‘Perhaps when I go home I’ll see which knife is missing.’
‘Yes, perhaps. Would you like me to tidy your house up a bit?’
‘I can’t ask you.’
‘I’d like to do it.’
‘Paul wants to. He keeps asking. He gets so angry with me, but I don’t know who has the key. So silly, isn’t it? I can’t go home because I haven’t got the key.’
‘I’ll find the key,’ I said. ‘Is there anything you want from there?’
‘No, dear. I just want to be at home with Valentine.’ The slow tears came. ‘Valentine’s dead.’
I stroked her soft hand.
‘It was a photo album,’ she said suddenly, opening her eyes.
‘What was?’
‘What they were looking for.’ She looked at me worriedly, pale blue shadows round her eyes.
‘What photo album?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t got one, just some old snaps I keep in a box. Some pictures of Paul when he was little. I never had a camera, but friends gave me snaps…’
‘Where’s the box?’
‘In my bedroom. But it’s not an album… I didn’t think of it before. Everything’s so confusing.’
‘Mm. Don’t let it worry you. And Robbie Gill will be cross if I tire you, let alone Paul.’
A smile shone briefly in the old eyes. ‘I might as well be tired. I’ve nothing else to do.’
I laughed, it’s just a shame,’ I said, ‘that Paul took Valentine’s books after all. He swears he didn’t, but he must have done because they aren’t in the house.’
Dorothea frowned. ‘No, dear, Paul didn’t take them.’
‘Didn’t he?’ I was sceptical. ‘Did he send someone else?’
‘No, dear.’ Her forehead wrinkled further. ‘Valentine wanted you to have his books and I know he would have been furious if Paul had taken them because he wasn’t very fond of Paul, only put up with him for my sake, such a pity.’
‘So… who took them?’
‘Bill.’
‘Who?’
‘Bill Robinson, dear. He has them safe.’
‘But Dorothea, who is Bill Robinson, and where and why does he have the books?’
She smiled guiltily. ‘I was afraid, you see, dear, that Paul would come back and persuade me to let him take them. He tires me out sometimes until I do what he wants, but he’s my son, dear, after all… So I asked Bill Robinson to come and pick them all up and put them in his garage, and he’s a chum of mine, dear, so he came and took them, and they’ll be quite safe, dear, he’s a nice young man, he mends motorbikes.’
CHAPTER 11
I went to bed after midnight, thinking that although I had not died today, it was now already tomorrow.
Nash and I had eaten dinner together in harmony over his scenes-to-come in the parade ring, where his jockey would be wearing blue, while Cibber’s would be in the green and white stripes.
After the evening preparation for the Jockey Club enquiry scene, Nash had, without baldly saying so, let me realise that he much preferred to rehearse everything with me in private, so that on set little needed to be asked or answered, his performances being already clear in his mind. I didn’t know if he worked in this way with every director, but between the two of us it was notably fruitful in regard to his readiness for every shot. That we were saving time and running ahead of schedule was in this way chiefly his doing.
As usual I’d spent the last two hours of the evening with Moncrieff, putting together with him the plan of positions and lights for the parade ring cameras, also for those catching the pre-race routines of horses being saddled and led from the saddling boxes, being led round the parade ring, being de-rugged and mounted. Multiple cameras, though not cheap in themselves, also saved time: I would later cut together, from several lengthy shots, the snippets and pieces that in shorthand would give an overall impression of the whole pre-race tension. The slap of leather straps into buckles, the brushing of oil to gloss the hoof, the close shots of muscle moving below shining coat. It needed only two seconds of graphic visual image to flash an impression or urgency and intent, but it took maybe ten long minutes of filming to capture each.
Pace had a lot to do with good film-making. There would be no flash-flash-flash over the dream/fantasy sequences, only a slowly developing realisation of their significances.
Well… so I hoped.
While my silent young driver took me towards Huntingdon in the morning I thought of Dorothea’s preservation of Valentine’s books, and of the new uncertainty