by Dick Francis
Little doubt, I thought. He was listed as a black or brown gelding, five years old, a half-bred by a thorough-bred sire out of a hunter mare. He had been trained by a man I’d never heard of and he had run three times in four-year-old hurdles without being placed.
I telephoned to the trainer at once, introducing myself as a Mr Robinson trying to buy a cheap novice.
‘Padellic?’ he said in a forthright Birmingham accent. ‘I got shot of that bugger round October time. No bloody good. Couldn’t run fast enough to keep warm. Is he up for sale again? Can’t say as I’m surprised. He’s a right case of the slows, that one.’
‘Er… where did you sell him?’ I asked tentatively.
‘Sent him to Doncaster mixed sales. Right bloody lot they had there. He fetched four hundred quid and I reckon he was dear at that. Only the one bid, you see. I reckon the bloke could’ve got him for three hundred if he’d tried. I was right pleased to get four for him, I’ll tell you.’
‘Would you know who bought him?’
‘Eh?’ He sounded surprised at the question. ‘Can’t say. He paid cash to the auctioneers and didn’t give his name. I saw him make his bid, that’s all. Big fellow. I’d never clapped eyes on him before. Wearing sunglasses. I didn’t see him after. He paid up and took the horse away and I was right glad to be shot of him.’
‘What is the horse like?’ I asked.
‘I told you, bloody slow.’
‘No, I mean to look at.’
‘Eh? I thought you were thinking of buying him.’
‘Only on paper, so to speak. I thought,’ I lied, ‘that he still belonged to you.’
‘Oh, I see. He’s black, then. More or less black, with a bit of brown round the muzzle.’
‘Any white about him?’
‘Not a hair. Black all over. Black ’uns are often no good. I bred him, see? Meant to be bay, he was, but he turned out black. Not a bad looker, mind. He fills the eye. But nothing there where it matters. No speed.’
‘Can he jump?’
‘Oh ay. In his own good time. Not bad.’
‘Well, thanks very much.’
‘You’d be buying a monkey,’ he said warningly. ‘Don’t say as I didn’t tell you.’
‘I won’t buy him,’ I assured him. ‘Thanks again for your advice.’
I put down the receiver reflectively. There might of course be dozens of large untraceable men in sunglasses going round the sales paying cash for slow black horses with no markings; and then again there might not.
The telephone bell rang under my hand. I picked up the receiver at the first ring.
‘Steven?’
No mistaking that cigar-and-port voice. ‘Charlie.’
‘Have you lunched yet?’ he said. ‘I’ve just got off a train round the corner at Euston and I thought…’
‘Here or where?’ I said.
‘I’ll come round to you.’
‘Great.’
He came, beaming and expansive, having invested three million somewhere near Rugby. Charlie, unlike some merchant bankers, liked to see things for himself. Reports on paper were all very well, he said, but they didn’t give you the smell of a thing. If a project smelt wrong, he didn’t disgorge the cash. Charlie followed his nose and Charlie’s nose was his fortune.
The feature in question buried itself gratefully in a large scotch and water.
‘How about some of that nosh you gave Bert?’ he suggested, coming to the surface. ‘To tell you the truth I get tired of eating in restaurants.’
We repaired amicably to the kitchen and ate bread and bacon and curried baked beans and sausages, all of which did no good at all to anyone’s waistline, least of all Charlie’s. He patted the bulge affectionately. ‘Have to get some weight off, one of these days. But not today,’ he said.
We took coffee back to the sitting-room and settled comfortably in armchairs.
‘I wish I lived the way you do,’ he said. ‘So easy and relaxed.’
I smiled. Three weeks of my quiet existence would have driven him screaming to the madhouse. He thrived on bustle, big business, fast decisions, financial juggling and the use of power. And three weeks of all that, I thought in fairness, would have driven me mad even quicker.
‘Have you made that lock yet?’ he asked. He was lighting a cigar round the words and they sounded casual, but I wondered all of a sudden if that was why he had come.
‘Half,’ I said.
He shook his match to blow it out. ‘Let me know,’ he said.
‘I promised.’
He drew in a lungful of Havana and nodded, his eyes showing unmistakably now that his mind was on duty for his bank.
‘Which would you do most for,’ I asked. ‘Friendship or the lock?’
He was a shade startled. ‘Depends what you want done.’
‘Practical help in a counter-offensive.’
‘Against Jody?’
I nodded.
‘Friendship,’ he said. ‘That comes under the heading of friendship. You can count me in.’
His positiveness surprised me. He saw it and smiled.
‘What he did to you was diabolical. Don’t forget, I was here. I saw the state you were in. Saw the humiliation of that drink charge, and the pain from God knows what else. You looked a little below par and that’s a fact.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be. If it was just your pocket he’d bashed, I would probably be ready with cool advice but not active help.’
I hadn’t expected anything like this. I would have thought it would have been the other way round, that the loss of property would have angered him more than the loss of face.
‘If you’re sure…’ I said uncertainly.
‘Of course.’ He was decisive. ‘What do you want done?’
I picked up the Racing Calendar, which was lying on the floor beside my chair, and explained how I’d looked for and found Padellic.
‘He was bought at Doncaster sales for cash by a large man in sunglasses and he’s turned up in Jody’s name.’
‘Suggestive.’
‘I’d lay this house to a sneeze,’ I said, ‘that Rupert Ramsey is worrying his guts out trying to train him for the Champion Hurdle.’
Charlie smoked without haste. ‘Rupert Ramsey has Padellic, but thinks he has Energise. Is that right?’
I nodded.
‘And Jody is planning to run Energise at Stratford on Avon in the name of Padellic?’
‘I would think so,’ I said.
‘So would I.’
‘Only it’s not entirely so simple.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because,’ I said, ‘I’ve found two other races for which Padellic is entered, at Nottingham and Lingfield. All the races arc ten to fourteen days ahead and there’s no telling which Jody will choose.’
He frowned. ‘What difference does it make, which he chooses?’
I told him.
He listened with his eyes wide open and the eyebrows disappearing upwards into his hair. At the end, he was smiling.
‘So how do you propose to find out which race he’s going for?’ he asked.
‘I thought,’ I said, ‘that we might mobilise your friend Bert. He’d do a lot for you.’
‘What, exactly?’
‘Do you think you could persuade him to apply for a job in one of Ganser Mays’ betting shops?’
Charlie began to laugh. ‘How much can I tell him?’
‘Only what to look for. Not why.’
‘You slay me, Steven.’
‘And another thing,’ I said, ‘how much do you know about the limitations of working hours for truck drivers?’
9
Snow was falling when I flew out of Heathrow, thin scurrying flakes in a driving wind. Behind me I left a half-finished lock, a half-mended car and a half-formed plan.
Charlie had telephoned to say Bert Huggerneck had been taken on at one of the shops formerly owned by his ex-boss and I had made cautious enquiries from the auctione
ers at Doncaster. I’d had no success. They had no record of the name of the person who’d bought Padellic. Cash transactions were common. They couldn’t possibly remember who had bought one particular cheap horse three months earlier. End of enquiry.
Owen had proclaimed himself as willing as Charlie to help in any way he could. Personal considerations apart, he said, whoever had bent the Lamborghini deserved hanging. When I came back, he would help me build the scaffold.
The journey from snow to sunshine took eight hours. Seventy-five degrees at Miami airport and only a shade cooler outside the hotel on Miami Beach; and it felt great. Inside the hotel the air-conditioning brought things nearly back to an English winter, but my sixth-floor room faced straight towards the afternoon sun. I drew back the closed curtains and opened the window, and let heat and light flood in.
Below, round a glittering pool, tall palm trees swayed in the sea wind. Beyond, the concrete edge to the hotel grounds led immediately down to a narrow strip of sand and the frothy white waves edging the Atlantic, with mile upon mile of deep blue water stretching away to the lighter blue horizon.
I had expected Miami Beach to be garish and was unprepared for its beauty. Even the ranks of huge white slabs of hotels with rectangular windows piercing their façades in a uniform geometrical pattern held a certain grandeur, punctuated and softened as they were by scattered palms.
Round the pool people lay in rows on day beds beside white fringed sun umbrellas, soaking up ultra-violet like a religion. I changed out of my travel-sticky clothes and went for a swim in the sea, paddling lazily in the warm January water and sloughing off cares like dead skin. Jody Leeds was five thousand miles away, in another world. Easy, and healing, to forget him.
Upstairs again, showered and dressed in slacks and cotton shirt I checked my watch for the time to telephone Allie. After the letters, we had exchanged cables, though not in code because the cable company didn’t like it.
I sent, ‘What address Miami.’
She replied: ‘Telephone four two six eight two after six any evening.’
When I called her it was five past six on January fifth, local time. The voice which answered was not hers and for a soggy moment I wondered if the Western Union had jumbled the message as they often did, and that I should never find her.
‘Miss Ward? Do you mean Miss Alexandra?’
‘Yes,’ I said with relief.
‘Hold the line, please.’
After a pause came the familiar voice, remembered but suddenly fresh. ‘Hallo?’
‘Allie… It’s Steven.’
‘Hi.’ Her voice was laughing. ‘I’ve won close on fifty dollars if you’re in Miami.’
‘Collect it,’ I said.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘We have a date,’ I said reasonably.
‘Oh sure.’
‘Where do I find you?’
‘Twelve twenty-four Garden Island,’ she said. ‘Any cab will bring you. Come right out, it’s time for cocktails.’
Garden Island proved to be a shady offshoot of land with wide enough channels surrounding it to justify its name. The cab rolled slowly across twenty yards of decorative iron bridge and came to a stop outside twelve twenty-four. I paid off the driver and rang the bell.
From the outside the house showed little. The whitewashed walls were deeply obscured by tropical plants and the windows by insect netting. The door itself looked solid enough for a bank.
Allie opened it. Smiled widely. Gave me a noncommittal kiss.
‘This is my cousin’s house,’ she said. ‘Come in.’
Behind its secretive front the house was light and large and glowing with clear, uncomplicated colours. Blue, sea-green, bright pink, white and orange; clean and sparkling.
‘My cousin Minty,’ Allie said, ‘and her husband, Warren Barbo.’
I shook hands with the cousins. Minty was neat, dark and utterly self-possessed in lemon-coloured beach pyjamas. Warren was large, sandy and full of noisy good humour. They gave me a tall, iced, unspecified drink and led me into a spacious glass-walled room for a view of the setting sun.
Outside in the garden the yellowing rays fell on a lush lawn, a calm pool and white painted lounging chairs. All peaceful and prosperous and a million miles from blood, sweat and tears.
‘Alexandra tells us you’re interested in horses,’ Warren said, making host-like conversation. ‘I don’t know how long you reckon on staying, but there’s a racemeet at Hialeah right now, every day this week. And the bloodstock sales, of course, in the evenings. I’ll be going myself some nights and I’d be glad to have you along.’
The idea pleased me, but I turned to Allie.
‘What are your plans?’
‘Millie and I split up,’ she said without visible regret. ‘She said when we were through with Christmas and New Year she would be off to Japan for a spell, so I grabbed a week down here with Minty and Warren.’
‘Would you come to the races, and the sales?’
‘Sure.’
‘I have four days,’ I said.
She smiled brilliantly but without promise. Several other guests arrived for drinks at that point and Allie said she would fetch the canapés. I followed her to the kitchen.
‘You can carry the stone crabs,’ she said, putting a large dish into my hands. ‘And okay, after a while we can sneak out and eat some place else.’
For an hour I helped hand round those understudies for a banquet, American-style canapés. Allie’s delicious work. I ate two or three and like a true male chauvinist meditated on the joys of marrying a good cook.
I found Minty at my side, her hand on my arm, her gaze following mine.
‘She’s a great girl,’ she said. ‘She swore you would come.’
‘Good,’ I said with satisfaction.
Her eyes switched sharply to mine with a grin breaking out. ‘She told us to be careful what we said to you, because you always understood the implications, not just the words. And I guess she was right.’
‘You’ve only told me that she wanted me to come and thought I liked her enough to do it.’
‘Yeah, but…’ She laughed. ‘She didn’t actually say all that.’
‘I see what you mean.’
She took out of my hands a dish of thin pastry boats filled with pink chunks of lobster in pale green mayonnaise. ‘You’ve done more than your duty here,’ she smiled. ‘Get on out.’
She lent us her car. Allie drove it northwards along the main boulevard of Collins Avenue and pulled up at a restaurant called Stirrup and Saddle.
‘I thought you might feel at home here,’ she said teasingly.
The place was crammed. Every table in sight was taken, and as in many American restaurants, the tables were so close together that only emaciated waiters could inch around them. Blow-ups of racing scenes decorated the walls and saddles and horseshoes abounded.
Dark decor, loud chatter and, to my mind, too much light.
A slightly harassed head waiter intercepted us inside the door.
‘Do you have reservations, sir?’
I began to say I was sorry, as there were dozens of people already waiting round the bar, when Allie interrupted.
‘Table for two, name of Barbo.’
He consulted his lists, smiled, nodded. ‘This way, sir.’
There was miraculously after all one empty table, tucked in a corner but with a good view of the busy room. We sat comfortably in dark wooden-armed chairs and watched the head waiter turn away the next customers decisively.
‘When did you book this table?’ I asked.
‘Yesterday. As soon as I got down here.’ The white teeth gleamed. ‘I got Warren to do it; he likes this place. That’s when I made the bets. He and Minty said it was crazy, you wouldn’t come all the way from England just to take me out to eat.’
‘And you said I sure was crazy enough for anything.’
‘I sure did.’
We ate bluepoint oysters and barbecued baby ri
bs with salad alongside. Noise and clatter from other tables washed around us and waiters towered above with huge loaded trays. Business was brisk.
‘Do you like it here?’ Allie asked, tackling the ribs.
‘Very much.’
She seemed relieved. I didn’t add that some quiet candlelight would have done even better. ‘Warren says all horse people like it, the same way he does.’
‘How horsey is Warren?’
‘He owns a couple of two-year-olds. Has them in training with a guy in Aiken, North Carolina. He was hoping they’d be running here at Hialeah but they’ve both got chipped knees and he doesn’t know if they’ll be any good any more.’
‘What are chipped knees?’ I asked.
‘Don’t you have chipped knees in England?’
‘Heaven knows.’
‘So will Warren.’ She dug into the salad, smiling down at the food. ‘Warren’s business is real estate but his heart beats out there where the hooves thunder along the homestretch.’
‘Is that how he puts it?’
Her smile widened. ‘It sure is.’
‘He said he’d take us to Hialeah tomorrow, if you’d like.’
‘I might as well get used to horses, I suppose.’ She spoke with utter spontaneity and then in a way stood back and looked at what she’d said. ‘I mean…’ she stuttered.
‘I know what you mean,’ I said smiling.
‘You always do, dammit.’
We finished the ribs and progressed to coffee. She asked how fast I’d recovered from the way she had seen me last and what had happened since. I told her about the gossip columns and the car, and she was fiercely indignant; mostly, I gathered, because of the car.
‘But it was so beautiful!’
‘It will be again.’
‘I’d like to murder that Jody Leeds.’
She scarcely noticed, that time, that she was telling me what she felt for me. The sense of a smoothly deepening relationship filled me with contentment: and it was also great fun.
After three cups of dawdled coffee I paid the bill and we went out to the car.
‘I can drop you off at your hotel,’ Allie said. ‘It’s quite near here.’
‘Certainly not. I’ll see you safely home.’