Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,34

marrying my sister. He’s been programmed from birth to hate all Fieldings. He told Bobby when he was a little boy that if he was ever naughty, the Fieldings would eat him.’

I explained about the depth and bitterness of the old Fielding–Allardeck feud.

‘Bobby and I,’ I said, ‘have made it up and are friends, but his father can’t stand that.’

‘Bobby thinks,’ Danielle said to me, ‘that Maynard also can’t stand you being successful. He wouldn’t feel so murderous if you’d been a lousy jockey.’

‘Maynard,’ I told Litsi, smiling, ‘is a member of the Jockey Club and also now turns up quite often as a Steward at various racecourses. He would dearly like to see me lose my licence.’

‘Which he can’t manage unfairly,’ Litsi said thoughtfully, ‘because of the existence of the film.’

‘It’s a stand-off,’ I agreed equably.

‘OK,’ Litsi said, ‘then how about a stand-off for Henri Nanterre?’

‘I don’t know enough about him. I’d known Maynard all my life. I don’t know anything about arms or anyone who deals in them.’

Litsi pursed his lips. ‘I think I could arrange that,’ he said.

EIGHT

I telephoned to Wykeham later that Sunday afternoon and listened to the weariness in his voice. His day had been a procession of frustrations and difficulties which were not yet over. The dog-patrol man, complete with dog, was sitting in his kitchen drinking tea and complaining that the weather was freezing. Wykeham was afraid most of the patrolling would be done all night indoors.

‘Is it freezing really?’ I asked. Freezing was always bad news because racing would be abandoned, frosty ground being hard, slippery and dangerous.

‘Two degrees off it.’

Wykeham kept thermometers above the outdoor water taps so he could switch on low-powered battery heaters in a heavy freeze and keep the water flowing. His whole stable was rich with gadgets he’d adopted over the years, like infra-red lights in the boxes to keep the horses warm and healthy.

‘A policeman came,’ Wykeham said. ‘A detective constable. He said it was probably some boys’ prank. I ask you! I told him it was no prank to shoot two horses expertly, but he said it was amazing what boys got up to. He said he’d seen worse things. He’d seen ponies in fields with their eyes gouged out. It was c … c … crazy. I said Cotopaxi was no pony, he was co-favourite for the Grand National, and he said it was b … bad luck on the owner.’

‘Did he promise any action?’

‘He said he would come back tomorrow and take statements from the lads, but I don’t think they know anything. Pete, who looked after Cotopaxi, has been in tears and the others are all indignant. It’s worse for them than having one killed accidentally.’

‘For us all,’ I said.

‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘It didn’t help that the slaughterers had so much trouble getting the bodies out. I didn’t watch. I couldn’t. I l … loved both those horses.’

To the slaughterers, of course, dead horses were just so much dogmeat, and although it was perhaps a properly unsentimental way of looking at it, it wasn’t always possible for someone like Wykeham, who had cared for them, talked to them, planned for them and lived through their lives. Trainers of steeplechasers usually knew their charges for a longer span than Flat-race trainers, ten years or more sometimes as opposed to three or four. When Wykeham said he loved a horse, he meant it.

He wouldn’t yet have the same feeling for Kinley, I thought. Kinley, the bright star, young and fizzing. Kinley was excitement, not an old buddy.

‘Look after Kinley,’ I said.

‘Yes, I’ve moved him. He’s in the corner box.’

The corner box, always the last to be used, couldn’t be reached directly from any courtyard but only through another box. Its position was a nuisance for lads, but it was also the most secret and safe place in the stable.

‘That’s great,’ I said with relief, ‘and now, what about tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Plumpton races.’

There was a slight silence while he reorganised his thoughts. He always sent a bunch of horses to go-ahead Plumpton because it was one of his nearest courses, and as far as I knew I was riding six of them.

‘Dusty has a list,’ he said eventually.

‘OK.’

‘Just ride them as you think best.’

‘All right.’

‘Goodnight, then, Kit.’

‘Goodnight, Wykeham.’

At least he’d got my name right, I thought, disconnecting. Perhaps all the right horses would arrive at Plumpton.

I went down there on the train the next morning, feeling glad, as the miles rolled by, to be away from the