Whip Hand Read online

  The letter bore no date and no salutation. It began about a third of the way down the paper, and said:

  So many families nowadays have had sorrowful first-hand knowledge of the seriousness of coronary artery disease, which even where it does not kill can leave a man unable to continue with a full, strenuous working life.

  Much work has already been done in the field of investigation into the causes and possible prevention of this scourge of modern man, but much more remains still to be done. Research funded by Government money being of necessity limited in today’s financial climate, it is of the utmost importance that the public should be asked to support directly the essential programmes now in hand in privately run facilities.

  We do know, however, that many people resent receiving straightforward fund-raising letters, however worthy the cause, so to aid ‘Research into Coronary Disability’ we ask you to buy something, along the same principle as Christmas cards, the sale of which does so much good work in so many fields. Accordingly the Patrons, after much discussion, have decided to offer for sale a supply of exceptionally fine wax polish, which has been especially formulated for the care of antique furniture.

  The wax is packed in quarter-kilo tins, and is of the quality used by expert restorers and museum curators. If you should wish to buy, we are offering the wax at five pounds a tin; and you may be sure that at least three-quarters of the revenue goes straight to Research.

  The wax will be good for your furniture, your contribution will be good for the cause, and with your help there may soon be significant advances in the understanding and control of this killing disease.

  If you should wish to. please send a donation to the address printed above. (Cheques should be made out to Research into Coronary Disability.) You will receive a supply of wax immediately, and the gratitude of future heart patients everywhere.

  Yours sincerely,

  Executive Assistant

  I said ‘Phew’ to myself, and folded the letter and tucked it into my jacket. Sob stuff; the offer of something tangible in return; and the veiled hint that if you didn’t cough up it could one day happen to you. And, according to Charles, the mixture had worked.

  The second big box contained several thousand white envelopes, unaddressed. The third was half full of mostly handwritten letters on every conceivable type of writing paper; orders for wax, all saying, among other things, ‘cheque enclosed’.

  The fourth contained printed Compliments slips, saying that Research into Coronary Disability acknowledged the contribution with gratitude and had pleasure herewith in sending a supply of wax.

  The fifth brown box, half empty, and the sixth, unopened and full, contained numbers of flat white boxes about six inches square by two inches deep. I lifted out a white box and looked inside. Contents, one flat round unprinted tin with a firmly screwed-on lid. The lid put up a fight, but I got it off in the end, and found underneath it a soft mid-brown mixture that certainly smelled of polish. I shut it up, returned the tin to its package, and left it out ready to take.

  There seemed to be nothing else. I looked into every cranny in the room and down the sides of the armchair, but there wasn’t as much as a pin.

  I picked up the square white box and went back slowly and quietly towards the sitting room, opening the closed doors one by one, and looking at what they concealed. There had been two which Louise had not identified: one proved to be a linen cupboard, and the other a small unfurnished room containing suitcases and assorted junk.

  Jenny’s room was decisively feminine; pink and white, frothy with net and frills. Her scent lay lightly in the air, the violet scent of Mille. No use remembering the first bottle I’d given her, long ago in Paris. Too much time had passed. I shut the door on the fragrance and the memory and went into the bathroom.

  A white bathroom. Huge fluffy towels. Green carpet, green plants. Looking glass on two walls, light and bright. No visible tooth brushes: everything in cupboards, very tidy. Very Jenny. Roger & Gallet soap.

  The snooping habit had ousted too many scruples. With hardly a hesitation I opened Louise’s door and put my eyes round, trusting to luck she wouldn’t come out into the hall and find me.

  Organized mess, I thought Heaps of papers, and books everywhere. Clothes on chairs. Unmade bed; not surprising, since I’d sprung her out of it.

  A washbasin in a corner, no cap on the toothpaste, pair of tights hung to dry. An open box of chocolates. A haphazard scatter on the dressing chest. A tall vase with horsechestnut buds bursting. No smell at all. No long-term dirt, just surface clutter. The blue dressing gown on the floor. Basically the room was furnished much like Ashe’s: and one could clearly see where Jenny ended and Louise began.

  I pulled my head out and closed the door, undetected. Louise, in the sitting room, had been easily sidetracked in her tidying, and was sitting on the floor intently reading a book.

  ‘Oh, hallo,’ she said, looking up vaguely as if she had forgotten I was there. ‘Have you finished?’

  ‘There must be other papers,’ I said. ‘Letters, bills, cash books, that sort of thing.’

  ‘The police took them.’

  I sat on the sofa, facing her. ‘Who called the police in?’ I said. ‘Was it Jenny?’

  She wrinkled her forehead. ‘No. Someone complained to them that the charity wasn’t registered.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. Someone who received one of the letters, and checked up. Half those patrons on the letter-head don’t exist, and the others didn’t know their names were being used.’

  I thought, and said, ‘What made Ashe bolt just when he did?’

  ‘We don’t know. Maybe someone telephoned here to complain, as well. So he went while he could. He’d been gone for a week when the police turned up.’

  I put the square white box on the coffee table. ‘Where did the wax come from?’ I said.

  ‘Some firm or other. Jenny wrote to order it, and it was delivered here. Nicky knew where to get it.’

  ‘Invoices?’

  ‘The police took them.’

  ‘These begging letters … who got them printed?’

  She sighed. ‘Jenny, of course. Nicky had some others, just like them, except that they had his name in the space where they put Jenny’s. He explained that it was no use sending any more letters with his name and address on, as he’d moved. He was keen, you see, to keep on working for the cause …’

  ‘You bet he was,’ I said.

  She was half-irritated. ‘It’s all very well to jeer, but you didn’t meet him. You’d have believed him, same as we did.’

  I left it. Maybe I would have. ‘These letters,’ I said. ‘Who were they sent to?’

  ‘Nicky had lists of names and addresses. Thousands of them.’

  ‘Have you got them? The lists?’

  She looked resigned. ‘He took them with him.’

  ‘What sort of people were on them?’

  The sort of people who would own antique furniture and cough up a fiver without missing it.’

  ‘Did he say where he’d got them from?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘From the charity’s headquarters.’

  ‘And who addressed the letters and sent them out?’

  ‘Nicky typed the envelopes. Yes, don’t ask, on my typewriter. He was very fast. He could do hundreds in a day. Jenny signed her name at the bottom of the letters, and I usually folded them and put them in the envelopes. She used to get writers’ cramp doing it and Nicky would often help her.’

  ‘Signing her name?’

  ‘That’s right. He copied her signature. He did it hundreds of times. You couldn’t really tell the difference.’

  I looked at her in silence.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Asking for trouble. But, you see, he made all that hard work with the letters seem such fun. Like a game. He was full of jokes. You don’t understand. And then, when the cheques started rolling in, it was so obviously worth the effort.’

  ‘Who s
ent off the wax?’ I said gloomily.

  ‘Nicky typed the addresses on labels. I used to help Jenny stick them on the boxes and seal the boxes with sticky tape, and take them to the post office.’

  ‘Ashe never went?’

  ‘Too busy typing. We used to wheel them round to the post office in those shopping bags on wheels.’

  ‘And the cheques … I suppose Jenny herself paid them in?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How long did all this go on?’ I said.

  ‘A couple of months, once the letters were printed and the wax had arrived.’

  ‘How much wax?’

  ‘Oh we had stacks of it, all over the place. It came in those big brown boxes … sixty tins in each, ready packed. They practically filled the flat. Actually in the end Jenny wanted to order some more, as we were running very low, but Nicky said no, we’d finish what we had and take a breather before starting again.’

  ‘He meant to stop anyway,’ I said.

  Reluctantly, she said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much money.’ I said, ‘did Jenny bank?’

  She looked at me sombrely. ‘In the region of ten thousand pounds. Maybe a bit more. Some people sent much more than a fiver. One or two sent a hundred, and didn’t want the wax.’

  ‘It’s incredible.’

  ‘The money just came pouring in. It still does, every day. But it goes direct to the police from the post office. They’ll have a hell of a job sending it all back.’

  ‘What about that box of letters in Ashe’s room, saying “cheques enclosed”?’

  ‘Those,’ she said, ‘are people whose money was banked, and who’ve been sent the wax.’

  ‘Didn’t the police want those letters?’

  She shrugged. ‘They didn’t take them, anyway.’

  ‘Do you mind if I do?’

  ‘Help yourself …’

  After I’d fetched them and dumped them in their box by the front door, I went back into the sitting room to ask her another question. Deep in the book again, she looked up without enthusiasm.

  ‘How did Ashe get the money out of the bank?’

  ‘He took a typewritten letter signed by Jenny saying she wanted to withdraw the balance so as to be able to give it to the charity in cash at its annual gala dinner, and also a cheque signed by Jenny for every penny.’

  ‘But she didn’t …’

  ‘No. He did. But I’ve seen the letter and the cheque. The bank gave them to the police. You can’t tell it isn’t Jenny’s writing. Even Jenny can’t tell the difference.’

  She got gracefully to her feet, leaving the book on the floor. ‘Are you going?’ she said hopefully. ‘I’ve got so much to do. I’m way behind, because of Nicky.’ She went past me into the hall, but when I followed her she delivered another chunk of dismay.

  ‘The bank clerks can’t remember Nicky. They pay out cash in thousands for wages every day, because there’s so much industry in Oxford. They were used to Jenny in connection with that account, and it was ten days or more before the police asked questions. No one can remember Nicky there at all.’

  ‘He’s professional,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Every pointer to it, I’m afraid.’ She opened the door while I bent down and awkwardly picked up the brown cardboard box, balancing the small white one on top.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘for your help.’

  ‘Let me carry that box downstairs.’

  ‘I can do it,’ I said.

  She looked briefly into my eyes. ‘I’m sure you can. You’re too damned proud.’ She took the box straight out of my arms and walked purposefully away. I followed her, feeling a fool, down the stairs and out on to the tarmac.

  ‘Car?’ she said.

  ‘Round the back, but …’

  As well talk to the tide. I went with her, weakly gestured to the Scimitar, and opened the boot. She dumped the boxes inside, and I shut them in.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said again. ‘For everything.’

  The faintest of smiles came back into her eyes.

  ‘If you think of anything that could help Jenny,’ I said, ‘will you please let me know?’

  ‘If you give me your address.’

  I forked a card out of an inner pocket and gave it to her. ‘It’s on there.’

  ‘All right.’ She stood still for a moment with an expression I couldn’t read. ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ she said. ‘From what Jenny’s said … you’re not a bit what I expected.’

  5

  From Oxford I drove west to Gloucestershire and arrived at Garvey’s stud farm at the respectable visiting hour of eleven-thirty, Sunday morning.

  Tom Garvey, standing in his stable yard talking to his stud groom, came striding across as I braked to a halt.

  ‘Sid Halley!’ he said. ‘What a surprise. What do you want?’

  I grimaced through the open car window. ‘Does everyone think I want something, when they see me?’

  ‘Of course, lad. Best snooper in the business now, so they say. We hear things, you know, even us dim country bumpkins, we hear things.’

  Smiling, I climbed out of the car and shook hands with a sixty-year-old near-rogue who was about as far from a dim country bumpkin as Cape Horn from Alaska. A big strong bull of a man, with unshakable confidence, a loud domineering voice, and the wily mind of a gypsy. His hand in mine was as hard as his business methods and as dry as his manner. Tough with men, gentle with horses. Year after year-he-prospered, and if I would have had every foal on the place exhaustively blood-typed before I believed its alleged breeding, I was probably in the minority.

  ‘What are you after, then, Sid?’ he said.

  ‘I came to see a mare, Tom. One that you’ve got here. Just general interest.’

  ‘Oh yes? Which one?’

  ‘Bethesda.’

  There was an abrupt change in his expression from half-amusement to no amusement at all. He narrowed his eyes and said brusquely, ‘What about her?’

  ‘Well … has she foaled, for instance?’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘You heard, lad. She’s dead. You’d better come in the house.’

  He turned and scrunched away, and I followed. His house was old and dark and full of stale air. All the life of the place was outside, in fields and foaling boxes and the breeding shed. Inside, a heavy clock ticked loudly into silence, and there was no aroma of Sunday roast.

  ‘In here.’

  It was a cross between a dining room and an office: heavy old table and chairs at one end, filing cabinets and sagging armchairs at the other. No attempts at cosmetic decor to please the customers. Sales went on outside, on the hoof.

  Tom perched against his desk and I on the arm of one of the chairs: not the sort of conversation for relaxing in comfort.

  ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘Why are you asking about Bethesda?’

  ‘I just wondered what had become of her.’

  ‘Don’t fence with me, lad. You don’t drive all the way here out of general interest. What do you want to know for?’

  ‘A client wants to know,’ I said.

  ‘What client?’

  ‘If I were working for you,’ I said, ‘and you’d told me to keep quiet about it, would you expect me to tell?’

  He considered me with sour concentration.

  ‘No, lad. Guess I wouldn’t. And I don’t suppose there’s much secret about Bethesda. She died foaling. The foal died with her. A colt, it would have been. Small, though.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘It happens sometimes. Not often, mind. Her heart packed up.’

  ‘Heart?’

  ‘Aye. The foal was lying wrong. see, and the mare, she’d been straining longer than was good for her. We got the foal turned inside her once we found she was in trouble, but she just packed it in, sudden like. Nothing we could do. Middle of the night, of course, like it nearly always is.’

  ‘Did you have a vet to her?’
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  ‘Aye, he was there, right enough. I called him when we found she’d started, because there was a chance it would be dicey. First foal, and the heart murmur, and all.’

  I frowned slightly. ‘Did she have a heart murmur when she came to you?’

  ‘Of course she did, lad. That’s why she stopped racing. You don’t know much about her, do you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Tell me.’

  He shrugged. ‘She came from George Caspar’s yard, of course. Her owner wanted to breed from her on account of her two-year-old form, so we bred her to Timberley, which should have given us a sprinter, but there you are, best laid plans, and all that.’

  ‘When did she die?’

  ‘Month ago, maybe.’

  ‘Well, thanks, Tom.’ I stood up. ‘Thanks for your time.’

  He shoved himself off his desk. ‘Bit of a tame turn-up for you, asking questions, isn’t it? I can’t square it with the old Sid Halley, all speed and guts over the fences.’

  ‘Times change, Tom.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so. I’ll bet you miss it, though, that roar from the stands when you’d come to the last and bloody well lift your horse over it.’ His face echoed remembered excitements. ‘By God, lad, that was a sight. Not a nerve in your body … don’t know how you did it.’

  I supposed it was generous of him, but I wished he would stop.

  ‘Bit of bad luck, losing your hand. Still, with steeplechasing it’s always something. Broken backs and such.’ We began to walk to the door. ‘If you go jump-racing you’ve got to accept the risks.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  We went outside and across to my car.

  ‘You don’t do too badly with that contraption, though, do you, lad? Drive a car and such.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Aye, lad.’ He knew it wasn’t. He wanted me to know he was sorry, and he’d done his best. I smiled at him, got into the car, sketched a thank-you salute, and drove away.

  At Aynsford they were in the drawing room, drinking sherry before lunch: Charles, Toby and Jenny.