by Dick Francis
‘Kelly! What are you doing here?’
‘Asking you for some explanation.’
‘I’ve nothing to say to you.’
‘You have indeed.’
He frowned. Natural good manners were only just preventing him from retreating and shutting the door in my face. ‘Come in then. Just for a few minutes.’
‘Thank you,’ I said without irony, and followed him into a nearby small room lined with books and containing a vast desk, three deep armchairs and a colour television set.
‘Now,’ he said, shutting the door and not offering the armchairs, ‘Why have you come?’
He was four years older than me, and about the same size. Still as trim as when he rode races, still outwardly the same man. Only the casual, long established changing-room friendliness seemed to have withered somewhere along the upward path from amateurship to Authority.
‘Andy,’ I said, ‘Do you really and honestly believe that that Squelch race was rigged?’
‘You were warned off,’ he said coldly.
‘That’s far from being the same thing as guilty.’
‘I don’t agree.’
‘Then you’re stupid,’ I said bluntly. ‘As well as scared out of your tiny wits.’
‘That’s enough, Kelly. I don’t have to listen to this.’ He opened the door again and waited for me to leave. I didn’t. Short of throwing me out bodily he was going to have to put up with me a little longer. He gave me a furious stare and shut the door again.
I said more reasonably, ‘I’m sorry, Really, I’m sorry. It’s just that you rode against me for at least five years… I’d have thought you wouldn’t so easily believe I’d deliberately lose a race. I’ve never yet lost a race I could win.’
He was silent. He knew that I didn’t throw races. Anyone who rode regularly knew who would and who wouldn’t, and in spite of what Charlie West had said at the Enquiry, I was not an artist at stopping one because I hadn’t given it the practice.
‘There was that money,’ he said at last. He sounded disillusioned and discouraged.
‘I never had it. Oakley took it with him into my flat and photographed it there. All that so called evidence, the whole bloody Enquiry in fact, was as genuine as a lead sixpence.’
He gave me a long doubtful look. Then he said, ‘There’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘What are you afraid of?’
‘Stop saying I’m afraid,’ he said irritably. ‘I’m not afraid. I just can’t do anything about it, even if what you say is true.’
‘It is true… and maybe you don’t think you are afraid, but that’s definitely the impression you give. Or maybe… are you simply overawed? The new boy among the old powerful prefects. Is that it? Afraid of putting a foot wrong with them?’
‘Kelly!’ he protested; but it was the protest of a touched nerve.
I said unkindly, ‘You’re a gutless disappointment,’ and took a step towards his door. He didn’t move to open it for me. Instead he put up a hand to stop me, looking as angry as he had every right to.
‘That’s not fair. Just because I can’t help you…’
‘You could have done. At the Enquiry.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I do indeed. You found it easier to believe me guilty than to tell Gowery you had any doubts.’
‘It wasn’t as easy as you think.’
‘Thanks,’ I said ironically.
‘I don’t mean…’ he shook his head impatiently. ‘I mean, it wasn’t all as simple as you make out. When Gowery asked me to sit with him at the Enquiry I believed it was only going to be a formality, that both you and Cranfield had run the Lemonfizz genuinely and were surprised yourselves by the result. Colonel Midgley told me it was ridiculous having to hold the Enquiry at all, really. I never expected to be caught up in having to warn you off.’
‘Did you say,’ I said, ‘That Lord Gowery asked you to sit with him?’
‘Of course. That’s the normal procedure. The Stewards sitting at an Enquiry aren’t picked out of a hat…’
‘There isn’t any sort of rota?’
‘No. The Disciplinary Steward asks two colleagues to officiate with him… and that’s what put me on the spot, if you must know, because I didn’t want to say no to Lord Gowery…’ He stopped.
‘Go on,’ I urged without heat. ‘Why not?’
‘Well, because…’ He hesitated, then said slowly, ‘I suppose in a way I owe it to you… I’m sorry Kelly, desperately sorry, I do know you don’t usually rig races… I’m in an odd position with Gowery and it’s vitally important I keep in with him.’
I stifled my indignation. Andrew Ting’s eyes were looking inward and from his expression he didn’t very much like what he could see.
‘He owns the freehold of the land just north of Manchester where our main pottery is.’ Andrew Tring’s family fortunes were based not on fine porcelain but on smashable tea cups for institutions. His products were dropped by washers-up in schools and hospitals from Waterloo to Hongkong, and the pieces in the world’s dustbins were his perennial licence to print money.
He said, ‘There’s been some redevelopment round there and that land is suddenly worth about a quarter of a million. And our lease runs out in three years… We have been negotiating a new one, but the old one was for ninety-nine years and no one is keen to renew for that long… The ground rent is in any case going to be raised considerably, but if Gowery changes his mind and wants to sell that land for development, there’s nothing we can do about it. We only own the buildings… We’d lose the entire factory if he didn’t renew the lease… And we can only make cups and saucers so cheaply because our overheads are small… If we have to build or rent a new factory our prices will be less competitive and our world trade figures will slump. Gowery himself has the final say as to whether our lease will be renewed or not, and on what terms… so you see, Kelly, it’s not that I’m afraid of him… there’s so much more at stake… and he’s always a man to hold it against you if you argue with him.’
He stopped and looked at me gloomily. I looked gloomily back. The facts of life stared us stonily in the face.
‘So that’s that,’ I agreed. ‘You are quite right. You can’t help me. You couldn’t, right from the start. I’m glad you explained…’ I smiled at him twistedly, facing another dead end, the last of a profitless day.
‘I’m sorry, Kelly…’
‘Sure,’ I said.
Tony finished his fortified breakfast and said, ‘So there wasn’t anything sinister in Andy Tring’s lily-livered bit on Monday.’
‘It depends what you call sinister. But no, I suppose not.’
‘What’s left, then?’
‘Damn all,’ I said in depression.
‘You can’t give up,’ he protested.
‘Oh no. But I’ve learned one thing in learning nothing, and that is that I’m getting nowhere because I’m me. First thing Monday morning I’m going to hire me my own David Oakley.’
‘Attaboy,’ he said. He stood up. ‘Time for second lot, I hear.’ Down in the yard the lads were bringing out the horses, their hooves scrunching hollowly on the packed gravel.
‘How are they doing?’ I asked.
‘Oh… so so. I sure hate having to put up other jocks. Given me a bellyful of the whole game, this business has.’
When he’d gone down to ride I cleaned up my already clean flat and made some more coffee. The day stretched emptily ahead. So did the next day and the one after that, and every day for an indefinite age.
Ten minutes of this prospect was enough. I searched around and found another straw to cling to: telephoned to a man I knew slightly at the B.B.C. A cool secretary said he was out, and to try again at eleven.
I tried again at eleven. Still out. I tried at twelve. He was in then, but sounded as if he wished he weren’t.
‘Not Kelly Hughes, the…’ His voice trailed off while he failed to find a tactful way of putting it.
‘That�
��s right.’
‘Well… er… I don’t think…’
‘I don’t want anything much,’ I assured him resignedly. ‘I just want to know the name of the outfit who make the films of races. The camera patrol people.’
‘Oh.’ He sounded relieved. That’s the Racecourse Technical Services. Run by the Levy Board. They’ve a virtual monopoly, though there’s one other small firm operating sometimes under licence. Then there are the television companies, of course. Did you want any particular race? Oh… the Lemonfizz Crystal Cup, I suppose.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘The meeting at Reading two weeks earlier.’
‘Reading… Reading… Let’s see, then. Which lot would that be?’ He hummed a few out of tune bars while he thought it over. ‘I should think… yes, definitely the small firm, the Cannot Lie people. Cannot Lie, Ltd. Offices at Woking, Surrey. Do you want their number?’
‘Yes please.’
He read it to me.
‘Thank you very much,’ I said.
‘Any time… er… well… I mean…’
‘I know what you mean,’ I agreed. ‘But thanks anyway.’
I put down the receiver with a grimace. It was still no fun being everyone’s idea of a villain.
The B.B.C. man’s reaction made me decide that the telephone might get me nil results from the Cannot Lie brigade. Maybe they couldn’t lie, but they would certainly evade. And anyway, I had the whole day to waste.
The Cannot Lie office was a rung or two up the luxury ladder from David Oakley’s, which wasn’t saying a great deal. A large rather bare room on the second floor of an Edwardian house in a side street. A rickety lift large enough for one slim man or two starving children. A well worn desk with a well worn blonde painting her toe nails on top of it.
‘Yes?’ she said, when I walked in.
She had lilac panties on, with lace. She made no move to prevent me seeing a lot of them.
‘No one in?’ I asked.
‘Only us chickens,’ she agreed. She had a South London accent and the smart back-chatting intelligence that often goes with it. ‘Which do you want, the old man or our Alfie?’
‘You’ll do nicely,’ I said.
‘Ta.’ She took it as her due, with a practised come-on-so-far-but-no-further smile. One foot was finished. She stretched out her leg and wiggled it up and down to help with the drying.
‘Going to a dance tonight,’ she explained. ‘In me peep-toes.’
I didn’t think anyone would concentrate on the toes. Apart from the legs she had a sharp pointed little bosom under a white cotton sweater and a bright pink patent leather belt clasping a bikini sized waist. Her body looked about twenty years old. Her face looked as if she’d spent the last six of them bed hopping.
‘Paint the other one,’ I suggested.
‘You’re not in a hurry?’
‘I’m enjoying the scenery.’
She gave a knowing giggle and started on the other foot. The view was even more hair-raising than before. She watched me watching, and enjoyed it.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Carol. What’s yours?’
‘Kelly.’
‘From the Isle of Man?’
‘No. The land of our fathers.’
She gave me a bright glance. ‘You catch on quick, don’t you?’
I wished I did. I said regretfully, ‘How long do you keep ordinary routine race films?’
Huh? For ever, I suppose.’ She changed mental gear effortlessly, carrying straight on with her uninhibited painting. ‘We haven’t destroyed any so far, that’s to say. ’Course, we’ve only been in the racing business eighteen months. No telling what they’ll do when the big storeroom’s full. We’re up to the eyebrows in all the others with films of motor races, golf matches, three day events, any old things like that.’
‘Where’s the big storeroom?’
‘Through there.’ She waved the small pink enamelling brush in the general direction of a scratched once cream door. ‘Want to see?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
‘Go right ahead.’
She had finished the second foot. The show was over. With a sigh I removed my gaze and walked over to the door in question. There was only a round hole where most doors have a handle. I pushed against the wood and the door swung inwards into another large high room, furnished this time with rows of free standing bookshelves, like a public library. The shelves, however, were of bare functional wood, and there was no covering on the planked floor.
Well over half the shelves were empty. On the others were rows of short wide box files, their backs labelled with neat typed strips explaining what was to be found within. Each box proved to contain all the films from one day’s racing, and they were all efficiently arranged in chronological order. I pulled out the box for the day I rode Squelch and Wanderlust at Reading, and looked inside. There were six round cans of sixteen millimetre film, numbered one to six, and space enough for another one, number seven.
I took the box out to Carol. She was still sitting on top of the desk, dangling the drying toes and reading through a woman’s magazine.
‘What have you found then?’
‘Do you lend these films to anyone who wants them?’
‘Hire, not lend. Sure.’
‘Who to?’
‘Anyone who asks. Usually it’s the owners of the horses. Often they want prints made to keep, so we make them.’
‘Do the Stewards often want them?’
‘Stewards? Well, see, if there’s any doubt about a race the Stewards see the film on the racecourse. That van the old man and our Alfie’s got develops it on the spot as soon as it’s collected from the cameras.’
‘But sometimes they send for them afterwards?’
‘Sometimes, yeah. When they want to compare the running of some horse or other.’ Her legs suddenly stopped swinging. She put down the magazine and gave me a straight stare.
‘Kelly… Kelly Hughes?’
I didn’t answer.
‘Hey, you’re not a bit like I thought.’ She put her blonde head on one side, assessing me. ‘None of those sports writers ever said anything about you being smashing looking and dead sexy.’
I laughed. I had a crooked nose and a scar down one cheek from where a horse’s hoof had cut my face open, and among jockeys I was an also-ran as a bird-attracter.
‘It’s your eyes,’ she said. ‘Dark and sort of smiley and sad and a bit withdrawn. Give me the happy shivers, your eyes do.’
‘You read all that in a magazine,’ I said.
‘I never!’ But she laughed.
‘Who asked for the film that’s missing from the box?’ I said. ‘And what exactly did they ask for?’
She sighed exaggeratedly and edged herself off the desk into a pair of bright pink sandals.
‘Which film is that?’ She looked at the box and its reference number, and did a Marilyn Monroe sway over to a filing cabinet against the wall. ‘Here we are. One official letter from the Stewards’ secretary saying please send film of last race at Reading…’
I took the letter from her and read it myself. The words were quite clear: ‘the last race at Reading.’ Not the sixth race. The last race. And there had been seven races. It hadn’t been Carol or the Cannot Lie Co. who had made the mistake.
‘So you sent it?’
‘Of course. Off to the authorities, as per instructions.’ She put the letter back in the files. ‘Did you in, did it?’
‘Not that film, no.’
‘Alfie and the old man say you must have made a packet out of the Lemonfizz, to lose your licence over it.’
‘Do you think so too?’
‘Stands to reason. Everyone thinks so.’
‘Man in the street?’
‘Him too.’
‘Not a cent.’
‘You’re a nit, then,’ she said frankly. ‘Whatever did you do it for?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Oh yeah?’ She gave me a kn
owing wink. ‘I suppose you have to say that, don’t you?’
‘Well,’ I said, handing her the Reading box to put back in the storeroom, ‘Thanks anyway.’ I gave her half a smile and went away across the expanse of mottled linoleum to the door out.
I drove home slowly, trying to think. Not a very profitable exercise. Brains seemed to have deteriorated into a mushy blankness.
There were several letters for me in the mailbox on my front door, including one from my parents. I unfolded it walking up the stairs, feeling as usual a million miles away from them on every level.
My mother had written the first half in her round regular handwriting on one side of a large piece of lined paper. As usual there wasn’t a full stop to be seen. She punctuated entirely with commas.
Dear Kelly,
Thanks for your note, we got it yesterday, we don’t like reading about you in the papers, I know you said you hadn’t done it son but no smoke without fire is what Mrs Jones the post office says, and it is not nice for us what people are saying about you round here, all airs and graces they say you are and pride goes before a fall and all that, well the pullets have started laying at last, we are painting your old room for Auntie Myfanwy who is coming to live here her arthritis is too bad for those stairs she has, well Kelly, I wish I could say we want you to come home but your Da is that angry and now Auntie Myfanwy needs the room anyway, well son, we never wanted you to go for a jockey, there was that nice job at the Townhall in Tenby you could have had, I don’t like to say it but you have disgraced us son, there’s horrid it is going into the village now, everyone whispering, your loving Mother.
I took a deep breath and turned the page over to receive the blast from my father. His writing was much like my mother’s as they had learned from the same teacher, but he had pressed so hard with his ballpoint that he had almost dug through the paper.
‘Kelly,
You’re a damned disgrace boy. It’s soft saying you didn’t do it. They wouldn’t of warned you off if you didn’t do it. Not lords and such. They know what’s right. You’re lucky you’re not here I would give you a proper belting. After all that scrimping your Ma did to let you go off to the University. And people said you would get too ladidah to speak to us, they were right. Still, this is worse, being a cheat. Don’t you come back here, your Ma’s that upset, what with that cat Mrs Jones saying things. It would be best to say don’t send us any more money into the bank. I asked the manager but he said only you can cancel a banker’s order so you’d better do it. Your Ma says it’s as bad as you being in prison, the disgrace and all.’