jumping to hasty conclusions I was doing an old-established respectable stockbroker a shocking injustice.
I picked up Dolly’s telephone again and got an outside line.
‘Charing, Street and King, good morning,’ said a quiet female voice.
‘Oh, good morning. I would like to make an appointment to see Mr Bolt and discuss some investments. Would that be possible?’
‘Certainly, yes. This is Mr Bolt’s secretary speaking. Could I have your name?’
‘Halley. John Halley.’
‘You would be a new client, Mr Halley?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I see. Well, now, Mr Bolt will be in the office tomorrow afternoon, and I could fit you in at three thirty. Would that suit you?’
‘Thank you. That’s fine. I’ll be there.’
I put down the receiver and looked tentatively at Dolly.
‘Would it be all right with you if I go out for the rest of the day?’
She smiled. ‘Sid, dear, you’re very sweet, but you don’t have to ask my permission. The old man made it very clear that you’re on your own now. You’re not accountable to me or anyone else in the agency, except the old man himself. I’ll grant you I’ve never known him give anyone quite such a free hand before, but there you are, my love, you can do what you like. I’m your boss no longer.’
‘You don’t mind?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t. I’ve a notion that what the old man has always wanted of you in this agency is a partner.’
‘Dolly!’ I was astounded. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘He’s not getting any younger,’ she pointed out.
I laughed. ‘So he picked on a broken-down jockey to help him out.’
‘He picks on someone with enough capital to buy a partnership, someone who’s been to the top of one profession and has the time in years to get to the top of another.’
‘You’re raving, Dolly dear. He nearly chucked me out yesterday morning.’
‘But you’re still here, aren’t you? More here than ever before. And Joanie said he was in a fantastically good mood all day yesterday, after you’d been in to see him.’
I shook my head, laughing. ‘You’re too romantic. Jockeys don’t turn into investigators any more than they turn into…’
‘Well, what?’ she prompted.
‘Into auctioneers, then… or accountants.’
She shook her head. ‘You’ve already turned into an investigator, whether you know it or not. I’ve been watching you these two years, remember? You look as if you’re doing nothing, but you’ve soaked up everything the bloodhounds have taught you like a hungry sponge. I’d say, Sid love, if you don’t watch out, you’ll be part of the fixtures and fittings for the rest of your life.’
But I didn’t believe her, and I paid no attention to what she had said.
I grinned. ‘I’m going down to take a look at Seabury Racecourse this afternoon. Like to come?’
‘Are you kidding?’ she sighed. Her in-tray was six inches deep. ‘I could have just done with a ride in that rocket car of yours, and a breath of sea air.’
I stacked the photographs together and returned them to the box, along with the negatives. There was a drawer in the table, and I pulled it open to put the photographs away. It wasn’t empty. Inside lay a packet of sandwiches, some cigarettes, and a flat half bottle of whisky.
‘I began to laugh. ‘Someone,’ I said,’will shortly come rampaging down from Missing Persons looking for his Missing Lunch.’
Seabury Racecourse lay about half a mile inland, just off a trunk road to the sea. Looking backwards from the top of the stands one could see the wide silver sweep of the English Channel. Between and on both sides the crowded rows of little houses seemed to be rushing towards the coast like Gadarene swine. In each little unit a retired schoolmaster or civil servant or clergyman — or their widows — thought about the roots they had pulled up from wherever it had been too cold or too dingy for their old age, and sniffed the warm south salt-laden air.
They had made it. Done what they’d always wanted. Retired to a bungalow by the sea.
I drove straight in through the open racecourse gates and stopped outside the weighing room. Climbing out, I stretched and walked over to knock on the door of the racecourse manager’s office.
There was no reply. I tried the handle. It was locked. So was the weighing room door, and everything else.
Hands in pockets, I strolled round the end of the stands to look at the course. Seabury was officially classified in Group Three: that is to say, lower than Doncaster and higher than Windsor when it came to receiving aid from the Betting Levy Board.
It had less than Grade Three stands: wooden steps with corrugated tin roofs for the most part, and draughts from all parts of the compass. But the track itself was a joy to ride on, and it had always seemed a pity to me that the rest of the amenities didn’t match it.
There was no one about near the stands. Down at one end of the course, however, I could see some men and a tractor, and I set off towards them, walking down inside the rails, on the grass. The going was just about perfect for November racing, soft but springy underfoot, exactly right for tempting trainers to send their horses to the course in droves. In ordinary circumstances, that was. But as things stood at present, more trainers than Mark Witney were sending their horses elsewhere. A course which didn’t attract runners didn’t attract crowds to watch them. Seabury’s gate receipts had been falling off for some time, but its expenses had risen; and therein lay its loss.
Thinking about the sad tale I had read in the balance sheets, I reached the men working on the course. They were digging up a great section of it and loading it on to a trailer behind the tractor. There was a pervasive unpleasant smell in the air.
An irregular patch about thirty yards deep, stretching nearly the whole width of the course, had been burned brown and killed. Less than half of the affected turf had already been removed, showing the greyish chalky mud underneath, and there was still an enormous amount to be shifted. I didn’t think there were enough men working on it for there to be a hope of its being re-turfed and ready to race on in only eight days’ time.
‘Good afternoon,’ I said to the men in general. ‘What a horrible mess.’
One of them thrust his spade into the earth and came over, rubbing his hands on the sides of his trousers.
‘Anything you want?’ he said, with fair politeness.
‘The racecourse manager. Captain Oxon.’
His manner shifted perceptibly towards the civil. ‘He’s not here today, sir. Hey!.. aren’t you Sid Halley?’
‘That’s right.’
He grinned, doing another quick change, this time towards brotherhood. ‘I’m the foreman. Ted Wilkins.’ I shook his outstretched hand. ‘Captain Oxon’s gone up to London. He said he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘I was just down in this part of the world and I thought I’d drop in and have a look at the poor old course.’
He turned with me to look at the devastation. ‘Shame, isn’t it?’
‘What happened, exactly?’
‘The tanker overturned on the road over there.’ He pointed, and we began to walk towards the spot, edging round the dug up area. The road, a narrow secondary one, ran across near the end of the racecourse, with a wide semi-circle of track on the far side of it. During the races the hard road surface was covered thickly with tan or peat, or with thick green matting, which the horses galloped over without any trouble. Although not ideal, it was an arrangement to be found on many courses throughout the country, most famously with the Melling Road at Aintree, and reaching a maximum with five road crossings at Ludlow.
‘Just here,’ said Ted Wilkins, pointing. ‘Worst place it could possibly have happened, right in the middle of the track. The stuff just poured out of the tanker. It turned right over, see, and the hatch thing was torn open in the crash.’
