Coming around the turn he realized this wasn’t at all the case and when Aqueduct jumped the fence that enclosed the course, Roy felt fear, a thing he rarely felt because he always considered himself to be in command of any situation. Fear was a negligible, chaffy emotion wasted on Roy. Since the death of his daughter, most emotions were.
She was holding a whip up, clearly with the intention of bringing it down. Nell Ryder, as with her legendary uncle, Dan, never took a whip to a horse. He knew if she slowed she’d be on him with that whip, but what was much worse, with that horse. Nell talked to horses. Roy could see happening to him the same thing that had happened to Dan Ryder.
His jacket was lying over the fence and as he galloped round the track with her in pursuit he knew he had to get hold of the jacket. He saw that part of the fence coming up, reined in Havoc and reeled off the horse, snatched his coat and grabbed the gun from the pocket.
Roy was that popular: he always carried a gun.
Now the next bad moment happened: a cherry-red Aston-Martin was coming at full throttle toward the training track. Between the road and the track were two white fences. The Aston-Martin couldn’t jump the fences, so it did the next best thing: went straight through them.
At the same moment Roy caught a glimpse of yet another horse racing across the field a hundred feet away, just as Aqueduct appeared about to fall on Roy like a wall of bricks.
Roy fired. In that split second between intent and execution, Nell vaulted from the horse, and like a kid playing leapfrog, slid over Aqueduct’s head and down in front of him. The first shot caught her on the way down, the second as she hit the ground.
Then Roy got off two shots at the driver-was he seeing right?-of the Aston-Martin. Danny Ryder was out of the car and running toward them; Criminal Type jumped the wooden fence around the course and without even slowing, Vernon sprang from the saddle and fell on Roy Diamond, yelling.
Fear is no match for fury in a fight. Vernon wrenched the gun away and pushed it against Roy’s temple. Whether he would have fired or not was a moot question as he didn’t get the chance. Danny Ryder slid across the track, grabbed the gun-holding hand and knocked the gun from Vernon’s grip. Then he tossed it-at the ground, the sky, the past-while Vernon was up and running to where Nell lay as if Aqueduct had thrown her. The horse stood with neck bent, its muzzle wandering over her.
Carefully, Vernon wedged his arm behind her and lifted her as if she were a bunch of broken lily stalks-that pale hair, that translucent face. His hand on her ribs felt the soaking wetness of blood. “Nellie!”
She gazed at him and managed two syllables: “Remem-?”
It was then that Roy Diamond’s fourth bad moment arrived full force. Too late for Nell but in plenty of time to see Roy in hell, the four men piled out of the police car and the Bentley and made a rush toward the others. Seeing Dan Ryder, Arthur and Roger stopped dead. Danny looked and turned away in tears.
Jury and Wiggins ran to where Roy Diamond, who clearly saw the vanity of mounting his horse and trying to run, stood with his back to Nell. “Oh, no,” whispered Wiggins.
Jury knelt by Vernon and put two useless fingers against what should have been the pulse in her neck. Then he rose and moved like a glacier to where Diamond was standing.
Roy said, broken-voiced but in fear, not sorrow: “I wasn’t aiming at her!”
Jury grabbed one arm in a vise, scooped the gun from the dirt and pulled Roy away toward the house. Wiggins gripped the other arm, and between them, they pulled the man along. Roy wasn’t helping the process.
“I was only trying to keep the damned horse from stomping me; I can’t help it if she threw herself in front of the goddamned horse.”
They were going through the back door of the house. Melrose and Danny Ryder were keeping up.
“Why’d she do that?” yelled Roy. “Why would she throw herself-my God, man, it was only a horse!”
That was simply too much for Wiggins, who kicked the door shut in Melrose’s face, brought his raised knee around and shoved it into Roy Diamond’s front, pushing out what sounded-uph-like the last breath of the man’s life.
“Wiggins,” said Jury.
Wiggins took the ballast of his knee away and Roy slid down the wall.
Jury grabbed Roy by his shirt collar and pulled him back to his feet. He slammed Roy against the wall.
“Sir-” said Wiggins.
“You had your turn,” Jury said over his shoulder. Then he shoved his face into Roy’s. They could have breathed with each other’s breath. “Now, you listen to me, you hopeless piece of shit-”
“Sir-”
“-it would take me one second to crush you a lot harder than that horse.” To demonstrate, Jury pulled Roy’s head away from the wall and slammed it back hard enough to crack plaster. “I’m an off-duty cop and this is a personal dispute, see, and it would take no effort at all for me to drop you where you stand-”
Wiggins gripped Jury’s arm. “Sir! You can’t-”
Jury shook off Wiggins’s hand and continued what he was saying in a sibilant whisper as he shoved the muzzle of Roy’s gun against his temple. “My sergeant here is worried about police procedure, but me, I don’t give a flying fuck for procedure.” He pulled Roy away from the wall again and banged him back again. “Do you know what keeps me from blowing you away, Roy? I mean, right now, Roy? Your daughter. That’s all. Your dead daughter.” Then Jury pulled him away from the wall and nearly threw him at Wiggins. “Charge him and take him to the car.”
“Which charge?” Wiggins called to Jury’s retreating back.
“Resisting arrest.”
As Jury walked out of the house, he heard the double note of a police vehicle in the distance. Someone had had the presence of mind, probably Melrose Plant, to call Cambridge.
The others seemed to have scattered to the winds, as if they crewed a little boat that was rudderless or no longer anchored. Melrose Plant leaned against a tree, smoking and looking at Jury. Danny Ryder leaned against his car. When Jury walked up to him, all Danny could do was shake his head and say, “Christ, but I’m sorry. Sara told me about Maurice this morning; I jumped in my car and drove without stopping. When I got to Dad’s, Neil Epp told me what had happened, how all of you had raced over here. I knew it was bad news. I knew it had to be this fucker, Diamond, you were looking for.” He ran the side of his hand over his eyes. “One minute, two-if I could’ve made it a minute sooner-”
“It’s always a minute, Danny. There was nothing you could do. But you saved Vernon Rice from blowing that bastard’s bloody head off.”
Then he walked over to the course where Arthur and Roger Ryder were leaning against the fence, staring at the ground where a dozen feet away, Vernon was still holding Nell. The depth of their despair was so awful it paralyzed them; they seemed unable to go to where Nell was. Jury couldn’t think of a thing to say. Not a word. He searched his mind for some words of consolation and couldn’t find one. What bloody good was language when it failed you at every important juncture? Looking over at Aqueduct, who stood stock-still by the fence, he thought, It’s as hard for me as it is for you, boy.
He walked over to where Nell lay and knelt down and put his hand on Vernon’s shoulder. Vernon looked at him out of eyes that looked gutted by fire.
The sirens were close now, and there was more than one.
Vernon swallowed hard. “All she tried to say was, ‘Remember.’ ”