Forfeit

by Dick Francis

  ‘All of them,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Some of them knew Roncey by sight,’ he explained. ‘And they’d all read the Blaze. So they put two and two together.’

  One of them would soon realise he could earn a fiver by ringing up a rival newspaper. Tiddely Pom’s whereabouts would be as secret as the Albert Memorial. Tiddely Pom, at that moment, was a certain non-starter for the Lamplighter Gold Cup.

  Even if Victor Roncey thought that the opposition had backed out of the project, I was certain they hadn’t. In a man like Vjoersterod, pride would always conquer discretion. He wouldn’t command the same respect in international criminal circles if he turned out and ran just because of a few words in the Blaze. He wouldn’t, therefore, do it.

  At the four day declaration stage, on the Tuesday, Roncey had confirmed with Weatherbys that his horse would be a definite runner. If he now withdrew him, as he could reasonably do because of the colic, he would forfeit his entry fee, a matter of fifty pounds. If he left his horse at Norton’s still intending to run, he would forfeit a great deal more.

  Because I was certain that if Tiddely Pom stayed where he was, he would be lame, blind, doped or dead by Saturday morning.

  Norton listened in silence while I outlined these facts of life.

  ‘Ty, don’t you think you are possibly exaggerating …?’

  ‘Well,’ I said with a mildness I didn’t feel, ‘how many times will you need to have Brevity – or any other of your horses – taken out of the Champion Hurdle at the last moment without any explanation, before you see any need to do something constructive in opposition?’

  There was a short pause. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You have a point.’

  ‘If you will lend me your horsebox, I’ll take Tiddely Pom off somewhere else.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere safe,’ I said non-committally. ‘How about it?’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ he sighed. ‘Anything for a quiet life.’

  ‘I’ll come as soon as I can.’

  ‘I’ll repel boarders until you do.’ The flippancy in his voice told me how little he believed in any threat to the horse. I felt a great urge to leave them to it, to let Roncey stew in his own indiscretion, to let Vjoersterod interfere with the horse and stop it running, just to prove I was right. Very childish urge indeed. It didn’t last long, because in my way I was as stubborn as Vjoersterod. I wasn’t going to turn and run from him either, if I could help it.

  When I put the telephone receiver back in its special cradle, Elizabeth was looking worried with a more normal form of anxiety.

  ‘That Tiddely Pom,’ I said lightly, ‘is more trouble than a bus load of eleven-year-old boys. As I expect you gathered, I’ll have to go and shift him off somewhere else.’

  ‘Couldn’t someone else do it?’

  I shook my head. ‘Better be me.’

  Mrs Woodward was still out. I filled in the time until her return by ringing up Luke-John and giving him the news that the best laid plan had gone astray.

  ‘Where are you taking the horse, then?’

  ‘I’ll let you know when I get there.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s necessary …?’ he began.

  ‘Are you,’ I interrupted, ‘sure the Blaze can afford to take any risk, after boasting about keeping the horse safe?’

  ‘Hm.’ He sighed. ‘Get on with it, then.’

  When Mrs Woodward came back I took the van and drove to Berkshire. With me went Elizabeth’s best effort at a fond wifely farewell. She had even offered her mouth for a kiss, which she did very rarely, as mouth to mouth kissing interfered with her frail breathing arrangements and gave her a feeling of suffocation. She liked to be kissed on the cheek or forehead, and never too often.

  I spent most of the journey worrying whether I should not after all have allowed myself to be blackmailed: whether any stand against pressure was a luxury when compared with the damage I’d done to Elizabeth’s weak hold on happiness. After all the shielding, which had improved her physical condition, I’d laid into her with a bulldozer. Selfishly. Just to save myself from a particularly odious form of tyranny. If she lost weight or fretted to breakdown point it would be directly my fault; and either or both seemed possible.

  A hundred and fifty guineas, plus expenses, less tax. A study in depth. Tally had offered me the deeps. And in I’d jumped.

  On the outskirts of London I stopped to make a long and involved telephone call, arranging a destination and care for Tiddely Pom. Norton Fox and Victor Roncey were eating lunch when I arrived at the stables, and I found it impossible to instil into either of them enough of a feeling for urgency to get them to leave their casseroled beef.

  ‘Sit down and have some,’ Norton said airily.

  ‘I want to be on my way.’

  They didn’t approve of my impatience and proceeded to gooseberry crumble and biscuits and cheese. It was two o’clock before they agreed to amble out into the yard and see to the shifting of Tiddely Pom.

  Norton had at least had his horsebox made ready. It stood in the centre of the yard with the ramp down. As public an exit as possible. I sighed resignedly. The horsebox driver didn’t like handing over to a stranger and gave me some anxious instructions about the idiosyncratic gear change.

  Sandy Willis led Tiddely Pom across the yard, up the ramp, and into the centre stall of the three-stall box. The horse looked worse than ever, no doubt because of the colic. I couldn’t see him ever winning any Lamplighter Gold Cup. Making sure he ran in it seemed a gloomy waste of time. Just as well, I reflected, that it wasn’t to Tiddely Pom himself that I was committed, but to the principle that if Roncey wanted to run Tiddely Pom, he should. Along the lines of ‘I disagree that your horse has the slightest chance, but I’ll defend to the death your right to prove it.’

  Sandy Willis finished tying the horse into his stall and took over where the box driver left off. Her instructions on how Tiddely Pom was to be managed were detailed and anxious. In her few days with the horse she had already identified herself with its well-being. As Norton had said, she was one of the best of his lads. I wished I could take her too, but it was useless expecting Norton to let her go, when she also looked after Zig Zag.

  She said, ‘He will be having proper care, won’t he?’

  ‘The best,’ I assured her.

  ‘Tell them not to forget his eggs and beer.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And he hates having his ears messed about with.’

  ‘Right.’

  She gave me a long searching look, a half smile, and a reluctant farewell. Victor Roncey strode briskly across to me and unburdened himself along similar lines.

  ‘I want to insist that you tell me where you are taking him.’

  ‘He will be safe.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Mr Roncey, if you know where, he is only half as safe. We’ve been through all this before …’

  He pondered, his glance darting about restlessly, his eyes not meeting mine. ‘Oh very well,’ he said finally, with impatience. ‘But it will be up to you to make sure he gets to Heathbury Park in good time on Saturday.’

  ‘The Blaze will arrange that,’ I agreed. ‘The Lamplighter is at three. Tiddely Pom will reach the racecourse stables by noon, without fail.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he said. ‘Waiting.’

  I nodded. Norton joined us, and the two of them discussed this arrangement while I shut up the ramp with the help of the hovering box driver.

  ‘What time do you get Zig Zag to Heathbury?’ I asked Norton, pausing before I climbed into the cab.

  ‘Mid-day,’ he said. ‘It’s only thirty-two miles … He’ll be setting off at about eleven.’

  I climbed into the driving seat and looked out of the window. The two men looked back, Roncey worried, Norton not. To Norton I said, ‘I’ll see you this evening, when I bring the horsebox back.’ To Roncey, ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be quite safe. I’ll see you on Saturday. Ring the Blaze, as before, if you’d
like to be reassured tonight and tomorrow.’

  I shut the window, sorted out the eccentric gears, and drove Tiddely Pom gently out of the yard and up the lane to the village. An hour later than I intended, I thought in disgust. Another hour for Mrs Woodward. My mind shied away from the picture of Elizabeth waiting for me to come back. Nothing would be better. Nothing would be better for a long time to come. I felt the first stirrings of resentment against Elizabeth and at least had the sense to realise that my mind was playing me a common psychological trick. The guilty couldn’t stand the destruction of their self-esteem involved in having to admit they were wrong, and wriggled out of their shame by transferring it into resentment against the people who had made them feel it. I resented Elizabeth because I had wronged her. Of all ridiculous injustices. And of all ridiculous injustices, one of the most universal.

  I manoeuvred the heavy horsebox carefully through the small village and set off north eastwards on the road over the Downs, retracing the way I had come from London. Wide rolling hills with no trees except a few low bushes leaning sideways away from the prevailing wind. No houses. A string of pylons. Black furrows in a mile of plough. A bleak early December sky, a high sheet of steel grey cloud. Cold, dull, mood-matching landscape.

  There was very little traffic on the unfenced road, which served only Norton’s village and two others beyond. A blue-grey Cortina appeared on the brow of the next hill, coming towards me, travelling fast. I pulled over to give him room, and he rocked past at a stupid speed for the space available.

  My attention was so involved with Elizabeth that it was several seconds before the calamity got through. With a shattering jolt the casually noticed face of the Cortina’s driver kicked my memory to life. It belonged to one of Charlie Boston’s boys from the train. The big one. With the brass knuckles.

  December couldn’t stop the prickly sweat which broke out on my skin. I put my foot on the accelerator and felt Tiddely Pom’s weight lurch behind me from the sudden spurt. All I could hope for was that the big man had been too occupied judging the width of his car to look up and see me.

  He had, of course, had a passenger.

  I looked in the driving mirror. The Cortina had gone out of sight over the hill. Charlie Boston’s boys hurrying towards Norton Fox’s village was no mild coincidence; but Tiddely Pom’s whereabouts must have been transmitted with very little delay for them to be here already, especially if they had had to come from Birmingham. Just who, I wondered grimly, had told who where Tiddely Pom was to be found. Not that it mattered much at that moment. All that mattered was to get him lost again.

  I checked with the driving mirror. No Cortina. The horsebox was pushing sixty-five on a road wiser for forty. Tiddely Pom’s hooves clattered inside his stall. He didn’t like the swaying. He would have to put up with it until I got him clear of the Downs road, which was far too empty and far too visible from too many miles around.

  When I next looked in the mirror there was a pale speck on the horizon two hills behind. It might not be them, I thought. I looked again. It was them. I swore bitterly. The speedometer needle crept to sixty-eight. That was the lot. My foot was down on the floor boards. And they were gaining. Easily.

  There was no town close enough to get lost in, and once on my tail they could stay there all day, waiting to find out where I took Tiddely Pom. Even in a car it would have been difficult to lose them: in a lumbering horsebox, impossible. Urgent appraisal of a depressing situation came up with only a hope that Charlie Boston’s boys would again be propelled by more aggression than sense.

  They were. They came up fast behind me, leaning on the horn. Maybe they thought I hadn’t had time to see them as they went past me the other way, and wouldn’t know who wanted to pass.

  If they wanted to pass, they didn’t want to follow. I shut my teeth. If they wanted to pass, it was now, it was here, that they meant to make certain that Tiddely Pom didn’t run in the Lamplighter. What they intended to do about me was a matter which sent my mending ribs into a tizzy. I swallowed. I didn’t want another hammering like the last time, and this time they might not be so careful about what they did or didn’t rupture.

  I held the horsebox in the centre of the road so that there wasn’t room enough for their Cortina to get by. They still went on blowing the horn. Tiddely Pom kicked his stall. I took my foot some way off the accelerator and slowed the proceedings down to a more manageable forty-five. They would guess I knew who they were. I didn’t see that it gave them any advantage.

  A hay lorry appeared round a hill ahead with its load overhanging the centre of the road. Instinctively I slowed still further, and began to pull over. The Cortina’s nose showed sharply in the wing mirror, already up by my rear axle. I swung the horsebox back into the centre of the road, which raised flashing headlights from the driver of the advancing hay lorry. When I was far too close to a radiator to radiator confrontation he started blowing his horn furiously as well. I swung back to my side of the road when he was almost stationary from standing rigidly on his brakes, and glimpsed a furious face and a shaking fist as I swerved past. Inches to spare. Inches were enough.

  The Cortina tried to get past in the short second before the horsebox was re-established on the crown of the road. There was a bump, this time, as I cut across its bows. It dropped back ten feet, and stayed there. It would only stay there, I thought despairingly, until Charlie Boston’s boys had got what they came for.

  Less than a mile ahead lay my likely Waterloo, in the shape of a crossroads. A halt sign. It was I who would have to halt. Either that or risk hitting a car speeding legitimately along the major road, risk killing some innocent motorist, or his wife, or his child … Yet if I stopped, the Cortina with its faster acceleration would pass me when I moved off again, whether I turned right, as I had intended to, or left, back to London, or went straight on, to heaven knew where.

  There wouldn’t be anyone at the crossroads to give me any help. No police car sitting there waiting for custom. No A.A. man having a smoke. No life-saving bystander of any sort. No troop of United States cavalry to gallop up in the nick of time.

  I changed down into second to climb a steepish hill and forgot Norton’s box driver’s instructions. For a frightening moment the gears refused to mesh and the horsebox’s weight dragged it almost to a standstill. Then the cogs slid together, and with a regrettable jolt we started off again. Behind me, Charlie Boston’s boys still wasted their energy and wore out their battery by almost non-stop blasts on their horn.

  The horsebox trundled to the top of the hill, and there already, four hundred yards down the other side, was the crossroads.

  I stamped on the accelerator. The horsebox leaped forward. Charlie Boston’s boys had time to take in the scene below, and to realise that I must be meaning not to halt at the sign. In the wing mirror, I watched him accelerate to keep up, closing enough to stick to me whatever I did at the crossroads.

  Two hundred yards before I got there, I stood on the brake pedal as if the road ended in an abyss ten yards ahead. The reaction was more than I’d bargained for. The horsebox shuddered and rocked and began to spin. Its rear slewed across the road, hit the verge, rocked again. I feared the whole high-topped structure would overturn. Instead, there was a thudding, crunching, anchoring crash as the Cortina bounced on and off at the rear.

  The horsebox screeched and slid to a juddering stop. Upright. Facing the right way.

  I hauled on the hand brake and was out of the cab on to the road before the glass from the Cortina had stopped tinkling on to the tarmac.

  The grey-blue car had gone over on to its side and was showing its guts to the wind. It lay a good twenty yards behind the horsebox, and from the dented look of the roof it had rolled completely over before stopping. I walked back towards it, wishing I had a weapon of some sort, and fighting an inclination just to drive off and leave without looking to see what had happened to the occupants.

  There was only one of them in the car. The big one; the
driver. Very much alive, murderously angry, and in considerable pain from having his right ankle trapped and broken among the pedals. I turned my back on him and ignored his all too audible demands for assistance. Revenge, I assessed, would overcome all else if I once got within reach of his hands.

  The second Boston boy had been flung out by the crash. I found him on the grass verge, unconscious and lying on his face. With anxiety I felt for his pulse, but he too was alive. With extreme relief I went back to the horsebox, opened the side door, and climbea in to take a look at Tiddely Pom. He calmly swivelled a disapproving eye in my direction and began to evacuate his bowels.

  ‘Nothing much wrong with you, mate,’ I said aloud. My voice came out squeaky with tension. I wiped my hand round my neck, tried to grin, felt both like copying Tiddely Pom’s present action and being sick.

  The horse really did not seem any the worse for his highly unorthodox journey. I took several deep breaths, patted his rump, and jumped down again into the road. Inspection of the damage at the back of the horsebox revealed a smashed rear light and a dent in the sturdy off rear wing no larger than a soup plate. I hoped that Luke-John would agree to the Blaze paying for the repairs. Charlie Boston wouldn’t want to.

  His unconscious boy was beginning to stir. I watched him sit up, put his hands to his head, begin to remember what had happened. I listened to his big colleague still shouting furiously from inside the car. Then with deliberate non-haste I climbed back into the cab of the horsebox, started the engine, and drove carefully away.

  I had never intended to go far. I took Tiddely Pom to the safest place I could think of; the racecourse stables at Heathbury Park. There he would be surrounded by a high wall and guarded by a security patrol at night. Everyone entering racecourse stables had to show a pass: even owners were not allowed in unless accompanied by their trainer.

  Willy Ondroy, consulted on the telephone, had agreed to take in Tiddely Pom, and to keep his identity a secret. The stables would in any case be open from mid-day and the guards would be on duty from then on: any time after that, he said, Tiddely Pom would be just one of a number of horses arriving for the following day’s racing. Horses which came from more than a hundred miles away normally travelled the day before their race and stayed overnight in the racecourse stables. A distant stable running one horse on Friday and another on Saturday would send them both down on Thursday and leave them both at the racecourse stables for two nights, or possibly even three. Tiddely Pom’s two nights’ stay would be unremarkable and inconspicuous. The only oddity about him was that he had no lad to look after him, an awkward detail to which Willy Ondroy had promised to find a solution.