The Silver Falcon (38 page)

‘Any shares left?'

Roy hesitated. He had put the syndicate together in the last week, but there were two full shares unsold. He could gamble on winning tomorrow and getting double their value as it stood the night before the race. ‘Come on,' his host said. ‘What happens tomorrow if he loses? I'm willing to take a chance –' Roy gave him a wide smile.

‘He isn't going to lose,' he said. ‘And I'm not selling till after the race.' He moved away. Downs had done a good job. It was all set up. He avoided a group composed of a major bookmaker with a chain of betting shops throughout east London and his girl friend, charitably described as a television dancer, and an ageing whizz kid, complete with trendy suit and rings, who looked after the furniture manufacturer's advertising account. Roy saw Patsy chatting to a youngish man, and turned away towards the bar. He would want her tonight. He would want that extraordinary sexual talent to take the knots out of his stomach and send him exhausted and sated into a deep sleep. He picked up a glass of champagne and sipped it. He didn't want to talk a lot of cock to the people there. He wanted to stay alone, until Patsy could take his mind off tomorrow. But he was going to win the Derby and he knew it. He also knew, that no matter what he did afterwards, whether he made millions more or lost everything, there would never again be this sense of anticipation so close to ecstasy that it was actual torment.

Downs was in the third pub on his progress through Epsom. He was drinking Guinness followed by chasers of whisky, and he was weaving slightly as he stood holding onto the bar. He had started out by himself, and soon found company. Farrant had treated him well. He had a wad of money and more to come. He talked about everything, about his old career as a jockey, boasting about the races he had won and the personalities he'd known. As he was buying the drinks, he had a captive audience. He watched them, focusing with difficulty; greedy bastards, sopping it up, thinking he didn't know they were codding him along while the drinks kept coming. He didn't mind paying. He liked a bit of company, and he liked talking about himself. There was no harm in that; he
had
ridden in the bloody Leger, and the Two Thousand Guineas, and won some decent races before the bottle started getting the better of him. Not that it mattered. Fuck-all difference it made in the end. So long as he talked about himself, and not about anything else. Not about the race tomorrow. Somebody asked him what he fancied and he mumbled about a couple of outsiders as long shots. Nothing else was worth backing. The odds were too short. He slid away from the subject of the Derby. One young lad, too cheeky for his own good, piped up and asked him if he'd ever ridden in the race.

Downs looked at him with contempt, seeing two peaked, jeering little faces instead of one. ‘No,' he said. ‘But I would have done. Drink was the ruination of me riding career.' When they laughed he didn't join them. A tear welled up in his eye. It was the truth. He was just a crooked little runner, doing the dirty work.… By Christ he'd done a bit of dirty work for Farrant in the last few days.… No wonder he'd given him a hundred quid on account and promised him five hundred after the race … no wonder. Six horses. Six bloody horses. That grey wouldn't stand a chance in hell. He put the thought out of his mind. Not to be thought about. Or spoken of. Never. Like what happened to David Long. What had happened to other horses, other jockeys. Barry Lawrence got himself killed.… He took a deep breath, tipped the last of the whisky down, and made his way out of the bar into the fresh air. There was another pub a couple of hundred yards further on. Nice little place. He'd find a new crowd there. He was drunk, but a long way from losing his legs or passing out. He wandered off towards his goal.

‘Darling,' Isabel said. ‘It was a very successful evening. And you were marvellous.' He stopped kissing her for a moment. They had taken rooms in the hotel; it was past midnight and the party had broken up.

Richard was holding her in his arms, watching the moon through the bedroom window, beginning the preliminaries of their love-making. She had been very proud of him that night; the moment when Charles's name was mentioned had frozen her. Richard's reaction had been symbolic. Watching him raise his glass proved that he had finally won the battle. He was free of Charles Schriber now, because for the first time he could be detached. Bitterness and frustrated revenge had warped his life; now it was becoming an episode, that for all its horror, belonged to the past. That was what she meant when she said he was marvellous and Richard understood that too.

‘I love you, Isabel,' he said. ‘I had such a strong feeling tonight – as if my whole life was beginning again. I made up my mind to something.'

‘What?' she asked gently.

‘I'm never going to mention what happened at Beaumont again. I'm not going to talk about it or think about it.'

They stood, holding each other, not moving or speaking. The window in front of them showed dark trees and a huge white moon with thin shreds of cloud fleeing across it, driven by a sharp wind.

The forecast for the next day was dry, with sunny intervals. Perfect Derby weather.

‘You know, darling,' Isabel said quietly, ‘I'm almost too happy. Everything has gone so right so quickly. I thought tonight, tomorrow the race, and the Falcon wins. Then I marry Richard. It's too good to be true.' She gave a little nervous laugh. ‘Something has to go wrong –'

‘Nothing has to go wrong,' he said. ‘When the luck's running nothing stops it. And our luck is running now. This is just a reaction; you've been keyed up for days and now it's only hours away you're getting nervous. Don't be silly, darling.'

‘I thought,' Isabel said suddenly, ‘just then:
something is going to happen to spoil it
. It just came into my mind. A horrible feeling – a premonition.' She stepped away from him and looked up at him. ‘One moment I was up in the clouds and the next I feel frightened.'

He took her back in his arms and kissed her. ‘Too much champagne and nervous tension,' he said firmly. The clouds which had threaded their way across the moon suddenly converged upon it in a sullen black mass, and the room became dark. He felt Isabel shiver.

‘You stop all this nonsense,' he said. ‘A good night's sleep is what you need.' He switched on the lights and pulled the curtains. Isabel watched him. It was a pleasant, chintzy room, less impersonal than most hotel bedrooms. Friends had sent flowers and telegrams, and the sight of them stacked on the chest of drawers cheered her.

She went up and put her arms around Richard. ‘Get undressed,' he said. ‘I'll tuck you in.'

‘I'm all right now,' she said. ‘It was just silly. Everything is going to be marvellous.'

He fell asleep before she did. She lay on her back, his arm protectively across her, her eyes closed against the total darkness in the bedroom. The feeling of unease had returned. It didn't take a rational form, it couldn't be expressed as anything more than a whisper in the mind, too faint to distinguish its message. Not so much a message as a warning. It seemed to be a long time before she drifted into sleep. When she awoke Richard had gone to his own room, her curtains were drawn back and the sun was flooding in.

She sat up, and threw the covers back. Tomorrow had become today.

Derby Day.

Crowds had been converging on Epsom since the early morning. The atmosphere was festive; for a million people it was one of the highlights of the year, a day when the greatest race in the English racing calendar was run, when families picnicked on the Downs, enjoyed the huge funfare that was traditional, and watched the Queen and the royal family walking within feet of them down the course before the Derby. There were hundreds of coaches, specially chartered, special trains teeming with racegoers, equipped with the usual complement of petty crooks, hundreds of thousands of cars of all shapes and sizes, packed into the car parks. Helicopters whirred like angry insects overhead, landing on the downs outside the main stands; there were expensive champagne picnics in the car parks, where the rich unpacked their hampers of smoked salmon and lunched off little tables; across the racecourse on the other side, the massive crowds were besieging the racecourse bars, eating sandwiches and sausage rolls, laughing and shouting, and jostling. There were tipsters, selling racing certainties for fifty pence a tip, pickpockets and bookies' touts, souvenir sellers, ice-cream vans, candy-floss stands and newspaper sellers, offering the
Sporting Life
and the early editions of the evening papers. Children and dogs abounded, push prams and querulous toddlers, roving groups of teenagers, gypsies, strategically placed outside the entrances to the stands, pestering passers-by with sprigs of lucky white heather. And holding court on the Downs, the traditional Cockney Pearly King and his Queen, magnificent in clothes shimmering with pearl buttons, sweeping ostrich feathers in the lady's hat. It was garish and bursting with vitality, colour and variety; there was a constant roar from a million voices concentrated on both sides of the white rails enclosing the course. And in the owners' car park, there were elaborate lunches being held; caterers served out cold salmon and sliced the finest Scotch beef, mixed vast salads and dispensed strawberries and cream. Champagne was spilling into hundreds of glasses, and the voices were as high as the hopes.

Rolls, Bentleys, Daimlers, huge and sleek, like giant cockroaches, sporting the horse and jockey mascot of their owners on the bonnet, were merely commonplace. A bright red Lamborghini stood out among the status symbols like a jewel.

In the Members' Enclosure across the road, railed in by white railings, women in elegant pastel colours and smart hats complemented the sombre elegance of the men in their black morning suits, and silk top hats, sometimes enlivened by a figure all in grey. The bars were full, and the figure of the Queen, dazzling in sunshine yellow, could be glimpsed briefly moving in the Royal Box. Flowers were banked round the magic enclosure for the winner and placed horses; the sward of grass running up and past the stands was lush and green, the winning post a white disc on a white stand, almost insignificant. The weather was perfect; the sun was shining and there was no breeze. Across the road from the stands, behind the tall green gates, guarded by security men, the horses waited in their stables. It was the racecourse security's boast that a mouse couldn't have got into the yard without a pass.

Outside the white railings, the bookmakers' stands blossomed, the well-known firms like Ladbrokes and Corals with rich account customers offered their services, their operatives in morning clothes; in Tattersalls and the Silver Ring, the bookmakers shouted the odds and balanced on their stepladders, taking money on the first race. The tictac men, perched above the heads of the crowd, signalled changes in the betting. There was a pervasive atmosphere of high holiday and growing excitement, which would reach its climax at the moment of three fifteen.

Isabel and her party were lunching in the members' restaurant. Richard stayed close to her, Tim was nervous and preoccupied, Nigel ate and drank very little and was visibly strung up. Sally looked quite different in a smart blue and white suit and a blue Stetson hat; Isabel hardly recognized her. Without her uniform of sweater and jeans, and the ubiquitous anorak, she was a very attractive woman. Isabel had chosen dark green; her colours were green, with a light blue sash. Charles had given her a diamond brooch horse, with the tiny jockey set with emeralds and sapphires. She had decided not to wear it. She didn't need his luck that day. She didn't need or want anything to remind her of him. The Silver Falcon was carrying her colours. Charles was dead. This was her race, and if the Falcon won, it would be Richard who stood beside her to receive the golden trophy.

They went down to watch the first race, and suddenly the time, which had seemed not to move at all, began rushing past. The second race was a winner for Richard, who was betting seriously and with total concentration; Nigel fidgeting and finally disappearing, with the words, ‘I'll meet you in the paddock –' and then suddenly, Richard was beside her, they were in the middle of a crowd which was gathering by the exit from the Members', and it was a quarter to three. The horses would be walking round, displaying themselves before the television cameras and the massive crowds around the paddock. At any moment the Queen and her party would leave the Royal Box and begin to walk down the course to see them.

Roy Farrant had a lunch party in the owners' car park. There was a moment when he paused in the middle of it, listening to the babble of voices, with a pop of champagne corks going off like fireworks, and thought of Barry Lawrence. It was an eerie feeling, as if his friend had joined them, and was standing close. He would have been riding Rocket Man that day; they would have spent the night before in council together, as they had done before every race over the years, and before three previous Derbys when Roy had a runner and more hope than chance.

Barry had died trying to stop the Silver Falcon. He owed it to him to make sure the horse didn't win today. Patsy had been very good the night before. There were moments like this when he forgot how much she irritated him normally, and appreciated her good qualities. She had kept out of his way that morning, only appearing as they were due to leave for the racecourse, looking breathtaking in his colours, yellow and white. She must have had it specially made, without saying anything. He came up and put his arms round her waist and squeezed her.

She smiled back at him with genuine pleasure because he was being nice. And she was good at the lunch party; she looked after his guests, introduced people, generally took the burden off him. The knot in his stomach had returned; it felt as if his whole gut was ravelled up in one writhing mass of nervous tension. He had drunk a great deal; it didn't matter if he got a bit high now, there was nothing more to do. There were six outsiders in the race. He knew their names off by heart. Four maidens, never having won a race, and two moderate animals whose owners wanted the kudos of having a runner in the world's greatest Flat race. Arthur's Boy. Snow Prince. Charley Barley. Fitters Mate. Mynah Bird. Jakestown. Four English jockeys, and two Australians. No chance, any of them. 100 to 1 outsiders. An outlay of 12 000 pounds, two grand each. Downs had done his job properly. One of the six must get to the Falcon. There were eighteen runners in the field.