I nodded.
‘And Jody is planning to run Energise at Stratford on Avon in the name of Padellic?’
‘I would think so,’ I said.
‘So would I.’
‘Only it’s not entirely so simple.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because,’ I said, ‘I’ve found two other races for which Padellic is entered, at Nottingham and Lingfield. All the races arc ten to fourteen days ahead and there’s no telling which Jody will choose.’
He frowned. ‘What difference does it make, which he chooses?’
I told him.
He listened with his eyes wide open and the eyebrows disappearing upwards into his hair. At the end, he was smiling.
‘So how do you propose to find out which race he’s going for?’ he asked.
‘I thought,’ I said, ‘that we might mobilise your friend Bert. He’d do a lot for you.’
‘What, exactly?’
‘Do you think you could persuade him to apply for a job in one of Ganser Mays’ betting shops?’
Charlie began to laugh. ‘How much can I tell him?’
‘Only what to look for. Not why.’
‘You slay me, Steven.’
‘And another thing,’ I said, ‘how much do you know about the limitations of working hours for truck drivers?’
9
Snow was falling when I flew out of Heathrow, thin scurrying flakes in a driving wind. Behind me I left a half-finished lock, a half-mended car and a half-formed plan.
Charlie had telephoned to say Bert Huggerneck had been taken on at one of the shops formerly owned by his ex-boss and I had made cautious enquiries from the auctioneers at Doncaster. I’d had no success. They had no record of the name of the person who’d bought Padellic. Cash transactions were common. They couldn’t possibly remember who had bought one particular cheap horse three months earlier. End of enquiry.
Owen had proclaimed himself as willing as Charlie to help in any way he could. Personal considerations apart, he said, whoever had bent the Lamborghini deserved hanging. When I came back, he would help me build the scaffold.
The journey from snow to sunshine took eight hours. Seventy-five degrees at Miami airport and only a shade cooler outside the hotel on Miami Beach; and it felt great. Inside the hotel the air-conditioning brought things nearly back to an English winter, but my sixth-floor room faced straight towards the afternoon sun. I drew back the closed curtains and opened the window, and let heat and light flood in.
Below, round a glittering pool, tall palm trees swayed in the sea wind. Beyond, the concrete edge to the hotel grounds led immediately down to a narrow strip of sand and the frothy white waves edging the Atlantic, with mile upon mile of deep blue water stretching away to the lighter blue horizon.
I had expected Miami Beach to be garish and was unprepared for its beauty. Even the ranks of huge white slabs of hotels with rectangular windows piercing their façades in a uniform geometrical pattern held a certain grandeur, punctuated and softened as they were by scattered palms.
Round the pool people lay in rows on day beds beside white fringed sun umbrellas, soaking up ultra-violet like a religion. I changed out of my travel-sticky clothes and went for a swim in the sea, paddling lazily in the warm January water and sloughing off cares like dead skin. Jody Leeds was five thousand miles away, in another world. Easy, and healing, to forget him.
Upstairs again, showered and dressed in slacks and cotton shirt I checked my watch for the time to telephone Allie. After the letters, we had exchanged cables, though not in code because the cable company didn’t like it.
I sent, ‘What address Miami.’
She replied: ‘Telephone four two six eight two after six any evening.’
When I called her it was five past six on January fifth, local time. The voice which answered was not hers and for a soggy moment I wondered if the Western Union had jumbled the message as they often did, and that I should never find her.
‘Miss Ward? Do you mean Miss Alexandra?’
‘Yes,’ I said with relief.
‘Hold the line, please.’
After a pause came the familiar voice, remembered but suddenly fresh. ‘Hallo?’
‘Allie... It’s Steven.’
‘Hi.’ Her voice was laughing. ‘I’ve won close on fifty dollars if you’re in Miami.’
‘Collect it,’ I said.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘We have a date,’ I said reasonably.
‘Oh sure.’
‘Where do I find you?’
‘Twelve twenty-four Garden Island,’ she said. ‘Any cab will bring you. Come right out, it’s time for cocktails.’
Garden Island proved to be a shady offshoot of land with wide enough channels surrounding it to justify its name. The cab rolled slowly across twenty yards of decorative iron bridge and came to a stop outside twelve twenty-four. I paid off the driver and rang the bell.
From the outside the house showed little. The whitewashed walls were deeply obscured by tropical plants and the windows by insect netting. The door itself looked solid enough for a bank.
Allie opened it. Smiled widely. Gave me a noncommittal kiss.
‘This is my cousin’s house,’ she said. ‘Come in.’
Behind its secretive front the house was light and large and glowing with clear, uncomplicated colours. Blue, sea-green, bright pink, white and orange; clean and sparkling.
‘My cousin Minty,’ Allie said, ‘and her husband, Warren Barbo.’
I shook hands with the cousins. Minty was neat, dark and utterly self-possessed in lemon-coloured beach pyjamas. Warren was large, sandy and full of noisy good humour. They gave me a tall, iced, unspecified drink and led me into a spacious glass-walled room for a view of the setting sun.
Outside in the garden the yellowing rays fell on a lush lawn, a calm pool and white painted lounging chairs. All peaceful and prosperous and a million miles from blood, sweat and tears.
‘Alexandra tells us you’re interested in horses,’ Warren said, making host-like conversation. ‘I don’t know how long you reckon on staying, but there’s a racemeet at Hialeah right now, every day this week. And the bloodstock sales, of course, in the evenings. I’ll be going myself some nights and I’d be glad to have you along.’
The idea pleased me, but I turned to Allie.
‘What are your plans?’
‘Millie and I split up,’ she said without visible regret. ‘She said when we were through with Christmas and New Year she would be off to Japan for a spell, so I grabbed a week down here with Minty and Warren.’
‘Would you come to the races, and the sales?’
‘Sure.’
‘I have four days,’ I said.
She smiled brilliantly but without promise. Several other guests arrived for drinks at that point and Allie said she would fetch the canapés. I followed her to the kitchen.
‘You can carry the stone crabs,’ she said, putting a large dish into my hands. ‘And okay, after a while we can sneak out and eat some place else.’
For an hour I helped hand round those understudies for a banquet, American-style canapés. Allie’s delicious work. I ate two or three and like a true male chauvinist meditated on the joys of marrying a good cook.
I found Minty at my side, her hand on my arm, her gaze following mine.
‘She’s a great girl,’ she said. ‘She swore you would come.’
‘Good,’ I said with satisfaction.
Her eyes switched sharply to mine with a grin breaking out. ‘She told us to be careful what we said to you, because you always understood the implications, not just the words. And I guess she was right.’
‘You’ve only told me that she wanted me to come and thought I liked her enough to do it.’
‘Yeah, but...’ She laughed. ‘She didn’t actually say all that.’