Enquiry - By Dick Francis Page 0,34

telling what they’ll do when the big storeroom’s full. We’re up to the eyebrows in all the others with films of motor races, golf matches, three day events, any old things like that.’

‘Where’s the big storeroom?’

‘Through there.’ She waved the small pink enamelling brush in the general direction of a scratched once cream door. ‘Want to see?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

‘Go right ahead.’

She had finished the second foot. The show was over. With a sigh I removed my gaze and walked over to the door in question. There was only a round hole where most doors have a handle. I pushed against the wood and the door swung inwards into another large high room, furnished this time with rows of free standing bookshelves, like a public library. The shelves, however, were of bare functional wood, and there was no covering on the planked floor.

Well over half the shelves were empty. On the others were rows of short wide box files, their backs labelled with neat typed strips explaining what was to be found within. Each box proved to contain all the films from one day’s racing, and they were all efficiently arranged in chronological order. I pulled out the box for the day I rode Squelch and Wanderlust at Reading, and looked inside. There were six round cans of sixteen millimetre film, numbered one to six, and space enough for another one, number seven.

I took the box out to Carol. She was still sitting on top of the desk, dangling the drying toes and reading through a woman’s magazine.

‘What have you found then?’

‘Do you lend these films to anyone who wants them?’

‘Hire, not lend. Sure.’

‘Who to?’

‘Anyone who asks. Usually it’s the owners of the horses. Often they want prints made to keep, so we make them.’

‘Do the Stewards often want them?’

‘Stewards? Well, see, if there’s any doubt about a race the Stewards see the film on the racecourse. That van the old man and our Alfie’s got develops it on the spot as soon as it’s collected from the cameras.’

‘But sometimes they send for them afterwards?’

‘Sometimes, yeah. When they want to compare the running of some horse or other.’ Her legs suddenly stopped swinging. She put down the magazine and gave me a straight stare.

‘Kelly… Kelly Hughes?’

I didn’t answer.

‘Hey, you’re not a bit like I thought.’ She put her blonde head on one side, assessing me. ‘None of those sports writers ever said anything about you being smashing looking and dead sexy.’

I laughed. I had a crooked nose and a scar down one cheek from where a horse’s hoof had cut my face open, and among jockeys I was an also-ran as a bird-attracter.

‘It’s your eyes,’ she said. ‘Dark and sort of smiley and sad and a bit withdrawn. Give me the happy shivers, your eyes do.’

‘You read all that in a magazine,’ I said.

‘I never!’ But she laughed.

‘Who asked for the film that’s missing from the box?’ I said. ‘And what exactly did they ask for?’

She sighed exaggeratedly and edged herself off the desk into a pair of bright pink sandals.

‘Which film is that?’ She looked at the box and its reference number, and did a Marilyn Monroe sway over to a filing cabinet against the wall. ‘Here we are. One official letter from the Stewards’ secretary saying please send film of last race at Reading…’

I took the letter from her and read it myself. The words were quite clear: ‘the last race at Reading.’ Not the sixth race. The last race. And there had been seven races. It hadn’t been Carol or the Cannot Lie Co. who had made the mistake.

‘So you sent it?’

‘Of course. Off to the authorities, as per instructions.’ She put the letter back in the files. ‘Did you in, did it?’

‘Not that film, no.’

‘Alfie and the old man say you must have made a packet out of the Lemonfizz, to lose your licence over it.’

‘Do you think so too?’

‘Stands to reason. Everyone thinks so.’

‘Man in the street?’

‘Him too.’

‘Not a cent.’

‘You’re a nit, then,’ she said frankly. ‘Whatever did you do it for?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Oh yeah?’ She gave me a knowing wink. ‘I suppose you have to say that, don’t you?’

‘Well,’ I said, handing her the Reading box to put back in the storeroom, ‘Thanks anyway.’ I gave her half a smile and went away across the expanse of mottled linoleum to the door out.

I drove home slowly, trying to think. Not a very profitable exercise. Brains seemed to have deteriorated into a mushy blankness.

There were several