The anatomy of a horse’s foreleg consisted, from the shoulder down, of forearm, knee, cannon bone, fetlock joint (also known as the ankle), pastern bone, and hoof. The angry Lancashire farmer’s colored photograph had shown the amputation to have been effected straight through the narrowest part of the whole leg, just at the base of the fetlock joint, where the pastern emerged from it. In effect, the whole pastern and the hoof had been cut off.
Horses had very fast instincts for danger and were easily scared. Young horses seldom stood still. Yet one single chop had done the job each time. Why had all those poor animals stood quietly white the deed was done? None of them had squealed loud enough to alert his owner.
I went up on the stands and watched the two-year-olds set off from the spur away to the left at the top of the hill; watched them swoop down like a flock of star lings round Tattenham Comer, and sort themselves out into winner and losers along the straight with its deceptively difficult camber that could tilt a horse towards the rails if his jockey was inexperienced.
I watched, and I sighed. Five long years had passed since I’d ridden my last race. Would regret, I wondered, ever fade?
‘Why so pensive, Sid lad?’ asked an elderly trainer, grasping my elbow. ‘A scotch and water for your thoughts!’ He steered me around towards the nearest bar and I went with him unprotestingly, as custom came my way quite often in that casual manner. He was great with horses and famously mean with his money.
‘I hear you’re damned expensive,’ he began inoffensively, handing me a glass. ‘What will you charge me for a day’s work?’
I told him.
‘Too damned much. Do it for nothing, for old times’ sake.’
I added, smiling, ‘How many horses do you train for nothing?’
‘That’s different.’
‘How many races would you have asked me to ride for nothing?’
‘Oh, all right, then. I’ll pay your damned fee. The fact is, I think I’m being had, and I want you to find out.’
It seemed he had received a glowing testimonial from the present employer of a chauffeur/houseman/handyman who’d applied for a job he’d advertised. He wanted to know if it was worth bringing the man up for an interview.
‘She—’ he said, ‘his employer is a woman. I phoned her when I got the letter, to check the reference, you see. She couldn’t have been more complimentary about the man if she’d tried, but… I don’t know… She was too complimentary, if you see what I mean.’
‘You mean you think she might be glad to see the back of him?’
‘You don’t hang about, Sid. That’s exactly what I mean.’
He gave me the testimonial letter of fluorescent praise.
‘No problem,’ I said, reading it. ‘One day’s fee, plus travel expenses. I’ll phone you, then send you a written report.’
‘You still look like a jockey,’ he complained. ‘You’re a damned sight more expensive on your feet.’
I smiled, put the letter away in a pocket, drank his scotch and applauded the string of winners he’d had recently, cheering him up before separating him from his cash.
I drifted around pleasurably but unprofitably for the rest of the day, slept thankfully without nightmares and found on a dry and sunny Derby Day morning that my friendly Pump reporter had really done his stuff.
‘Lock up your colts,’ he directed in the paper. ‘You’ve heard of foot fetishists? This is one beyond belief.’
He outlined in succinct paragraphs the similarities in ‘the affair of the four severed fetlocks’ and pointed out that on that very night after the Derby — the biggest race of all — there would be moonlight enough at three A.M. for flashlights to be unnecessary. All two-year-old colts should, like Cinderella, be safe indoors by midnight. ‘And if…’ he finished with a flourish, ‘…you should spy anyone creeping through the fields armed with a machete, phone ex-jockey turned gumshoe Sid Halley, who provided the information gathered here and can be reached via The Pump’s special Hotline. Phone The Pump! Save the colts! Halley to the rescue!’
I couldn’t imagine how he had got that last bit — including a telephone number — past any editor, but I needn’t have worried about spreading the message on the racecourse. No one spoke to me about anything else all afternoon.
I phoned The Pump myself and reached someone eventually who told me that Kevin Mills had gone to a train crash; sorry.
‘Damn,’ I said. ‘So how are you rerouting calls about colts to me? I didn’t arrange this. How will it work?’
‘Hold on.’
I held on. A different voice came back.
‘As Kevin isn’t available, we’re re-routing all Halley Hotline calls to this number,’ he said, and he read out my own Pont Square number.
‘Where’s your bloody Mills? I’ll wring his neck.’
‘Gone to the train crash. Before he left he gave us this number for reaching you. He said you would want to know at once about any colts.’
That was true enough — but hell’s bloody bells, I thought, I could have set it up better if he’d warned me.
I watched the Derby with inattention. An outsider won.
Ellis teased me about the piece in The Pump.
‘Hotline Halley,’ he said, laughing and clapping me on the shoulder, tall and deeply friendly and wiping out in a flash the incredulous doubts I’d been having about him. ‘It’s an extraordinary coincidence, Sid, but I actually saw one of those colts. Alive, of course. I was staying with some chums from York, and after we’d gone home someone vandalized their colt. Such fun people. They didn’t deserve anything like that.’
‘No one does.’
‘True.’
‘The really puzzling thing is motive,’ I said. ‘I went to see all the owners. None of the colts was insured. Nor was Rachel Fems’s pony, of course.’
He said interestedly, ‘Did you think it was an insurance scam?’
‘It jumps to mind, doesn’t it? Theoretically it’s possible to insure a horse and collect the lucre without the owner knowing anything about it. It’s been done. But if that’s what this is all about, perhaps someone in an insurance company somewhere will see the piece in The Pump and connect a couple of things. Come to think of it,’ I finished slowly, ‘I might send a copy to every likely insurance company’s board of directors, asking, and warning them.’
‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Does insurance and so on really take the place of racing? It sounds a pretty dull life for you, after what we used to do.’
‘Does television replace it for you?’
‘Not a hope.’ He laughed. ‘Danger is addictive, wouldn’t you say? The only dangerous job in television is reporting wars and — have you noticed? — the same few war reporters get out there all the time, talking with their earnest, committed faces about this or that month’s little dust-up, while bullets fly and chip off bits of stone in the background to prove how brave they are.’
‘You’re jealous.’ I smiled.
‘I get sodding bored sometimes with being a chat-show celebrity, even if it’s nice being liked. Don’t you ache for speed?’
‘Every day,’ I said.
‘You’re about the only person who understands me. No one else can see that fame’s no substitute for danger.’