by Dick Francis
“What you’ve got to do,” I told Ken, “is stop worrying what you did wrong and start wondering how you would have set about killing the horses that died. Think about a needle and thread in a broodmare’s gut. Think, in fact, of all the ways you know to commit equine murder.”
“But I...” His voice tailed off indecisively.
“Knowledge isn’t guilt,” I said. “Knowing where to shove a dagger between the ribs doesn’t mean you’ve done it.”
“But if you know how, then it might have been you.”
“So you do know ways.”
“Well . . . every vet does.”
I looked at his long unhappy face with its troubled light eyes and understood his unwillingness to part with information that might sound like confession. It was the same hesitation I’d noticed on the night of the fire. I would get him to tell me in the end, I thought, but the sooner the safer, on the whole.
Over his shoulder I saw Belinda making her way purposefully towards us and regretted not being hidden away in the depths of the bar.
“Think out the list,” I urged Ken. “Meet me early tomorrow at the hospital. Alone.”
“How early?”
“Eight?”
“Well ...” He turned to see what I was looking at. Belinda had six paces to go. “All right,” he said. “Eight.”
“Eight what?” Belinda asked, overhearing.
“Number eight in the next race,” I explained.
Ken closed his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” Belinda asked.
“Nothing.” He opened his eyes again, smiling at her and fishing around for his wallet. “Go and put a fiver on number eight for me, there’s a darling. You know I don’t like people to see me bet.”
“Eight hasn’t a hope,” she said.
“All the same ...”
“All right, but you’re mad.”
She walked off towards the Tote windows and Ken at once said, “Why don’t you want Belinda there too, in the morning?”
“You’ll tell me more and clearer on your own. I can ask her later for her impressions.”
He thought it over. “You’re probably right. And you’re a shocking liar.”
“I thought I was quite good.”
“I mean, you shocked me. So fast.”
“Years of practice.”
“That’s pretty shocking too.”
When Belinda returned we climbed the stands to watch the race and to everyone’s blank surprise number eight came in first. The stunned crowd received the no-hoper’s victory in silence, and Belinda stopped Ken’s wide grin in its tracks by announcing a shade defiantly that she hadn’t put his fiver on eight but on the favorite instead.
“People have been divorced for less,” Ken said, just about managing civility.
“Number eight was useless,” Belinda insisted. “I wanted you to win.”
Number eight paid a fortune on the Tote, which caused a further chill between the betrothed. I left them fuming over the problem and made tracks for Annabel as she brought her retinue back to the paddock.
After twenty minutes apart we greeted each other as old friends. The expedition to the closer action had raised heartbeats, it appeared, and also quite clearly the spirits. The two Japanese talked animatedly between themselves about what looked fittest for the next race, and Annabel and I looked at each other with a lot of unspoken questions.
When she finally asked, it was solely a search for information.
“Who,” she said, “were you talking to when we came back? A tall thin man with fair hair and a tetchity girl.”
“Tetchity?”
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Ken McClure and Belinda Larch. The wedding is three weeks today.”
She frowned, but not at that news. “Is he a vet?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Friend of yours?”
“I met him the day before yesterday, and yes, to that extent, he is.”
I waited a bit, and she said, “I owe you for your help. I wouldn’t want you to make a mistake in getting too friendly with that vet. They were talking about him upstairs.”
“Who upstairs?”
“The directors and stewards. One of them was, anyway. He pointed him out to the others as they stood by the window having a drink before lunch. He said your friend would soon be disbarred from practicing, or some such phrase, as he was killing horses left, right and center and was dishonest, sneaky and a disgrace to his profession.”
“As strong as that?”
“Stronger, if anything. There was a lot of hate in it.”
“Really?” I was interested. “Who was he?”
“I was introduced to about eight people very fast and I was trying to present our chums here”—she pointed to her charges—“so I can’t remember his name, but I think he might have been one of the stewards.”
“Let’s see,” I said, and turned my race card back to page one, and there to my confusion found in the list of stewards the name I’d searched all the inner pages for in vain.
R. D. Upjohn, Esq.
“Ronnie!” Annabel exclaimed. “I still can’t remember his last name, but they called him Ronnie.” She studied my face. “Mean something to you?”
I told her why Ronnie Upjohn hated Ken McClure. “Ken made him look a fool. Some men can’t bear it.”
She listened with pursed mouth to the saga of the preserved castoff that went on to win and said, “I understand the spite and envy over the one that was saved, but how about the ones that died? It wasn’t only Ronnie who’d heard about them, some of the others were nodding.”
“What does this Ronnie look like?” I asked.
“You’re changing the subject!”
“I don’t know why the horses died, and nor does Ken. We’re working on it. Could you point out Ronnie Upjohn, by any chance?”
She shook the mop of hair. “Stewards at race meetings all look alike.”
“That’s what people say about the Japanese.”
“Oh no,” she said instantly. “I’d know my three anywhere.” She looked at her watch. “I really ought to take these two back upstairs, where all good little VIPs belong. Would you mind suggesting it?”
They went, it seemed to me, with polite resignation: they were having more fun down in the crowds with the doll of a girl. For me too, unexpectedly, the fizz went out of the hour with their departure, and I said to myself, “Well, well, well, Peter my boy, take it easy, she’ll have half London in tow, and besides that, you know nothing about her except the way she looks and talks....” And who really needed more? Everything had to begin somewhere, after all.
I rejoined Greg and Vicky on the stands and learned they’d at length found two seats in the bar and had stayed there for an hour making one gin and tonic last forever and watching the races on closed-circuit television. They had backed two winners on quick forays to the Tote and had won a lot on number eight. “My birthday’s the eighth of the eighth month,” Vicky said. “Eight’s always my lucky number.” They’d quite enjoyed themselves after all, they said.
Belinda, looking glum, came to ask them dutifully if they were managing all right and was infuriated to be told of their winnings on number eight.
“The wretched animal’s useless,” she protested, “and Ken’s kicking up the most ridiculous fuss.”
“Why, dear?” Vicky asked, perplexed.
“He gave me money to back eight for him and I put it on the favorite instead, and you’d think I’d lost him the crock of gold the way he’s going on.”
“He’s under a lot of pressure,” Greg said gently. “You can see he is.”
“He’s proud and he’s stubborn,” Belinda said, “and he’s not speaking to me.” There was a sudden thin glitter of tears along her lower eyelids. She tossed her head as if to disclaim them and blinked hard, sniffing.
Vicky, looking relieved at this sign of emotion in her bossy daughter, said prosaically, “He’ll get over it.”
Belinda said, “I offered to give him the wretched money he would have won. He says that’s not the point. Well, if it’s not, what is?”
“The point is his ego, dear,” Vicky said. “You questioned his decision. Worse still, you overrode it. That’s what’s the matter with him, not the loss of his money.”
Belinda looked at her mother in wide-eyed silent astonishment, and I thought that it might even have been the very first time in her adult life that she’d really listened to what her mother said. After a long pause her gaze slid from Vicky to me, and a good deal of acerbity returned to her expression.
“And you,” she said, not liking me, “what do you say about it?”
“I’d say,” I said without emphasis, “that he’s too used to you obeying him without question in the course of your work.”
She gave me much the same stare that she’d bestowed on her mother.
“I wanted what was best for him,” she said.
And to prove your judgment superior, I thought, but knew better than to say it.
She changed the subject as if to defend her self-esteem from more analysis, and said, “We all want to know who that weird-looking woman is you’ve been talking to all afternoon.”
“We all” being Belinda’s euphemism for “I am consumed by curiosity,” Greg and Vicky looked mystified. They hadn’t noticed Annabel, obviously.
“What woman?” Vicky in fact asked artlessly.
“She works for the Jockey Club,” I said. “She escorts foreign official visitors. Today the visitors are Japanese. I helped her with translation, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Belinda shrugged. “Extraordinary of the Jockey Club to employ someone who dresses like that at the races.”
“Do point her out to me,” Vicky said.
Annabel however stayed out of sight until after the last race, when she came down from above and shepherded her charges towards the exit. She saw me hovering there (I was already keeping Ken and the others waiting) and came to my side with a small-mouthed grin.
“Ronnie Upjohn is that man there ahead of us, the one with the woman in the orange coat.” We walked on together out into the car park, followed by the two Japanese. “I couldn’t talk to him much, he was in and out all the time, and I was stuck with our friends, but he seems fairly ordinary. Dogmatic, of course. He thinks jockeys get away with murder, but who doesn’t?”
“Who doesn’t get away with murder, or who doesn’t think jockeys do?”
“Take your pick.”
We arrived at a big car with a chauffeur waiting to carry away the very important Japanese. I bowed in farewell to the two men, keeping an eye on the departing orange coat.
“Go chase him,” Annabel said, “if you must.”
I smiled at her blue eyes. “I’ll phone you,” I said.
“Do that.”
She followed her charges into the car and closed the door, and without delay I hurried after the orange coat as fast as I could without drawing stares.
The coat stopped beside a large gray car and the man, Ronnie Upjohn, unlocked the car doors. He then opened the trunk, took off his hat, binocular case and overcoat and laid them inside. The orange coat, removed, followed. I had time to arrive and see Upjohn clearly before he folded himself into the car, and when he did, it was into the front passenger seat, not behind the wheel. The orange-coat lady, now in gray with pearls, was the driver.
Ronnie Upjohn was sixtyish and basically unremarkable. I had to tick off features mentally to have any chance of knowing him elsewhere. Hair, gray. Forehead, medium height, lined. Eyebrows, medium bushy. Eyes, slightly drooping at outside edges, lids folded from age. Nose, large, a bit bulbous. Moustache, medium size, brownish. Mouth, firm. Jaw ... I gave up. There wasn’t anything memorable about his jaw. Moreover, he was by then inside the car and could be seen only through glass.
I turned away and started walking towards Ken’s car across the main car park and found him standing with his arms folded, leaning on the car’s roof and watching my antics with astonishment.
“Did you know who you were following?” he asked incredulously. “That was Ronnie Upjohn.”
“I certainly hope so,” I said.
“But why?”
“I wanted to put a face to the name.” I paused. “Apart from acting as a steward, what does he do?”
“Owns a few horses.” Ken thought it over. “He’s something in finance. In an office. I don’t exactly know. He’s semi-retired, I think. No lack of money. Probably inherited money: he has that feel. He’s not overshrewd, I wouldn’t say.”
“He’s doing you no good just now,” I said.
Ken sighed. “No one is.” He stood upright and prepared to get into the car. “And I gave Belinda a right bollocking, and it wasn’t as if I even knew the name of number eight, let alone believed it would win, and I upset her something dreadful and now I’m in the shit.”
I shook my head. “Not really. All you have to do is pat her knee.”
I’d grown accustomed to him looking at me as if I’d taken leave of my senses, but on the drive home he did in fact wordlessly pat Belinda’s knee, and she burst into tears, which resolved the quarrel instantly.
THAT EVENING, WHEN they’d all gone out, I ate cheese on toast and drank some wine and telephoned my mother.
My parents had long ago set up a system for my calls to them from round the world which was, basically, if I would call, they would pay. I had myself only to get through and give them the number I was speaking from, and they would then call back. That way, I had to pay only for a maximum of three minutes though we might talk for an hour. My father had dryly remarked that it was the only way for them to make sure I was alive.
I counted out the money for three minutes to Mexico City and left it in an envelope by the phone in Thetford Cottage, and in short order, striking lucky, was talking to my mum.
I pictured her on the other end of the line, as beautiful as ever. She’d always had what I had grown to recognize as style, an inborn quality that had made the transition from efficient secretary to ambassador’s wife look simple, a deserved progression. I listened with a familiar sense of security to her light voice, elegant and very young, ageless.
“Wynn Lees?” she repeated in disbelief after she’d phoned back. “Why on earth do you want to know about Wynn Lees?”
Explaining took a fair amount of her money and left her both amused and alarmed.
“It’s fascinating you’ve got to know Ken McClure, but you seriously don’t want to get mixed up with Wynn Lees, darling. He won’t have changed his spots.”
“Yes, but why?” I asked. “What did he do that was so awful?”
“Heavens, it was all so long ago.”
“But you used to tell me that if I didn’t mend my ways I’d grow up like Wynn Lees, as if it was the worst fate in the world, and all I can dredge up about him is a vague impression that he went to prison.”
“Yes, he certainly did.”
“Well, what for?”
“For cruelty to horses.”
“For what?” I was stunned.
“The first time, it was for cruelty to horses. It happened long before you were born, when Wynn Lees was about twenty, I suppose. He and another youth cut off a horse’s tongue. I think they did it about six times before they were caught. I didn’t know about it until we moved to Cheltenham, and by that time Wynn Lees was over thirty and had been to prison again, but the second time was for fighting. Good heavens, I haven’t thought about this for years. He was a horrible man. He used to come to the office sometimes because at that time he lived on the far side of the racecourse, though he went off to somewhere like Australia afterwards. He used to complain about the boundary fencing and I couldn’t stand him. He’d be talking about wire and all I could think about were those horses dying because they’d had their tongues cut out. People used to say he’d paid for it and it was wild oats and all in the past, but I think people’s pasts are them, and if it was in
him to do that at twenty it’s still in him at fifty or sixty, even if he wouldn’t actually do it now, if you see what I mean. So if he’s back in England, don’t cross him, darling, just don’t.”
“I’ll try not to,” I promised. “Who did he fight?”
“What? Oh . . . gracious ... I can’t remember. He’d not long come out of prison when we arrived in Cheltenham. You couldn’t work on the racecourse without hearing about him all the time. Let me think ... Oh yes!” She chuckled suddenly. “It wasn’t just for fighting. He’d attacked some man with a rivet gun and shot staples into him through his jeans. Stapled the jeans to the man. It sounds funny now but I think he’d accused the man of laying his girlfriend behind his back and he was making sure he wouldn’t be able to take his trousers down again.”
“For God’s sake!”
“Mm. I do remember now. The man with the staples in him had to go to hospital to get them taken out and they were mostly in the most painful of places, it was said, and touch and go whether he’d ever lay anyone again, let alone Wynn Lees’s girlfriend.”
“Why didn’t I ever hear about this?”
“Well, darling, you may have done but not from me. I wouldn’t have told you. You were a baby at the time of the stapling. I can tell you though that you didn’t like Wynn Lees at all. You used to hide if he came into the office if you were there. It was absolutely instinctive. You couldn’t bear him. So I used him as a bogey-man without frightening you with what he’d actually done. I thought that the cutting off of horses’ tongues would give you nightmares. I certainly wouldn’t tell any child something like that even now, though no child grows up these days without knowing the world is full of horrors.”
“Thank you for not telling me,” I said. “I’d have hated it.”
“You’re a fairly rewarding child, now and then.”
Pat pat on the back. And why not? We’d always been friends.
“OK,” I said, “let me try you with some more names. How about Ronnie Upjohn?”
“Upjohn . . .” Her voice was negative, without recognition.
“Upjohn and Travers,” I said. “Who were Upjohn and Travers?”