Enquiry - By Dick Francis Page 0,36

at that lot I transferred to the sitting-room and looked at the television programmes.

Nothing I wanted to see.

I slouched in the green velvet armchair and watched the evening slowly fade the colours into subtle greys. A certain amount of pace edged its way past the dragging gloom of the last four days. I wondered almost academically whether I would get my licence back before or after I stopped wincing at the way people looked at me, or spoke to me, or wrote about me. Probably the easiest course would be to stay out of sight, hiding myself away.

Like I was hiding away at that minute, by not going to the Jockeys’ Fund dance.

The tickets were on the mantel. Tickets for Tony and Poppy, and for me and the partner I hadn’t got around to inviting. Tickets which were not going to be used, which I had paid twelve fund raising guineas for.

I sat in the dark for half an hour thinking about the people who would be at the Jockeys’ Fund dance.

Then I put on my black tie and went to it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I went prepared to be stared at.

I was stared at.

Also pointed out and commented on. Discreetly, however, for the most part. And only two people decisively turned their backs.

The Jockeys’ Fund dance glittered as usual with titles, diamonds, champagne and talent. Later it might curl round the edges into spilled drinks, glassy eyes, raddled make-up and slurring voices, but the gloss wouldn’t entirely disappear. It never did. The Jockeys’ Fund dance was one of the great social events of the steeplechasing year.

I handed over my ticket and walked along the wide passage to where the lights were low, the music hot, and the air thick with smoke and scent. The opulent ballroom of the Royal County Hotel, along the road from Ascot racecourse.

Around the dancing area there were numbers of large circular tables with chairs for ten or twelve round each, most of them occupied already. According to the chart in the hall, at table number thirty-two I would find the places reserved for Tony and me, if in fact they were still reserved. I gave up looking for table thirty-two less than half way down the room because whenever I moved a new battery of curious eyes swivelled my way. A lot of people raised a hello but none of them could hide their slightly shocked surprise. It was every bit as bad as I’d feared.

A voice behind me said incredulously, ‘Hughes!’

I knew the voice. I turned round with an equal sense of the unexpected. Roberta Cranfield. Wearing a honey-coloured silk dress with the top smothered in pearls and gold thread and her copper hair drawn high with a trickle of ringlets down the back of her neck.

‘You look beautiful,’ I said.

Her mouth opened. ‘Hughes!’

‘Is your father here?’

‘No,’ she said disgustedly. ‘He wouldn’t face it. Nor would Mother. I came with a party of neighbours but I can’t say I was enjoying it much until you turned up.’

‘Why not?’

‘You must be joking. Just look around. At a rough guess fifty people are rubber-necking at you. Doesn’t it make you cringe inside? Anyway, I’ve had quite enough of it myself this evening, and I didn’t even see the damned race, let alone get myself warned off.’ She stopped. ‘Come and dance with me. If we’re hoisting the flag we may as well do it thoroughly.’

‘On one condition,’ I said.

‘What’s that?’

‘You stop calling me Hughes.’

‘What?’

‘Cranfield, I’m tired of being called Hughes.’

‘Oh!’ It had obviously never occurred to her. ‘Then… Kelly… how about dancing?’

‘Enchanted, Roberta.’

She gave me an uncertain look. ‘I still feel I don’t know you.’

‘You’ve never bothered.’

‘Nor have you.’

That jolted me. It was true. I’d disliked the idea of her. And I didn’t really know her at all.

‘How do you do?’ I said politely. ‘Come and dance.’

We shuffled around in one of those affairs which look like formalised jungle rituals, swaying in rhythm but never touching. Her face was quite calm, remotely smiling. From her composure one would have guessed her to be entirely at ease, not the target of turned heads, assessing glances, half hidden whispers.

‘I don’t know how you do it,’ she said.

‘Do what?’

‘Look so… so matter of fact.’

‘I was thinking exactly the same about you.’

She smiled, eyes crinkling and teeth gleaming, and incredibly in the circumstances she looked happy.

We stuck it for a good ten minutes. Then she said we would go back to her table, and made straight off to it without waiting for