got on with my aunt.’
She made no mention at all of my invitation to marry. Maybe she had decided to treat it as a joke, and yesterday’s joke at that. Maybe she was right.
‘Your aunt,’ I said, ‘wouldn’t take my advice if I showed her the way to Heaven.’
‘Why not?’ She handed me a glass and sat down comfortably opposite in an armchair.
I explained why not, and she was instantly angry on her aunt’s behalf.
‘She was swindled.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Something must be done.’
I sipped the wine. Light, dry, unexpectedly flowery, and definitely not supermarket plonk.
‘The trouble is,’ I said, ‘That the kick back system is not illegal. Far from it. To many it is a perfectly sensible business method and anyone who doesn’t take advantage of it is a fool.’
‘But to demand half her profit…’
‘The argument goes that an agent promised a large kick back will raise the auction price much higher than it might have gone, so the breeder positively benefits. Some breeders don’t just put up with having to pay the kick backs, they offer to do so. In those cases everyone is happy.’
‘Except the person who buys the horse,’ she said severely. ‘He comes off badly. Why do the buyers stand for it?’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘What clients don’t know would sink a battleship.’
She looked disapproving. ‘I don’t like the sound of your profession.’ She added, in the understatement of the year, ‘It isn’t straightforward.’
‘What sort of agent you are depends on how you see things,’ I said. ‘Honesty is your own view from the hill.’
‘That’s immoral.’
I shook my head. ‘Universal.’
‘You’re saying that honesty in the bloodstock business is only a matter of opinion.’
‘And in every business, every country, every era, since the world began.’
‘Jonah, you talk nonsense.’
‘How about marriage?’
‘What are the kickbacks?’
‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘You learn fast.’
She laughed and stood up. ‘I’m a lousy cook but if you stay I’ll give you a delicious dinner.’
I stayed. The dinner came out of frozen packs and would have pleased Lucullus; lobster in sauce on shells and duck with almonds and honey. The freezer was the largest item in the small white kitchen. She stocked it up every six months, she said, and did practically no shopping in between.
Afterwards, over coffee, I told her about Frizzy Hair turning up to take River God. It did nothing much to improve her view of my job. I told her about the flourishing feud between Constantine Brevett and Wilton Young, and also about Vic Vincent, the blue eyed boy who could do no wrong.
‘Constantine thinks the yearlings he’s bought must be good because they were expensive.’
‘It sounds reasonable.’
‘It isn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Year after year top prices get paid for the prize flops.’
‘But why?’
‘Because,’ I said, ‘yearlings haven’t been raced yet, and no one knows whether they will actually be any good. They make their price on their breeding.’ And that too could be rigged, though I didn’t think I had better tell her.
‘This Vic Vincent… he’s been paying high prices for good breeding?’
‘High prices for moderate breeding. Vic Vincent is costing Constantine a packet. He’s the biggest kickback merchant of the lot, and getting greedier every minute.’
She looked more disgusted than horrified. ‘My aunt was right about you all being crooks.’
‘Your aunt wouldn’t tell me who demanded half her profits… if you ring her again, ask her if she’s ever heard of Vic Vincent, and see what she says.’
‘Why not right now?’
She dialled her aunt’s number, and asked, and listened. Antonia Huntercombe spoke with such vehemence that I could hear her from the other side of the room, and her words were earthy Anglo-saxon. Sophie made a face at me and nearly burst out laughing.
‘All right,’ she said, putting down the receiver. ‘It was Vic Vincent. That’s one of life’s little mysteries cleared up. Now what about the rest?’
‘Let’s forget them.’
‘Let’s absolutely not. You can’t just forget two fights in three days.’
‘Not to mention a loose horse.’
She stared. ‘Not the one…’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘I might have believed that I hadn’t shut a stable door properly for the first time in eighteen years, but not that a horse could get out of his rug by undoing the buckles.’
‘You said… he was darker without his rug.’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean… someone took off his rug and shooed him out in front of my car… just to cause a crash?’
‘To injure the horse,’ I said. ‘Or even to kill it. I’d have been in very great trouble if you hadn’t reacted so quickly and missed him.’
‘Because you would have been sued