Enquiry - By Dick Francis Page 0,7

it worms, today?’

‘God knows. Poppy said to come, if you want.’

I shook my head.

‘You must eat,’ he protested.

‘Yes.’

He looked at me consideringly. ‘I guess,’ he said, ‘That you’ll manage.’ He put down his empty glass. ‘We’re here, you know, if you want anything. Company. Food. Dancing girls. Trifles like that.’

I nodded my thanks, and he clomped away down the stairs. He hadn’t mentioned his horses, their races, or the other jockeys he would have to engage. He hadn’t said that my staying in the flat would be an embarrassment to him.

I didn’t know what to do about that. The flat was my home. My only home. Designed, converted, furnished by me. I liked it, and I didn’t want to leave.

I wandered into the bedroom.

A double bed, but pillows for one.

On the dressing chest, in a silver frame, a photograph of Rosalind. We had been married for two years when she went to spend a routine week-end with her parents. I’d been busy riding five races at Market Rasen on the Saturday, and a policeman had come into the weighing-room at the end of the afternoon and told me unemotionally that my father-in-law had set off with his wife and mine to visit friends and had misjudged his overtaking distance in heavy rain and had driven head on into a lorry and killed all three of them instantly.

It was four years since it had happened. Quite often I could no longer remember her voice. Other times she seemed to be in the next room. I had loved her passionately, but she no longer hurt. Four years was a long time.

I wished she had been there, with her tempestuous nature and fierce loyalty, so that I could have told her about the Enquiry, and shared the wretchedness, and been comforted.

That Enquiry…

Gowery’s first witness had been the jockey who had finished third in the Lemonfizz, two or three lengths behind Squelch. About twenty, round faced and immature, Master Charlie West was a boy with a lot of natural talent but too little self-discipline. He had a great opinion of himself, and was in danger of throwing away his future through an apparent belief that rules only applied to everyone else.

The grandeur of Portman Square and the trappings of the Enquiry seemed to have subdued him. He came into the room nervously and stood where he was told, at one end of the Stewards’ table: on their left, and to our right. He looked down at the table and raised his eyes only once or twice during his whole testimony. He didn’t look across to Cranfield and me at all.

Gowery asked him if he remembered the race.

‘Yes, sir.’ It was a low mumble, barely audible.

‘Speak up,’ said Gowery irritably.

The shorthand writer came across from his table and moved the microphone so that it was nearer Charlie West. Charlie West cleared his throat.

‘What happened during the race?’

‘Well sir… Shall I start from the beginning, sir?’

‘There’s no need for unnecessary detail, West,’ Gowery said impatiently. ‘Just tell us what happened on the far side of the course on the second circuit.’

‘I see, sir. Well… Kelly, that is, I mean, Hughes, sir… Hughes… Well… Like…’

‘West, come to the point.’ Gowery’s voice would have left a lazer standing. A heavy flush showed in patches on Charlie West’s neck. He swallowed.

‘Round the far side, sir, where the stands go out of sight, like, for a few seconds, well, there, sir… Hughes gives this hefty pull back on the reins, sir…’

‘And what did he say. West?’

‘He said, sir, “O.K. Brakes on, chaps.” Sir.’

Gowery said meaningfully, though everyone had heard the first time and a pin would have crashed on the Wilton, ‘Repeat that, please, West.’

‘Hughes, sir, said “O.K. Brakes on, chaps”.’

‘And what did you take him to mean by that, West?’

‘Well sir, that he wasn’t trying, like. He always says that when he’s pulling one back and not trying.’

‘Always?’

‘Well, something like that, sir.’

There was a considerable silence.

Gowery said formally, ‘Mr Cranfield… Hughes… You may ask this witness questions, if you wish.’

I got slowly to my feet.

‘Are you seriously saying,’ I asked bitterly, ‘That at any time during the Lernonfizz Cup I pulled Squelch back and said “O.K., brakes on, chaps?” ’

He nodded. He had begun to sweat.

‘Please answer aloud,’ I said.

‘Yes. You said it.’

‘I did not.’

‘I heard you’

‘You couldn’t have done.’

‘I heard you.’

I was silent. I simply had no idea what to say next. It was too like a playground exchange: you did, I didn’t, you did, I didn’t…

I sat