Blood Sport Page 9

  The two men didn’t stir.

  I went on, ‘This means that if we ever do find Chrysalis, there will be an enormous problem of identification. English horses have no tattooed numbers, like American.’

  ‘Christ,’ Teller said.

  ‘I wouldn’t know him if he came up and ate sugar out of my hand. Would you?’ He shook his head. I went on, ‘The only people at all likely to be able to pick him out for us with any certainty are those who handled him in England. And that’s where we hit a very big snag. The stud groom at Read’s died of a heart attack two months ago and the new man couldn’t be sure of knowing Chrysalis again. Read himself is too short sighted, apparently, to be of any help. This means we have to go back nearly five years, to the season when Chrysalis last raced. To his owner at that time, and his trainer. Though the only one I’d pin any faith on would be the lad who looked after him. And it’s the lad, I think, who we’ll need to take to the States, if we find a horse which might be Chrysalis.’

  ‘We could easily find out who the lad is,’ Keeble nodded, ‘and shunt him over.’

  ‘His name is Sam Kitchens, and he’ll be at Ascot at this moment, as one of his horses is running in the four-thirty. It’s Gold Cup day today.’ I smiled faintly. ‘I thought I might just drift along to the races when I leave here.’

  ‘Just tell me,’ Teller said in a small voice, ‘how and when you found out all this?’ He spread his fingers. ‘I only ask.’

  ‘I spent an hour this morning at the British Bloodstock Agency … I was practically camped on their doorstep at nine o’clock. And then I did some telephoning. That’s all.’

  ‘When do you sleep, fella?’

  ‘Between meals. Very bad for the appetite.’

  ‘He’s mad,’ Teller said to Keeble.

  ‘You get used to it,’ Keeble assured him. ‘The first eight years are the worst.’

  ‘And this is the guy you’d trust your daughter to?’

  ‘Hm,’ said Keeble. ‘We haven’t mentioned that.’

  ‘What?’ I said suspiciously.

  ‘We’d … er … like you to take Lynnie back with you, to the States,’ Teller said. ‘She’s going to visit with Eunice for a while.’

  I glanced at Keeble and saw that he knew what I was inevitably thinking: that Eunice’s special need for company was more compelling than the rest of Lynnie’s finishing-school term.

  ‘I’d be glad to,’ I said to them both with formality. ‘On a slow boat via New Zealand, if you like.’

  ‘She’s too young for you,’ said Keeble, without anxiety.

  ‘She is indeed.’ I pushed myself away from the wall and stood upright. ‘Where will I collect her?’

  Keeble handed me an envelope. ‘Air tickets for you both. She’ll be at the Victoria Air Terminal at eight-thirty tomorrow morning. Is that all right?’

  I took the tickets and nodded. ‘Can I have the handkerchief?’

  He obligingly produced it, in another envelope. I put that and the air tickets away, and picked up Peter’s snaps. Holding the negatives up to the light I singled out the drinking group and put it in my wallet.

  ‘I’ll get it blown up tomorrow in New York,’ I said. ‘Then it’ll only be a matter of sifting through two hundred million inhabitants.’

  Drizzle was wilting the fluffy hats when I got to Ascot, but the turf looked greener for it, and the horses glossier. I spotted the trainer I wanted and walked across to where he was talking to a large woman in a creased pink dress under a dripping pink umbrella. He caught sight of me over her shoulder, and I watched the initial memory-jog pass through mind-search to recognition. He smiled warmly at his success.

  ‘Gene Hawkins.’

  The large woman turned round, saw she didn’t know me, decided she didn’t want to, and departed.

  ‘Mr Arkwright.’ We shook hands, and I thought how little age had changed him. Still the upright, brisk, grey-headed neighbour from my father’s days in Yorkshire.

  ‘Come and have a drink,’ he said, ‘and let’s get out of this rain.’ There were misty beads of water fuzzing his tall grey hat. ‘Though it’s much better than it was an hour ago, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ve only just come.’

  He led the way up the staircase into the balcony bar and ordered vodka and tonic. I asked if I could have the tonic without the vodka and he remarked that my father, an enthusiastic alcoholic, would have turned in his grave.

  ‘What are you doing now then?’ he said, sipping the clear fizzy mixture. ‘Still in the Civil Service?’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘But I’m on leave at present.’

  ‘It always seemed rum to me, you doing something so … so tame,’ he said. ‘Considering the sort of boy you were.’ He shrugged. ‘Never would have thought it. Your old father always thought you’d do something in racing, you know. You rode well enough, you knew your way around. Can’t understand it.’ He looked at me accusingly. ‘Those two years in the Army did you no good.’

  I smiled. ‘It was while I was in the Army that they offered me this job.’

  ‘Safe, I suppose,’ he said, making allowances. ‘Prospects, pension, and all that.’

  ‘Mm,’ I said non-committally. ‘Actually, I really came here today to see you, to ask you about Chrysalis.’

  ‘Have they found him, do you know?’ he said.

  ‘Not yet, no. The American who bought him is a friend of my boss, and they’ve asked me, as I know you, to see if you would do them a favour.’

  ‘If I can,’ he said promptly. ‘If I can.’

  ‘Their problem is’, I explained, ‘that if and when a loose horse is found, especially if he’s some distance from where he was lost, how are they to be sure it is Chrysalis.’

  He looked startled and then amused. ‘That certainly is a problem. But Chrysalis hasn’t been in my yard since … let’s see … four years last October. I don’t know whether I’d be certain of him, not absolutely certain, if I saw him, for instance, among twenty others rather like him. And you’d want it to be more positive than that.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Actually I rang your home this morning and your secretary said I’d find you here. And he also said Chrysalis’s old lad would be here. Sam Kitchens. Would you mind if I had a word with him?’

  ‘That’s right, he came with Milkmaid for the four-thirty. No, I don’t mind, you ask him what you like.’

  ‘Mr Dave Teller, who bought Chrysalis, wonders whether you would let Sam Kitchens go over to the States for a few days, if and when the horse turns up, to identify him. Mr Teller will pay his fare and expenses.’

  Arkwright laughed. ‘Sam will like that. He’s not a bad chap. Pretty reliable.’

  ‘Then if he’s needed, you’ll get a cable saying which flight he’s to go on, and so on. Will that be all right?’

  He nodded. ‘You tell the American I’ll let him go.’

  I thanked him. ‘They’ll be very grateful.’ I bought him another vodka and tonic and we talked about horses.

  Sam Kitchens walked his fair young Milkmaid around the parade ring and I risked ten bob on her, but she turned out to be a cow. I joined Arkwright while he ran his hand down the filly’s legs and listened to the jockey explaining forcibly that it wasn’t down there that the trouble lay, but up in her pea-sized brain.

  Lads usually resent criticism of their charges, but from his expression Kitchens, a short stocky man of about thirty, held much the same view. I asked him, after introductions from Arkwright, whether he would know Chrysalis again with enough certainty to testify if necessary in a court of law.

  ‘Sure,’ he said without hesitation. ‘I’d know the boy. I had him three years. Sure, I’d know him. Maybe I couldn’t pick him out of a herd, now, but I’d know him close to. The way his hide grows, and little nicks in his skin, I wouldn’t have forgotten those.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said, nodding. ‘Was there … is there … anything special about him, which might help someone who’d never seen him before t
o recognize him?’

  He thought it over for several minutes. ‘It’s four years. More, nearly five, see. The only thing I remember is, we had trouble with his off hind hoof. It was thin, used to crack at the same place every time. But the stud he went to might have cured it, as he wasn’t racing any more. Or he might just have grown out of it, being older now.’ He paused. ‘Tell you something, he liked sardines. He’s the only horse I know of who had a taste for sardines.’

  I smiled. ‘That’s pretty odd. How did you find out?’

  ‘Took my tea into his box once. Sardines on toast. I put it down for a minute on the window sill, and when I looked round he’d scoffed the lot. It tickled me, it did. I used to share a tinful with him sometimes, after that. He always liked them.’

  I stayed for the last race and picked another loser. I would have made a lousy trainer, anyway.

  Chapter Seven

  I reached the Air Terminal at eight-fifteen, but Lynnie was there first.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep much,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been to America before.’

  I’d been to America a dozen times. I hadn’t slept much either.

  Lynnie’s clothes, a deep pink shiny PVC raincoat over the orange tan dress, were having an anti-soporific effect on everyone in sight. Resisting an urge to grope for dark glasses I felt an uncommon lift to the spirits, which lasted to mid Atlantic. There Lynnie went to sleep and a strong wave of non-enthusiasm for finding Chrysalis invaded my mind like one enormous yawn. I wouldn’t mind, I thought idly, I really wouldn’t mind lazing around that swimming pool with Eunice and Lynnie, doing nothing at all but drink in sunshine, peace, Scotch, and an uninterrupted view of two well-shaped females in bikinis. Peace most of all. Lie like a log, and not think, not feel. And sleep. Sleep for sixteen hours a day and mindlessly laze away the other eight: a programme as near to death as dammit. A very small step from there to eternity, to make the peace permanent …

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Lynnie said.

  She had opened her eyes and was watching my face.

  ‘Heaven,’ I said.

  She shook her head slightly. ‘Hell, more like.’ She sat up briskly. ‘How long before we land?’

  About an hour.’

  ‘Will I like Mrs Teller?’

  ‘Haven’t you met her before?’ I asked.

  ‘Once, when I was little. I don’t remember her.’

  I smiled. ‘She isn’t easy to forget.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Lynnie said. ‘There’s something odd about me going to stay with her. Of course I said I’d love to, and who wouldn’t go off on any trip to get away from school, let alone a super one like this, but I distinctly think that Daddy and Mr Teller have an ulterior motive and I want to know what it is.’

  ‘They want her to have company, to stop her drinking too much alone.’

  ‘Wow!’ She looked surprised. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘They didn’t say so. I’m only guessing.’

  ‘But I can’t stop her drinking,’ she protested.

  ‘Don’t try. She doesn’t get drunk. And you’ll like her all right, as long as your ears don’t fall off.’

  She laughed. ‘My mother wouldn’t approve of her?’

  ‘Quite likely not.’

  ‘I expect that’s why I’ve only met her once.’ She grinned at me mischievously without a shred of self-consciousness, Joan’s influence waning visibly with every hundred miles.

  It was late morning, local time, when we checked in at the Biltmore. From there Lynnie departed on foot for a private tour of New York, and I cabbed down town to Buttress Life. The heatwave was still in position, the air still saturated. Lethargy and haze hung over the city, and buildings shivered like mirages through the blue exhausts of the cars. Once over the Buttress building’s threshold the temperate zone took over: I rode up to the seventh floor with the humidity in my clothes condensing into water, and sagged damply into Walt’s spare chair in four seven.

  ‘Good trip?’ he said. ‘You look …’ he hesitated.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Pooped.’

  He smiled. It was worth waiting for. There’s a load to be read in a smile, and Walt’s was a good one.

  ‘How’s it with the Snail Express?’ I asked.

  He picked a list off his desk. ‘They were very co-operative. Only trouble is, they had about thirty-five trailers out on those dates which just might have been going west on the turnpike.’ He handed me the paper sympathetically. ‘It was a pretty long shot, of course.’

  ‘Hm.’ I looked at the list of names and addresses, and at my watch. ‘I think we’d better check them.’

  ‘I had a feeling you’d say that.’ A touch of gloom.

  I smiled at him. ‘I’ll start it, if you like. Do you know where we can get good enlargements of a snapshot done quickly?’ He nodded and mentioned a name, and I gave him the negative. ‘The top left hand corner. A couple. Man and girl.’ He nodded again. ‘And there’s this handkerchief.’ I produced it. ‘Would you mind making a tour of all the offices on this floor, and perhaps the fifth as well, and finding out what everyone associates with it?’

  Walt took the small white square curiously.

  ‘Yogi Bear,’ he said. ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘It belonged to a girl who may know more than she ought about Chrysalis. The girl on the negative.’

  ‘Find her, find the horse?’ He was half incredulous, a fraction excited.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Right then,’ he said at the door. ‘See you.’

  I studied the list. Snail Express had done their best. Most names had two addresses, the old and the new. All were followed by a place and a date, the depot where the trailer had been checked in after its trip. There were several telephone numbers for the eastern addresses, a few for the west.

  Working stolidly down the list, with long pauses while new inhabitants went to find the new telephone numbers of the old, I said I was calling from Snail Express, wanting to know that the service had been satisfactory, or if the customers had any suggestions or complaints. I listened to more praise than criticism, and eventually checked off twenty-seven genuine hirings.

  Walt came back while I was biting the end of one of his pencils and wondering what to do next. It was three o’clock. He’d added lunch to his itinerary but he carried a large white package, which he opened carefully. Six enlargements of the corner of Peter’s negative. Various sizes, from postcard to nine by seven. The faces were clearest on the smallest print, too fuzzy on the largest.

  ‘He says he’ll run off as many as you want by this evening, if you let him know at once.’

  ‘Ask him for six, then. Postcard size.’

  ‘OK.’ He picked up the receiver, pressed the buttons, and asked.

  The boy and girl stood side by side, their heads turned slightly to the left, towards where we had sat under the sun umbrella. Their faces were calm, good-looking, and somewhat alike. The boy’s hair was darker. They were of almost the same height. The checks of the boy’s shirt stood out clearly, and one of its buttons was either undone or missing. The girl had a watch with an extra wide strap on her left wrist. She hadn’t been wearing it while she hung on to the post.

  ‘All-American kids,’ Walt commented. ‘So what?’

  ‘So how did you get on with the handkerchief?’

  Walt produced it. A little limper, a little grubbier than before.

  ‘Fifteen Yogi Bears, ten don’t-bother-me-nows, six lewd suggestions, and one Yellowstone Park.’

  ‘One where?’

  ‘Yellowstone Park?’

  ‘Why Yellowstone Park?’

  ‘That’s where Yogi Bear lives. At least, it’s called Jellystone in the cartoons, but it’s Yellowstone really.’

  ‘Real live bears still in Yellowstone?’

  ‘Oh sure.’

  ‘A natural beauty spot … holiday place, isn’t it?’ I remembered vaguely.

  Walt nodded.

  ‘With souven
irs?’ I suggested.

  ‘Great lot of help that would be to us.’

  I agreed. It would only narrow the field down to one of the thousands who’d been to Yellowstone sometime, or one of the other thousands who knew someone who’d been to Yellowstone sometime. But I remembered a Jamaican would-be assistant to the Biological Warfare Defence Laboratory at Porton who’d been turned down because of a Russian-made bust of Castro in his bedroom. Souvenirs sometimes had their uses.

  ‘The handkerchief probably came from Japan. Do you have a leg-man who can check who imported it, and where it was sold over here?’

  ‘Leg-man?’ Walt echoed dismally. ‘That’s me.’ He put the handkerchief away in its envelope, chased up a few answers on the telephone, and heaved himself reluctantly to his feet. ‘I may as well go see a man about a Yogi, then. How’re the trailers?’

  ‘Twenty-seven are OK. Of the other eight, five don’t answer, and three have no telephone.’

  I tried two of the non-answerers yet again. Still no reply. Walt looked through the shorter list I’d made of the unchecked.

  ‘They sure went all over, didn’t they?’ He said, ‘Nebraska, Kentucky, New Mexico, California, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, and Montana. Just don’t ask me to leg it around all those places!’ He drifted out of the door and his solid footsteps diminuendoed down the passage.

  I went on trying the numbers now and then. After two hours I had crossed Texas off the list, bitten the end right off Walt’s pencil and started on it an inch farther down, decided I couldn’t work many days in his rabbit hutch of an office, and wondered how Eunice was making out beside her pool.

  The telephone buzzed.

  Are you staying at the Biltmore again?’ Walt said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Meet me in the bar there,’ he suggested. ‘I’m nearer there than to you.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’m on my way.’

  Lynnie wasn’t back. I left a message at the desk for her and joined Walt. His pale blue suit looked as if it had just come out of a spin dryer and there was a damp translucent look to his skin. Repentant, I bought him a large Scotch on the rocks and waited until he had it where it would do most good. He sighed, rubbed the back of one wrist across his eyes, fished a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, and spread it open on the bar.