leered. ‘He made an Italian truck drivers’ gesture! Are you any the wiser?’
‘He just might be Forsyth Stratton. Ducky’s cousin. He looks very like her.’
Henry shrugged, his interest waning. ‘What do you want done with the empties in the bars?’
‘The caterers will deal with them.’
‘Beer, then.’
‘Beer.’
We finally lifted the elbows, discussing things as yet undone. His crew would work to midnight or later, he promised. They would sleep in the cabs of the trucks, as they often did, and would finish setting up early in the morning. His trucks would be gone by nine-thirty, all except the smallest, his own personal travelling workshop, which contained everything for maintenance and urgent repairs.
‘I’l stay for the races,’ he said. ‘Can’t miss them, after all this.’
Roger joined us, a lot of strain showing.
‘Oliver’s in one of his vilest tempers,’ he reported. ‘And as for Rebecca…’
Rebecca herself came fast on his heels but by-passed our group and tried to find a way through the bolted together fence that hid the gutted grandstand. Failing, she powered back to Roger and said forcefully, ‘Let me through that fence. I want to see how much damage has been done.’
‘I’m not in charge of the fence,’ Roger said with restraint. ‘Perhaps you should ask the police.’
‘Where are the police?’
‘On the other side of the fence.’
She narrowed her eyelids. ‘Fetch me a ladder, then.’
When Roger failed to move fast to obey her, she turned instead to a passing workman. ‘Fetch me a step-ladder,’ she told him. She gave him no ‘please’, nor ‘thank you’ when he brought one. She merely told him where to place it and gave him the slightest nod of ungracious approval when he stepped back to let her climb.
She went up the steps with assured liquid movement and looked for a long time at what the fence hid.
Henry and Roger sloped off fast like wily old soldiers and left me alone to benefit from Rebecca’s scalpel-sharp opinions. She descended the steps with the same athletic grace, cast a disparaging look at my still useful walking frame and told me to leave the racecourse at once, as I had no right to be there. I had also had no right to be in the stands two days earlier, on Friday morning, and if I were thinking of suing the Strattons for damages because of my injuries, the Strattons would sue me for trespass.
‘OK,’ I said.
She blinked. ‘OK what?’
‘Have you been talking to Keith?’
‘That’s none of your business, and I’m telling you to leave.’
‘The prosperity of this racecourse is my business,’ I said, unmoving. ‘I own eight hundredths of it. You, after probate, will own three hundredths. So who has the better right to be here?’
She narrowed the brilliant eyes, impatiently ducking the majority-of-interest issue but targeting the truly significant. ‘What do you mean, after probate? Those shares are mine, in the will.’
‘Under English law,’ I said, having discovered it in settling my mother’s affairs, ‘no one actually owns what has been bequeathed to them until the will has been proved genuine, until taxes have been paid and a certificate of probate issued.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Doesn’t alter the facts.’
‘Do you mean,’ she demanded, ‘that my father and Keith and Ivan have no right to be directors? That all their stupid decisions are null and void?’
I dashed her awakening hopes. ‘No, it doesn’t. Directors don’t have to be shareholders. Marjorie could have appointed anyone she liked, whether or not she was aware of it.’
‘You know too damned much,’ Rebecca said with resentment.
‘Are you pleased,’ I asked, ‘that the main stands are now rubble?’
She said defiantly, ‘Yes, I am.’
‘And what would you want done?’
‘New stands, of course. Modern. Glass walled. New everything. Get rid of bloody Oliver and fuddy duddy Roger.’
‘And run things yourself?’ I said it without seriousness, but she seized on it fervently.
‘I don’t see why not! Grandfather did. We need change, now. New ideas. But this place should be run by a Stratton.’ Her zeal shone out like a vision. ‘There’s no one else in the family who knows a rabbet from a raceway. Father has to leave Stratton Hays to his heir, but the racecourse land is not entailed. He can leave his racecourse shares to me.’
‘He’s only sixty-five,’ I murmured, wondering what galvanising effect this conversation would have had on Marjorie and Dart, not to mention Roger and Oliver, and Keith.
‘I can wait. I want to ride for at least two more seasons. It’s time a woman reached the top five on the jockeys’