‘I knew he’d do it,’ Lord Tirrold said. ‘What a horse! What a race!’
I had got the buckles undone at last and had pulled the saddle off over my arm when an official came over and asked Lord Tirrold not to go away, as the Cup was to be presented to him in a few minutes. To me, he said, ‘Will you come straight out again after you have weighed in? There’s a trophy for the winning jockey as well.’
I nodded, and went in to sit on the scales. Now that the concentration of the race was over, I began to be aware of the extra damage it had done. Across the back of my shoulders and down my arms to the fingertips every muscle felt like lead, draggingly heavy, shot with stabbing and burning sensations. I was appallingly weak and tired, and the pain in my wrists had increased to the point where I was finding it very difficult to keep it all out of my face. A quick look revealed that the bandages were red again, and so were the cuffs of the silk gloves and parts of the fawn under-jersey. But if the blood had soaked through the black jersey as well, at least it didn’t show.
With a broad smile Mike took my saddle from me in the changing-room and unbuckled my helmet and pulled if off my head.
‘They are wanting you outside, did you know?’ he said.
I nodded. He held out a comb. ‘Better smarten your hair a bit. You can’t let the side down.’
I obediently took the comb and tidied my hair, and went back outside.
The horses had been led away and in their place stood a table bearing the Midwinter Cup and other trophies, with a bunch of racecourse directors and stewards beside it.
And Maurice Kemp-Lore as well.
It was lucky I saw him before he saw me. I felt my scalp contract at the sight of him and an unexpectedly strong shock of revulsion ran right down my body. He couldn’t have failed to understand it, if he had seen it.
I found James at my elbow. He followed my gaze.
‘Why are you looking so grim?’ he said. ‘He didn’t even try to dope Template.’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I expect he was too tied up with his television work to be sure of having time to do it.’
‘He has given up the whole idea,’ said James confidently. ‘He must have seen there was no chance any more of persuading anyone you had lost your nerve. Not after the way you rode on Thursday.’
It was the reckless way I had ridden on Thursday that had infuriated Kemp-Lore into delivering the packet I had taken on Friday. I understood that very well.
‘Have you told anyone about the sugar?’ I asked James.
‘No, since you asked me not to. But I think something must be done. Slander or no slander, evidence or not...’
‘Will you wait,’ I asked, ‘until next Saturday? A week today? Then you can tell whoever you like.’
‘Very well,’ he said slowly. ‘But I still think...’
He was interrupted by the arrival at the trophy table of the day’s V.I.P., a pretty Duchess, who with a few well-chosen words and a genuinely friendly smile presented the Midwinter Cup to Lord Tirrold, a silver tray to James, and a cigarette box to me. An enterprising press photographer let off a flash bulb as the three of us stood together admiring our prizes, and after that we gave them back again to the clerk of the course, for him to have them engraved with Template’s name and our own.
I heard Kemp-Lore’s voice behind me as I handed over the cigarette box, and it gave me time to arrange my face into a mildly smiling blankness before turning round. Even so, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to look at him without showing my feelings.
I pivoted slowly on my heels and met his eyes. They were piercingly blue and very cold, and they didn’t blink or alter in any way as I looked back at them. I relaxed a little, inwardly, thankful that the first difficult hurdle was crossed. He had searched, but had not read in my face that I knew it was he who had abducted me the evening before.
‘Rob Finn,’ he said in his charming television voice, ‘is the jockey you just watched being carried to victory by this wonder horse, Template.’ He was speaking into a hand microphone from which trailed yards of black flex and looking alternately at me and at a camera on a scaffolding tower near by. The camera’s red eye glowed. I mentally girded up my loins and prepared to forestall every disparaging opinion he might utter.
He said, ‘I expect you enjoyed being his passenger?’
‘It was marvellous,’ I said emphatically, smiling a smile to outdazzle his. ‘It is a great thrill for any jockey to ride a horse as superb as Template. Of course,’ I went on amiably, before he had time to speak, ‘I am lucky to have had the opportunity. As you know, I have been taking Pip Pankhurst’s place all these months, while his leg has been mending, and today’s win should have been his. He is much better now, I’m glad to say, and we are all delighted that it won’t be long before he is riding again.’ I spoke truthfully: whatever it meant to me in fewer rides, it would benefit the sport as a whole to have its champion back in action.
A slight chill crept into the corner of Kemp-Lore’s mouth.
‘You haven’t been doing as well, lately...’ he began.
‘No,’ I interrupted warmly. ‘Aren’t they extraordinary, those runs of atrocious luck in racing? Did you know that Doug Smith once rode ninety-nine losers in succession? How terrible he must have felt. It makes my twenty or so seem quite paltry.’
‘You weren’t worried, then, by... er... by such a bad patch as you’ve been going through?’ His smile was slipping.
‘Worried?’ I repeated lightheartedly. ‘Well, naturally I wasn’t exactly delighted, but these runs of bad luck happen to everyone in racing, once in a while, and one just has to live through them until another winner comes along. Like today’s,’ I finished with a grin at the camera.
‘Most people understood it was more than bad luck,’ he said sharply. There was a definite crack in his jolly-chums manner, and for an instant I saw in his eyes a flash of the fury he was controlling. It gave me great satisfaction, and because of it I smiled at him more vividly.
I said, ‘People will believe anything when their pockets are touched. I’m afraid a lot of people lost their money backing my mounts... it’s only natural to blame the jockey... nearly everyone does, when they lose.’
He listened to me mending the holes he had torn in my life and he couldn’t stop me without giving an impression of being a bad sport: and nothing kills the popularity of a television commentator quicker than obvious bad-sportsmanship.
He had been standing at right-angles to me with his profile to the camera, but now he took a step towards me and turned so that he stood beside me on my left side. As he moved there was a fleeting set to his mouth that looked like cruelty to me, and it prepared me in some measure for what he did next.
With a large gesture which must have appeared as genuine friendship on the television screen, he dropped his right arm heavily across my shoulders, with his right thumb lying forward on my collar bone and his fingers spread out on my back.
I stood still, and turned my head slowly towards him, and smiled sweetly. Few things have ever cost me more effort.
‘Tell us a bit about the race, then, Rob,’ he said, advancing the microphone in his left hand. ‘When did you begin to think you might win?’
His arm felt like a ton weight, an almost unsupportable burden on my aching muscles. I gathered my straying wits.
‘Oh... I thought, coming into the last fence,’ I said, ‘that Template might have the speed to beat Emerald on the flat. He can produce such a sprint at the end, you know.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He pressed his fingers more firmly into the back of my shoulder and gave me what passed for a friendly shake. My head began to spin. Everything on the edge of my vision became blurred. I went on smiling, concentrating desperately on the fair, good-looking face so close to mine, and was rewarded by the expression of puzzlement and disappointment in his eyes. He knew that under his fingers, beneath two thin jerseys, were patches which must be sore if touched, but he didn’t know how much or how little trouble I had had in freeing myself in the tack-room. I wanted him to believe it had been none at all, that the ropes had slipped undone or the hook fallen easily out of the ceiling. I wanted to deny him even the consolation of knowing how nearly he had succeeded in preventing me from riding Template.