Dead Cert

by Dick Francis

  I shook my head. ‘There’s someone else,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s someone else we don’t know about. Someone in Uncle George’s confidence.’ In spite of everything, I still thought of him as Uncle George.

  Lodge said, ‘Fielder, the manager, was rounded up. So were all the L. C. Perth operators, though they have been freed again. Only two of the clerks had any idea of what was going on, one who went to the race tracks and one in the office. They received their instructions through Fielder about which horses to accept unlimited money on. There are no niggers left in the woodpile.’

  ‘Joe was stopping horses for months before Uncle George gave Heavens Above to Kate, and she had never been racing before that. Someone else who goes racing must have been working for Uncle George,’ I said with conviction.

  ‘Penn would need only the morning paper and a form book for choosing a horse to stop. He wouldn’t need to go to the races himself. He didn’t need an accomplice at the races apart from his bookmaker—Perth. You’re imagining things.’

  ‘Uncle George didn’t know enough about horses,’ I said.

  ‘So he made out,’ said Lodge sceptically.

  ‘Kate told me that for as long as she remembers he was a dead loss on the subject. He started the Marconicar Protection racket only four years ago, and the racing racket less than a year ago. Before that he had no reason to pretend. Therefore his ignorance of horses was genuine.’

  ‘I’ll give you that,’ he said, ‘But I don’t see that it proves anything.’

  ‘He must have had a contact on the racecourse. How else did he manage to pick on the one jockey who could most easily be corrupted?’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps he tried several, until he found a taker,’ suggested Lodge.

  ‘No. Everyone would have talked about it, if he had.’

  ‘He tried Major Davidson,’ said Lodge. ‘That looks like a very bad mistake from your mythical adviser.’

  ‘Yes,’ I conceded. I changed to another tack. ‘There have been one or two things which have been relayed recently to Uncle George which Kate herself didn’t know. How do you explain that?’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Joe’s bit of brown wrapping paper, for instance. He told everyone in the weighing-room at Liverpool about it. Kate wasn’t at the meeting. But two days later, on Uncle George’s instructions, Joe was killed and the paper taken away from him.’

  Lodge pondered. ‘Someone might have rung her up on the Sunday and mentioned it in passing.’

  I thought fleetingly of Dane. I said, ‘Even then, it was surely not interesting enough for her to have told Uncle George.’

  ‘You never know,’ he said.

  I started up and drove on in silence for some miles. I was loth to produce for his scepticism the most deep rooted of my reasons for believing an enemy still existed: the near-certainty that in the concussed gap in my memory I already knew who it was.

  When at last I tentatively told him this, he treated it more seriously that I had expected. And after some minutes of thought he pierced and appalled me by saying, ‘Perhaps your subconscious won’t let you remember who this enemy of yours is because you like him.’

  I dropped Lodge at Maidenhead and went on to the Cotswolds.

  Entering the old stone house with the children noisily tumbling through the hall on their way to tea was like stepping into a sane world again. Scilla was coming down the stairs with her arms full of Polly’s summer dresses: I went over and met her on the bottom step and kissed her cheek.

  ‘Joan and I will have to lengthen all these,’ she said, nodding at the dresses. ‘Polly’s growing at a rate of knots.’

  I followed her into the drawing-room and we sat down on the hearthrug in front of a newly-lit fire.

  ‘Is it all over?’ asked Scilla, pushing the dresses off her lap on to the floor.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ Too much was all over.

  I told her about the inquest and the verdict. I said, ‘It was only because of Bill that George Perm was ever found out. Bill didn’t die for nothing.’

  She didn’t answer for a long time, and I saw the yellow flames glinting on the unshed tears in her eyes. Then she sniffed and shook her head as if to free herself from the past, and said, ‘Let’s go and have tea with the children.’

  Polly wanted me to mend a puncture on her bicycle. Henry said he’d worked out some gambits in chess and would I play against him after tea. William gave me a sticky kiss and pressed an aged fruit drop into my palm as a present. I was home again.

  NINETEEN

  The almost unbearable belief that I had lost Kate grew very little easier as the days passed. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. When I woke in the morning the ache rushed in to spoil the day: when I slept I dreamed continually that she was running away down a long dark tunnel. I thought it unlikely I would ever see her again, and tried to make myself be sensible about it.

  Then, a week after the inquest on Uncle George, I went to ride at Banbury races, and Kate was there. She was dressed in dark navy blue and there were big grey hollows round her eyes. Her face was pale and calm, and her expression didn’t change when she saw me. She was waiting outside the weighing-room, and spoke to me as soon as I drew near.

  ‘Alan, I think I should apologise for what I said to you the other day.’ The words were clearly an effort.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said.

  ‘No… it’s not. I thought about what you said… about those children going to school with the judo expert… and I realise Uncle George had got to be stopped.’ She paused. ‘It was not your fault Aunt Deb died. I’m sorry I said it was.’ She let out a breath as if she had performed an intolerable duty.

  ‘Did you come all the way here especially to say that?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. It has been worrying me that I was so unjust.’

  ‘My dear precious Kate,’ I said, the gloom of the past week beginning to vanish like morning mist, ‘I would have given anything for it not to have been Uncle George, believe me.’ I looked at her closely. ‘You look very hungry. Have you had anything to eat today?’

  ‘No,’ she said, in a small voice.

  ‘You must have some lunch,’ I said, and giving her no chance to refuse, took her arm and walked her briskly to the luncheon-room. There I watched her eat, pecking at first but soon with ravenous appetite, until some colour came back into her cheeks and a faint echo of her old gaiety to her manner.

  She was well into her second helping of hot game pie when she said in a friendly tone, ‘I wish you’d eat something too.’

  I said, ‘I’m riding.’

  ‘Yes I know, I saw in the paper. Forlorn Hope, isn’t it?’ she asked between forkfuls.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘You will be careful, won’t you? He’s not a very good jumper, Pete says.’

  I looked at her with delighted astonishment, and she blushed deeply.

  ‘Kate!’ I said.

  ‘Well… I thought you’d never forgive me for being so abysmally beastly. I’ve spent the most vile week of my life regretting every word I said. But at least it brought me to my senses about you. I tried to tell myself I’d be delighted never to see you again and instead I got more and more miserable. I… I didn’t think you’d come back for a second dose, after the way you looked at Brighton. So I thought if I wanted you to know I was sorry I’d have to come and tell you, and then I could see how… how you reacted.’

  ‘How did you expect me to react?’

  ‘I thought you’d be rather toffee-nosed and cool, and I wouldn’t have blamed you.’ She stuffed an inelegant amount of pie-crust into her mouth.

  ‘Will you marry me, then, Kate?’ I asked.

  She said, ‘Yes’ indistinctly with her mouth full and went on uninterruptedly cutting up her food. I waited patiently while she finished the pie and made good time with a stack of cheese and biscuits.

  ‘When did you eat last?’ I asked, as she eventua
lly put down her napkin.

  ‘Can’t remember.’ She looked across at me with a new joy in her face and the old sadness beneath it, and I knew from that and from her remark about Forlorn Hope—the first concern she had ever shown for my safety—that she had indeed grown up.

  I said, ‘I want to kiss you.’

  ‘Racecourses were not designed for the convenience of newly-affianced lovers,’ she said. ‘How about a horse-box?’

  ‘We’ve only got ten minutes,’ I said. ‘I’m riding in the second race.’

  We borrowed Pete’s horse-box without more ado. I took her in my arms, and found this time on Kate’s lips a satisfactorily unsisterly response.

  The ten minutes fled in a second, and the races wouldn’t wait. We walked back, and I went into the weighing room and changed into colours, leaving Kate, who looked a bit dazed and said she felt it, sitting on a bench in the sun.

  It was the first time I had been racing since Uncle George’s inquest. I glanced uneasily round the changing-room at the well-known faces, refusing to believe that any was the go-between who had brought death to Joe. Perhaps Lodge was right, and I didn’t want to find out. I had liked Uncle George himself, once. Did I shrink from seeing the facade stripped from another friend to reveal the crocodile underneath?

  Clem handed me my lead packed weight cloth. I looked at his patient wrinkled face, and thought ‘Not you, not you.’

  It was a sort of treachery to reflect that Clem heard all that went on and that no event of any significance ever escaped his ears. ‘The oracle,’ some of the lads called him…

  A hearty thump on the back cut off my speculations.

  ‘Wotcher, me old cock sparrow, how’s the sleuthing business?’ bellowed Sandy, pausing and balancing his saddle on one knee while he looped up the girths. ‘How’s Sherlock these days?’

  ‘Retired,’ I said, grinning.

  ‘No, really? After such grade A results?’

  ‘I’ll stick to steeplechasing, I think. It’s less risky.’

  Sandy’s friendly gaze strayed to the scar on my cheek.

  ‘You’re welcome to your little illusions, chum,’ he said. ‘You’ll change your mind when you’ve broken as many bones as I have.’ He wound the girths round the saddle, tucked in the buckles, and with his helmet pushed far back on his head and his cheerful voice drawing heads round like a magnet, made his way out to the scales.

  From across the changing-room I had a good view of Dane’s back solidly and deliberately turned towards me. Talking to someone by the gate, he had unfortunately seen Kate and me returning from the horse-box parking ground. He had had a good look at our radiant faces before we knew he was there, and he didn’t need to have things spelled out for him. He had congratulated Kate in two clipped sentences, but to me he had still spoken not a word.

  I went past his unyielding back and out to the paddock. He followed. Pete trained both the horses we were riding, and we both had to join him.

  Pete jumped in with both feet.

  ‘Alan, Kate’s told me your news. Well done.’

  He received a fierce glower from Dane, and hastily began to assess the race. He was talking about Dane’s mount, and my attention wandered.

  There, ten yards away, stood the craggy Clifford Tudor, opulently rolling a cigar round his mouth and laying down the law to his trainer and jockey. Odd, I thought, how often I had come across that man. I watched him make heavy chopping motions with his dark hands to emphasise his points, and caught the young jockey, Joe’s substitute, wrinkling his forehead in acute anxiety.

  My gaze slid beyond him to where Sir Creswell Stampe was superintending the raising of his unamiable son David into the saddle, before going to take his judicial position in the Stewards’ box. Beyond him again were other groups of owners and trainers planning their plans, hoping their hopes, giving their jockeys instructions (and counter-instructions) and calculating their last minute bets.

  So many people I knew. So many people I liked. Which of them… which of them was not what he seemed?

  Pete gave me a leg up on to Forlorn Hope’s narrow back, and I waved to Kate, who was standing by the parade rings rails, and cantered down towards the start.

  On the way Dane came past briskly, turning his head in my direction as he drew level. With cold eyes he said, ‘Blast you,’ giving both words equal punch, and shook up his horse to get away from me and give me no chance to reply. I let him go. Either he would get over it or he wouldn’t; and in either case there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  There were eleven runners in the race. We circled round while the starter’s assistant tightened girths and the starter himself called the roll. Sandy asked his permission to dismount in order to straighten his saddle, which had slipped forwards on the way down to the gate. The starter nodded, looking at his wristwatch and telling Sandy not to be too long. This particular starter hated to start his races late and grew fidgetty over every minor delay.

  Sandy unbuckled the girths, pulled his saddle straight, and tightened it up again. I was watching him instead of concentrating wholly on Forlorn Hope, so that what happened was entirely my own fault.

  An attendant flapped open under my horse’s nose the white flag which it was his job to wave aloft, to signal to the stands that the horses were about to start. My green young hurdler took fright, reared up like a circus horse, twisted sideways, and threw me off. I hit the ground almost flat on my back, winding myself, and I saw Forlorn Hope kick up his heels and depart at a smart pace up the course.

  For a few seconds I lay there trying to get my breath back, and Sandy walked over with his hand outstretched to help me up, laughing and making some rude remark about my sudden descent.

  The most extraordinary dizziness suddenly swept over me, and my senses began to play fantastic tricks. Lying in the spring sun, I felt rain on my face. Winded but unhurt, my body was momentarily invaded by shocking pain. In my whirling brain it seemed as if past and present had become confused, and that two completely different events were somehow happening at the same time.

  I stared up into Sandy’s face. There was the familiar wide gap-toothed grin, the false incisors removed for safety; there were the laughing brown eyes with the reddish lashes and the bold devil-may-care expression. The sunshine bathed his face in light. And what I saw as well was the same face looming towards me in pouring rain, with cruel eyes and a grim mouth. I heard a voice say, ‘You nosey bastard, perhaps that’ll teach you to mind your own business;’ and I threw up my hand to shield my cheek against the kick which was coming….

  My sight cleared and steadied, and Sandy and I were looking straight into each other’s eyes as if a battle were being fought there. He dropped the hand outstretched to help me, and the friendliness went out of his face with the completeness of an actor shedding a role when the play is over.

  I found my palm was still pressed against my cheek. I let it drop away, but the gesture had told its tale. I had remembered what had happened by the fence at Bristol, and Sandy knew it.

  Strength returned to my limbs, and I stood up. The starter, consulting his watch in barely concealed annoyance, asked if I was all right. I replied that I was, and apologised for holding up the race. Some way down the course someone had caught Forlorn Hope, and as I watched he was turned round to be led back to the starting gate.

  Sandy, showing no haste to remount, stood his ground in front of me.

  ‘You can’t prove a thing,’ he said, characteristically taking the bull by the horns. ‘No one can connect me with Penn.’

  ‘Fletcher,’ I said at once.

  ‘He’ll keep his mouth shut,’ said Sandy, with conviction. ‘He’s my cousin.’

  Uncle George’s racing venture, I now saw, had not been inspired solely by the availability of a shaky bookmaking business. The existence of an easily-recruited ally on the racecourse might have been the very factor which decided him, in the first place, to buy L. C. Perth.

  I mentally reviewed the rest of the
gang.

  ‘How about Fielder?’ I suggested after a short pause.

  ‘I’m a voice on the ’phone to him. A voice called Smith. He doesn’t know me from Adam,’ said Sandy.

  Temporarily, I gave up. I said, ‘What did you do it for?’

  ‘Money. What else?’ he said scornfully, clearly thinking the question foolish.

  ‘Why didn’t you stop the horses yourself? Why let Joe collect the big fat fees for losing?’

  Sandy seemed perfectly willing to explain. ‘I did stop a couple myself. The Stewards had me in over the second one, and I got off by the skin of my bloody teeth. I saw the red light, mate. I tipped the boss to try that little bastard Joe instead. Let him lose his licence, not me, I told him. But mind you, I was on to a bloody good percentage every time he strangled one.’

  ‘Which made you all the more angry when he won against orders on Bolingbroke,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then Joe didn’t tell you in the washroom he was going to pull Bolingbroke. You knew already.’

  ‘Proper little Sherlock,’ mocked Sandy.

  ‘And you did put him over the rails at Plumpton, I suppose?’

  ‘He bloody well deserved it. He lost me fifty quid on Leica as well as my bonus from the boss.’

  ‘Did he deserve to die, as well?’ I asked bitterly.

  The man leading Forlorn Hope back was now only a hundred yards away.

  ‘The stupid little sod couldn’t keep his mouth shut,’ said Sandy violently. ‘Waving that brown paper at Liverpool and yelling for you. I saw what was written on it, and told Fielder, that’s all. I didn’t know what it meant, but it was a ton to a tanner the boss wouldn’t like it. Joe was asking for it.’

  ‘And after he’d got it, you rang Fielder and told him the job had been bungled, and Joe had lived long enough to talk to me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sandy morosely. ‘I heard you telling every bloody body in the weighing-room.’

  I couldn’t resist it. I said, ‘I was lying. Joe died without saying a word.’