‘What about Binny?’
‘I think he’s gone really mad,’ she said. ‘Insane. I went over to his stables yesterday morning to see if Tapestry was all right after his race, and he wouldn’t let me into the yard. Binny, I mean. All the gates were shut and locked with padlocks and chains. It’s insane. He came out and stood on the inside of the gate to the yard where Tapestry is, and waved his arms about, and told me to go away. I mean, it’s insane.’
‘It certainly is.’
‘I told him he could have caused a terrible accident, tampering with that rein, and he screamed that he hadn’t done it, and I couldn’t prove it, and anything that happened to you was my fault for insisting that you rode the horse.’ She paused for breath. ‘He looked so... well, so dangerous. And I’d never thought of him being dangerous, but just a fool. You’ll think I’m silly, but I was quite frightened.’
‘I don’t think you were silly,’ I said truthfully.
‘And then it came to me, like a revelation,’ she said. ‘That it had been Binny who had kidnapped you before, both times, and that he’d done it again, or something even worse...’
‘Moira...’
‘Yes, but you didn’t see him. And then there was no answer to your telephone. I know you’ll think I’m silly, but I was so worried.’
‘I’m very grateful...’ I started to say.
‘You see, Binny never thought you’d win the Gold Cup,’ she said, rushing on. ‘And the very second you had, I told him you’d ride Tapestry always from then on, and he was furious, absolutely furious. You wouldn’t believe. So of course he had you kidnapped at once, so that you’d be out of the way, and I’d have to have someone else, and then you escaped, and you were going to ride at Ascot, so he kidnapped you again, and he went absolutely berserk when I wouldn’t let Tapestry go at Ascot with another jockey. And I made such a fuss in the press that he had to let you out, and so he had to try something else, like cutting the rein, and now I think he’s so insane that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. I mean, I think he thinks that if he kidnaps you, or kills you even, that I’ll have to get another jockey for the Whitbread Gold Cup a week next Saturday, and honestly I think he’s out of his senses, and really awfully dangerous because of that obsession, and so you see I really was terribly worried.’
‘I do see,’ I said. ‘And I’m incredibly grateful for your concern.’
‘But what are you going to do?’ she wailed.
‘About Binny? Listen, Moira, please listen.’
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice calming down. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Do absolutely nothing.’
‘But Roland,’ she protested.
‘Listen. I’m sure you are quite right that Binny is in a dangerous mental state, but anything you or I could do would make him worse. Let him cool down. Give him several days. Then send a horsebox with if possible a police escort — and you can get policemen for private jobs like that, you just apply to the local nick, and offer to pay for their time — collect Tapestry, and send him to another trainer.’
‘Roland!’
‘You can carry loyalty too far,’ I said. ‘Binny’s done marvels with training the horse, I agree, but you owe him nothing. If it weren’t for your own strength of mind he’d have manipulated the horse to make money only for himself, as well you know, and your enjoyment would have come nowhere.’
‘But about kidnapping you...’ she began.
‘No, Moira,’ I said. ‘He didn’t; it wasn’t Binny. I don’t doubt he was delighted it was done, but he didn’t do it.’
She was astonished. ‘He must have.’
‘No.’
‘But why not?’
‘Lots of complicated reasons. But for the one thing, he wouldn’t have kidnapped me straight after the Gold Cup. He wouldn’t have had any need to. If he’d wanted to abduct me to stop me riding Tapestry, he wouldn’t have done it until just before the horse’s next race, nearly three weeks later.’
‘Oh,’ she said doubtfully.
‘The first abduction was quite elaborate,’ I said. ‘Binny couldn’t possibly have had time to organise it between the Gold Cup and the time I was taken, which was only an hour or so later.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, Moira, quite sure. And when he really did try to stop me winning, he did very direct and simple things, not difficult like kidnapping. He offered me a bribe, and cut the rein. Much more in character. He always was a fool, and now he’s a dangerous fool, but he isn’t a kidnapper.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said, sounding disappointed. ‘And I was so sure.’
She cheered up a bit and asked me to ride Tapestry in the Whitbread. I said I’d be delighted, and she deflated my ego by passing on the opinion of a press friend of her to the effect that Tapestry was one of those horses who liked to be in charge, and an amateur who just sat there doing nothing very much was exactly what suited him best.
Grinning to myself I put down the receiver. The press friend was right; but who cared.
For the rest of the morning I tried to make inroads into the backlog of correspondence, but found it impossible to concentrate. The final fruit of two hours of reading letters and shuffling them around, was three heaps marked ‘overdue’, ‘urgent’, and ‘if you don’t get these off today there will be trouble’.
Debbie looked down her pious nose at my inability to apply myself, and primly remarked that I was under-utilising her capability. Under-utilising... Ye Gods! Where did the gobbledegook jargon come from?
‘You mean I’m not giving you enough to do.’
‘That’s what I said.’
At luncheon I stayed alone in the office and stared into space: and my telephone rang again.
Johnny Frederick, full of news.
‘Do you mind if I send you a bill for ’phone calls?’ he said. ‘I must have spent thirty quid. I’ve been talking all morning.’
‘I’ll send you a cheque.’
‘O.K. Well, mate, pin back your lugholes. That boat you were on was built at Lymington, and she sailed from there after dark on 17th March. She was brand spanking new, and she hadn’t completed her trials, and she wasn’t registered or named. She was built by a top-notch shipyard called Goldenwave Marine, for a client called Arthur Robinson.’
‘Who?’
‘Arthur Robinson. That’s what he said his name was, anyway. And there was only one slightly unusual thing about Mr Robinson, and that was that he paid for the boat in cash.’
He waited expectantly.
‘How much cash?’ I said.
‘Two hundred thousand pounds.’
‘Crikey.’
‘Mind you,’ Johnny said, ‘that’s bargain basement stuff for Goldenwave. They do a nice job in mini-liners at upwards of a million, with gold taps, for Arabs.’
‘In cash?’
‘Near enough, I dare say. Anyway, Arthur Robinson always paid on the nail, in instalments as they came due during the boat-building, but always in your actual folding. Goldenwave Marine wouldn’t be interested in knowing whether the cash had had tax paid on it. None of their business.’
‘Quite,’ I said. ‘Go on.’
‘That Thursday — 17th March-in the morning, some time, Arthur Robinson rang Goldenwave and said he wanted to take some friends aboard for a party that evening, and would they please see that the water and fuel tanks were topped up, and everything ship-shape. Which Goldenwave did.’
‘Without question.’