Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,5

was no waitress pouring, offering me tea with lemon and a smile.

I had expected the box to be otherwise empty, but it wasn’t.

The princess was in there, sitting down.

Near her, silent, stood a man I didn’t know. Not one of her usual friends. A man of not much more than my own age, slender, dark haired, with a strong nose and jaw.

‘Princess …’ I said, taking a step into the room.

She turned her head. She was still wearing the sable coat and the Russian hat, although she usually removed outdoor clothes in her box. Her eyes looked at me without expression, glazed and vacant, wide, blue and unfocused.

Shock, I thought.

‘Princess,’ I said again, concerned for her.

The man spoke. His voice matched his nose and jaw, positive, noticeable, full of strength.

‘Go away,’ he said.

TWO

I went.

I certainly didn’t want to intrude uninvited into any private troubles in the princess’s life, and it was that feeling that remained with me to ground level. I had been too long accustomed to our arm’s length relationship to think her affairs any of my business, except to the extent that she was Danielle’s uncle’s wife.

By the time I was walking out to my car, I wished I hadn’t left as precipitously without at least asking if I could help. There had been an urgent warning quality in the stranger’s peremptory voice which had seemed to me at first to be merely protective of the princess, but in retrospect I wasn’t so sure.

Nothing would be lost, I thought, if I waited for her to come down to return home, which she must surely do in the end, and made sure she was all right. If the stranger was still with her, if he was as dismissive as before, if she was looking to him for support, then at least I would let her know I would have assisted if she’d needed it.

I went through the paddock gate to the car park where her chauffeur, Thomas, was routinely waiting for her in her Rolls Royce.

Thomas and I said hello to each other most days in car parks, he, a phlegmatic Londoner, placidly reading books and paying no attention to the sport going on around him. Large and dependable, he had been driving the princess for years, and knew her life and movements as well as anyone in her family.

He saw me coming and gave me a small wave. Normally, after I’d left her box, she would follow fairly soon, my appearance acting as a signal to Thomas to start the engine and warm the car.

I walked across to him, and he lowered a window to talk.

‘Is she ready?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘There’s a man with her …’ I paused. ‘Do you know a fairly young man, dark haired, thin, prominent nose and chin?’

He pondered and said no one sprang to mind, and why was it worrying me.

‘She didn’t watch one of her horses race.’

Thomas sat up straighter. ‘She’d never not watch’

‘No. Well, she didn’t.’

‘That’s bad.’

‘Yes, I’d think so.’

I told Thomas I would go back to make sure she was OK and left him looking as concerned as I felt myself.

The last race was over, the crowds leaving fast. I stood near the gate where I couldn’t miss the princess when she came, and scanned faces. Many I knew, many knew me. I said goodnight fifty times and watched in vain for the fur hat.

The crowd died to a trickle and the trickle to twos and threes. I began to wander slowly back towards the stands, thinking in indecision that perhaps I would go up again to her box.

I’d almost reached the doorway to the private stand when she came out. Even from twenty feet I could see the glaze in her eyes, and she was walking as if she couldn’t feel the ground, her feet rising too high and going down hard at each step.

She was alone, and in no state to be.

‘Princess,’ I said, going fast to her side. ‘Let me help.’

She looked at me unseeingly, swaying. I put an arm firmly round her waist, which I would never have done in ordinary circumstances, and felt her stiffen, as if to deny her need for support.

‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she said, shakily.

‘Yes … well, hold my arm.’ I let go of her waist and offered my arm for her to hold on to, which, after a flicker of hesitation, she accepted.

Her face was pale under the fur hat and there were trembles in her body.