Дик Фрэнсис - Break In

On our way out to the car park I asked her how much she’d won on North Face.

‘My God,’ she said, ‘you left that a bit late, didn’t you?’

‘Mm.’

‘Anyway, I went to put my money on the Tote but the queues were so long I didn’t bother and I went down on to the lawn to watch the race. Then when you were left so far behind I was glad I hadn’t backed you. Then those bookies on the rails began shouting five to one North Face. Five to one! I mean, you’d started at odds-on. There was a bit of booing when you came past the stands and it made me cross. You always do your best, they didn’t have to boo. So I walked over and got one of the bookies to take all my money at fives. It was a sort of gesture, I suppose. I won a hundred and twenty-five, which will pay the plumber, so thanks.’

‘Did the plumber get Intimate Details?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Someone knows your life pretty thoroughly,’ I said.

‘Yes. But who? We were awake half the night wondering.’ Her voice was miserable. ‘Who could hate us that much?’

‘You haven’t just kicked out any grievance-laden employees?’

‘No. We’ve a good lot of lads this year. Better than most.’

We arrived at her car and she drove me to where mine was parked.

‘Is that house of yours finished yet?’ she asked.

‘Getting on.’

‘You’re bizarre.’

I smiled. Holly liked things secure, settled and planned in advance. She thought it crazy that I’d bought on impulse the roofless shell of a one-storey house from a builder who was going broke. He’d been in the local pub one night when I’d gone in for a steak: leaning on the bar and morosely drowning his sorrows in beer. He’d been building the house for himself, he said, but he’d no money left. All work on it had stopped.

I’d ridden horses for him in his better-off days and had known him for several years, so the next morning I’d gone with him to see the house; and I’d liked its possibilities and bought it on the spot, and engaged him to finish it for me, paying him week by week for work done. It was going to be a great place to live and I was going to move into it, finished or not, well before Christmas, as I’d already exchanged contracts on my old cottage and would have to leave there willy nilly.

‘I’ll follow you to the cottage,’ Holly said. ‘And don’t drive like you won the Towncrier.’

We proceeded in sedate convoy to the racehorse-training village of Lambourn on the Berkshire Downs, leaving my car in its own garage there and setting off together on the hundred miles plus to the Suffolk town of Newmarket, headquarters of the racing industry.

I liked the informality of little Lambourn. Holly and Bobby swam easily in the grander pond. Or had done, until a pike came along to snap them up.

I told her what Lord Vaughnley had said about demanding a retraction from the Flag’s editor but not suing, and she said I’d better tell Bobby. She seemed a great deal more peaceful now that I was actually on the road with her, and I thought she had more faith in my ability to fix things than I had myself. This was a lot different from beating up a boy who pinched her bottom twice at school. A little more shadowy than making a salesman take back the rotten car he’d conned her into buying.

She slept most of the way to Newmarket and I had no idea at all what I was letting myself in for.

We drove into the Allardeck stableyard at about eight o’clock and found it ablaze with lights and movement when it should have been quiet and dark. A large horsebox was parked in the centre, all doors open, loading ramp down. Beside it stood an elderly man watching a stable-lad lead a horse towards the ramp. The door of the place where the horse had been dozing the night away shone as a wide open oblong of yellow behind him.

A few steps away from the horsebox, lit as on a stage, were two men arguing with fists raised, arms gesticulating, voices clearly shouting.

One of them was my brother-in-law, Bobby. The other...?

‘Oh my God,’ Holly said. ‘That’s one of our owners. Taking his horses. And he owes us a fortune.’

She scrambled out of the car almost before I’d braked to a halt, and ran towards the two men. Her arrival did nothing, as far as I could see, to cool the flourishing row, and to all intents they simply ignored her.

My calm-natured sister was absolutely no good at stalking into any situation and throwing her weight about. She thought privately that it was rather pleasant to cook and keep house and be a gentle old-fashioned woman: but then she was of a generation for whom that way was a choice, not a drudgery oppressively imposed.

I got out of the car and walked across to see what could be done. Holly ran back to meet me.

‘Can you stop him?’ she said urgently. ‘If he takes the horses, we’ll never get his money.’

I nodded.

The lad leading the horse had reached the ramp but the horse was reluctant to board. I walked over to the lad without delay, stood in his way, on the bottom of the ramp, and told him to put the horse back where he’d brought it from.

‘What?’ he said. He was young, small, and apparently astonished to see anyone materialise from the dark.

‘Put it back in the box, switch off the light, close the door. Do it now.’

‘But Mr Graves told me...’

‘Just do it,’ I said.

He looked doubtfully across to the two shouting men.

‘Do you work here?’ I said. ‘Or did you come with the horsebox?’

‘I came with the horsebox.’ He looked at the elderly man standing there who had so far said and done nothing. ‘What should I do, Jim?’

‘Who are you?’ I asked him.

‘The driver,’ he said flatly. ‘Keep me out of it.’

‘Right,’ I said to the lad. ‘The horse isn’t leaving. Take it back.’

‘Are you Kit Fielding?’ he said doubtfully.

‘That’s right. Mrs Allardeck’s brother. Get going.’

‘But Mr Graves...’

‘I’ll deal with Mr Graves,’ I said. ‘His horse isn’t leaving tonight.’

‘Horses,’ the boy said, correcting me. ‘I loaded the other one already.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘They’re both staying here. When you’ve put back the one you’re loading, unload the first one again.’

The boy gave me a wavering look, then turned the horse round and began to plod it back towards its rightful quarters.

The change of direction broke up the slanging match at once. The man who wasn’t Bobby broke away and shouted to the lad across the yard, ‘Hey, you, what the shit do you think you’re doing? Load the horse this minute.’

The lad stopped. I walked fast over to him, took hold of the horse’s head-collar and led the bemused animal back into its own home. The lad made no move at all to stop me. I came out. Switched off the light. Shut and bolted the door.

Mr Graves (presumably) was advancing fast with flailing arms and an extremely belligerent expression.

‘Who the shit do you think you are?’ he shouted. ‘That’s my horse. Get it out here at once!’

I stood, however, in front of the bolted door, leaning my shoulders on it, crossing one ankle over the other, folding my arms. Mr Graves came to a screeching and disbelieving halt.

‘Get away from there,’ he said thunderously, stabbing the night air with a forefinger. ‘That’s my horse. I’m taking it, and you can’t stop me.’

His pudgy face rigid with obstinacy, he stood about five feet five from balding crown to polished toecaps. He was perhaps fifty, plump, already out of breath. There was no way whatever that he was going to shift my five feet ten by force.

‘Mr Graves,’ I said calmly, ‘you can take your horses away when you’ve paid your bill.’