High stakes - By Dick Francis Page 0,44

entered, at Nottingham and Lingfield. All the races arc ten to fourteen days ahead and there’s no telling which Jody will choose.’

He frowned. ‘What difference does it make, which he chooses?’

I told him.

He listened with his eyes wide open and the eyebrows disappearing upwards into his hair. At the end, he was smiling.

‘So how do you propose to find out which race he’s going for?’ he asked.

‘I thought,’ I said, ‘that we might mobilise your friend Bert. He’d do a lot for you.’

‘What, exactly?’

‘Do you think you could persuade him to apply for a job in one of Ganser Mays’ betting shops?’

Charlie began to laugh. ‘How much can I tell him?’

‘Only what to look for. Not why.’

‘You slay me, Steven.’

‘And another thing,’ I said, ‘how much do you know about the limitations of working hours for truck drivers?’

9

Snow was falling when I flew out of Heathrow, thin scurrying flakes in a driving wind. Behind me I left a half-finished lock, a half-mended car and a half-formed plan.

Charlie had telephoned to say Bert Huggerneck had been taken on at one of the shops formerly owned by his ex-boss and I had made cautious enquiries from the auctioneers at Doncaster. I’d had no success. They had no record of the name of the person who’d bought Padellic. Cash transactions were common. They couldn’t possibly remember who had bought one particular cheap horse three months earlier. End of enquiry.

Owen had proclaimed himself as willing as Charlie to help in any way he could. Personal considerations apart, he said, whoever had bent the Lamborghini deserved hanging. When I came back, he would help me build the scaffold.

The journey from snow to sunshine took eight hours. Seventy-five degrees at Miami airport and only a shade cooler outside the hotel on Miami Beach; and it felt great. Inside the hotel the air-conditioning brought things nearly back to an English winter, but my sixth-floor room faced straight towards the afternoon sun. I drew back the closed curtains and opened the window, and let heat and light flood in.

Below, round a glittering pool, tall palm trees swayed in the sea wind. Beyond, the concrete edge to the hotel grounds led immediately down to a narrow strip of sand and the frothy white waves edging the Atlantic, with mile upon mile of deep blue water stretching away to the lighter blue horizon.

I had expected Miami Beach to be garish and was unprepared for its beauty. Even the ranks of huge white slabs of hotels with rectangular windows piercing their façades in a uniform geometrical pattern held a certain grandeur, punctuated and softened as they were by scattered palms.

Round the pool people lay in rows on day beds beside white fringed sun umbrellas, soaking up ultra-violet like a religion. I changed out of my travel-sticky clothes and went for a swim in the sea, paddling lazily in the warm January water and sloughing off cares like dead skin. Jody Leeds was five thousand miles away, in another world. Easy, and healing, to forget him.

Upstairs again, showered and dressed in slacks and cotton shirt I checked my watch for the time to telephone Allie. After the letters, we had exchanged cables, though not in code because the cable company didn’t like it.

I sent, ‘What address Miami.’

She replied: ‘Telephone four two six eight two after six any evening.’

When I called her it was five past six on January fifth, local time. The voice which answered was not hers and for a soggy moment I wondered if the Western Union had jumbled the message as they often did, and that I should never find her.

‘Miss Ward? Do you mean Miss Alexandra?’

‘Yes,’ I said with relief.

‘Hold the line, please.’

After a pause came the familiar voice, remembered but suddenly fresh. ‘Hallo?’

‘Allie… It’s Steven.’

‘Hi.’ Her voice was laughing. ‘I’ve won close on fifty dollars if you’re in Miami.’

‘Collect it,’ I said.

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘We have a date,’ I said reasonably.

‘Oh sure.’

‘Where do I find you?’

‘Twelve twenty-four Garden Island,’ she said. ‘Any cab will bring you. Come right out, it’s time for cocktails.’

Garden Island proved to be a shady offshoot of land with wide enough channels surrounding it to justify its name. The cab rolled slowly across twenty yards of decorative iron bridge and came to a stop outside twelve twenty-four. I paid off the driver and rang the bell.

From the outside the house showed little. The whitewashed walls were deeply obscured by tropical plants and the windows by insect netting. The door itself looked solid enough