The Edge

by Dick Francis

  ‘I would say,’ I agreed, ‘that getting myself arrested would lose me my job.’

  ‘You’d no longer be invisible?’

  ‘Quite right.’

  ‘And I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘that I have some more negative news for you.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Bill says the samples of water you sent him were just that, water.’

  ‘That’s good news, actually.’

  ‘Oh? Well, good, then.’

  I reflected. ‘I think I’ll phone you again this evening before we leave Winnipeg.’

  ‘Yes, do,’ she agreed. ‘The further west you go the bigger the time change and the longer it takes to get replies from Val Catto.’

  ‘Mm.’

  Mrs Baudelaire couldn’t ring the Brigadier in the middle of his night, nor in the middle of hers. Toronto, where she lived, was five hours behind London, Winnipeg six, Vancouver eight. At breakfast time in Vancouver, London’s office workers began travelling home. Confusing for carrier pigeons.

  ‘Good luck,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

  I was used by now to her abrupt disappearances. I put my receiver down, hearing only silence on the line, and wondered what she looked like, and how deeply she was ill. I would go back to Toronto, I thought, and see her.

  I sped again on the bus to the races and found that overnight Assiniboia Downs had sprouted all the ballyhoo of Woodbine, T-shirt stalls, banners and besashed bosoms Supporting Canadian Racing included.

  I again spent most of the afternoon looking for gaunt-face, coming in the end to the conclusion that whatever he was doing on the train he wasn’t travelling because of an overpowering interest in racing. The racegoers from the train were on the whole easily identifiable as they all seemed to have been issued with large red and white rosettes with Race Train Passenger emblazoned on them in gold: and the rosettes proved not to be confined to those in the front half of the train because I came across Zak wearing one too, and he told me that everyone had been given one, the owners included, and where was mine.

  I didn’t know about them, I said. Too bad, he said, because they entitled everyone to free entry, free race-cards and free food. They were gifts from the racecourse, he said. Nell should have one for me, he thought.

  I asked him how the scene from the mystery had fared that morning, as Nell had described what had happened the day before.

  ‘A lot better without that bastard Sheridan.’

  ‘Wasn’t he there?’

  ‘I got Nell to tell his father that if Sheridan came to breakfast we wouldn’t be putting on our scene, and it did the trick. No Sheridan.’

  He grinned. ‘No Lorrimores at all, in fact.’ He looked around. ‘But they’re all here, Sheridan included. They were getting out of a stretch limo when we rolled up in our private bus. That’s where we were given these rosettes; on the bus. How did you get here, then?’

  ‘On a public bus.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  His batteries were running at half-speed, neither highly charged up nor flat. Under the mop of curls his face, without the emphasising make-up he wore perpetually on the train, looked younger and more ordinary: it was David Flynn who was at the races, not Zak.

  ‘Are all the actors here?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, sure. We have to know what happens here today. Have to be able to talk about it to the owners tonight. Don’t forget, it’s a racing mystery, after all.’

  I thought that I had forgotten, in a way. The real mystery that I was engaged in tended to crowd the fiction out.

  ‘What are you betting on in our race?’ he asked. ‘I suppose Premiere will win. What do you think?’

  ‘Upper Gumtree,’ I said.

  ‘It’s supposed to be half asleep,’ he objected.

  ‘It’s got a nice face,’ I said.

  He looked at me sideways. ‘You’re crazy, you know that?’

  ‘I am but mad north-north-west.’

  ‘When the wind is southerly,’ he said promptly, ‘I know a hawk from a handsaw.’ He laughed. ‘There isn’t an actor born who doesn’t hope to play Hamlet.’

  ‘Have you ever?’

  ‘Only in school. But once learned, never forgotten. Shall I give you my “To be or not to be”?’

  ‘Not.’

  ‘You slay me. See you tonight.’

  He went off with a medium spring to his step and I saw him later with his arm round Donna’s shoulders, which wasn’t (as far as I knew) in his script.

  Most of the owners came down from the Clubhouse to watch the saddling of the runners in the Jockey Club Race Train Stakes, and all the sportier of them wore the rosettes.

  Filmer didn’t: there was no lightheartedness in him. Daffodil however had fastened hers to her cleavage, the red, white and gold popping out now and again past the long-haired chinchillas. Mrs Young wore hers boldly on her lapel. Mr Young’s wasn’t in sight.

  The Unwins, rosetted, were showing uninhibited pleasure in Upper Gumtree, who did in fact have a nice face, and wasn’t unacceptably sleepy. Upper Gumtree’s trainer hadn’t made the journey from Australia, and nor had his usual jockey: Canadian substitutes had been found. The Unwins beamed and patted everyone within reach including the horse, and Mr Unwin in his great antipodean accent could be heard calling his jockey ‘son’, even though the rider looked older by far than the owner.

  In the next stall along things were a great deal quieter. Mercer Lorrimore, unattended by the rest of his family, talked pleasantly with his trainer, who had come from Toronto, and shook hands with his jockey, the same one who had ridden for him at Woodbine. Premiere, the favourite, behaved like a horse that had had a fuss made of him all his life; almost, I thought fancifully, as arrogantly as Sheridan.

  The owners of Flokati were showing Mavis and Walter Bricknell-type behaviour, fluttering about in a nervous anxiety that would be bound to effect the horse if it went on too long. Their ineffective-looking trainer was trying to stop the owners from straightening the number cloth, tidying the forelock over the headband, tweaking at the saddle and shoving their big rosettes with every ill-judged movement near the horse’s affronted nostrils. A riot, really. Poor Mr and Mrs Flokati; owning the horse looked an agony, not a joy.

  Mr and Mrs Young, like Mercer Lorrimore, had shipped their Winnipeg runners, two of them, by road. They, old hands at the owning game, stood by with calm interest while their pair, Soluble and Slipperclub, were readied, Mrs Young speaking with her sweet expression to one of the jockeys, Mr Young more impassively to the other.

  Daffodil Quentin’s runner, Pampering, had been flown in with five others owned by people on the train, all of whom were strolling around with rosettes and almost permanently smiling faces. This was, after all, one of the highlights of their journey, the purpose behind the pizzazz. I learned that the Manitoba Racing Commission had moreover by mid-afternoon given each of them not only a champagne reception and a splendid lunch but also, as a memento, a framed group photograph of all the owners on the trip. They were living their memories, I thought, here and now.

  Television cameras all over the place recorded everything both for news items that evening and for the two-hour Support Canadian Racing programme which posters everywhere announced was being made for a gala showing coast to coast after the triple had been completed in Vancouver.

  The Winnipeg runners went out onto the track to bugle fanfares and cheers from the stands and were pony-escorted to the starting gate.

  Mercer Lorrimore’s colours, red and white like the rosette he had pinned on gamely For the Sake of Canadian Racing, could be seen entering the outermost stall. Daffodil’s pale blue and dark green were innermost. Upper Gumtree, carrying orange and black, started dead centre of the eleven runners and came out of the stalls heading a formation like an arrow.

  I was watching from high up, from the upper part of the grandstand, above the Clubhouse floor to which the owners had returned in a chattering flock to watch the race. Through m
y binoculars–camera the colours down on the track in the chilly sunshine looked sharp and bright, the race easy on that account to read.

  The arrow formation soon broke up into a ragged line, with Premiere on the outside, Pampering on the inner and Upper Gumtree still just in front. The Youngs’ pair, split by the draw, nevertheless came together and raced the whole way side by side like twins. Flokati, in pink, made for the rails as if needing them to steer by, and four of the other runners boxed him in.

  Going past the stands for the first time, the Unwins’ Upper Gumtree still showed in front but with Premiere almost alongside; Pampering on the inside tugging his jockey’s arms out. Doing their best for the glory of Canada, the whole field of eleven swept round the bend and went down the far side as if welded together, and it still seemed when they turned for home that that was how they might finish, in a knot.

  They split apart in the straight, one group swinging wide, the red and white of Premiere spurting forward with the Youngs’ pair at his quarters and Upper Gumtree swerving dramatically through a gap to take the rails well ahead of Pampering.

  The crowd bounced up and down. The money was on Premiere. The yelling could have been heard in Montreal. The Canadian racing authorities were again getting a rip-roaring brilliant finish to a Race Train Stakes … and Mercer, putting his brave face on it, again came in second.

  It was the Unwins, in the stratosphere of ecstasy, who led Upper Gumtree into the winners’ circle. The Unwins from Australia who were hugging and kissing everyone near enough (including the horse). The Unwins who had their photographs taken each side of their panting winner, now covered across the shoulders by a long triumphant blanket of flowers. The Unwins who received the trophy, the cheque and the speeches from the President of the Racecourse and the top brass of the Jockey Club; whose memories of the day would be the sweetest.

  Feeling pleased for them, I lowered the binoculars through which I’d been able to see even the tears on Mrs Unwin’s cheeks, and there below me and in front of the grandstand was the man with the gaunt face looking up towards the Clubhouse windows.

  Almost trembling with haste, I put the binoculars up again, found him, activated the automatic focus, pressed the button, heard the quiet click of the shutter: had him in the bag.

  It had been my only chance. Even before the film had wound on, he’d looked down and away, so that I could see only his forehead and his grey hair; and within two seconds, he’d walked towards the grandstand and out of my line of vision.

  I had no idea how long he’d been standing there. I’d been too diverted by the Unwins’ rejoicings. I went down from the upper grandstand as fast as I could, which was far too slowly because everyone else was doing the same thing.

  Down on ground level again, I couldn’t see gaunt-face anywhere. The whole crowd was on the move: one could get no length of view. The Race Train event had been the climax of the programme and although there was one more race on the card, no one seemed to be much interested. A great many red and white rosettes, baseball caps, T-shirts and balloons were on their way out of the gates.

  The Unwins’ entourage was disappearing into the Clubhouse entrance, no doubt for more champagne and Press interviews, and probably all the other owners would be in there with them. If gaunt-face had been looking up at the Clubroom windows in the hope of seeing Filmer – or of Filmer seeing him – maybe Filmer would come down to talk to him and maybe I could photograph them both together, which might one day prove useful. If I simply waited, it might happen.

  I simply waited.

  Filmer did eventually come down, but with Daffodil. They weren’t approached by gaunt-face. They climbed into their chauffeured car and were whisked away to heaven knew where, and I thought frustratedly about time and the little of it there was left in Winnipeg. It was already nearly six o’clock, and I wouldn’t be able to find a one-hour photo lab open anywhere that evening; and I had to return to the Sheraton to collect my bag, and be back on the train by seven-thirty or soon after.

  I retreated to the men’s room and took the film out of the binoculars–camera, and wrote a short note to go with it. Then I twisted the film and note together into a paper towel and went out to try to find Bill Baudelaire, reckoning it might be all right to speak to him casually down on ground level since Filmer wasn’t there to see. I’d caught sight of him in the distance from time to time all afternoon, but now when I wanted him his red hair wasn’t anywhere around.

  Zak came up to me with Donna and offered me a lift back to the city in their bus, and at that exact moment I saw not Bill Baudelaire himself but someone who might go among the owners, where Tommy couldn’t.

  ‘When does the bus go?’ I asked Zak rapidly, preparing to leave him.

  ‘Twenty minutes … out front. It’s got a banner on.’

  ‘I’ll come … thanks.’

  I covered a good deal of ground rapidly but not running and caught up with the shapely backview of a dark-haired girl in a red coat with a wide gold and white studded belt.

  ‘Nancy?’ I said from behind her.

  She turned, surprised, and looked at me enquiringly.

  ‘Er …’ I said, ‘yesterday you collected some thirst quenchers from me for Bill Baudelaire’s daughter.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She recognised me belatedly.

  ‘Do you happen to know where I could find him now?’

  ‘He’s up in the Clubhouse, drinking with the winners.’

  ‘Could you … could you possibly deliver something else to him?’

  She wrinkled the freckled teenage nose. ‘I just came down, for some fresh air.’ She sighed. ‘Oh, all right. I guess he’d want me to, if you asked. You seem to be OK with him. What do you want me to give him this time?’

  I passed over the paper-towel bundle.

  ‘Instructions?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s a note inside.’

  ‘Real cloak and dagger goings-on.’

  ‘Thanks, truly, and … er … give it to him quietly.’

  ‘What’s in it?’ she asked.

  ‘A film, with photos of today’s events.’

  She didn’t know whether or not to be disappointed.

  ‘Don’t lose it,’ I said.

  She seemed to be more pleased with that, and flashing me a grin from over her shoulder went off towards the Clubhouse entrance. I hoped she wouldn’t make a big production out of the delivery upstairs, but just in case she did I thought I wouldn’t go anywhere where she could see me and point me out to any of the owners, so I left through the front exit gates and found the actors’ bus with its Mystery Race Train banner and faded inside into the reassembling troupe.

  In general, the cast had backed Premiere (what else) but were contented to have been interviewed on television at some length. A lot of Winnipeg’s race crowd, Zak said, had asked how they could get on the train. ‘I must say,’ he said, yawning, ‘with all the publicity it’s had, it’s really caught on.’

  In the publicity and the success, I thought, lay the danger. The more the eyes of Canada and Australia and England were directed to the train, the more Filmer might want to discredit it. Might … might. I was guarding a moving shadow; trying to prevent something that might not happen, searching for the intention so as to stop it occurring.

  The bus letting me off at a convenient corner in the city, I walked to the Sheraton and from a telephone there spoke to Mrs Baudelaire.

  ‘Bill called me ten minutes ago from the track,’ she said. ‘He said you sent him a film and you didn’t say where you wanted the pictures sent.’

  ‘Is he calling you back?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I told him I’d be speaking to you soon.’

  ‘Right, well, there’s only one picture on the film. The rest is blank. Please tell Bill the man in the photo is the ally of our quarry. His ally on the train. Would you ask if Bill knows him? Ask if anyone knows him. And if there’s something about him that would be useful if I knew, please will he tell you, to tell me.’
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  ‘Heavens,’ she said. ‘Let me get that straight.’ She paused, writing. ‘Basically, who is he, what does he do, and is what he does likely to be of help.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘And do you want a copy of the photo?’

  ‘Yes, please. Ask if there’s any chance of his getting it to Nell Richmond at Chateau Lake Louise by tomorrow night or the next morning.’

  ‘Difficult,’ she commented. ‘The mail is impossible.’

  ‘Well, someone might be flying to Calgary tomorrow morning,’ I suggested. ‘They might even meet our train there. We get there at twelve-forty, leave at one-thirty. I suppose the time’s too tight, but if it’s possible, get Bill to address the envelope to the Conductor of the train, George Burley. I’ll tell George it might come.’

  ‘Dear young man,’ she said, ‘let me write it all down.’

  I waited while she did it.

  ‘Let me check,’ she said. ‘Either George Burley on the train or Nell Richmond at Chateau Lake Louise.’

  ‘Right. I’ll call you soon.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ she said. ‘I have a message for you from Val Catto.’

  ‘Oh good.’

  ‘He said … now these are his exact words … “Stolen evidence cannot be used in court but facts learned can be verified.” ’ The understanding amusement was light in her voice. ‘What he means is, have a looksee but hands off.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he said to tell you to remember his motto.’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  ‘What is his motto?’ she asked curiously, obviously longing to know.

  ‘Thought before action, if you have time.’

  ‘Nice,’ she said, pleased. ‘He said to tell you he was working hard on the unknown numbers, and you are not to put yourself in danger of arrest.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Phone me from Calgary tomorrow,’ she said. ‘By then it will be evening in England. Val will have had a whole day on the numbers.’

  ‘You’re marvellous.’

  ‘And I’ll be able to tell you when you’ll get your photos.’

  There was a click and she’d gone, and I could hardly believe that I’d ever doubted her as a relay post.