Superintendent Yale shook my hand. Things were almost friendly at the police station but they were no nearer discovering who had planted the bomb. Enquiries were proceeding, the superintendent said, and perhaps I could help.
‘Fire away,’ I said.
‘We interviewed the former gardener, Fred Perkins,’ Yale said. ‘We asked him about the tree stump and what he used to blow it up. Besides cordite, that is. What sort of a fuse.’
I was interested. ‘What did he say? Does he remember?’
‘He said he’d got the black powder and some detonators and some fuse cord from a quarryman friend of his. The black powder was in the box which we saw, the detonators were in a separate tin with the cord and the instructions.’
‘The instructions!’ I repeated incredulously.
‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘Fred Perkins says he followed the instructions because he’d never blown anything up before. He said he used a bit of extra black powder just to make sure.’
‘It was quite an explosion.’
‘Yes. We asked him what he’d done with the other detonators. He says Mr Pembroke took them away from him that morning, when he came running out of the house. We need to ask Mr Pembroke what he did with them, so… er… where is he?’
‘I really don’t know,’ I said slowly, ‘and that’s the truth. I can probably find him, but it’ll take a day or two.’ I thought for a moment, then said, ‘Surely he would have thrown away those detonators years ago.’
If he had any sense he wouldn’t have thrown them anywhere,’ Yale said. ‘Mr Smith says you handle detonators with extreme caution if you don’t want to lose a finger or an eye. They can explode if you knock or drop them or make them too warm. Mr Pembroke’s correct course would have been to turn them over to the police.’
‘Maybe he did,’ I said.
‘We’d like to find out.’
‘But would detonators still detonate after twenty years?’ I asked.
‘Mr Smith thinks it possible, perhaps likely. He wouldn’t take any liberties, he said.’
‘What does a detonator look like?’ I asked.
He hesitated, but said, ‘Mr Smith said we might be looking for a small aluminium tube about the thickness of a pencil or slightly less, about six centimetres long. He says that’s what the army used. He used to be in the Royal Engineers. He says the tube contains fulminate of mercury, and the word “fulminate” means to flash like lightning.’
‘He should know.’
‘Fred Perkins can’t clearly remember what his detonators looked like. He remembers he had to fasten the cord into the end of the tube with pliers. Crimp it in. Mr Smith says civilians who touch explosives should be certified.’
I reflected. ‘Did Mr Smith find out exactly what the Quantum bomb was made of?’
‘Yes. ANFO, as he thought. He said the whole thing was amateur in the extreme.’
‘Amateurs,’ I said dryly, ‘run faster than anyone else.’
As an amateur, I went to Kempton Park the next day and on Young Higgins beat the hell out of a lot of professionals.
I didn’t know what possessed me. It seemed that I rode on a different plane. I knew it was the horse who had to be fast enough; the jockey, however determined, couldn’t do it on his own. Young Higgins seemed inspired and against more formidable opponents than at Sandown produced a totally different race.
There were no aunts riding this time, no lieutenant-colonels falling off. No earl’s son to chat to. No journalist to make it look easy. For some reason, George and Jo had entered Young Higgins in a high-class open three-mile steeplechase, and I was the only amateur in sight.
I’d ridden against an all-professional field of top jockeys a few times before, and it was usually a humbling experience. I had the basic skills and a good deal of touch. I could get horses settled and balanced. I liked speed, I liked the stretch of one’s spirit: but there was always a point against top professionals at which that wasn’t enough.
George and Jo were unfussed. Young Higgins was fitter than at Sandown, they thought, and at Kempton there was no hill to tire him. They were bright-eyed and enthusiastic, but not especially hopeful. ‘We didn’t want to change you for a professional,’ they said in explanation. ‘It wouldn’t have been fair.’
Maybe not fair, but prudent, I thought. The top pros raced with sharper eyes, better tactics, more strength, quicker reactions. Theirs was an intenser determination, a fiercer concentration. Humour was for before and