Longshot. Part 28

'Why doesn't he turn professional?' I asked.

'The very idea of that scares Sam rigid,' Dee-Dee said calmly, 'but I don't think it will happen. Especially not now, since the conviction. Nolan prefers his amateur status, anyway. He thinks of Sam as blue collar to his white. That's why-' she stopped abruptly as if blocking a revelation that was already on its way from brain to mouth, stopped so sharply that I was immediately interested, but without showing it asked, 'Why what?'

She shook her head. 'It's not fair to them.'

'Do go on,' I said, not pressing too much. 'I won't repeat it to anyone.'

'It wouldn't help you with the book,' she said.

'It might help me to understand the way the stable works and where its success comes from, besides Tremayne's skill. It might come partly, for instance, from rivalry between two jockeys each of whom wants to prove himself better than the other.'

She gazed at me. 'You have a twisty mind. I'd never have thought of that.' She paused for decision and I simply waited. 'It isn't just riding,' she said finally. 'It's women.'

'Women?'

'They're rivals there, too. The night Nolan - I mean, the night Olympia died-'

They all said, I'd noticed, 'when Olympia died', and never 'when Nolan killed Olympia', though Dee-Dee had just come close.

'Sam set out to seduce Olympia,' Dee-Dee said, as if it were only to be expected. 'Nolan brought her to the party and of course Sam made a bee-line for her.' Somewhere in her calm voice was indulgence for Sam Yaeger, censure for Nolan, never mind that Nolan seemed to be the loser.

'Did Sam- er- know Olympia?'

'Never set eyes on her before. None of us knew her. Nolan had been keeping her to himself. Anyway, he brought her that night and she took one look at Sam and giggled. I know, I was there. Sam has that effect on females.' She raised her eyebrows. 'Don't say it. I respond to him too. Can't help it. He's fun.'

'I can see that,' I said.

'Can you? Olympia did. Putty in his hands which of course were all over her the minute Nolan went to fetch her a drink. When he came back, she'd gone off with Sam. Like I told you, she had on a low-cut long scarlet dress slit up the thigh- next best thing to a written invitation. Nolan seemed to think that Sam and Olympia would have headed for the stables and he went looking for them there, but without results.'

She stopped again as if doubting the wisdom of telling me these things, but it seemed harder for her to stop than to start.

'Nolan came back into the house cursing and swearing and telling me he would strangle the- er- b.i.t.c.h because, you see, I think he blamed her, not Sam, for making him feel a fool. Him, Nolan, the white-collar amateur. He wasn't going to make it public and he shut up pretty soon, though he went on being angry. So, anyway, there you are, that's really what happened.'

'Which no one,' I said slowly, 'brought up at the trial.'

'Of course not. I mean, not many people knew, and it gave Nolan a motive.'

'Yes, it did.'

'But he didn't mean to kill her. Everyone knows that. If he'd attacked and killed Sam, it would have been a different matter.'

I said, frowning, 'It wasn't you, though, who said at the trial they'd heard him say he would strangle the b.i.t.c.h.'

'No, of course not. Some other people heard him before he reached me, and they didn't know why he was saying it. It didn't seem important at that time. Of course, no one ever asked me if I knew why he'd said it, so no one found out.'

'But the prosecution must have asked Nolan why he said it?'

'Yes, sure, but he said it was because he couldn't find her, nothing else. Extravagant language but not a threat.'

I sighed. 'And Sam wasn't for saying why, as it would further torpedo his shaky reputation?'

'Yes. And anyway he didn't believe Nolan meant to kill her. He told me that. He said it wasn't the first time he and Nolan had bedded the same girl, and sometimes Nolan had pinched one of his, and it was a bit of a lark on the whole, not a killing matter.'

'More a lark to Sam than to Nolan,' I suggested.

'Probably.' She shook herself. 'I'm getting no work done.'

'You've done some of mine.'

'Don't put it in the book,' she insisted, alarmed.

'I promise I won't,' I said.

I retired to the dining-room and, since the shape of Tremayne's pa.s.sage through life was becoming more and more clear, I began to map out the book into sections, giving each a tentative t.i.tle with subheadings. I still hadn't put an actual sentence on paper and was feeling tyrannised by all the blank pages lying ahead. I'd heard of writers who leaped to their typewriters as to a lover. There were days when I'd do any ch.o.r.e I could think of rather than pick up a pencil, and it was never easy, ever, to dig words and ideas from my brain. Half the time I couldn't believe I'd chosen this occupation; half of the time I longed for the easier solitude under the stars.

I scribbled 'Find something you like doing and spend your life doing it' at the end of the outline plan and decided it was enough for one day. If tomorrow it looked all right, maybe I'd let it stand, and go on.

Out in the woodland Detective Chief Inspector Doone looked morosely at Angela Brickell's jumbled bones while the pathologist told him they were those of a young female, dead probably less than a year.

The photographer took photographs. The gamekeeper marked the spot on a large-scale map. The pathologist said it was impossible to determine the cause of death without a detailed autopsy, and very likely not even then.

With sketchy reverence for whoever they had been, the skull and other bones were packed into a coffin-shaped box, carried to a van, and driven to the mortuary.

Detective Chief Inspector Doone, seeing there was no point in looking for tyre tracks, footprints or cigarette ends, set two constables to searching the undergrowth for clothes, shoes, or anything not rotted by time; and it was in this way that under a blanket of dead leaves they came across some wet filthy jeans, a small-sized bra, a pair of panties and a T-shirt with the remains of a pattern on the front.

Detective Chief Inspector Doone watched his men pack these sad remnants into a plastic bag and reflected that none of the clothes had been on or even near the bones.

The girl, he reckoned, had been naked when she died.

He sighed deeply. He didn't like these sorts of cases. He had daughters of his own.

Tremayne came back from the second lot in a good mood, whistling between his teeth. He wheeled straight into the office, fired off a fresh barrage of instructions to Dee-Dee and made several rapid phone calls himself. Then he came into the dining-room to let me know the state of play and to ask a favour or two, taking it (correctly) for granted that I would oblige.

The ditched jeep had gone to the big sc.r.a.p heap in the sky: a replacement had been found in Newbury, a not new but serviceable Land Rover. If I would go to Newbury in the Volvo with Tremayne, I could drive the subst.i.tute home to Sh.e.l.lerton.

'Of course,' I said.

The racing industry was scrambling back into action, with Windsor racecourse promising to be operational on

Wednesday. Tremayne had horses entered, four of which he proposed to run. He would like me to come with him, he said, to see what his job entailed.

'Love to,' I said.

He wished to go out for the evening to play poker with friends, and he'd be back late: would I stay in for Gareth?

'Sure,' I said.

'He's old enough to be safe on his own, but- well j