Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,28

had that dreadful fall and decided to retire,’ she said, ‘there we were at the height of the season with no stable jockey and all the other top jockeys signed up elsewhere. Wykeham told me and the other owners that there was this young Fielding boy in Newmarket who had been riding as an amateur since he’d left school a year earlier …’ She smiled. ‘We were very doubtful. Wykeham said to trust him, he was never wrong. You know how modest he is!’ She paused, considering. ‘How long ago was that?’

‘Ten years last October.’

She sighed. ‘Time goes so fast.’

The older the faster … and for me also. Time no longer stretched out to infinity. My years in the saddle would end, maybe in four years, maybe five, whenever my body stopped mending fast from the falls, and I was far from ready to face the inexorability of the march of days. I intensely loved my job and dreaded its ending: anything after, I thought, would be unutterably dreary.

The princess was silent for a while, her thoughts reverting to Cascade and Cotopaxi.

‘That bolt,’ she said tentatively, ‘I didn’t like to ask Robin … I don’t really know what a humane killer looks like.’

‘Robin says the bolt type isn’t much used nowadays,’ I said, ‘but I saw one once. My grandfather’s vet showed me. It looked like an extra heavy pistol with a very thick barrel. The bolt itself is a metal rod which slides inside the barrel. When the trigger is pulled, the metal rod shoots out, but because it’s fixed inside to a spring, it retracts immediately into the barrel again.’ I reflected. ‘The rod … the bolt … is a bit thicker than a pencil, and about four inches of it shoots out into … er … whatever it’s aimed at.’

She was surprised. ‘So small? I’d thought, somehow, you know, that it would be much bigger. And I didn’t know until today that it was … from in front.’

She stopped talking abruptly and spent a fair time concentrating on the scenery. She had agreed without reserve to the dog patrols and had told Wykeham not to economise, the vulnerability of her other horses all too clearly understood.

‘I had so been looking forward to the Grand National,’ she said eventually. ‘So very much.’

‘Yes, I know. So had I.’

‘You’ll ride something else. For someone else.’

‘It won’t be the same.’

She patted my hand rather blindly. ‘It’s such a waste,’ she said passionately. ‘So stupid. My husband would never trade in guns to save my horses. Never. And I wouldn’t ask it. My dear, dear horses.’

She struggled against tears and with a few sniffs and swallows won the battle, and when we reached Eaton Square she said we would go into the sitting room for a drink ‘to cheer ourselves up’.

This good plan was revised, however, because the sitting room wasn’t empty. Two people, sitting separately in armchairs, stood up as the princess walked in; and they were Prince Litsi and Danielle.

‘My dear aunt,’ the prince said, bowing to her, kissing her hand, kissing her also on both cheeks. ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning,’ she said faintly, and kissed Danielle. ‘I thought you were returning late this evening.’

‘The weather was frightful.’ The prince shook my hand. ‘Rain. Mist. Freezing. We decided yesterday we’d had enough and left early today, before breakfast.’

I kissed Danielle’s smooth cheek, wanting much more. She looked briefly into my eyes and said Dawson had told them I was staying in the house. I hadn’t seen her for three weeks and I didn’t want to hear about Dawson. Around the princess, however, one kept raw emotions under wraps, and I heard myself asking if she’d enjoyed the lectures, as if I hoped she had.

‘They were great.’

The princess decided that Prince Litsi, Danielle and myself should have the drinks, while she went upstairs to see her husband.

‘You pour them,’ she said to her nephew. ‘And you, Kit, tell them everything that’s been happening, will you? My dears … such horrid troubles.’ She waved a hand vaguely and went away, her back straight and slender, a statement in itself.

‘Kit,’ the prince said, transferring his attention.

‘Sir.’

We stood as if assessing each other, he taller, ten years older, a man of a wider world. A big man, Prince Litsi, with heavy shoulders, a large head, full mouth, positive nose and pale intelligent eyes. Light brown hair had begun to recede with distinction from his forehead, and a strong neck rose from a cream open-necked shirt.