Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [120]
We sailed over the rail with ease, and over the official as well, who’d had the good sense to duck down.
The horse pecked slightly on landing, almost going down on its knees, and for a moment I feared he was going to fall, but I pulled his head up with the reins and he quickly recovered his balance.
Left or right?
Left, I decided, pulling that way on the reins, away from the grandstand and towards the safe, wide-open spaces of the racetrack.
The other horses were coming up the finishing straight towards me, but I was well to the side of them, on what would have been the hurdle course at any other meeting.
My mount tried to turn, to run with the others, but I steered him away and galloped down to the far end of the finishing straight before stopping and looking back.
What remained of the daylight was disappearing rapidly, and the grandstand lights appeared unnaturally bright. It was difficult to tell if the two heavies were giving chase, but I had to assume they were, joined possibly by Viscount Shenington himself. He must be keener now than ever to remove me permanently from the scene.
I turned the horse again and cantered up the hill, towards the farthest point on the track away from the stands and the enclosures.
What did I do now?
The nondescript blue rental car would be waiting for me in the parking lot, but the problem was that its keys, together with my mobile phone and my wallet, were in the pockets of my Barbour, which I presumed was still inconveniently hanging by the door in Shenington’s box.
I watched as a vehicle turned onto the track from close by where I had emerged from the horse walk. I could see the headlights bumping up and down slightly as it worked its way along the grass in the direction from which I had come.
Another vehicle followed it onto the grass but turned the other way.
Both vehicles then moved forward slowly, driving around the course. If I stayed where I was, then the two of them would close on me in a pincer movement.
But who was in the vehicles? Was it Shenington and his cronies or would it be the police or the racetrack security guards? I imagined that the trainer of the horse I was riding would be far from pleased to have discovered that his charge had been horse-napped and was currently running about the track in the dark.
But I couldn’t stay where I was, that was for sure. Not without being seen or captured. And I had absolutely no intention of allowing a vehicle to come up close to me unless, and until, I knew for certain that Shenington and his heavies were not in it.
At Cheltenham, the racetrack, unlike those in America, was not a simple oval track but was in fact two complete courses laid one on top of the other, and with an extra loop down one end. In addition, the center was used for cross-country races. There was no way that these two vehicles would be able to corner me on their own, not unless I was careless, and I had been quite careless enough for one day.
I waited to see which part of the track the car would choose to move along and then simply rode the horse down the other part. By this time, the last of the daylight had faded away completely, and there was no way the occupants of the vehicle would be able to see me unless I was actually in the arc of the headlights.
However, I watched with some dismay as three more vehicles turned out onto the track, two turning straight towards me and the third starting the long counterclockwise sweep around the course. And worse, in the glow of their lights I could see some figures walking, spreading out across the center of the track, in search of the horse or of me.
They couldn’t all be Shenington’s men. Some of them must be the good guys, the cavalry coming to my rescue. But which ones? I simply couldn’t afford to get it wrong.
I decided that my present position was hopeless, and it would be only a matter of time before I would be seen by either someone in the vehicles or someone on foot. I trotted the horse over to the very edge of the racetrack