Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,58

in the back of the car, telling us all this, Danielle sitting beside him, as we started towards London.

‘How did you stumble?’ I asked, glancing at him from time to time in the driving mirror. ‘Was there a lot of junk up there?’

‘Planks and things.’ He sounded puzzled. ‘I don’t really know how I stumbled. I stood on something that rocked, and I put a hand out to steady myself, and it went out into space, over the wall. It happened so fast … I just lost my footing.’

‘Did anyone push you?’ I asked.

‘Kit!’ Danielle said, horrified, but it had to be considered, and Litsi, it seemed, had already done so.

‘I’ve been lying there all afternoon,’ he said slowly, ‘trying to remember exactly how it happened. I didn’t see anyone up there at all, I’m certain of that. I stood on something that rocked like a see-saw, and totally lost my balance. I wouldn’t say I was pushed.’

‘Well,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘do you mind if we go back there? I should have gone up for a look when I’d finished racing.’

‘The racecourse people went up,’ Litsi said. ‘They came and told me that there was nothing particularly dangerous, but of course I shouldn’t have gone.’

‘We’ll go back,’ I said, and although Danielle protested that she’d be late for work, back we went.

Leaving Danielle and Litsi outside in the car, I walked through the gates and up the grandstand. As with most grandstands, it was a long haul to the top, up not too generous stairways, and one could see why, with a stream of people piling up that way to the main tier to watch the race, those going up to rescue Litsi from above had been a fair time on their journey.

The broad viewing steps of the main tier led right down to the ground and were openly accessible, on the side facing the racecourse, but the upper tier could be reached only by the stairways, of which there were two, one at each end.

I went up the stairway at the end nearest the weighing room, the stairway Litsi said he had used to reach the place where he’d overbalanced. Looking up at the back of the grandstand from the ground, that place was near the end of the balcony, on the left.

The stairway led first onto the upper steps of the main tier, and then continued upwards and I climbed to the top landing, where the refreshment room was in process of construction. The whole area had been glassed in, leaving only the balcony open. The balcony ran along the back of the refreshment room which had several glass doors, now closed, to lead eventually to the sandwiches. Inside the glass and without, there were copious piles of builders’ materials, planks, drums of paint and ladders.

I went gingerly forward to the cold, open, windy balcony, towards the place where Litsi had overbalanced, and saw what had very likely happened. Planks lay side by side and several deep along all the short passage to the balcony, raising one, as one walked along them, higher than normal in proportion to the chest-high wall. When I was walking on the planks, the wall ahead seemed barely waist-high and Litsi was taller than I by three or four inches.

Whatever had rocked under Litsi’s feet was no longer rocking, but several planks by the balcony wall itself were scattered like spillikins, not lying flat as in the passage. I picked my way among them, feeling them move when I pushed, and reached the spot where Litsi had fallen.

With my feet firmly on the floor, I looked over. One could see all the parade ring area beautifully, with magnificent hills beyond. Very attractive, that balcony, and with one’s feet on the floor, very safe.

I went along its whole length intending to go down by the stairway at the other end, nearest the car park, but found I couldn’t: the stairs themselves were missing, being in the middle of reconstruction. I walked back to the end where I had come up, renegotiated the planks, and descended to ground level.

‘Well?’ Litsi asked, when I was back in the car. ‘What did you think?’

‘Those planks looked pretty unsafe.’

‘Yes,’ he said ruefully, as I started the car and drove out of the racecourse gates. ‘I thought, after I’d overbalanced, and managed somehow to catch hold of the wall, that if I just hung on, someone would come and rescue me, but you know … my fingers just gave