by Dick Francis
‘Yes.’ He blinked a bit. ‘It is Saturday tomorrow. It is the Grand National meeting on Sunday. He will be at the racecourse on Sunday.’
Don’t let a thieving jockey spoil the man’s day off, Arne was meaning, so I shrugged and said Sunday would do.
‘I’ll maybe call on Gunnar Holth tomorrow, then.’
For some reason that didn’t fill Arne with joy either, but I discovered, after a long pause on his part, that this was because he, Arne, wished to go fishing all day and was afraid I would want him with me, instead.
‘Does Gunnar Holth speak English?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes.’
‘I’ll go on my own, then.’
He gave me the big smile and jumped up to help Kari, who was returning with a laden tray. She had brought coffee and open sandwiches of prawns and cheese and pineapple which we ate to the last crumb.
‘You must come another evening,’ Kari said. ‘I will make you a proper dinner.’
Arne agreed with her warmly and opened some more wine.
‘A great little cook,’ he said proprietorially.
The great little cook shook back her heavy blonde hair and stretched her elegant neck. She had a jaw-line in the same class and three small brown moles like dusty freckles high on one cheekbone.
‘Come any time,’ she said.
I got back to the Grand by taxi at one in the morning, slept badly, and woke at seven feeling like Henry Cooper’s punchbag.
Consultation with the bathroom looking-glass revealed a plate-sized bruise of speckled crimson over my left shoulder-blade, souvenir of colliding boats. In addition every muscle I possessed was groaning with the morning-after misery of too much strain. David Cleveland, it seemed, was no Matthew Webb.
Bath, clothes and breakfast didn’t materially improve things, nor on the whole did a telephone call to Gunnar Holth.
‘Come if you like,’ he said. ‘But I can tell you nothing. You will waste your time.’
As all investigators waste a lot of time listening to people with nothing to tell, I naturally went. He had a stable yard adjoining the racecourse and a belligerent manner.
‘Questions, questions,’ he said. ‘There is nothing to tell.’
I paid off my taxi driver.
‘You shouldn’t have sent him away,’ Gunnar Holth said. ‘You will be going soon.’
I smiled. ‘I can go back on a tram.’
He gave me a grudging stare. ‘You don’t look like a Jockey Club official.’
‘I would appreciate it very much,’ I said, ‘if you would show me your horses. Arne Kristiansen says you have a good lot… that they’ve been winning big prizes this year.’
He loosened, of course. He gestured towards a large barn on the other side of an expanse of mud. We made our way there, him in his boots showing me I shouldn’t have come in polished shoes. He was short, wiry, middle-aged and a typical stableman, more at home with his horses, I guessed, than with their owners; and he spoke English with an Irish accent.
The barn contained two rows of boxes facing into a wide central passage. Horses’ heads showed over most of the half doors and three or four lads were carrying buckets of water and haynets.
‘They’ve just come in from exercise,’ Holth said. ‘We train on the sand track on the racecourse.’ He turned left and opened the door of the first box. ‘This fellow runs tomorrow in the Grand National. Would you look at his shoulders now, isn’t that a grand sort of horse?’
‘Bob Sherman won a race on him the day he disappeared,’ I said.
He gave me a sharp wordless glance and went in to pat a strong-looking character with more bone than breeding. He felt the legs, looked satisfied, and came back to join me.
‘How do you know?’ he said.
No harm in telling him. ‘Arne Kristiansen gave me a list of Bob Sherman’s last rides in Norway. He said that this horse of yours was likely to win the National, and if Sherman had had any sense he would have come back for that race and then stolen the National day takings, which would have been a better haul all round.’
Holth allowed himself a glint of amusement. ‘That’s true.’
We continued round the barn, admiring every inmate. There were about twenty altogether, three-quarters of them running on the Flat, and although they seemed reasonable animals, none of them looked likely to take Epsom by storm. From their coats, though, and general air of well-being, Holth knew his trade.
One end of the barn was sectioned off to form living quarters for the lads, and Holth took me through to see them. Dormitory, washroom, and kitchen.
‘Bob stayed here, most times,’ he said.
I glanced slowly round the big main room with its half dozen two-tiered bunk beds, its bare board floor, its wooden table, wooden chairs. A big brown-tiled stove and double-glazed windows with curtains like blankets promised comfort against future snow, and a couple of mild girlie calendars brightened the walls, but it was a far cry from the Grand.
‘Always?’ I asked.
Holth shrugged. ‘He said it was good enough here, and he saved the expense of a hotel. Nothing wrong there now, is there?’
‘Nothing at all,’ I agreed.
He paused. ‘Sometimes he stayed with an owner.’
‘Which owner?’
‘Oh… the man who owns Whitefire. Per Bjørn Sandvik.’
‘How many times?’
Holth said with irritation, ‘What does it matter? Twice, I suppose. Yes, twice. Not the last time. The two times before that.’
‘How often did he come over altogether?’
‘Six perhaps. Or seven… or eight.’
‘All this summer?’
‘He didn’t come last year, if that’s what you mean.’
‘But he liked it?’
‘Of course he liked it. All British jockeys who are invited, they like it. Good pay, you see.’
‘How good?’
‘Well,’ he said, ”They get their fare over here, and a bit towards expenses. And the fees for riding. And the appearance money.’
‘The racecourse pays the appearance money?’
‘Not exactly. Well… the racecourse pays the money to the jockey but collects it from the owners who the jockey rode for.’
‘So an owner, in the end, pays everything, the riding fees, the winning percentage, a share of the fares, and a share of the appearance money?’
‘That is right.’
‘What happens if after all that the jockey rides a stinking race?’
Holth answered with deadly seriousness. ‘The owner does not ask the jockey to come again.’
We stepped out of the barn back into the mud. It hadn’t actually rained that day, but the threat still hung in the cold misty air.
‘Come into my house,’ suggested Holth, ‘Have some coffee before you catch the tram.’
‘Great,’ I said.
His house was a small wooden bungalow with lace curtains and geraniums in pots on every window sill. The stove in the living-room was already lit, with an orange metal coffee pot heating on top. Gunnar dug into a cupboard for two earthenware mugs and some sugar in a packet.
‘Would the owners have asked Bob Sherman to come again?’ I said.
He poured the coffee, stirring with a white plastic spoon.
‘Per Bjørn Sandvik would. And Sven Wangen; that’s the owner of that dappled mare on the far side.’ He pondered. ‘Rolf Torp, now. Bob lost a race the day he went. Rolf Torp thought he should have walked it.’
‘And should he?’
Holth shrugged. ‘Horses aren’t machines,’ he said. ‘Mind you, I don’t train Rolf Torp’s horses, so I don’t really know, do I?’
‘Who trains them?’
‘Paul Sundby.’
‘Will Rolf Torp be at the races tomorrow?’
‘Naturally,’ Holth said. ‘He has the favourite in the National.’
‘And you,’ I said. ‘Would you have asked him to ride for you again?’
‘Certainly,’ he said without h
esitation. ‘Bob is a good jockey. He listens to what you say about a horse. He rides with his head. He would not have been asked so many times if he had not been good.’
The door from the yard opened without warning and one of the lads poked his head in: he was about twenty-five, cheerful, and wore a woollen cap with a pompom.
‘Gunny,’ he said, ‘Will ye be takin’ a look at that bleedin’ mare now? She’s a right cow, that one.’
The trainer said he would look in a minute, and the head withdrew.
‘He’s Irish,’ I said, surprised.
‘Sure. I’ve three Irish lads and one from Yorkshire. And three from here. There’s a lot of British lads in Norwegian r; icing.’
‘Why is that?’
‘They get a chance of riding in races here, see? More than they do at home.’
We drank the coffee which was well boiled and all the stronger for it.
I said, ‘What did Bob do for transport? Did he ever hire a car?’
‘No. I don’t think so. When he stayed here he used to go with me over to the course.’
‘Did he ever borrow your car? Or anyone’s?’
‘He didn’t borrow mine. I don’t think he ever drove, when he came.’
‘Did you take him anywhere except to the races, the day he disappeared?’
‘No.’
I knew from a file of statements which had been awaiting my arrival at the hotel that Bob Sherman had been expected to leave the racecourse by taxi to catch the late flight to Heathrow. He had not caught it. The taxi driver who had been engaged for the trip had simply shrugged when his passenger didn’t show, and had taken some ordinary racegoers back to the city instead.
That left public transport, all the taxi drivers who didn’t know Bob by sight, and other people’s cars. Plus, I supposed, his own two feet. It would have been all too easy to leave the racecourse without being seen by anyone who knew him, particularly if, as the collected notes implied, the last race had been run after dark.
I put down my empty coffee mug and Gunnar Holth abruptly said, ‘Could you be doing something about Bob’s wife, now?’
‘His wife? I might see her when I go back, if I find out anything useful’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘She is here.’
‘Here?’
He nodded. ‘In Oslo. And she won’t go home.’
‘Arne didn’t mention it.’
Holth laughed. ‘She follows him round like a dog. She asks questions, like you. Who saw Bob go, who did he go with, why does no one find him? She comes to every race meeting and asks and asks. Everyone is very tired of it.’
‘Do you know where she’s staying?’
He nodded vigorously and picked up a piece of paper lying near on a shelf.
‘The Norsland Hotel. Second class, away from the centre. This is her telephone number. She gave it to me in case I could think of anything to help.’ He shrugged. ‘Everyone is sorry for her. But I wish she would go away.
‘Will you telephone her?’ I said. ‘Say I would like to ask her some questions about Bob. Suggest this afternoon.’
‘I’ve forgotten your name,’ he said without apology.
I smiled and gave him one of the firm’s official cards. He looked at it and me in disbelief, but got the Norsland Hotel on the line. Mrs Emma Sherman was fetched.
Holth said into the receiver, ‘A Mr David Cleveland… come from England to try to find your husband.’ He read from the card, ‘Chief investigator, Investigation Office, Jockey Club, Portman Square, London. He wants to see you this afternoon.’
He listened to the reaction, then looked at me and said ‘Where?’
‘At her hotel. Three o’clock.’
He relayed the news.
‘She’ll be waiting for you,’ he said, putting the receiver down.
‘Good.’
‘Tell her to go home,’ he said.
3
She was waiting in the small lobby of the Norsland, sitting on the edge of a chair and anxiously scanning the face of every passing male. I watched her for a while through the glass doors to the street, before going in. She looked small and pale and very very jumpy. Twice she half stood up, and twice, as the man she had focused on walked past without a sign, subsided more slowly back to her seat.
I pushed through the doors into air barely warmer than the street, which in a totally centrally heated city spoke poorly of the management. Emma Sherman looked at me briefly and switched her gaze back to the door. I was not what she expected: the next man through, sixtyish and military-looking, had her again half way to her feet.
He passed her without a glance on his way to collect his room key at the desk. She sat slowly down, looking increasingly nervous.
I walked over to her.
‘Mrs Sherman?’
‘Oh.’ She stood up slowly. ‘Is there a message from Mr Cleveland?’
‘I am,’ I said, ‘David Cleveland.’
‘But,’ she said, and stopped. The surprise lingered on her face among the strain and tiredness, but she seemed past feeling anything very clearly. At close quarters the nervousness resolved itself into a state not far from total breakdown.
Her skin looked almost transparent from fatigue, dark shadows round her eyes emphasizing the pebbly dullness of the eyes themselves. She was about twenty-two and should have been pretty: she had the bones and the hair for it, but they hadn’t a chance. She was also, it seemed to me, pregnant.
‘Where can we talk?’ I asked.
She looked vaguely round the lobby which contained three chairs, no privacy, and a rubber plant.
‘Your room?’ I suggested.
‘Oh no,’ she said at once, and then more slowly, in explanation, ‘It is small… not comfortable… nowhere to sit.’
‘Come along, then,’ I said. ‘We’ll find a coffee shop.’
She came with me out into the street and we walked in the general direction of the Grand.
‘Will you find him?’ she said. ‘Please find him.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘He never stole that money,’ she said. ‘He didn’t.’
I glanced at her. She was trembling perceptibly and looking paler than ever. I stopped walking and put my hand under her elbow. She looked at me with glazing eyes, tried to say something else, and fell forward against me in a thorough-going swoon.
Even seven stone nothing of fainting girl is hard to support without letting her lie on a cold city pavement. Two passing strangers proved to have friendly faces but no English, and the third, who had the tongue, muttered something about the disgrace of being drunk at four in the afternoon and scurried away. I held her up against me with my arms under hers and asked the next woman along to call a taxi.
She too looked disapproving and backed away, but a boy of about sixteen gave her a withering glance and came to the rescue.
‘Is she ill?’ he asked. His English was punctilious stuff, learned in school.
‘She is. Can you get a taxi?’
‘Ja. I will return. You will…’ he thought, then found the word…‘Wait?’
‘I will wait,’ I agreed.
He nodded seriously and darted away round the nearest corner, a slim figure in the ubiquitous uniform of the young, blue jeans and a padded jacket. He came back, as good as his word, with a taxi, and helped me get the girl into it.
‘Thank you very much,’ I said.
He beamed. ‘I learn English,’ he said.
‘You speak it very well’
He waved as the taxi drew away: a highly satisfactory encounter to both parties.
She began to wake up during the short journey, which seemed to reassure the taxi driver. He spoke no English except one word which he repeated at least ten times with emphasis, and which was ‘doctor’.
‘Ja’ I agreed, Ja. At the Grand Hotel.’
He shrugged, but drove us there. He also helped me support her through the front doors and accepted his fare after she was safely sitting down.
‘Doctor,’ he said as he left, and I said, ‘Ja.’
‘No,’ said Bob Sherman’s wife, in little more than a whisper. ‘What… happened?’
‘You fainted,’ I said briefly. ‘And doctor or no doctor, you need to lie down. So up you come…’ I more or less lifted her to her feet, walked her to the lift, and took her up the one floor to my room. She flopped full length on the bed without question and lay there with her eyes closed.
‘Do you mind if I feel your pulse?’ I asked.
She gave no answer either way, so I put my fingers on her wrist and found the slow heartbeat. Her arm was slippery with sweat though noticeably cold, and all in all she looked disturbingly frail.
‘Are you hungry?’ I said.
She rolled her head on the pillow in a slow negative, but I guessed that what was really wrong with her, besides strain, was simple starvation. She had been too worried to take care of herself, and besides, eating came expensive in Norway.
A consultation on the telephone with the hotel restaurant produced a promise of hot meat soup and some bread and cheese.
‘And brandy,’ I said.
‘No brandy, sir, on Saturday. Or on Sunday. It is the rule.’
I had been warned, but had forgotten. Extraordinary to find a country with madder licensing laws than Britain’s. There was a small refrigerator in my room, however, which stocked, among the orangeade and mineral waters, a quarter bottle of champagne. It had always seemed to me that bottling in quarters simply spoiled good fizz, but there’s an occasion for everything. Emma said she couldn’t, she shouldn’t; but she did, and within five minutes was looking like a long-picked flower caught just in time.
I’m sorry,’ she said, leaning on one elbow on my bed and sipping the golden bubbles from my tooth mug.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘You must think me a fool.’
‘No.’
‘It’s just… No one seems to care any more. Where he’s gone. They just say they can’t find him. They aren’t even looking.’
‘They’ve looked,’ I began, but she wasn’t ready to listen.
‘Then Gunnar Holth said… the Jockey Club had sent their chief investigator… so I’ve been hoping so hard all day that at last someone would find him, and then… and then… you…’