I focused on the little group. Watched it down into the valley. Definitely a Land-Rover and animal trailer. I got out of the car and watched it crawling up the hill, until finally I could make out the number plate. Definitely Allie.
Stepping a pace on to the road, I flagged her down. She pulled into the lay-by, opened her window, and looked worried.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Not a thing.’ I kissed her. ‘I got here too early, so I thought I’d say good morning.’
‘You louse. When I saw you standing there waving I thought the whole darned works were all fouled up.’
‘You found the way, then.’
‘No problem.’
‘Sleep well?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I guess so. But oh boy, that’s some crazy house. Nothing works. If you want to flush the John you have to get Miss Johnston. No one else has the touch. I guess they’re really sweet, though, the poor old ducks.’
‘Shades of days gone by,’ I said.
‘Yeah, that’s exactly right. They showed me their scrap books. They were big in the horse world thirty-forty years ago. Won things at shows all over. Now they’re struggling on a fixed income and I guess they’ll soon be starving.’
‘Did they say so?’
‘Of course not. You can see it, though.’
‘Is Black Fire all right?’
‘Oh sure. They helped me load him up, which was lucky because I sure would have been hopeless on my own.’
‘Was he any trouble?’
‘Quiet as a little lamb.’
I walked round to the back of the trailer and looked in over the three-quarter door. Black Fire occupied the left-hand stall. A full hay net lay in the right. The ladies might starve, but their horses wouldn’t.
I went back to Allie. ‘Well...’ I said. ‘Good luck.’
‘To you too.’
She gave me the brilliant smile, shut the window and with care pulled out of the lay-by into the stream of northbound traffic.
Time and timing, the two essentials.
I sat in the car metaphorically chewing my nails and literally looking at my watch every half minute.
Padellic’s race was the last of the day, the sixth race, the slot often allotted to that least crowd-pulling of events, the novice hurdle. Because of the short January afternoon, the last race was scheduled for three-thirty.
Jody’s horses, like those of most other trainers, customarily arrived at a racecourse about two hours before they were due to run. Not often later, but quite often sooner.
The journey by horsebox from Jody’s stable to Stratford on Avon racecourse took two hours. The very latest, therefore, that Jody’s horsebox would set out would be eleven-thirty.
I thought it probable it would start much sooner than that. The latest time allowed little margin for delays on the journey or snags on arrival and I knew that if I were Jody and Ganser Mays and had so much at stake, I would add a good hour for contingencies.
Ten-thirty... But suppose it was earlier...
I swallowed. I had had to guess.
If for any reason Jody had sent the horse very early and it had already gone, all our plans were for nothing.
If he had sent it the day before... If he had sent it with another trainer’s horses, sharing the cost... If for some unimaginable reason the driver took a different route...
The ifs multiplied like stinging ants.
Nine-fifteen.
I got out of the car and extended the aerial of a large efficient walkie-talkie. No matter that British civilians were supposed to have permission in triple triplicate before operating them: in this case we would be cluttering the air for seconds only, and lighting flaming beacons on hill-tops would have caused a lot more fuss.
‘Charlie?’ I said, transmitting.
‘All fine here.’
‘Great.’ I paused for five seconds, and transmitted again. ‘Owen?’
‘Here, sir.’
‘Great.’
Owen and Charlie could both hear me but they couldn’t hear each other, owing to the height of the Downs where I sat. I left the aerial extended and the switches to ‘receive’, and put the gadget back in the car.
The faint drizzle persisted, but my mouth was dry.
I thought about the five of us, sitting and waiting. I wondered if the others like me were having trouble with their nerves.
The walkie-talkie crackled suddenly. I picked it up.
‘Sir?’
‘Owen?’
‘Pete Duveen just passed me.’
‘Fine.’
I could hear the escaping tension in my own voice and the excitement in his. The on-time arrival of Pete Duveen signalled the real beginning. I put the walkie-talkie down again and was disgusted to see my hand shaking.
Pete Duveen in his horsebox drove into the lay-by nine and a half minutes after he had passed Owen, who was stationed in sight of the road to Jody’s stable. Pete owned a pale blue horsebox with his name, address and telephone number painted in large black and red letters on the front and back. I had seen the box and its owner often at race meetings and it was he, in fact, whom I had engaged at Sandown on my abortive attempt to prevent Jody taking Energise home.
Pete Duveen shut down his engine and jumped from the cab.
‘Morning, Mr Scott.’
‘Morning,’ I said, shaking hands. ‘Glad to see you.’
‘Anything to oblige.’ He grinned cheerfully, letting me know both that he thought I was barmy and also that I had every right to be, as long as I was harmless and, moreover, paying him.
He was well-built and fair, with weatherbeaten skin and a threadbare moustache. Open-natured, sensible and honest. A one-man transport firm, and making a go of it.
‘You brought my horse?’ I said.
‘Sure thing.’
‘And how has he travelled?’
‘Not a peep out of him the whole way.’
‘Mind if I take a look at him?’ I said.
‘Sure thing,’ he said again. ‘But honest, he didn’t act up when we loaded him and I wouldn’t say he cared a jimmy riddle one way or another.’
I unclipped and opened the part of the side of the horsebox which formed the entrance ramp for the horses. It was a bigger box than Jody’s, but otherwise much the same. The horse stood in the front row of stalls in the one furthest across from the ramp, and he looked totally uninterested in the day’s proceedings.
‘You never know,’ I said, closing the box again. ‘He might be all the better for the change of routine.’
‘Maybe,’ Pete said, meaning he didn’t think so.
I smiled. ‘Like some coffee?’
‘Sure would.’
I opened the boot of my car, took out a thermos, and poured us each a cup.
‘Sandwich?’ I offered.
Sandwich accepted. He ate beef-and-chutney with relish. ‘Early start,’ he said, explaining his hunger. ‘You said to get here soon after nine-thirty.’
‘That’s right,’ I agreed.
‘Er... why so early?’
‘Because,’ I said reasonably, ‘I’ve other things to do all the rest of the day.’
He thought me even nuttier, but the sandwich plugged the opinion in his throat.
The sky began to brighten and the tiny-dropped drizzle dried away. I talked about racing in general and Stratford on Avon in particular, and wondered how on earth I was to keep him entertained if Jody’s box should after all not leave home until the last possible minute.
By ten-fifteen we had drunk two cups of coffee each and he had run out of energy for sandwiches. He began to move restively and make ready-for-departure signs of which I blandly took no notice. I chatted on about the pleasures of owning racehorses and my stomach bunched itself into anxious knots.
Ten-twenty. Ten twenty-five. Ten-thirty. Nothing.
It had all gone wrong, I thought. One of the things which could have sent everything awry had done so.