Enquiry - By Dick Francis Page 0,12

explosive answer to that because of course we had discussed it beforehand. In general terms. In an assessment of the opposition. As a matter of general strategy.

‘I discussed the race with him, yes. But I gave him no specific orders.’

‘So according to you,’ Lord Gowery said, ‘You intended both of your jockeys to try to win?’

‘Yes. I did. My horses are always doing their best.’

Gowery shook his head. ‘Your statement is not borne out by the facts.’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’ Cranfield demanded.

Gowery didn’t answer. But yes, he was.

They shooed a willing Tommy Timpson away and Cranfield went on simmering at boiling point beside me. For myself, I was growing cold, and no amount of central heating could stop it. I thought we must now have heard everything, but I was wrong. They had saved the worst until last, building up the pyramid of damning statements until they could put the final cap on it and stand back and admire their four square structure, their solid, unanswerable edifice of guilt.

The worst, at first, had looked so harmless. A quiet slender man in his early thirties, endowed with an utterly forgettable face. After twenty-four hours I couldn’t recall his features or remember his voice, and yet I couldn’t think about him without shaking with sick impotent fury.

His name was David Oakley. His business, enquiry agent. His address, Birmingham.

He stood without fidgeting at the end of the Stewards’ table holding a spiral bound notebook which he consulted continually, and from beginning to end not a shade of emotion affected his face or his behaviour or even his eyes.

‘Acting upon instructions, I paid a visit to the flat of Kelly Hughes, jockey, of Corrie House training stables, Corrie, Berkshire, two days after the Lemonfizz Crystal Cup.’

I sat up with a jerk and opened my mouth to deny it, but before I could say a word he went smoothly on.

‘Mr Hughes was not there, but the door was open, so I went in to wait for him. While I was there I made certain observations.’ He paused.

Cranfield said to me, ‘What is all this about?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before.’

Gowery steamrollered on. ‘You found certain objects.’

‘Yes, my Lord.’

Gowery sorted out three large envelopes, and passed one each to Tring and Plimborne. Ferth was before them. He had removed the contents from a similar envelope as soon as Oakley had appeared, and was now, I saw, watching me with what I took to be contempt.

The envelopes each held a photograph.

Oakely said, ‘The photograph is of objects I found on a chest of drawers in Hughes’s bedroom.’

Andy Tring looked, looked again, and raised a horrified face, meeting my eyes accidentally and for the first and only time. He glanced away hurriedly, embarrassed and disgusted.

‘I want to see that photograph,’ I said hoarsely.

‘Certainly.’ Lord Gowery turned his copy round and pushed it across the table. I got up, walked the three dividing steps, and looked down at it.

For several seconds I couldn’t take it in, and when I did, I was breathless with disbelief. The photograph had been taken from above the dressing chest, and was sparkling clear. There was the edge of the silver frame and half of Rosalind’s face, and from under the frame, as if it had been used as a paperweight, protruded a sheet of paper dated the day after the Lemonfizz Cup. There were three words written on it, and two initials.

‘As agreed. Thanks. D.C.’

Slanted across the bottom of the paper, and spread out like a pack of cards, were a large number of ten pound notes.

I looked up, and met Lord Gowery’s eyes, and almost flinched away from the utter certainty I read there.

‘It’s a fake,’ I said. My voice sounded odd. ‘It’s a complete fake.’

‘What is it?’ Cranfield said from behind me, and in his voice too everyone could hear the awareness of disaster.

I picked up the photograph and took it across to him, and I couldn’t feel my feet on the carpet. When he had grasped what it meant he stood up slowly and in a low biting voice said formally, ‘My Lords, if you believe this, you will believe anything.’

It had not the slightest effect.

Gowery said merely, ‘That is your handwriting, I believe.’

Cranfield shook his head. ‘I didn’t write it.’

‘Please be so good as to write those exact words on this sheet of paper.’ Gowery pushed a plain piece of paper across the table, and after a second Cranfield went across and wrote on it.