Longshot. Part 12

'Good idea,' I said.

He nodded. 'Come along, then, and I'll show you where things are.'

We went out into the carpeted hall and he pointed to the doorway opposite.

'That's the family room, as you know. Next to the kitchen-' he walked along and opened a closed door,

'- is my dining-room. We don't use it much. You'll have to turn the heating up, I dare say.'

I looked into the room I was to get to know well; a s.p.a.cious room with mahogany furniture, swagged crimson curtains, formal cream-and-gold striped walls and a plain dark green carpet. Not Tremayne's own choice, I thought. Much too coordinated.

'That'll be great,' I said obligingly.

'Good.' He closed the door again and looked up the stairs we had climbed to bed the night before. 'We put those stairs in when we divided the house. This pa.s.sage beside them, this leads to Perkin and Mackie's half. Come along, I'll show you.' He walked along a wide pale-green-carpeted corridor with pictures of horses on both walls and opened double white-painted doors at the end.

'Through here,' he said, 'is the main entrance hall of the house. The oldest part.'

We pa.s.sed onto a big wood-blocked expanse of polished floor from which two graceful wings of staircase rose to an upper gallery. Under the gallery, between the staircases, was another pair of doors which Tremayne, crossing, opened without flourish, revealing a vista of gold and pale blue furnishings in the same formal style as the dining-room.

'This is the main drawing room,' he said. 'We share it. We hardly use it. We used it last for that d.a.m.ned party-' He paused. 'Well, as Mackie said, I don't know when we'll have another.'

A pity, I thought. It looked a house made for parties. Tremayne closed the drawing-room door, and pointed straight across the hall.

'That's the front entrance, and those double doors on the right open into Perkin and Mackie's half. We built a new kitchen for them and another new staircase. We planned it as two separate houses, you see, with this big common section between us.'

'It's great,' I said to please him, but also meaning it.

He nodded. 'It divided quite well. No one needs houses this size these days. Take too much heating.' Indeed, it was cold in the hall. 'Most of this was built about nineteen six. Edwardian. Country house of the Windberry family, don't suppose you've ever heard of them.'

'No,' I agreed.

'My father bought the place for peanuts during the Depression. I've lived here all my life.'

'Was your father a trainer also?' I asked.

Tremayne laughed. 'G.o.d, no. He inherited a fortune. Never did a day's work. He liked going racing, so he bought a few jumpers, put them in the stables that hadn't been used since cars replaced the carriages and engaged a trainer for them. When I grew up, I just took over the horses. Built another yard, eventually. I've fifty boxes at present, all full.'

He led the way back through the doors to his own domain and closed them behind us.

'That's more or less all,' he said, 'except for the office.'

Once back in his own hall he veered through the last of the doorways there and I followed him into yet another big room in which Dee-Dee looked lost behind a vast desk.

'This used to be the Windberrys' billiards room,' Tremayne said. 'When I was a child, it was our playroom.'

'You had brothers and sisters?'

'One sister,' he said briefly, looking at his watch. 'I'll leave you to Dee-Dee. See you later.'

He went away purposefully, and, after the time it would have taken him to replace coat, cap and scarf, the door out to the yard slammed behind him. He was a natural slammer, I thought; there seemed to be no ingredient of ire.

Dee-Dee said, 'How can I help you?' without any great enthusiasm.

'Don't you approve of the biography project?' I asked.

She blinked. 'I didn't say that.'

'You looked it.'

She fiddled lengthily with some papers, eyes down.

'He's been on about it for months,' she said finally. 'It's important to him. I think- if you must know- that he should have held out for someone better-' She hesitated. 'Better known, anyway. He met you one day and the next day you're here, and I think it's too fast. I suggested that we should at least run a check on you but he said Ronnie Curzon's word was good enough. So you're here.' She looked up, suddenly fierce. 'He deserves the best,' she said.

'Ah.'

'What do you mean by Ah?'

I didn't answer at once but looked round the jumbo office, seeing the remains of the cla.s.sical decorative style overlaid by a host of modern bookshelves, filing cabinets, cupboards, copier, fax, computer, telephones, floor safe, television, tapes by the dozen, cardboard boxes, knee-high stack of newspapers and another corkboard with red drawing-pinned memos. There was an antique kneehole desk with an outsize leather chair, clearly Tremayne's own territory, and on the floor a splatter of overlapping Persian rugs in haphazard patterns and colours covering most of an old grey carpet. Pictures of horses pa.s.sing winning posts inhabited the walls alongside a bright row of racing silks hanging on pegs.

I ended the visual tour where I'd begun, on Dee-Dee's face.

'The more you help,' I said, 'the more chance he has.'

She compressed her mouth obstinately. 'That doesn't follow.'

'Then the more you obstruct, the less chance he has.'

She stared at me, her antagonism still clear, while logic made hardly a dent in emotion.

She was about forty, I supposed. Thin but not emaciated, from what one could see via the sweater. Good skin, bobbed straight hair, unremarkable features, pink lipstick, no jewellery, small, strong-looking hands. General air of reserve, of holding back. Perhaps that was habitual; perhaps the work of the s.h.i.t of an amateur jockey who had treated her like muck.

'How long have you worked here?' I asked, voice neutral, merely enquiring.

'Eight years, about.' Straightforward answer.

'What I chiefly need,' I said, 'are cuttings books.'

She almost smiled. 'There aren't any.'

With dismay I protested, 'There must be. He mentioned cuttings.'

'They're not in books, they're in boxes.' She turned her head, nodding directions. 'In that cupboard over there. Help yourself.'

I went across and opened a white-painted door and inside found stacked on shelves from floor to head height a whole array of uniform white cardboard boxes, all like shirt-boxes but about eight inches deep, all with dates written on their ends in black marker ink.

'I re-boxed all the cuttings three or four years ago,' Dee-Dee said. 'Some of the old boxes were falling to bits. The newspaper is yellow and brittle. You'll see.'

'Can I take them all into the dining-room?'