The doctor, summoned to the stewards’ anxious enquiry, confirmed that Christopher Haig was dead and had died, according to the judge’s assistant, well before Storm Cone or any other horse had reached the finishing line. The actual cause of death would depend on post-mortem findings.
The Stipendiary Steward, having consulted the Jockey Club big-wigs in London as well as his own soul, told the three officiating stewards that they would have to declare the race void.
Void.
It was announced that the race had been declared void primarily because of the death of the judge. All bets were off. Money staked would be repaid.
The word ‘void’ reverberated round the racecourse, and John Chester in a fury barged into the weighing-room like a tank, insisting his horse had won, demanding to be credited with Storm Cone’s prize money, dogmatically asserting that he had dislodged Driffield at the top of the trainers’ list.
Sorry, sorry, he was told. Void meant void. Void meant that the race was judged not to have taken place. No one had won any prize money, which meant that Percy Driffield was still ahead on the list.
John Chester lost control and yelled with rage.
Moggie Reilly, who believed that he and Storm Cone had certainly won on the line, shrugged philosophically over the loss of his percentage of the winner’s prize. Poor old Christopher Haig, he thought; and couldn’t know on that Friday that his own exalted riding and his trustworthiness had won him both huge upward moves in his career and also the lasting devotion of the divine Sarah Driffield, the toast of all Lambourn; his future wife.
The worst gnashing of teeth came from the stewards themselves. They could hardly believe it! They had in their hands and before their mesmerised eyes a clear sharp film showing Vernon Arkwright stretching his hand out under the heel of Moggie Reilly’s boot and jerking upwards with all his strength. They could see the force. They could see Moggie Reilly rise in the air and then plunge down over his horse’s shoulder, clinging on for life with only taut-pulled tendons to save himself.
They could see it all... and now the Stipendiary Steward — the uncontestable interpreter of the Rules of Racing — now he was telling these three in-charge stewards that they couldn’t use either the patrol camera film or the evidence of their own eyes. They couldn’t accuse Vernon Arkwright of any sort of misdeed, because the Cloister Handicap Hurdle was deemed never to have taken place. If the race was void, so were its sins.
Void meant void in all respects.
Too bad. Couldn’t be helped. Rules were rules.
‘Dear God, Christopher,’ the competent steward thought, calling on his friend the judge, ‘why didn’t your heart beat just five minutes longer?’
Haig’s death prevented John Chester from becoming top trainer (ever).
Haig’s death saved Vernon Arkwright (that spring) from being warned-off. Amazed by his luck he prudently ‘forgot’ the reason for his (now voided) assault on Moggie. It was definitely not the moment to say he’d agreed to be bribed.
Christopher Haig’s death, in keeping Vernon Arkwright quiet, saved Jasper Billington Innes his untainted reputation.
Jasper himself, grindingly unhappy, watched Winchester’s fourth race on banks of rectangular screens in a shop selling television sets. Large and small, the sets showed identical action, but all were silent. The shop favoured pop music to bring in trade: loud music, throbbing with a heavy bass beat, wholly at odds with the cool pictures of horses and riders moving round the parade ring, anonymous in their absence of commentary.
Jasper asked a shop helper for sound with the races. Sure, he was told, but the music continued unabated.
With a feeling of unreality, Jasper watched the runners go down to the start for the Cloister Handicap Hurdle. His own beautiful Lilyglit moved fluidly, packed with power. Jasper’s jumbled feelings tore him apart. However could he have doubted his horse would win? However could he have been ready to let him win dishonestly? Jasper wanted to believe that his telephone call to Vernon Arkwright hadn’t happened. He tried to convince himself that Arkwright wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway to impede Storm Cone. Not Storm Cone or any other horse. Lilyglit would win without help... he had to win to pay the debts... but the weights favoured Storm Cone... and if Moggie Reilly couldn’t be bought, he had to be stopped...
Jasper’s thoughts pendulumed from self-loathing to self-justification, from belief in Lilyglit to a vision of poverty. He’d never in his life earned even a bus fare — he rarely went on a bus — and he’d had no training in anything. How could he provide for a wife and four children? And how deep ran his belief in his own honour when at the first test it had crumbled? When his first solution to financial heartbreak had been to bribe a jockey?
On the multiple silent screens the Cloister runners lined up and set off, with Lilyglit fast away and setting the pace as usual.
Nothing bad would happen, Jasper told himself. Lilyglit would stay in front all the way. He watched the close-up of his favourite crossing the winning line first time round, and saw him set off round the top bend, only his rump-end clearly showing.
The television camera operator, focusing on Lilyglit, missed Vernon Arkwright’s swerve towards Storm Cone but, with a wild swing of his lens caught the moment when Moggie Reilly, unbalanced, flew out of his saddle. Mostly hidden though he was by white rails, by Storm Cone himself, and by other horses, Moggie Reilly, in his scarlet and orange silks, could be glimpsed struggling, and finally with help, winning his fight against gravity. The banks of screens showed him jumping the next flight of hurdles without control of reins or stirrups and then, immediate story over, swung back to the leader, to Lilyglit, now far and by many lengths established in the lead.
Jasper’s whole body went cold with sweat. His mind refused to accept what his eyes had seen. He couldn’t... he couldn’t have offered to pay to have Moggie Reilly put in danger of hideous injury... it was impossible.
And Moggie Reilly was still there, on his horse, without his feet in the stirrups, but still trying to make up lost ground, still trying to catch the five or six runners ahead, but with no hope of winning.
Vernon Arkwright had dropped back out of television sight, his task accomplished. The screens all switched to Lilyglit galloping alone, uncatchable now and stretching with long sweeping strides towards the last hurdle.
I’ve won, Jasper thought, and felt little joy in it.
Lilyglit fell.
Lilyglit lay inert on the green turf.
The television picture switched to the finish. Storm Cone’s violent colours flashed there inconclusively, and after a moment the focus was back on Lilyglit, still unmoving, looking dead.
Jasper Billington Innes all but fainted in the shop
Somewhere in the depth of the store a control button, pressed, changed the racing programme to a children’s tea-time frolic. Three walls full of identical cartoon characters wobbled about simultaneously, uttering unheard squeaks and platitudes. They drew in a laughing audience (which the racing had not) but the thump-thump deafening background music drummed on and on.
Jasper walked dizzily out of the store and on jerky uncoordinated legs made his way back towards the multi-storey park where he’d left his car when he’d decided where to go to watch the Cloister.
He unlocked the car door and in mental agony sat in the driver’s seat listing again his dreadful woes.
Lilyglit — he couldn’t bear it — was dead. Dead, uninsured, worth nothing: and he was now heavily in debt to Percy Driffield for his last desperate bet.