‘No.’ I smiled involuntarily. I tended not to be able to sit comfortably in cars whenever it went out.
‘Thanks to you,’ I added.
‘As long as you realise.’
‘Mm.’
They had taken the certificate of sale out of my pocket and had made Kerry Sanders write a receipt for the cash. Then they had simply walked away towards the centre of operations to claim their prize. Kerry Sanders had not felt like trying to stop them and I had still hardly been able to put one foot in front of the other with any certainty, and the one sure thing on that unsure afternoon was that Frizzy Hair and his pal would waste no time in driving off with Hearse Puller to destinations unknown. No one would question their right to the horse. Rapid post-sale sales were common.
‘Why?’ she said for the twentieth time. ‘Why did they want that goddam horse? Why that one?’
‘I absolutely don’t know.’
She sat fidgeting.
‘You said you’d be able to drive by four.’
I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Five past.
‘Right.’ I removed my head from the window and gave it a small tentative shake. Reasonable order seemed to have returned in that department so I started the engine and turned out towards London. She made a rapid assessment of my ability to drive and relaxed a shade after we had gone half a mile without hitting anything. At that point grievance took over from shock.
‘I’m going to complain,’ she said with vigour.
‘Good idea. Who to?’
‘Who to?’ She sounded surprised. ‘To the auctioneers, of course.’
‘They’ll commiserate and do nothing.’
‘Of course they will. They’ll have to.’
I knew they wouldn’t. I said so.
She turned to look at me. ‘The Jockey Club, then. The racing authorities.’
‘They have no control... no jurisdiction... over the Sales.’
‘Who does, then?’
‘No one.’
Her voice sharpened with frustration. ‘We’ll tell the police.’
‘If you like.’
‘The Ascot police?’
‘All right.’
So I stopped at the police station and we told our story. Statements were taken and signed and no doubt filed as soon as we left, because as an overworked sergeant tiredly pointed out, we had not been robbed. A bang on the head, very nasty, very reprehensible, a lot of it about. But my wallet hadn’t been stolen, had it? Not even my watch? And these rough customers had actually given Mrs Sanders a profit of two hundred pounds. Where was the crime in that, might one ask?
We drove away, me in resignation, Kerry Sanders in a boiling fury.
‘I will not be pushed around,’ she exploded. ‘Someone... someone has got to do something.’
‘Mr Brevett?’ I suggested.
She gave me one of her sharp glances and noticeably cooled her voice.
‘I don’t want him bothered with this.’
‘No,’ I said.
We drove ten miles in thoughtful silence. She said eventually, ‘Can you find me another horse by Friday?’
‘I could try.’
‘Try, then.’
‘If I succeed can you guarantee that no one else will knock me on the head and pinch it?’
‘For a man who’s supposed to be tough,’ she said, ‘You’re soft.’
This dampening opinion led to a further five miles of silence. Then she said, ‘You didn’t know those two men, did you?’
‘No.’
‘But they knew you. They knew about your shoulder.’
‘They did indeed.’
‘You’d thought of that, had you?’ She sounded disappointed.
‘Mm,’ I said.
I steered with care through the London traffic and stopped outside the Berkeley Hotel, where she was staying.
‘Come in for a drink,’ she said. ‘You look as if you could use one.’
‘Er...’
‘Aw, c’mon,’ she said. ‘I won’t eat you.’
I smiled. ‘All right.’
Her suite looked out over Hyde Park with groups of riding school ponies trotting in the Row and knots of household cavalry practising for state occasions. Late afternoon sunshine slanted into the lilac and blue sitting-room and made prisms of the ice-cubes in our glasses.
She protested over my choice.
‘Are you sure you want Perrier?’ she said.
‘I like it.’
‘When I said come up for a drink, I meant... a drink.’
‘I’m thirsty,’ I said reasonably. ‘And a touch concussed. And I’m driving.’
‘Oh.’ Her manner changed subtly. ‘I understand,’ she said.
I sat down without being asked. It was all very well having had extensive experience of bangs on the head, but this had been the first for three years and the interval had not improved my speed of recovery.
She gave me a disillusioned glance and took off her beautiful muddied coat. Underneath she wore the sort of simplicity only the rich could afford on the sort of shape that was beyond price. She enjoyed quietly my silent appreciation and took it naturally as the most commonplace courtesy.
‘Now look,’ she said. ‘You haven’t said a goddam thing about what happened this afternoon. Now what I’d like is for you to tell me just what you think those men were up to, back there.’
I drank the fizzy water and fractionally shook my head.
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you must have ideas,’ she protested.
‘No...’ I paused. ‘Did you tell anyone you were going to Ascot Sales? Did you mention me? Did you mention Hearse Puller?’
‘Hey, now,’ she said, ‘It was you they were after, not me.’
‘How do we know?’
‘Well... your shoulder.’
‘Your horse.’
She moved restlessly across the room, threw the coat over a chair and came back. The slim boots had dirty water marks round the edges of the uppers which looked incongruous against the pale mauve carpet.
‘I told maybe three people,’ she said. ‘Pauli Teksa was the first.’
I nodded. Pauli Teksa was the American who had given Kerry Sanders my name.
‘Pauli said you were an honest bloodstock agent and therefore as rare as fine Sundays.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Then,’ she said pensively, ‘I told the guy who fixes my hair.’
‘Who what?’
‘Hairdresser,’ she said. ‘Right downstairs here in the hotel.’
‘Oh.’
‘And I had lunch with Madge yesterday... Lady Ros-common. Just a friend.’
She sat down suddenly opposite in an armchair with a blue and white chintz cover. A large gin and french had brought sharp colour to her cheeks and a lessening in her slightly dictatorial manner. I had the impression that for the first time she was considering me as a man instead of as an employee who had fallen down (more or less literally) on the job.
‘Do you want to take your coat off?’ she asked.
‘I can’t stay,’ I said.
‘Well then... Do you want more of that goddam water?’
‘Please.’
She refilled my glass, brought it back, sat down.
‘Don’t you ever drink?’ she said.
‘Not often.’
‘Alcoholic?’ she said sympathetically.
I thought it odd of her to ask such a personal question, but I smiled, and said, ‘No.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Nearly all the non-drinkers I know are reformed alcoholics.’
‘I admire them,’ I said. ‘But no. I was hooked on coke at six. Never graduated.’
‘Oh.’ She seemed to lose interest in me. She said, ‘I am on the committee of a private hospital back home.’
‘Which dries out drunks?’
She didn’t care for the bluntness. ‘We treat people with a problem. Yes.’
‘Successfully?’
She sighed. ‘Some.’