Decider - By Dick Francis Page 0,89

the big empty rooms to each side. No chairs, no tables; a few plastic crates. The only light was daylight from outside, filtering through canvas and the peach roofing, and changing from dull to bright and to dull again as slow clouds crossed the sun.

‘Quiet, isn’t it?’ Roger said.

A flap of canvas somewhere rattled in the wind but all else was silent.

‘Hard to believe,’ I agreed, ‘how it all looked on Monday.’

‘We had the final gate figures yesterday afternoon,’ Roger said. ‘The attendance was eleven per cent up on last year. Eleven per cent! And in spite of the stands being wrecked.’

‘Because of them,’ I said. ‘Because of the television coverage.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He was cheerful. ‘Did you see the papers yesterday? ‘Plucky Stratton Park.’ Goo like that. Couldn’t be better!’

‘The Strattons,’ I said, ‘said they were holding a meeting this morning. Do you know where?’

‘Not here, as far as I’ve heard. There’s only the office,’ he said doubtfully, ‘and it’s really too small. Surely they’ll tell you where, if they’re meeting.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’

We walked slowly back towards the office, unusually idle; and Dart in his beaten-up car drove onto the tarmac.

‘Hello,’ he said easily, climbing out, ‘am I the first?’

Roger explained about his lack of instructions.

Dart’s eyebrows rose. ‘When Marjorie said meeting, I took it for granted she meant here.’

The three of us continued towards the office, amicably.

Dart said, ‘The police gave me my wheels back, as you see, but it’s a wonder I’m not in the slammer. A matter of time, I dare say. They’ve decided I blew up the stands.’

Roger paused briefly in mid-stride, astounded. ‘You?’

‘Like, my car came up positive for HIV, hashish, mad cow disease, dirty finger-nails, you name it. Their dogs and their test-tubes went mad. Alarm bells all over the place.’

‘Nitrates,’ I interpreted.

‘You’ve got it. The stuff that blew up the stands came to the racecourse in my car. Eight to eight-thirty, Good Friday morning. That’s what they say.’

‘They can’t mean it,’ Roger protested.

‘Yesterday afternoon they gave me a bloody rough time.’ For all his bright manner, it was clear he’d been shaken. ‘They hammered away at where did I get the stuff, this P.E.4 or whatever. My accomplices, they kept saying. Who were they? I just goggled at them. Made a weak joke or two. They said it was no laughing matter.’ He made a comic-rueful face. ‘They accused me of having been in the army cadet corps at school. Half a lifetime ago! I ask you! I said so what, it was no secret. I marched up and down for a year or two to please my grandfather, but a soldier by inclination I am definitely not. Sorry, Colonel.’

Roger waved away the apology. We all went into the office, standing around, discussing things.

Dart went on. ‘They said I would have handled explosives in the cadets. Not me, I said. Let others play at silly buggers. All I really remembered vividly of the cadets is crawling all over a tank once and having nightmares afterwards about falling in front of it. The speed it could go! Anyway, I said, talk to Jack, he’s in the cadets for the same reason as I was, and he’s still at school and hates it, and why didn’t they ask him where you could get boom boom bang bangs, and they practically clicked on the handcuffs.’

I said, when he paused, ‘Do you usually lock your car? I mean, who else could drive it at eight-thirty on a Good Friday morning?’

‘Don’t you believe me?’ he demanded, affronted.

‘Yes, I do believe you. I positively do. But if you weren’t driving it, who was?’

‘There can’t have been explosives in my car.’

‘You’ll have to face that there were.’

He said obstinately, ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

‘Well… er… do you lock your car?’

‘Not often, no. Not when it’s outside my own door. I told the police that. I said it was just sitting there and yes, probably I’d left the key in it. I said anyone could have taken it.’

Roger and I both looked away from Dart, not wanting to be accusatory. ‘Outside his own door’ wasn’t exactly in plain view of the general car-stealing public. Outside his own door was beside the back entrance of the family pile, Stratton Hays.

‘What if it were Keith that took your car?’ I asked. ‘Would your family loyalty stretch to him?’

Dart was startled. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know who took my car.’

‘And you don’t want to