Wild Horses - By Dick Francis Page 0,25
need your words of warning.’
‘Good, then. But… er… I just thought I might remind you, knowing how you feel, that you agreed not to bellyache about the film until after its release.’
‘I’ll say what I damned well please.’
‘It’s your privilege. I don’t suppose you care about the penalties in your contract.’
‘What penalties?’
‘Most film contracts include them,’ I said. ‘I’m sure yours does. Film companies routinely seek ways to stop a disgruntled writer from sabotaging the whole film just because he or she dislikes the changes made to the original work. They put in clauses allowing themselves to recover substantial damages.’
After a lengthy pause Howard said, ‘I never signed such a contract.’
‘Fine, then, but you might check with your agent.’
‘You’re trying to frighten me!’ he complained.
‘I’m just suggesting you might want to be careful.’
Silence. Howard simply put down his receiver. So much for tactful advice!
True to his intention, Nash did make damned sure that we completed the enquiry room shots that day, even if not until past eight in the evening. In want of a shower and a reviving drink, I drove back to Bedford Lodge and found waiting for me a long fax from O’Hara, starting with the Daily Cable obituary.
Rupert Visborough’s life was dedicated to serving his country, the neighbourhood and the Sport of Kings. Commissioned into the Scots Guards, he retired with the rank of major to enter local politics in his home county of Cambridgeshire. Many committees benefited from his expert chairmanship, including…
The list was long, virtuous and unexciting.
A landowner, he was elected a member of the Jockey Club following the death of his father, Sir Ralph Visborough, knighted for his patronage of many animal charities.
Highly respected by all who knew him, Rupert Visborough felt obliged to remove his name from a shortlist of those being considered for selection as parliamentary candidate, a consequence of his having inadvertedly been involved in an unexplained death closely touching his family.
His wife’s sister, married to Newmarket trainer Jackson Wells, was found hanged in one of the loose boxes in her husband’s stable yard. Exhaustive police enquiries failed to find either a reason for suicide, or any motive or suspect for murder. Jackson Wells maintained his innocence throughout. The Jockey Club, conducting its own private enquiry, concluded there was no justification for withdrawing Wells’s licence to train. Rupert Visborough, present at the enquiry, was justifiably bitter at the negative impact of the death on his own expectations.
Reports that Jackson Wells’s wife was entertaining lovers unknown to her husband could not be substantiated. Her sister – Visborough’s wife – described the dead woman as ‘fey’ and ‘a day-dreamer’. She said that as she and her sister had not been close she could offer no useful suggestions.
Who knows what Rupert Visborough might not have achieved in life had these events not happened? Conjecture that he himself knew more of the facts behind the tragedy than he felt willing to disclose clung to his name despite his strongest denials. The death of his sister-in-law is unresolved to this day.
Visborough died last Wednesday of a cerebral haemorrhage, aged 76, with his great potential sadly unfulfilled.
He is survived by his wife, and by their son and daughter.
O’Hara had handwritten across the bottom, ‘Pious load of shit! No one on the paper knows who wrote it. Their obits often come in from outside.’
The pages of fax continued, however.
O’Hara’s handwriting stated, ‘This paragraph appeared in the Cable’s irreverent gossip column on the same day as the obituary.’
Secrets going to grave in the Visborough family? It seems Rupert (76), Jockey Club member, dead on Wednesday of a stroke, never discovered how his sister-in-law hanged twenty-three years ago in who-dunnit circs. Bereaved husband, Jackson Wells, now remarried and raising rape near Oxford, had ‘no comment’ re the Visborough demise. Answers to the 23-year-old mystery must exist. Send us info.
O’Hara’s handwriting: ‘The Cable got about 6 replies, all no good. End of story as far as they are concerned. But at great expense they searched their microfilmed records and found these accounts, filed and printed at the time of the hanging.’
The first mention had earned a single minor paragraph: ‘Newmarket trainer’s wife hanged’.
For almost two weeks after that there had been daily revelations, many along the lines of ‘did she jump or was she pushed?’ and equally many about the unfairness – and personal bitterness – of the nipping in the bud effect of Visborough’s ambitions for a political career.
A hanging in the family, it seemed, had discouraged not only racehorse