The Racehorse Who Disappeared

by Clare Balding

  ‘And we’ll be hearing from President Trump,’ continued Mike, ‘about why it’s best to let the Russians build the wall between the US and Mexico.’

  ‘Well, that wasn’t very long,’ said Granny Pam disappointedly.

  ‘Tell us about it,’ Harry replied. ‘They hardly had any of me and Larry, and I can’t be the only one who thinks that was a mistake.’

  Larry yawned again. ‘I’m going back to bed. See you later.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Harry, as he followed his brother up the stairs.

  Granny Pam wandered back into the kitchen to make another cup of tea. The morning papers dropped through the front door and Boris didn’t try to pick one up. He just lay there, whining.

  Chapter 5

  Charlie couldn’t get out of the studio fast enough. She grabbed a face wipe from the make-up room and wiped off the brown foundation and powder that had been applied to her face.

  ‘Would you like me to get you a water or some juice?’ asked the helpful runner who had been assigned to look after them.

  ‘No thanks,’ replied Charlie. ‘We really ought to be getting home.’

  She didn’t like Salford with its cold grey concrete and its tall buildings that had names like Quay House and Dock House. She had barely slept a wink in the hotel because the doors on her floor kept slamming and all night she’d had an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

  Charlie didn’t know why it was but she felt very odd. Maybe it was because she didn’t know how to start another conversation with Joe about the job offer in Ireland.

  ‘We could go into Manchester while we’re here,’ Caroline suggested. ‘There’s a People’s History Museum I’d love to see.’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ Charlie said quietly but firmly as she wiped the last of her make-up off. ‘Dad will want to get back for the cows. He hates missing a morning milking and I don’t think the boys can manage on their own. It’s not that I don’t trust them …’

  ‘It’s just that you don’t trust them,’ laughed Caroline, completing her daughter’s sentence.

  Charlie couldn’t deny it.

  ‘It’s just best if Joe and I take the horses out. I can’t imagine what Harry and Larry would think is suitable exercise. I’ll probably find them teaching Percy the cha-cha-cha.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ replied Caroline. ‘You’re the trainer and I’m sure we’ll be back here another time.’

  ‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it,’ Charlie murmured, as she headed for the lifts. She didn’t like being away from the farm and she hadn’t enjoyed the interview. It was as if they didn’t listen to anything she said but just moved from one planned question to the next. The only good bit was being able to watch Joe’s celebrations again. She’d liked that, but, whenever she’d caught sight of herself on one of the screens, she’d shuddered. She looked weird, not at all like herself. She wondered how Granny Pam could have been such a natural performer while Charlie and her mother didn’t like being in front of an audience at all.

  As they were driven back down the M6, Joe and Charlie steered clear of the subject of Seamus O’Reilly’s letter by discussing Noble Warrior’s summer and autumn options. The question with most Derby winners was whether to stick to a mile and a half, move up to a mile and three-quarters or drop back to a mile and a quarter. But with Noble Warrior, the real question was the shape of the racecourse.

  For Percy to be able to accompany Noddy to the start and still get to the finish line before him, the track had to be circular or horseshoe-shaped, with a route to cut across the middle. Noble Warrior might be able to gallop with the other racehorses once he’d started a race, but, for him to want to finish in front of them, Charlie knew he still needed to see Percy ahead of him, waiting on the other side of the winning line.

  ‘I went to Ascot once with my dad,’ said Joe. ‘If we ran in the King George, I reckon you could get to the finishing post before us. You’d just turn Percy round at the start and go backwards round the course. It’s only a couple of furlongs from there so it should be fine. York is big and open in the middle, and the finish is almost directly opposite the start so that’s fine.’

  ‘Goodwood is out of the question,’ Charlie offered. ‘I saw it on the TV and it’s not a circle. It’s really pretty and there’s a big field with lots of trees in the middle, but it’s no good for us because there isn’t a route through them.’

  As they continued to debate different race-courses, Charlie almost forgot the nausea that had been building up inside her, but, as they got closer to home, she began to feel a sense of dread overtaking her.

  ‘Do you mind if I open the window?’ she asked the driver. ‘I’m feeling a bit sick.’

  The driver nodded and slowed down.

  ‘No, no, don’t slow down,’ Charlie said. ‘I need to get home as soon as possible. Something’s wrong, I just know it.’

  As they turned into Folly Farm, they all heard barking. Boris was running down the drive to meet them, as he often did. Usually he would wag his tail and bark with delight, but this morning he looked frantic and angry. He kept running towards the farmyard and running back again. As the chauffeur parked the car, Boris ran towards the barn and back again, barking all the time.

  ‘What’s his problem?’ asked Joe.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Charlie. ‘But I don’t like it.’

  Joe and Charlie followed Boris and, as they turned the corner, they froze. The gate to the barn was hanging open, swaying in the wind.

  Boris had run ahead and was already inside the huge open stall that Noble Warrior and Percy shared. Charlie and Joe followed him warily, unsure of what they would find. When they got to the barn, they saw Percy lying on his side, breathing heavily. There were six banana skins on the straw beside him. Charlie kneeled next to him, running her hand along his tummy, which seemed bloated and tight. Boris sniffed at Percy’s head and whimpered.

  ‘You poor lad,’ Charlie said softly, as Percy groaned. ‘What’s happened to you?’

  It was then that she realized there was something missing. Percy’s best friend would normally be right by his side. He hated to be parted from him, so where was he now? Where was Noble Warrior? Charlie swallowed hard, trying not to be sick. No wonder she had felt so anxious all morning. She looked at Joe and saw her panic reflected in his eyes.

  ‘Joe, you stay here with Percy. I’ll go and look.’ Charlie sounded calmer than she felt. Her heart was hammering against her chest so hard she thought it might burst out through her ribs.

  She ran outside and looked in the field, ran back and searched the area the pigs lived in, even checking in their pigsties. She sprinted past the chickens and scoured the farmyard. The cows had filed into the milking shed, where Bill was already busy milking them in turn, apologizing to each one for having been late.

  ‘He’s disappeared, Joe,’ Charlie said on her return. ‘There’s no sign of him anywhere.’

  Joe was soothing Percy, cradling his head in his lap. He had a bucket of water next to him and was dipping his hand into it, trying to encourage Percy to drink from the palm of his hand.

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ he said mournfully. ‘I shouldn’t have gone to Salford with you. I should’ve been here with the horses and the cows. I’m a farmhand, not a jockey, and I shouldn’t fool myself.’

  ‘Stop it, Joe. Stop it right this minute!’ Charlie shocked herself with the sternness of her own voice. ‘You are a jockey and you had every right to be talking on TV about winning the Derby. This is not your fault and I’m not going to let you blame yourself or think any differently about your future because of it.’

  She looked at Boris, who was whining softly.

  ‘I bet you knew something was up, didn’t you?’ Charlie asked him. ‘Why didn’t anyone listen to you? Well, we’d better start making some calls.’ Charlie’s voice was softer now. She felt guilty for snapping at Joe. ‘We’ll find a way to sort this out, I promise.’

  Charlie marched back to the house.r />
  ‘Call a vet!’ she shouted, as she went inside.

  ‘A vet? What on earth is going on?’ Granny Pam looked alarmed.

  ‘Percy’s been poisoned and Noble Warrior has disappeared.’

  ‘What?’ Granny Pam started to fan herself with a tea towel. ‘Oh my Lord, that’s awful. I must sit down.’

  ‘We have to call the vet.’ Charlie looked around the room and was relieved to see her mother with the phone in her hand.

  ‘I’m on to it,’ she said.

  ‘Granny Pam, where are the boys?’ asked Charlie. ‘They were meant to be in charge.’

  ‘Well, they came down to watch you all on the television. You were MARVELLOUS, by the way. Simply MARVELLOUS. Then they went back to bed. I watched the rest of BBC Breakfast and then it was Homes Under the Hammer and I’m afraid I got rather sucked in, and then there you were, all of you, back again. I should have checked on the horses, but I’ve really never been terribly good with animals, not like you, Charlie.’

  Caroline had taken the phone next door to talk to the vet. She came back into the room to hear the end of her mother’s explanation.

  ‘It’s all right, Mum. It really wasn’t your fault. The boys should’ve been helping you, not sleeping the morning away. The vet’s coming,’ she added. ‘She’ll only be a few minutes. I told her it was an emergency.’

  ‘I’ll go back out and stay with Percy until she gets here,’ Charlie said. ‘But we need to work out how on earth this happened.’

  Charlie crossed the yard back to the stable, kneeled down beside Joe and started rubbing Percy’s tummy. She took deep, loud breaths, trying to encourage Percy to copy her.

  ‘You poor old thing,’ she said softly, as she massaged him. ‘The vet’s coming.’

  Percy’s ear flicked as if he understood.

  ‘He looks like he’s been given some sort of tranquillizer to knock him out,’ Joe said.

  Charlie glanced at the banana skins.

  ‘They must have injected it into the bananas to make it easier to get it into him. Poor boy.’

  ‘Who would’ve done such a thing?’ Joe asked. ‘And what have they done with Noddy?’

  Charlie had been trying to think as clearly as she could and one theory kept popping into her mind. It was the worst thing she could imagine, and part of her didn’t even want to say it out loud, but, if she couldn’t say it to Joe, she would never be able to suggest it to anyone else.

  ‘I think …’ she faltered. ‘I don’t know why or who or how, but I have a horrible feeling that he might’ve been kidnapped.’

  Joe looked at her, his eyes wide with fear.

  ‘Why do you think that? Couldn’t he just have got scared and run off in the dark? We’ll probably find him in the woods or by the stream or over the hill with the cows …’

  His voice trailed off. With any other horse that might be a possibility, but not this one.

  They were both thinking the same thing. If Noble Warrior wasn’t with Percy then he must have been taken away. He would never, ever choose to leave his best friend.

  ‘It’s because he’s so valuable,’ said Charlie, feeling tears fill her eyes. ‘He’s the Derby winner. He’s worth millions.’

  ‘But only if he’s a racehorse,’ replied Joe. ‘He’s not worth anything at all to people who don’t know how to get the best out of him. He was only worth a thousand pounds when you bought him, because no one else had been able to make him gallop.’

  ‘Those men,’ Charlie said quietly. ‘The two men who were at the Open Day yesterday. The whispering one and the one in the baseball cap. They were asking me about Percy’s favourite food and I told them he loved bananas. Boris really didn’t like the two of them, and I just thought he was being rude, but maybe he was trying to warn me.’

  ‘I remember them,’ said Charlie’s dad, who had appeared at the entrance to the stall. ‘I brought them here and showed them where the horses lived. Showed them round the whole farm, how the gate opened and everything. They were particularly interested in the cattle truck.’

  ‘The cattle truck …’ said Charlie slowly.

  ‘Yes, they wanted to know if it started all right and whether it had a noisy engine. I thought it was a bit odd, but they said they were thinking of buying it from me second hand.’

  ‘Where is the cattle truck?’ Charlie asked. ‘I didn’t see it when we got back. Have you moved it, Dad?’

  ‘No, I left it right in the middle of the yard yesterday. Right there –’ Bill pointed at a space in the yard. A space in which there was no cattle truck. ‘Oh, no …’

  Charlie sat in silence for the next ten minutes. She tried to calm herself by concentrating on her breathing and rubbing Percy’s tummy in smooth, rhythmical strokes. Think logically, she said to herself. Finally, she spoke out loud.

  ‘We need to call the BBC. That footage they shot at the Open Day yesterday: those two men might be in it somewhere. We need to find a clear image so we know who we’re looking for. Also,’ continued Charlie, ‘we should call Mr and Mrs Williams. They know everyone in the racing world and, if someone tries to sell Noddy on, they’ll hear about it. Plus, I need to tell Polly so that she doesn’t find out from someone else.’

  At that moment, the vet arrived to examine Percy. She took his heart rate and his temperature, inserting the thermometer into his bottom. Percy flattened his ears back and looked grumpy.

  ‘That’s a good sign,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s more like his old self.’

  ‘He seems stable. He’s clearly got a very strong constitution,’ said the vet. ‘But we’ll have to lavage his stomach.’

  Charlie frowned. She didn’t know what that meant.

  ‘Wash it through with water,’ explained the vet. ‘To get as much of the tranquillizer out of his system as we can. I’ll give him a solution of magnesium sulphate, which will act as a laxative. That’ll help matters along. I can administer it through a tube directly into his stomach, but it’s better if he drinks it himself.’

  Charlie and Joe stayed with Percy while the vet treated him. Charlie held the bucket and encouraged him to drink, while the vet examined the banana skins.

  ‘What do you think they used to knock him out?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Looks to me like it could be Domosedan,’ said the vet, holding up the evidence. ‘You can see traces of the blue gel here on the skin. Clever. It’s fast-acting, but it’s meant to be placed under the tongue, not swallowed. No wonder Percy’s still feeling groggy. It looks as if he’s had a massive dose of it.’

  Percy took a drink of water and then another. His tummy tensed and his eyes widened. Then he lifted his tail and let out the biggest trumpet they had ever heard, followed by a stream of very runny poo.

  ‘That’s it, Percy,’ said Charlie, smiling for the first time in hours. ‘You get rid of all that nasty stuff. Go on, let it out.’

  Percy seemed more relaxed and comfortable after his bottom explosion. He struggled to his feet and stood with his head hanging low. For once, he didn’t frisk Charlie’s pockets for titbits. He didn’t seem in the mood to eat.

  ‘I think you can leave him for a while,’ said Joe, tapping Charlie’s arm. ‘He probably just wants some peace and quiet. I don’t think he’ll be after any more bananas in a hurry. I wonder if they gave Noddy some of that gel as well, to get him into the cattle truck.’

  ‘Well, if they did,’ said Charlie, ‘it will have worn off by now and he’ll be kicking up an almighty storm.’

  Leaving Joe in the barn, Charlie headed back to the kitchen and picked up the phone. She tapped in Polly’s home number and waited as it rang eight times. It went to answerphone so Charlie hung up.

  ‘That’s odd,’ she said to herself. ‘There’s always someone at the house in the mornings.’

  She tried the office number instead.

  ‘Good morning, Cherrydown Stables, this is Sheila speaking.’ The voice was brisk and efficient.

  ‘Hello, Sheila, it’s Polly’s friend
Charlie here. Is Mr Williams there? I need to talk to him about something that’s happened to Noble Warrior.’

  There was a pause and Charlie could hear Sheila swallow, as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t.

  ‘Charlie, how nice to hear from you. I’m afraid Mr Williams isn’t, um, actually here at the moment. He’s, ah, he’s with Polly and Mrs Williams.’ Sheila stopped again and Charlie could hear her blowing her nose. ‘I’ll tell them that you called,’ she said, before hanging up.

  ‘That was strange,’ Charlie said to her mother. ‘Sheila – their racing secretary – sounded upset about something. She said Mr and Mrs Williams aren’t there. They’ve gone somewhere with Polly.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry about it now,’ said Caroline. ‘You can try them again later. I’ve called the police and they promised they’d be here in the next half-hour. Let’s focus on what we can tell them that might help narrow down where Noddy’s been taken.’

  Charlie nodded. She had to deal with one thing at a time and, now that Percy was on the mend, the next thing was to try to work out who had taken Noble Warrior and where they might be heading.

  ‘We need that footage from the Open Day,’ she said purposefully. ‘Can you call the BBC, Mum? I need to talk to Harry and Larry. Where are they anyway?’

  ‘They must still be in bed,’ said Caroline, as she marched out of the kitchen. ‘Harry! Larry! Get up, right now!’ She shouted up the stairs.

  Charlie could feel a seething anger growing inside her. Her brothers were meant to have been in charge of the farm, not lazing in bed. She tapped her fingers on the kitchen table, drumming faster and faster as her rage built up. There was a crashing and banging from the boys’ rooms and then uneven footsteps on the stairs. Harry came in first, rubbing his eyes, followed by Larry, who looked wary. Charlie glared at them and pointed at the chairs on the other side of the table.

  ‘What’s this, an interrogation?’ said Harry.