Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,101
your name was?’ she asked me.
I hadn’t in fact said anything about my name. ‘Mr Buck,’ I replied, looking out at my car. I very nearly said Buick.
Someone answered at the other end. ‘Kurt,’ said the woman. ‘I have a Mr Buck here asking after Mr Komarov. He wants to know when he will be coming back to the club. Can you help?’ She listened for a moment and then said, ‘Hold on, I’ll ask him.’ She looked up at me. ‘Kurt says to ask you how you know Mr Komarov.’
‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘But I want to ask him about something that happened in England.’
She relayed the message and then listened briefly. ‘Where in England?’ she asked me.
‘Newmarket,’ I said loudly.
She didn’t say anything but listened a while longer. ‘Fine, I’ll tell him.’ She hung up. ‘Kurt is coming over to see you,’ she said to me. ‘Kurt’s in charge of all Mr Komarov’s ponies.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait for him outside.’
Why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end and signalling danger, danger? Perhaps it would be safer to get back in the car and leave immediately. Instead, I went for a stroll and walked through a horse passageway beneath the empty grandstand and out on to the polo pitch beyond.
It put the Guards Polo Club in the shade. While it was true that there wasn’t a Royal Box, the rest of the facilities for watching were outstanding, with covered stands and hundreds of padded armchair-like seats for maximum comfort. The playing area had been set up for what the man at the Guards Club had called arena polo, but it could obviously be converted into a larger field for the real thing by removal of the boundary boards. There was plenty enough of the well-tended grass for even the biggest polo pitch.
I was standing looking at the grandstand when a man called out to me.
‘Mr Buck?’ he shouted, as he came through the passageway. Kurt, I presumed, and he wasn’t alone. A second man was with him and he made me feel decidedly uncomfortable. Whereas Kurt was small and jockey-like in stature, his sidekick was tall and wide. And he carried a five-foot-long polo mallet across his chest like a soldier might carry a gun. I was left in no doubt that it was there to intimidate. It worked. I was very intimidated. Why hadn’t I got in the car and gone away when I had had the opportunity?
I was standing in the middle of the grass polo arena and my exit route was on the other side of the grandstand. I had no choice but to brazen it out.
‘What do you want?’ Kurt asked brusquely. No word of welcome. But there wouldn’t be. His body language said it all. I wasn’t welcome one little bit.
I smiled, tying to relax. ‘I understand,’ I said cheerfully, ‘that you know Mr Komarov. Is that right?’
‘It might be,’ he said. ‘Depends on who wants to know.’
‘I was hoping Mr Komarov might be able to help me identify something,’ I said.
‘What?’ he said.
‘It’s in my car,’ I said. I set off quickly past him towards the passageway.
‘What is it?’ he asked again.
‘I’ll show you,’ I said, over my shoulder without breaking step. He wasn’t to know that the item was, in fact, in my trouser pocket, but I had no intention of getting it out here. I thought I would be safer at the car, but that might only be illusory.
Kurt didn’t seem happy and snorted down his nose, but he followed and, sadly, so did his shadow. I walked ahead of them and, while I didn’t actually run, they would have had to in order to overtake me. The larger man was unfit and, by the time I reached my car, he was some way back and blowing hard.
But I hadn’t driven all this way for nothing. I still wanted to find out what I had come here for in the first place. I opened the car door and reached inside as if I was finding something, but I was actually getting it out of my pocket. I turned round and held the shiny steel ball out to Kurt in my open palm, as if giving a piece of sugar to a horse.
He was dumbstruck. He stared at the ball and then at my face, as if searching for words.
‘Where the fuck did you get that?’ he said. He made a grab for it but