‘Come out and see the horses,’ he said.
‘Tell me about the men first,’ I said persuasively.
‘What about them?’
He put a foot on a pile of logs beside the fire and fiddled unnecessarily with the fire tongs.
‘Were they English?’
He looked up in surprise. ‘Well, I suppose so.’
‘You heard them speak. What sort of accents did they have?’
‘Ordinary. I mean... well, you know... ordinary working-class accents.’
‘But they differ,’ I said. He shook his head, but all accents differed, to my mind, to an infinitely variable degree.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘were they Irish? Scots? Geordies? London? Birmingham? Liverpool? West Country? All those are easy.’
‘London, then,’ he said.
‘Not foreign? Not Russian, for example?’
‘No.’ He seemed to see the point for the first time. ‘They had a rough, sloppy way of speaking, swallowing all the consonants. Southern England. London or the South-East, I should think, or Berkshire.’
‘The accent you hear around here, every day?’
‘I suppose so, yes. Anyway, I didn’t notice anything special about it.’
‘What did they look like?’
‘They were both big.’ He arranged the fire irons finally in a tidy row and straightened to his full height. ‘Taller than I am. They were just men. Nothing remarkable. No beards or limps or scars down the cheek. I’m awfully sorry to be so useless, but honestly I don’t think I’d know them again if I passed them in the street.’
‘But you would,’ I guessed, ‘if they walked into this room.’
‘You mean I’d feel it was them?’
‘I mean I expect you remember more than you think, and if your memory were jogged it would all come rushing back.’
He looked doubtful, but he said, ‘If I do see them again, I’ll certainly let you know.’
‘They might of course return with another, er, warning,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘If you can’t persuade your brother-in-law to drop the whole affair.’
‘Christ, do you think so?’ He swung his thin beaky nose towards the door as if expecting instant attack. ‘You do say the most bloody comforting things, don’t you?’
‘The crude deterrent,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Biff bang.’
‘Oh... yes.’
‘Cheap and often effective,’ I said.
‘Yes, well. I mean... so what?’
‘So who was it meant to deter? You, me, or your brother-in-law?’
He gave me a slow look behind which the alternatives seemed to be being inspected for the first time.
‘See what you mean,’ he said. ‘But it’s too subtle for me by half. Come out and see the horses. Now those I do understand. Even if they kill you, there’s no malice.’
He shed a good deal of his nervousness and most of his depression as we walked the fifty yards across the country road to the stables. Horses were his natural element, and being among them obviously gave him comfort and confidence. I wondered whether his half-controlled jitters with me were simply because I was human, and not because of my errand.
The stable yard was a small quadrangle of elderly wooden boxes round an area of impacted clay and gravel. There were clipped patches of grass, a straggling tree, and empty tubs for flowers. Green paint, nearing the end of its life. A feeling that weeds would grow in the spring.
‘When I inherit the lolly, I’ll buy a better yard,’ Johnny said, uncannily picking up my thoughts again. ‘This is rented. Trustees, do you see.’
‘It’s a friendly place,’ I said mildly.
‘Unsuitable.’
The trustees however had put the money where it mattered, which was in four legs, head and tail. Although it was then the comparative rest period of their annual cycle, the five resident horses looked well-muscled and fit. For the most part bred by thoroughbred stallions out of hunter mares, they had looks as well as performance, and Johnny told me the history of each with a decisive and far from casual pride. I saw come alive in him for the first time the single-minded, driving fanaticism which had to be there: the essential fuel for Olympic fire.
Even the crinkly red hair seemed to crisp into tighter curls, though I dare say this was due to the dampness in the air. But there was nothing climatic about the zeal in the eye, the tautness of the jaw, or the intensity of his manner. Enthusiasm of that order was bound to be infectious. I found myself responding to it easily, and understood why everyone was so anxious to make his Russian journey possible.
‘I’ve an outside chance for the British team with this fellow,’ he said, briskly slapping the rounded quarters of a long-backed chestnut, and reeling off the fullest list of successes. ‘But he’s not top world class. I know that. I need something better. The German horse. I’ve seen him. I really covet that horse.’ He let out his breath abruptly and gave a small laugh, as if hearing his own obsession and wanting to disguise it. ‘I do go on a bit.’
The self-deprecation in his voice showed nowhere in his healing face.
‘I want a Gold,’ he said.
3
My packing for Moscow consisted, in order of priority, of an army of defences for dicky lungs, mostly on a be-prepared-and-it-won’t-happen basis; a thick woolly scarf; a spare pair of glasses; a couple of paperbacks and a camera.
Emma surveyed my medicine box with a mixture of amusement and horror.
‘You’re a hypochondriac,’ she said.
‘Stop poking around. Everything in there is tidy.’
‘Oh, sure. What are these?’ She lifted a small plastic pill bottle and shook it.
‘Ventolin tablets. Put them down.’
She opened the cap instead and shook one on to her palm.
‘Pink and tiny. What do they do?’
‘Help one breathe.’
‘And these?’ She picked up a small cylindrical tin and read the yellow label. ‘Intal spincaps?’
‘Help one breathe.’
‘And this? And this?’ She picked them out and laid them in a row. ‘And these?’
‘Ditto, ditto, ditto.’
‘And a syringe, for God’s sake. Why a syringe?’
‘Last resort. If a shot of adrenalin doesn’t work, one sends for the undertaker.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘No,’ I said; but the truth was probably yes. I had never actually found out.
‘What a fuss over a little cough.’ She looked at the fearsome array of life-support systems with all the superiority of the naturally healthy.
‘Gloomsville,’ I agreed. ‘And put them all back.’
She humoured me by replacing them with excessive care.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘surely all these things are for asthma, not bronchitis.’
‘When I get bronchitis, I get asthma.’
‘And vice versa?’
I shook my head. ‘How about hopping into bed?’
‘At half-past four on a Sunday afternoon with an invalid?’
‘It’s been done before.’
‘So it has,’ she agreed: and it was done again, with not a cough or a wheeze to be heard.
Rupert Hughes-Beckett, in his London office, the next morning, handed me an air ticket, a visa, a hotel reservation, and a sheet of names and addresses. Not enough.
‘How about my answers?’ I said.
‘I’m afraid... ah... they are not yet available.’
‘Why not?’
‘The enquiries are still... ah... in hand.’
He was not meeting my eyes. He was finding the backs of his own hands as fascinating as he had in my sitting-room. He must know every freckle, I thought. Every wrinkle and every vein.
‘Do you mean you haven’t even started?’ I said incredulously. ‘My letter must have reached you by last Tuesday at the latest. Six days ago.’