Enquiry - By Dick Francis Page 0,41

the eyes did, sliding into corners, giving us a surreptitious once-over, probing and hurtful. Roberta held herself almost defiantly straight.

The bar was heavily populated, with cigar smoke lying in a haze over the well-groomed heads and the noise level doing justice to a discotheque. Almost at once through a narrow gap in the cluster I saw him, standing against the far wall, talking vehemently. He turned his head suddenly and looked straight at me, meeting my eyes briefly before the groups between us shifted and closed the line of sight. In those two seconds, however, I had seen his mouth tighten and his whole face compress into annoyance; and he had known I was at the dance, because there was no surprise.

‘You’ve seen him,’ Roberta said.

‘Yes.’

‘Well… who is it?’

‘Lord Gowery.’

She gasped. ‘Oh no, Kelly.’

‘I want to talk to him.’

‘It can’t do any good.’

‘You never know.’

‘Annoying Lord Gowery is the last, positively the last way of getting your licence back. Surely you can see that?’

‘Yes… He’s not going to be kind, I don’t think. So would you mind very much if I took you back to Bobbie first?’

She looked troubled. ‘You won’t say anything silly? It’s Father’s licence as well, remember.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ I said flippantly. She gave me a sharp suspicious glance, but turned easily enough to go back to Bobbie.

Almost immediately outside the bar we were stopped by Jack Roxford, who was hurrying towards us through the throng.

‘Kelly,’ he said, half panting with the exertion. ‘I just wanted to catch you… to say how sorry I am that Grace went off the deep end like that. She’s not herself, poor girl… Miss Cranfield, I do apologise.’

Roberta unbent a little. ‘That’s all right, Mr Roxford.’

‘I wouldn’t like you to believe that what Grace said… all those things about your father… is what I think too.’ He looked from her to me, and back again, the hesitant worry furrowing his forehead. A slight, unaggressive man of about forty-five; bald crown, nervous eyes, permanently worried expression. He was a reasonably good trainer but not enough of a man of the world to have achieved much personal stature. To me, though I had never ridden for him, he had always been friendly, but his restless anxiety-state made him tiring to be with.

‘Kelly,’ he said, ‘If it’s really true that you were both framed, I do sincerely hope that you get your licences back. I mean, I know there’s a risk that Edwin will take his horses to your father, Miss Cranfield, but he did tell me this evening that he won’t do so now, even if he could… But please believe me, I hold no dreadful grudge against either of you, like poor Grace… I do hope you’ll forgive her.’

‘Of course, Mr Roxford,’ said Roberta, entirely placated. ‘Please don’t give it another thought. And oh!’ she added impulsively, ‘I think you’ve earned this!’ and into his astonished hands she thrust the bottle of vodka.

CHAPTER NINE

When I went back towards the bar I found Lord Gowery had come out of it. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with Lord Ferth, both of them watching me walk towards them with faces like thunder.

I stopped four feet away, and waited.

‘Hughes,’ said Lord Gowery for openers, ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘My Lord,’ I said politely. ‘This isn’t Newmarket Heath.’

It went down badly. They were both affronted. They closed their ranks.

‘Insolence will get you nowhere,’ Lord Ferth said, and Lord Gowery added, ‘You’ll never get your licence back, if you behave like this.’

I said without heat, ‘Does justice depend on good manners?’

They looked as if they couldn’t believe their ears. From their point of view I was cutting my own throat, though I had always myself doubted that excessive meekness got licences restored any quicker than they would have been without it. Meekness in the accused brought out leniency in some judges, but severity in others. To achieve a minimum sentence, the guilty should always bone up on the character of their judge, a sound maxim which I hadn’t had the sense to see applied even more to the innocent.

‘I would have thought some sense of shame would have kept you away,’ Lord Ferth said.

‘It took a bit of an effort to come,’ I agreed.

His eyes narrowed and opened again quickly.

Gowery said, ‘As to spreading these rumours… I say categorically that you are not only not on the point of being given your licence back, but that your suspension will be all the longer in consequence of