Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,69

easily than some of the others: but there was still no one telephoning in response to the advertisements, and there was again no sound from Nanterre.

Early next morning, well before seven, Dawson woke me again with the intercom, saying there was a call for me from Wykeham Harlow.

I picked up the receiver, sleep forgotten.

‘Wykeham?’ I said.

‘K … K … Kit.’ He was stuttering dreadfully. ‘C … C … Come down here. C … Come at once.’

FIFTEEN

He put the receiver down immediately, without telling me what had happened, and when I instantly rang back there was no reply. With appalling foreboding, I flung on some clothes, sprinted round to the car, did very cursory checks on it, and drove fast through the almost empty streets towards Sussex.

Wykeham had sounded near disintegration, shock and age trembling ominously in his voice. By the time I reached him, they had been joined by anger, which filled and shook him with impotent fire.

He was standing in the parking space with Robin Curtiss, the vet, when I drove in.

‘What’s happened?’ I said, getting out of the car.

Robin made a helpless gesture with his hands and Wykeham said with fury. ‘C … Come and look.’

I followed him into the courtyard next to the one which had held Cascade and Cotopaxi. Wykeham, shaky on his knees but straight backed with emotion, went across to one of the closed doors and put his hand flat on it.

‘In there,’ he said.

The box door was closed but not bolted. Not bolted, because the horse inside wasn’t going to escape.

I pulled the doors open, the upper and the lower, and saw the body lying on the peat.

Bright chestnut, three white socks, white blaze.

It was Col.

Speechlessly I turned to Wykeham and Robin, feeling all of Wykeham’s rage and a lot of private despair. Nanterre was too quick on his feet, and it wouldn’t take much more for Roland de Brescou to crumble.

‘It’s the same as before,’ Robin said. ‘The bolt.’ He bent down, lifted the chestnut forelock, showed me the mark on the white blaze. ‘There’s a lot of oil in the wound … the gun’s been oiled since last time.’ He let go of the forelock and straightened. ‘The horse is stone cold. It was done early, I should say before midnight.’

Col… gallant at Ascot, getting ready for Cheltenham, for the Gold Cup.

‘Where was the patrol?’ I said, at last finding my voice.

‘He was here,’ Wykeham said. ‘In the stable, I mean, not in the courtyard.’

‘He’s gone, I suppose.’

‘No, I told him to wait for you. He’s in the kitchen.’

‘Col,’ I said, ‘is the only one … isn’t he?’

Robin nodded. ‘Something to be thankful for.’

Not much, I thought. Cotopaxi and Col had been two of the princess’s three best horses, and it could be no coincidence that they’d been targeted.

‘Kinley,’ I said to Wykeham. ‘You did check Kinley, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, straight away. He’s in the corner box still, in the next courtyard.’

‘The insurers aren’t going to like this,’ Robin said, looking down at the dead horse. ‘With the first two, it might have been just bad luck that they were two good ones, but three …’ he shrugged. ‘Not my problem, of course.’

‘How did he know where to find them?’ I said, as much to myself as to Robin and Wykeham. ‘Is this Col’s usual box?’

‘Yes,’ Wykeham said. ‘I suppose now I’ll have to change them all around, but it does disrupt the stable …’

‘Abseil,’ I said, ‘is he all right?’

‘Who?’

‘Yesterday’s winner.’

Wykeham’s doubts cleared. ‘Oh, yes, he’s all right.’

Abseil was as easy to recognise as the others, I thought. Not chestnut, not nearly black like Cascade, but grey, with a black mane and tail.

‘Where is he?’ I asked.

‘In the last courtyard, near the house.’

Although I was down at Wykeham’s fairly often, it was always to do the schooling, for which we would drive up to the Downs, where I would ride relays of the horses over jumps, teaching them. I almost never rode the horses in or out of the yard, and although I knew where some of the horses lived, like Cotopaxi, I wasn’t sure of them all.

I put a hand down to touch Col’s foreleg, and felt its rigidity, its chill. The foreleg that had saved us from disaster at Ascot, that had borne all his weight.

‘I’ll have to tell the princess,’ Wykeham said unhappily. ‘Unless you would, Kit?’

‘Yes, I’ll tell her,’ I said. ‘At Sandown.’

He nodded vaguely. ‘What are we running?’ he said.

‘Helikon for the princess, and three others.’

‘Dusty