by Dick Francis
‘I agree it’s an appalling thing to say,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Consider me appalled. Consider also that I have already wondered whether it was a publicity stunt set up by you and Katya… which went too far.’
He stared. Then relaxed. Then ruefully smiled.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Neither of us fixed it. How about our Clifford.’
‘You know him better than I do,’ I said. ‘But although he seems to have sold his soul to Worldic Cinemas, he doesn’t strike me as having the nerve or the ingenuity to fix it all up.’
‘You fluster him,’ Roderick observed. ‘He isn’t always as futile-seeming as he’s been since you arrived.’
Further along the rails from us stood Danilo, watching Nerissa’s colt with a smile on his frank and bonny face. I thought that if he had known he was so soon to inherit them, he would have been anxious instead.
Arknold joined him, and together they walked on to the stands to watch. Roderick and I tailed along after. We all watched Tables Turned set off at a great rate, run out of puff two furlongs from home, and finish a spent force.
Arknold, muttering under his breath and looking like thunder, bumped into me as he made his way down the stands’ steps to hold a post-mortem with the jockey.
He focused on me and said abruptly, ‘It’s too much, Mister. It’s too much. That’s a bloody good colt and he should have won by a mile in that company.’ He shut his mouth like a trap, brushed past me, and thrust his way down through the crowd.
‘Whatever’s all that about?’ Roderick asked casually; so casually that I remembered the Rand Daily Star, and didn’t tell him.
‘No idea,’ I said, putting on a bit of puzzle: but Roderick’s sceptical expression said that he similarly was remembering where I worked.
We walked down from the stands. I considered ways and means, and decided Klugvoigt was the best bet for what I wanted. So I drifted Roderick gently to where Conrad and Evan were discussing adjourning to the bar, inserted him into their notice, and left as he began telling Conrad the theories of Joe and the coaxial cable.
The Chairman was in his private box surrounded by ladies in decorative hats. He saw me hovering alone, beckoned to me to come up the adjacent stairs, and when I reached his side, pressed into my hand some drowned whiskey in a warmish glass.
‘How are you doing?’ I asked. ‘Winning, I hope.’
‘Not losing, anyway.’ I smiled.
‘What do you fancy in the next?’
‘I’d. have to see them in the parade ring first.’
‘Wise fellow,’ he agreed.
I admired the facilities. ‘The stands look new,’ I commented.
‘Not long built,’ he agreed. ‘Very much needed, of course.’
‘And the weighing room… from the outside it looks so comfortable.’
‘Oh, it is, my dear chap.’ A thought struck him. ‘Would you care to see round inside it?’
‘How very kind of you,’ I said warmly, and made ready-to-go-at-once movements so that he shouldn’t forget. After a moment or two we parked our unfinished drinks and strolled easily across to the large square administrative block which housed the weighing and changing rooms on the ground floor and the racecourse offices upstairs.
The whole thing was modern and comfortable, a long way from all too many English equivalents. There was a large room furnished with easy-chairs where owners and trainers could sit in comfort to plan their coups and dissect their flops, but Klugvoigt whisked me past it into the inner recesses.
The jockeys themselves shared in the bonanza, being supplied with man-sized wire lockers for their clothes (instead of a peg), a sauna bath (as well as showers) and upholstered day-beds to rest on (instead of a hard narrow wooden bench).
The man I had hoped to see was lying on one of the black leather-covered beds supporting himself on one elbow. He was known to me via the number boards as K. L. Fahrden. He was Greville Arknold’s jockey.
I told Klugvoigt I would be interested to speak to him, and he said sure, go ahead, he would wait for me in the reception room by the door, as there was someone there he too wanted to speak with.
Fahrden had the usual sharp fine bones with the usual lack of fatty tissue between them and the skin. His wary, narrow-eyed manner changed a shade for the better when Klugvoigt told him my name, but underwent a relapse when I said I was a friend of Mrs Cavesey.
‘You can’t blame me for her horses running so stinking,’ he said defensively.
‘I don’t,’ I said patiently. ‘I only wanted to ask you how they felt to you personally, so that I could tell Mrs Cavesey what you said.’
‘Oh. Oh, well, then.’ He considered, and came across. ‘They give you a good feel, see, at the start. Full of running, and revelling in it. Then you go to pick ’em up, see, and there’s bloody nothing there. Put on the pressure, see, and they blow up instant like.’
‘You must have given them a lot of thought,’ I said. ‘What do you think is wrong with them?’
He gave me a sideways look. ‘Search me,’ he said.
‘You must have a theory,’ I urged.
‘Only the same as anyone would,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘And I’m not saying more than that.’
‘Mm… Well, what do you think of Mr Arknold’s head lad?’
‘Barty? That great brute. Can’t say as I’ve ever thought much about him. Wouldn’t want to meet him alone on a dark night, if that’s what you mean.’
It wasn’t entirely what I meant, but I let it go. I asked him instead how he got on with Danilo.
‘A real nice guy, that,’ he said, with the first sign of friendliness. ‘Always takes a great interest in Arknold’s horses, of course, seeing as how so many of them are his aunt’s.’
‘Did you meet him when he was over here before?’ I asked.
‘Oh sure. He stayed in the hotel down in Summerveld, for a couple of weeks. A great guy. Always good for a laugh. He said he’d just been staying with his aunt, and she was a great girl. He was the only cheerful thing around, when the horses started running badly.’
‘When was that?’ I asked with sympathy in my voice.
‘Oh, way back in June, sometime. Since then there’s been every investigation you could think of, into why they flop. Dope tests, vets, the lot.’
‘Is Arknold a good man to ride for?’ I asked.
He closed up at once. ‘More than my job’s worth to say different.’
I fielded Klugvoigt from the reception room, thanked him, and walked back with him towards the parade ring. Someone button-holed him on the way, so I wandered by myself right across the course to the simple stand of plain wooden steps on the far side. From there one had a comprehensive view of the whole lay-out; the long sweep of stands, the small patch of sun umbrellas, the block of private boxes. Behind them all, the parade ring and the weighing room.
And round and about, mingling, chatting, exchanging information and sipping at cooling glasses, went Danilo and Arknold, Conrad and Evan, Roderick and Clifford Wenkins, and Quentin, Vivi, Jonathan and Sally van Huren.
I booked a telephone call to Charlie when I got back to the Iguana Rock that evening, and it came through punctually the next morning, Sunday, at ten o’clock.
We could hear each other as clearly as if we had been six miles apart instead of six thousand. She said she was glad I had called and glad that I wasn’t electrocuted: yes, she said, it had been in all the papers at home yesterday, and one or two disgustedly hinted that it had all been a put-up job.
‘It wasn’t,’ I said. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home. How are the kids?’
‘Oh, fine. Chris says he’s going to be an astronaut, and Libby has managed to say “pool” when she wants to go in the water.’
‘That’s great,’ I said, meaning Libby’s advance, and Charlie said yes, it was great, it really was.
‘I do miss you,’ I said lightly, and she answered with equal lack of intensity, ‘It seems a lot longer than four days sinc
e you went away.’
‘I’ll be back straight after the premiere,’ I said. ‘Before that I’m taking a look round a gold mine and then going to the Kruger National Park for a few days.’
‘Lucky sod.’
‘After the kids have gone back to school, we’ll have a holiday somewhere, just by ourselves,’ I said.
‘I’ll hold you to it.’
‘You can choose, so start planning.’
‘O.K.,’ she said it casually, but sounded pleased.
‘Look… I really rang about Nerissa’s horses.’
‘Have you found out what’s wrong with them?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I have had a fairly cataclysmic idea. I can’t be sure I’m right, though, until, or in fact unless, you can do something for me in England.’
‘Shoot,’ she said economically.
‘I want you to take a look at Nerissa’s will.’
‘Wow.’ She drew in a sharp breath. ‘How on earth do I do that?’
‘Ask her. I don’t know how you’ll manage it, but if she’s had fun drawing it up, she might not mind talking about it.’
‘Well… what exactly do you want me to look for if she lets me see it?’
‘I want to know particularly if besides the horses she has left the residue of her estate to Danilo.’
‘All right,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Is it very important?’
‘Yes and no.’ I half laughed. ‘Young Danilo is out here in South Africa at this moment.’
‘Is he?’ she exclaimed. ‘Nerissa didn’t tell us that.’
‘Nerissa doesn’t know,’ I said. I described the golden Danilo to her, and also Arknold, and explained how the horses all lost to the same pattern.
‘Sounds like the trainer nobbling them,’ she commented.
‘Yes. I thought so too, at first. But now… well, I think it’s the Californian kid, our Danilo.’
‘But it can’t be,’ she objected. ‘Whatever could he have to gain?’
‘Death duties,’ I said.
After a pause Charlie said doubtfully, ‘You can’t mean it.’
‘I do mean it. It’s a theory, anyway. But I can’t begin to prove it.’
‘I don’t really see…’
‘Imagine,’ I said, ‘that when Danilo went to see Nerissa in the early summer, their first reunion after all those years, she told him she had Hodgkin’s disease. He had only to look it up in a medical directory… he would find out it is always fatal.’
‘Oh dear,’ she sighed. ‘Go on.’
‘Nerissa liked him very much,’ I said. ‘Well… he’s an attractive boy in many ways. Supposing that, after she’d decided to, she told Danilo she was leaving him her horses, and some money as well.’
‘It’s an awful lot of supposing.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Would you ask Nerissa? Ask her if she told Danilo what illness she had, and also if she told him what she was leaving him.’
‘Darling, she’d be terribly distressed, at this stage, to find she was wrong about him.’ Charlie herself sounded upset. ‘She is so very pleased to have him to leave things to.’
‘Just get her chatting on the subject, if you can, and ask her casually. I agree that it’s important not to distress her. It might actually be better to let Danilo get away with it. In fact, I’ve been thinking about that for most of the night. He has been defrauding her of the prize money she might have won. How much would she mind?’
‘She might even laugh. Like you did just now. She might even think it was a pretty bright idea.’
‘Yes… Of course he has also been defrauding the South African betting public, but I suppose it’s up to the racing authorities here to deal with it, if they catch him.’
‘What makes you think it is Danilo?’
‘It’s so insubstantial,’ I said with frustration. ‘Mostly a matter of chance remarks and impressions, and terribly few facts. Well… for one thing, Danilo was around the horses when they started doing badly. Their jockey told me Danilo was in Africa then, in June, for a fortnight, which must have been just after he had stayed with Nerissa, because he talked about having seen her. After that he presumably went back to the States for a while, but the horses went on losing, so obviously he was not doing the actual stopping himself. It’s difficult to see how he could ever have the opportunity of doing it himself, anyway, but he seems to have an understanding with Arknold’s head lad: and I’ll admit that all I have to go on there, is the way they look at each other. Danilo never guards his face, by the way. He guards his tongue, but not his face. So suppose it is Barty, the head boy, who is arranging the actual fixing, with suitable rewards from Danilo.’
‘Well… if you are right… how?’
‘There are only two completely undetectable ways which can go on safely for a long time… over-exercising, which loses the race on the gallops at home (though in that case it is always the trainer who’s guilty, and people notice and talk)… and the way I think Barty must be using, the plain old simple bucket of water.’
Charlie said, ‘Keep a horse thirsty, maybe even put lashings of salt in its feed, and then give it a bucket or two of water before the race?’
‘Absolutely. The poor things can’t last the distance with three or four gallons sloshing around in their stomachs. And as for Barty… even if he were not always around to supply the water at the right time, he has all the other lads intimidated to such an extent that they’d probably cut off their own ears if he told them to.’
‘But,’ she objected, ‘if the head lad has been doing this for weeks and weeks surely the trainer would have cottoned on?’
‘I think he has,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t think he likes it, but he’s letting it pass. He said it was “too much” when one of Nerissa’s best colts got beaten out of sight yesterday in a poor class race. And then he himself gave me a version of what might be going on, and what may happen in the future. He accused me of implying that he was losing with the horses so that Nerissa would sell them: he would then buy them cheap, start winning, and sell them at a vast profit for stud. I had only vaguely been thinking along those lines, but he crystallised it as though the thought were by no means new to him. It was that, really, which set me wondering about Danilo. That, and the way he was smiling while he watched one of the horses go out to race. That smile was all wrong. Anyway… if he can reduce the value of the horses to nearly nil by Nerissa’s death, there will be a great deal less duty to pay on them than if they were all winning. The difference would run into many thousands, considering there are eleven horses. That would be a profit well worth the outlay on a couple of trips to South Africa and payola for the head lad. I think they are going to change the system, but as the tax laws stand at present he would have to be in line for the residue of the estate, for there to be any point in his doing it.’
‘Unscramble my brains,’ Charlie said.
I laughed. ‘Well. Estate duty will be paid on everything Nerissa owns. Then the separate bequests will be handed out. Then what is left will be the residue. Even though the horses are in South Africa, estate duty on them will be levied in England, because Nerissa lives there. So if the estate has to pay out all those thousands in death duties on the horses, there will be that many thousands less in the residue for Danilo to inherit.’
‘Gotcha,’ she said. ‘And wow again.’
‘Then, after they are safely his, he stops the watering lark, lets them win, sells them or puts them to stud, and collects some more lolly.’
‘Oh, neat. Very neat.’
‘Pretty simple, too.’
‘I say,’ she said, ‘isn’t there anything we could try along the same lines? All that mountain of surtax we pay… and then when one of us dies we lose another terrific chunk of what we’ve paid tax on once already.’
I smiled. ‘Can’t think of anything which fluctuates in value so easily as a horse.’
‘Let’s buy some more, then.’
‘And of course you have to know, p
retty well to a month, exactly when you are going to die.’
‘Oh damn it,’ Charlie said laughing. ‘Life is a lot of little green apples and pains in the neck.’
‘I wonder if “a pain in the neck” originated from the axe.’
‘The axeman cometh,’ she said. ‘Or for axe, read tax.’
‘I’ll bring you back a nugget or two from the gold mine,’ I promised.
‘Oh thanks.’
‘And I’ll telephone again on… say… Thursday evening. I’ll be down in the Kruger Park by then. Would Thursday be O.K. for you?’
‘Yes,’ she said soberly, the fun vanishing like mist. ‘I’ll go over to Nerissa’s before then, and see what I can find out.’
Chapter Nine
You can’t keep a good Dakota down.
There were two of them waiting at the small Rand Airport near Germiston racecourse, sitting on their tail wheels and pointing their dolphin snouts hopefully to the sky.
We onloaded one of them at eight on Monday morning, along with several other passengers and a sizeable amount of freight. Day and time were unkind to Roderick, making it clearer than ever that letting go of a semblance of youth was long overdue. The mature man, I reflected, was in danger of wasting altogether the period when he could look most impressive: if Roderick were not careful he would slip straight from ageing youth to obvious old age, a mistake more often found in show business than journalism.
He was wearing a brown long-sleeved suede jacket with fringes hanging from every possible edge. Under that, an open-necked shirt in an orange-tan colour, trousers which were cut to prove masculinity, and the latest thing in desert boots.
Van Huren, at the other end of the scale in dark city suit, arrived last, took control easily, and shunted us all aboard. The Dakota trip took an hour, and landed one hundred and sixty miles south, at an isolated mining town which had Welkom on the mat and on practically everything else.
The van Huren mine was on the far side from the airport, and a small bus had come to fetch us. The town was neat, modern, geometrical, with straight bright rows of little square houses and acres of glass-walled supermarkets. A town of hygienic packaging, with its life blood deep underground.