Bonecrack

'Nothing like that.' I hesitated. 'I'd like you to run a private blood test- could that be done?'

'How private? It'll have to go to the Equine Research Labs. I can't do it myself, haven't got the equipment.'

'Just a blood sample with no horse's name attached.'

'Oh sure. That happens all the time. But you can't really think anyone doped the poor old horse!'

'I think he was given an anaesthetic,' I said. 'And that his leg was broken on purpose.'

'Oh glory.' His mouth was rounded into an O of astonishment, but the eyes flickered with the rapidity of his thoughts. 'You seem sane enough,' he said finally, 'So let's have a look see.'

He squatted down beside the affected limb and ran his fingers very lightly down over the skin. Indigo shifted under his touch and ducked and raised his head violently.

'All right, old fellow,' Dainsee said, standing up again and patting his neck. He raised his eyebrows at me, 'Can't say you're wrong, can't say you're right.' He paused, thinking it over. The eyebrows rose and fell several times, like punctuations. 'Tell you what,' he said at length. 'I've got a portable X-ray machine back home. I'll bring it along, and we'll take a picture. How's that?'

'Very good idea,' I said, pleased.

'Right.' He opened his case, which he had parked just inside the door. 'Then I'll just freeze that leg, so he'll be in no discomfort until I come back.' He brought out a hypodermic and held it up against the light, beginning to press the plunger.

'Do the blood test first,' I said.

'Eh?' He blinked at me. 'Oh yes, of course. Golly, yes of course. Silly of me.' He laughed gently, laid down the first syringe and put together a much larger one, empty.

He took the sample from the jugular vein, which he found and pierced efficiently first time of asking. 'Bit of luck,' he murmured in self deprecation, and drew half a tumbler full of blood into the syringe. 'Have to give the Lab people enough to work on, you know,' he said, seeing my surprise. 'You can't get reliable results from a thimbleful.'

'I suppose not-'

He packed the sample into his case, shot the freezing local into Indigo's near fore, nodded and blinked with undiminished cheerfulness, and smartly departed. Indigo, totally unconcerned, went back contentedly to his hay net, and I with bottled anger went into the house.

The label on the little wooden horse had 'Indigo' printed in capitals on one side of it, and on the other, also in capitals, a short sharp message.

'To hurt my son is to invite destruction.'

Neither George nor Etty saw any sense in the vet going away without putting Indigo down.

'Er-' I said. 'He found he didn't have the humane killer with him after all. He thought it was in his bag, but it wasn't.'

'Oh,' they said, satisfied, and Etty told me that everything had gone well on the gallops and that Lucky Lindsay had worked a fast five furlongs and afterwards wouldn't have blown out a candle.

'I put that bloody little Alex on Clip Clop and told him to take him along steadily, and he damn well disobeyed me. He shook him into a full gallop and left Lancat standing, and the touts' binoculars were working overtime.

'Stupid little fool,' I agreed. 'I'll speak to him.'

'He takes every opportunity he can to cross me,' she complained. 'When you aren't there he's absolutely insufferable.' She took a deep, troubled breath, considering. 'In fact, I think you should tell Mr Griffon that we can't keep him.'

'Next time I go to the hospital, I'll see what he says,' I said. 'What are you giving him to ride, second lot?'

Pullitzer,' she replied promptly. 'It doesn't matter so much if he doesn't do as he's told on that one.'

'When you get back, tell him I want to see him before he leaves.'

'Aren't you coming?'

I shook my head. 'I'll stay and see to Indigo.'

'I rather wanted your opinion of Pease Pudding. If he's to run in the Lincoln we ought to give him a trial this week or next. The race is only three weeks on Saturday, don't forget.'

'We could give him a half speed gallop tomorrow and see if he's ready for a full trial,' I suggested, and she grudgingly agreed that one more day would do no harm.

I watched the trim jodhpured figure walk off towards her cottage for breakfast, and would have felt flattered that she wanted my opinion had I not known why. Under an umbrella, she worked marvellously: out in the open, she felt rudderless. Even though in her heart she knew she knew more than I did, her shelter instinct had cast me as decision maker. What I needed now was a crash course in how to tell when a horse was fit- and that old joke about a crash course for pilots edged itself into a corner of my mind, like a thin gleam in the gloom.

Dainsee came back in his Land-Rover when the string had gone out for second lot, and we ran the cable for the X-ray machine through the office window and plugged it into the socket which served the mushroom heater. There seemed to be unending reinforcements of cable: it took four lengths plugged together to reach to Indigo's box, but their owner assured me that he could manage a quarter of a mile, if pushed.

He took three X-rays of the dangling leg, packed everything up again, and almost as a passing thought, put poor old Indigo out of his troubles.

'You'll want evidence for the police,' Dainsee said, shaking hands and blinking rapidly.

'No- I shan't bother the police. Not yet, anyway.' He opened his mouth to protest, so I went straight on, 'There are very good reasons. I can't tell you them- but they do exist.'

'Oh well, it's up to you.' His eyes slid sideways towards Moonrock's box, and his eyebrows asked the question.

'I don't know,' I said. 'What do you think? Looking back.'

He thought for several seconds, which meant he was serious, and then said 'It would have taken a good heavy blow to smash that hock. Wouldn't have thought anyone would bother, when a pastern like Indigo's would be simple.'

'Moonrock just provided the idea for Indigo?' I suggested.

'I should think so.' He grinned. 'Mind it doesn't become an epidemic.'

'I'll mind,' I said lightly; and knew I would have to.

Alessandro showed no sign that Etty had given him my message about wanting to see him. He strode straight out of the yard towards his waiting car and it was only because I happened to be looking out of the office window that I caught him.

I opened the window and called to him.

'Alessandro, come here a minute-'

He forged straight on as if he hadn't heard, so I added 'To talk about your first races.'

He stopped in one stride with a foot left in the air in indecision, then changed direction and came more slowly towards the window.

'Go round into the owners' room,' I said. 'Where you were lying on the sofa-' I shut the window, gave Margaret a whimsical rueful placating smile which could mean whatever she thought it did, and removed myself from earshot.

Alessandro came unwillingly into the owners' room, knowing that he had been hooked. I played fair, however.

'You can have a ride in an apprentice race at Catterick four weeks today. On Pullitzer. And on condition that you don't go bragging about it in the yard and antagonising all the other boys.'

'I want to ride Archangel,' he said flatly.

'It sometimes seems to me that you are remarkably intelligent and with a great deal of application might become a passable jockey,' I said, and before his self-satisfaction smothered him, added, 'And sometimes, like today, you behave so stupidly and with such little understanding of what it takes to be what you want to be, that your ambitions look pathetic.'

The thin body stiffened rigidly and the black eyes glared. Since I undoubtedly had his full attention, I made the most of it.

'These horses are here to win races. They won't win races if their training programme is hashed up. If you are told to do a half speed gallop on Clip Clop and you work him flat out and tire him beyond his capacity, you are helping to make sure he takes longer to prepare. You won't win races unless the stable does, so it is in your own interest to help train the horses to the best of your ability. Disobeying riding orders is therefore just plain stupid. Do you follow?'