Longshot. Part 18

By the following week, Angela Brickell's disappearance had been taken up by the national dailies who all mentioned the death of Olympia at Sh.e.l.lerton two months earlier but drew no significant conclusions.

Angela, I learned, lived in a stable hostel with five other girls who described her as 'moody'. An indistinct photograph of her showed the face of a child, not a young woman, and pleas to 'Find This Girl' could realistically never have been successful if they depended on recognising her from her likeness in newsprint.

There was no account, in fact, of her having been found, and after a week or so the clippings about her stopped.

There were no cuttings at all for July, when it seemed the jump racing fraternity took a holiday, but they began again with various accounts of the opening of the new season in Devon in August. 'Vickers' Victories Continue!'

Nolan had ridden a winner on one of Fiona's horses: 'the well-known amateur now out on bail facing charges of a.s.sault resulting in death-'

In early September Nolan had hit the news again, this time in giving evidence at a Jockey Club enquiry in defence of Tremayne, who stood accused of doping one of his horses.

With popping eyes, since Tremayne to me even on such short acquaintance seemed the last person to put his whole way of life in jeopardy for so trivial a reason, I read that one of his horses had tested positive to traces of the stimulants theobromine and caffeine, prohibited substances.

The horse in question had won an amateurs' race back in May. Belonging to Fiona, it had been ridden by Nolan, who said he had no idea how the drugs had been administered. He had himself been in charge of the horse that day since Tremayne hadn't attended the meeting. Tremayne had sent the animal in the care of his head travelling lad and a groom, and neither the head lad nor Tremayne knew how the drugs had been administered. Mrs Fiona Goodhaven could offer no explanation either, though she and her husband had attended and watched the race.

The Jockey Club's verdict at the end of the day had been that there was no way of determining who had given the drugs or how, since they couldn't any longer question the groom who had been in charge of the horse as she, Angela Brickell, could not be found.

Angela Brickell. Good grief, I thought.

Tremayne had nevertheless been adjudged guilty as charged and had been fined fifteen hundred pounds. A slapped wrist, it seemed.

Upon leaving the enquiry Tremayne had shrugged and said, 'These things happen.'

The drug theobromine, along with caffeine, commented the reporter, could commonly be found in chocolate. Well, well, I thought. Never a dull moment in the racing industry.

The rest of the year seemed an anti-climax after that, though there had been a whole procession of notable wins. 'The Stable in Form' and 'More Vim to Vickers' and 'Loadsa Vicktories', according to which paper or magazine one read.

I finished the year and was simply sitting and thinking when Tremayne breezed in with downland air still cool on his coat.

'How are you doing?' he said.

I pointed to the pile of clippings out of their box. 'I was reading about last year. All those winners.'

He beamed. 'Couldn't put a foot wrong. Amazing. Sometimes things just go right. Other years, you get the virus, horses break down, owners die, you have a ghastly time. All the luck of the game.'

'Did Angela Brickell ever turn up?' I asked.

'Who? Oh, her. No, silly little b.i.t.c.h, G.o.d knows where she made off to. Every last person in the racing world knows you mustn't give chocolate to horses in training. Pity really, most of them love it. Everybody also knows a Mars bar here or there isn't going to make a horse win a race, but there you are, by the rules chocolate's a stimulant, so bad luck.'

'Would the girl have got into trouble if she'd stayed?'

He laughed. 'From me, yes. I'd have sacked her, but she'd gone before I heard the horse had tested positive. It was a routine test; they test most winners.'

He paused and sat down on a chair across the table from me, staring thoughtfully at a heap of clippings. 'It could have been anyone, you know. Anyone here in the yard. Or Nolan himself, though G.o.d knows why he should. Anyway,' he shrugged, 'it often happens because the testing techniques are now so highly developed. They don't automatically warn off trainers any more, thank G.o.d, when odd things turn up in the a.n.a.lysis. It has to be gross, has to be beyond interpretation as an accident. But it's still a risk every trainer runs. Risk of crooks. Risk of plain malice. You take what precautions you can and pray.'

'I'll put that in the book, if you like.'

He looked at me a.s.sessingly. 'I got me a good writer after all, didn't I?'

I shook my head. 'You got one who'll do his best.'

He smiled with what looked like satisfaction and after lunch (beef sandwiches) we got down to work again on taping his early life with his eccentric father. Tremayne seemed to have soared unharmed over such psychological trifles as being rented out in Leicestershire as a harness and tack cleaner to a fox-hunting family and a year later as stable boy to a polo player in Argentina.

'But that was child abuse,' I protested.

Tremayne chuckled unconcernedly. 'I didn't get b.u.g.g.e.red, if that's what you mean. My father hired me out, picked up all I earned and gave me a crack or two with his cane when I said it wasn't fair. Well, it wasn't fair. He told me that that was a valuable lesson, to learn that things weren't fair. Never expect fairness. I'm telling you what he told me, but you're lucky, I won't beat it into you.'

'Will you pay me?'

He laughed deeply. 'You've got Ronnie Curzon looking after that.' His amus.e.m.e.nt continued. 'Did your father ever beat you?'

'No, he didn't believe in it.'

'Nor do I, by G.o.d. I've never beaten Perkin, nor Gareth. Couldn't. I remember what it felt like. But then, see, he did take me with him to Argentina and all round the world. I saw a lot of things most English boys don't. I missed a lot of school. He was mad, no doubt, but he gave me a priceless education and I wouldn't change anything.'

'You had a pretty tough mind,' I said.

'Sure.' He nodded. 'You need it in this life.'

You might need it, I reflected, but tough minds weren't regulation issue. Many children would have disintegrated where Tremayne had learned and thrived. I tended to feel at home with stoicism and, increasingly, with Tremayne.

About mid-afternoon, when we stopped taping, he lent me his Volvo to go to Didcot to fetch the parcel of books from the station and to do the household shopping, advising me not to slide into any ditches if I could help it. The roads, however, were marginally better and the air not so brutally cold, though the forecasters still spoke of more days' frost. I shopped with luxurious abandon for food and picked up the books, getting back to Sh.e.l.lerton while Tremayne was still out in his yard at evening stables.

He came into the house with Mackie, both of them stamping their feet and blowing onto their fingers as they discussed the state of the horses.

'You'd better ride Selkirk in the morning,' Tremayne said to her. 'He's a bit too fresh these days for his lad.'

'Right.'

'And I forgot to tell Bob to get the lads to put two rugs on their mounts if they're doing only trotting exercise.'

'I'll remind him.'

'Good.'

He saw me in the kitchen as I was finishing stowing the stores and asked if the books had arrived. They had, I said.

'Great. Bring them into the family room. Come on, Mackie, gin and tonic.'

The big logs in the family room fireplace never entirely went cold; Tremayne kicked the embers smartly together, adding a few small sticks and a fresh chunk of beech to renew the blaze. The evening developed as twice before, Perkin arriving as if on cue and collecting his c.o.ke.

With flattering eagerness Tremayne opened the package of books and handed some of them to Mackie and Perkin. So familiar to me, they seemed to surprise the others, though I wasn't sure why.

Slightly larger than paperbacks, they were more the size of video tapes and had white shiny hard covers with the tide in various bright black-edged colours: Return Safe from the Jungle in green, Return Safe from the Desert in orange, Return Safe from the Sea in blue, Return Safe from the Ice in purple, Return Safe from Safari in red, Return Safe from the Wilderness in a hot rusty brown.

'I'll be d.a.m.ned,' Tremayne said. 'Real books.'

'What did you expect?' I asked.