"Where is he entered?" I asked.
"Oh, dozens of places, I think Newbury, Cheltenham, Sandown, and so on, and he was going to start next week at Bristol." The lad's face twisted with regret as he passed the halter rope into my hand.
"I can't think what on earth persuaded the Old Man to part with him. He's a real daisy, and if I ever see him at the races not looking as good and well cared for as he does now, I'll find you and beat the living daylights out of you, I will straight. "
I had already discovered how deeply attached racing lads became to the horses they looked after, and I understood that he meant what he said.
"What's his name?" I asked.
"Sparking Plug… God awful name, he's no plug… Hey, Sparks, old boy… hey, boy… hey, old fellow…" He fondled the horse's muzzle affectionately.
We loaded him into the horse box and this time I did stay where I ought to be, in the back, looking after him. If Beckett were prepared to give a fortune for the cause, as I guessed he must have done to get hold of such an ideal horse in so few days, I was going to take good care of it.
Before we started back I took a look at the road map in the cab, and found to my satisfaction that all the race courses in the country had been marked in on it in Indian ink. I borrowed it at once, and spent the journey studying it. The courses where Sparking Plug's lad had said he was entered were nearly all in the south. Overnight stops, as requested. I grinned.
The five racecourses where the eleven horses had won were not, I found, all as far north as I had imagined. Ludlow and Stafford, in fact, could almost be considered southern, especially as I found I instinctively based my view of the whole country from Harro- gate. The five courses seemed to bear no relation to each other on the map: far from presenting a tidy circle from which a centre might be deduced, they were all more or less in a curve from northeast to southwest, and I could find no significance in then- location.
I spent the rest of the journey back as I spent most of my working hrnirs'-le^ting my mind drift over what I knew of the el^yn horses, waiting for an idea to swim to the surfScs^ikeSa fish in a pool, waiting for the disconnectefi. ^^^tosort themselves into a pattern.
But I didn't really expect this to happen yet, as I knew I had barely started, and even electronic computers won't produce answers if they are not fed enough information.
On Friday night I went down to the pub in Slaw and beat Soupy at darts. He grunted, gestured to the bar billiards, and took an easy revenge. We then drank a half pint together, eyeing each other.
Conversation between us was almost non-existent, nor was it necessary:
and shortly I wandered back to watch the darts players. They were no better than the week before.
"You beat Soupy, didn't you Clan?" one of them said.
I nodded, and immediately found a bunch of darts thrust into my hand.
"If you can beat Soupy you must be in the team."
"What team?" I asked.
"The stable darts team. We play other stables, and have a sort of Yorkshire League. Sometimes we go to Middleham or Wetherby or Richmond or sometimes they come here. Soupy's the best player in Granger's team. Could you beat him again, do you think, or was it a fluke?"
I threw three darts at the board. They all landed in the twenty. For some unknown reason I had always been able to throw straight.
"Cor," said the lads.
"Go on."
I threw three more: the twenty section got rather crowded.
"You're in the team, mate, and no nonsense," they said.
"When's the next match?" I asked.
"We had one here a fortnight ago. Next one's next
Sunday at Bumdale, after the football. You can't play football as well as darts, I suppose? " I shook my head.
"Only darts." I looked at the one dart still left in my hand. I could hit a scuttling rat with a stone; I had done it often when the men had found one round the corn bins and chased it out. I saw no reason why I couldn't hit a galloping horse with a dart: it was a much bigger target.
"Put that one in the bull," urged the lad beside me. I put it in the bull. The lads yelled with glee.
"We'll win the league this season," they grinned. Grits grinned too. But Paddy didn't.
CHAPTER FOUR
October's son and daughters came home for the weekend, the elder girl in a scarlet TR4 which I grew to know well by sight as she drove in and out past the stables, and the twins more sedately, with their father. As all three were in the habit of riding out when they were at home, Wally told me to saddle up two of my horses to go out with the first string on Saturday, Sparking Plug for me and the other for Lady Patricia Tarren.
Lady Patricia Tarren, as I discovered when I led out the horse in the half light of early dawn and held it for her to mount, was a raving beauty with a pale pink mouth and thick curly eyelashes which she knew very well how to use. She had tied a green head-scarf over her chestnut hair, and she wore a black and white harle- quined skiing jacket to keep out the cold. She was carrying some bright green woollen gloves.
"You're new," she observed, looking up at me through the eyelashes.
"What's your name?"
"Clan… miss," I said. I realized I hadn't the faintest idea what form of address an earl's daughter was accustomed to. Wally's instructions hadn't stretched that far.
"Well… give me a leg up, then."
I stood beside her obediently, but as I leaned forward to help her she ran her bare hand over my head and around my neck, and took the lobe of my right ear between her fingers. She had sharp nails, and she dug them in. Her eyes were wide with challenge. I looked straight back.
When I didn't move or say anything she presently giggled and let go and calmly put on her gloves. I gave her a leg up into the saddle and she bent down to gather the reins, and fluttered the fluffy lashes close to my face.
"You're quite a dish, aren't you, Danny boy," she said, 'with those goo goo dark eyes. "
I couldn't think of any answer to her which was at all consistent with my position. She laughed, nudged the horse's flanks, and walked off down the yard. Her sister, mounting a horse held by Grits, looked from twenty yards away in the dim light to be much fairer in colouring and very nearly as beautiful. Heaven help October, I thought, with two like that to keep an eye on.
I turned to go and fetch Sparking Plug and found October's eighteen-year-old son at my elbow. He was very like his father, but not yet as thick in body or as easily powerful in manner.
"I shouldn't pay too much attention to my twin sister," he said in a cool, bored voice, looking me up and down, 'she is apt to tease. " He nodded and strolled over to where his horse was waiting for him; and I gathered that what I had received was a warning off. If his sister behaved as provocatively with every male she met, he must have been used to delivering them.
Amused, I fetched Sparking Plug, mounted, and followed all the other horses out of the yard, up the lane, and on to the edge of the moor.
As usual on a fine morning the air and the view were exhilarating. The sun was no more than a promise on the far distant horizon and there was a beginning-of-the-world quality in the light. I watched the shadowy shapes of the horses ahead of me curving round the hill with white plumes streaming from their nostrils in the frosty air. As the glittering rim of the sun expanded into full light the colours sprang out bright and clear, the browns of the jogging horses topped with the bright stripes of the lads' ear warming knitted caps and the jolly garments of October's daughters.
October himself, accompanied by his retriever, came up on the moor in a Land Rover to see the horses work. Saturday morning, I had found, was the busiest training day of the week as far as gallops were concerned, and as he was usually in Yorkshire at the weekend he made a point of coming out to watch.