‘For more money!’ he repeated. ‘They could condone it then!’
He was convulsed with malicious pleasure.
‘They could condone it then, all right! Mind you, it always rankled with Juliette. You see, the other woman, the one they all looked down on, had turned him down; and she, Juliette, hadn’t!’
He slapped himself on the knee.
‘You’re talking about Monique?’
‘No, no. Monique was after she’d turned him down. Before he knew Juliette. Lives up the hill, you know. Juliette. I’ll bet she’s not altogether sorry Bossu has gone.’
His daughter came in with a tray of coffee.
Evidently that needed explanation.
‘Abdul was taking so long!’ she said. ‘So in the end I brought it myself.’
‘Needs a good kick up the backside!’ said Ricard testily.
‘Thanks, Suzanne!’ said Macfarlane. ‘Children well?’
They talked about the children for a while. Monsieur Ricard concentrated on softening a biscuit in his coffee. Then he pushed his cup aside.
‘So,’ he said, looking at Seymour shrewdly, his eyes functioning, for this purpose at any rate, well, ‘what do you want to know?’
Chapter Nine
No — contemptuously — he hadn’t seen Bossu ride off at a tangent. He was already ahead of him at that point. In any case, he was riding on the other side of the course. Concentrating on the hunt. He liked to keep up with them while he could. Of course, in the end they would leave him behind, that was the penalty — with a baleful look at his daughter — of being lumbered with an old nag. If he had had Chestnut he would have kept up with them. Even been in at the kill!
‘Chestnut is dead, Father,’ said Suzanne quietly. ‘He’s been dead for years.’
‘I know that!’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m just saying that with a proper horse I’d have kept up!’
‘Of course, you would, Father, but-’
‘She listens too much to that fool, Meunier!’ Ricard growled.
‘Sure, sure,’ said Suzanne, and took the tray away.
‘Well, there you are, Monsieur. I didn’t see anything. I can’t help you, I’m afraid.’
‘Ah, but you can, Monsieur. It is afterwards that I am interested in. After Bossu had ridden away, and after he had been killed. Can I take you back to that earlier stage of the chase? And, perhaps, after. The riders would be bunched at the start, wouldn’t they, all keeping up. But then they would begin to stretch out. Some of the slowest would be falling behind?’
‘Well, of course! And I can tell you, they wouldn’t have included me. Not if I had had a proper horse!’
‘Not you, Monsieur, but, perhaps, the always slow riders, of whom you would have been aware-’
‘Getting in the way. That fool, Digoin! And Leblanc. Why that man bothers to turn up at all, I cannot think. His head is in the clouds, Monsieur. He rides in a dream. He does not know, Monsieur, that it is a hunt. You chase the animal, yes? But not Leblanc. He is chasing rainbows! Or something the rest of us don’t see.’
‘Frustrating, frustrating!’ said Seymour. ‘But, Monsieur, I wondered if there was someone else. Someone, perhaps, who was a good rider, and a real huntsman, but who had, perhaps, joined the chase late? Who overtook the slower riders, even yourself-’
‘He wouldn’t have, not if I’d had a proper-’
‘The others, perhaps, would not have been aware of it, but you, Monsieur, with your feel for the hunt and your sense of the chase as a whole, might well have noticed it. Someone coming up fast, and late…?’
Ricard thought.
‘I think I was aware of someone doing that,’ he said. ‘Out of the corner of my eye. You understand, Monsieur, that at my age one cannot afford to take one’s eye off — But, yes, I think I did notice someone coming up late.’
But, alas, Monsieur Ricard had few details to add. If he had seen someone, it had been only out of the corner of his eye. And that eye did not, perhaps, see as keenly these days as it once had done.
And Monsieur Digoin, that terror with the lance, although mostly to his own side, whom they called on afterwards, saw things, sadly, even more narrowly. In fact, he confessed shame-facedly, he didn’t see much at all.
‘It is wrong, I know,’ he said, ‘but I do like riding. I have ridden all my life, you see, and it is hard to give up now. I keep at the back. Out of the melee. I don’t think I do any harm. The horse takes care of me. We are two old-stagers, fellow travellers, and we know each other. I rely on Agamemnon to bring me back. When he has had enough, then so have I.’
Had Monsieur Digoin been aware of a rider joining late? Alas, he wasn’t aware of any other rider. He rode at the back, and his horse helped him from colliding with anyone else, but as for seeing them — well, Monsieur Digoin participated with enthusiasm but saw, as through a glass, darkly.
And Monsieur Leblanc, the over-mild Monsieur Leblanc? He was a sweetie and quite charming. But, alas, the French zeal for the chase, so extolled by Monsieur L’Espinasse, seemed to have gone quite missing in his case. He did, indeed, ride in a cloud, aware of little around him save the pleasant warmth of the sun, the whisper of the wind in his ears, the satisfying surge of the horse beneath him and, far off, the excited cries of the huntsmen.
‘As in The Seasons,’ he said.
The Seasons?
‘Haydn’s piece, you know. I’ve always thought the music very evocative.’
Well, yes. Yes. No doubt. But had Monsieur Leblanc seen-?
Someone joining late? Surely they had all started at the same time? He was always careful, himself, not to be late, it was such a nuisance to everyone else True, true, but possibly someone had unavoidably-?
Monsieur Leblanc, anxious to oblige, thought deep. And, yes, he thought he had been aware of someone coming up fast. Too fast. Going like the wind, that wind that whispered so soothingly in Monsieur Leblanc’s ears, the wind that blew the overtaking rider’s hair so straight behind him What?
Hair? Was Monsieur Leblanc saying that the rider was a woman?
Good heavens, no! It was just that as he had passed, Monsieur Leblanc had looked up, surprised, yes, surprised, he hadn’t expected someone to be coming up so fast behind him, and he had seen — well, he might not have seen correctly but this was what had struck him, the rider’s long hair flowing back behind him On reflection, yes, it was puzzling. He couldn’t think of anyone in the hunt with such long hair. He himself favoured short back and sides. And certainly the soldiers — well, they had their hair absolutely shaven! Maybe he’d got it wrong. It had all happened so quickly. The rider had come up from behind him, riding very fast. He hadn’t seen him coming and then, suddenly, there he was! Passing him. He had overtaken him ‘in a flash’ and disappeared into the distance. But he had noticed Or had he noticed? It had all happened so quickly.
Had he noticed anything else apart from this one, astonishing, feature? Something about the clothes, perhaps? Or the horse? The colour of the horse, say?
It had all happened so quickly! The rider had passed ‘as in a dream’.
As in a dream. Yes, knowing Monsieur Leblanc, Seymour could quite believe that!
The next morning when Seymour left the hotel there was no Mustapha and Idris outside waiting for him. In a way he was relieved, although he was also slightly disappointed. He had grown quite attached to them. But a bodyguard was hardly necessary. True, he had been glad of their aid when that pig had rushed out: but wild pigs were unlikely to be rushing out often, certainly not in the middle of Tangier, and he could see no other pressing need for defence. Their constant presence was, indeed, slightly embarrassing. How would it look to the people back at home if Macfarlane conveyed to them that two small-time crooks and drug dealers had lovingly attached themselves to their Man in Tangiers and devotedly followed him around wherever he went? So perhaps it was best But just at that moment Mustapha appeared round the corner.