I had commissions for eleven yearlings if I could find good ones at the right price, and in most cases my clients’ money was already in my bank. I should have been feeling quietly pleased with the way business was expanding but found instead a compulsive tendency to look over my shoulder for Frizzy Hair.
The fact that nothing else had happened over the weekend had not persuaded me that nothing would. The attacks still seemed senseless to me, but someone somewhere must have seen a point to them, and the point was in all likelihood still there.
Crispin had sworn on everything sacred from the Bible to his 2nd XV rugger cap that he had found the bottle of whiskey standing ready and uncapped on the kitchen table,and had smelled it as soon as he went through the door. At the tenth vehement repetition, I believed him.
Someone knew about my shoulder. Knew about my brother. Knew I kept horses in transit in my yard. Knew I was buying a horse for Kerry Sanders to give to Nicol Brevett. Someone knew a damn sight too much.
The Newmarket sale ring would have suited Kerry Sanders: a large enclosed amphitheatre, warm, well lit and endowed with tip-up armchairs. At ground level round the outside, under the higher rows of seating, were small offices rented by various bloodstock agents. Each of the large firms had its own office, and also a few individuals like Vic Vincent. One had to do a good deal of business to make the expense worth it, though the convenience was enormous. I would have arrived, I thought, when I had my own little office at every major sale ring. As it was I did my paperwork as usual in the margins of the catalogue and conducted meetings in the bar.
I turned up on the first day, Tuesday, before the first horse was sold, because often there were bargains to be had before the crowds came, and was buttonholed just inside the gate by Ronnie North.
‘I got your cheque for River God,’ he said. ‘Now tell me, wasn’t that just what you wanted?’
‘You should have seen it.’
He looked pained. ‘I saw it race last spring.’
‘I shouldn’t think it had been groomed since.’
‘You can’t have everything for that money.’
He was a small whippet of a man, as quick on his feet as in his deals. He never looked anyone in the face for long. His eyes were busy as usual, looking over my shoulder to see who was arriving, who going and what chance of the quick buck he might be missing.
‘Did he like it?’ he asked.
‘Who?’
‘Nicol Brevett.’
Something in my stillness drew his attention. The wandering eyes snapped back to my face and he took rapid stock of his indiscretion.
I said, ‘Did you know it was for Nicol before you sold it to me?’
‘No,’ he said, but his fractional hesitation meant ‘yes’.
‘Who told you?’
‘Common knowledge,’ he said.
‘No, it wasn’t. How did you know?’
‘Can’t remember.’ He showed signs of having urgent business elsewhere and edged three steps sideways.
‘You just lost a client,’ I said.
He stopped. ‘Honest, Jonah, I can’t tell you. Leave it at that, there’s a pal. More than my life’s worth to say more, and if you want to do me a favour you’ll forget I mentioned...’
‘A favour for a favour,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Start the bidding for number four.’
‘You want to buy it?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
He looked at me doubtfully. No one who wanted to buy liked to show eagerness by making the first bid, but on the other hand no astute bloodstock dealer ever told another which horse he was after. I produced all the earnest naivety I could muster and he smirked a little and agreed to bid. When he had darted off I slowly followed, and saw him from across the paddock talking excitedly to Vic Vincent.
Together they turned the first few pages of the catalogue and read the small print. Vic Vincent shook his head. Ronnie North talked quickly, but Vic Vincent shook his head even harder.
I shrugged. All I’d proved was that Ronnie North wouldn’t do me a favour without clearing it with Vic Vincent. It didn’t follow that it was Vic Vincent who had told him that River God was for Nicol Brevett.
The first few horses were being led up from the stables to the collecting rings, and I leaned on the rails and took a close look at number four. A chestnut colt grown out of proportion with a rear end too tall for its front. Time would probably right that, but would do little to improve the narrow head. Its breeding was fairly good, its full sister had won a decent race, and it was being offered for sale by Mrs Antonia Huntercombe of Paley Stud.
‘Morning, Jonah,’ said a voice half behind me.
I turned. Jiminy Bell, half ingratiating, half aggressive, as at Ascot. A great one for arriving unheard at one’s elbow. He looked pinched with cold in the brisk wind because his overcoat was too thin for the job.
‘Hullo,’ I said. ‘Care to earn a tenner?’
‘You’re on.’ No hesitation at all.
‘Start the bidding on number four.’
‘What?’ His mouth stayed open with surprise.
‘Go up to two thousand.’
‘But you never... you never...’
‘Just this once,’ I said.
He gulped, nodded, and presently disappeared. He was less obvious than Ronnie North, but in a remarkably short time he too fetched up beside Vic Vincent, and he too got the emphatic shake of the head.
I sighed. Sophie’s Aunt Antonia was about to make another loss. For Sophie’s sake I had tried to ensure her a good price, but if Vic Vincent had put the evil eye on the colt I was going to get it for almost nothing. I thought on the whole that I had better not buy it. I wouldn’t be able to explain it to either Sophie or her aunt.
Very much to my surprise I found Vic himself drifting round to my side. He rested his elbows on the rails beside me, and nodded a greeting.
‘Jonah.’
‘Vic.’
We exchanged minimal smiles that were more a social convention than an expression of friendship. Yet I could have liked him, and once had, and still would have done had he not twice pinched my clients by telling them lies.
It was so easy to believe Vic Vincent. He had a large weatherbeaten face with a comfortable double chin and a full mouth which smiled easily and turned up at the corners even in repose. A lock of reddish brown hair growing forward over his forehead gave him a boyish quality although he must have been forty, and even his twinkling blue eyes looked sincere.
The bonhomie was barely skin deep. When I protested about my lost clients he had laughed and told me that all was fair in love, war and bloodstock, and if I didn’t like the heat to get out of the kitchen but he would stoke up the fire as much as he liked.
He turned up his sheepskin coat collar round his ears and banged one thickly gloved hand against the other.
‘Parky this morning.’
‘Yes.’
‘I heard you had a spot of bother at Ascot,’ he said.
‘That’s right.’
‘Constantine Brevett told me.’
‘I see.’
‘Yeah.’ He paused. ‘If Mrs Sanders wants any more horses, you’d better let me get them.’
‘Did Constantine say so?’
‘He did.’
He watched the first horses walk round the ring. Number four looked reasonable from behind but scratchy in front.
‘I bought a colt just like that, once,’ Vic observed. ‘I thought his shoulders would develop. They never did. Always a risk when they grow unevenly.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said. Poor Antonia.
He stayed a few more seconds, but he had delivered his two messages as succinctly as if he’d said straight out ‘Don’t step on my toes, and don’t buy that colt.’ He gave me the sort of reinforcing nod that the boss gives the cowed and ambled bulkily away.