Knock Down - By Dick Francis Page 0,23
size. Come and look see, he said. So I jumped down from me cab. And then, see, he sort of grabbed me and shoved me back against the side of the box. And he never let off smiling. Creepy bastard. So then he says, look mate, there’s someone as wants this horse more than you do.’
‘I suppose he didn’t say who?’
‘Eh? No. He just says there’s someone as wants him more than you do, so I says it isn’t mine in the first place and he says not to make jokes… and him laughing his bleeding head off all the time.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Nothing else. ‘Struth, he didn’t have time. Well, he did say as how I’d better let him take the horse peaceful like if I didn’t want me ribs kicked in… well, I ask you… who would?’
Who indeed? ‘So then what?’
‘That’s when you came belting into them like they’d raped your sister.’
‘They didn’t say just how they proposed to take the horse?’
He stared. ‘No. I didn’t ask. I s’pose they meant to drive off with the whole bleeding lot.’ The idea offended him. ‘Bleeding bastards,’ he said.
‘Did they offer to pay for it?’
‘’Struth, you don’t half have some funny ideas.’
I wondered if they would have done, if I’d given them time. I wondered if I would have found the box driver clutching the cash plus another two hundred profit, and no River God in sight.
I sighed and stubbed out my cigarette.
‘Let’s look at the cargo,’ I said, and climbed aboard the box.
The farmer had done a smartening up job along the lines of paint over rust. The feet had been seen to: the shoes were patently new, and the newly trimmed hooves had been darkened with oil. The mane and tail had been brushed out, and the coat was clean. On the other hand there was a lot too much hair everywhere which spoke of little or no regular grooming; too much mane growing between the ears, too many whiskers around the muzzle, hairs too long on the chest, hairs sticking out everywhere instead of lying down neat and flat. The whole mess was shrouded by a tatty rug with two holes in it; and there was no attendant in sight.
‘I asked the farmer to send a groom,’ I said.
‘Yeah. He said he didn’t have nobody to spare. If you ask me he isn’t fit to keep a pit pony, much less a racehorse. When I got there, you’d hardly credit it, there was this poor bleeding animal standing in the yard tied up to the outside of the stable door, and there was this big bleeding pool of water all round him on the ground. Shivering, he was. I reckon they just hosed him down to get all the muck off. The farmer said he was sweating, that was why his coat looked damp. I ask you, who did he think he was kidding. I made him give me the rug to put on the poor bleeder. He didn’t want me to take it in case I didn’t bring it back.’
‘O.K.,’ I said. ‘Let’s get him out.’
He was surprised. ‘What, out here on the road?’
‘That’s right,’ I agreed.
‘But he’s warm enough now. He’s dried off, like, on the journey up.’
‘All the same…’ I said, and helped the box driver, who said his name was Clem, unload the River God. Deus ex machina I thought irrelevantly, and nothing much about this one either was divine.
I removed the rug, folded it, and returned it to the box. Then with Clem holding the horse’s farm-stained head collar I went along to my car and took off my jacket, and in shirt sleeves collected from the boot my bag of gear.
‘What are you going to do?’ Clem asked.
‘Tidy him up.’
‘But I had to meet you at three… you were early but it’s a quarter past already.’
‘I left time enough,’ I said. ‘We’re not due until four thirty.’
‘Did you reckon he’d look this rough, then?’
‘Thought he might.’
Once I was committed to turning up with the horse I was also committed to defend what he looked like. I took out hand clippers, two pairs of scissors, a heavy steel comb and some wax tapers, and set to work.
Clem held the horse’s head and watched while with comb in one hand and lighted taper in the other I worked on the rough coat, singeing off all the too-long, sticking out hair which in a good stable would have been removed by daily brushing.