Proof - By Dick Francis Page 0,60

the rails. Isabella flourished fistfuls of Tote tickets. Flora said she couldn’t be bothered to bet but would rather check to make sure everything was all right with Breezy Palm.

I went with her to find Jack’s travelling head lad (not the unctuous Howard but a little dynamo of a man with sharp restless eyes) who said cryptically that the horse was as right as he would ever be and that Mrs Hawthorn wasn’t to worry, everything was in order.

Mrs Hawthorn naturally took no heed of his good advice and went on worrying regardless.

‘Why didn’t you tell Orkney what really happened to your arm, dear?’ she asked.

‘I’m not proud of it,’ I said prosaically. ‘Don’t want to talk about it. Just like Orkney.’

Flora the constant chatterer deeply sighed. ‘So odd, dear. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

We returned in the lift to the box where Flora wistfully eyed the still-wrapped food and asked if I’d had any lunch.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Did you?’

‘I should have remembered,’ she sighed, ‘but I didn’t,’ and she told me then about Orkney’s hate reaction to the caterers.

Orkney had invited no other guests. He appeared to expect Flora and myself to return to the box for each race but didn’t actually say so. An unsettling host, to say the least.

It was out on the balcony when we were waiting for the runners in the third race to canter down to the start that he asked Flora if Jack had found anyone else to lease his mare: he had forgotten to ask him on the hospital telephone.

‘He’ll do it as soon as he’s home, I’m sure,’ Flora said placatingly, and to me she added, ‘Orkney owns one of the horses that Larry Trent leased.’

Orkney said austerely. ‘My good filly by Fringe. A three-year-old, good deep heart room, gets that from her dam, of course.’

I thought back. ‘I must have seen her in Jack’s yard,’ I said. Four evenings in a row, to be precise.

‘Really?’ Orkney showed interest. ‘Liver chestnut, white blaze, kind eye.’

‘I remember,’ I said. ‘Good bone. Nice straight hocks. And she has some cleanly healed scars on her near shoulder. Looked like barbed wire.’

Orkney looked both gratified and annoyed. ‘She got loose one day as a two-year-old. The only bit of barbed wire in Berkshire and she had to crash into it. Horses have no sense.’

‘They panic easily,’ I agreed.

Orkney’s manner to me softened perceptibly at that point, which Flora noted and glowed over.

‘Your filly did well for Larry Trent,’ I said.

‘Not bad. Won a nice handicap at Newbury and another at Kempton. Both Larry and I made a profit through the books, but I was hoping for black print, of course.’

I caught Flora starting to look anxious. ‘Of course,’ I said confidently; and she subsided. ‘Black print’ had come back just in time as an echo from childhood. Races of prestige and high prizes were printed in heavy black type in auction catalogues: black print earned by a broodmare upped the price of her foals by thousands.

‘Will you keep her in training next year?’ I asked.

‘If I can get someone else to lease her.’ He paused slightly. ‘I prefer to run two-year-olds myself, of course. I’ve had four in training with Jack this year. I sell them on if they’re any good, or lease them, especially fillies, if they’re well bred, so that I can either breed from them later or sell them as broodmares. Larry often took one of my fillies as three- or four-year-olds. Good eye for a horse, Larry had, poor fellow.’

‘Yes, so I hear.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I saw him at the party… but that was all.’ In my mind’s eye I saw him alive and also lifeless, the man whose death had started so many worms crawling.

‘I didn’t go to the party,’ Orkney said calmly. ‘Too bad he was killed.’

‘You knew him well?’ I asked.

‘Pretty well. We weren’t close friends, of course. Just had the mutual interest in horses.’

Orkney’s voice clearly announced what his lips hadn’t said: Larry Trent hadn’t been, in Orkney’s estimation, Orkney’s social equal.

‘So… er…’ I said, ‘you didn’t go to his place… the Silver Moondance?’

The faintest spasm crossed Orkney’s undemonstrative face. ‘I met him there, once, yes, in his office, to discuss business. We dined afterwards. A dinner dance, Larry said. Very loud music…’ He left the sentence hanging, criticism implied but not uttered.

‘What did you think of the wine?’ I asked.

‘Wine?’ He was surprised.

‘I’m a wine merchant,’ I said.

‘Oh, really?’ Wine