by Dick Francis
‘My aunt… the one who has the stud farm…’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I’ve been talking to her on the telephone. She’s in a grade one tizzy.’
‘What about?’
‘To be honest, I don’t exactly understand. But she lives near Cirencester and I know you are going over that way tomorrow with Mrs Sanders’ horse… and… well… suppose I sort of vaguely offered your help. Anyway, if you’ve got time to call on her, she’d be grateful.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Mrs Antonia Huntercombe. Paley Stud. Her village is Paley, too. Near Cirencester.’
‘Right.’ I wrote it down. ‘Are you working tomorrow evening?’
‘No. Saturday morning.’
‘Then… I could come to your place… on my way home… to tell you how I got on with her.’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was tentative, almost embarrassed. ‘I live…’
‘I know where you live,’ I said. ‘Somewhere at the end of the five furlong straight of Sandown Racecourse.’
She laughed. ‘If I lean out, I can see the stands from the bathroom window.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘I’ve got to go now, or I’ll be late.’ She paused, then she said doubtfully, ‘Did you mean it?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think so. Did you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s silly.’
Friday morning saw the long delayed departure of the seventy thousand pound two-year-old, who seemed to have suffered no harm from his nocturnal junket. I knew, as I thankfully dispatched him with his two slightly less valuable fellows, that I had been luckier than I deserved, and I still sweated at the thought of that headlong gallop down the main road.
Crispin, that Friday morning, lay in the customary coma on his bed. I rang the doctor, who said he would look in on his rounds.
‘How’s the girl I stitched?’ he asked.
‘Gone home. Gone to work.’
‘A lot of starch in that one.’
‘Yes.’
I thought about her every ten minutes or so. A cool girl I had kissed once, on the cheek in the afternoon, standing beside a hired car in Gatwick Airport. She had done nothing in return but smile. One couldn’t call it love. Recognition, perhaps.
Mid-morning I set off for Gloucestershire and without much trouble found the aunt’s stud farm at Paley. As a business breeding venture it had all the first sight marks of imminent skids: weeds in the gravel, an unmended fence, tiles off the stable roof and paint too old to keep out the rain.
The house itself was a pleasant Cotswold stone affair with too much creeper on the walls. I knocked on the front door, which was open, and was told by a rich voice to come in. Dogs greeted me in the hall, a whippet, a labrador, two bassets and a dachshund, all displaying curiosity tempered by good manners. I let them sniff and lick, and they’d know me next time, I thought.
‘Come in, come in,’ called the voice.
I went further, to the door of a long sitting-room where much-used antique furniture stood on elderly Persian rugs. Padded and pclmeted curtains and silk lampshades and Staffordshire china dogs all spoke of enough money somewhere in the past, but the holes in the flowery chintz sofa covers were truer of the present.
Antonia Huntercombe sat in an armchair fondling yet another dog. A Yorkshire terrier, a walking heathrug. She was a woman of about sixty with strong facial bones and an air of first-class stoicism in the face of titanic submersion.
‘Are you Jonah Dereham?’
‘Mrs Huntercombe?’
She nodded. ‘Come in and sit down.’
At closer quarters the voice was fruity in the lower notes and punctiliously articulated. She did not seem over friendly considering that I was supposed to be there to offer help.
‘Excuse me not getting up,’ she said. ‘Little Dougal here is not very well, and I don’t want to disturb him.’
She stroked the hearthrug soothingly. One couldn’t see which end of it was which.
‘Sophie asked me to call,’ I said.
‘Can’t see what good you can do,’ she said forbiddingly. ‘And besides, you’re one of them.’
‘One of who?’
‘Bloodstock agents.’
‘Oh,’ I said. Several shades of light began to dawn.
She nodded grimly. ‘I told Sophie it was no good asking you for help, but she insisted that I should at least tell you my complaints. She’s a very forceful girl, Sophie.’
‘She is indeed.’
Antonia Huntercombe looked at me sharply. ‘She seems to think well of you. She telephoned to find out how I was, but she talked mostly of you.’
‘Did she?’
She nodded. ‘Sophie needs a man. But not a crook.’
I thought privately that few young women needed a man less than Sophie but quarrelled only with the second half of the pronouncement.
‘I’m not a crook.’
‘Hmph.’
I said, ‘I looked you up in the books, before I came. You’ve got one good stallion, Barroboy, but he’s getting old now, and one young one, Bunjie, who might be better if he were keener on his job. You have eight brood mares, the best being Winedark who came third in the Oaks. She was bred last year to a top sire, Winterfriend, and you sent the resulting filly as a yearling to Newmarket Sales last week. She fetched only eighteen hundred guineas because of a heart murmur, which means that you lost a lot of money on her, as the stud fee was five thousand in the first place and then there is all her keep and care and overheads…’
‘It was a lie,’ she said fiercely.
‘What was?’
‘That the filly had a heart murmur. She didn’t. Her heart is as sound as a bell.’
‘But I was there at the sales,’ I said. ‘I remember hearing that the Winterfriend filly would never race and might be doubtful even as a brood mare. That’s why no one bid for her.’
‘That’s why, right enough.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘But it wasn’t true.’
‘You’d better tell me who spread such a rumour,’ I said. ‘Who and why.’
‘Who is easy. All you crooked sharks calling yourself bloodstock agents. Bloodsucking agents more like. As for why… need you ask? Because I won’t give you kick backs.’
She was referring to the practice which had grown up among some agents of going to a breeder before a sale and saying in effect ‘I’ll bid your horse up to a good price if you give me a share of what you get.’ Far more intimidating was the follow up: ‘And if you don’t agree to what I suggest I’ll make sure no one bids for your horse and if you sell it at all it will be at a loss.’ Dozens of small breeders were coughing up the kick backs just to keep themselves in business and Mrs Antonia Huntercombe’s difficulties were what happened if they didn’t.
I knew all about it. I knew that the big reputable firms never asked for kick backs at all, and that individual agents varied from nil to nearly extortionate.
‘I was offered eight thousand for the filly,’ Mrs Hunter-combe said bitterly. ‘I was to give back half of anything she made over that price.’ She glared at me. ‘I refused to agree. Why should I? She cost eight thousand to produce. They wanted half of any profit I made. And for doing what? Nothing at all except bidding in a sale ring. No work, no worry, no thought and care. It’s downright wicked to come and demand half of my profit.’
‘Who was it?’
‘I’m not going to tell you. You’re one of them, and I don’t trust you.’
‘So you sent her to the sales to take her chance.’
‘She should have made at least ten thousand. At least.’ She glared at me. ‘Don’t you agree?’
‘Twelve or fourteen, I would have thought.’
‘Of course she should.’
‘Didn’t you put a reserve on her?’ I asked.
‘Reserves are a racket in themselves,’ she said furiously. ‘But no, I didn’t. There was no reason why she shouldn’t make her price. He
r breeding, her looks… you couldn’t fault her.’
‘And you didn’t go with her to Newmarket?’
‘It’s so far. And there’s too much to do here. I sent a groom with her. I couldn’t believe… I simply couldn’t believe it when she went for eighteen hundred. I didn’t hear that story about a heart murmur until two days afterwards when the man who bought her rang up to ask for the vet’s report.’
I thought about the general lack of prosperity about the place.
‘You needed her to make a good profit?’ I suggested.
‘Of course I did. She was the best foal I’ve had for years.’
‘But not the first request for a kick back?’
‘The worst,’ she said. ‘I’ve told them all… I always tell them… they’ve no right to what they do nothing to earn… but this time… it was wicked.’
I agreed with her. I said, ‘And for some time your yearlings have not been fetching good prices?’
‘For two years,’ she said fiercely. ‘You’re all in it. You know I won’t give kick backs so you won’t bid for my horses.’
She was wrong about us all being in it. I had bought several bargains at various sales when half my rivals had turned their backs. Bargains for me and my clients, disasters for the people who’d bred them. And it was always the small breeder, the honest or naive breeder who lost, because the big firms could look after themselves and others were crooks too and had some scandalous tricks of their own.
The kick back system probably stemmed from the Irish ‘luck penny’: if you bought a horse from an Irishman he gave you back a penny of your money for luck. A penny! What a laugh.
There was no harm in a breeder giving an agent a thank you present for getting him a good price for his horse. The harm came when the agent demanded it first. The crime came when he demanded it with threats and carried them out when he was refused.
Rumours rocketed round sale rings with the speed of light. I had heard the Winterfriend filly had a heart murmur ten minutes before she was sold, and I had believed it like everyone else.
I had often been told that the kick back lark was on the increase. Some breeders made the best of it and some positively welcomed it, because it more or less guaranteed a good price for their horses. Only the Mrs Huntercombes who wouldn’t play ball were coming to grief.
‘Well?’ she said belligerently. ‘Sophie said to ask your advice. So what is it?’
I was too much of a realist for Aunt Antonia. I knew she wouldn’t like what I would say, but I said it all the same.
‘You’ve three choices. The first is to pay the kick backs. You’d be better off in the end.’
‘I won’t.’ She narrowed her eyes in anger. ‘That’s exactly what I would have expected from one of you.’
‘The second,’ I said, ‘Is to sell your stud, raise a mortgage on the house and live on an annuity.’
The anger grew. ‘And just how do I get a fair price for my stallions and mares? And as for a mortgage… I already have one.’ From the way she said it I guessed it was the largest she could get.
‘Third,’ I said, ‘You could go every time to the sales when you sell a horse. Put a sensible reserve on it and get a friend to help with starting the bidding. Take a vet with you bristling with certificates. Tell the agents from the big firms, and as many other people as you can reach, whatever they may hear to the contrary, your horse is in good health, and offer to repay instantly if it is found to be not.’
She stared at me. ‘I haven’t the strength. It would be exhausting.’
‘You sell only six or seven a year.’
‘I am too old. I have high blood pressure and my ankles swell up.’
It was the first really human thing she’d said. I smiled at her. She did not smile back.
‘It’s the best I can do,’ I said, standing up.
‘Don’t shut the front door when you go out,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll have to get up to open it for the dogs.’
It was barely five miles from Paley to where I had arranged to meet the horsebox bringing River God from Devon. I had expected to reach the rendezvous first, but from some distance away I could see a blue box already parked in the designated place.
I had chosen one of those useful half moons carved by road straightening programmes where the loop of old country road remained as a leafy lay-by. There was one other car there, an old green Zodiac station wagon, which hadn’t been cleaned for weeks. I passed it and the horsebox, and stopped in front, getting out to go back to talk to the driver.
Talking to the driver had to be postponed, as he was otherwise engaged. I found him standing with his back to that side of the box which faced away from the gaze of passing motorists on the main road. He was standing with his back to the box because he could retreat no further. Before him, adopting classic threatening poses, were two men.
I knew them well enough. I had met them at Ascot.
Frizzy Hair and his mate.
They hadn’t expected to see me either and it gave me at least an equal chance. I picked up the nearest weapon to hand, which was a nice solid piece of branch fallen from one of the road-lining trees, and positively raced to the attack. If I’d stopped to think I might not have done it, but fury is a great disregarder of caution.
My face must have been an accurate mirror of my feelings. Frizzy Hair for one indecisive moment looked mesmerised, horrified, paralysed by the spectacle of a normally moderate man rushing at him murderously, and because of it he moved far too slowly. I cracked the branch down on him with a ferocity that frightened me as much as him.
He screeched and clutched at the upper reaches of his left arm, and his mate made an equally comprehensive assessment of my general intentions and bolted towards the green wagon.
Frizzy Hair followed him, flinging nothing into the battle but one parting verbal shot.
‘It won’t help you.’
I ran after him, still holding the stick. He was going like a quarter horse and the mate was already in the driving seat with the motor turning over.
Frizzy Hair gave me a sick look over his shoulder, scrambled into the passenger seat and slammed the door. Short of being dragged along the highway I could see no way of stopping them: but I could and did take a quick look at the mud-coated number plate as they shot away, and before I could forget it I fished out pen and paper and wrote it down.
I went much more slowly back to the driver, who was staring at me much as if I were a little green man from outer space.
‘’Struth,’ he said. ‘I thought you was going to kill ‘em.’
Hell hath no fury like the vanquished getting his own back.
I said ‘What did they want?’
‘Blimey…’ He pulled out a crumpled handkerchief and wiped his face. ‘Didn’t you even know?’
‘Only in general,’ I said. ‘What in particular?’
‘Eh?’ He seemed dazed.
‘What did they want?’
‘Got a fag?’
I gave him one and lit for us both. He sucked in the smoke as if it were oxygen to the drowning.
‘I s’pose you are… Jonah Dereham?’ he said.
‘Who else?’
‘Yeah… I thought you were smaller, like.’
Five feet nine inches. Eleven stone. Couldn’t be more average. ‘A lot of jump jockeys are taller,’ I said.
He began to look less stirred up. He ran his tongue round his teeth and seemed to feel a fresh flow of saliva to a dry mouth.
‘What did they want?’ I asked for the third time.
‘That one you hit… with all that fluffy sort of hair… it was him did the talking.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Rum sort of bloke. All smiley. Came up to me cab as nice as you please asking for the loan of a spanner for ‘is brokendown car.’ He stopped to look at the empty road along which the brokendown car had vanished at high speed.
‘Yeah… Well, see, I reached back to the tool kit and asked what size. Come and l
ook see, he said. So I jumped down from me cab. And then, see, he sort of grabbed me and shoved me back against the side of the box. And he never let off smiling. Creepy bastard. So then he says, look mate, there’s someone as wants this horse more than you do.’
‘I suppose he didn’t say who?’
‘Eh? No. He just says there’s someone as wants him more than you do, so I says it isn’t mine in the first place and he says not to make jokes… and him laughing his bleeding head off all the time.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Nothing else. ‘Struth, he didn’t have time. Well, he did say as how I’d better let him take the horse peaceful like if I didn’t want me ribs kicked in… well, I ask you… who would?’
Who indeed? ‘So then what?’
‘That’s when you came belting into them like they’d raped your sister.’
‘They didn’t say just how they proposed to take the horse?’
He stared. ‘No. I didn’t ask. I s’pose they meant to drive off with the whole bleeding lot.’ The idea offended him. ‘Bleeding bastards,’ he said.
‘Did they offer to pay for it?’
‘’Struth, you don’t half have some funny ideas.’
I wondered if they would have done, if I’d given them time. I wondered if I would have found the box driver clutching the cash plus another two hundred profit, and no River God in sight.
I sighed and stubbed out my cigarette.
‘Let’s look at the cargo,’ I said, and climbed aboard the box.
The farmer had done a smartening up job along the lines of paint over rust. The feet had been seen to: the shoes were patently new, and the newly trimmed hooves had been darkened with oil. The mane and tail had been brushed out, and the coat was clean. On the other hand there was a lot too much hair everywhere which spoke of little or no regular grooming; too much mane growing between the ears, too many whiskers around the muzzle, hairs too long on the chest, hairs sticking out everywhere instead of lying down neat and flat. The whole mess was shrouded by a tatty rug with two holes in it; and there was no attendant in sight.
‘I asked the farmer to send a groom,’ I said.
‘Yeah. He said he didn’t have nobody to spare. If you ask me he isn’t fit to keep a pit pony, much less a racehorse. When I got there, you’d hardly credit it, there was this poor bleeding animal standing in the yard tied up to the outside of the stable door, and there was this big bleeding pool of water all round him on the ground. Shivering, he was. I reckon they just hosed him down to get all the muck off. The farmer said he was sweating, that was why his coat looked damp. I ask you, who did he think he was kidding. I made him give me the rug to put on the poor bleeder. He didn’t want me to take it in case I didn’t bring it back.’