‘What we need to know, Doctor, is whether he made statements of any sort while you attended him.’
There was a pause while they passed close to the lap-scorer.
‘Not strictly statements,’ Mostyn-Smith said. ‘The spasms were set off by the slightest movement, you see. Although he was fully conscious, we tried to discourage him from speech, even early in the condition. He did, however, make it clear, by the briefest utterances, that he could not understand the reason for his condition.’
‘What was they, sir?’
Thackeray instinctively felt for his notebook, thought again, and let it drop back into the pocket.
‘Oh, odd fragments. I remember that he said, “Never happened to me before.” And later, “What causes this?” Otherwise they were mostly exclamations of pain.’
The constable inhaled a gulp of air, committing the phrases to memory.
‘Did you give the man anything to drink?’
‘Warm tea, Officer. It sometimes helps.’
‘Nobody else visited the room I suppose?’
‘Nobody else.’
‘Thank you, sir. You didn’t know Mr Darrell before the race?’
‘Not at all.’
‘I think that’s all then, sir. You carrying on like this for long?’
‘Until Saturday. Good night to you.’
Thackeray eased his stride, and Mostyn-Smith padded cheerfully away into the gloom. The constable raised a leg and massaged his aching shin. At Cribb’s voice, immediately behind him, he dropped it like a guardsman.
‘Watch it, Thackeray. Next event the high jump.’
A bleak smile greeted the sergeant.
‘Right, then. What did you get while you were footing it?’ ‘Just as you thought, Sarge. Victim said very little, but enough to put suicide out of the question.’
They approached Darrell’s tent. Thackeray was moving forward to open the flap, when Cribb restrained him, rais-ing a hand for silence. With the stealth of a brave he crept to the opening, loosened the flap and flung it open. Someone inside scrambled to his feet. It was a uniformed policeman.
‘Never rest on duty,’ Cribb advised him. ‘I might have held a knife, lad.’
The young constable sheepishly emerged to face a with-ering look from Thackeray. Cribb dismissed him to the Hall’s police office where the detectives had first swooped on him as he was drinking cocoa, earlier in the evening.
With the lamp ignited, Darrell’s tent made a passable interviewing room. As well as two chairs and a bedside table, which Thackeray at once rearranged, there was a gas-ring and kettle. Milk and a teapot were found in a small food-cupboard, which also contained bread, whisky, a tin of liniment, various potions, a leathery remnant of calf- bladder and a slice of strong-smelling cod. Still on the table were the bottle and mug from which Darrell had taken Monk’s ‘bracer.’ Cribb sniffed at them charily and removed them to the cupboard.
‘We’ll have every liquid analysed,’ he announced. ‘Your job, Thackeray. Get ’em out at daybreak to a lab. Now where’s this trainer? Monk… Monk; heard of him, have you?’
‘Can’t say that I have, Sarge. But that don’t mean a lot. On my earnings I ain’t what you’d call one of the Fancy.’
‘Just as well,’ Cribb reassured him. ‘But if you ever do lay a bet, remember this: four legs support a body better than two. I’ll trade foot-racing for a Newmarket sweep any day.’ There was the sound outside of scuffled footsteps. Walter Jacobson entered, half-supporting Sam Monk, a bedraggled figure, damp about the head and shoulders. He deposited him in the waiting chair. He was about to seat himself on the still unmade bed when Cribb intervened.
‘My thanks, sir. And now you-and Mr Herriott’ (the promoter had just heralded his entry by kicking a hip bath) ‘shall get some sleep. Busy day coming up, I dare say.’
After their exit, Thackeray fastened the flap and took a standing position behind Monk, resting his weight on the chair-back. The flickering light greatly magnified his shadow so that it loomed over the trainer like a shade from hell. It was not his intention to terrorise the man. He was there merely to see that Monk did not relapse into sleep. The worst that threatened was a timely prod.
‘Your name Monk?’ Cribb began, without much refinement.
‘Yes.’
‘You know who we are? Police officers.’
A wary glint in his eye showed that the point had not escaped Monk.
‘Making inquiries into the death of Charles Darrell.’
A pause, while Cribb studied his man.
‘You’re fit to talk, are you?’
‘Yes,’ answered Monk without enthusiasm.
‘Known him long, then?’
‘Two year, off and on.’
‘And took over his training…?’
‘December, Seventy-seven. He managed himself up to then.’ ‘You made a better runner of him, though?’
Monk was not easily deceived by flattery.
‘He knew the game well enough before he met me.’
‘Never took such big prizes, though.’
Cribb’s brief study of Darrell’s career was helpful. The praise loosened Monk’s tongue a little.
‘I taught him a bit. We was a good partnership, me and Charlie. He would have won this mix, no doubt of that. Bloody tragic, this is.’
‘You prepared him well, then?’
‘Never better. When Charlie toed the scratch last Sunday night he was set for six hundred. No doubt of it.’
Cribb shifted suddenly to the attack.
‘What went wrong, then?’
‘What d’you mean, mister?’
‘The man was limping by Monday night. That’s no cham-pion.’
‘Ah, foot trouble. Nought you can do about that. Blisters. I had ’em fixed, though. Likely he looked worse than he was. Charlie could be tricky, you know.’
‘Right! Tuesday morning, one o’clock. He comes in here to sleep. What state is he in?’
The switch of tense and the sudden reminder where they were proved effective. From Monk’s expression it was clear that the scene flashed vividly into his mind’s eye.
‘Worried about them blisters. I said I’d fix them before he ran again, and then he was more content.’
‘He doesn’t eat anything, or take a drink?’
‘Not then. You see he’d taken the odd hunk of bread as he walked. All he needed was sleep.’
‘Right. So what do you do then?’
‘Me? Why, I left him, once he was comfy.’
‘And then?’
‘He slept.’
‘And you?’
Monk’s eyes took on an opaque glaze.
‘I passed the time till he woke.’
‘How?’ The point was not to be evaded.
‘With a friend.’
‘In here?’
‘No. Finsbury Park. I took a cab. I were back by four, when Charlie needed to wake.’
‘Lady?’
Monk confirmed the fact with a twitch of his features.
‘Look, you can’t need her name. It ain’t important,’ he appealed.
Out of his sight Thackeray removed one hand from the chair-back and raised an inquiring eyebrow at Cribb. A
