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  ‘Hm.’ He gave me a hard stare. ‘You’d better come up to the stable this evening,’ he said. ‘We can’t talk about … what we have to talk about … here. There are too many people about.’

  As if to punctuate this remark the owner of the winner leant over the dividing rails to admire Turniptop and I had to loop up the girths and go and weigh in, still without knowing exactly what had happened in the saddling box before the race.

  Tick-Tock was standing by my peg in the changing-room, one smoothly shod foot up on the bench and the Tyrolean hat pushed back on his head.

  ‘Before you ride like that again, you might make a will leaving me your half of the car,’ he said. ‘It would solve so many legal complications.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ I said, peeling off first the crimson and white sweater, James’s colours, and then the thin brown jersey underneath. I took a towel from the valet and went along to the wash-basin.

  ‘A lot of people,’ said Tick-Tock in a loud voice across the room, ‘are going to have a fine old time eating their words, and I hope it gives them indigestion.’ He followed me along and watched me wash, leaning languidly against the wall. ‘I suppose you realise that your exploits this afternoon were clearly visible to several million assorted housewives, invalids, babes in arms, and people hanging about on the pavement outside electric shops?’

  ‘What?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘It’s a fact. Didn’t you really know? The last three races are filling up the spare time between Sex for Sixth Forms and Goggle with Granny. Universal T.C. Maurice’s lot. I wonder,’ he finished more soberly, ‘what he’ll do when he knows you’ve rumbled the sugar bit?’

  ‘He may not know,’ I said, towelling my chest and shoulders. ‘He may think it was accidental … I haven’t heard yet from James what happened before the race.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Tick-Tock confidently, ‘his campaign against you is over. He won’t risk going on with it after today.’

  I agreed with him. It just shows how little either of us understood about obsession.

  James was waiting for me in the office, busy with papers at his big desk. The fire blazed hotly and the light winked on the glasses standing ready beside the whisky bottle.

  He stopped writing when I went in, and got up and poured our drinks, and stood towering above me as I sat in the battered armchair by the fire. His strong heavy face looked worried.

  ‘I apologise,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘No need.’

  ‘I very nearly let Maurice give Turniptop that damned sugar,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t believe him capable of a scheme as fantastic as doping every horse you ride. I mean, it’s … it’s ridiculous.’

  ‘What happened in the saddling box?’ I asked.

  He took a sip from his glass. ‘I gave Sid instructions that no one, absolutely no one, however important they were, was to give Turniptop anything to eat or drink before the race. When I reached the box with your saddle, Maurice was in the box next door and I watched him giving the horse there some sugar. Sid said no one had given Turniptop anything.’ He paused and drank again. ‘I put on your number cloth, weight pad and saddle, and began to do up with girths. Maurice came round the partition from the next box and said hello. That infectious smile of his … I found myself smiling back and thinking you were mad. He was wheezing a bit with asthma … and he put his hand in his pocket and brought out three lumps of sugar. He did it naturally, casually, and held them out to Turniptop. I had my hands full of girths and I thought you were wrong … but … I don’t know … there was something in the way he was standing, with his arm stretched out rather stiffly and the sugar flat on the palm of his hand, that didn’t look right. People who are fond of horses stroke their muzzles when they give them sugar, they don’t stand as far away as possible. And if Maurice wasn’t fond of horses, why was he giving them sugar? Anyway, I did decide suddenly that there would be no harm done if Turniptop didn’t eat that sugar, so I dropped the girths and pretended to trip, and grabbed Maurice’s arm to steady myself. The sugar fell off his hand on to the straw on the ground and I stepped on it as if by accident while I was recovering my balance.’

  ‘What did he say?’ I asked, fascinated.

  ‘Nothing,’ said James. ‘I apologised for bumping into him, but he didn’t answer. Just for a second he looked absolutely furious. Then he smiled again, and …’ James’s eyes glinted, ‘… he said how much he admired me for giving poor Finn this one last chance.’

  ‘Dear of him,’ I murmured.

  ‘I told him it wasn’t exactly your last chance. I said you would be riding Template on Saturday as well. He just said ‘Oh really?’ and wished me luck and walked away.’

  ‘So the sugar was crunched up and swept out with the dirty straw,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  ‘Nothing to analyse. No evidence.’ A nuisance.

  ‘If I hadn’t stepped on it, Maurice could have picked it up and offered it to Turniptop again. I hadn’t taken any sugar with me … I hadn’t any lumps to substitute … I didn’t believe I would need them.’

  He hadn’t intended to bother, I knew. But he had bothered. I would never stop feeling grateful.

  We drank our whisky. James said suddenly, ‘Why? I don’t understand why he should have gone to such lengths to discredit you. What has he got against you?’

  ‘I am a jockey, and he is not,’ I said flatly. ‘That’s all.’ I told about my visit to Claudius Mellit and the answers he had given me. I said, ‘It’s no coincidence that you and most other trainers have had trouble finding and keeping a jockey. You’ve all been swayed by Kemp-Lore, either by him directly, or through those two shadows of his, Ballerton and Corin Kellar, who soak up his poison like sponges and drip it out into every receptive ear. They’ve said it all to you. You repeated it to me yourself, not so long ago. Peter Cloony is always late, Tick-Tock doesn’t try, Danny Higgs bets too heavily, Grant sold information, Finn has lost his nerve …’

  He stared at me, appalled. I said, ‘You believed it all, James, didn’t you? Even you? And so did everyone else. Why shouldn’t they, with so much evident foundation for the rumours? It doesn’t take much for an owner or a trainer to lose confidence in a jockey. The thought has only to be insinuated, however fleetingly, that a jockey is habitually late, or dishonest, or afraid, and very soon, very soon indeed, he is on his way out … Art. Art killed himself because Corin sacked him. Grant had a mental breakdown. Peter Cloony is so broke his wife was starving herself in a freezing cold house. Tick-Tock makes jokes like Pagliacci …’

  ‘And you?’ asked James.

  ‘I? Well … I haven’t exactly enjoyed the last three weeks.’

  ‘No,’ he said, as if thinking about it from my point of view for the first time. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have.’

  ‘It’s been so calculated, this destruction of jockeys,’ I said. ‘Every week in ‘Turf Talk’, looking back on it, there has been some damaging reference to one jockey or another. When he had me on the programme he introduced me as an unsuccessful rider, and he meant me to stay that way. Do you remember that ghastly bit of film he showed of me? You’d never have taken me on if you’d seen that before I’d ridden for you, would you?’

  He shook his head, very troubled.

  I went on, ‘On every possible occasion – when Template won the King ’Chase for instance – he has reminded everyone watching on television that I am only substituting for Pip, and that I’ll be out on my ear as soon as that broken leg is strong again. Fair enough, it’s Pip’s job and he should have it back, but that patronising note in Kemp-Lore’s voice was calculated to make everyone take it for granted that my brief spell in the limelight was thoroughly undeserved. I dare say it was, too. But I think a lot of your owners would have been readier to trust your judgment in engaging me, and less quick to chuck me overboard at the first sign of trouble, if it hadn’t been for the continual deflating pin-pricks Kemp-Lore has dealt out all round. A
nd last Friday …’ I tried, not too successfully, to keep my voice evenly conversational. ‘Last Friday he led Corin and that handicapper on until they said straight out that I was finished. Were you watching?’

  James nodded, and poured us another drink.

  ‘It’s a matter for the National Hunt Committee,’ he said firmly.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘His father is a member of it.’

  James gasped sharply. ‘I had forgotten …’

  I said, ‘The whole Committee’s a stronghold of pro-Kemp-Lore feeling. They’re all sold on Maurice. Most of them wear the same old school tie,’ I grinned. James wore it too. ‘I would be very glad if you would say nothing to any of them, just yet. They would take even more convincing than you did, and there aren’t any facts that Kemp-Lore couldn’t explain away. But I’m digging.’ I drank. ‘The day will come.’

  ‘You sound unexpectedly cheerful,’ he said.

  ‘O God, James.’ I stood up abruptly. ‘I wanted to kill myself last week. I’m glad I didn’t. It makes me cheerful.’

  He looked so startled that I relaxed and laughed, and put down my glass. ‘Never mind,’ I said, ‘but you must understand I don’t think the National Hunt Committee meets the case at the moment. Too gentlemanly. I favour something more in the biter-bit line for dear Maurice.’

  But I had as yet no useful plan, and dear Maurice still had his teeth; and they were sharp.

  Eleven

  Although neither Tick-Tock nor I had any rides the next day I pinched the car from him to go to the meeting at Ascot, and walked round the course to get the feel of the turf. There was a bitterly cold north-east wind blowing across the heath and the ground was hard with a touch of frost in the more exposed patches. It had been a surprisingly mild winter so far, but the high clear sky spoke ominously of ice to come. One more day, that was all I asked; only one more day. But prodding the earth on the landing side of the water jump with my heel I felt it jar instead of give.

  I finished the circuit, planning the race in my mind as I went. If the ground remained firm it would be a fast run affair, but that suited Template well, especially with top weight to carry. Lugging packets of lead around in the mud was not what his lean streamlined frame was best fitted for.

  Outside the weighing-room Peter Cloony stopped me. His face was white and thin and mournful, and lines were developing on his forehead.

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ he said, almost belligerently. He seemed prepared to argue about it.

  ‘All right. One day. No hurry,’ I said mildly.

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone behind my back and given my wife that money and the food. I wanted to send it back at once but she won’t let me. We don’t need charity. I don’t approve of it.’

  ‘You’re a fool, Peter,’ I said. ‘Your wife was right to accept what I gave her, and I’d have thought her a stubborn ass if she hadn’t. And you’d better get used to the idea: a box of groceries will be delivered to your house every week until you’re earning a decent screw again.’

  ‘No,’ he almost shouted, ‘I won’t have it.’

  ‘I don’t see why your wife and baby should suffer because of your misplaced pride,’ I said. ‘But if it will ease your conscience, I’ll tell you why I’m doing it. You’ll never get much work as long as you go around with that hang-dog expression. Looking weak and miserable isn’t going to persuade anybody to employ you. You need to cheer up, get fit again, and prove you’re worth having. Well – all I’m doing is removing one of your worries so that you can think a bit more about racing and a bit less about your cold house and empty larder. So now you can get on with it … it’s all up to you. And don’t ever even risk being late.’

  I walked off and left Peter standing with his mouth open and his eyebrows half way to his hair.

  What Kemp-Lore had pulled down, I could try to rebuild, I thought. When I had arrived I had seen him in the distance, talking animatedly to one of the stewards, who was laughing. Slim, vital, and wholesome-looking, he seemed to attract the light of the day on to his fair head.

  In the weighing-room after the fourth race I was handed a telegram. It said, ‘Pick me up White Bear, Uxbridge, 6.30 p.m. Important, Ingersoll.’ I felt like cursing Tick-Tock soundly because Uxbridge was in the opposite direction from home. But the car was half his, after all, and I’d had more than my fair share of it during the past week.

  The afternoon dragged. I hated having to watch, hated it even more after my reassuring ride on Turniptop, but I tried to take my own advice to Peter and look cheerful: and I was rewarded, as time went on, with a definite thawing of the cold shoulder. It made life much easier not finding everyone still too embarrassed to speak to me; but I was also in no doubt that most final judgments were being reserved until after Template’s race. I didn’t mind that. I was confident that he was the fastest ’chaser in training and I had James’s promise that he would be guarded every second against being doped.

  I dawdled after racing ended, with two hours to kill before turning up at Uxbridge to collect Tick-Tock. I watched the men from Universal Telecast erecting their scaffolding towers, ready to televise the Midwinter the next day, and recognised a man directing them as Gordon Kildare, still in navy-blue pin-stripe suiting and still looking like a rising young executive who knew the score. He passed by me with the practised half smile which from a man of his sort always means that he doesn’t know who he’s smiling at, but smiles all the same in case he should later find out it was someone important. However he had only gone two steps past me when he turned and came back.

  ‘We’ve had you on the programme,’ he said pleasantly. ‘No don’t tell me …’ His brow furrowed; then he snapped his fingers. ‘Finn, that’s it, Finn.’ But his smile at the triumph of his memory began ludicrously to slip and I knew he was also remembering what had been said about me on his programme a week ago.

  ‘Yes, Finn,’ I said, taking no notice. ‘All set for tomorrow?’

  ‘Eh, oh, yes. Busy day. Well now, I’m sorry to have to rush off but you know how it is … we’ve got the programme to put out tonight and I’m due back in the studios. Maurice went ages ago.’

  He looked at his watch, gave me a noncommittal smile, and gracefully retreated.

  I watched him drive off in the latest streamlined Ford, picturing the studio he was going to; the ranks of cameras, the dazzling lights, the plates of sandwiches; they would all be the same. And who, I wondered, who was to be Kemp-Lore’s victim this evening. For whom was the chopper poised, the false charm ready?

  There was so little I could do against him. Pick up some of the pieces, start some counter rumours. Try to undermine his influence? All that, yes. But I didn’t have his sparkle, nor his prestige, nor yet his ruthlessness. I thrust my hands into my pockets, went out to the Mini-Cooper, and drove off to fetch Tick-Tock.

  Mine was only the second car in the dark park beside the White Bear. It was one of those disappointing pubs built of tidy pinkish bricks with cold lighting inside and no atmosphere. The saloon bar was empty … The public bar held only a droopy-moustached old man pursing his lips to the evening’s first half-pint. I went back to the saloon bar and ordered a whisky. No Tick-Tock. I looked at my watch. Twenty to seven.

  The green plastic seats round the walls were so inhospitable that I didn’t wonder the pub was empty. The dark-green curtains didn’t help. Nor the fluorescent strip-lights on the ceiling.

  I looked at my watch again.

  ‘Are you by any chance waiting for someone, sir,’ asked the characterless barman.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I said.

  ‘You wouldn’t be a Mr Finn?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ve a message for you, sir. A Mr Ingersoll telephoned just now and said he couldn’t get here to meet you, sir, and he was very sorry but could you go and pick him up from the station at six fifty-five. The station is just down the road, first turning left and straight on for half a mile.’

  Finishing my drink, I thanked the bar
man and went out to the car. I climbed into the driving seat and stretched my hand out to turn on the lights and the ignition. I stretched out my hand … but I didn’t reach the lights.

  My neck was gripped violently from behind.

  There was movement then in the back of the car as the arms shifted to get a better leverage, a rustling of clothes and the scrape of shoe across the thin carpet.

  I flung up my hands and clawed but I couldn’t reach the face of whoever was behind me, and my nails were useless against his gloves. Thick leather gloves. The fingers inside them were strong, and what was worse, they knew exactly where to dig in and press, each side of the neck, just above the collarbone, where the carotid arteries branched upwards. Pressure on one carotid, I remembered wildly from some distant first aid course, stops arterial bleeding from the head … but pressure on both at once blocked all blood supplies to the brain.

  I hadn’t a chance. My struggles were hampered by the steering wheel and gained me nothing. In the few seconds before a roaring blackness took me off, I had time for only two more thoughts. First that I should have known that Tick-Tock would never meet me in a dreary pub like that. Second, angrily, that I was dead.

  I couldn’t have been out very long, but it was long enough. When consciousness slowly and fuzzily returned, I found I could open neither my eyes nor my mouth. Both were covered with sticking plaster. My wrists were tied together, and my ankles, when I tried to move them, would only part a foot or two: they were hobbled together, like a gipsy’s pony.

  I was lying on my side, awkwardly doubled up, on the floor in the back of a car which, from the size and smell and feel, I knew to be the Mini-Cooper. It was very cold, and after a while I realised that this was because I was no longer wearing either a jacket or an overcoat. My shirt-sleeved arms were dragged forward between the two front seats so that I couldn’t reach the sticking plaster to rip it off, and I was extremely, horribly uncomfortable. I tried once with all my strength to free my arms, lifting and jerking at the same time, but they were securely fastened, and a fist – I supposed – crashed down on them so brutally that I didn’t attempt it again. I couldn’t see who was driving, and driving fast, but I didn’t need to. There was only one person in the world who could have set such a trap; complicated but effective, like the Jaguar in the lane. Only one person who had any reason to abduct me, however mad that reason might be. I had no illusions. Maurice Kemp-Lore did not intend that I should win the Midwinter Cup, and was taking steps to prevent it.