ingle Barton, three miles outside the town, and others there explained how to find number 14 in the retirement homes.

The houses themselves were several long terraces of small one-storey units, each with its own brightly painted front door and strip of minute flower bed. Paths alone led to the houses: one had to park one’s car on a tarmac area and walk along neatly paved ways between tiny segments of grass. Furniture removal men, I thought, would curse the lay-out roundly, but it certainly led to an air of unusual peace, even on a cold damp morning in November.

I walked along to number 14, carrying the video camera in its bag. Pressed the bell push. Waited.

Everywhere was quiet, and no one answered the door. After two or three more unsuccessful attempts at knocking and ringing I went to the door of the right-hand neighbour and tried there.

An old lady answered, round, bright-eyed, interested.

‘They walked round to the shop,’ she said.

‘Do you know how long they’ll be?’

‘They take their time.’

‘How would I know them?’ I asked.

‘The Major has white hair and walks with a stick. Lucy will be wearing a fishing hat, I should think. And if you’re thinking of carrying their groceries home for them, young man, you’ll be welcomed. But don’t try to sell them encyclopaedias or life insurance. You’ll be wasting your time.’

‘I’m not selling,’ I assured her.

‘Then the shop is past the car park and down the lane to the left.’ She gave me a sharp little nod and retreated behind her lavender door, and I went where she’d directed.

I found the easily recognisable Perrysides on the point of emerging from the tiny village stores, each of them carrying a basket and moving extremely slowly. I walked up to them without haste and asked if I could perhaps help.

‘Decent of you,’ said the Major gruffly, holding out his basket.

‘What are you selling?’ Lucy Perryside said suspiciously, relinquishing hers. ‘Whatever it is, we’re not buying.’

The baskets weren’t heavy: the contents looked meagre.

‘I’m not selling,’ I said, turning to walk with them at the snail’s pace apparently dictated by the Major’s shaky legs. ‘Would the name Fielding mean anything to you?’

They shook their heads.

Lucy under the battered tweed fishing hat had a thin imperious-looking face, heavily wrinkled with age but firm as to mouth. She spoke with clear upper-class diction and held her back ramrod straight as if in defiance of the onslaughts of time. Lucy Perryside, in various guises and various centuries, had pitched pride against bloody adversity and come through unbent.

‘My name is Kit Fielding,’ I said. ‘My grandfather trains horses in Newmarket.’

The Major stopped altogether. ‘Fielding. Yes. I remember. We don’t like to talk about racing. Better keep off the subject, there’s a good chap.’

I nodded slightly and we moved on as before, along the cold little lane with the bare trees fuzzy with the foreboding of drizzle; after a while Lucy said, ‘That’s why he came, Clement, to talk about racing.’

‘Did you?’ asked the Major apprehensively.

‘I’m afraid so, yes.’

This time, however, he went on walking, with, it seemed to me, resignation; and I had an intense sense of the disappointments and downward adjustments he had made, swallowing his pain and behaving with dignity, civil in the face of disasters.

‘Are you a journalist?’ Lucy asked.

‘No... a jockey.’

She gave me a sweeping glance from head to foot. ‘You’re too big for a jockey.’