Decider. Part 28

'The book's called The Barberini Codex The Barberini Codex. It was all serious medicine five hundred years ago.'

'What is soap plant, then?'

'I don't know.'

'I wonder,' he said thoughtfully, 'if it works.'

We leaned on the parade ring rails before the first race, Dart and I, watching his father and mother, Conrad and Victoria, talking to their jockey-daughter, Rebecca, in a concerned little group that also included the horse's trainer. Other concerned little groups similarly eyed their four-legged performers stalking patiently around them, and hid their wild hopes under judicious appraisals.

'He won last time out,' Dart said, appraising judiciously from his own sidelines. 'She can ride well, you know, Rebecca.'

'She must do, to get so high on the list.'

'She's two years younger than me, and I can't remember when she wasn't besotted by ponies. I got kicked by one once, and that was enough for me, thanks very much, but Rebecca...' his voice held the familiar mix of exasperation and respect, 'she's broken her bones as if they were fingernails. I can't imagine ever ever wanting wanting anything anything as much as she wants to win.' as much as she wants to win.'

'I think,' I said, 'that all top achievers are like that, at least for a while.'

He turned his head, a.s.sessing me. 'Are you?'

'Afraid not.'

'Nor am I.'

'So we stand here,' I said, 'watching your sister.'

Dart said, 'You have such a d.a.m.ned d.a.m.ned clear way of looking at things.' clear way of looking at things.'

The signal was given for the jockeys to mount. Rebecca, wearing the distinctive Stratton colours of green and blue checks on the body with mismatched orange and scarlet sleeves and cap, swung her thin lithe shape into the saddle as softly as thistledown landing. The excessive strain brought on by the trivial annoyance of a lack of hangers had vanished: she looked cool, concentrated, a star on her stage, in command of her performance.

Dart watched her with all his ambivalent feelings showing; the female sibling whose prowess outshone him, whom he admired and resented, understood but couldn't love.

Conrad's runner, Tempestexi, a chestnut gelding, looked, by comparison with some of the others in the ring, to have a long back and short legs. The two-mile hurdle race, according to the card, was for horses that hadn't won a hurdle race before January 1st. Tempestexi, who had won one since, carried a 71b penalty for doing so, but had, all the same, been made favourite.

I asked Dart how many racehorses his father had in training and he said five, he thought, though they came and went a bit, he said, according to their legs.

'Tendons,' he said succinctly. 'Horses' tendons are as temperamental as violin strings. Tempestexi is Father's current white-hot hope. No leg problems, so far.'

'Does Conrad bet?'

'No. Mother does. And Keith. He'd have put the Dower House on this one, if he'd owned it the Dower House, that is. He'll have bet anything he can lay his hands on. If Rebecca doesn't win, Keith will kill her.'

'That wouldn't help.'

Dart laughed. 'You of all people must know that logic never interferes with instinct, in Keith.'

The horses streamed out of the parade ring on their way to the course, and Dart and I went to watch the race from the makeshift stands Henry had bolted together from the circus tiers.

The steps were packed to the point that I hoped Henry's boast of infallible safety would hold up. Crowds, in fact, had poured through the gates like a river during the past hour and had spread over the tarmac and into the big top and down to the betting rings in chattering thousands. The dining rooms were full, with customers waiting. There were crushes in all the bars and long lines at the Tote, and the booths by the entrance had sold out of regular racecards. The big office copier was churning out paper subst.i.tutes and running red-hot. Oliver, glimpsed briefly, sweated ecstatically.

'The television did it,' he said, gasping.

'Yes, your work, well done.'

Waiting for the race to start I said to Dart, 'Perdita Faulds is here at the races.'

'Oh? Who is she?'

'The other non-Stratton shareholder.'

He showed minimal interest. 'Didn't someone mention her at the family board meeting the other day? Why did she come?'

'Like me, to see what was happening about her investment.'

Dart cast it out of his mind. 'They're off!' he said. 'Now, come on, Rebecca.'

It looked an uneventful race from the stands, though no doubt not from the saddle. The runners stayed bunched throughout the first circuit, clattered safely over the flights of hurdles, swept in an overlapping ribbon past the winning post for the first time and set off again into the country.

Down the far side the less fit, the less speedy, fell back, leaving Rebecca in third place round the last bend. Dart's genuine wish for his sister to win couldn't be doubted. He made scrubbing, encouraging movements with his whole body, and when she reached second place coming towards the last flight he raised his voice like the rest and yelled to her to win.

She did. She won by less than a length, accelerating, a thin streak of neat rhythmic muscle against an opponent who flapped his elbows and his whip but couldn't hang onto his lead.

The crowd cheered her. Dart oozed reflected glory. Everyone streamed down towards the winner's unsaddling enclosure where Dart joined his parents and Marjorie in a kissing and back-slapping orgy. Rebecca, pulling off the saddle, ducked the sentiment and dived purposefully into the Portakabin weighing room to sit on the scales. Very professional, fairly withdrawn; rapt in her own private world of risk, effort, metaphysics and, this time, success.

I took myself over to the office door and found four boys faithfully reporting there.

'Did you have lunch OK?' I asked.

They nodded. 'Good job we went early. There were no tables left, pretty soon.'

'Did you see Rebecca Stratton win that race?'

Christopher said reproachfully, 'Even though she called us brats, we wanted to back her with you, but we couldn't find you.'

I reflected. 'I'll pay you whatever the Tote pays on a minimum bet.'

Four grins rewarded me. 'Don't lose it,' I said.

Perdita Faulds and Penelope, pa.s.sing, stopped by my side, and I introduced the children.

'All yours?' Perdita asked. 'You don't look old enough.'

'Started young.'

The boys were staring at Penelope, wide-eyed.

'What's the matter?' she asked. 'Have I got mud on my nose?'

'No,' Alan said frankly, 'you look like Mummy.'

'Like your mother?'

They all nodded, and they moved off with her, as if it were natural, to go and look at the horses walking round for the next race.

'Like your wife, is she, my Pen?' Perdita said.

I dragged my gaze back. Heart thudded. Idiotic.

'Like she was then,' I said.

'And now?'

I swallowed. 'Yes, like now, too.'

Perdita gave me a look born of long, knowing experience. 'You can never go back,' she said.

I would do it again, I thought helplessly. I'd marry with my eyes and find an unsuspected stranger inside the package. Did one never grow up?

I wrenched my mind away from it and said to Perdita, 'Did Lord Stratton happen to know and tell you what it was that Forsyth Stratton did that has tied the whole family into knots?'

Her generous red mouth formed an O of amused surprise.

'You don't mess about, do you? Why should I tell you?'

'Because if we're going to save his racecourse, we have to unravel the strings that work the family. They all know things about each other that they use as threats. They blackmail each other to make them do or not do what they want.'

Perdita nodded.

'And as a part of that,' I said, 'they pay people off, to keep the Stratton name clean.'

'Yes, they do.'

'Starting with my own mother,' I said.

'No, before that.'

'So you do do know!' know!'

'William liked to talk,' she said. 'I told you.'

'And... Forsyth?'

Penelope and the boys were on their way back. Perdita said, 'If you come to see me in my Swindon shop tomorrow morning, I'll tell you about Forsyth... and about the others, if you think up the questions.'

CHAPTER 13.

Keith's rage, when he discovered that the runners in the second race would be jumping the open ditch as scheduled, verged on the spectacular.

Henry and I happened to be walking along behind the caterers' tents when the eruption occurred (Henry having had to deal with a leak in the new water main) and we hurried down a caterer's pa.s.sage towards the source of vocal bellowing and crockery-smashing noises; into the Strattons' private dining room.

The whole family had clearly returned, after their victory, to finish their lunch and toast the winner, and typically, but perhaps luckily, had invited no outsiders to join them.

Keith, legs astride, shoulders back, mane of hair flying, had flung the entire dining table over and swept an arm along the line of bottles and gla.s.ses on the serving sideboard. Tablecloths, knives, plates, cheese, champagne, coffee, whipped-cream puddings, lay in a mess on the floor. Wine poured out of opened bottles. The waitresses pressed their hands to their mouths and various Strattons grabbed napkins and tried to clean debris from laps, trousers and legs.

'Keith!' screeched Conrad, equally furious, quivering on his feet, thunderous as a bull before charging. 'You lout lout'

Victoria's cream silk suit ran with coffee and Bordeaux. 'I'm presenting the Cup,' she yelled, wailing, 'and look look at me.' at me.'

Marjorie sat calm, unspattered, icily furious. Ivan, beside her, said, 'I say, Keith, I say say...'

Hannah, trifle dripping down her legs, used unfilial language to her father and also to her son, who turned ineffectively to help her. The thin woman who sat beyond Ivan, unconcernedly continuing a relationship with a large snifter of brandy, I provisionally guessed to be Imogen. Dart wasn't there. Forsyth, sullenly seeming to be relieved that someone other then he was the focus of family obloquy, made his way to the doorway into the main pa.s.sage, where we'd arranged a flap of canvas that could be fastened across to give privacy.

People were pulling the flap aside, trying to see in, to find out the cause of the commotion. Forsyth shouldered his way out, telling people rudely to mind their own business which, of course, they didn't.

The whole scene was laughable but, not far below the farcical surface, as each family member uneasily knew, lay the real cause of destructive violence, the melt-down in Keith that had so far gained most expression in hitting his wives and taking a belt at Lee Morris, but would one day go too far for containment.

Marjorie was holding in plain sight the copy of Harold Quest's confession; the cause of the debacle.

Keith suddenly seized it out of her hand, s.n.a.t.c.hed the brandy gla.s.s rudely from his wife, poured the alcohol over the letter, threw down the gla.s.s and with economic speed produced a lighter from his pocket and put a flame to the paper. Harold Quest's confession flared brightly and curled to ash and was dropped and stamped on, Keith triumphant.

'It was only a copy,' Marjorie said primly, intentionally goading.

'I'll kill you,' Keith said to her, his lower jaw rigid. His gaze rose over her and fastened on me. The animosity intensified, found a more possible, a more preferred target, 'I will will kill kill you you,' he said.

In the small following silence I turned and went out the back way with Henry, leaving the poor waitresses to clear up the garbage.

'That was only half funny,' Henry said thoughtfully.

'Yes.'

'You want to be careful. He might just kill you next time. And why? You why? You didn't bring Harold Quest here. didn't bring Harold Quest here. You You didn't suss out the hamburger.' didn't suss out the hamburger.'

'No,' I sighed. 'My pal Dart Stratton says logic never interferes with instinct, in Keith. But then, half the world's like that.'

'Including murderers,' Henry said.

'How inflammable,' I asked, 'is the big top?'

Henry stopped walking. 'You don't think he'd try ? He's pretty handy with that lighter. And burning the fence...' Henry looked angry but after a moment shook his head.

'This big top won't go on fire,' he said positively. 'Everything I brought here is flame-r.e.t.a.r.dant, flame-resistant or can't burn, like all the metal poles and the pylons. There were disasters in circuses in the past. The regs now are stringent. This big top won't burn by accident. Arson... well, I don't know. But we've got extinguishers all over the place, as you know, and I ran a bit of water main up to the roof in a sort of elementary sprinkler system.' He took me along to see. 'That bit of rising main,' he pointed, 'the pressure's pretty good in it. I fed a pipe up and connected it to a garden hose running along inside, below the ridge. The hose has small holes in it. The water squirts out OK.'

'Henry! You're a genius.'