by Dick Francis
He looked bewildered at the unconnected question. ‘No … My mother had two more children after me, but they were both born dead.’
Chapter Fifteen
Saturday morning, May 2nd. Two Thousand Guineas day.
The sun rose to another high golden journey over the Heath, and I inched myself uncomfortably out of bed with less fortitude than I would have admired. The thought that Enso could inflict yet more damage was one I hastily shied away from: yet I myself had blocked all his tangents and left him with only one target to aim at. Having engineered the full-frontal confrontation, so to speak, it was too late to wish I hadn’t.
I sighed. Were eighty-five thoroughbreds, my father’s livelihood, the stable’s future, and perhaps Alessan-dro’s liberation worth one broken collar-bone?
Well, yes, they were.
But two broken collar-bones?
God forbid.
Through the buzz of my electric razor I considered the pros and cons of the quick getaway. A well-organized, unfollowed retreat to the fastnesses of Hampstead. Simple enough to arrange. The trouble was, some time or other I would have to come back; and while I was away the stable would be too vulnerable.
Perhaps I could fill the house with guests and make sure I was never alone … but the guests would depart in a day or two, and Enso’s idea of vengeance would be like Napoleon brandy, undiluted by passing time.
I struggled into a sweater and went down into the yard hoping that even Enso would see that revenge was useless if it lost you what you prized most on earth. If he harmed me any more, he would lose his son.
It had long been arranged that Tommy Hoylake should take the opportunity of his overnight stay in Newmarket to ride a training gallop in the morning. Accordingly, at seven o’clock he drove his Jaguar up the gravel and stopped with a jerk outside the office window.
‘Morning,’ he said, stepping out.
‘Morning.’ I looked at him closely. ‘You don’t look terribly well.’
He made a face. ‘Had a stomach-ache all night. Threw up my dinner, too. I get like that, sometimes. Nerves, I guess. Anyway, I’m a bit better now. And I’ll be fine by this afternoon, don’t worry about that.’
‘You’re sure?’ I asked with anxiety.
‘Yeah.’ He gave a pale grin. ‘I’m sure. Like I told you, I get this upset now and again. Nothing to worry about. But look, would you mind if I don’t ride this gallop this morning?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not. I’d much rather you didn’t … We don’t want anything to stop you being all right for this afternoon.’
‘Tell you what, though. I could give Archangel his pipe opener. Nice and quiet. How about that?’
‘If you’re sure you’re all right?’ I said doubtfully.
‘Yeah. Good enough for that. Honest.’
‘All right, then,’ I said, and he took Archangel out accompanied by Clip Clop, and they cantered a brisk four furlongs, watched by hundreds of the thousands who would yell for him down on the racecourse that afternoon.
Etty was taking the rest of the string along to Waterhall, where several were due for a three-quarter-speed mile along the Line gallop.
‘Who shall we put on Lucky Lindsay, now we haven’t got Tommy?’ Etty said. And it presented a slight problem, because we were short of enough lads with good hands.
‘I suppose we had better swap them around,’ I said, ‘and put Andy on Lucky Lindsay and Faddy on Irrigate, and …’
‘No need,’ Etty interrupted looking towards the drive. ‘Alex is good enough, isn’t he?’
I turned round. Alessandro was walking down the yard, dressed for work. Long gone were the dandified clothes and the pale washed gloves: he now appeared regularly in a camel-coloured sweater with a blue shirt underneath, an outfit he had copied from Tommy Hoylake on the basis that if that was what a top jockey wore to ride out in, it was what Alessandro Rivera should wear too.
There was no Mercedes waiting behind him in the drive. No watchful Carlo staring down the yard. Ales-sandro saw my involuntary search for his faithful attendant and he said awkwardly, ‘I skipped out. They said not to come, but Carlo’s gone off somewhere, so I thought I would. May I … I mean, will you let me ride out?’
‘Why ever not?’ said Etty, who didn’t know why ever not.
‘Go ahead,’ I agreed. ‘You can ride the gallop on Lucky Lindsay.’
He was surprised. ‘But it said in all the papers that Tommy was riding that gallop this morning.’
‘He’s got stomach-ache,’ I said, and as I saw the wild hope leap in his face, added, ‘And don’t get excited. He’s better, and he will definitely be OK for this afternoon.’
‘Oh.’
He smothered the shattered hope as best he could and went off to fetch Lucky Lindsay. Etty was riding Cloud Cuckoo-land along with the string, but I had arranged to have George drive me down later in the Land Rover in time to watch the gallops. The horses pulled out, circled in the paddock to sort out the riders, and went away out of the gate, turning left along the walking ground towards Waterhall.
With them went Lancat, but he, after his hard race two days earlier, was just to go as far as the main road crossing, and then turn back.
I watched them all go, glossy and elegant creatures on one of those hazy May mornings like the beginning of the world. I took a deep regretful breath. It was strange … but in spite of Enso and his son, I had enjoyed my spell as a racehorse trainer. I was going to be sorry when I had to leave. Sorrier than I had imagined. Odd, I thought. Very odd.
I walked back up the yard, talked for a few minutes to Archangel’s security guard, who was taking the opportunity of his absence to go off to the canteen for his breakfast, went into the house, made some coffee, and took it into the office. Margaret didn’t come on Saturdays. I drank some of the coffee and opened the morning’s mail by holding the envelopes between my knees and slitting them with a paper-knife.
I heard a car on the gravel, and the slam of a door, and just missed seeing who was passing the window through misjudging the speed at which I could turn my head. Any number of people would be coming to visit the stable on Guineas’ morning. Any of the owners who were staying in Newmarket for the meeting. Anyone.
It was Enso who had come. Enso with his silenced leveller. He was waving it about as usual. So early in the morning, I thought frivolously. Guns before breakfast. Damn silly.
The end of the road, I thought. The end of the damn bloody road.
If Enso had looked angry before, he now looked explosive. The short thick body moved like a tank round the desk towards where I sat, and I knew what Alessandro meant about not knowing what he could be like. Enso up in Railway Field had been an appetizer: this one was a holocaust.
He waded straight in with a fierce right jab on to the elderly doctor’s best bandaging, which took away at one stroke my breath, my composure and most of my resistance. I made a serious stab at him with the paper-knife and got my wrist bashed against the edge of the filing cabinet in consequence. He was strong and energetic and frightening, and I was not being so much beaten by Enso as overwhelmed. He hit me on the side of my head with his pistol and then swung it by the silencer and landed the butt viciously on my shoulder, and by that time I was half sick and almost past caring.
‘Where is Alessandro?’ he shouted, two centimetres from my right ear.
I sagged rather spinelessly against the desk. I had my eyes shut. I was doing my tiny best to deal with an amount of feeling that was practically beyond my control.
He shook me. Not nice. ‘Where is Alessandro?’ he yelled.
‘On a horse,’ I said weakly. Where else? ‘On a horse.’
‘You have abducted him,’ he yelled. ‘You will tell me where he is. Tell me … or I’ll break your bones. All of them.’
‘He’s out riding a horse,’ I said.
‘He’s not,’ Enso shouted. ‘I told him not to.’
‘Well … he is.’
‘What horse?’
/>
‘What does it matter?’
‘What horse?’ He was practically screaming in my ear.
‘Lucky Lindsay,’ I said. As if it made any difference. I pushed myself upright in the chair and got my eyes open. Enso’s face was only inches away and the look in his eyes was a death warrant.
The gun came up. I waited numbly.
‘Stop him,’ he said. ‘Get him back.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You must. Get him back or I’ll kill you.’
‘He’s been gone twenty minutes.’
‘Get him back.’ His voice was hoarse, high-pitched, and terrified. It finally got through to me that his rage had turned into agony. The fury had become fear. The black eyes burnt with some unimaginable torment.
‘What have you done?’ I said rigidly.
‘Get him back,’ he repeated, as if shouting alone would achieve it. ‘Get him back.’ He lifted the gun, but I don’t think even he knew if he intended to shoot me or to hit me with it.
‘I can’t,’ I said flatly. ‘Whatever you do, I can’t.’
‘He will be killed,’ he yelled wildly. ‘My son … my son will be killed.’ He waved his arms wide and his whole body jerked uncontrollably. ‘Tommy Hoylake … It says in the newspapers that Tommy Hoylake is riding Lucky Lindsay this morning …’
I shifted to the front of the chair, tucked my legs underneath it, and made the cumbersome shift up on to my feet. Enso didn’t try to shove me back. He was too preoccupied with the horror trotting through his mind.
‘Tommy Hoylake … Hoylake is riding Lucky Lindsay.’
‘No,’ I said roughly. ‘Alessandro is.’
‘Tommy Hoylake … Hoylake … It has to be, it has to be …’ His eyes were stretching wider and his voice rose higher and higher.
I lifted my hand and slapped him hard in the face.
His mouth stayed open but the noise coming out of it stopped as suddenly as if it had been switched off.
Muscles in his cheeks twitched. His throat moved continuously. I gave him no time to get going again.
‘You were planning to kill Tommy Hoylake.’
No answer.
‘How?’ I said.
No answer. I slapped his face again, with everything I could manage. It wasn’t very much.
‘How?’
‘Carlo … and Cal …’ The words were barely distinguishable.
Horses on the Heath, I thought. Tommy Hoylake riding Lucky Lindsay. Carlo, who knew every horse in the yard, who watched all the horses every day and knew Lucky Lindsay by sight as infallibly as any tout. And Cal … I felt my own gut contract much as Enso’s must have done. Cal had the Lee Enfield 303.
‘Where are they?’ I said.
‘I … don’t … know.’
‘You’d better find them.’
‘They … are … hiding.’
‘Go and find them,’ I said. ‘Go out and find them. It’s your only chance. It’s Alessandro’s only chance. Find him before they shoot him … you stupid murdering sod.’
He stumbled as if blind round the desk and made for the door. Still holding the pistol he bashed into the frame and rocked on his feet. He righted himself, crashed down the short passage and out through the door into the yard, and half ran on unsure legs to his dark-red Mercedes. He took three shots at starting the engine before it fired. Then he swept round in a frantic arc, roared away up the drive and turned right on to the Bury Road with a shriek of tyres.
Bloody, murdering sod … I followed him out of the office but turned down the yard.
Couldn’t run. The new hammering he’d given my shoulder made even walking a trial. Stupid, mad, murdering bastard … Twenty minutes since Alessandro rode out on Lucky Lindsay … twenty minutes, and the rest. They’d be pretty well along at Waterhall. Circling round at the end of the Line gallop, forming up into groups. Setting off …
Damn it, I thought. Why don’t I just go and sit down and wait for whatever happens. If Enso kills his precious son, serve him right.
I went faster down the yard. Through the gates into the bottom bays. Through the far gate. Across the little paddock. Out through the gate to the Heath. Turned left.
Just let him be coming back, I thought. Let him be coming back. Lancat, coming back from his walk, saddled and bridled and ready to go. He was there, coming towards me along the fence, led by one of the least proficient riders, sent back by Etty as he was little use in the gallops..
‘Help me take this jersey off,’ I said urgently.
He looked surprised, but lads my father had trained never argued. He helped me take off the jersey. He was no Florence Nightingale. I told him to take the sling off as well. No one could ride decently in a sling.
‘Now give me a leg up.’
He did that too.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Go on in. I’ll bring Lancat back later.’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. And if I’d told him to stand on his head he would have said yes, sir, just the same.
I turned Lancat back the way he had come. I made him trot along the walking ground. Too slow. Much too slow. Started to canter, breaking the Heath rules. It felt horrible. I twitched him out on to the Bury Hill ground which wasn’t supposed to be used for another fortnight and pointed him straight at the Bury Road crossing.
Might as well gallop … I did the first five furlongs on the gallop and the next three along the walking ground without slowing down much, and frightened a couple of early-morning motorists as I crossed the main road.
Too many horses on Waterhall. I couldn’t from more than half a mile away distinguish the Rowley Lodge string from others. All I could see was that it wasn’t yet too late. The morning scene was peaceful and orderly. No appalled groups bending over bleeding bodies.
I kept Lancat going. He’d had a hard race two days earlier and shouldn’t have been asked for the effort I was urging him into … He was fast and willing, but I was running him into the ground.
It was technically difficult, riding in clavicle rings, let alone anything else. However, the ground looked very hard and too far down. I stayed in the saddle as the lesser of two considerable evils. I did wish most fervently that I had stayed at home. I knew all about steeplechase jockeys riding races with broken collar-bones. They were crazy. It was for the birds.
I could see Etty. See some of the familiar horses.
I could see Alessandro on Lucky Lindsay.
I was too far away to be heard even if I’d had any breath for shouting, and neither of them looked behind them.
Alessandro kicked Lucky Lindsay into a fast canter and with two other horses accelerated quickly up the Line gallop.
A mile away, up the far end of it, there were trees and scrub, and a small wood.
And Carlo. And Cal.
I had a frightful feeling of inevitable disaster, like trying to run away through treacle in a nightmare. Lancat couldn’t possibly catch the fresh Lucky Lindsay up the gallop. Interception was the only possibility, yet I could misjudge it so terribly easily.
I set off straight across Waterhall, galloping across the cantering ground and then charging over the Middle Canter in the opposite direction to the horses working there. Furious yells from all sides didn’t deter me. I hoped Lancat had enough sense not to run head on into another horse, but apart from that my only worry, my sole, embracing, consuming worry, was to get to Alessandro before a bullet did.
Endless furlongs over the grass … only a mile, give or take a little … but endless. Lancat was tiring, finding every fresh stride a deeper effort … his fluid rhythm had broken into bumps … he wouldn’t be fit again to race for months … I was asking him for the reserves, the furthest stores of power … and he poured them generously out.
Endless furlongs … and I wasn’t getting the angle right … Lancat was slowing and I’d reach the Line gallop after Alessandro had gone past. I swerved more to the right … swayed perilously in the saddle, couldn’t even hold the reins in my left hand and I wanted to h
old on to the neck-strap with my right, wanted to hold on for dear life, and if I held on, I couldn’t steer … It wasn’t far, not really. No distance at all on a fresh horse. No distance at all for Lucky Lindsay.
All the trees and bushes up ahead … somewhere in there lay Carlo and Cal … and if Enso didn’t know where, he wasn’t going to find them. People didn’t lie about in full sight, not with a Lee Enfield aimed at a galloping horse; and Cal would have to be lying down. Have to be, to be accurate enough. A Lee Enfield was as precise as any gun ever made, but only if one aimed and fired while lying down. It kicked too much to be reliable if one was standing up.
Enso wouldn’t find them. He might find the car. Alessandro’s Mercedes. But he wouldn’t find Carlo and Cal until the thunderous noise gave away their position … and no one but Enso would find them even then, before they reached the car and drove away. Everyone would be concentrating on Alessandro with a hole torn in his chest, Alessandro in his camel jersey and blue shirt which were just like Tommy Hoylake’s.
Carlo and Cal knew Alessandro … they knew him well … but they thought he had obeyed his father and stayed in the hotel … and one jockey looked very like another, from a distance, on a galloping horse …
Alessandro, I thought. Galloping along in the golden May morning … straight to his death.
I couldn’t go any faster. Lancat couldn’t go any faster. Didn’t know about the horse’s breath, but mine was coming out in great gulps. Nearer to sobs, I dare say. I really should have stayed at home.
Shifted another notch to the right and kicked Lancat. Feeble kick. Didn’t increase the speed.
We were closing. The angle came sharper suddenly as the Line gallop began its sweep round to the right. Lucky Lindsay came round the corner to the most vulnerable stretch … Carlo and Cal would be there … they would be ahead of him, because Cal would be sure of hitting a man coming straight towards him … there weren’t the same problems as in trying to hit a crossing target …
They must be able to see me too, I thought. But if Cal was looking down his sights, levelling the blade in the ring over Alessandro’s brown sweater and black bent head, he wouldn’t notice me … wouldn’t anyway see any significance in just another horse galloping across the Heath.