The Edge

'I sure do.'

'John Millington has identified him from your photographs. He is Ivor Horfitz's son, Jason. He's not bright, so they say. Not up to much more than running errands. Delivering briefcases would be just about his mark.'

'And he got that wrong, too, according to his father.'

'Well, there you are. It doesn't get us anywhere much, but that's who he is. John Millington has issued photos to all the ring inspectors, so that if that they see him they'll report it. If Horfitz plans on using his son as an on-course errand boy regularly, we'll make sure he knows we're watching.'

'He'd do better to find someone else.'

'A nasty thought.' He paused briefly. 'How are you doing, your end?'

'I haven't seen Filmer yet. He's staying tomorrow night at a hotel with most of the owners' group, according to the travel company's lists. Presumably he'll be at the official lunch with the Ontario Jockey Club at Woodbine tomorrow. I'll go to the races, but probably not to the lunch. I'll see that what he's doing, as best I can.' I told him about Bill Baudelaire's mother, and said, 'After we've started off on the train, if you want to get hold of me direct, leave a message with her, and I'll telephone back to you or John Millington as soon as I'm able.'

'It's a bit hit or miss,' he grumbled, repeating the number after I'd dictated it.

'She's an invalid,' I added, and laughed to myself at his reaction.

When he'd stopped spluttering, he said, 'Tor, this is impossible.'

'Well, I don't know. It's an open line of communication, after all. Better to have one than not. And Bill Baudelaire suggested it himself. He must know she's capable.'

'All right then. Better than nothing.' He didn't sound too sure, though, and who could blame him. Brigade commanders weren't accustomed to bedridden grandmothers manning field telephones. 'I'll be here at home on Sunday,' he said. 'Get through to me, will you, for last-minute gen both ways, before you board?'

'Yes, certainly.'

'You sound altogether,' he said with a touch of disapproval, 'suspiciously happy.'

'Oh! Well… this train looks like being good fun.'

'That's not what you're there for.'

'I'll do my best not to enjoy it.'

'Insubordination will get you a firing squad,' he said firmly, and put down his receiver forthwith.

I put my own receiver down more slowly and the bell rang again immediately.

'This is Bill Baudelaire,' my caller said in his deep-down voice. 'So you arrived in Toronto all right?'

'Yes, thank you.'

'I've got the information you asked for about Laurentide Ice. About why his owner sold a half-share.'

'Oh, good.'

'I don't know that it is, very. In fact, not good at all. Apparently Filmer was over here in Canada at the end of last week enquiring of several owners who had horses booked on the train if they would sell. One of them mentioned it to me this morning and now I've talked to the others. He offered a fair price for a half-share, they all say. Or a third-share. Any toe-hold, it seems. I would say he methodically worked down the list until he came to Daffodil Quentin.'

'Who?'

'The owner of Laurentide Ice.'

'Why is it bad news?' I asked, taking the question from the disillusionment in his voice.

'You'll meet her. You'll see,' he said cryptically.

'Can't you tell me?'

He signed audibly. 'Her husband, Hal Quentin, was a good friend of Canadian racing, but he died this time last year and left his string of horses to his wife. Three of them so far have died in accidents since then, with Mrs Quentin collecting the insurance.'

'Three!' I said. 'In a year?'

'Exactly. They're all been investigated but they all seem genuine. Mrs Quentin says it's a dreadful coincidence and she is most upset.'

'She would be,' I said dryly.

'Anyway, that is who has sold a half-share to Julius Filmer. What a pair! I phoned just now and asked her about the sale. She said it suited her to sell, and there was no reason not to. She says she is going to have a ball on the train.' He sounded most gloomy, himself.

'Look on the bright side,' I said. 'If she's sold a half-share she can't be planning to push Laurentide Ice off the train at high speed for the insurance.'

'That's a scurrilous statement.' He was not shocked, however. 'Will you be at Woodbine tomorrow?'

'Yes, but not at the lunch.'

'All right. If we bump into each other, of course it will be as strangers.'

'Of course,' I agreed; and we said goodbyes and disconnected.

Daffodil Quentin, I reflected, settling the receiver in its cradle, had at least not been intimidated into selling.

No one on the business end of Filmer's threats could be looking forward to having a ball in his company. It did appear that in order to get himself on to the train as an owner, he had been prepared to spend actual money. He had been prepared to fly to Canada to effect the sale, and to the return to England to collect the briefcase from Horfitz at Nottingham on Tuesday, and to fly back to Canada, presumably, in time for tomorrow's races.

I wondered where he was at that moment. I wondered what he was thinking, hatching, setting in motion. It was comforting to think that he didn't know I existed.

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing some shopping and walking and taxi-riding around, getting reacquainted with one of the most visually entertaining cities in the world. I'd found it architecturally exciting six years earlier, and it seemed to me now not less but more so, with glimpses of its slender tallest-in-the-world free-standing tower with the onion bulge near its top appearing tantalizingly between angular highrises covered with black glass and gold. And they had built a whole new complex, Harbourfront, since I'd been there before, a new face turned to Lake Ontario and the world.

At six, having left my purchases at the hotel, I went back to Merry amp; Go's warm pale office and found many of the gang still working. Nell, at her desk, naturally on the telephone, pointed mutely to her client chair, and I sat there and waited.

Some of the murmurers were putting on coats, yawning, switching off computers, taking cans of cold drinks out of the large refrigerator and opening them with the carbonation hissing. Someone put out a light or two. The green plants looked exhausted. Friday night; all commercial passion spent. Thank God for Fridays.

'I have to come in here tomorrow,' Nell said with resignation, catching my thought. 'And why I ever said I'd have dinner with you tonight I cannot imagine.'

'You promised.'

'I must have been mad.'

I'd asked her after she'd shown me the train's sleeping arrangements (which perhaps had been my subconscious making jumps unbeknown to me), and she'd said, 'Yes, all right, I have to eat,' and that had seemed a firm enough commitment.

'Are you ready?' I asked.

'No, there are two more people I positively must talk to. Can you… er… wait?'

'I'm quite good at it,' I said equably.

A few more lights went out. Some of those remaining shone on Nell's fair hair, made shadows of her eyes and put hollows in her cheeks. I wondered about her, as one does. An attractive stranger; an unread book; a beginning, perhaps. But there had been other beginnings, in other cities, and I'd long outgrown the need to hurry. I might never yet have come to the conventional ending, but the present was greatly OK, and as for the future… we could see.

I listened without concentration to her talking to someone called Lorrimore. 'Yes, Mr Lorrimore, your flowers and your bar bottles will already be on the train when it comes into the station… And the fruit, yes, that too… The passengers are gathering at ten-thirty for the reception at the station… Yes, we board at eleven-thirty and leave at twelve… We're looking forward to meeting you too… goodbye Mr Lorrimore.' She glanced over at me as she began to dial her next number, and said, 'The Lorrimores have the private car, the last car on the train. Hello, is that Vancouver racecourse…?'