Wild Horses - By Dick Francis Page 0,98

beside us (the horse in dim ‘moonlight’) looking worried and thoughtful. We then filmed him sitting on the ground with his back to a wind-bent tree, the horse cropping grass nearby. We’d more or less finished when the thick clouds unexpectedly parted and blew in dramatic shapes across the real full moon, and Moncrieff turned his camera heavenwards for more than sixty seconds, and beamed at me triumphantly through his straggly beard.

The long day ended. Back at Bedford Lodge I found three more boxes itemised, plus a note from Lucy saying she hoped I didn’t mind but her parents wanted her home for Sunday after all. Back Monday, she wrote.

Box VIII. Form books. Flat racing.

Box IX. Horseshoes.

Box X. Encyclopaedias, A-F.

The horseshoes were actual horseshoes, each saved in a plastic bag and labelled with the name of the horse that had worn it, complete with winning date, racecourse and event. Valentine had been a true collector, squirrelling his successes away.

I pulled out the first of the encyclopaedias without anything particular in mind and, finding a slip of paper in it acting as a bookmark, opened it there. Autocrat: an absolute ruler. Multiple examples followed.

I closed the book, rested my head against the back of my armchair, decided it was time to take off the Delta-cast and drifted towards sleep.

The thought that galvanised me to full wakefulness seemed to come from nowhere but was a word seen peripherally, unconsidered.

Autocrat…

Further down the page came Auto-erotism.

I picked the volume out of the box and read the long entry. I learned much more than I wanted to about various forms of masturbation, though I could find nothing of much significance. Vaguely disappointed, I started to replace the bookmarker, but glanced at it and kept it in my hand. Valentine’s bookmarker bore the one word ‘Paraphilia’.

I didn’t know what paraphilia was, but I searched through several unopened boxes and finally found the P volume of the encyclopaedia, following where Valentine had directed.

The P volume also had a bookmark, this time in the page for Paraphilia.

Paraphilia I read, consisted of many manifestations of perverted love. One of them was listed as ‘erotic strangulation – the starvation of blood to the brain to stimulate sexual arousal’.

Valentine’s knowledge of self-asphyxia, the process he had described to Professor Derry, had come from this book.

‘In 1791 in London,’ I read, ‘at the time of Haydn, a well-known musician died as a result of his leaning towards paraphilia. One Friday afternoon he engaged a prostitute to tie a leash round his neck which he could then tighten to the point of his satisfaction. Unfortunately he went too far and throttled himself. The prostitute reported his death and was tried for murder, but acquitted, as the musician’s perversion was well known. The judge ordered the records of the case not to be published, in the interests of decency.’

One lived and learned, I thought tolerantly, putting the encyclopaedia back in its box. Poor old Professor Derry. Just as well, perhaps, that he hadn’t acted on Valentine’s information.

Before throwing them both away I glanced at Valentine’s second bookmark. On the strip of white paper he’d written, ‘Tell Derry this’ and, lower down, ‘Showed this to Pig’.

I went along to O’Hara’s room, retrieved the folder and ‘The Clang’ photograph from the safe, and sat in his armchair looking at them and thinking long and hard.

Eventually, I slept in his bed, as it was safer.

CHAPTER 15

The film company’s car brought Ridley Wells to the stables on time and sober the next morning. We sent him into the house to the wardrobe department, and I took the opportunity to telephone Robbie Gill on my mobile.

I expected to get his message service at that early hour, but in fact he was awake and answered my summons himself.

‘Still alive?’ he asked chattily.

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘So what do you need?’

As always with Robbie, straight to the point.

‘First,’ I said, ‘who gave you the list of knife specialists?’

‘My professional colleague in the police force,’ he said promptly. ‘The doctor they call out locally. He’s a randy joker, ex-rugger player, good for a laugh and a jar in the pub. I asked him for known knife specialists. He said the force had drawn up the list themselves recently and asked him if he could add to it. He couldn’t. The people he knows who carry knives tend to be behind bars.’

‘Did he attend Dorothea?’

‘No, he was away. Anything else?’

‘How is she?’

‘Dorothea? Still sedated. Now Paul’s gone, do you still want to pay for the