Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,98

who had an appointment with the dentist.

I rode four races and won two, and felt fit, well, bursting with health and for the first time in weeks, carefree. It was a tremendous feeling, while it lasted.

Bunty Ireland, the Towncrier’s racing correspondent, gave me a large envelope from Lord Vaughnley: ‘Hot off the computers,’ Bunty said. The envelope again felt as if it contained very little, but I thanked him for it, and reflecting that I thankfully didn’t need the contents any more, I took it unopened with me back to London.

Dinner that evening was practically festive, although Danielle wasn’t there, having driven herself to work in her Ford.

‘I thought yesterday was her last night for working,’ Beatrice said, unsuspiciously.

‘They changed the schedules again,’ I explained.

‘Oh, how irritating.’

Beatrice had decided to return to Palm Beach the next day. Her darling dogs would be missing her, she said. The princess had apparently told her that Nanterre’s case was lost, which had subdued her querulousness amazingly.

I’d grown used to her ways: to her pale orange hair and round eyes, her knuckleduster rings and her Florida clothes. Life would be quite dull without the old bag; and moreover, once she had gone, I would soon have to leave also. How long, I wondered, would Litsi be staying …

Roland came down to dinner and offered champagne, raising his half-full glass to Litsi and to me in a toast. Beatrice scowled a little but blossomed like a sunflower when Roland said that perhaps, with all the extra capital generated by the sale of the business, he might consider increasing her trust fund. Too forgiving, I thought, yet without her we would very likely not have prevailed.

Roland, the princess and Beatrice retired fairly early, leaving Litsi and me passing the time in the sitting room. Quite late, I remembered Lord Vaughnley’s envelope which I’d put down on a side table on my return.

Litsi incuriously watched me open it and draw out the contents: one glossy black and white photograph, as before, and one short clipping from a newspaper column. Also a brief compliments slip from the Towncrier: ‘Regret nothing more re Nanterre.’

The picture showed Nanterre in evening dress surrounded by other people similarly clad, on the deck of a yacht. I handed it to Litsi and read the accompanying clipping.

‘Arms dealer Ahmed Fuad’s fiftieth birthday bash, held on his yacht Felissima in Monte Carlo harbour on Friday evening drew guests from as far as California, Peru and Darwin, Australia. With no expense spared, Fuad fed caviar and foie gras to jet-setting friends from his hobby worlds of backgammon, night clubs and horseracing.’

Litsi passed back the photograph and I gave him the clipping.

‘That’s what Nanterre wanted,’ I said. ‘To be the host on a yacht in the Mediterranean, dressed in a white dinner jacket, dispensing rich goodies, enjoying the adulation and the flattery. That’s what he wanted … those multi-millions, and that power.’

I turned the photograph over, reading the flimsy information strip stuck to the back: a list of names, and the date.

That’s odd,’ I said blankly.

‘What is?’

‘That party was held last Friday night.’

‘What of it? Nanterre must have jetted out there and back, like the others.’

‘On Friday night, Col was shot.’

Litsi stared at me.

‘Nanterre couldn’t have done it,’ I said. ‘He was in Monte Carlo.’

‘But he said he did. He boasted of it to Beatrice.’

I frowned. ‘Yes, he did.’

‘He must have got someone else to do it,’ Litsi said.

I shook my head. ‘He did everything himself. Threatened the princess, chased Danielle, set the trap for you, came to put the bomb in my car. He didn’t trust any of that to anyone else. He knows about horses, he wanted to see his own filly shot … he would have shot Col … but he didn’t.’

‘He confessed to all the horses,’ Litsi insisted.

‘Yes, but suppose … he read about them in the papers … read that their deaths were mysterious and no one knew who had killed them … He wanted ways to frighten Roland and the princess. Suppose he said he’d killed them, when he hadn’t?’

‘But in that case,’ Litsi said blankly, ‘who did? Who would want to kill her best horses, if not Nanterre?’

I rose slowly to my feet, feeling almost faint.

‘What’s the matter?’ Litsi said, alarmed. ‘You’ve gone as white as snow.’

‘He killed,’ I said with a mouth stickily dry, ‘the horse I might have won the Grand National on. The horse on which I might have won the Gold Cup.’

‘Kit …’ Litsi said.

‘There’s only