by Dick Francis
Only Cecil, the drunk, had ever been there.
‘It’s not like it used to be in the old days,’ he said owlishly, not noticing Reggie filch a hunk of his bread and margarine.
Cecil’s eyes had a glazed, liquid look, but I had luckily asked my question at exactly the right moment, in the loquacious half-hour between the silent bleariness of the afternoon’s liquor and his disappearance to tank up for the night.
‘What was it like in the old days?’ I prompted.
‘They had a fair there.’ He hiccuped. ‘A fair with roundabouts and swings and side-shows and all. Bank Holiday, see? Whitsun and all that. Only place outside the Derby you could go on the swings at the races. Course, they stopped it now. Don’t like no one to have a good time, they don’t. It weren’t doing no harm, it weren’t, the fair.’
‘Fairs,’ said Reggie scornfully, his eyes flicking to the crust Jerry held loosely in his hand.
‘Good for dipping,’ commented Lenny, with superiority.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Charlie, who hadn’t yet decided if Borstal qualified Lenny as a fit companion for one from the higher school.
‘Eh?’ said Cecil, lost.
‘Dipping. Working the pockets,’ Lenny said.
‘Oh. Well, it can’t have been that with the hound trails and they stopped them too. They were good sport, they were. Bloody good day out, it used to be, at Cartmel, but now it’s the same as any other ruddy place. You might as well be at Newton Abbot or somewhere. Nothing but ordinary racing like any other day of the week.’ He belched.
‘What were the hound trails?’ I asked.
‘Dog races,’ he said, smiling foolishly. ‘Bloody dog races. They used to have one before the horse races, and one afterwards, but they’ve ruddy well stopped it now. Bloody kill-joys, that’s all they are. Still,’ he leered triumphantly, ‘if you know what’s what you can still have a bet on the dogs. They have the hound trail in the morning now, on the other side of the village from the race-track, but if you get your horse bedded down quick enough you can get there in time for a bet.’
‘Dog races?’ said Lenny disbelievingly. ‘Dogs won’t race round no horse track. There ain’t no bloody electric hare, for a start.’
Cecil swivelled his head unsteadily in his direction.
‘You don’t have a track for hound trails,’ he said earnestly, in his slurred voice. ‘It’s a trail, see? Some bloke sets off with a bag full of aniseed and paraffin, or something like that, and drags it for miles and miles round the hills and such. Then they let all the dogs loose and the first one to follow all round the trail and get back quickest is the winner. Year before last someone shot at the bloody favourite half a mile from home and there was a bleeding riot. They missed him, though. They hit the one just behind, some ruddy outsider with no chance.’
‘Reggie’s ate my crust,’ said Jerry sadly.
‘Did you go to Cartmel this year too?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Cecil said regretfully. ‘Can’t say I did. A woman got killed there, and all.’
‘How?’ asked Lenny, looking avid.
‘Some bloody horse bolted in the paddock, and jumped the rails of the parade ring and landed on some poor bloody woman who was just having a nice day out. She backed a loser all right, she did that day. I heard she was cut to bits, time that crazy animal trampled all over her trying to get out through the crowd. He didn’t get far, but he kicked out all over the place and broke another man’s leg before they got the vet to him and shot him. Mad, they said he was. A mate of mine was there, see, leading one round in the same race, and he said it was something awful, that poor woman all cut up and bleeding to death in front of his eyes.’
The others looked suitably impressed at this horrific story, all except Bert, who couldn’t hear it.
‘Well,’ said Cecil, getting up, ‘it’s time for my little walk.’
He went out for his little walk, which was presumably to wherever he had hidden his alcohol, because as usual he came back less than an hour later and stumbled up the ladder to his customary oblivion.
Chapter 10
Towards the end of my fourth week Reggie left (complaining of hunger) and in a day or two was duly replaced by a boy with a soft face who said in a high pitched voice that his name was Kenneth.
To Humber I clearly remained one insignificant face in this endless procession of human flotsam; and as I could safely operate only as long as that state of affairs continued I did as little as possible to attract his attention. He gave me orders, and I obeyed them: and he cursed me and punished me, but not more than anyone else, for the things I left undone.
I grew to recognise his moods at a glance. There were days when he glowered silently all through first and second exercise and turned out again to make sure that no one skimped the third, and on these occasions even Cass walked warily and only spoke if he were spoken to. There were days when he talked a great deal but always in sarcasm, and his tongue was so rough that everyone preferred the silence. There were occasional days when he wore an abstracted air and overlooked our faults, and even rarer days when he looked fairly pleased with life.
At all times he was impeccably turned out, as if to emphasize the difference between his state and ours. His clothes, I judged, were his main personal vanity, but his wealth was also evident in his car, the latest type of Cunard-sized Bentley. It was fitted with back-seat television, plush carpets, radio telephone, fur rugs, air conditioning, and a built-in drinks cabinet holding in racks six bottles, twelve glasses, and a glittering array of chromiumed cork screws, ice picks and miscellaneous objects like swizzle sticks.
I knew the car well, because I had to clean it every Monday afternoon. Bert had to clean it on Fridays. Humber was proud of his car.
He was chauffeured on long journeys in this above-his-status symbol by Jud Wilson’s sister Grace, a hard faced amazon of a woman who handled the huge car with practised ease but was not expected to maintain it. I never once spoke to her: she bicycled in from wherever she lived, drove as necessary, and bicycled away again. Frequently the car had not been cleaned to her satisfaction, but her remarks were relayed to Bert and me by Jud.
I looked into every cranny every time while cleaning the inside, but Humber was neither so obliging nor so careless as to leave hypodermic syringes or phials of stimulants lying about in the glove pockets.
All through my first month there the freezing weather was not only a discomfort but also a tiresome delay. While racing was suspended Humber could dope no horses, and there was no opportunity for me to see what difference it made to his routine when the racing was scheduled for any of the five courses with long run-ins.
On top of that, he and Jud Wilson and Cass were always about in the stables. I wanted to have a look round inside Humber’s office, a brick hut standing across the top end of the yard, but I could not risk a search when any one of them might come in and find me at it. With Humber and Jud Wilson away at the races, though, and with Cass gone home to his midday meal, I reckoned I could go into the office to search while the rest of the lads were eating.
Cass had a key to the office, and it was he who unlocked the door in the morning and locked it again at night. As far as I could see he did not bother to lock up when he went home for lunch, and the office was normally left open all day, except on Sunday. This might mean, I thought, that Humber kept nothing there which could possibly be incriminating: but on the other hand he could perhaps keep something there which was apparently innocent but would be incriminating if one understood its significance.
However, the likelihood of solving the whole mystery by a quick look round an unlocked stable office was so doubtful that it was not worth risking discovery, and I judged it better to wait with what patience I could until the odds were in my favour.
There was also Humber’s house, a whitewashed converted farm house adjoining the yard. A couple of stealthy surveys, made on afternoons when I was bidden to sweep snow from his garden path, showed that this was an ultra-ne
at soulless establishment like a series of rooms in shop windows, impersonal and unlived-in. Humber was not married, and downstairs at least there seemed to be nowhere at all snug for him to spend his evenings.
Through the windows I saw no desk to investigate and no safe in which to lock away secrets: all the same I decided it would be less than fair to ignore his home, and if I both drew a blank and got away with an entry into the office, I would pay the house a visit at the first opportunity.
At last it began to thaw on a Wednesday night and continued fast all day Thursday and Friday, so that by Saturday morning the thin slush was disintegrating into puddles, and the stables stirred with the re-awakening of hunting and racing.
Cass told me on Friday night that the man who owned the hunters I looked after required them both to be ready for him on Saturday, and after second exercise I led them out and loaded them into the horse box which had come for them.
Their owner stood leaning against the front wing of a well polished Jaguar. His hunting boots shone like glass, his cream breeches were perfection, his pink coat fitted without a wrinkle, his stock was smooth and snowy. He held a sensible leather-covered riding stick in his hand and slapped it against his boot. He was tall, broad and bare-headed, about forty years old, and, from across the yard, handsome. It was only when one was close to him that one could see the dissatisfied look on his face and the evidence of dissipation in his skin.
‘You,’ he said, pointing at me with his stick. ‘Come here.’
I went. He had heavy lidded eyes and a few purple thread veins on his nose and cheeks. He looked at me with superior bored disdain. I am five feet nine inches tall; he was four inches taller, and he made the most of it.
‘You’ll pay for it if those horses of mine don’t last the day. I ride them hard. They need to be fit.’
His voice had the same expensive timbre as October’s.
‘They’re as fit as the snow would allow,’ I said calmly.
He raised his eyebrows.
‘Sir,’ I added.
‘Insolence,’ he said, ‘will get you nowhere.’
‘I am sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to be insolent.’
He laughed unpleasantly. ‘I’ll bet you didn’t. It’s not so easy to get another job, is it? You’ll watch your tongue when you speak to me in future, if you know what’s good for you.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘And if those horses of mine aren’t fit, you’ll wish you’d never been born.’
Cass appeared at my left elbow, looking anxious.
‘Is everything all right, sir?’ he asked. ‘Has Roke done anything wrong, Mr Adams?’
How I managed not to jump out of my skin I am not quite sure. Mr Adams. Paul James Adams, sometime owner of seven subsequently doped horses?
‘Is this bloody gipsy doing my horses any good?’ said Adams offensively.
‘He’s no worse than any of the other lads,’ said Cass soothingly.
‘And that’s saying precious little.’ He gave me a mean stare. ‘You’ve had it easy during the freeze. Too damned easy. You’ll have to wake your ideas up now hunting has started again. You won’t find me as soft as your master, I can tell you that.’
I said nothing. He slapped his stick sharply against his boot.
‘Do you hear what I say? You’ll find me harder to please.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I muttered.
He opened his fingers and let his stick fall at his feet.
‘Pick it up,’ he said.
As I bent to pick it up, he put his booted foot on my shoulder and gave me a heavy, over-balancing shove, so that I fell sprawling on to the soaking, muddy ground.
He smiled with malicious enjoyment.
‘Get up, you clumsy lout, and do as you are told. Pick up my stick.’
I got to my feet, picked up his stick and held it out to him. He twitched it out of my hand, and looking at Cass said, ‘You’ve got to show them you won’t stand any nonsense. Stamp on them whenever you can. This one,’ he looked me coldly up and down, ‘needs to be taught a lesson. What do you suggest?’
Cass looked at me doubtfully. I glanced at Adams. This, I thought, was not funny. His greyish blue eyes were curiously opaque, as if he were drunk: but he was plainly sober. I had seen that look before, in the eyes of a stable hand I had once for a short time employed, and I knew what it could mean. I had got to guess at once, and guess right, whether he preferred bullying the weak or the strong. From instinct, perhaps because of his size and evident worldliness, I guessed that crushing the weak would be too tame for him. In which case it was definitely not the moment for any show of strength. I drooped in as cowed and unresisting a manner as I could devise.
‘God,’ said Adams in disgust. ‘Just look at him. Scared out of his bloody wits.’ He shrugged impatiently. ‘Well Cass, just find him some stinking useless occupation like scrubbing the paths and put him to work. There’s no sport for me here. No backbone for me to break. Give me a fox any day, at least they’ve got some cunning and some guts.’
His gaze strayed sideways to where Humber was crossing the far end of the yard. He said to Cass, ‘Tell Mr Humber I’d like to have a word with him,’ and when Cass had gone he turned back to me.
‘Where did you work before this?’
‘At Mr Inskip’s, sir.’
‘And he kicked you out?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘I… er…’ I stuck. It was incredibly galling to have to lay oneself open to such a man; but if I gave him answers he could check in small things he might believe the whopping lies without question.
‘When I ask a question, you will answer it,’ said Adams coldly. ‘Why did Mr Inskip get rid of you?’
I swallowed. ‘I got the sack for er… for messing about with the boss’s daughter.’
‘For messing about…’ he repeated. ‘Good God.’ With lewd pleasure he said something which was utterly obscene, and which struck clear home. He saw me wince and laughed at my discomfiture. Cass and Humber returned. Adams turned to Humber, still laughing, and said, ‘Do you know why this cockerel got chucked out of Inskip’s?’
‘Yes,’ said Humber flatly. ‘He seduced October’s daughter.’ He wasn’t interested. ‘And there was also the matter of a favourite that came in last. He looked after it.’
‘October’s daughter!’ said Adams, surprised, his eyes narrowing. ‘I thought he meant Inskip’s daughter.’ He casually dealt me a sharp clip on the ear. ‘Don’t try lying to me.’
‘Mr Inskip hasn’t got a daughter,’ I protested.
‘And don’t answer back.’ His hand flicked out again. He was rather adept at it. He must have indulged in a lot of practice.
‘Hedley,’ he said to Humber, who had impassively watched this one-sided exchange, ‘I’ll give you a lift to Nottingham races on Monday if you like. I’ll pick you up at ten.’
‘Right,’ agreed Humber.
Adams turned to Cass. ‘Don’t forget that lesson for this lily-livered Romeo. Cool his ardour a bit.’
Cass sniggered sycophantically and raised goose pimples on my neck.
Adams climbed coolly into his Jaguar, started it up and followed the horse box containing his two hunters out of the yard.
Humber said, ‘I don’t want Roke out of action Cass. You’ve got to leave him fit for work. Use some sense this time.’ He limped away to continue his inspection of the boxes.
Cass looked at me, and I looked steadily down at my damp, muddy clothes, very conscious that the head lad counted among the enemy, and not wanting to risk his seeing that there was anything but submissiveness in my face.
He said, ‘Mr Adams don’t like to be crossed.’
‘I didn’t cross him.’
‘Nor he don’t like to be answered back to. You mind your lip.’
‘Has he any more horses here?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Cass, ‘And it’s none of your business. Now, he told me to punish you, and he won’t forget.
He’ll check up later.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ I said sullenly, still looking down. What on earth would my foreman say about this, I thought; and nearly smiled at the picture.
‘You don’t need to have done nothing wrong,’ said Cass. ‘With Mr Adams it is a case of punish first so that you won’t do anything wrong after. Sense, in a way.’ He gave a snort of laughter. ‘Saves trouble, see?’
‘Are his horses all hunters?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Cass, ‘but the two you’ve got are, and don’t you forget it. He rides those himself, and he’ll notice how you look after every hair on their hides.’
‘Does he treat the lads who look after his other horses so shockingly unfair?’
‘I’ve never heard Jerry complaining. And Mr Adams won’t treat you too bad if you mind your p’s and q’s. Now that lesson he suggested…’
I had hoped he had forgotten it.
‘You can get down on your knees and scrub the concrete paths round the yard. Start now. You can break for dinner, and then go on until evening stables.’
I went on standing in a rag-doll attitude of dejectedness, looking at the ground, but fighting an unexpectedly strong feeling of rebellion. What the hell, I thought, did October expect of me? Just how much was I to take? Was there any point at which, if he were there, he would say ‘Stop; all right; that’s enough. That’s too much. Give it up.’ But remembering how he felt about me, I supposed not!
Cass said, ‘There’s a scrubbing brush in the cupboard in the tack room. Get on with it.’ He walked away.
The concrete pathways were six feet wide and ran round all sides of the yard in front of the boxes. They had been scraped clear of snow throughout the month I had been there so that the feed trolley could make its usual smooth journey from horse to horse, and as in most modern stables, including Inskip’s and my own, they would always be kept clean of straw and excessive dust. But scrubbing them on ones knees for nearly four hours on a slushy day at the end of January was a miserable, back-breaking, insane waste of time. Ludicrous, besides.