We walked down the road to where I’d parked the car and I drove southwards with careful observance at every red light; stop signals making round eyes at me all the way to Clapham.
‘I’d have liked it,’ Judith said as we pulled up outside her house.
‘So would I.’
We went indoors in a sort of deprived companionship, and I realized only when I saw Gordon’s smiling unsuspicious face that I couldn’t have returned there if it had been in any other way.
It was at lunch that day, when Pen had again resurfaced from her stint among the pills that I told them about my visit to Calder. Pen, predictably, was acutely interested and said she’d dearly like to know what was in the decoction in the refrigerator.
‘What’s a decoction?’ Judith asked.
‘A preparation boiled with water. If you dissolve things in alcohol, that’s a tincture.’
‘One lives and bloody well learns!’
Pen laughed. ‘How about carminative, anodyne and vermifuge... effects of drugs. They simply roll off the tongue with grandeur.’
‘And what do they mean?’ Gordon asked.
‘Getting rid of gas, getting rid of pain, getting rid of worms.’
Gordon too was laughing. ‘Have some anodyne tincture of grape.’ He poured wine into our glasses. ‘Do you honestly believe, Tim, that Calder cures horses by touch?’
‘I’m sure he believes it.’ I reflected. ‘I don’t know if he will let anyone watch. And if he did, what would one see? I don’t suppose with a horse it’s a case of “take up your bed and walk.”’
Judith said in surprise, ‘You sound as if you’d like it to be true. You, that Gordon and Harry have trained to doubt!’
‘Calder’s impressive,’ I admitted. ‘So is his place. So are the fees he charges. He wouldn’t be able to set his prices so high if he didn’t get real results.’
‘Do the herbs come extra?’ Pen said.
‘I didn’t ask.’
‘Would you expect them to?’ Gordon said.
‘Well...’ Pen considered. ‘Some of those that Tim mentioned are fairly exotic. Golden seal — that’s hydrastis — said in the past to cure practically anything you can mention, but mostly used nowadays in tiny amounts in eye-drops. Has to be imported from America. And fo-ti-tieng — which is Hydrocotyle asiatica minor, also called the source of the elixir of long life — that only grows as far as I know in the tropical jungles of the far east. I mean, I would have thought that giving things like that to horses would be wildly expensive.’
If I’d been impressed with Calder I was probably more so with Pen. ‘I didn’t know pharmacists were so clued up on herbs,’ I said.
‘I was just interested so I learned their properties,’ she exclaimed. ‘The age-old remedies are hardly even hinted at on the official pharmacy courses, though considering digitalis and penicillin one can’t exactly see why. A lot of chemists shops don’t sell non-prescription herbal remedies, but I do, and honestly for a stack of people they seem to work.’
‘And do you advocate garlic poultices for the feet of babies with whooping-cough?’ Gordon asked.
Pen didn’t. There was more laughter. If one believed in Calder, Judith said firmly, one believed in him, garlic poultices and all.
The four of us spent a comfortable afternoon and evening together, and when Judith and Gordon went to bed I walked along with Pen to her house, where she’d been staying each night, filling my lungs with the fresh air off the common.
‘You’re going home tomorrow, aren’t you?’ she said, fishing out her keys.
I nodded. ‘In the morning.’
‘It’s been great fun.’ She found the keys and fitted one in the lock. ‘Would you like to come in?’
‘No... I’ll just walk for a bit.’
She opened the door and paused there. ‘Thank you for the kite... it was brilliant. And goodbye for this time, though I guess if Judith can stand it I’ll be seeing you again.’
‘Stand what?’ I asked.
She kissed me on the cheek. ‘Goodnight,’ she said. ‘And believe it or not, the herb known as passion flower is good for insomnia.’
Her grin shone out like the Cheshire Cat’s as she stepped inside her, house and closed the door, and I stood hopelessly on her pathway wanting to call her back.
The Second Year
February
Ian Pargetter was murdered at about one in the morning on February 1st.
I learned about his death from Calder when I telephoned that evening on impulse to thank him belatedly for the lunch party, invite him for a reciprocal dinner in London and hear whether or not he had enjoyed his American tour.
‘Who?’ he said vaguely when I announced myself. ‘Who? Oh... Tim... Look, I can’t talk now, I’m simply distracted, a friend of mine’s been killed and I can’t think of anything else.’
I’m so sorry,’ I said inadequately.
‘Yes... Ian Pargetter... but I don’t suppose you know...’
This time I remembered at once. The vet; big, reliable, sandy moustache.
‘I met him,’ I said, ‘in your house.’
‘Did you? Oh yes. I’m so upset I can’t concentrate. Look, Tim, ring some other time, will you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘It’s not just that he’s been a friend for years,’ he said, ‘But I don’t know... I really don’t know how my business will fare without him. He sent so many horses my way... such a good friend... I’m totally distraught... Look, ring me another time... Tim, so sorry.’ He put his receiver down with the rattle of a shaking hand.
I thought at the time that he meant Ian Pargetter had been killed in some sort of accident, and it was only the next day when my eye was caught by a paragraph in a newspaper that I realized the difference.
Ian Pargetter, well known, much respected Newmarket veterinary surgeon, was yesterday morning found dead in his home. Police suspect foul play. They state that Pargetter suffered head injuries and that certain supplies of drugs appear to be missing. Pargetter’s body was discovered by Mrs Jane Halson, a daily cleaner. The vet is survived by his wife and three young daughters, all of whom were away from home at the time of the attack. Mrs Pargetter was reported last night to be very distressed and under sedation.
A lot of succinct bad news, I thought, for a lot of sad bereft people. He was the first person I’d known who’d been murdered, and in spite of our very brief meeting I found his death most disturbing: and if I felt so unsettled about a near-stranger, how, I wondered, did anyone ever recover from the murder of someone one knew well and loved. How did one deal with the anger? Come to terms with the urge to revenge?
I’d of course read reports of husbands and wives who pronounced themselves ‘not bitter’ over the slaughter of a spouse, and I’d never understood it. I felt furious on Ian Pargetter’s behalf that anyone should have had the arrogance to wipe him out.
Because of Ascot and Sandcastle my long-dormant interest in racecourses seemed thoroughly to have reawakened, and on three or four Saturday afternoons that winter I’d trekked to Kempton or Sandown or Newbury to watch the jumpers. Ursula Young had become a familiar face, and it was from this brisk well-informed lady bloodstock agent that I learnt most about Ian Pargetter and his death.
‘Drink?’ I suggested at Kempton, pulling up my coat collar against a bitter wind.
She looked at her watch (I’d never seen her do anything without checking the time) and agreed on a quick one. Whisky-mac for her, coffee for me, as at Doncaster.
‘Now tell me,’ she said, hugging her glass and yelling in my ear over the general din of a bar packed with other cold customers seeking inner warmth, ‘when you asked all those questions about stallion shares, was it for Sandcastle?’