Reflex

by Dick Francis

  “You race in France?”

  “After Christmas, if it freezes here, there’s always the chance of some rides at Cagnes sur Mer . . . down on the south coast.”

  “It sounds marvelous.”

  “It’s still winter. And still work. But yes, not bad.”

  She returned to the subject of photographs, and said she would like to come down to Lambourn again to go through the Jockey’s Life file.

  “Don’t worry if you want to change your mind,” I said.

  “Of course I don’t.” She looked at me in seeming alarm. “You haven’t sold any to anyone else, have you? You did say you wouldn’t.”

  “Not those.”

  “What, then?”

  I told her about the Horse and Hound, and about Lance Kinship, and how odd I found it that all of a sudden people seemed to be wanting to buy my work.

  “I would think,” she said judiciously, “that the word has gone around.” She finished her veal and sat back, her face serious with thought. “What you need is an agent.”

  I explained about having to find one for Marie Millace anyway, but she brushed that aside.

  “Not any agent,” she said. “I mean me.”

  She looked at my stunned expression and smiled. “Well?” she said. “What does any agent do? He knows the markets and sells the goods. Your goods will sell . . . obviously. So I’ll learn pretty damn quick what the markets are, that I don’t know already. The sports side of it, I mean. And what if I got you commissions for illustrations for other books . . . on any subject . . . would you do them?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “No buts,” she said. “There’s no point in taking super photos if no one sees them.”

  “But there are thousands of photographers.”

  “Why are you so defeatist?” she said. “There’s always room for one more.”

  The candlelight shone on the intent expression and lay in apricot shadows under cheekbone and chin. Her gray eyes looked steadily at a future I still shied away from. I wondered what she’d say if I said I wanted to kiss her, when her thoughts were clearly more practical.

  “I could try,” she said persuasively. “I’d like to try. Will you let me? If I’m no good, I’ll admit it.”

  She’ll bully you into things, Samantha had said.

  Take what comes, and hope for the best.

  I stuck to my old philosophy and said, “All right,” and she said “Great” as if she meant it: and later, when I delivered her to her doorstep and kissed her, she didn’t object to that either.

  14

  Four times on Tuesday morning I lifted the telephone to cancel my appointment with Lord White. Once I got as far as hearing the bell ring at the other end. Four times I put the receiver down and decided I would have to go. I would have liked to go with more certainty that I was doing right; but anyway, I went.

  Lord White’s house in Gloucestershire turned out to be a weathered stone pile with more grandeur than gardeners. Noble windows raised their eyebrows above drifts of unswept leaves. A stubble of fawn stalks indicated lawn. A mat of dead weeds glued the gravel together. I rang the front doorbell and wondered about the economics of barony.

  The third Baron White received me in a small sitting room, which gave onto a view of straggly rosebushes and an unclipped hedge. Inside, everything was of venerable antiquity, dusted and gleaming. Holes in the chintz chair covers had been patched. Less money than was needed, I diagnosed briefly, but still enough to keep at bay a three-bedroom apartment.

  Lord White shook hands and offered me a chair in a mixture of puzzlement and civility, waiting for me to say why I had come; and although I’d spent the whole journey inventing possible openings, I found it an agony to begin.

  “Sir . . .” I said. “I’m sorry . . . very sorry, sir . . . but I’m afraid what I’ve come about may be a great shock to you.”

  He frowned slightly. “About George Millace?” he said. “You said it was something about George Millace.”

  “Yes . . . about some photographs he took.”

  I stopped. Too late, I wished fervently that I hadn’t come. I should after all have adhered to the lifetime habit of noninvolvement, of wait and see. I should never have set out to use George’s wicked arsenal. But I had. I was there. I had made the decision and acted on it. What I was there for . . . had to be done.

  My errand was to give pain. Purposely to hurt. To go against all the instincts of compassion I owed to Samantha and Charlie and Margaret and Bill. To serve as a wrecker, with a brutal celluloid axe.

  “Get on with it, Nore,” Lord White said comfortably, unsuspecting.

  With foreboding I opened the large envelope I carried. I pulled out the first of the three pictures of the lovers, and put it into his outstretched hand: and for all that I thought he was behaving foolishly over Dana den Relgan, I felt deeply sorry for him.

  His first reaction was of extreme anger. How dared I, he said, standing up and quivering, how dared I bring him anything so filthy and disgusting?

  With the greatest difficulty, I thought; but he wouldn’t have appreciated it. I took the second and third photographs out of the envelope and rested them picture side down on the arm of my chair.

  “As you will see,” I said, and my voice was hoarse, “the others are if anything worse.”

  I reckoned it took him a lot of courage to pick up the other two pictures. He looked at them in desparate silence, and slowly sank down again in his chair.

  His face told of his anguish. Of his disbelief. Of his horror.

  The man making love to Dana was Ivor den Relgan.

  “They say,” Lord White said, “that they can fake pictures of anything.” His voice shook. “Cameras do lie.”

  “Not this one,” I said regretfully.

  “It can’t be true.”

  I took from the envelope a print of the letter George Millace had written, and gave it to him. He had difficulty in bringing himself to read it, so physically shaking was his distress.

  The letter, which I knew by heart, read:

  Dear Ivor den Relgan,

  I am sure you will be interested in the enclosed photographs, which I was happily able to take a few days ago in St. Tropez.

  As you will see, they show you in a compromising position with the young lady who is known as your daughter. (It is surely unwise to do this sort of thing on hotel balconies without making sure that one cannot be seen by telephoto lenses?)

  There seem to be two possibilities here.

  One. Dana den Relgan is your daughter, in which case this is incest.

  Two. Dana den Relgan is not your daughter, in which case why are you pretending she is? Can it have anything to do with the ensnaring of a certain member of the Jockey Club? Are you hoping for entry to the Club, and other favors?

  I could of course send these photographs to the Lord in question. I will ring you shortly, however, with an alternative suggestion.

  Yours sincerely,

  George Millace

  Lord White became much older before my eyes, the glow that loving had given him shrinking grayly back into deepening wrinkles. I looked away. Looked at my hands, my feet, the spindly rosebushes outside. Anywhere but at that devastated man.

  After a very long time he said, “Where did you get these?”

  “George Millace’s son gave me a box with some things of his father’s in it, after his father died. These photos were in it.”

  He suffered through another silence, and said, “Why did you bring them to me? For the sake of causing me . . . mortification?”

  I swallowed and said as flatly as possible, “You won’t really have noticed, sir, but people are worried about how much power has been given recently to Ivor den Relgan.”

  He shuddered slightly at the name but raised the blue eyes to give me a long unfriendly inspection.

  “And you have taken it upon yourself to try to stop it?”

  “Sir . . . yes.”

  He looked grim, and
as if seeking refuge in anger he said authoritatively, “It’s none of your business, Nore.”

  I didn’t answer at once. I’d had enough trouble in persuading myself that it was my business to last a lifetime. But in the end, diffidently, I said, “Sir, if you are certain in your own mind that Ivor den Relgan’s sudden rise to unheard-of power is nothing whatever to do with your affection for Dana den Relgan, then I do most abjectly beg your pardon.”

  He merely stared.

  I tried again. “If you truly believe that racing would benefit by Ivor den Relgan’s appointing paid stewards, I apologize.”

  “Please leave,” he said rigidly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I stood up and walked over to the door, but when I reached it I heard his voice from behind me.

  “Wait. Nore . . . I must think.”

  I turned, hovering. “Sir,” I said, “you’re so respected . . . and liked . . . by everyone. It’s been no fun to watch what’s been happening.”

  “Will you please come back and sit down?” His voice was still stern, still full of accusation and judgment. Still full of defense.

  I returned to the armchair, and he went and stood by the window with his back to me, looking out to the dead roses.

  His thoughts took time. So would mine have done, in the same situation. The result of them was a deep change in his voice in both pitch and content, for when he finally spoke again he sounded not shattered nor furious, but normal. He spoke, however, without turning around.

  “How many people,” he said, “have seen these pictures?”

  “I don’t know how many George Millace showed them to,” I said. “As for me, they’ve been seen only by one friend. He was with me when I found them. But he doesn’t know the den Relgans. He doesn’t often go racing.”

  “So you didn’t consult with anyone before you came here?”

  “No, sir.”

  Another long pause. I was good, anyway, at waiting. The house around us was very quiet: holding its breath, I thought fancifully, as I, in a way, held mine.

  “Do you intend,” he said quietly, “to make jokes about this on the racecourse?”

  “No.” I was horrified. “I do not.”

  “And would you . . .” He paused, but went on. “Would you expect any reward, in service . . . or cash . . . for this silence?”

  I stood up as if he had actually hit me, not delivered his thrust from six paces with his back turned.

  “I would not,” I said. “I’m not George Millace. I think . . . I think I’ll go now.” And go I did, out of the room, out of the house, out of his weedy domain, impelled by a severe hurt to the vanity.

  On Wednesday nothing much happened; less, in fact, than expected, as I was met when I went to ride out first lot with the news that Coral Key wouldn’t be running that day at Kempton after all.

  “Bloody animal got cast in its box during the night,” Harold said. “I woke and heard him banging. God knows how long he’d been down; he was halfway exhausted. It won’t please Victor.”

  With the riding fee down the drain it wasn’t worthwhile spending money on petrol to go spectating at the races, so I stayed at home and did Lance Kinship’s reprints.

  Thursday I set off to Kempton with only one ride, thinking it was a very thin week on the earning front; but almost as soon as I’d stepped through the gate I was grabbed by a fierce little man who said his guv’nor was looking for me, and if I wanted his spare rides I should shift my arse.

  I shifted, and got the rides just before the trainer in question thought I wouldn’t get there in time and gave them to someone else.

  “Very annoying,” he said, puffing as if breathless, though I gathered he had been standing still waiting for me for fifteen minutes. “My fellow said yesterday he’d no ill effects from a fall he’d had. And then this morning, cool as you please, he rings to say he’s got flu.”

  “Well . . . er . . .” I swallowed a laugh. “I don’t suppose he can help it.”

  “Damned inconsiderate.”

  His horses turned out to have better lungs than their master, but were otherwise no great shakes. I got one of them round into third place in a field of six, and came down on the other two fences from home; a bit of a crash but nothing broken in either him or me.

  The third horse, the one I’d gone originally to ride, wasn’t much better: a clumsy underschooled baby of a horse with guts about equal to his skill. I took him round carefully in the novice ’chase to try to teach him his job, and got no thanks from the trainer who said I hadn’t gone fast enough to keep warm.

  “There were six or seven behind us,” I said mildly.

  “And six or seven in front.”

  I nodded. “He needs time.” And patience, and weeks and months of jumping practice. He probably wouldn’t get either, and I probably wouldn’t be offered the mount again. The trainer would go for speed regardless, and the horse would crash at the open ditch, and it would serve the trainer right. Pity the poor horse.

  The relief of the afternoon, as far as I was concerned, was the absence of Lord White.

  The surprise of the afternoon was the presence of Clare. She was waiting outside the weighing room when I’d changed back into street clothes and was leaving for home.

  “Hullo,” she said.

  “Clare!”

  “Just thought I’d come and take a look at the real thing.” Her eyes smiled. “Is today typical?”

  I looked at the gray windy sky and the thin Thursday crowd, and thought of my three nondescript races.

  “Pretty much,” I said. “How did you get here?”

  “By race train. Very educational. And I’ve been walking around all afternoon all a-goggle. I never knew people actually ate jellied eels.”

  I laughed. “I’ve never looked one in the face. Er . . . what would you like? A drink? A cup of tea? A trip to Lambourn?”

  She thought it over briefly. “Lambourn,” she said. “I can get a train back from there, can’t I?”

  I drove her to Berkshire with an unaccustomed feeling of contentment. It felt right to have her sitting there in the car. Natural. Probably, I thought, rationalizing, because she was Samantha’s daughter.

  The cottage was dark and cold, but soon warmed. I went around switching on lights and heat and the kettle for tea. When the telephone rang, I answered it in the kitchen, which was where it happened to be plugged in, and had my eardrum half-shattered by a piercing voice which shrieked, “Am I first?”

  “Um,” I said, wincing and holding the receiver away from my ear. “Are you first what?”

  “First!” A very young voice. A child. Female. “I’ve been ringing every five minutes for hours. So am I first? Do say I’m first.”

  Realization dawned. “Yes,” I said. “You’re the very first. Have you been reading the Horse and Hound? It isn’t published until tomorrow . . .”

  “It gets to my auntie’s bookshop on Thursdays.” She sounded as if anyone in their right mind would know things like that. “I collect it for Mummy on my way home from school. And she saw the picture, and told me to ring you. So can I have the ten pounds? Can I really?”

  “If you know where the stable is, yes, of course.”

  “Mummy knows. She’ll tell you. You’d better talk to her now, but you won’t forget, will you?”

  “I won’t,” I said.

  There were some background voices and clinks of the receiver at the far end, and then a woman’s voice, pleasant and far less excited.

  “Are you the Philip Nore who rides in National Hunt races?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  It seemed to be enough of a reference, because she said without reservation, “I do know where that stable is, but I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, because it isn’t used for horses any longer. Jane, my daughter, is afraid you won’t send her the ten pounds when you know that, but I expect you will.”

  “I expect so,” I agreed, smiling. “Where is it?”

  “Not far from h
ere. That’s Horley, in Surrey. Near Gatwick airport. The stable’s about half a mile from our house. It’s still called Zephyr Farm Stables, but the riding school has been closed for years and years.”

  I sighed. “And the people who kept it?”

  “No idea,” she said. “I suppose they sold it. Anyway, it’s been adapted into living quarters. Do you want the actual address?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “And yours, too, please.”

  She read them out to me and I wrote them down, and then I said, “Do you happen to know the name of the people living there now?”

  “Huh,” she said scornfully. “They’re real pests. You won’t get far with them, whatever it is you want, I’m afraid. They’ve got the place practically fortified to ward off furious parents.”

  “To . . . what?” I said, mystified.

  “Parents trying to persuade their children to come home. It’s one of those commune things. Religious brain-washing, something like that. They call themselves Colleagues of Supreme Grace. All nonsense. Pernicious nonsense.”

  I felt breathless.

  “I’ll send Jane the money,” I said. “And thanks very much.”

  “What is it?” Clare said, as I slowly replaced the receiver.

  “The first real lead to Amanda.”

  I explained about the Horse and Hound advertisement, and about the tenants of Pine Woods Lodge.

  Clare shook her head. “If these Supreme Grace people know where Amanda is, they won’t tell you. You must have heard of them, haven’t you? Or others like them? They’re all gentle and smiling on the surface, and like steel rat-traps underneath. They lure people my age with friendliness and sweet songs and hook them into Believing, and once they’re in the poor slobs never get out. They’re in love with their prison. Their parents hardly stand a chance.”

  “I’ve heard of something like it. But I’ve never seen the point.”