Neil Epp, the groom, was still holding the tasty dish of carrots and fruits under Criminal Type’s nose and wondered what the bloody hell was going on, for here came Vernon Rice heading (it looked like) for them, for Neil and Criminal Type, still bridled and chewing his evening treat. Vernon yelled at him to saddle the horse.
Neil was completely discombobulated by this second assault on his stables-the first being young Nell grabbing Aqueduct as if her life depended on him, and now here came Rice yelling to saddle up the horse. Owing to Neil’s years of Dan Ryder’s “Do-it-don’t-ask” training he threw the saddle he’d been carrying over his arm onto Criminal Type’s back and he’d barely done this before Vernon had thrown himself up on the horse in one of the most efficient mountings Neil had ever witnessed.
Rice turned the horse and was now heading for the meadow and the walls.
Neil Epp ran, yelling, “Hey, Vernon! Criminal Type don’t go over the sticks!”
Add to this the car that had just pulled onto the gravel lot and out of which got that Scotland Yard detective sergeant who’d been here before, and Neil thought it was the busiest day they’d seen since breeding rights to Samarkand had been initiated.
“Not fifteen minutes ago, Nell left,” he said to the party of worried- looking men who’d just come out of the house. “She came running out, saddled up Aqueduct and took off like Criminal Type on a fast track. Now he’s gone too, Criminal Type. With that Rice fellow up on him. Nell’d make a good ’chaser the way she takes those walls, or even a jockey. She’s flat-out brilliant-”
Jury cut across Neil’s career choices. “Where’s the Diamond farm?”
As Neil directed him, Roger turned disbelieving eyes on Jury. “You don’t think-?”
“Wiggins, you drive them”-he indicated Roger and Arthur-“and you drive me”-he turned to Melrose.
They ran toward the two cars.
Unfortunately, the quickest way to Roy Diamond’s place was not by the road, but by Hadrian’s walls, as the crow flies-or the horse.
Go for Wand
FIFTY-NINE
Roy Diamond was riding his favorite mount, Havoc, around his mile-and-a-quarter training course, trying to beat yesterday’s record time. Roy didn’t know it but he had four very bad moments coming his way.
He didn’t see the horse and rider streaking across his paddock where a few of his horses grazed, and he didn’t see it had taken the last wall as if the wall were made of Devon cream. He didn’t see this because he was galloping round the track and his peripheral vision lied: he took movement over that way to be the movements of his own horses.
Coming around the turn he realized this wasn’t at all the case and when Aqueduct jumped the fence that enclosed the course, Roy felt fear, a thing he rarely felt because he always considered himself to be in command of any situation. Fear was a negligible, chaffy emotion wasted on Roy. Since the death of his daughter, most emotions were.
She was holding a whip up, clearly with the intention of bringing it down. Nell Ryder, as with her legendary uncle, Dan, never took a whip to a horse. He knew if she slowed she’d be on him with that whip, but what was much worse, with that horse. Nell talked to horses. Roy could see happening to him the same thing that had happened to Dan Ryder.
His jacket was lying over the fence and as he galloped round the track with her in pursuit he knew he had to get hold of the jacket. He saw that part of the fence coming up, reined in Havoc and reeled off the horse, snatched his coat and grabbed the gun from the pocket.
Roy was that popular: he always carried a gun.
Now the next bad moment happened: a cherry-red Aston-Martin was coming at full throttle toward the training track. Between the road and the track were two white fences. The Aston-Martin couldn’t jump the fences, so it did the next best thing: went straight through them.
At the same moment Roy caught a glimpse of yet another horse racing across the field a hundred feet away, just as Aqueduct appeared about to fall on Roy like a wall of bricks.
Roy fired. In that split second between intent and execution, Nell vaulted from the horse, and like a kid playing leapfrog, slid over Aqueduct’s head and down in front of him. The first shot caught her on the way down, the second as she hit the ground.
Then Roy got off two shots at the driver-was he seeing right?-of the Aston-Martin. Danny Ryder was out of the car and running toward them; Criminal Type jumped the wooden fence around the course and without even slowing, Vernon sprang from the saddle and fell on Roy Diamond, yelling.
Fear is no match for fury in a fight. Vernon wrenched the gun away and pushed it against Roy’s temple. Whether he would have fired or not was a moot question as he didn’t get the chance. Danny Ryder slid across the track, grabbed the gun-holding hand and knocked the gun from Vernon’s grip. Then he tossed it-at the ground, the sky, the past-while Vernon was up and running to where Nell lay as if Aqueduct had thrown her. The horse stood with neck bent, its muzzle wandering over her.
Carefully, Vernon wedged his arm behind her and lifted her as if she were a bunch of broken lily stalks-that pale hair, that translucent face. His hand on her ribs felt the soaking wetness of blood. “Nellie!”
She gazed at him and managed two syllables: “Remem-?”
It was then that Roy Diamond’s fourth bad moment arrived full force. Too late for Nell but in plenty of time to see Roy in hell, the four men piled out of the police car and the Bentley and made a rush toward the others. Seeing Dan Ryder, Arthur and Roger stopped dead. Danny looked and turned away in tears.
Jury and Wiggins ran to where Roy Diamond, who clearly saw the vanity of mounting his horse and trying to run, stood with his back to Nell. “Oh, no,” whispered Wiggins.
Jury knelt by Vernon and put two useless fingers against what should have been the pulse in her neck. Then he rose and moved like a glacier to where Diamond was standing.
Roy said, broken-voiced but in fear, not sorrow: “I wasn’t aiming at her!”
Jury grabbed one arm in a vise, scooped the gun from the dirt and pulled Roy away toward the house. Wiggins gripped the other arm, and between them, they pulled the man along. Roy wasn’t helping the process.
“I was only trying to keep the damned horse from stomping me; I can’t help it if she threw herself in front of the goddamned horse.”
They were going through the back door of the house. Melrose and Danny Ryder were keeping up.
“Why’d she do that?” yelled Roy. “Why would she throw herself-my God, man, it was only a horse!”
That was simply too much for Wiggins, who kicked the door shut in
