Rat Race - By Dick Francis Page 0,5

if I thought their behaviour pathetic, which in fact I did, and turned on my heel to go back to my own territory. When I’d gone ten steps one of them called after me, ‘Where’s Larry Gedge?’ He didn’t sound as if he liked Larry any better than me.

I decided not to hear: if they really wanted to know, they could come and ask nicely. It was their turn to cross the grass.

They didn’t bother. I wasn’t particularly sorry. I had long ago learned that pilots were not all one great happy brotherhood. Pilots could be as bloodyminded to each other as any group on earth.

I climbed back into my seat in the Cherokee and sorted out my maps and flight plans for the return journey. I had four hours to do it in and it took me ten minutes. After that I debated whether to go over to the stands and find some lunch, and decided I wasn’t hungry. After that I yawned. It was a habit.

I had been depressed for so long that it had become a permanent state of mind. Expectations might lift the edge of the cloud every time one took a new job, but life never turned out to be as good as the hopes. This was my sixth job since I’d gone to learn flying with stars in my eyes, my fourth since the stars had faded for good. I had thought that taxi flying might be interesting, and after crop spraying, which I’d been doing last, anything would be; and perhaps it would indeed be interesting, but if I’d thought it might be free of gripe and bad temper I’d been kidding myself. For here it all was, as usual. Squabbling passengers and belligerent competitors and no discernible joy anywhere.

There was a small buffet on the side of the fuselage and the jar and sound of someone stepping up on to the wing. The slightly open door was pushed wide with a crash, and into its Gpace appeared a girl, bending at the waist and knees and neck so that she could look inside and across at me.

She was slim and dark haired and she was wearing large square sunglasses. Also she had a blue linen dress and long white boots. She looked great. The afternoon instantly improved.

‘You lousy bloody skunk,’ she said.

It really was one of those days.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Wrong man.’ She took off the sunglasses and folded them away in the white handbag which hung from her shoulder by a thick red, white and blue cord.

‘Think nothing of it.’

‘Where’s Larry?’

‘Gone to Turkey.’

‘Gone?’ she said blankly. ‘Do you mean literally gone already, or planning to go, or what?’

I looked at my watch. ‘Took off from Heathrow twenty minutes ago, I believe.’

‘Damn,’ she said forcibly. ‘Bloody damn.’

She straightened up so that all I could see of her was from the waist down. A pleasant enough view for any poor aviator. The legs looked about twenty-three years old and there was nothing wrong with them.

She bent down again. Nothing wrong with the rest of her, either.

‘When will he be back?’

‘He had a three year contract.’

‘Oh, hell.’ She stared at me in dismay for a few seconds, then said, ‘Can I come in there and talk to you for a minute?’

‘Sure,’ I agreed, and moved my maps and stuff off Golden-berg’s seat. She stepped down into the cockpit and slid expertly into place. By no means her first entrance into a light aircraft. I wondered about Larry. Lucky Larry.

‘I suppose he didn’t give you… a parcel… or anything… to give me, did he?’ she said gloomily.

‘Nothing, I’m afraid.’

‘He’s an absolute beast then… er, is he a friend of yours?’

‘I’ve met him twice, that’s all.’

‘He’s pinched my hundred quid,’ she said bitterly.

‘He pinched…?’

‘He bloody has. Not to mention my handbag and keys and everything.’ She stopped and compressed her mouth in anger. Then she added, ‘I left my handbag in this aeroplane three weeks ago, when we flew to Doncaster. And Larry has been saying ever since that he’ll bring it on the next trip to the races and give it to Colin to give to me, and for three solid weeks he’s kept on forgetting it. I suppose he knew he was going to Turkey and he thought if he could put it off long enough he would never have to give my bag back.’

‘Colin… Colin Ross?’ I asked. She nodded abstractedly.

‘Is he your husband?’

She looked startled, then laughed. ‘Good Lord, no. He’s