by Dick Francis
I took a deep breath of its peace … and heard, in the quiet distance, the dull unmistakable thudding explosion of a bolt.
Dear God, I thought. We’re too late.
I ran. I knew where. To the last courtyard, the one nearest to Wykeham’s house. Ran with the furies at my heels, my heart sick, my mind a jumble of rage and fear and dreadful regrets.
I could have driven faster … I could have started sooner … I could have opened Lord Vaughnley’s envelope hours before … Kinley was dead, and I’d killed him.
I ran into the courtyard, and for all my speed, events on the other side of it moved faster.
As I watched, as I ran, I saw Wykeham struggle to his feet from where he’d been lying on the path outside the doors of the boxes.
Two of the box doors were open, the boxes in shadow, lit only by the light outside in the courtyard. In one box, I could see a horse lying on its side, its legs still jerking in convulsive death throes. Into the other went Wykeham.
While I was still yards away, I saw him pick up something which had been lying inside the box on the brick windowsill. I saw his back going deeper into the box, his feet silent on the peat.
I ran.
I saw another man in the box, taller, grabbing a horse by its head-collar.
I saw Wykeham put the thing he held against the second man’s head. I saw the tiny flash, heard the awful bang …
When I reached the door there was a dead man on the peat, a live horse tossing his head and snorting in fright, a smell of burning powder and Wykeham standing, looking down, with the humane killer in his hands.
The live horse was Kinley … and I felt no relief.
‘Wykeham!’ I said.
He turned his head, looked at me vaguely.
‘He shot my horses,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I killed him. I said I would … and I have.’
I looked down at the dead man, at the beautiful suit and the hand-sewn shoes.
He was lying half on his face, and he had a nylon stocking pulled over his head as a mask, with a hole in it behind his right ear.
Litsi ran into the courtyard calling breathlessly to know what had happened. I turned towards him in the box doorway, obstructing his view of what was inside.
‘Litsi,’ I said, ‘go and telephone the police. Use the telephone in the car. Press O and you’ll get the operator … ask for the police. Tell them a man has been killed here in an accident.’
‘A man!’ he exclaimed. ‘Not a horse?’
‘Both … but tell them a man.’
‘Yes,’ he said unhappily. ‘Right.’
He went back the way he’d come and I turned towards Wykeham, who was wide-eyed now, and beginning to tremble.
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ he said, with pride somewhere in the carriage of his head, in the tone of his voice. ‘I killed him.’
‘Wykeham,’ I said urgently. ‘Listen. Are you listening?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where do you want to spend your last years, in prison or out on the Downs with your horses?’
He stared.
‘Are you listening?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’ll be an inquest,’ I said. ‘And this was an accident. Are you listening?’
He nodded.
‘You came out to see if all was well in the yard before you went to bed.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘You’d had three horses killed in the last ten days … the police haven’t been able to discover who did it … You knew I was coming down to help patrol the yards tonight, but you were naturally worried.’
‘Yes.’
‘You came into this courtyard, and you saw and heard someone shoot one of your horses.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Is it Abseil?’ I longed for him to say no, but he said, ‘Yes.’
Abseil … racing at breakneck speed over the last three fences at Sandown, clinging to victory right to the post.
I said, ‘You ran across to try to stop the intruder doing any more damage … you tried to pull the humane killer out of his hands.’
‘Yes.’
‘He was younger and stronger and taller than you … he knocked you down with the humane killer … you fell on the path, momentarily stunned.’
‘How do you know?’ Wykeham asked, bewildered.
‘The marks of the end of the barrel are all down your cheek. It’s been bleeding. Don’t touch it,’ I said, as he began to raise a hand to feel. ‘He knocked you down and went into the second box to kill a second horse.’
‘Yes, to kill Kinley.’
‘Listen … He had the humane killer in his hand.’
Wykeham began to shake his head, and then stopped.
I said, ‘The man was going to shoot your horse. You grabbed at the gun to stop him. You were trying to take it away from him … he was trying to pull it back from your grasp. He was succeeding with a jerk, but you still had your hands on the gun, and in the struggle, when he jerked the gun towards him, the thick end of the barrel hit his head, and the jerk also caused your grasp somehow to pull the trigger.’
He stared.
‘You did not mean to kill him; are you listening, Wykeham? You meant to stop him shooting your horse.’
‘K .. Kit …’ he said, finally stuttering.
‘What are you going to tell the police?’
‘I … t .. tried to s .. stop him shooting …’ He swallowed. ‘He j … jerked the gun … against his head … It w .. went off.’
He was still holding the gun by its rough wooden butt.
‘Throw it down on the peat,’ I said.
He did so, and we both looked at it: a heavy, ugly, clumsy instrument of death.
On the windowsill there were several small bright golden caps full of gunpowder. One cocked the gun, fed in the cap, pulled the trigger … the gunpowder exploded and shot out the bolt.
Litsi came back, saying the police would be coming, and it was he who switched the light on, revealing every detail of the scene.
I bent down and took a closer look at Maynard’s head. There was oil on the nylon stocking where the bolt had gone through, and I remembered Robin Curtiss saying the bolt had been oiled before Col … Robin would remember … there would be no doubt that Maynard had killed all four horses.
‘Do you know who it is?’ I said to Wykeham, straightening up.
He half-knew, half couldn’t believe it.
‘Allardeck?’ he said, unconvinced.
‘Allardeck.’
Wykeham bent down to pull off the stocking-mask.
‘Don’t do that,’ I said sharply. ‘Don’t touch it. Anyone can see he came here trying not to be recognised … to kill horses … no one out for an evening stroll goes around in a nylon mask carrying a humane killer.’
‘Did he kill Kinley?’ Litsi asked anxiously.
‘No, this is Kinley. He killed Abseil.’
Litsi looked stricken. ‘Poor Aunt Casilia … She said how brilliantly you’d won on Abseil. Why kill that one, who couldn’t possibly win the Grand National?’ He looked down at Maynard, understanding. ‘Allardeck couldn’t bear you being brilliant, not on anything.’
The feud was dead, I thought. Finally over. The long obsession had died with Maynard, and he had been dead before he hit the peat, like Cascade and Cotopaxi, Abseil and Col.
A fitting end, I thought.
Litsi said he had told the police he would meet them in the parking place to show them where to come, and presently he went off there.
Wykeham spent a long while looking at Kinley, who was now standing quietly, no longer disturbed, and then less time looking at Maynard.
‘I’m glad I killed him,’ he said fiercely.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Mind you win the Triumph Hurdle.’
I thought of the schooling sessions I’d done with that horse, teaching him distances up on the Downs with Wykeham watching, shaping the glorious natural tale
nt into accomplished experience.
I would do my best, I said.
He smiled. Thank you, Kit,’ he said. ‘Thank you for everything.’
The police came with Litsi: two of them, highly official, taking notes, talking of summoning medical officers and photographers.
They took Wykeham through what had happened.
‘I came out … found the intruder … he shot my horse.’ Wykeham’s voice shook. ‘I fought him … he knocked me down … he was going to shoot this horse also … I got to my feet …’
He paused.
‘Yes, sir?’ the policeman said, not unsympathetically.
They saw, standing before them on the peat inside the box, standing beside a dead intruder with the intruder’s deadly weapon shining with menace in the light, they saw an old thin man with dishevelled white hair, with the dark freckles of age on his ancient forehead, with the pistol marks of dried blood on his cheek.
They saw, as the coroner would see, and the lawyers, and the press, the shaking deteriorating exterior, not the titan who still lived inside.
Wykeham looked at Kinley; at the future, at the horse that could fly on the Downs, tail streaming, jumping like an angel to his destiny.
He looked at the policemen, and his eyes seemed full of sky.
‘It was an accident,’ he said.