‘Dear God.’
‘As you say.’
‘Ecurie Bonne Chance,’ he said, ‘is a small stable run by a minor French trainer. The owner of the property is Benjamin Usher.’
‘Ah.’
‘The property is south of Belley and is situated near the River Rhône where the river runs from east to west, before turning south at Lyons.’
‘Very thorough,’ I commented.
‘The French know nothing against the place. They have had some sick horses there, but none have died.’
‘Thank you very much.’
‘Nina insisted on going on the journey,’ he said, ‘and she was adamant we don’t intercept your box on its way back.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’
I hoped so too.
I phoned Guggenheim. ‘I can’t promise,’ I said, ‘but fly down and come to the farmyard today, in a taxi, and bring something to carry a small animal in.’
‘Rabbit?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Pray,’ I said.
The hours crawled.
Lewis phoned Isobel eventually in the afternoon and said they had crossed on the ferry and were leaving Dover.
After another slow hour Isobel and Rose went home and I locked the office and went over to the Fourtrak, starting the engine. The passenger door opened, with Aziz standing there.
‘Can I come with you?’ he said. Bright eyes. No smile.
I didn’t immediately answer.
‘You’ll be safer if I do. No one, anyway, will hit you on the head when you’re not looking.’
I made a non-committal gesture and he swung into the seat beside me.
‘You’re going to meet Nina, aren’t you?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What do you expect will happen?’
I drove out of the yard, turned out of the village and drove uphill to a place where one could look down on Pixhill below.
‘Lewis,’ I said, ‘should come over the brow of that far hill and drive into Benjy Usher’s yard. If he does, I’ll drive down there to meet them. If he goes anywhere else we can see that from here too.’
‘Where do you think he might go?’
‘I don’t know how much you know.’
‘Nina said the method was complicated but the simple matter is that someone is bringing sickness to Pixhill’s horses.’
‘Roughly, yes.’
‘But why?’
‘Partly to make a certain category of races easier to win by methodically infecting all the horses of that category that can be got at in Pixhill.’ I paused. ‘Halve the runners in the Chester Vase, for instance, and you more or less double your chances of winning. There are seldom more than six or so runners in the Chester Vase, or the Dante Stakes at York. They are nice prestigious races. Winning them puts a trainer in good standing in the profession.’
Aziz sat digesting the implications. ‘A blanket illness?’ he said.
‘Occurring here and there,’ I nodded. ‘It’s not like nobbling the favourite for the Derby.’
‘Irkab Alhawa,’ he said. ‘Ride the Air.’
‘Ride the Wind.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘in Arabic it means “ride the air.” It’s the way jockeys ride, standing in the stirrups, sitting on air, not the saddle.’
‘Ride the wind’s better,’ I said.
‘But you don’t think anyone’s going to make that horse sick?’
After a pause I said, ‘Lewis didn’t kill Jogger, he was in France. I don’t think Lewis destroyed my car or took an axe to my house. I’m sure Lewis didn’t crash the hard disk in my computer. As I said, that Sunday he was in France.’
‘He couldn’t have done it,’ Aziz agreed.
‘I thought I was up against two forces,’ I said. ‘Muscle and money. But there’s a third.’
‘What is it?’
‘Malice.’
‘The worst,’ Aziz said slowly.
The driving force within you, I thought, leaps out. Under stress, it can’t be hidden.
Apply the stress.
‘Do you have any reason to think anyone would destroy Irkab Alhawa?’ Aziz asked, frowning.
‘No. I just intend to use the thought as a lever.’
‘To do what?’
‘Wait and see, and guard my back.’
Aziz leaned sideways against the passenger door and assessed me quizzically, the irrepressible smile reappearing.
‘You’re not like you look, are you?’ he said.
‘How do I look?’
‘Physical.’
‘So do you,’ I said.
‘But then... I am.’
An odd ally, I thought; and unexpectedly, I was glad he was there.
A Croft Raceways horsebox came over the opposite hill. I raised a pair of binoculars and focused, and saw the horse’s head sticking out of the window.
‘That’s them,’ I said. ‘Lewis and Nina.’
The horsebox turned into the road towards Benjy Usher’s stables, almost next door to Michael’s. I started the Fourtrak and drove down the hill, reaching Benjy’s yard almost before Lewis switched off his engine.
Benjy’s head appeared in his upstairs window, poking out rather like his colt’s from the horsebox. He issued orders to his lads below with his customary force, and Lewis and Nina lowered the ramp. I got out of my jalopy and watched them.
My presence there was taken for granted by everyone. Nina noticed Aziz still sitting in the Fourtrak and threw him an enquiring glance, to which he responded with a quick thumbs-up.
The colt clattered wild-eyed down the ramp, led by Nina, and limped away in the hands of Benjy’s head lad. Benjy shouted an enquiry to Lewis about the journey: Lewis went nearer to the window and shouted up, ‘It all went right.’ Benjy, relieved, retreated and closed his window.
I said to Nina, ‘Did you stop anywhere since Dover?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Go with Aziz, now, will you?’
I went over to Aziz and spoke to him through the Fourtrak’s window.
‘Please take Nina with you and go to the farmyard. There may be a young man wandering about there, carrying a small animal transporter. His name’s Guggenheim. Collect him and in about a quarter of an hour take him on with you.’
‘Where to?’
‘To Centaur Care. That place where you took the old horses. I’ll drive this horsebox and meet you there.’
‘Let me come with you,’ he said.
‘No. Look after Nina.’
‘As if she needed it!’
‘Everyone needs their back watched.’
I left him, walked over to the horsebox while Lewis was lifting the ramp back into place, and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Lewis was surprised, but when I waved him towards the passenger side he climbed in there without demur. He’d worked for me for two years: he was accustomed to doing what I said.
I started the powerful engine and drove carefully out of Benjy’s yard, continuing on down the road towards Michael’s place. Opposite Michael’s gate, where the road temporarily widened and the space allowed it, I pulled the box over to the side, stepped on the foot brake, rolled gently to a stop, applied the hand-brake and switched off.
Lewis looked surprised, but not very. The vagaries of bosses, his manner seemed to imply, had to be tolerated.
‘How’s the rabbit?’ I said conversationally.
His expression gave new meaning to the word ‘flabbergasted.’ He looked for a moment as if his heart had actually stopped beating. His mouth opened and no sound came out.
Lewis, I thought, with his biker past, his tattooed dragon, his expert fists; Lewis with his bimbo and his ambitions for his baby, Lewis might be a dishonest muscle-man out to make money, but he was no actor.