by Dick Francis
‘Nor do I.’
‘I’ll give it to the first person who’s nice to you.’
‘You might have to drink it yourself.’
We went slowly back down the aisle, not talking.
A thin woman sprang up from her chair as we approached her table and in spite of the embarrassed holding-back clutches of her party managed to force her way out into our path. We couldn’t pass her without pushing. We stopped.
‘You’re Roberta Cranfield, aren’t you?’ she said. She had a strong-boned face, no lipstick, angry eyes, and stiffly regimented greying hair. She looked as if she’d had far too much to drink.
‘Excuse us,’ I said gently, trying to go past
‘Oh no you don’t,’ she said. ‘Not until I’ve had my say.’
‘Grace!’ wailed a man across the table. I looked at him more closely. Edwin Byler’s trainer, Jack Roxford. ‘Grace, dear, leave it. Sit down, dear,’ he said.
Grace dear had no such intentions. Grace dear’s feelings were far too strong.
‘Your father’s got exactly what he deserves, my lass, and I can tell you I’m glad about it. Glad.’ She thrust her face towards Roberta’s, glaring like a mad woman. Roberta looked down her nose at her, which I would have found as infuriating as Grace did.
‘I’d dance on his grave,’ she said furiously. ‘That I would.’
‘Why?’ I said flatly.
She didn’t look at me. She said to Roberta, ‘He’s a bloody snob, your father. A bloody snob. And he’s got what he deserved. So there. You tell him that.’
‘Excuse me,’ Roberta said coldly, and tried to go forward.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ Grace clutched at her arm. Roberta shook her hand off angrily. ‘Your bloody snob of a father was trying to get Edwin Byler’s horses away from us. Did you know that? Did you know that? All those grand ways of his. Thought Edwin would do better in a bigger stable, did he? Oh, I heard what he said. Trying to persuade Edwin he needed a grand top drawer trainer now, not poor little folk like us, who’ve won just rows of races for him. Well, I could have laughed my head off when I heard he’d been had up. I’ll tell you. Serves him right, I said. What a laugh.’
‘Grace,’ said Jack Roxford despairingly. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Cranfield. She isn’t really like this.’
He looked acutely embarrassed. I thought that probably Grace Roxford was all too often like this. He had the haunted expression of the forever apologising husband.
‘Cheer up then, Mrs Roxford,’ I said loudly. ‘You’ve got what you want. You’re laughing. So why the fury?’
‘Eh?’ She twisted her head round at me, staggering a fraction. ‘As for you, Kelly Hughes, you just asked for what you got, and don’t give me any of that crap we’ve been hearing this evening that you were framed, because you know bloody well you weren’t. People like you and Cranfield, you think you can get away with murder, people like you. But there’s justice somewhere in this world sometimes and you won’t forget that in a hurry, will you now, Mr Clever Dick.’
One of the women of the party stood up and tried to persuade her to quieten down, as every ear for six tables around was stretched in her direction. She was oblivious to them. I wasn’t.
Roberta said under her breath, ‘Oh God.’
‘So you go home and tell your bloody snob of a father,’ Grace said to her, ‘That it’s a great big laugh him being found out. That’s what it is, a great big laugh.’
The acutely embarrassed woman friend pulled her arm, and Grace swung angrily round from us to her. We took the brief opportunity and edged away round her back, and as we retreated we could hear her shouting after us, her words indistinct above the music except for ‘laugh’ and ‘bloody snob’.
‘She’s awful,’ Roberta said.
‘Not much help to poor old Jack,’ I agreed.
‘I do hate scenes. They’re so messy.’
‘Do you think all strong emotions are messy?’
‘That’s not the same thing,’ she said. ‘You can have strong emotions without making scenes. Scenes are disgusting.’
I sighed. ‘That one was.’
‘Yes.’
She was walking, I noticed, with her neck stretched very tall, the classic signal to anyone watching that she was not responsible or bowed down or amused at being involved in noise and nastiness. Rosalind, I reflected nostalgically, would probably have sympathetically agreed with dear disturbed Grace, led her off to some quiet mollifying corner, and reappeared with her eating out of her hand. Rosalind had been tempestuous herself and understood uncontrollable feelings.
Unfortunately at the end of the aisle we almost literally bumped into Kessel, who came in for the murderous glance from Roberta which had been earned by dear Grace. Kessel naturally misinterpreted her expression and spat first.
‘You can tell your father that I had been thinking for some time of sending my horses to Pat Nikita, and that this business has made me regret that I didn’t do it a long time ago. Pat has always wanted to train for me. I stayed with your father out of a mistaken sense of loyalty, and just look how he repaid me.’
‘Father has won a great many races for you,’ Roberta said coldly. ‘And if Squelch had been good enough to win the Lemonfizz Cup, he would have done.’
Kessel’s mouth sneered. It didn’t suit him.
‘As for you, Hughes, it’s a disgrace you being here tonight and I cannot think why you were allowed in. And don’t think you can fool me by spreading rumours that you are innocent and on the point of proving it. That’s all piffle, and you know it, and if you have any ideas you can reinstate yourself with me that way, you are very much mistaken.’
He turned his back on us and bristled off, pausing triumphantly to pat Pat Nikita on the shoulder, and looking back to make sure we had noticed. Very small of him.
‘There goes Squelch,’ I said resignedly.
‘He’ll soon be apologising and sending him back,’ she said, with certainty.
‘Not a hope. Kessel’s not the humble pie kind. And Pat Nikita will never let go of that horse. Not to see him go back to your father. He’d break him down first.’
‘Why are people so jealous of each other,’ she exclaimed.
‘Born in them,’ I said. ‘And almost universal.’
‘You have a very poor opinion of human nature.’ She disapproved.
‘An objective opinion. There’s as much good as bad.’
‘You can’t be objective about being warned off,’ she protested.
‘Er… no,’ I conceded. ‘How about a drink?’
She looked instinctively towards Bobbie’s table, and I shook my head. ‘In the bar.’
‘Oh… still looking for someone?’
‘That’s right. We haven’t tried the bar yet.’
‘Is there going to be another scene?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
‘All right, then.’
We made our way slowly through the crowd. By then the fact that we were there must have been known to almost everyone in the place. Certainly the heads no longer turned in open surprise, but the eyes did, sliding into corners, giving us a surreptitious once-over, probing and hurtful. Roberta held herself almost defiantly straight.
The bar was heavily populated, with cigar smoke lying in a haze over the well-groomed heads and the noise level doing justice to a discotheque. Almost at once through a narrow gap in the cluster I saw him, standing against the far wall, talking vehemently. He turned his head suddenly and looked straight at me, meeting my eyes briefly before the groups between us shifted and closed the line of sight. In those two seconds, however, I had seen his mouth tighten and his whole face compress into annoyance; and he had known I was at the dance, because there was no surprise.
‘You’ve seen him,’ Roberta said.
‘Yes.’
‘Well… who is it?’
‘Lord Gowery.’
She gasped. ‘Oh no, Kelly.’
‘I want to talk to him.’
/>
‘It can’t do any good.’
‘You never know.’
‘Annoying Lord Gowery is the last, positively the last way of getting your licence back. Surely you can see that?’
‘Yes… He’s not going to be kind, I don’t think. So would you mind very much if I took you back to Bobbie first?’
She looked troubled. ‘You won’t say anything silly? It’s Father’s licence as well, remember.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ I said flippantly. She gave me a sharp suspicious glance, but turned easily enough to go back to Bobbie.
Almost immediately outside the bar we were stopped by Jack Roxford, who was hurrying towards us through the throng.
‘Kelly,’ he said, half panting with the exertion. ‘I just wanted to catch you… to say how sorry I am that Grace went off the deep end like that. She’s not herself, poor girl… Miss Cranfield, I do apologise.’
Roberta unbent a little. ‘That’s all right, Mr Roxford.’
‘I wouldn’t like you to believe that what Grace said… all those things about your father… is what I think too.’ He looked from her to me, and back again, the hesitant worry furrowing his forehead. A slight, unaggressive man of about forty-five; bald crown, nervous eyes, permanently worried expression. He was a reasonably good trainer but not enough of a man of the world to have achieved much personal stature. To me, though I had never ridden for him, he had always been friendly, but his restless anxiety-state made him tiring to be with.
‘Kelly,’ he said, ‘If it’s really true that you were both framed, I do sincerely hope that you get your licences back. I mean, I know there’s a risk that Edwin will take his horses to your father, Miss Cranfield, but he did tell me this evening that he won’t do so now, even if he could… But please believe me, I hold no dreadful grudge against either of you, like poor Grace… I do hope you’ll forgive her.’
‘Of course, Mr Roxford,’ said Roberta, entirely placated. ‘Please don’t give it another thought. And oh!’ she added impulsively, ‘I think you’ve earned this!’ and into his astonished hands she thrust the bottle of vodka.
CHAPTER NINE
When I went back towards the bar I found Lord Gowery had come out of it. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with Lord Ferth, both of them watching me walk towards them with faces like thunder.
I stopped four feet away, and waited.
‘Hughes,’ said Lord Gowery for openers, ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘My Lord,’ I said politely. ‘This isn’t Newmarket Heath.’
It went down badly. They were both affronted. They closed their ranks.
‘Insolence will get you nowhere,’ Lord Ferth said, and Lord Gowery added, ‘You’ll never get your licence back, if you behave like this.’
I said without heat, ‘Does justice depend on good manners?’
They looked as if they couldn’t believe their ears. From their point of view I was cutting my own throat, though I had always myself doubted that excessive meekness got licences restored any quicker than they would have been without it. Meekness in the accused brought out leniency in some judges, but severity in others. To achieve a minimum sentence, the guilty should always bone up on the character of their judge, a sound maxim which I hadn’t had the sense to see applied even more to the innocent.
‘I would have thought some sense of shame would have kept you away,’ Lord Ferth said.
‘It took a bit of an effort to come,’ I agreed.
His eyes narrowed and opened again quickly.
Gowery said, ‘As to spreading these rumours… I say categorically that you are not only not on the point of being given your licence back, but that your suspension will be all the longer in consequence of your present behaviour.’
I gave him a level stare and Lord Ferth opened his mouth and shut it again.
‘It is no rumour that Mr Cranfield and I are not guilty,’ I said at length. ‘It is no rumour that two at least of the witnesses were lying. Those are facts.’
‘Nonsense,’ Gowery said vehemently.
‘What you believe, sir,’ I said, ‘Doesn’t alter the truth.’
‘You are doing yourself no good, Hughes.’ Under his heavy authoritative exterior he was exceedingly angry. All I needed was a bore hole, and I’d get a gusher.
I said, ‘Would you be good enough to tell me who suggested to you or the other Stewards that you should seek out and question Mr Newtonnards?’
There was the tiniest shift in his eyes. Enough for me to be certain.
‘Certainly not.’
‘Then will you tell me upon whose instructions the enquiry agent David Oakley visited my flat?’
‘I will not.’ His voice was loud, and for the first time, alarmed.
Ferth looked in growing doubt from one of us to the other.
‘What is all this about?’ he said.
‘Mr Cranfield and I were indeed wrongly warned off,’ I said. ‘Someone sent David Oakley to my flat to fake that photograph. And I believe Lord Gowery knows who it was.’
‘I most certainly do not,’ he said furiously. ‘Do you want to bs sued for slander?’
‘I have not slandered you, sir.’
‘You said…’
‘I said you knew who sent David Oakley. I did not say that you knew the photograph was a fake.’
‘And it wasn’t,’ he insisted fiercely.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘It was.’
There was a loaded, glaring silence. Then Lord Gowery said heavily, ‘I’m not going to listen to this,’ and turned on his heel and dived back into the bar.
Lord Ferth, looking troubled, took a step after him.
I said, ‘My Lord, may I talk to you?’ And he stopped and turned back to me and said, ‘Yes, I think you’d better.’
He gestured towards the supper room next door and we went through the archway into the brighter light. Nearly everyone had eaten and gone. The buffet table bore shambled remains and all but two of the small tables were unoccupied. He sat down at one of these and pointed to the chair opposite. I took it, facing him.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘Explain.’
I spoke in a flat calm voice, because emotion was going to repel him where reason might get through. ‘My Lord, if you could look at the Enquiry from my point of view for a minute, it is quite simple. I know that I never had any five hundred pounds or any note from Mr Cranfield, therefore I am obviously aware that David Oakley was lying. It’s unbelievable that the Stewards should have sent him, since the evidence he produced was faked. So someone else did. I thought Lord Gowery might know who. So I asked him.’
‘He said he didn’t know.’
‘I don’t altogether believe him.’
‘Hughes, that’s preposterous.’
‘Are you intending to say, sir, that men in power positions are infallibly truthful?’
He looked at me without expression in a lengthening silence. Finally he said, as Roberta had done, ‘Where did you go to school?’
In the usual course of things I kept dead quiet about the type of education I’d had because it was not likely to endear me to either owners or trainers. Still, there was a time for everything, so I told him.
‘Coedlant Primary, Tenby Grammar, and L.S.E.’
‘L.S.E.… you don’t mean… the London School of Economics?’ He looked astonished.
‘Yes.’
‘My God…’
I watched while he thought it over. ‘What did you read there?’
‘Politics, philosophy and economics.’
‘Then what on earth made you become a jockey?’
‘It was almost an accident,’ I said. ‘I didn’t plan it. When I’d finished my final exams I was mentally tired, so I thought I’d take a sort of paid holiday working on the land… I knew how to do that, my father’s a farm hand. I worked at harvesting for a fanner in Devon and every morning I used to ride his ’chasers out at exercise, because I’d ridden most of my life, you see. He had a permit, and he was de
ad keen. And then his brother, who raced them for him, broke his shoulder at one of the early Devon meetings, and he put me up instead, and almost at once I started winning… and then it took hold of me… so I didn’t get around to being a Civil Servant, as I’d always vaguely intended, and… well… I’ve never regretted it.’
‘Not even now?’ he said with irony.
I shook my head. ‘Not even now.’
‘Hughes…’ His face crinkled dubiously. ‘I don’t know what to think. At first I was sure you were not the type to have stopped Squelch deliberately… and then there was all that damning evidence. Charlie West saying you had definitely pulled back…’
I looked down at the table. I didn’t after all want an eye for an eye, when it came to the point.
‘Charlie was mistaken,’ I said. ‘He got two races muddled up. I did pull back in another race at about that time… riding a novice ’chaser with no chance, well back in the field. I wanted to give it a good schooling race. That was what Charlie remembered.’
He said doubtfully, ‘It didn’t sound like it.’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I’ve had it out with Charlie since. He might be prepared to admit now that he was talking about the wrong race. If you will ask the Oxford Stewards, you’ll find that Charlie said nothing to them directly after the Lemonfizz, when they made their first enquiries, about me not trying. He only said it later, at the Enquiry in Portman Square.’ Because in between some beguiling seducer had offered him five hundred pounds for the service.
‘I see.’ He frowned. ‘And what was it that you asked Lord Gowery about Newtonnards?’
‘Newtonnards didn’t volunteer the information to the Stewards about Mr Cranfield backing Cherry Pie, but he did tell several bookmaker colleagues. Someone told the Stewards. I wanted to know who.’
‘Are you suggesting that it was the same person who sent Oakley to your flat?’
‘It might be. But not necessarily.’ I hesitated, looking at him doubtfully.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘Sir, I don’t want to offend you, but would you mind telling me why you sat in at the Enquiry? Why there were four of you instead of three, when Lord Gowery, if you’ll forgive me saying so, was obviously not too pleased at the arrangement’