Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Front Runner

‘Oh God!’ Henri said. ‘What’s he doing here?’

Travelling with us, it seemed, as we watched his single bag being loaded into the luggage hold alongside ours. Henri was not at all pleased, and I could tell from Bentley’s unfriendly stare that he was just as unhappy about my presence as I was about his.

‘Please keep him away from me,’ she said.

‘I’ll do my best.’

We went on board the jet.

The interior was laid out with no luxury spared. There were ten passenger seats in total, each of them cream leather armchairs that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a stately home.

‘How the other half live,’ I said quietly to myself.

The ten seats were laid out in three distinct sections with one either side at the front, then a group of four — two each side of a table facing one another — and then four more at the back in coach style.

Henri went straight to the very back and sat in the seat nearest the window while beckoning me to quickly take the one next to her. I knew why. In this way she was protecting herself from having to sit next to or opposite Bentley Robertson.

She needn’t have worried.

Bentley came on board and immediately sat in one of the seats at the table. He spread out papers from his briefcase and concentrated only on them.

Theresa Reynard boarded next and sat down next to Bentley. My suspicious mind went into overdrive, wondering if there was a sexual rapport between the two of them. There was just something about their body language that shouted ‘lovers’ at me.

‘Do you think Martin and Theresa’s marriage is OK?’ I asked Henri.

‘Yeah, I think so,’ she said. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I just wondered why Martin went on ahead and Theresa didn’t go with him.’

‘I expect she was too busy Christmas shopping,’ she said, smiling.

Sir Richard and Lady Mary Reynard came on board and sat in the two seats at the very front. And then we waited. There seemed to be no urgency to close the cabin door and get going.

The reason became obvious after about ten minutes when a chauffeur-driven limousine pulled up at the steps. I watched through the window as Derrick and Gay Smith climbed out of the vehicle and came on board as their copious luggage was shoehorned into the aircraft’s hold. Clearly, no one had informed them of the one-bag limit.

Gay and Derrick greeted Sir Richard and Lady Mary with polite kisses, and then came along the cabin to the two seats in front of Henri and myself.

I stood up in the aisle.

‘Hello, Jeff,’ Gay said with a broad smile. ‘What an unexpected pleasure.’

She gave me a peck on the cheek while Derrick shook my hand. ‘We are just cadging a lift back home,’ he said. ‘Sorry we’re late.’

It was clear that the Smiths were the last of the passengers to arrive, as there was now some activity up front, with the main door being closed and the engines started.

‘Do you always travel like this?’ I asked Henri.

‘I wish. The trust is so tight with my money that I’m usually in economy, although I have been on this baby a few times. But not so often that I’m not really excited every time.’

I was excited too. Extremely. And it wasn’t all to do with flying on a private jet. I’d be excited to be anywhere with Henrietta Shawcross.

We actually refuelled at St John’s in Newfoundland, where the outside temperature was a balmy minus seven degrees. Needless to say, all eight of the passengers remained warm and cosy in the cabin, rather than choosing to venture the hundred yards or so across the icy wind-blown tarmac to the airport buildings.

After about forty minutes, we were on our way again.

I could get quite used to this, I thought, as I was presented with yet another plate of delicious food prepared by the on-board steward.

‘More champagne, sir?’ he said.

I felt it would be churlish for me to say no after he’d gone to all the trouble of opening the bottle.

‘Lovely,’ I said and he poured more of the bubbles into my glass.

Henri giggled and I held her hand.

I’d left my troubles behind in winter-gripped England, and there were eleven days ahead of warmth and sunshine in the company of a gorgeous girl.

What could have been better?

With every sip of Veuve Clicquot, I could feel the strength and vigour returning to my body.

Little did I realize how much I would need it.

We landed on Grand Cayman nearly twelve hours after leaving Luton. It was almost four in the afternoon, the local time being five hours behind that at home.

Suddenly my senses were full of first impressions — the bright colours of the buildings, the intensity of the tropical sunlight, the flatness of the country, the freshness of the ozone-filled sea air and, of course, the warmth.

‘Where are we staying?’ I asked Henri as we waited to have our passports checked by the Cayman Islands immigration officials.

‘Uncle Richard and Aunt Mary are staying at Martin and Theresa’s place but I imagined that you would rather be somewhere on our own.’

She imagined right.

‘I’ve rented an apartment in a condominium just down Seven Mile Beach from them.’

‘Sounds perfect,’ I said. ‘How about Bentley? I hope he’s not sharing it with us.’

Henri pulled a face. ‘If he is, I’m going back to England.’

In the end, Henri had to put her foot down when her uncle suggested that it might, indeed, be a good idea for Bentley to stay with us in our apartment, as it had two spare bedrooms, adding that ‘he could keep Henrietta in order’.

I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not. Henri thought he was.

‘No,’ Henri said firmly. ‘Absolutely not. If he can’t stay with Martin, he’ll have to find a hotel.’

‘But it’s Christmas,’ said Sir Richard. ‘There won’t be any hotel rooms free.’

‘Then he’ll have to sleep on the beach,’ Henri said without the slightest note of compromise. ‘What’s he doing here anyway?’

‘We have a board meeting tomorrow, remember?’ Sir Richard said. ‘I assume you did get the papers?’

She nodded.

Much to Henri’s relief, Theresa announced that Bentley would be staying in their guest cottage, with Sir Richard and Lady Mary taking the guest suite in the main house.

Maybe I was completely wrong, but why did I suspect that Theresa had arranged for Bentley to be in her guest cottage because it was a convenient location for a clandestine assignation between them?

There were three luxury cars waiting for us outside the private air terminal. One for Derrick and Gay to take them to their home, another for Sir Richard and Lady Mary — both with chauffeurs — and the third with Martin at the wheel, waiting for Theresa and, it seemed, for Bentley.

Martin got out of his car and greeted his parents and his wife, giving Theresa the smallest little peck on the cheek. Hardly a greeting for a loving couple, I thought. Not one that had been apart for more than a week.

He steadfastly ignored me, pointedly not shaking my offered hand.

‘You can ride with us,’ Sir Richard said to Henri, but it was quite clear that, with two large suitcases each, there was hardly enough room in the car for them both, plus their luggage.

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘We’ll get a taxi.’

‘It’s only about ten minutes away,’ he said.

Henri and I hailed one of the island’s many taxi minivans for the short journey to the Coral Stone Club, a three-storey condominium complex nestling between two much taller buildings off the West Bay Road.

Henri collected the key to the apartment from the manager’s office while I supervised the unloading of the bags by the taxi driver and paid him using some of the dollars I had obtained from my bank.