The Silver Falcon (19 page)

They walked down to the paddock together where the colts were separated into groups of four, and the head groom went in with a head collar and rope to catch him. He trotted up to the call, a beautiful, compact, chestnut colt, with a white blaze down his face. He was brought out for them to see, walked up and down the enclosed yard, and at Tim's request trotted up and back a couple of times. Then the examination began, with Tim and Nigel walking round him. He fretted a little, and the groom soothed him, patting his neck.

‘He's not been done up at all,' his owner said. There was a look of loving pride on her face, as if she were watching an actual child of her own. ‘You're seeing him in the rough. It's the best way, I always think. Look at that movement,' she spoke to Isabel; the colt was trotting round for them. The rhythm was perfect, the action as light as a ballet dancer's. Tim came back to them.

‘Pity he's a chestnut,' he remarked.

Mrs Bartlett Brown literally snorted through her nose.

‘Don't tell me you take that rubbish seriously! What the hell colour were Secretariat and Grundy, may I ask?' The bright blue eyes sparkled angrily at him. Her cheeks were red.

‘It's not a colour I like,' he insisted. There was a deep-rooted superstition about chestnuts; they had the reputation of being cowardly. The addition of four white socks made them virtually unsaleable to many people. ‘If he had more than one white sock I wouldn't let Mrs Schriber even look at him,' Tim said flatly, apparently unaware that he was about to be expelled from the place. Isabel thought Mrs Bartlett Brown was going to explode. ‘But as it is,' he went on coolly, ‘he's a very nice fellow. Very nice indeed. Don't you think so, Nigel?'

‘I do,' the trainer agreed. He was thanking God he had flown over and got in on the prospective sale at the beginning. It was the most impressive two-year-old he had seen in a very long time. And with that breeding there was no doubt about his Classic potential. He had run a temperature just before the December Sales – the virus had lasted for weeks. He was slow to recover, and this was why he hadn't been sold. Mrs Bartlett Brown insisted on waiting till the colt was a hundred per cent fit. He said to Isabel, ‘If I were you, I'd snap him up. Muriel won't have him long.'

Isabel looked at the chestnut. He had a fine head with a big eye full of intelligence. Beautifully bred, he had that indefinable quality known in the horse world as presence. In human beings it was usually described as star quality. She stepped up to him and stroked the velvet nose. He nuzzled against her gently. There was no vice in him, no hatred for mankind. At the same age the Falcon had been savage and unapproachable. She stroked his neck and turned to Mrs Bartlett Brown. For three years she had lived with horses, the spectator among the experts. Charles had left her the Falcon, but he still belonged to him. She felt a curious affinity with the colt.

‘He's beautiful,' she said. ‘I'd like to buy him.'

Some of the angry colour faded from Mrs Bartlett Brown's cheeks.

‘You've got better judgement than your racing manager, Mrs Schriber,' she said. ‘Let's go back to the house. All right, Joe – put him back with the others.' She glared at Tim. ‘Chestnut and white socks – good God I thought you were a sensible man!' She led the way back at a furious walk.

By the end of the morning they had agreed on a price, which was less than the 130000 dollars she had asked originally. A bottle of champagne was opened, and she shook hands with Isabel. ‘It's a deal then,' she said. ‘And for God's sake choose a proper name for the fellow – I sold a filly once to some bloody oaf from England and she was the most exquisite thing you ever saw – d'you know what he called her? “Mum's the Word”! I nearly killed him when I saw him at Ascot … she won three good races for him too –'

They were invited to stay for lunch; she chatted to Isabel and roared her loud laugh at Nigel Foster's funny stories, but her eye was baleful when she looked at Tim. She hadn't forgiven him for criticizing the colt's colour, and she managed to avoid shaking hands with him when they left.

The announcement about the Falcon running in France was timed for five o'clock and the press had been invited round for drinks at the hotel. Nigel put his head through the window and grinned at Tim before they drove back to Dublin in convoy. ‘Congratulations,' he said to Isabel. ‘He's a smashing chap – and she liked the way you made up your mind. As for you Ryan – Jesus, I thought she was going to brain you!
Nobody
tells her they don't like something about her horses and gets out alive!'

‘Maybe not, but it got the price down,' Tim laughed. ‘She puts on a bit of an act; playing the holy terror eccentric is all part of it. She knows damned well that a lot of people don't like the colour; she also knows there's something in it. It doesn't usually go with guts. But that's a gorgeous animal – did you see the eye on him? Bold as a lion – that's what I go on. And he moves like Monkstown. I bet the old cat is on the phone to all the sporting papers, letting them know about the sale.'

On the way back to Dublin Tim turned to Isabel.

‘That was a quick decision,' he said. ‘Absolutely right too.'

He had been surprised by it, expecting her to wait for him to give the final judgement. ‘What was it you liked so specially?'

‘The expression in his eye,' she said. ‘It was so genuine; bold and interested and yet gentle. I liked him immediately.'

‘That's the only way to buy,' he said.

She smiled at him. ‘But it's a very funny feeling; it's the first time I've bought a horse on my own initiative. I wonder what Charles would have thought –'

‘Yesterday,' he said, ‘you were telling me how you needed to get out of racing to escape from his influence. You're doing that all the time. He wouldn't have bought that colt today because he was riddled with superstition. But you did. You're making the decisions for yourself. You tell that to Richard next time he starts some bloody nonsense. And tomorrow, I'm going to take you down to Riverstown to meet my father. And to see my home.'

‘I'd love that,' Isabel said. And then she remembered it was Sunday, and the day Richard was supposed to come to Coolbridge to see her. A feeling of unease came over her. She had done exactly the opposite of what he had asked. Far from getting out of racing and breaking her association with Charles's way of life, she had bought another Classic potential for a massive price. And she wouldn't be there to see him and tell him. She glanced at Tim; he looked carefree and he was humming as he drove. But she knew at that moment that he was fighting Richard Schriber for her. And he wasn't a man who usually lost.

Richard lived in a flat in Park Street in an exclusive block on the corner. When he bought it he had been too busy to decorate it; busy travelling and feeding the gossip columns. It was his only occupation and its object was to enrage and embarrass his father. That pillar of the Kentuckian community. The great sportsman and owner breeder. The glib catchphrase, beloved of journalists, had always nauseated Richard. It only pleased him when it was used in connection with some ugly exploit of his own. But that was a year or so ago; longer perhaps if he were honest.

He had no living-in servant; it didn't suit his life style to have people prying. A woman came and cleaned and an ex-valet looked after his clothes and prepared dinner or lunch if he was needed. Richard found Isabel's message when he came back on Saturday evening. He was going out to dinner and on to the Claremont Club with some friends who had flown in from Italy. It had been suggested that there was a beautiful Italian model in the company who might be of interest to him. He was more interested in the gaming tables than the model. He came in, picked up the message and took it into his bedroom as if it were a letter that needed re-reading. She couldn't see him at Coolbridge tomorrow; she was not coming back from Dublin until Monday. Or Tuesday. He threw the piece of paper into a corner. Then he undressed. He went under the shower and ran the water first hot, then icy cold. He came out, rubbing himself dry, his red hair wet and dark. Why had she gone to Ireland without telling him? Why hadn't she come back, or asked him to join her? She was slipping away.… Ryan, of course. Ryan had taken her over there, foxed her with Irish charm and blarney, brought his cronies into it to fill the days with Irish talk and whisky and never mind about tomorrow. The bastard. The cunning, quick-thinking bastard.

He went into the bedroom and put through a call to the Hibernian Hotel. Mrs Schriber was not in her room. Or in the bar. She was out. With Ryan, or with some horse-loving Irish crook who knew how much money she had and that Charles Schriber was dead, and she could be easily taken.… Richard dressed slowly. He drank whisky as he did so; the idea of going to dinner with the Farellis and listening to some high-class whore talking banalities before she made herself available, appealed to him less and less.

He had made a grave mistake with Isabel. He shouldn't have let her put him off; he should have moved her into the dream manor house, gone along with the fantasy, kept beside her every minute. Ryan had moved very quickly. By now he would have undermined his influence. He had so much on his side, not least the shade of Charles Schriber and everything he represented in her immediate past. He carried his glass and the whisky bottle into the small sitting room. He had bought a fine Lowry for the fireplace wall, as a focal point for the room. He had taken it down, and the portrait of his mother from Beaumont hung in its place.

The blue background clashed with the coffee linen walls; the style screamed in contrast to the drawings and modern lithographs. It was prominent and grotesquely out of place. The pale, pointed face, with its wistful, apprehensive expression, the stylized pose, framed in chiffon round the shoulders. Richard looked up at it.

‘He's not going to win,' he said out loud. ‘I promise you.' He poured himself another whisky, drank half of it, and then dialled a number. ‘Peter? Hullo there – it's Richard Schriber. Yes, fine thanks. It is a long time.' He leaned back, holding the phone in his right hand, tipping the whisky back and forth in his glass with the other. ‘Yes, no headlines is good headlines, or so they say – sure. Listen, I may have a story for you – yes, it is; in fact I'm the hero – I'm going to be in the bar at Les A. in twenty minutes. Meeting some old friends at eight thirty. We can have a drink together before they come. Okay, fine. See you then.' He hung up, finished his whisky.

Peter Partridge was the by-line under which the paper's gossip column appeared; in fact there were half a dozen reporters who covered the stories of fashionable love affairs, divorces and the odd financial scandal. The items had become increasingly salacious and bitter; it was a sign of the times that the debutante was as dead as the proverbial duck, while the doings of whores and homosexuals titillated the public fancy. Richard had featured on the page often enough. Escorting this and that, no longer living with, etc. Big gambling losses were noticed. Even, and this had amused Richard more than the rest, a photograph of him sitting on the ground, after a furious fellow guest had punched him outside a night club. He made certain a friend sent that one to Beaumont.

Richard checked his money and keys, switched out the lights and left the flat; it was a few minutes walk to Les Ambassadeurs Club in Hamilton Place. He arrived there and sat at a small table, ordering a whisky. Not long afterwards the original Peter Partridge appeared, hailed him silently from the entrance hall and then joined him.

He stayed long enough to sink three double martinis, and slapped Richard lightly on the back as he left. There was a hint of effeminacy in the gesture. He wrote in a particularly waspish style that was widely copied. But this story had to be printed straight. He had given Richard a promise, and he was too good a newspaperman to spoil such a useful contact by breaking his word. It might be possible to slip in a little thorn among the roses, but nothing more than a tiny prick.… People he had injured explained him as a nasty queer. In fact he was a vigorous womanizer who just happened to be a natural bitch. He saw Richard Schriber get up to greet a group of friends who were obviously not English. Among them was an outstandingly beautiful girl. He had to remind himself not to mention that in the morning's piece.…

8

MacNeil had booked himself into an hotel in South Kensington; it was widely used by Americans on business trips to England and by groups of tourists. He wasn't interested in making extra money by crooking on expenses; he insisted that a tired man in poor work conditions was not a good detective.

He woke that morning feeling refreshed and looking forward to an easy day. Isabel Schriber was in Ireland. There was no point in following Isabel alone. It was her association with Schriber he had been paid to watch. The morning papers were left outside his bedroom door; he got up and brought them in before ringing for coffee, rolls and orange juice. He opened the first of the newspapers and began to read. It took him ten minutes to reach the Peter Partridge column. He said, ‘Christ!' out loud and threw back the bedclothes; he read the item again with his feet on the floor. It was the lead story and there were headlines in half-inch type above it. He shut the paper up and reached for a cigarette. He needed to think. He knew a lot more about Andrew Graham than most people in Freemont did. He wasn't all human goodness and concern for the widow of his best friend. Not by a long, long way. He looked at his watch. It was three o'clock in the morning in Kentucky. Too bad. Doctors were used to being woken in the middle of the night. Graham wouldn't want to miss out on this one. If anything was going to bring him over to England, the column and a half in the big-circulation daily paper was the one thing to do it. He lifted the bedside phone and put through the call.