‘Have you already tried?’ I said.
‘Tried what?’ Ownslow said.
‘Swatting.’
They stared, all three of them, without expression, at some point in the air between myself and Vivian.
‘Someone has,’ I said.
Connaught Powys smiled very slightly. ‘Whatever we have done, or intend to do, about you,’ he said, ‘we are not going to be so insane as to admit it in front of a witness.’
‘You’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life,’ Glitberg said, with satisfaction.
‘Don’t go near building sites on a dark night,’ Ownslow said. ‘There’s a bit of advice, free, gratis and for nothing.’
‘How about a sailing boat on a dark night?’ I said. ‘An ocean-going sailing boat.’
I wished at once that I hadn’t said it. The unfriendliness on all three faces hardened to menace, and the whole room became very still.
Into the silence came Vivian’s voice, relaxed and drawling. ‘Ro... time you and I had a drink together, don’t you think?’
He unfolded himself from his chair, and I, feeling fairly weak at the knees, stood up from mine.
Connaught Powys, Glitberg, and Ownslow delivered a collective look of such hatred that even Vivian began to look nervous. His hand fumbled with the door knob, and as he left the room, behind me, he almost tripped over his own feet.
‘Whew,’ he said in my ear. ‘You do play with big rough boys, my dear fellow.’ He steered me this time into a luxurious little office; three armchairs, all safely unoccupied. He waved me to one of them and poured brandy into two balloons.
‘It’s not what they say,’ he said, ‘as how they say it.’
‘And what they don’t say.’
He looked at me speculatively over his glass.
‘Did you get what you wanted? I mean, was it worth your while, running under their guns?’
I smiled twistedly. ‘I think I got an answer.’
‘Well then.’
‘Yes. But it was to a question I didn’t ask.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘I’m afraid,’ I said slowly, ‘that I’ve made everything a great deal worse.’
I slept soundly at the Gloucester, but more from exhaustion than an easy mind.
From the racing page of the newspaper delivered under my door in the morning I saw that my name was down in the list of runners as the rider of Notebook in the last race at Towcester. I sucked my teeth. I hadn’t thought of asking William Finch not to include me in his list for the press, and now the whole world would learn where I would be that afternoon at four-thirty. If, that was, they bothered to turn to an insignificant race at a minor meeting on Grand National day.
‘You’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life,’ Glitberg had said.
I didn’t intend to. Life would be impossible if I feared for demons in every shadow. I wouldn’t climb trustingly into any ambulances at Towcester, but I would go and ride there. There was an awfully thin line, it seemed to me, between cowardice and caution.
Jossie, waiting outside the weighing room, sent the heeby-jeebies flying.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Notebook is here, looking his usual noble self and about to turn in his standard useless performance.’
‘Charming.’
‘The trainer’s orders to the jockey,’ she said, ‘are succinct. Stay on, and stay out of trouble. He doesn’t want you getting hurt.’
‘Nor do I,’ I said with feeling.
‘He doesn’t want anything to spoil the day if Ivansky wins the National.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Does he think he will?’
‘He flew off in the air-taxi this morning in the usual agonised euphoria,’ she said, with affection. ‘Hope zigzagging from conviction to doubt.’
Finch had sent two horses to Towcester, the second of them, Stoolery, being the real reason for Jessie’s journey. I helped her saddle it for the two mile handicap ’chase, and cheered with her on the stands when it won. The Grand National itself was transmitted on television all over the racecourse straight afterwards, so that Jossie was already consoled when Ivansky finished fifth.
‘Oh well.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s that. Dad will feel flat, the owners will feel flat, the lads will get gloomily drunk, and then they’ll all start talking about next year.’
We strolled along without much purpose and arrived at the door to the bar.
‘Like a drink?’ I asked.
‘Might pass the time.’
The bar was crowded with people dissecting the National result, and the elbowing customers jockeying for service were four deep.
‘Don’t let’s bother,’ Jossie said.
I agreed. We turned to leave, and a thin hand stretched out from the tight pressed ranks and gripped my wrist hard.
‘What do you want?’ a voice shouted over the din. ‘I’ve just got served. What do you want? Quick!’
The hand, I saw, belonged to Moira Longerman, and beyond her, scowling as usual, stood Binny Tomkins.
‘Jossie?’ I said.
‘Fruit juice. Grapefruit if poss.’
‘Two grapefruit juice,’ I said.
The hand let go and disappeared, shortly to reappear with a glass in it. I took it, and also the next issue, and finally Moira Longerman herself, followed by Binny, fought her way out of the throng, holding two glasses high to avoid having the expensive thimblefuls knocked flying.
‘How super!’ she said. ‘I saw you in the distance just now. I’ve been trying to telephone you for weeks and now I hear some extraordinary story about you being kidnapped.’
I introduced Jossie who was looking disbelieving at what Moira had said.
‘Kidnapped?’ Her eyebrows rose comically. ‘You?’
‘You may well laugh,’ I said ruefully.
Moira handed a glass to Binny, who nodded a scant thanks. Graceless man, I thought. Extraordinary to leave any woman to fight her way to get him a drink, let alone the owner of the most important horse in his yard. She was paying, of course.
‘My dear,’ Moira Longerman said to Jossie. ‘Right after Ro won the Gold Cup on my darling Tapestry, someone kidnapped him from the racecourse. Isn’t that right?’ She beamed quizzically up at my face, her blue eyes alight with friendly interest.
‘Sure is,’ I agreed.
Binny scowled some more.
‘How’s the horse?’ I said.
Binny gave me a hard stare and didn’t answer, but Moira Longerman was overflowing with news and enthusiasm.
‘I do so want you to ride Tapestry in all his races from now on, Ro, so I hope you will. He’s ready for Ascot next Wednesday, Binny says, and I’ve been trying and trying to get hold of you to see if you’ll ride him.’
Binny said sourly, ‘I’ve already engaged another jockey.’
‘Then disengage him, Binny dear.’ Underneath the friendly birdlike brightness there was the same touch of steel which had got me the Gold Cup ride in the first place. Moira might be half Binny’s physical weight but she had twice the mental muscle.
‘It might be better to let this other chap ride...’ I began.
‘No, no,’ she interrupted. ‘It’s you I want, Ro. I won’t have anyone else. I told Binny that, quite definitely, the very moment after you’d won the Cup. Now you’re back and safe again it will either be you on my horse or I won’t run him.’ She glanced defiantly at Binny, impishly at Jossie, and with a determined nod of her blonde curly head, expectantly turned to me. ‘Well? What do you say?’
‘Er,’ I said, which was hardly helpful.
‘Oh go on,’ Jossie said. ‘You’ll have to.’
Binny’s scowl switched targets. Jossie caught the full blast and showed no discomfiture at all.
‘He did win the Gold Cup,’ she said. ‘You can’t say he isn’t capable.’
‘He does say that, my dear,’ beamed Moira Longerman happily. ‘Isn’t it odd?’