Rat Race

by Dick Francis

  ‘He couldn’t have foreseen you’d land at East Midlands…’

  ‘It didn’t matter where we landed. As soon as everyone was clear of the aircraft, he was ready to blow it up.’

  ‘That’s sheer guess work.’

  ‘He did it in front of my eyes, at East Midlands. I saw him look round, to check there was no one near it. Then he was fiddling with his binocular case… sending the signals. They could have been either very low or super-high frequencies. They didn’t have very far to go. But more important, the transmitter would have been very low powered… and very small.’

  ‘But… by all accounts… and yours too… he was severely shocked after the explosion.’

  ‘Shocked by the sight of the disintegration he had been sitting on all day. And acting a bit, too.’

  He thought it over at length. Then he said, ‘Wouldn’t Someone have noticed that the Major wasn’t using binoculars although he was carrying the case?’

  ‘He could say he’d just dropped them and they were broken… and anyway, he carries a flask in that case normally as well as the race glasses… lots of people must have seen him taking a swig, as I have… they wouldn’t think it odd… they might think he’d brought the flask but forgotten the glasses.’

  I could imagine him shaking his head. ‘It’s a fantastic theory altogether. And not a shred of evidence. Just a guess.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Shore, I’m certain you’ve done your best, but…’

  I noticed he’d demoted me from Captain. I smiled thinly.

  ‘There’s one other tiny thing,’ I said gently.

  ‘Yes?’ He was slightly, very slightly apprehensive, as if expecting yet more fantasy.

  ‘I got in touch with a cousin in the army, and he looked up some old records for me. In World War II Major Tyderman was in the Royal Engineers, in charge of a unit which spent nearly all of its time in England.’

  ‘I don’t see…’

  ‘They were dealing,’ I said, ‘With unexploded bombs.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was the next day that Nancy flew Colin to Haydock. They went in the four seater 140 horse power small version Cherokee which she normally hired from her flying club for lessons and practice, and they set off from Cambridge shortly before I left there myself with a full load in the replacement Six. I had been through her flight plan with her and helped her all I could with the many technicalities and regulations she would meet in the complex Manchester control zone. The weather forecast was for clear skies until evening, there would be radar to help her if she got lost, and I would be listening to her nearly all the time on the radio as I followed her up.

  Colin grinned at me. ‘Harley would be horrified at the care you’re taking to look after her. “Let them frighten themselves silly,” he’d say, “Then he’ll fly with us all the time, with none of this do-it-yourself nonsense”.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘And Harley wants you safe, too, don’t forget.’

  ‘Did he tell you to help us?’

  ‘Not actually, no.’

  ‘Thought not.’

  Harley had said crossly, ‘I don’t want them making a habit of it. Persuade Colin Ross she isn’t experienced enough.’

  Colin didn’t need persuading: he knew. He also wanted to please Nancy. She set off with shining eyes, like a child being given a treat.

  The Derrydowns Six had been hired by an un-clued-up trainer who had separately agreed to share the trip with both Annie Villars and Kenny Bayst. Even diluted by the hiring trainer, the large loud voiced owner of the horse he was running, and the jockey who was to ride it, the atmosphere at loading time was poisonous.

  Jarvis Kitch, the hiring trainer, who could have helped, retreated into a huff.

  ‘How was I to know,’ he complained to me in aggrieved anger, ‘That they loathe each other’s guts?’

  ‘You couldn’t,’ I said soothingly.

  ‘They just rang up and asked if there was a spare seat. Annie yesterday, Bayst the day before. I said there was. How was I to know…?’

  ‘You couldn’t.’

  The loud voiced owner, who was evidently footing the bill, asked testily what the hell it mattered, they would be contributing their share of the cost. He had a north country accent and a bullying manner, and he was the sort of man who considered that when he bought a man’s services he bought his soul. Kitch subsided hastily: the small attendant jockey remained cowed and silent throughout. The owner, whose name I later discovered from the racecard was Ambrose, then told me to get a move on as he hadn’t hired me to stand around all day on the ground at Cambridge.

  Annie Villars suggested in embarrassment that the captain of an aircraft was like the captain of a ship.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said, ‘In a two bit little outfit like this he’s only a chauffeur. Taking me from place to place isn’t he? For hire?’ He nodded. ‘Chauffeur.’ His voice left no one in any doubt about his opinion on the proper place of chauffeurs.

  I sighed, climbed aboard, strapped myself in. Easy to ignore him, as it was far from the first time in my life I’d met that attitude. All the same, hardly one of the jolliest of trips.

  The Cherokee Six cruised at fifty miles an hour faster than the One Forty, so that I passed Nancy somewhere on the way up. I could hear her calling the various flight information regions on the radio, as she could hear me. It was companionable, in an odd sort of way. And she was doing all right.

  I landed at Haydock a few minutes before her, and unloaded the passengers in time to watch her come in. She put on a show to impress the audience, touching down like a feather on the grass. I grinned to myself. Not bad for a ninety-hour amateur. It hadn’t been the easiest of trips either. There would be no holding her, after this.

  She rolled to a stop a little way along the rails from me and I finished locking the Six and walked over to tell her she would smash the undercarriage next time she thumped an aeroplane down like that.

  She made a face at me, excited and pleased. ‘It was super. Great. The Liverpool radar people were awfully kind. They told me exactly which headings to fly round the control zone and then told me they would put me smack overhead the racecourse, and they did.’

  Colin was proud of her and teased her affectionately. ‘Sure, we’ve got here, but we’ve got to go home yet.’

  ‘Going home’s always easier,’ she said confidently. ‘And there are none of those difficult control zone rules round Cambridge.’

  We walked together across the track to the paddock, ducking under the rails. Nancy talked the whole way, as high as if she’d taken benzedrine. Colin grinned at me. I grinned back. Nothing as intoxicating as a considerable achievement.

  We left him at the weighing room and went off to have some coffee.

  ‘Do you know it’s only four weeks since we were at Haydock before?’ she said. Since the bomb. Only four weeks. I seem to have known you half my life.’

  ‘I hope you’ll know me for the other half,’ I said.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing.… Turkey sandwiches all right?’

  ‘Mm, lovely.’ She looked at me, unsure. ‘What did you mean?’

  ‘Just one of those pointless things people say.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She bit into the soft thick sandwich. She had good straight teeth. I was being a fool, I thought. A fool to get involved, a fool to grow fond of her. I had nothing but a lot of ruins to offer anyone, and she had the whole world to choose from, the sister of Colin Ross. If I was an iceberg, as Honey said, I’d better stay an iceberg. When ice melted, it made a mess.

  ‘You’ve clammed up,’ she said, observing me.

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Oh yes, you have. You do, sometimes. You look relaxed and peaceful, and then something inside goes snap shut and you retreat out into the stratosphere. Somewhere very cold.’ She shivered. ‘Freezing.’

  I drank my coffee and let the stratosphere do its stuff. The melting edges safely refroze.

&nb
sp; ‘Will Chanter be here today?’ I asked.

  ‘God knows.’ She shrugged. ‘Do you want him to be?’

  ‘No.’ It sounded more vehement than I meant.

  ‘That’s something, anyhow,’ she said under her breath.

  I let it go. She couldn’t mean what it sounded like. We finished the sandwiches and went out to watch Colin ride, and after that while we were leaning against the parade ring rails Chanter appeared out of nowhere and smothered Nancy in hair and fringes and swirling fabric, as closely as if he were putting out a fire with a carpet.

  She pushed him away. ‘For God’s sake…’

  He was unabashed. ‘Aw Nancy. C’mon now. You and me, we’d have everything going for us if you’d just loosen up.’

  ‘You’re a bad trip, Chanter, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘You’ve never been on any real trip, chick, that’s your problem.’

  ‘And I’m not going,’ she said firmly.

  ‘A little acid lets you into the guts of things.’

  ‘Components,’ I agreed. ‘Like you said before. You see things in fragments.’

  ‘Huh?’ Chanter focussed on me. ‘Nancy, you still got this creep in tow? You must be joking.’

  ‘He sees things whole,’ she said. ‘No props needed.’

  ‘Acid isn’t a prop, it’s a doorway,’ he declaimed.

  ‘Shut the door,’ she said. ‘I’m not going through.’

  Chanter scowled at me. The green chenille tablecloth had been exchanged for a weird shapeless tunic made of irregular shaped pieces of fabrics, fur, leather and metal all stapled together instead of sewn.

  ‘This is your doing, man, you’re bad news.’

  ‘It’s not his doing,’ Nancy said. ‘The drug scene is a drag. It always was. Maybe at art school I thought getting woozy on pot was a gas, but not any more. I’ve grown up, Chanter. I’ve told you before, I’ve grown up.’

  ‘He’s brainwashed you.’

  She shook her head. I knew she was thinking of Midge. Face something big enough, and you always grow up.

  ‘Don’t you have any classes today?’ she asked.

  He scowled more fiercely. ‘The sods are out on strike.’

  She laughed. ‘Do you mean the students?’

  ‘Yeah. Demanding the sack for the deputy Head for keeping a record of what demos they go to.’

  I asked ironically, ‘Which side are you on?’

  He peered at me. ‘You bug me, man, you do really.’

  For all that, he stayed with us all afternoon, muttering, scowling, plonking his hands on Nancy whenever he got the chance. Nancy bore his company as if she didn’t altogether dislike it. As for me, I could have done without it. Easily.

  Colin won two races, including the day’s biggest. Annie Villar’s horse came second, Kenny Bayst won a race on an objection. The loud voiced Ambrose’s horse finished fourth, which didn’t bode well for sweetness and light on the way home.

  The way home was beginning to give me faint twinges of speculation. The weak warm front which had been forecast for late evening looked as if it were arriving well before schedule. From the south-west the upper winds were drawing a strip of cloud over the sky like a sheet over a bed.

  Nancy looked up when the sun went in.

  ‘Golly, where did all that cloud come from?’

  ‘It’s the warm front.’

  ‘Damn… do you think it will have got to Cambridge?’

  ‘I’ll find out for you, if you like.’

  I telephoned to Cambridge and asked them for their actual and forecast weather. Nancy stood beside me inside the telephone box and Chanter fumed suspiciously outside. I had to ask Cambridge to repeat what they’d said. Nancy smelled faintly of a fresh flowering scent. ‘Did you say two thousand feet?’ Yes, said Cambridge with exaggerated patience, we’ve told you twice already.

  I put down the receiver. ‘The front isn’t expected there for three or four hours, and the forecast cloud base even then is as high as two thousand feet, so you should be all right.’

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I’ve done dozens of practice let-downs at Cambridge. Even if it should be cloudy by the time we get back, I’m sure I could do it in earnest.’

  ‘Have you ever done it without an instructor?’

  She nodded. ‘Several times. On fine days, of course.’

  I pondered. ‘You aren’t legally qualified yet to carry passengers in clouds.’

  ‘Don’t look so fraught. I won’t have to. They said it was clear there now, didn’t they? And if the base is two thousand feet when I get there, I can keep below that easily.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you can.’

  ‘And I’ve got to get back, haven’t I?’ she said reasonably.

  ‘Mm…’

  Chanter pulled open the telephone box door. ‘You taking a lease on that space, man?’ he enquired. He put his arm forward over Nancy’s chest a millimetre south of her breasts and scooped her out. She half disappeared into the enveloping fuzz and re-emerged blushing.

  ‘Chanter, for God’s sake, we’re at the races!’

  ‘Transfer to my pad, then.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Women,’ he said in disgust. ‘Goddamn women. Don’t know what’s good for them.’

  ‘How’s that for a right-wing reactionary statement?’ I enquired of the air in general.

  ‘You cool it, man. Just cool it.’

  Nancy smoothed herself down and said ‘Both of you cool it. I’m going back to the aeroplane now to get set for going home, and you’re not coming with me, Chanter. I can’t concentrate with you crawling all over me.’

  He stayed behind with a bad grace, complaining bitterly when she took me with her.

  ‘He’s impossible,’ she said as we walked across the track. But she was smiling.

  Spreading the map out on the wing I went through the flight plan with her, step by step, as that was what she wanted. She was going back as we’d come, via the radio beacon at Lichfield: not a straight line but the easiest way to navigate. As she had said, it was a simpler business going home. I worked out the times between points for her and filled them in on her planning sheet.

  ‘You are five times as quick at it as I am,’ she sighed.

  ‘I’ve had a spot more practice.’

  I folded the map and clipped the completed plan onto it. ‘See you at Cambridge,’ I said. ‘With a bit of luck.’

  ‘Meany.’

  ‘Nancy…’

  ‘Yes?’

  I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to say. She waited. After a while I said earnestly. ‘Take care.’

  She half smiled. ‘I will, you know.’

  Colin came across the track dragging his feet. ‘God, I’m tired,’ he said. ‘How’s my pilot?’

  ‘Ready, willing, and if it’s your lucky day, able.’

  I did the external checks for her while they climbed aboard. No bombs to be seen. Didn’t expect any. She started the engine after I’d given her the all clear, and they both waved as she taxied off. She turned into wind at the far end of the field, accelerated quickly, and lifted off into the pale grey sky. The clouds were a shade lower than they had been. Nothing to worry about. Not if it was clear at Cambridge. I strolled across to the Derrydowns Six. Annie Villars and Kenny Bayst were both there already, studiously looking in opposite directions. I unlocked the doors, and Annie embarked without a word. Kenny gave her a sour look and stayed outside on the ground. I congratulated him on his winner. It all helped, he said.

  Ambrose’s trainer and jockey trickled back looking pensive, and finally Ambrose came himself, reddish in the face and breathing out beer fumes in a sickly cloud. As soon as he reached the aircraft he leaned towards me and gave me the full benefit.

  ‘I’ve left me hat in the cloakroom,’ he said. ‘Hop over and fetch it for me.’

  Kenny and the other two were all of a sudden very busy piling themselves aboard and pretending they hadn’t heard. Short of saying ‘Fet
ch it yourself and losing Harley a customer, I was stuck with it. I trudged back across the track, through the paddock, into the Members’ Gents, and collected the hat off the peg it was hanging on. Its band was so greasy that I wondered how Ambrose had the nerve to let anyone see it.

  Turned, made for the door. Felt my arm clutched in a fiercely urgent grip.

  I swung round. The hands holding onto my arm like steel grabs belonged to Major Tyderman.

  ‘Major,’ I exclaimed in surprise. I hadn’t seen him there all through the afternoon.

  ‘Shore!’ He was far more surprised to see me. And more than surprised. Horrified. The colour was draining out of his face while I watched.

  ‘Shore… What are you doing here? Did you come back?’

  Puzzled, I said, ‘I came over for Mr Ambrose’s hat.’

  ‘But… you flew… you took off with Colin and Nancy Ross.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I didn’t. Nancy was flying.’

  ‘But… you came with them.’ He sounded agonised.

  ‘I didn’t. I flew the Six here with five passengers.’ The extreme state of his shock got through to me like a tidal wave. He was clinging on to my arm now more for support than to attract my attention.

  ‘Major,’ I said, the terrible, terrifying suspicion shaking in my voice, ‘You haven’t put another bomb on that aircraft? Not… oh God… another bomb?’

  ‘I… I…’ His voice strangled in his throat.

  ‘Major.’ I disengaged my arm and seized both of his. Ambrose’s hat fell and rolled unnoticed on the dirty floor. ‘Major.’ I squeezed him viciously. ‘Not another bomb?‘

  ‘No… but…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I thought… you were flying them… I thought you were with them… you would be able to cope…’

  ‘Major.’ I shook him, gripping as if I’d pull his arms in two. ‘What have you done to that aeroplane?’

  ‘I saw you… come with them, when they came. And go back… and look at the map… and do the checks… I was sure… it was you that was flying… and you… you… could deal with… but Nancy Ross… Oh my God…’