‘No... I didn’t know about Macrahinish. I mean, I didn’t know he was a vet, or that he could over-rule Jody. I expected Jody just to try to steal the horse and I wanted to catch him in the act. Catch him physically committing a positive criminal act which he couldn’t possibly explain away. I wanted to force the racing authorities, more than the police, to see that Jody was not the innocent little underdog they believed.’
Rupert thought it over. ‘Why didn’t you think he would kill him?’
‘Well... it did cross my mind, but on balance I thought it unlikely, because Energise is such a good horse. I thought Jody would want to hide him away somewhere so that he could make a profit on him later, even if he sold him as a point-to-pointer. Energise represents money, and Jody has never missed a trick in that direction.’
‘But Macrahinish wanted him dead,’ Rupert said.
I sighed. ‘I suppose he thought it safer.’
Rupert smiled. ‘You had put them in a terrible fix. They couldn’t risk you being satisfied with getting your horse back. They couldn’t be sure you couldn’t somehow prove they had stolen it originally. But if you no longer had it, you would have found it almost impossible to make allegations stick.’
‘That’s right,’ Charlie agreed. ‘That’s exactly what Steven thought.’
‘Also,’ I said, ‘Jody wouldn’t have been able to bear the thought of me getting the better of him. Apart from safety and profit, he would have taken Energise back simply for revenge.’
‘You know what?’ Charlie said, ‘it’s my guess that he probably put his entire bank balance on Padellic at Stratford, thinking it was Energise, and when Padellic turned up sixth he lost the lot. And that in itself is a tidy little motive for revenge.’
‘Here,’ Bert said appreciatively. ‘I wonder how much Ganser bleeding Mays is down the drain for! Makes you bleeding laugh, don’t it? There they all were, thinking they were backing a ringer, and we’d gone and put the real Padellic back where he belonged.’
‘Trained by Rupert,’ I murmured, ‘to do his best.’
Rupert looked at us one by one and shook his head. ‘You’re a lot of rogues.’
We drank our brandy and didn’t dispute it.
‘Where did the American horse come from?’ Rupert asked.
‘Miami.’
‘No... This morning.’
‘A quiet little stable in the country,’ I said. ‘We had him brought to the census point...’
‘And you should have bleeding seen him,’ Bert interrupted gleefully. ‘Our capitalist here, I mean. Whizzing those three horses in and out of horseboxes faster than the three card trick.’
‘I must say,’ Rupert said thoughtfully, ‘that I’ve wondered just how he managed it.’
‘He took bleeding Energise out of Jody’s box and put it in the empty stall of the trailer which brought Black Fire, Then he put Padellic where Energise had been, in Jody’s box. Then he put bleeding Black Fire where Padellic had been, in your box, that is. All three of them buzzing in a circle like a bleeding merry-go-round.’
Charlie said, smiling, ‘All change at the census. Padellic started from here and went to Stratford. Black Fire started from the country and came here. And Energise started from Jody’s...’ He stopped.
‘And went to where?’ Rupert asked.
I shook my head. ‘He’s safe, I promise you.’ Safe with Allie at Hantsford Manor, with Miss Johnston and Mrs Fairchild-Smith. ‘We’ll leave him where he is for a week or two.’
‘Yeah,’ Bert said, explaining. ‘Because, see, we’ve had Jody Leeds and that red-eyed hunk of muscle of his exploding all over us with temper-temper, but what about that other one? What about that other one we’ve kicked right where it hurts, eh? We don’t want to risk Energise getting the chop after all from Mr Squeezer bleeding Ganser down the bleeding drain Mays.’
16
Owen and I went back to London. I drove, with him sitting beside me fitfully dozing and pretending in between times that he didn’t have a headache.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘I know what it feels like. You’ve got a proper thumper and notwithstanding that snide crack to the doctor about your boss not letting you take a couple of days off, that’s what you’re going to get.’
He smiled.
‘I’m sorry about your head,’ I said.
‘I know.’
‘How?’
‘Charlie said.’
I glanced across at him. His face in the glow from the dashboard looked peaceful and contented. ‘It’s been,’ he said drowsily, ‘a humdinger of a day.’
It was four in the morning when we reached the house and pulled into the driveway. He woke up slowly and shivered, his eyes fuzzy with fatigue.
‘You’re sleeping in my bed,’ I said,‘ and I’m taking the sofa.’ He opened his mouth. ‘Don’t argue,’ I added.
‘All right.’
I locked the car and we walked to the front door, and that’s where things went wrong.
The front door was not properly shut. Owen was too sleepy to realise at once, but my heart dropped to pavement level the instant I saw it.
Burglars, I thought dumbly. Today of all days.
I pushed the door open. Everything was quiet. There was little furniture in the hall and nothing looked disturbed. Upstairs, though, it would be like a blizzard...
‘What is it?’ said Owen, realising that something was wrong.
‘The workshop door,’ I said, pointing.
‘Oh no!’
That too was ajar, and there was no question of the intruder having used a key. The whole lock area was split, the raw wood showing in jagged layers up and down the jamb.
We walked along the carpeted passage, pushed the door wider, and took one step through on to concrete.
One step, and stopped dead.
The workshop was an area of complete devastation.
All the lights were on. All the cupboard doors and drawers were open, and everything which should have been in them was out and scattered and smashed. The work benches were overturned and the racks of tools were torn from their moorings and great chunks of plaster had been gouged out of the walls.
All my designs and drawings had been ripped to pieces. All the prototype toys seemed to have been stamped on.
Tins of oil and grease had been opened, and the contents emptied on to the mess, and the paint I’d used on the census notices was splashed on everything the oil had missed.
The machines themselves...
I swallowed. I was never going to make anything else on those machines. Not ever again.
Not burglars, I thought aridly.
Spite.
I felt too stunned to speak and I imagine it was the same with Owen because for an appreciable time we both just stood there, immobile and silent. The mess before us screamed out its message of viciousness and evil, and the intensity of the hate which had committed such havoc made me feel literally sick.
On feet which seemed disconnected from my legs I took a couple of steps forward.
There was a flicker of movement on the edge of my vision away behind the half-open door. I spun on my toe with every primeval instinct raising hairs in instant alarm, and what I saw allowed no reassurance whatsoever.
Ganser Mays stood there, waiting like a hawk. The long nose seemed a sharp beak, and his eyes behind the metal-rimmed spectacles glittered with mania. He was positioning his arms for a scything downward swing, which was the movement I’d seen, and in his hands he held a heavy long-handled axe.
I leapt sideways a thousandth of a second before the killing edge swept through the place where I’d been standing.
‘Get help,’ I shouted breathlessly to Owen. ‘Get out and get help.’