‘Do they see two views at once, with their eyes on opposite sides of their head like that?’
‘Their brains sort it out,’ I said.
‘Very confusing.’
‘Most animals look sideways. And birds. And fish.’
‘And snakes in the grass,’ she said.
Some of the horses had attendants with them. Some didn’t. Some had attendants who had vanished temporarily to the refreshment room. Everywhere lay the general clutter of stables in the morning; buckets, muck sacks, brushes, bandages, haynets and halters, mostly in little clumps either outside or inside each box door. Most of the early lot numbers had stayed overnight.
I asked for three or four horses to be led out of their boxes by their attendants to get an idea of how they moved. They trotted obligingly along and back a wider piece of ground, the attendant running alongside holding them by the head on a short rope. I watched them from behind and from dead ahead.
‘What do you look for?’ Sophie said.
‘Partly whether they dish their feet out sideways.’
‘Is that good?’
I shook my head, smiling, ‘The fastest ones generally don’t do it.’
We went up to the O-shaped sale ring, where the wind whistled through with enthusiasm and the meagre crowd of participants stamped their feet and tucked their hands under their armpits. Ronnie North was there, breathing out clouds of steam and wiping a running nose; and Vic was there, dandified in a belted white shiny jacket with a blue shirt underneath.
While he was deep in conversation with a client I pointed him out to Sophie.
‘But he looks nice,’ she objected.
‘Of course he does. Hundreds of people love him.’
She grinned. ‘Such sarcasm.’
I bought two three-year-old fillies for a client in Italy and Vic watched broodingly from directly opposite.
Sophie said ‘When he looks at you like that... he doesn’t look nice at all.’
I took her to warm up over some coffee. It occurred to me uneasily and belatedly that maybe I had not been clever to bring her to Ascot. It had seemed to me that Vic was as much interested in Sophie herself as in what I was buying, and I wondered if he were already thinking of ways to get at me through her.
‘What’s the matter?’ Sophie said. ‘You’ve gone very quiet.’
‘Have a doughnut?’
‘Yes please.’
We munched and drank, and I checked ahead through the catalogue, making memory-jogging notes about the horses we had seen in their boxes.
‘Does it go on like this all day?’ Sophie asked.
‘A bit boring for you, I’m afraid.’
‘No... Is this what you do, day after day?’
‘On sales days, yes. Other days I fix up deals privately, or go to the races, or see to things like transport and insurance. Since last week I’ve barely had time to cough.’ I told her about Wilton Young and the consequently mushrooming business.
‘Are there a lot of horses for sale?’ she said doubtfully. ‘I wouldn’t have thought there were enough for so many people all to be involved in buying and selling.’
‘Well... In Britain alone there are at present about seventeen thousand thoroughbred broodmares. A mare can theoretically have a foal every year, but some years they’re barren and some foals die. I suppose there must be about nine thousand new foals or yearlings on the market every season. Then there are about twenty thousand horses in training for flat races, and heaven knows how many jumpers, but more than on the Flat. Horses which belong to the same people from birth to death are exceptions. Most of them change hands at least twice.’
‘With a commission for the agent every time?’ Her expression held no approval.
I smiled, ‘Stockbrokers work for commission. Are they more respectable?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Don’t confuse me.’
I said, ‘France, Italy and especially America are all at it in the bloodstock business hammer and tongs. There are about thirteen hundred stud farms in the British Isles and thousands more round the world.’
‘All churning out horses... and only so that people can gamble.’
I smiled at her still disapproving expression. ‘Everyone needs some sort of fantasy on their bread.’
She opened her mouth and shut it, and shook her head. ‘I can never decide whether you are very wise or an absolute fool.’
‘Both.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Dead easy, I’m afraid. Most people are.’
We went back to the ring and watched Vic and Ronnie North beat up the price of a weedy four-year-old hurdler to twice the figure his form suggested. Vic would no doubt be collecting a sizeable kick-back from the seller along with the commission from his client, and Ronnie North looked expansively pleased both with his status as underbidder for this one horse and with life in general.
Fynedale’s successor, it seemed to me, had been elected.
Fynedale himself, I noticed, had arrived in the ring in time to see what was happening. He seemed to be in much the same state as before, white-faced, semi-dazed and radiating unfocused hatred.
Sophie said, ‘He looks like gelignite on the boil.’
‘With luck he’ll explode all over Vic.’
‘You’re pretty heartless... he looks ill.’
‘Buzz off and mother him then,’ I said.
‘No thanks.’
We looked at some more horses and I bought another; we had some more coffee and the wind blew even colder. Sophie however seemed content.
‘Nose needs powdering,’ she said at one point. ‘Where will I meet you?’
I consulted the catalogue. ‘I’d better look at eighty-seven and ninety-two, in their boxes.’
‘O.K. I’ll find you.’
I looked at eighty-seven and decided against it. Not much bone and too much white around the eye. There was no one with him. I left his box, bolted both halves of the door and went along to ninety-two. There I opened the top half of the door and looked inside. No attendant there either, just patient Lot 92 turning an incurious gaze. I opened the bottom half of the door and went in, letting them swing shut behind me. Lot 92 was securely tied by a headcollar to a ring in the wall, but it was too cold for open doors.
The horse was a five-year-old hurdler being sold for a quick profit while he still showed promise of being useful at six. I patted his brown flank, ran my hand down his legs, and took a good close look at his teeth.
When the door opened and closed I paid no especial attention to whatever had come in. It should have been an attendant for the horse or another like me inspecting the goods at close quarters.
It wasn’t.
No instinct made me look up as I let go of the hurdler’s mouth, stroked his nose and stood back for a final appraisal.
I saw only a flash in the air. Felt the thud in my chest. And knew, falling, that the white face of Fynedale was coming forward to finish the job.
13
He had thrown at me like a lance the most lethal of all stable equipment. A pitchfork.
The force behind his arm knocked me off my feet. I lay on my side on the straw with the two sharp prongs embedded and the long wooden handle stretched out in front.
He could see that in spite of a deadly accurate throw and all the hate that went into it he still hadn’t killed me. The glimpse I got of his distorted face convinced me that he intended to put that right.
I knew the pitchfork had gone in, but not how far. I couldn’t feel much. I jerked it out and rolled over and lay on it face down, burying it under me in the straw. He fell on me, pulling, clutching, dragging, trying to get at it, and I simply lay on it like a log, not knowing what else to do.
The door opened again and light poured in from outside. Then a voice shouting. A girl’s voice.