“That Dad was taking over his sons’ responsibilities. Not that he really meant it.” Unoffended, Roger smiled and looked out the window again. “Vernon came as part of the package when Dad married again. Felicity Rice, an extremely nice but oddly colorless woman. Our mother had been quite beautiful. I never understood Felicity and Dad. Except I can say for Dad, it was no midlife crisis. Felicity wasn’t exactly one of your blond bombshells. She’s dead now, too.”
“You’re smiling, though. Why?” Jury saw the adolescent kid peering out from behind the doctor’s mask.
“Not about Felicity. About Vernon. He can say things without cutting you down, if you know what I mean. Vernon’s very smart, very ambitious and very rich. He lives in a classy penthouse in Docklands. And he’s generous. Dad got a loan from him a while back. We were-well, Dad was-assuming he had a buyer for one of the yearlings, a colt he was supposed to get one and a half million for and the buyer backed out. He knew he’d find another buyer, but he needed some money to tide him over-”
Jury interrupted. “One and a half million for a horse that hasn’t proved himself yet?”
Roger laughed. “Oh, hell, that’s nothing. Thoroughbred racing is a lucrative business. And the colt was one of Beautiful Dreamer’s. Ever heard of him? You would if you knew anything about racing. There was never much doubt this colt would perform.”
“It sounds like one hell of a gamble.”
“It always is. It’s a risky business. But one with huge rewards.”
“Your brother Vernon. What does he do, then?” Roger smiled broadly. “Money.”
FIVE
“A taped interview with Dr. Ryder,” said Jury, sliding the file Wiggins had brought him onto his tray table. “Interview conducted by DCI Gerard, Cambridgeshire constabulary. Gist of it is that Nell Ryder, fifteen years old, was abducted from Ryder Stud Farm on the night of May 12, 1994. Twenty months ago, that would be. The girl was sleeping in the same horse stall as a horse named Aqueduct. He was sick, feverish and Nell Ryder often spent the night in the stables to keep an eye on a sick horse.
DCI GERARD: You’re a wealthy man are you, Dr. Ryder?
RYDER: No, I’m comfortable.
DCI GERARD: Ryder Stud then. Your father is quite wealthy.
RYDER: Intrinsically? Yes. Depends on how you look at it. In terms of liquidity, I mean money lying around, no. In terms of the stock-the Thoroughbreds-very.
DCI GERARD: Could money be raised fairly easily?
RYDER: I don’t know. Probably. I know his stepson’s got a lot of money, and he’d certainly help.
DCI GERARD: We can expect a ransom demand.
“Questions follow relative to the doctor’s whereabouts; he was asleep, no witnesses. He’s incensed, naturally, to be taken as a suspect. Questions about Nell’s mother. She’s dead. About his brother, Danny Ryder, also dead.
DCI GERARD: Your brother was the famous jockey, wasn’t he?
RYDER: Yes. One of the best. He rode Ryder Thoroughbreds in every important race in this country and in Europe and the States. He was a great jockey.
DCI GERARD: He died-
RYDER: In France, a racing course near Paris. Auteuil. Thrown from his horse.
DCI GERARD: Hell of a life, it is. It seems to explode all over the place or thinking about food food food. Lester Piggot lived on champagne and a lettuce leaf. [
Jury looked up, smiling. “ ‘Carried away.’ I like that. Apparently, Gerard has a cousin who’s a jockey. I like the description. Questions about the Ryders’ wives. The doctor’s is dead, her name being Charlotte. The jockey’s-Marybeth-is living somewhere in America. His first wife, that is. He married again after he went to Paris. Woman who lives in Paris but as none of the Ryders have met her, Ryder doesn’t know if she’s a Parisian or possibly an Englishwoman.” Jury closed the file and sat back against his pillows.
Melrose asked, “What about ransom? What happened there?” He had captured the one decent chair, leaving Wiggins to arrange himself on the unforgiving wooden one.
“Never was one, it seems.”
“What?”
“They just took her. End of story. I mean, insofar as Cambridgeshire police knew. Oh, they didn’t stint in looking for her; it’s just that nothing else turned up. And, of course, in the absence of any ransom demand, it would be treated as an abduction rather than a kidnapping.”
“Then maybe,” said Melrose, “it was the horse. What’s the name?”
“Aqueduct. Quite valuable, especially for breeding purposes. I wondered about that, too. I expect when you find an animal missing along with a human, you assume the target was the human.”
“They didn’t expect to find a girl along with the horse. Do you suppose they had to take her to keep her quiet?”
“Very possibly.” Jury looked again at the report from Cambridgeshire police. “A number of valuable Thoroughbreds: Beautiful Dreamer, Criminal Type-”
“Criminal Type, I like that name. Odd for a horse.”
“So is Seabiscuit,” Wiggins said. “Do you know how that name came about? Seabiscuit, I mean?”
Trust Wiggins to know the derivation of anything with
“There was a horse named Hard Tack, which is what sailors are often left with to eat. See? Hard Tack/sailor.”
Both Jury and Melrose looked at him. Neither spoke. “
Jury and Melrose still looked at him, neither commenting.
Wiggins was leafing up pages in his notebook. “Ryder Stud Farm has diminished somewhat since Nell Ryder disappeared. It’s almost as if she were the heart of the place. Perhaps she really was, to her grandfather. Then there was also Danny Ryder. Not only was that a personal loss, but a real financial hit. When he was up on this Samarkand, they were virtually unbeatable.”
“What’s the chief source of income? The purses?”
“No. Breeding. Ryder has a stable full of Thoroughbreds retired from racing, but worth a lot in breeding.”
“Owners take their mares to Ryder Stud and pay for the pleasure?”
“Pay a lot for the pleasure for a stud such as Samarkand. It’s the practice, I heard, to sell shares. An owner pays, say, anywhere from a hundred thousand to a quarter million for the privilege of bringing one of his mares one time a year.”
Melrose sat up. “A quarter million? For that price I’d do it myself.”
“Who’d pay that much for you?” asked Jury. “So a return on the stallions set to stud in a given year could be how much?”
Wiggins again thumbed the pages of his notebook, said, “In ’92, for
